Public Opinion and Counter-Terrorism 1032155353, 9781032155357

Table of contents :
Cover
Endorsements
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Security and the public
2 Exploring public opinion: beyond responsiveness
3 Sources of public opinion information, 2001–2015
4 Representing public views in Parliament
5 Political elites, public opinion and counterterrorism policy in the UK
6 Private security and counterterrorism
7 Security professionals, public opinion and the delivery of counterterrorism policy in the UK
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

‘Drawing on a wealth of original research material, Public Opinion and Counter Terrorism offers a path-breaking interrogation of the complex and multiple connections between counter-terrorism policy and public opinion. Theoretically sophisticated and analytically nuanced, Michael Lister demonstrates a mastery of frequently disconnected academic fields, and an enviable capacity to bring these into conversation with each other and his findings. The book will be essential reading for scholars of security, public opinion, British politics, and beyond. Deservedly so’. Lee Jarvis, University of East Anglia, UK A rare and exciting empirical insight to the ‘black box’ of policy-making, this book’s provocative analysis will invigorate security studies by surfacing the connect/disconnect between public opinion and elite security decisionmaking. Vital reading’. Timothy Legrand, University of Adelaide, Australia

Public Opinion and Counter-Terrorism

This book examines the ways in which the views of the public inhabit the counterterrorism policy space, with a focus on the UK case. Drawing insights from Critical Terrorism Studies, Critical Security Studies and studies of public opinion, the book develops an argument that the relationship between public opinion is complex, iterative and mutually instantiating. Rather than public opinion and counterterrorism policy existing in a simple, uni-directional causal relationship, the book argues that whilst counterterrorism policy actors are informed by public opinion, in important ways they also construct that very opinion. This argument is made through an empirical analysis of UK counterterrorism policy. Drawing on primary research interviews with key counterterrorism policy actors, and security professionals, as well as original analysis of parliamentary debates, the book demonstrates that rather than UK counterterrorism politics being closed and elite-driven, there exists a complex, dialectical relationship between public opinion and both the making and the implementing of counterterrorism policy. This book will be of much interest to students of critical terrorism studies, counterterrorism, security studies, British politics and communication studies. Michael Lister is Reader in Politics, School of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, UK. He is the author or editor of five books, including, most recently, The State: Theories and Issues 2nd Edition (with Colin Hay and David Marsh, 2022) and Anti-Terrorism, Citizenship and Security (with Lee Jarvis, 2015).

Routledge Critical Terrorism Studies Series Editor: Richard Jackson University of Otago, New Zealand

This book series will publish rigorous and innovative studies on all aspects of terrorism, counter-terrorism and state terror. It seeks to advance a new generation of thinking on traditional subjects and investigate topics frequently overlooked in orthodox accounts of terrorism. Books in this series will typically adopt approaches informed by critical-normative theory, post-positivist methodologies and non-Western perspectives, as well as rigorous and reflective orthodox terrorism studies. The UN and Counter-Terrorism Global Hegemonies, Power and Identities Alice Martini China’s Soft War on Terror Space-Making Processes of Securitisation Tianyang Liu Counterterrorism Strategies in Egypt Permanent Exceptions in the War on Terror A. M. Abozaid Making Sense of Radicalization and Violent Extremism Interviews and Conversations Mitja Sardoč Mediatised Terrorism East-West Narratives of Risk Saira Ali Public Opinion and Counter-Terrorism Security and Politics in the UK Michael Lister For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Critical-Terrorism-Studies/book-series/RCTS

Public Opinion and Counter-Terrorism Security and Politics in the UK

Michael Lister

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Michael Lister The right of Michael Lister to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-15535-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-15539-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-24458-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003244585 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For Jessica and Thomas

Contents

Acknowledgements

x

Introduction

1

1

Security and the public

11

2

Exploring public opinion: beyond responsiveness

32

3

Sources of public opinion information, 2001–2015

61

4

Representing public views in Parliament

87

5

Political elites, public opinion and counterterrorism policy in the UK

115

6

Private security and counterterrorism

145

7

Security professionals, public opinion and the delivery of counterterrorism policy in the UK

163

Conclusion

192

Bibliography Index

196 213

Acknowledgements

This book has been many years in the making and has benefitted from the input and guidance of a number of people, and I would like to take a moment here to acknowledge them (and apologise to anyone who I have missed off!). Firstly, the book draws on a number of elite interviews, with both political actors and security professionals. Whilst preserving their anonymity, I would like to offer my most sincere thanks to all those who gave up their time for these interviews, as well as the assistants who scheduled and made them possible. I’d also like to thank Simon Legrand, who provided valuable insights into the private security sphere. Early drafts and ideas which formed part of the book were presented to conferences and workshops, including the EISA European Workshops in International Studies in Cardiff, the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Security Research’s Parliaments and Security workshop and the British International Studies Association conference in London. Earlier versions were also presented to Departmental research events at Oxford Brookes University. I’d like to thank all who attended those events and who provided such insightful and helpful feedback. I’d also like to thank Lee Jarvis, Andrew Neal, Timothy Legrand and Mike Slavin for helpful conversations and feedback. The usual disclaimer, that any errors remain mine alone, obviously applies. I’d also like to thank series editor, Richard Jackson, and Andrew Humphries and Devon Harvey, for their skilled, efficient and patient editorial work. Part of this work was completed whilst on sabbatical at Oxford Brookes University, whose support I am very grateful for. Finally, I would like to thank my family. To my parents and sister, who are always there for me, thank you. To my wife, Tamsin, my unending thanks for your love and support, for always helping me to see what really matters and for putting up with my very loud bashing of a keyboard/typing. And love, thanks (and cuddles!) to Jessica and Thomas who make it all worthwhile.

Introduction

There are a range of reasons to think that public opinion would be a central dynamic in the making of counterterrorism policy. The attacks of 9/11 which prompted a wave of counterterrorism policies in many western countries, including the UK, provoked shock and outrage amongst many publics. Political elites, also outraged by such violence and whose political fortunes often depend upon being “in touch” with public concerns, were keen to align themselves with public sentiments; to show that they “got it”. The following extract is from a speech that Tony Blair gave soon after the 9/11 attacks: Just two weeks ago, in New York, after the church service I met some of the families of the British victims. It was in many ways a very British occasion. Tea and biscuits. It was raining outside. Around the edge of the room, strangers making small talk, trying to be normal people in an abnormal situation. And as you crossed the room, you felt the longing and sadness; hands clutching photos of sons and daughters, wives and husbands; imploring you to believe them when they said there was still an outside chance of their loved ones being found alive, when you knew in truth that all hope was gone. And then a middle-aged mother looks you in the eyes and tells you her only son has died, and asks you: why? I tell you: you do not feel like the most powerful person in the country at times like that. Because there is no answer. There is no justification for their pain. Their son did nothing wrong. The woman, seven months pregnant, whose child will never know its father, did nothing wrong. They don’t want revenge. They want something better in memory of their loved ones. . . . I know that here in Britain people are anxious, even a little frightened. I understand that. People know we must act but they worry what might follow. (Blair 2001) There are two types of public being referred to and empathised with; first the victim’s families enduring the pain of losing loved ones, and second the wider public who are ‘anxious, even a little frightened’. These people want action, and by implication, their government will deliver such action. In a later speech, delivered after the 7/7 attacks in 2005, Blair makes this connection more DOI: 10.4324/9781003244585-1

2

Introduction

clearly. Outlining the government’s response to the bombings, Blair begins the speech by discussing the public, praising their resilience, before stating that ‘Time and again, over the past few weeks, I have been asked to deal firmly with those prepared to engage in such extremism’ (Blair 2005). Later that year, after a legislative defeat on a proposal to extend pre-charge detention to 90 days, Blair again invoked public opinion as a justification for his counterterrorism approach, reproaching Parliamentarians who opposed the measure by saying ‘the country will think Parliament has behaved in a deeply irresponsible way’ (Blair, cited in Wintour 2005c). As we shall see later, the political elites interviewed for this book confirm and corroborate the sense that public opinion is hugely important for counterterrorism policy. The logic advanced, by more than one participant, is that because terrorism and counterterrorism have been such high-profile issues, attracting widespread media and public attention, that political elites simply cannot aford to be out of step with public views. Such framings suggest that public opinion is an important dynamic in driving counterterrorism policy in this post-9/11 period. Indeed, speaking about the US context, Mueller and Stewart state this simply, making the argument that not only is public opinion an important dynamic, but it is the important dynamic; ‘Public opinion is the primary driver behind the extensive and excessive counterterrorism efforts undertaken since 9/11’ (Mueller and Stewart 2018, p.  1). And yet, academic discourse around counterterrorism has been rather sparing in its discussion and treatment of the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism. As Allouche and Lind (2010, p.  4) put it, ‘Public opinion research has not been an important focus in the study of terrorism in the United Kingdom’. Such a gap, or absence, has also been noted by policymakers, with a Home Office (2010) report examining existing research on counterterrorism identifying a number of research gaps including inadequate data on the impact of counterterrorism measures, a lack of detailed demographic information in existing polls that would enable meaningful inferences to be drawn about sub-populations and a lack of coverage of minority communities other than Muslims. The report concluded that there was insufficient evidence that could assist policymakers and called for further research. This book sets out both to explain this apparent absence and to correct for it, providing the first detailed examination of the significance, role, nature, and position of public opinion in counterterrorism policy in the UK. One significant caveat to the above-noted gap or absence of studies about public opinion and counterterrorism is to note that there have been studies of the extent to which (counter)terrorism impacts on or shifts public opinion. This literature looks at the relationship one way; it does not examine the extent to which public opinion shapes, or influences policy (although it is often assumed that it does), but rather examines the ways in which the public think about terrorism and counterterrorism and what effects terrorism/counterterrorism has on public opinion. Of particular interest has been the question of under what conditions citizens will support reductions in civil liberties in favour of security and counterterrorism (Manza and Brooks 2013). Davis and Silver (2004) find

Introduction

3

that levels of trust in political elites and perceptions of threat interact with one another to influence public attachment to existing civil liberties. They also point to factors such as political ideology and sense of national pride in shaping public attitudes. Perception of threat is seen to be a powerful explanatory variable but some research seeks to disaggregate the general threat of terrorism from personal anxiety about terrorism (Huddy et al. 2005; Huddy et al. 2007). Other research points to the importance of variables such as attachment to authoritarian attitudes (Hetherington and Weiler 2009); ethnocentrism, or negative attitudes to others and outgroups (Kam and Kinder 2007; Brooks and Manza 2013); exposure to media coverage of terrorism (Haider-Markel et al. 2006); and perceptions about government monitoring and surveillance (Best et al. 2012). Taken together, this research constitutes a vibrant corpus that encourages reflection and understanding about why citizens do (or do not) offer their support for enhanced security and counterterrorism measures. Yet this body of literature does not explicitly examine public opinion as a potential influence on policy and focuses more on the ways in which terrorism and counterterrorism shape the public. To date, there have been two major academic pieces of quantitative research into public attitudes to counterterrorism and civil liberties in the UK. The first is Johnson and Gearty (2007); the second Clery and Mead (2017), both as part of the British Social Attitudes survey. Johnson and Gearty’s (2007) main findings were that publics were supportive of counterterrorism measures and that many were relatively unconcerned about civil liberty trade-offs (although it dated the decline in support for civil liberties to the 1990s, suggesting that perceived terrorism threat was not the prime factor in attitudes to civil liberties). Yet due to small sample sizes, of ethnic minorities in particular, it was not able to assess whether this support for counterterrorism measures existed or varied across different demographic groupings. Clery and Mead (2017), updating these findings 10 years later, find broadly the same array of public attitudes. Yet a closer examination of the data suggests that when comparing to the data from 2007, public support on two of three questions asked about counterterrorism measures, public support has dropped. On the question of whether the government should be able to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects in times of a terrorist attack, a majority agree that they should, but opposition to this has grown by 10%, to 41% since 2007. A sizeable majority agree with stop and search powers (70%) but again opposition has grown since 2007, although by a relatively small amount. Clery and Mead point to the influence of levels of trust and support for government, age, education and attitudes to immigration. Perhaps echoing the findings of the US literature discussed earlier, individuals who are older, more supportive of government, less educated and anti-immigration seem to support more restrictive counterterrorism measures. The picture which emerges from these studies is a public which often, but not always, is supportive of stringent, perhaps even draconian counterterrorism measures. It also appears that policy seems to tend in that direction. Is this simply a case of public policy following public opinion? Or rather, does the public

4

Introduction

follow the direction of policy? The book aims to investigate this and other questions about the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism. Specifically, it aims to address: • •

• • • •

Why has there been relatively little said about the ways in which public opinion does, or does not shape counterterrorism policy? What is public opinion? Can we assume that polls simply capture a public opinion which is out there, ready to be harvested? Or do things like polls, policy, or even politicians themselves, shape public opinion? Is counterterrorism policy a closed, elite-driven policy space where public opinion plays little role? Or is it more open to public views? In what ways do political elites think about public opinion when making policy? What kinds of information do they draw upon if they do consider public opinion? To what extent, if any, are these dynamics different to other policy areas? Is counterterrorism “different”? Are security professionals responsible for implementing counterterrorism attuned to public opinion, or do they display characteristics of a narrow, technocratic elites uninterested in public wants?

It might be argued that answers to these questions may be drawn to one of two poles. The first might suggest that public opinion is unimportant to security politics like counterterrorism. Elites decide in these important areas and the public, to the extent that they have a role, are relegated to a marginal position of assenting to the wishes and choices of elites. At the other end might be a position which argues that counterterrorism is a high-profile area and that electorally savvy politicians are keen to be seen to respond to the wishes of the voters on such issues. Therefore, they are keenly aware of what the public wants and desirous of being seen to implement it. As the summary of the book below will indicate, this book seeks to chart a diferent path, but one which takes, to some extent, both of these positions seriously. It argues that public opinion is an important part of the counterterrorism policy space – the politics of counterterrorism. But also that elites play important roles in shaping – constructing even – that very public opinion. Thus rather than running one way; either counterterrorism policy as elites shaping what the public wants, or public opinion influencing the actions of politicians, that the relationship between public opinion, politicians and counterterrorism policy is complex, constitutive rather than simply causal, and runs in multiple directions.

