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The power of a promise: whom do governments' security justifications convince to accept surveillance?
[journal article]
Abstract To justify surveillance measures and gain them public support, governments use the promise of security. It is usually claimed that individuals are more willing to have freedom and privacy restricted than waiving a promise of increased security. However, empirical evidence to support this claim has b... view more
To justify surveillance measures and gain them public support, governments use the promise of security. It is usually claimed that individuals are more willing to have freedom and privacy restricted than waiving a promise of increased security. However, empirical evidence to support this claim has been scarce - especially from a comparative perspective. Focusing on surveillance measures, this paper shows that people do indeed express greater acceptance of restrictions when these are justified by promises of security, being one of the first to examine this across 29 countries on all continents. Based on data from the ISSP, it investigates to which degree the effect of a security-based justification is moderated on the micro and macro level, with surprising results: While the effect does not differ between different levels of government support and political orientation, it differs significantly depending on how liberal-democratic the country is. The effect of the security-justification is very pronounced in liberal democracies, while it is even reversed in rather autocratic countries, meaning that individuals seem to be rather suspicious towards security justifications in non-democratic countries.... view less
Keywords
ISSP; monitoring; security; privacy; public opinion
Classification
Peace and Conflict Research, International Conflicts, Security Policy
Social Psychology
Free Keywords
framing; public attitudes; ISSP 2016 (ZA6900 v2.0.0)
Document language
English
Publication Year
2022
Page/Pages
p. 1-21
Journal
Political Research Exchange, 4 (2022) 1
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2022.2101380
ISSN
2474-736X
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed