Public support for state surveillance

Abstract

This study examines citizens’ support for state surveillance, contingent upon factors related to policy design and the context of implementation. While most people want to live in a secure environment, we argue in this study that the support of policies to reach this goal depends on their necessity, extensiveness and reliability. Results from survey experiments in four European countries show that citizens are ready to approve the introduction of far‐reaching state surveillance that includes measures of facial recognition and motion detection. Public support is further enhanced if these measures are to be targeted at potential criminals, rather than at all citizens (i.e., policy extensiveness), as well as if a safety threat is salient (i.e., policy necessity). Concerns about data security reduce support (i.e., policy reliability). While these conditions matter for the support of specific policies, they do not influence how trustworthy citizens consider government and other political authorities to be.

Security vs. civil liberties: How citizens cope with threat, restriction, and ideology

“…This is in line with other experimental studies (such as Helbling et al, 2022), in which a treatment that included terrorist threat did not influence citizens' policy attitudes. However, it contradicts other experimental studies that have successfully shown an impact of terrorist threat on policy support by mentioning the number of victims in the past 3 years in their treatment (Ziller and Helbling, 2021). In the present study, citizens were asked to imagine a terrorist attack.…”

“…The term counter-terrorism covers a lot of different policies, ranging from military actions abroad (Gadarian, 2010) to immigration regulations (Helbling and Meierrieks, 2020) and domestic measures such as surveillance (van Leeuwen, 2003;Ziller and Helbling, 2021). In this paper, I operationalize counter-terrorism as a surveillance policy.…”

“…Security should be increased by preventing terrorist acts. Civil liberties are restricted, as surveillance can severely curtail privacy rights (Ziller and Helbling, 2021). Surveillance falls in the category of privacy laws and directly affects citizens in contrast to measures that concern procedural or immigration laws (Epifanio, 2011).…”

Considered effective? How policy evaluations and threat perceptions affect support for surveillance in the context of terrorism

“…This study set out to evaluate the role of policy effectiveness in the topical area of state surveillance. Extending the focus of previous studies on counterterrorism or surveillance policy support (see, e.g., Davis & Silver, 2004;Huddy et al, 2005;Ziller & Helbling, 2021), we investigated how the impact of policy effectiveness varies across respondents. We argued that people's perceptions of threat condition how effectiveness considerations relate to policy support.…”

“…This means that, by and large, citizens agree on the specific policy goal, whereas the means to reach these goals are more highly contested. Public support for these specific policies may vary and depend upon a range of motives (Ziller & Helbling, 2021). Given the potential for infringements of civil liberties, individuals can be expected to assess the implementation of counterterrorist surveillance measures while taking costs and benefits into account.…”