Summary of the book The book begins by examining why, despite the seeming prominence of it in politicians like Blair’s speeches and rhetoric, public opinion has hitherto been a rather marginal concern in academic enquiries around terrorism and counterterrorism, particularly in the UK context. As Chapter One argues, a significant

Introduction

5

part of this relative silence relates to the ways in which security studies has tended to focus its attentions on the actions, decisions and views of elites (Neal 2019; Croft and Vaughan-Williams 2017). Securitization theory, an influential approach within security studies, explicitly sees security as something apart from ‘the normal haggling of politics’ (Buzan et al. 1998, p. 29). This, along with a disciplinary separation whereby security has been studied within IR, has meant that more traditional political science concerns and approaches have been marginalised, resulting in a tendency to see security politics as different. Yet some more recent strands of security studies afford a slightly broader and wider view of the nature of security politics. The “security as politics” literature (Neal 2019) has examined the multiple ways in which, rather than being closed and separate from “normal” political processes and dynamics, that security politics is an area of debate, contestation and many of the other regular, “normal” dynamics associated with politics, including public debate and public inputs. One potential route into broader consideration of the public voice in security politics might lie within the ways in which audiences receive (and contest) securitization moves, but the chapter argues, such analyses are limited in the ways in which such audiences are conceptualised, as static, and perhaps passive, entities. Such work, therefore, does not consider the ways in which public opinion is constructed and shaped and/or how such voices may play a more active role in the politics of security. The chapter moves to consider the strand of security studies literature which affords most space to the views and voices of (diverse) publics, vernacular security. The different ways in which recent scholarship has sought to delineate and map out this variety are traced, as well as identifying the ways in which such discourses have performative power and influence. Yet, the chapter argues, what is perhaps missing is a fuller account of how such vernacular discourses on security are formed, and the mechanisms by which such discourses are understood – and perhaps shaped – by external institutions and actors. In other words, what is the relationship between political actors and institutions and vernacular security discourses? To what extent do elites and institutions shape these views? And to what extent do such views and discourses shape the actions of political elites? To begin to answer these questions, the book then turns to a consideration of the literature on public opinion. Chapter 2 begins by considering the complex notion of public opinion, highlighting the multiple and contested meanings of this term. It then goes on to examine the ways in which normative ideas about representation shape and play into concepts and debates about whether policy reflects public opinion. Particularly for political elites, questions as to whether public opinion should influence policy in turn influence whether it does so. The influence of public opinion on public policy is often framed in terms of “responsiveness”; the extent to which policy “responds” to public opinion. There are contested assessments of the extent to which this takes place, but within the responsiveness literature itself, a consensus appears to be that on some, high-profile policies, policy does seem to move with the tide of public opinion. Yet there are criticisms of this position, which broadly orientate

6

Introduction

around a questioning as to the nature of public opinion, especially as captured in opinion polls. Do polls represent a genuine, or “authentic” public opinion, or do elites, pollsters or others shape this in ways which distort and bend? More profoundly, can we say public opinion exists at all? Do people have clearly formed, consistent and stable attitudes about wide ranges of public policy? The chapter finds that these concerns are well founded. But if we cannot be certain about public opinion, or at least as measured in opinion polls, does this impugn and challenge a key edifice of democratic policymaking? One response to this, found in the work of Susan Herbst (1998) and others, suggests that instead of focusing on public opinion itself, what may be of greater significance is what political elites think about public opinion. After all, it is these actors who make public policy, so how do they think about what the public want? Herbst and others argue that instead of thinking about public opinion as fixed and objective, we might see it instead as a social construction, something which is formed by those who seek to know it. Informed by such an understanding, the book seeks to develop an analytical framework whereby the focus shifts from thinking about whether public opinion shapes policy and more towards assessing the broader relationship between elites and public opinion. How and in what ways do elites come to develop pictures and assessments of public opinion? How important are these assessments to their wider policy and political activities? Such questions form the basis and backbone of the remaining sections of the book. Before directly addressing these questions, Chapter 3 presents an analysis of the information environment about public opinion on counterterrorism for the time period covered by Chapters 4 and 5 (2001–2015). It considers opinion poll data on counterterrorism measures, qualitative data about public attitudes and views of counterterrorism measures and a media content analysis of debates and commentary about counterterrorism. The analysis of polling data suggests that a first glance at polls conducted between 2001 and 2015 might conclude that the public was, at this time, enthusiastic about stringent counterterrorism powers. Reponses to a range of questions appear to find consistent majorities in favour of “strong” counterterrorism powers. Yet as noted in Chapter 2, there may well be framing and question wording effects at play, influencing responses. Many polls are conducted in the wake of terrorist incidents, which might influence the level of support, and questions are sometimes worded in ways which force binary choices, making more nuanced answers impossible. Indeed, polls which do include a wider range of possible responses appear to show a public which is more ambiguously positioned with regard to counterterrorism measures. This is backed up by qualitative data which suggests that, in discursive, social, contexts, individuals can and do change their position when alternative information is presented. Thus, the chapter suggests, public opinion may well be “pro security” (indeed, who is in favour of “insecurity”?) but that there may well be more nuance and even opposition than appears, at first, to be apparent. The chapter concludes with an analysis of media texts from a key policy controversy, the proposal to extend pre-charge detention

Introduction

7

to 90 days, in 2005. Herbst (1998) argues that politicians will on occasions use the media as a proxy for public opinion. Whilst this may be a problematic association or equivalence, the chapter surveys the media landscape to enhance understanding of what kinds of information politicians examined in Chapters 4 and 5, would have had coming from the media. The picture which emerges is a mixed one. High-circulation tabloids like The Sun support strong counterterrorism proposals, but this is not the position of all the media considered, with a range of tabloid and broadsheet media articulating opposition. The chapter suggests that taken together this indicates that this information environment would permit a range of different interpretations of what the public thought about counterterrorism. Chapters 1–3 survey and engage with a wide range of literature and data, from security studies, terrorism studies and the public opinion literature. In doing so, these chapters make two main arguments. The first of these is that public opinion is, or may well be, a significant part of the politics around counterterrorism – but that this relationship has been obscured by disciplinary conventions (security studies tends not to focus on or engage with public opinion) and theoretical precepts (security studies, and particularly securitization theory, tends to focus on elites and their decision-making processes). The second argument is that if we are to take public opinion seriously as an important part of the politics of counterterrorism, we ought to engage with the scholarship around public opinion; doing so leads, this book argues, to a conception of public opinion less as a clearly identifiable and stable phenomenon, ably captured in opinion polls. Rather, a range of work identified in Chapter 2 suggests that public opinion is a social construction; a rather ephemeral thing which is as much created through the act of collection as it is fixed and known. The remaining chapters of this book seek to both develop and substantiate these arguments, by examining the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism in the UK. To do so it studies this relationship empirically, during the period of most intense counterterrorism politics, 2001–2015. There are three parts to this empirical analysis, using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Drawing upon insights from the security as politics approach argued for by Neal (2019), the book also seeks to explore these dynamics by not just focusing on the executive, perhaps the traditional locus of security politics, but more broadly. Also, the book is informed by methodological pluralism. If opinion polls in no small way “create” or construct public opinion as much as measuring them, then assessing the role and influence of public opinion on policy by relying on them creates potential issues. Other studies have sought to quantify this relationship; this book seeks to explore in different ways the nature of the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism, using mainly (although not exclusively) qualitative methods. As such, in Chapter 4, the book analyses Parliamentary legislative debates to assess the extent and nature of references to public opinion in legislative debates about counterterrorism measures – and whether these are similar or different to other policy areas. In other words, is there evidence that Parliamentarians

