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U.S. Public Opinion on Torture, 2001–2009

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2010

Paul Gronke ,
Darius Rejali ,
Dustin Drenguis ,
James Hicks ,
Peter Miller  and
Bryan Nakayama
Paul Gronke
Affiliation:
Reed College
Darius Rejali
Affiliation:
Reed College
Dustin Drenguis
Affiliation:
Reed College
James Hicks
Affiliation:
Reed College
Peter Miller
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Bryan Nakayama
Affiliation:
Reed College
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Extract

Many journalists and politicians believe that during the Bush administration, a majority of Americans supported torture if they were assured that it would prevent a terrorist attack. As Mark Danner wrote in the April 2009 New York Review of Books, “Polls tend to show that a majority of Americans are willing to support torture only when they are assured that it will ‘thwart a terrorist attack.’” This view was repeated frequently in both left- and right-leaning articles and blogs, as well as in European papers (Sharrock 2008; Judd 2008; Koppelman 2009; Liberation 2008). There was a consensus, in other words, that throughout the years of the Bush administration, public opinion surveys tended to show a pro-torture American majority.

Type
Symposium
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 437 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2010

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