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"There Must Be a Reason": Osama, Saddam, and Inferred Justification
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“There Must be a Reason”: Osama, Saddam, and Inferred JustificationMonica Prasad, Andrew Perrin, Kieran Bezila, Kate Kindleberger, Steve Hoffman, Kim Manturuk, and Ashleigh Smith PowersPrepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September, 2005
Abstract: Why did so many Americans believe Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks? Althaus and Largio argue that the resilience of this belief was an artifact of pollsters’ switch to forced-choice questions: although open-ended survey questions find very small percentages blaming Saddam for 9/11, forced choice questions reveal a high proportion of the public willing to believe in Saddam Hussein’s culpability even before the administration shifted its focus from Afghanistan to Iraq, and that this means that “The American public’s apparently widespread belief that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks was no feat of misdirection by the Bush administration. Instead, the Bush administration inherited and played into a favorable climate of public opinion” (Althaus and Largio, 2004). But where did this favorable climate of public opinion come from? We suggest that answers on forced-choice questions and support for politicians’ actions are both examples of inferred justification: when responding to forced-choice questions, respondents assume that there is a good reason why a name is present among a list of choices (even if there is not); similarly, in judging politicians' actions, voters assume that there is a good reason why a politician supports a policy measure, particularly one as consequential as the decision to go to war. We test this theory on a sample of respondents, and find that 20% of respondents give an inferred justification response. In essence, in invading Iraq the administration presented the public with the equivalent of a forced choice survey question of whether or not Saddam was responsible for 9/11; some respondents concluded that, if we invaded Iraq, there must have been a good reason for doing so, and 9/11 seemed to them the most obvious justification.
One of the most curious features of the 2004 presidential election was the strength
and resilience of the belief among many citizens that Saddam Hussein was behind the
attacks of September 11. Over the course of the campaign, several polls showed
majorities of respondents suspecting that Saddam Hussein was partly or largely
responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and concluding that this justified the war in Iraq (see
Althaus and Largio, 2004, for a summary of polling evidence). Some commentators
suggested that this misperception was a product of the Bush administration’s statements:
although the administration has never explicitly claimed that Saddam Hussein was linked
to the 9/11 attacks, at various stages the administration has claimed that Iraq was
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| | Authors: Prasad, Monica., Perrin, Andrew., Bezila, Kieran., Hoffman, Steve., Kindleberger, Kate., Manturuk, Kim. and Powers, Ashleigh Smith. |
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“There Must be a Reason”: Osama, Saddam, and Inferred Justification
Monica Prasad, Andrew Perrin, Kieran Bezila, Kate Kindleberger, Steve Hoffman, Kim
Manturuk, and Ashleigh Smith Powers
Prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science
Association, Washington, D.C., September, 2005
Abstract: Why did so many Americans believe Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11
attacks? Althaus and Largio argue that the resilience of this belief was an artifact of
pollsters’ switch to forced-choice questions: although open-ended survey questions find
very small percentages blaming Saddam for 9/11, forced choice questions reveal a high
proportion of the public willing to believe in Saddam Hussein’s culpability even before
the administration shifted its focus from Afghanistan to Iraq, and that this means that
“The American public’s apparently widespread belief that Saddam Hussein was
responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks was no feat of misdirection by the Bush
administration. Instead, the Bush administration inherited and played into a favorable
climate of public opinion” (Althaus and Largio, 2004). But where did this favorable
climate of public opinion come from? We suggest that answers on forced-choice
questions and support for politicians’ actions are both examples of inferred justification:
when responding to forced-choice questions, respondents assume that there is a good
reason why a name is present among a list of choices (even if there is not); similarly, in
judging politicians' actions, voters assume that there is a good reason why a politician
supports a policy measure, particularly one as consequential as the decision to go to war.
We test this theory on a sample of respondents, and find that 20% of respondents give an
inferred justification response. In essence, in invading Iraq the administration presented
the public with the equivalent of a forced choice survey question of whether or not
Saddam was responsible for 9/11; some respondents concluded that, if we invaded Iraq,
there must have been a good reason for doing so, and 9/11 seemed to them the most
obvious justification.
One of the most curious features of the 2004 presidential election was the strength
and resilience of the belief among many citizens that Saddam Hussein was behind the
attacks of September 11. Over the course of the campaign, several polls showed
majorities of respondents suspecting that Saddam Hussein was partly or largely
responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and concluding that this justified the war in Iraq (see
Althaus and Largio, 2004, for a summary of polling evidence). Some commentators
suggested that this misperception was a product of the Bush administration’s statements:
although the administration has never explicitly claimed that Saddam Hussein was linked
to the 9/11 attacks, at various stages the administration has claimed that Iraq was
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