8

Introduction

discuss public opinion in a security-focused area like counterterrorism in similar or different ways to “normal” policy areas like taxation, welfare and so on? This approach does not tell us definitively whether public opinion is an important part of counterterrorism policy (perhaps contra some variations of securitization theory which would see such policy areas as dominated by elites in a fairly closed decision-making process). Its findings – that Parliamentarians discuss public opinion rarely, but in broadly the same proportion to other areas  – does two things. Firstly, there’s little here to support the notion of counterterrorism as a closed, elite-driven policy area; or more specifically, as a particularly closed, elite-driven policy area. To some extent, the analysis finds that references to public opinion are not a massive part of legislative debates full stop, across all policy areas. Using interview data to triangulate with the discourse analysis, interviewees suggest that the relative lack of references to the public is due to the particular nature and conventions of debating within the House of Commons. There is, therefore, little evidence that counterterrorism is, in this regard, any different to other policy areas. The second contribution is to suggest that public opinion is a part, perhaps a limited part, of the politics of counterterrorism. It’s not possible through this approach, to assess the nature of influence of public opinion in counterterrorism policymaking. But what the analysis does suggest is that public opinion is a part of the debate; that public voices are discussed and debated in broadly the same way as they are in other policy areas. Whilst this does not mean they shape or influence counterterrorism policy outcomes, in some basic (but important) way, public voices are part of the politics of counterterrorism. Chapter 5 seeks to develop and deepen the analysis by examining the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism within the executive branch. Through in-depth qualitative interviews with nine key policymakers from the period 2001–2011 (many of whom were cabinet-level ministers responsible for counterterrorism policy), the chapter examines how these individuals think about public opinion, the extent to which they consider it to be important to counterterrorism policymaking and the ways in which they sought to (in some cases) engage with, and possibly shape, that opinion. Again, this analysis does not allow for (or aim at) decisive judgements as to the influence of public opinion on counterterrorism policy. What it enables the book to do, rather, is understand the relationship and position of public opinion to counterterrorism policy. What analysis of the interviews shows is that public opinion is seen to be crucial for counterterrorism policy, mainly because of its salience. The interviewees attest that for them, the fact that the public was aware of what was going on in counterterrorism policy meant that they couldn’t afford to (a) mess it up or (b) go against what the public wanted. And yet when turning to this issue of what precisely the public want in detailed policy outputs, the interviewees expressed a great deal of uncertainty about this issue. They identify the public as broadly wanting the government to “do something” but express greater uncertainty about what this “something” should be. Faced with this apparent quandary (of wanting to be seen to align

Introduction

9

with a public opinion that they were unsure of in certain key respects) some of the interviewees discuss efforts they made to reach out to the public – but especially the “Muslim community” (problematic term though this is, supposing a singularity that is not warranted) through various activities. In doing so, and particularly in choosing who to speak to and where, the chapter demonstrates how political elites are active participants in shaping public opinion – or at the very least, what counts for them as public opinion. Thus, the chapter finds that political elites exist in a complex relationship with public opinion – they repeatedly point to the centrality of being in accordance with the public on this issue, perhaps more than most issues, but they are also participants in shaping what that public opinion is. Chapters 6 and 7 extend the analysis away from the (narrowly understood) political arena, out to security professionals. Chapter 6 outlines in detail the rationale for including security professionals in an analysis of public opinion and counterterrorism. In broad terms, the argument is that whether through a lens of “street-level bureaucracy”, the Paris School or the developing literature around private security companies, there is a need to think about security politics more broadly than just (narrowly defined) political actors. Security professionals such as the police have significant autonomy at the level of delivery which influences the ways in which counterterrorism policy is experienced on the ground. How do these individuals understand public opinion and their responsibilities and relationships to it? Policing by consent and community policing are important ideas within policing but to what extent do these dynamics play important roles in counterterrorism policing? Police officers interviewed argue that public opinion is something which they are very keen to be aware of, as being so forms a cornerstone of legitimacy claims. But they also feel that they do not slavishly respond to it. Beyond state-level security professionals, private security actors play an increasingly prominent role in the delivery (and in some cases design) of security policy. These actors, ranging from security guards at entertainment venues, private contractors working on counter-extremism and even financial services actors, lack the traditional public ethos which underpins, at least rhetorically, policing. On the surface, private security actors have no responsibility to the public, nor need to take account of what it thinks. Yet through in-depth qualitative interviews with key private security actors, Chapter 7 finds that whilst such individuals and entities engage in the collection of information about public opinion far less than the police (a senior police officer involved in counterterrorism refers to policing as a ‘knowledge industry’), that they are, in certain ways, and at certain moments, both interested in what the public thinks and potentially responsive to it. The main mechanism here is “brand identity”. A number of the security professionals interviewed make the case that if the general public takes a dim view of that company’s activities vis-a-vis counterterrorism – for instance, inadequate protection from terrorism – that such companies are likely to “pay” in a literal sense, and such companies would encounter various negative externalities. As one security professional puts it ‘good security is good business’. Yet, to return

10

Introduction

to the themes of this chapter, both police and private security actors discuss various ways in which they contribute to the shaping of that public opinion, which in a range of ways and at different moments, forms an important part of their counterterrorism work. This ranged from police officers acknowledging that the ways they frame and draft public consultations shape what they get from these, to private sector security professionals (and police) who identify ways in which they consciously seek to shape the public debate about counterterrorism. This echoes the findings of Chapter 5 that the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism is messy and complex; it’s both important to security professionals and their work, but at the same time, it’s understood and recognised that it’s also something which their own activities play a role in shaping.

