MuseumDESCRIPTION:
Dr. Steven Kull, Director of the Program for International Policy Attitudes and Editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org speaks with Jerry Fowler about the recently released public opinion poll on the United Nations’ Responsibility to Protect in general as well as specifically in the case of Darfur.
TRANSCRIPT:
JERRY FOWLER: My guest today is pollster Steven Kull. He is editor of www.worldpublicopinion.org and director of the program on international policy attitudes. His most recent book co-authored with I. M. Desler, is Misreading the Public: the myth of a new isolationism. Steven, welcome to the program.
STEVEN KULL: Thanks for having me.
JERRY FOWLER: Now your group, www.worldpublicopinion.org just worked with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs to release polling data from 15 countries plus the Palestinian territories, on public attitude towards responding to genocide. Can you give us the overview on what those polls found?
STEVEN KULL: Well we wanted to first focus on the question of the principle of the United Nations and its responsibility in relation to severe human rights abuses such as genocide. As you may know that the United Nations has endorsed the idea that it has a kind of responsibility to protect in the event of severe human rights abuses. So we asked people, “Some people say the United Nations security council has the responsibility to authorize the use of force to protect people from severe human rights violations such as genocide, even against the will of their own government,” and that’s what’s really critical here. We are talking about really overriding national sovereignty. And we say, “some people do not think the United Nations has this responsibility, what do you think?” There were twelve countries that answered this question, not every country answered every question. In every case, there was at least a plurality and in many of the countries a majority saying that the United Nations does have a responsibility to intervene to protect people from human rights violations even against the will of their own government. That was to me the most critical finding.
JERRY FOWLER: So the public was saying that the United Nations has a responsibility, the public in these countries was saying the United Nations has a responsibility. What about the second part which is a little broader? Whether the United Nations has a right to do it?
STEVEN KULL: For that, there were clear majorities in every country, and large majorities over 60% in every case. So, there is complete comfort with that idea, that the United Nations has the right authorize the use of military force to prevent human rights violations such as genocide. When it comes to responsibility to protect it is a little bit lower and you have a lot more people saying they do not know. Now I must clarify that even on the responsibility to protect only small minorities rejected the idea and in most cases it was about ¼ or so. So there is no large constituency out there that rejects the idea it is more some uncertainty, but when it comes to the United Nations right to intervene, that is very solid and not many people say they don’t know.
JERRY FOWLER: Did you test the issue of intervention without United Nations authorization?
STEVEN KULL: We did not.
JERRY FOWLER: What countries were involved in these polls?
STEVEN KULL: Well why don’t I present it in terms of where they stood on the issues? Interestingly, the United States was one of the strongest in terms of the responsibility to protect; ¾ of Americans said they have that responsibility and interestingly even higher was China with 76% saying the United Nations has this responsibility.
JERRY FOWLER: Let me stop you there. That was a big surprise for me that you would have so many people in China saying that the United Nations could intervene against the will of the government when China’s foreign policy is very much based on the opposite principle; that is of non-intervention.
STEVEN KULL: That was one of the biggest surprises for us as well. The Chinese were among the highest on the both the question of the right and the responsibility, and yes that is at odds with the position of their government that has resisted this kind of notion.
JERRY FOWLER: How do you do polls in China? We think of it as being a more open society than previously but still very tightly politically controlled.
STEVEN KULL: Yes, but they do allow polling to occur. There are certain topics you could not really ask questions about. You could not ask they approve of the communist party, or if they want a change in governmental system or something like that, or directly criticize government policy, but on more general questions, such as these, they do allow it to happen. We work with people in a University affiliated research center there and this was a nationwide poll, we even went into the rural areas.
JERRY FOWLER: Well I am sorry I interrupted you, so you were talking about the United States and China.
STEVEN KULL: Yes. So another country that was quite strong on both of these points was Israel and also the Palestinian territories, they are very strong on both the responsibility and the right. And not surprisingly Armenia, which has suffered genocide in the past, 2/3 say that the United Nations has the responsibility to act. Those are the most robust. Mexico was 73% on the right to intervene. France is very strong, 85% say they have the right to intervene, but only 54% say they have the responsibility which is kind of interesting. Poland was a majority in favor. India was a slight majority in favor of the responsibility to protect, and all of these were much higher on the right to intervene. Russia: a plurality. Ukraine: plurality. Thailand a plurality, but two to one so that is a a lot of “do not knows.” Argentina: also a plurality. Ukraine: very large majority 69% saying that the United Nations has the right to intervene. Iran: 69% said the United Nations has the right to intervene.
JERRY FOWLER: Now those countries that you named come from a lot of different regions but there were not any African countries?
STEVEN KULL: Not in this specific poll, but in an earlier poll that we did in 2005 we asked eight African countries the same question: whether the United Nations has the right to authorize forces to help severe human rights violations such as genocide? In every country, well in seven countries it was a clear majority ranging from 55% to 80%, and there was only one country where it was only a plurality 47% to 15%. And that was interestingly South Africa, interesting because human rights have been such a prominent issue in their history. So it was clearly in favor of it, but still lower than the others. In Ghana 80% said the United Nations has this right and Kenya 75% and so on. And when we asked about the possibility of intervening in a conflict like Darfur in your country and asked how they would like to see that happen or if they would like to see that happen, only 13% said “no they would not want to see that happen,” 57% endorsed some sort of intervention and the most popular form was the United Nations followed by the African Union.
JERRY FOWLER: That leads to an interesting question focusing on the African countries. A slight plurality I guess in favor of the United Nations, but is the idea that the people who supported African Union intervention supported that to the exclusion of United Nations involvement?
STEVEN KULL: No, it was just saying “which is your preferred form of intervention?” There were the United Nations, the African Union, or rich countries, and the United Nations was the most popular followed by the African Union. So it does not exclude that possibility, it just is “what is your preference?”
JERRY FOWLER: One of the things you referred to in describing the poll is that the question that you posed had to do with responsibility in cases of severe human rights abuses such as genocide. I am wondering in this poll, and I know you have been polling on this issue for a long time in the United States, how important is the label genocide in determining peoples responses or is it basically the same if you are talking about severe human rights abuses?
STEVEN KULL: Well when you say sever human rights abuses; it is not clear exactly what is going on. Does that mean a lot of journalists are being put in jail, and so on? So when you say genocide it is quite clear, crystallizes in peoples minds. It is definitely a bright line. I can’t give you an exact number but when the word genocide is included that definitely creates a significant bump up in readiness to support intervention. In the question that we asked about Darfur specifically we did not use the term genocide we just referred to the violence that is occurring in the Darfur region, because there is some debate about whether it falls within the definition of genocide, and still we got rather strong responses in support. I would say overall it adds something like 10 to 15 points on a question. That is just an estimate, it is not something that we have systematically have done. There is definitely a sense when we have asked our questions in the United States in depth on this, there is very strong endorsement that there is a real imperative to act against genocide.
JERRY FOWLER: As opposed to crimes against humanity?
STEVEN KULL: Well that is more vague; it is not clear exactly what those crimes are and if they are described in more specific detail that can illicit it and the term severe human rights abuses gets still high numbers, just people are less clear what it means.
JERRY FOWLER: Well let us turn to Darfur because in some of the countries specific countries were asked about Darfur. One thing I noticed, is that it appeared to me that the numbers in support of an abstract responsibility to protect dropped off when you got to the specific case of Darfur. So in the United States 74% think the United Nations has the responsibility in general but only 48% think it has the responsibility in Darfur. Why that drop off?
STEVEN KULL: I think that is related to a lack of information. In the poll in the United States, less than half of the public is really following the situation in Darfur. Many people are just unclear what the situation is there. If we had in the question asserted that genocide was occurring there, which would not be a responsible thing to do in a poll, but if we had I think that probably would have driven that number up, but right now we can see there is just not a high level of information. And in other countries it is even worse. In some countries, Poland, Armenia, Thailand, Ukraine, as many as half did not answer, which is a clear indication of a low level of awareness and in Africa we found a low level of awareness as well. Only 36% were following the situation in Darfur in Africa. So, what we see here quite clearly, is that when we are talking about principles there is a very strong endorsement of a very proactive role on the part of the United Nations Security Council and then when we talk about Darfur does that apply in that case? The percentage of people who reject the idea is very low, no more than one out of five, in most cases lower than that, but there are just a lot of people who do not know.
JERRY FOWLER: So the big picture would be that the principle is accepted but the case, even after all this time, still has not been made on Darfur.
STEVEN KULL: That is right. The country where it has been most clearly made apparently is France where a majority, 55% say that the United Nations has a responsibility to authorize intervention and that is the same number as said that in general, that the United Nations has the responsibility to intervene in such situations. So there you see a complete correspondence to what they say in principle. And the United States is relatively high and Israel as well.
JERRY FOWLER: An additional question that was asked was if there is intervention would publics support contributing their countries troops to such intervention. My sense was that you found, except in the United States and France, relatively little enthusiasm.
STEVEN KULL: That is right. France was the highest at 84% willing to contribute troops, and the United States was also quite high, 65% and that is somewhat higher than what we found just a few years ago. But in all the others, we only asked I think seven or eight countries on this, and in all the others we did not find support. In most cases it was a plurality against the idea. In Armenia, Israel, Poland, Thailand, Ukraine. Why is that? Well I think there are specific reasons, Israel they have not participated in peacekeeping. The Poles have, but they may feel a little exhausted from their participation in Iraq. The Thais were divided actually, 35% to 37%, and with 28% saying that they were not sure or not answering. Many countries just don’t think of it, “well that’s not our role in the world to participate in peacekeeping.” So I don’t know how much it was their general view, “that we do not have the resources to participate in peacekeeping,” or if it was somehow specific to the Darfur situation.
JERRY FOWLER: Now I think if I understood you, you said the percentage of people who would support United States contribution to an intervention is higher now than it was a few years ago?
STEVEN KULL: Yes, I do not have the exact number at my fingertips but I believe it was in the 50s, in the low to mid 50s willing to contribute to an operation in Darfur, and now it’s 65%. And one thing I should say too about Americans that could affect these numbers, we’ve asked if the United Nations determines the genocide is occurring in Darfur, should the United Nations including the United States, is it necessary then to use military force to intervene? Even in 2004 69% said that it should, with the United States included in that. This suggests that more people are perceiving that genocide is occurring there so the change is occurring over time. If it was clear in peoples mind, then it would probably be significantly stronger.
JERRY FOWLER: I was wondering, if not in this poll, in other polling that you have done, has the experience in Iraq had any affect on peoples attitudes towards military operations abroad in general or ones that are focused on these genocide and human rights abuses in particular?
STEVEN KULL: Surprisingly little. That is something that we did in an extensive poll to go to the Chicago Council, and we are expecting, this is part of a larger project that this is embedded in, but the one we did is very extensive and we asked all kinds of questions looking for some sign that may be in the wake of the Iraq experience that Americans were heading towards some isolationism, some greater reluctance to be involved in the world, or be involved militarily, or so on. And we basically did not find it. They are distinguishing Iraq from other forms of involvement in the world. So the short answer is no.
JERRY FOWLER: If you were advising a United States politician on public attitudes in this area and you are finding that there is a fair amount of strong public support for intervention. The next question they would ask you is “how long would that support last once we get involved?”
STEVEN KULL: Well what is really important to remember first of all is that it is critical the operation be multilateral. Based on a whole variety of questions that we have done over the years the public would resist the United States acting on its own. But if it were a multilateral operation, preferably the United Nations, then there would be support. If they went there and things went well, and even if there were significant casualties, but there was a perception the situation was being improved, the public would absorb a surprising number of causalities based on what we have done on the subject and also looking at past experiences. If things went badly and there was a perception that the people did not want us there, in Somalia there was some desire to withdraw, there was not a big reaction to withdraw immediately but there was some feeling that we should begin drawing down and that was heavily influenced by the perception that the Somalis didn’t want us there. So that would be a major factor; whether it is perceived as being effective, succeeding and also whether the people are being supportive.
JERRY FOWLER: Steven Kull is the editor of worldpublicopinion.org and director of the program on International Policy Attitudes. Steven, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us.
STEVEN KULL: Thank you.
