U.S. Public Response to Terrorism Panel Study 2001–2002 George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service Texas A&M University College Station, Texas August 2003 This research was conducted with support from National Science Foundation Award Number 0234119. George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service Texas A&M University College Station, Texas U.S. Public Response to Terrorism Panel Study 2001–2002 Kerry G. Herron, Ph.D. Research Scientist Hank C. Jenkins-Smith, Ph.D. Professor of Public Policy Joe and Teresa Long Chair in Business and Government August 2003 Acknowledgments The authors wish to express appreciation to the following organizations and individuals whose support made this project possible. The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM Roger L. Hagengruber, Ph.D., Director, UNM Institute for Public Policy Amelia A. Rouse, Ph.D., Deputy Director, UNM Institute for Public Policy Amy S. Goodin, Deputy Director of Research, UNM Institute for Public Policy Eric Whitmore, Program Coordinator, UNM Institute for Public Policy Texas A&M University, College Station, TX Richard Chilcoat, Dean, George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service F. P. Rick Johnson, George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service Carol L. Silva, Ph.D., George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service Rene Pitts, George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service Karla S. Stone, The Bush School’s Center for Policy & Governance The National Science Foundation This research was conducted with support from the National Science Foundation. Award Number 0234119 Abstract This report analyzes findings from a telephone survey of 935 members of the U.S. general public conducted between September 12 and November 4, 2001 and a subset or “panel” consisting of 474 of the original respondents who also participated in a follow-up study conducted between September 12 and November 11, 2002. Where possible, responses in 2001 and 2002 are compared to identical questions previously asked in 1995 or 1997. Key areas of investigation include the following: (1) assessments of the U.S. and international security environments; (2) nature and extent of the current and foreseeable threat of terrorism; (3) policy implications of terror- ism and government efforts to prevent terrorism; (4) assessments of the on- going war on terrorism and prospects for preventing future acts of terrorism; and (5) change in public opinion in the year following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11). More generally, we use the issue of terrorism to investigate and test key tenets of the ongoing debate about capacities and limitations of mass publics to contribute to complex policy domains in times of national stress. Compared to pre-9/11 measurements, respondent concerns about current and future threats posed by terrorism increased substantially immediately after 9/11, but support for intrusive measures to combat terrorism was modest, and public reactions did not evidence the kinds of emotional volatility asso- ciated with traditional concepts of mass opinion in times of national crises. Clear trends toward moderation of support for intrusive anti-terrorism meas- ures and declining support for the use of coercive force to punish terrorist states were evident among panel members one year after 9/11. The weight of our data contradict traditional assumptions about the instability of public opinion and narrow capacities of mass publics to contribute to foreign and security policy processes. iii Contents Front Matter Abstract iii Contents iv Chapter One: Introduction and Overview 1 Section 1.1: Background and Purpose of the Study 1 Section 1.2: Research Objectives 5 Section 1.3: Analytical Approach 6 Section 1.4: Organization of the Report 7 Chapter Two: Aggregate Trends 9 Section 2.1: Security Environment 10 Section 2.2: The Evolving Threat of Terrorism 16 Section 2.3: Countering Terrorism 28 Section 2.4: Responding to Terrorism 40 Summary of Key Points from Chapter Two 45 Chapter Three: Individual Level Analyses 49 Section 3.1: Demographic Attributes of the Panel 54 Section 3.2: Individual Views on the Threat of Terrorism 55 Section 3.3: Intrusive Policies for Preventing Terrorism 59 Section 3.4: Using Force to Respond to Terrorism 66 Section 3.5: Cross Sectional Comparisons of Subgroups 69 Chapter Four: Emerging Perspectives 73 Section 4.1: Assessing Ongoing Efforts to Combat Terrorism 73 Section 4.2: Implications of 9/11 for Respondents’ Behaviors 79 Section 4.3: Summarizing Outlooks 83 iv Appendix 1: Research Methodology 85 Section 1: Analytical Approach 85 Section 2: Attributes of Panel Studies 86 Section 3: The Role of Statistical Weighting 87 Section 4: Sampling 88 Section 5: Data Collection 91 Section 6: Cooperation Rates 92 Appendix 2: Questions, Distributions, and Means 93 References 111 v Intentionally Blank vi Chapter One Introduction and Overview This report presents findings from a survey of 935 randomly selected mem- bers of the U.S. general public in 2001 and a subset or “panel” consisting of 474 of the original respondents who also participated in a follow-up survey in 2002. The purpose of the study is to better understand how public views of terrorism and its implications are evolving in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001 (hereafter referred to as “9/11”). The survey in 2001 was conducted between September 12 and No- vember 4; the follow-up survey was conducted one year later between Sep- tember 12 and November 11, 2002. Section 1.1: Background and Purpose of the Study Beyond the intrinsic importance of gaining insight into how Americans’ understanding of terrorism is evolving in the post-9/11 period, these panel data contribute to better understanding the capacities and roles of the public in collective decision making under stress. Modern concepts of public opin- ion in the U.S. and its proper role in policy processes evolved to an elitist perspective by the middle of the 20th century characterized by the following: (1) a presumption of minimal capacities of mass publics to understand and contribute to complex policy domains—especially foreign and security poli- cies; (2) empirical evidence suggesting that belief systems of ordinary citi- zens are insufficiently structured to inform and constrain policy choices in areas where individuals lack specialized knowledge or experience; and (3) criticism of means for systematically measuring and understanding public views. These concepts gained wide acceptance among political sophisti- cates, theorists, and academics, and, together, helped shape the “traditional” view of limited public capacities that continues to inform contemporary as- sumptions about what elites should expect from the general public. Argu- ments for the traditionalist perspective have been advanced, among others, by Lippmann (1922, 1925), Bailey (1948), Morgenthau (1948), Markel (1949), Almond (1950), Kennan (1951), Converse (1964, 1970), Zaller (1992), and Weissberg (2001). The traditionalist perspective rests on three key propositions concerning public capacities: 1 • Ordinary citizens lack the cognitive capacities to understand politically so- phisticated and technically complicated issues and are insufficiently knowl- edgeable about complex policy domains to develop reasoned preferences. • Underlying dispositions among the general public are insufficient to provide systematic structure and coherence of views about complex policy issues. • Public opinion at the individual level is unstable, subject to rapid swings, and susceptible to overreaction. By the latter part of the 20th century, traditionalist concepts came under critical scrutiny for several reasons. Methods for systematically measuring public perspectives became more widely accepted, and mounting evidence from opinion survey research contradicted traditionalist concepts. Com- bined with widespread distrust of foreign and security policy decisions made during the Vietnam era and a normative desire to illustrate that de- mocratic governance need not limit public participation in public policy making, revisionists began to seriously question the tenets of traditional views of public capacities. Among the revisionist challenges were published findings by Caspary (1970), Achen (1975), Wittkopf (1981, 1986, 1990, 1994), Oldendick and Bardes (1982), Wittkopf and Maggiotto (1983), Pef- fley and Hurwitz (1985), Sniderman and Tetlock (1986), Hurwitz and Pef- fley (1987, 1990), Shapiro and Page (1988, 1994), Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock (1991), Page and Shapiro (1992), Chittick, Billingsley, and Travis (1995), Holsti (1996), Page and Barabas (2000), and Herron and Jenkins- Smith (2002). Countervailing propositions suggested by this body of revi- sionist research include the following: • Reasonably well-defined belief systems and complex heuristics support and constrain mass public opinions in both domestic and foreign policy domains in much the same ways in which they provide structure and co- herence to views of elite publics. • While over-time variation in individual opinions and issue salience is evi- dent, such variation should not be equated with broadly unstable and vola- tile public opinion. Longitudinal analyses of aggregate public views show long-term stability in collective opinions that are related to underlying be- liefs or that are events-driven. • Complete information is not required for reasoned policy choice. Ordinary citizens are cognitive misers who choose to disregard most of the