1

Security and the public

This book explores the relationship between the views and voices of individual citizens and counterterrorism policy in the UK. Later chapters will examine this relationship empirically, by analysing Parliamentary speeches, interviews with key counterterrorism policy makers and security professionals. This empirical material will provide an insight into the ways in which the views of “ordinary” people contribute to both the making and the implementation of counterterrorism politics. As discussed in the Introduction, whilst there are studies which explore how terrorism relates to and affects public opinion and attitudes (Davis and Silver 2004; Kam and Kinder 2007; Mueller and Stewart 2018), this is the first enquiry which looks explicitly at how the former may shape the latter – the ways in which public views inform (or do not) how states have sought to respond to terrorism. Whilst it may seem a strange omission that this issue has hitherto received scant attention, this chapter begins to analyse why this might be the case. A good part of this, the book will argue, is due to the fact that counterterrorism is (mostly) seen to be within the domain of security studies and International Relations (IR). Therefore, as we will see in Chapter 2, whilst political science literatures do explore the significance of citizens’ views for policy outcomes (mainly, but not exclusively through the public opinion literature), security studies and IR have traditionally had less room for individuals’ voices, due to on the one hand, its focus on elites; and on the other IR’s – and particularly realism’s – reluctance, as Hobson notes (2000), to look inside the “black box” of the state. In terms of elitism, as Croft and VaughanWilliams (2017) note, both traditional and critical approaches to security are open to accusations of an elitist bias by focusing on the actions and discourses of politicians and security professionals. The purpose of this chapter is to note this tendency for elitism within security studies, but also to challenge it and in doing so, open up analytical space for a broader range of actors and voices to be included. As later chapters will demonstrate, there is a considerable amount of attention and effort expended by political and security professionals towards the views of individual citizens. But, to put it slightly bluntly, what is going on around these activities? Are such actors responding to the concerns of citizens when drafting and implementing counterterrorism policy? Or is something DOI: 10.4324/9781003244585-2

12 Security and the public

rather different going on, such that political and security professionals are trying to either shape the views of the public, or simply trying to appease and genuflect to such views whilst conducting policy largely according to their own interests? Or perhaps, as the book will argue, something more complex still? The book argues that answering these questions should be of concern to security studies and that at present, the dominant traditions within security studies not only do not answer such questions, but their conceptual and analytical frameworks create a blind spot such that they cannot or do not see these questions. After exploring why this is the case, the chapter goes on to consider three different bodies of literature which help to broaden security studies out, such that the kinds of questions posed earlier, begin to be visible. The first is a literature which seeks to see security not as a kind of anti-politics, but as a deeply politicised activity (Bright 2015; Jarvis and Legrand 2017a; Hegemann 2018; Hagmann et al. 2018; Neal 2019). Here the focus often remains within professional politics, moving the focus from executives to include legislatures, but the chapter points to the ways in which the politicisation of security approach points to a wider still range of actors and spaces for analyses of security politics to consider. The second comes from securitization theory, which has traditionally been dominated by a focus on elites, but the tension within the theory as to the role of the audience does help to begin to think about how we might conceive of how publics and citizens relate to security politics (Salter 2008; McDonald 2008; Côté 2016; Balzacq et al. 2016). Perhaps the most developed account of the position and nature of individuals’ views in security politics comes from the vernacular security studies approach (Bubandt 2005; Jarvis and Lister 2013a; Vaughan-Williams and Stevens 2016; Jarvis 2019). For this approach the ways in which individuals, or “ordinary” people, think about security is front and centre. The chapter argues that it seeks to explore both what people think about security as well as what these kinds of views and voices do within security politics. Taken together, these literatures create space for a deeper consideration of the relationship between the views of individuals and the practice of security politics like counterterrorism. The chapter therefore represents an attempt to push individuals and citizens and their discourses to a more prominent position within analyses of security politics.

Security studies and the elite? The public, their attitudes, views and conceptions of security, are, for many conceptions of security studies, or maybe even IR more broadly (see Sylvester 2013), not an important or significant issue and would generally be considered beyond the scope of enquiry. Aside from some more recent contributions which will be considered below, in broad and general terms, both mainstream and critical security studies have tended to focus on particular groups of elites as the significant actors with regard to security policy and governance.

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[S]ecurity studies in both ‘traditional’ and ‘critical’ guises has for the most part privileged the rhetoric, speech acts and (in)securitizing moves of politicians, policymaking communities, security professionals, private security companies and other elites: the views, cultural repertoires of knowledge and testimonies of the political subject of (in)security remain largely invisible. (Vaughan-Williams and Stevens 2016, p. 40) In many ways, as Neal (2019) notes, the study of security has been focused around sovereign power since Hobbes. The Hobbesian account of security is a significant influence on accounts of security which focus on “exceptionalism”, where sovereign power acts to suspend normal rules. Many contributions to this debate engage with, in some form, Schmitt (1985) and/or Agamben (2004). For the former, Schmitt’s discussion is around the limits of the exercise of political power, focusing on the sovereign as that which decides the exception. Agamben’s work focuses more on the ways in which the exception has become the norm, such that individuals have lost the protection of law and are reduced to “bare life”. For such accounts, the focus lies with the acts/decisions of the sovereign; and where “ordinary” people do figure, they do so as victims of sovereign power. It should be noted, however, that some work seeks to work with a concept of exceptionalism which allows a focus beyond sovereign decision-making. Best (2017) has pointed to the ways in which exceptionalism works through and within, not just outside, legal frameworks (see also Boukalas 2017). Huysmans (2004) also points to exceptionalism as having important dimensions in terms of compressing the time taken to decide on policy and on the way in which “the people” are invoked and positioned. Such a range of exceptional practices reflects a desire to think about exceptionalism beyond a simply exceptional/normal binary. Indeed, Huysmans (2004, p. 330) talks about “varieties of exceptionalism” (see also Neal 2012). Exceptionalism is an influence in the Copenhagen School of securitization, which has proved influential within and without critical security studies. Securitization theory, particularly the Copenhagen, or philosophical approach to securitization (as opposed to more sociological securitization which affords a greater role to social processes by which securitization is accepted, see below), focuses on speech acts and shares exceptionalism’s interest and concern with sovereign or elite declarations of emergency (Neal 2008). This approaches security not as a thing, but rather as a linguistic achievement; security as a discursive moment. It examines the ways in which political actors securitize an issue, which is to say they render it a security issue, delineating the issue as an existential threat, requiring emergency action or special measures. The securitization literature, in its classical form, suggests that when “security” is spoken of by elites, when, that is, an issue becomes securitized, it is removed from the realm of “normal” politics and is dealt with in a different political mode. This results in a move which ‘takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above

