Public pressure on government is one fulcrum by which the global human rights movement has made an impact, and a series of studies by James Ron, Shannon Golden, David Crow and Archana Pandya produce positive evidence about public support for human rights in a variety of countries across the globe. That said, Ken Roth is dubious about the promise of public opinion to reign in abuse, Ben Valentino and Ethan Weinberg argue that framing is critical for generating US public support for R2P, and Nat Kendall-Taylor explains why, even with excellent framing, public opinion has limited prospects.
When it comes to democracy and torture, there are two opposing views. Democratic optimists argue that democracy is an effective constraint, because public revulsion will limit abuse. Democratic pessimists argue that it is not a constraint, because large segments of the public do support torture as long as it is only used against people who are deemed threatening to society. The pessimists can point to several politicians in democracies who have advocated for torture. For example, when politicians such as Brazilian congressman Jair Bolsonaro, former US vice president Dick Cheney, and current presidential candidate Donald Trump publicly called for the abusive interrogation of “terrorists” and others, they received support from large segments of the public. Courtenay Conrad, myself, and others have used empirical studies to explore this question.
The optimists err by failing to consider the factionalism that is part and parcel to democracy. They also do not think about the effectiveness of appealing to fear, especially for right wing politicians. Voters who support right leaning political parties tend to be strong supporters of punishment for wrong doing, and pro-active security policies that eliminate a “threat” before it has had a chance to strike. Bolsonaro, Cheney, Trump, and other politicians call for the abuse of detainees they deem a threat to security and are rewarded for it among their constituents. Yet this is not only a right wing issue. As we know, racism, xenophobia, and images of the “threatening other” produce implicit bias across the political spectrum, further undermining the humanity of those painted with such imagery. We argue, therefore, that as long as racism, xenophobia, etc. continue to exist in societies, electing leaders via the ballot box will generate considerably less constraint on torture than most believe.
