war on terror – Page 2 – Engaging Peace

The United States’ “War on Terror” and involvement in Iraq have renewed questions concerning human rights agreements and international treaties. Do nations ever have the right to violate or ignore these agreements? What conditions are seen as justifying a breech? These were the questions addressed in a study by GIPGAP in 2005.

Declaration of Human Rights, French painting — Declaration of Human Rights, France 1789. Image in public domain.

A sample of 518 participants (253 females and 218 males), at least 20 percent of whom were college students, completed the Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Scale (PAIRTAPS), which includes the following item: “Sometimes a country has the right to ignore international treaties or international human rights agreements.”

Participants were asked to indicate on a scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) the extent to which they agreed with the statement, and then to explain the reasoning behind their rating scale score.

Analyses revealed that most participants could be divided into two groups:

Opposers—i.e., respondents who argued that governments do not have the right to violate or ignore agreements
Justifiers—i.e., participants who argued governments sometimes do have such a right.

Of the 518 respondents, significantly more opposed violations than justified them, but opposers and justifiers used the same types of arguments to support their positions.

For example, both opposers and justifiers appealed to characteristics of treaties to justify their scores, with opposers arguing that agreements should be respected and justifiers arguing that agreements could be ignored if they were impractical, obsolete, or unjust.

Similarly, both opposers and justifiers emphasized the positive effects and the greater good that would come from adopting their position. For instance, one opposer wrote “These treaties are for the greater good of mankind,” while one justifier wrote “Sometimes you have to ignore your morals for the good of mankind.”

What do you think about these findings? Can you think of other situations where people argue passionately in favor of two opposing positions using the exact same type of argument—e.g., “My way is more moral/more intelligent/more practical, etc. than yours”?

Why might this be? What might be done to help opponents get beyond endless debate?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Note: This post is based on the study “Attitudes toward international treaties and human rights agreements” by Kyleen Hashim and Kathleen Malley-Morrison, published in the journal Peace Psychology, Spring/Summer 2007.

In response to the attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States and its allies waged war against Afghanistan. The Gallup International Terrorism Poll 2001 showed that 88% of the American public agreed with this military action.

In the months preceding the start of the Iraq war, national support for invasion never dropped below 55%, probably reflecting the Bush administration’s framing of the Iraq war as an extension of the “war on terror.”

Protest in Spain against Iraq war. Photo by Francisco M. Marzoa Alonso; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 license.

In contrast, the Flash Eurobarometer 151 surveyed citizens of the 15 European Union nations in 2003 and found strong opposition in some nations to the U.S. involvement in Iraq. In particular, Greeks and Spaniards viewed the U.S. as the greatest threat to peace–more threatening than Iran and North Korea.

The Group on International Perspectives on Government Aggression and Peace (GIPGAP) administered the Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Survey (PAIRTAPS) to ordinary people from the U.S., Greece, and Spain in 2005. We found that Americans rated a governmental right to undertake an invasion much more highly than Greeks and Spaniards.

In regard to specific arguments made by the participants in support of their ratings concerning the acceptability of invasion:

Significantly more Greeks and Spaniards than Americans said war is outdated or there are better ways to solve conflicts.
Significantly more Americans than Spaniards referred to “defense” in their explanations, including references to preemptive action in response to a threat.

What do you make of the findings of this study? Is war outdated? Are there better ways of solving conflicts?

Why might Americans seem to be more worried about defending themselves than Spaniards and Greeks? Why might there be national differences in views concerning preemptive strikes?

Do you think that if a new sample of Americans, Greeks, and Spaniards were to be asked today about the US involvement in Iraq, their opinions would have changed?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

[Note: This post was adapted from an article by Maria Daskalopoulos, Tanvi Zaveri and Kathie Malley-Morrison, in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Winter, 2006.]