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politics’ (Buzan et al. 1998, p. 23). Buzan et al. (1998, p. 29, emphasis added) stress that securitization sees efforts to ‘present an issue as urgent and existential, so important that it should not be exposed to the normal haggling of politics but should be dealt with decisively by top leaders prior to other issues’. The divide between “normal” and securitized politics is seen as core to the theory of securitization. ‘[I]n securitization theory, a differentiation between normal politics and security politics is fundamental’ (Gad and Petersen 2011, p.  319). Huysmans (2011, p.  375) notes this distinction connects securitization and debates around exceptionalism (a la Schmidt and Agamben) Exceptionalist politics . . . draws a sharp distinction between the routine, alienation, reiteration of the everyday and the decisiveness and creativity of the moments of exception – the moments of existential threat. Speech acts of security enact a sharp distinction between the exceptional and the banal, the political and the everyday, the routine and creative. The securitization framework has been the subject of intense debate, commentary and criticism (see, inter alia, McSweeny 1998; Williams 2003; Balzacq 2005; Stritzle 2007; McDonald 2008), but here there are two things I wish to emphasise in this account of security. The first is that security is something spoken by elites and the focus tends to be on these elites, to the exclusion of others. Wæver (1995, p. 57) clearly states this when arguing ‘security is articulated only from a specific place, in an institutional voice, by elites’. Yet others have noted that this focus on elites (and hegemonic identities, such as masculinity) leads to a silencing of non-elites. As McDonald (2008, p. 574) argues ordinary people become ‘at best as part of an audience that can collectively consent to or contest securitizing moves, and at worst as passive recipients of elite discourses’. Similarly, Booth (2007, p. 166) argues that securitization is ‘elitist’ such that ‘those without discourse-making power are disenfranchised, unable to join the securitization game’ (see also Hansen 2000). The second feature of note is that for securitization once an issue is securitized it is not subject to the rules and processes of “normal” politics, but rather a different political mode. The effect of this is to separate security politics from other policy areas, to the extent that models, concepts, and analytical frameworks which seek to explain the content and shape of other areas of policy are not seen to be relevant. Indeed, some see security as “anti-politics”, an elite-led decisionism which eschews the rules and procedures of “normal” politics (e.g. Aradau 2004). Parallel to the separation between normal and security politics is a disciplinary “exceptionalism”. As Andrew Neal (2012) has pointed out, political science has rarely engaged with security issues (or at least, has not framed its concerns in the language of security; one could argue that, for instance, welfare state analyses are concerned with security in its broad sense, but these are rarely cloaked in the language of “security”), leaving these to IR scholars in the main, with the result that there has been little dialogue between political science and IR in terms of the politics of security. Further, public opinion research, as we

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shall see in Chapter 2, is often a domain dominated by quantitative methods, whereas security studies is more influenced by qualitative methods; to the (sub) disciplinary exceptionalism we may also add a methodological exceptionalism. These disciplinary separations along with the prominence of “exceptional” accounts of elite decisions have the effect of pushing security issues into a different academic space beyond that which analyses “normal” politics. In effect this serves to render security studies and security politics isolated and cut off from broader political dynamics and concerns in political science, and British politics more specifically (Neal 2019; see also Slavin 2022 for attempts to bring security studies and securitization into conversation with political science themes such as populism). As Neal notes, the dominant tendency is to see counterterrorism in terms of the sovereign and the exception and therefore to picture security in existential, exceptional terms and dominated by the executive. This he argues ‘creates an analytical blind spot regarding security politics and an incomplete picture of the workings of security’ (Neal 2012, p.  108). Such a framework limits the space which can be given to the voices and views of non-elite actors. In this view, we should not expect “vernacular” or “everyday” conceptions and views on security to play much of a role, or any at all. Security studies, in its mainstream and critical variants, could therefore be seen as a hostile environment for analyses of the role and significance of individuals’ views and attitudes in security politics. Yet despite this, there are, I would argue, three bodies of literature which begin to create analytical space for an account of the role and status of non-elite voices and discourses within security politics. The chapter now moves on to discuss each of these in turn. Firstly, the book examines literature which has sought to render security politics outside of exceptionalist terms. This tendency is represented in two distinct ways, both of which whilst shifting analytical focus from a (sole) focus on sovereign decision-making, do not fully embrace a concept of security which gives room to bring in the views and voices of individual citizens. The socalled “Paris School”,1 for example, criticises a focus on political elites and singular moments of securitization and points, instead, to the significance of both security professionals and routinised, iterative, security practices. Taking a different view is those who argue for the significance of seeing security as a politicised activity (rather than “anti-politics”), or in Andrew Neal’s (2019) terms, to see security as politics. Such accounts, whilst primarily focused on traditional political actors such as Parliaments, create a larger analytical space for security politics to take place in. If, as Neal (2019, p. 33) argues, ‘security can no longer be defined as an anti-politics, as an exception to “normal politics”, as a pathology of politics’ then we might begin to expand the range and breadth of actors and voices which we consider to (potentially) play a part. Thus, we might begin to consider how the voices and discourses of publics, individual citizens and communities might impact on security politics. Indeed, as will be discussed in Chapter 2, within “normal” politics it is something of a given that citizens’ voices shape and contribute to political and policy outcomes. By thinking about security as politics, we can begin to bring (back) into focus the

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potential significances of non-elite voices. Although, as we will see, the above approaches do not quite fully embrace non-elite discourses, albeit for slightly different reasons. For the Paris School, although wider than political elites, security remains something distanced from individual citizens. For the politicisation approach, security moves from (executive) elites to a broader range of actors, such as Parliaments, but this rarely, as yet, goes all the way down to individual citizens and “ordinary” people. A second potential way of thinking about the role and position of individual citizens in security politics and policy, somewhat paradoxically, comes from within securitization theory itself. Although securitization theory is criticised for an elitist focus, elements within this have focused on the audience as important for securitization and security politics, although as we will see, this relationship is subject to debate. The book also argues that this work utilises a thin, underspecified concept of the audience, particularly when thinking about individual citizens and/or the public audience. The final body of literature, and perhaps most significant for the purposes of this book, is the vernacular security literature, which explicitly foregrounds the security discourses and voices of individuals and communities – both in terms of mapping what they are and in terms of thinking about these as constitutive of security politics.

Security as politics The Paris School contributes to a widening focus for security politics. Bigo argues that security politics is not only decided or framed by (sovereign) political decision-makers, but that a broader field of security professionals is also important (Bigo 2008). Security professionals, it is argued, mobilise threats and promote unease through technological processes and self-interest (i.e. the maintenance of budgets for security measures). This broader field and the technology and technocratic processes associated with it, Huysmans argues, in important ways are prior to the decisions of elites; they ‘precede and prestructure political framing in significant ways’ (Huysmans 2006, p.  8). This work entails a criticism of the presentism and decisionism of securitisation theory, arguing that we need to take account of a broader temporality and context and ‘the everyday practices that enact a governmentality of fear and unease’ (Bigo 2014, p. 211). Huysmans (2011, p.  372) contends we should not simply focus on ‘critical decisions’, but also look to the ‘continuous process of assembling objects, subjects and practices’ (ibid., p. 377) which make up the politics around (in)security. His work examines the extent to which securitizing processes are driven less by dramatic, securitising speech acts, as much as they are driven by ‘little security nothings’ – the more “mundane”, “routine” and “ordinary” aspects of security that pervade much of the current security landscape for many western states (ibid., p. 375). Pointing to processes of everyday surveillance, Huysmans contends that rather than seeking to “securitize” through speech acts which rupture the existing mode of security governance (and thus make them visible

