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xi Preface t he origins of this project go back seven years. We were beginning a new collaboration that sought to apply experimental survey research techniques to examine how americans form policy attitudes in the contemporary era, especially on issues relating to rising economic inequality and social policies that might redistribute the benefits of economic growth more widely. But as our work unfolded, with the collection of initial survey data from a couple of national surveys we conducted in 2005 and 2007, we were bowled over by results that had nothing to do with inequality or domestic social policy. instead, something that was initially a small part of our data collection—some experiments on attitudes relating to the war on terror—produced unexpected results that we found riveting. this initial interest in americans’ responses to the war on terror emerged just as some of the most important revelations about the Bush administration’s departures from international law and established civil liberties protections were coming to light. We wondered whether and to what extent americans would continue to support war on terror policies . Survey experiments, we thought, would be ideal to get more detail as to how far americans were willing to go in support of post-9/11 counterterrorism . the kinds of issues invoked by national security policies relating to rights and terrorism have wide-ranging and troubling implications. For one thing, they put to the test the view that americans’ willingness to extend civil liberties protections to unpopular groups has changed since the 1940s (when Japanese americans were rounded up and interned during World War ii on the basis of ethnicity) or since the 1960s, after which americans moved closer to embracing the principle of equality under the law for african americans and women, and arguably moving in recent years closer to such a posture toward gays and lesbians. Because the threat of terrorist attacks came from islamic radicals from the middle east, we wondered what carefully designed experiments might Brooks.indb 11 11/27/2012 9:55:19 AM xii Preface show about americans’ attitudes toward people of middle eastern descent or more generally to foreign nationals. in 2008, the election of democrat Barack obama, a frequent critic of many Bush administration policies, seemed to usher in a new era of respect for Constitutional limits on surveillance and international law regarding the treatment of enemy combatants. it also provided us with a “natural experiment” in which the pivot of political and policy rhetoric coming out of the White house would shift dramatically. We wondered if this shift would move mass opinion away from policy positions supported before obama’s election, as well as whether the same framing experiments used earlier might now have different impacts. We had the good fortune to be able to conduct two additional national surveys, in 2009 and 2010, that included an expanded battery of survey items that would allow us to see how much regime change at home might impact the way americans thought about these issues. the results of these surveys, as well as the 2007 survey, are presented in this book. We think the results provide a new picture, one benefiting from experiments that uncover novel dynamics as well as some of the complexities of americans’ attitudes towards counterterrorism policies pursued by the u.S. government since 9/11. our results also speak to some important and long-standing scholarly debates in public opinion research, political sociology, and american politics, and we also draw connections to the broader historical and cultural contexts in which our results are situated . Brooks.indb 12 11/27/2012 9:55:19 AM ...

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