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and subject to possible political contestation) many security professionals avoid such acts and seek to “depoliticise” security. Here Huysmans is making one argument against the security/“normal politics” distinction, one which suggests that much of the expansion of the logic of security occurs not through decisive (individual) acts which seek to suspend “normal” politics but rather, such expansion occurs through such normal, routine, and everyday processes. Therefore, rather than focusing on the actions, or utterances of a smaller group of elites, those associated with the Paris School seek to draw attention to the wider, routinised, bureaucratic and technocratic ways in which security is governed (for more on security professionals, see Chapter 6). Whilst, as Andrew Neal (2019) notes, the Paris School is critical of the focus on traditional political actors and their speech acts, it retains a sense in which security is separate from traditional politics. This occurs in two ways. Firstly, its focus on the field of security professionals similarly supplants the institutions of democratic, “normal” politics. Indeed, Bigo asserts that whilst politicians play important roles in security, security professionals occupy a privileged and, in some instances, even a dominant position. ‘Even if national professionals of politics still play a key role in structuring security issues . . . the agencies and bureaus that comprise the world of security are arguably the sole agents able to assert . . . their definition of what inspires unease’ (Bigo 2008, p. 27). Secondly, the Paris School approach similarly sees security, even in its “routine” or “mundane” forms, as something which evades traditional forms of accountability and publicity. These “little security nothings” tend to go unnoticed by the wider body politic and therefore, they remain the preserve of an elite, not a matter of wider (public) debate and contestation. Both security professionals and the political elite often efface decisive acts that open the full register of answerability from the securitizing process. They emphasize the necessity and the technological nature of the process. Decisions are presented as calculations of efficiency and effectiveness. . . . These developments are seen as being particularly successful in effacing security speech acts from the process, circumventing public processes of legitimization and decisionmaking. (Huysmans 2011, p. 378) Therefore, although the Paris School shifts attention from a (sole) focus on sovereign decision-making, its focus on security professionals and the routinised nature of security shares a similar sense in which security politics is closed of from “normal” politics and individuals; it remains an enterprise driven by elites into which citizens have little insight or voice. As Hagmann et al. (2018, p. 8) put it, these kinds of ‘mundane yet inaccessible’ security processes, ‘act on society, not in dialogue with it’. Further criticism of an exclusive focus on sovereign decisionism comes from those who dispute that security possesses any inherent or universal characteristics. Browning and McDonald (2013), for example, suggest that to make the

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claim, as securitization does, that specific things happen around security politics is to essentialise and universalise. They question whether securitization is based on western (European) experiences which ignore or downplay different political configurations the framework itself continues to work with a security – politics dichotomy that may be wholly unfamiliar to those outside liberal democratic states. In a fundamentally illiberal state regime such as Burma or North Korea, for example, what does the language of security do and what does ‘normal politics’ mean? In what ways do different cultural, social and historical contexts determine different security logics, and how do these dynamics look in terms of communities above and below the state? (Browning and McDonald 2013, p. 248) They argue, rather, that there are a multiplicity of security politics rather than a single logic, present at all times for all places. Browning and McDonald, therefore, urge greater attention to the specific contexts in which security is enacted and discussed: ‘greater attention is needed to the varied social, historical and political contexts in which security is constructed’ (Browning and McDonald 2013, p. 241) and that the processes and dynamics thereby uncovered should not be seen as ‘timeless and inevitable’ (ibid., p. 248).2 This attention to context and the specific ways in which security is spoken and enacted has led some scholars to note the dissonance between theories of security like securitisation, which emphasise the predominance of sovereign actors (normally in the executive branch), and the observable dynamics of security in particular, specific contexts. security themes have become more prominent in a wide range of political activities and arenas, including the agendas of parliaments, courts, and NGOs. These have become more vividly debated by parties, civil society groups, newspapers and broadcasters, and are given increasingly polarised and viral spins on social media platforms. . . . These observations go against the accepted scholarly understanding that security is necessarily a domain of sovereign decision, professional prerogative or control technology that marginalises more ‘normal’ forms of (democratic) politics. (Hagmann et al. 2018, p. 4) What such analyses find is that rather than security being marked by exceptionalism and the dominance of a few elite actors, that there are a multiplicity of actors and arenas where security is practiced, often in “routine” and regular ways. Neal (2019, pp. 1–2), for example, argues that the claims of the securitization approach do not seem to fit well with the contemporary experiences and conduct of security politics in the UK.

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In recent years the character and location of “security” has changed . . . whereas “security” was once institutionalised as the anti-political “exception” in liberal democracies . . . it has now permeated “normal” professional political life . . . Security has become part of the activity of politics. The relationship of security to politics can no longer be understood as pathological and exceptional. Security is no longer anti-politics. It is politics. In making this argument, Neal is less interested in refuting securitization theory at a conceptual level, than he is in suggesting that the nature and character of security politics have changed in recent years. Thus, the argument is not that securitization is “wrong” per se, but rather that securitization theory no longer accurately captures the practice and politics of security in western states like the UK in the early 21st century. Security as politics, for Neal, means that instead of security being viewed as in opposition to “normal” politics (itself a contested and potentially problematic term, see Roe 2012) it should be seen very much as part of the regular operation of professional politics. The reasons behind this, for the UK case, Neal argues, are complex. Whereas UK politicians were, particularly in the post-war, Cold War era happy to defer to the executive and not get involved in security matters, by the beginning of the 21st century, Neal argues that this is no longer the case. He cites the controversies around the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, and particularly the way in which intelligence was mobilised, as crucial to the breakdown of trust and deference which has led to greater involvement of politicians in the legislature in security matters. In terms of our present occupations, such an argument moves towards bringing individuals and citizens into analyses of security politics. If, as Neal suggests, individual legislative members who represent specific constituencies of voters are active participants in security politics, and legislative bodies hold hearings, take evidence and write reports, among other activities, the whole process of security politics becomes less closed and much more public and open – and amenable to engagement with the views and voices of “ordinary” people. Yet there remains the suspicion of a residual attention to and focus on elites. Neal (2019, p. 33) argues that the shift to a more open and public security politics is not complete, such that ‘the legacy of old security politics still exerts an influence’. He states, therefore, that whilst the character and range of actors involved in this elite game have broadened, security as politics is still an elite game: ‘It is an elite politics conducted within and between the ministries of Whitehall and the debating chambers and committee rooms of Westminster’ (Neal 2019, p.  32). Whilst later Neal (2019, p.  270) does note the potential within a security as politics approach for ‘increased mobilisation for and against security policies by NGOs, campaigners and community groups’, this remains unexplored in any detail, leaving an ambiguity about the significance and importance of such voices. Further work has also pointed to the ways in which Parliaments are significant actors in security politics. Wagner et al. (2017) consider the influence of party politics and competition on security and defence policy, finding that there

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exists a vital and contested politics around security at the party level. Bright analyses Parliamentary debates on security issues (broadly conceived) between 2007 and 2012. His findings buck the expected trend of executive dominance in security matters, such that ‘parliament if anything appears to conduct more scrutiny than it would on an ordinary piece of legislation’ (Bright 2015, p. 586). Jarvis and Legrand (2017a) examine the ways in which executive powers of proscription, or banning, of organisations deemed to be terrorists, is subject to scrutiny by the UK Parliament. Reflecting both Huysmans concerns with routinised security practices and studies of the audience in securitization (see below), their work emphasises the significance of the legislatures’ recurrent, piecemeal interventions. Other examples include Hegemann’s (2018) analysis of the German Parliament’s scrutiny and oversight of intelligence agencies, finds dispute, debate and political contestation around an issue, intelligence, often seen as one of the more secretive and closed security policy areas. Seeking to frame much of this work on Parliaments and security politics, Hagmann et al. (2018) argue that security politics is a broader, more plural field of activity than accounts such as securitization allow. Working with the concept of politicisation, they argue that security politics exhibits more dispute and debate than accounts such as securitization would be willing to make room for. Exploring the politicisation of security involves assessing levels of debate and dispute about an issue among a diverse range of actors, examining how salient or visible a given security issue is to the wider public and identifying the range of actors and groups that mobilise around the issue. Anticipating a theme which will be discussed further below, Hagmann et al. (2018, p.  14) point to the way in which citizens and publics are explicitly brought into security governance as something which invites further analysis of such groups, and that therefore ‘the degree to and kind in which citizens and their views are involved in the policy process matters’. This work both pushes the conceptual boundaries of where security politics happens, and who gets to participate in it. There is obviously a relationship between the two dynamics; as security spills over into a wider range of arenas, there is an increase in the visibility of the issue and the range of actors and groups who can engage with the issues. Hagmann et al. (2018, pp. 18–20) point to the example of controversies and debates around the Swiss security strategy in the late 1990s and early 2000s as an example of where citizens actively campaigned around security issues and influenced policy outcomes. This book seeks to further explore the space which these kinds of interventions create, to explore the ways in which citizens’ voices on security issues are heard (or not) and how policymakers, and security professionals, make sense of such demands from below.

Audiences in security politics As mentioned earlier, there is a debate and ambiguity within securitization theory as to whether the decisive moment of securitization lies in the utterance of the speech act, or when a relevant audience accepts the legitimacy of such

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a speech act. And as Balzacq (2019, p.  334) points out, ‘studies of securitization differ markedly on whether they emphasize audience or speech acts’. This tension between the act (of speech) and the process (of audience acceptance) is well framed by Côté (2016, p. 542, original emphasis) One implies a single, definitive instance of security definition, while the other implies a longer and more indefinite security construction procedure. The basic logic is as follows: One cannot argue that the speaking of security creates a threat and that an intersubjective understanding of the issue as a security threat must be established before it can be perceived as such. This is an extensive debate within securitization theory and it is beyond the remit of this chapter to decisively adjudicate on this (compare Balzacq 2005; Buzan et al. 1998; Buzan and Wæver 2009; McDonald 2008; Stritzlel 2007). For the present, it is sufcient to note that those who see the acceptance of an audience as crucial create analytical space for non-elite actors to, in the words of Booth (2007) noted earlier, join the securitization game. Accounts of securitization that emphasise audience reception render securitization intersubjective and therefore crucially dependent on how groups other than those making the securitizing move, respond to, understand, and interpret such a speech act. McDonald (2015, p. 159), pointing to the role of the audience, argues that the efects of securitizing moves ‘vary according to the diferent discourses of security that underpin the way particular issues are conceptualized and addressed by diferent political communities’. Yet a number of scholars have argued that the role and position of the audience within securitization theory are ‘radically underdeveloped’ (Williams 2011, p. 213), ‘inconsistent and at times nonexistent’ (Côté 2016, p. 542) such that securitization is a theory which ‘ignores the audience’ (Balzacq 2005, p. 177). Giving emphasis to the role of the audience in security politics does not automatically make analytical room for considering the ways in which voices of individual citizens or “ordinary” people play into security politics (or, indeed, as the book shall explore in subsequent chapters, how public views and voices are constructed). Firstly, audiences need not be ones of individual citizens or “ordinary” people. Salter (2008) argues that there are multiple audiences, pointing to popular, elite, technocratic and scientific audiences, each with its own distinctive aspects. And Balzacq et al. (2016, p.  500) argue that despite there being a potential multiplicity of audiences, this should not obscure the ‘enabling’ audience whose consent is vital to the securitizing move. In this case, it might be a legislative assembly that is considered the ‘enabling’ audience. This would suggest that whilst present in the securitization game, the public audience plays a minor role. Yet whilst individual citizens may not always, or even often, be the ‘enabling’ audience, the relationship between them and the enabling audience is important (Léonard and Kaunert 2011; Balzacq et al. 2016).

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Secondly, the way in which the audience is conceptualised in securitization theory is one which often renders audiences as passive recipients of securitization moves which happen elsewhere. One variation on this would be Oren and Solomon (2015), who view the audience less as passive observers and more as participants in a ritualised spectacle, who in repeating ambiguous, securitizing phrases like “WMD”, “chant along” in a similar way to attendees at things like rock concerts. Yet even here, there is little agency; the participation is to a script authored by others. By contrast, Côté (2016) argues that the audience needs to be not only emphasised but reconceptualised. However, while external audiences are portrayed as central to the production of shared security meanings, they are analytically excluded from actively participating in the production process, which raises questions concerning how truly intersubjective these theoretical interpretations actually are. In much of the theoretical work, it is as if securitization is happening to the audience. . . . This creates a perception of securitization as a linear, straightforward event, in which securitizing actors speak at (or act towards) the audience rather than engage with the audience. (Côté 2016, p. 551) This results in a view of the audience as ‘agents without agency’ (ibid.) and lies in contrast to empirical work in the broad securitization field, Côté notes. In this literature, he argues that ‘securitizing actors and audiences engage in repeated, contextually situated interactions . . . [and] audiences actively engage in the securitization process’ (ibid.) Yet this work which does examine the active role of non-elite audiences often works with a limited conceptualisation of such voices. For example, Salter (2008) presents an otherwise nuanced and complex analysis of how securitizing moves surrounding Canadian aviation security were understood, received, supported and/or contested by various audiences. As well as elite, technocratic and scientific, he includes an analysis of the “popular” audience and how they responded to these particular securitizing moves. Yet the consideration of the popular audience mainly covers media reports along with broader assertions about popular pressure and public criticism, but little direct evidence is mentioned as to what these comprised or direct testimony or information about how these were understood and received by this wider public. Accounts of audiences’ roles within securitization which do make more direct and explicit reference to public views, voices and attitudes can be found in the work of Roe (2008) and Hayes (2012). Roe traces the ways in which the UK government sought to mobilise support for the UK’s participation in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Citing a number of opinion polls, Roe argues that views and voices of the public, represented through opinion polls taken contemporaneously, were important, but not determining factors in the UK government’s ultimate decision to participate. Hayes analyses the Nixon administration’s actions with regard to India during the 1971 Bangladesh War. He argues that whilst Nixon and national security advisor Henry Kissinger perceived

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India as a threat at this time, they were constrained at least in part by US public opinion. Hayes cites the limited opinion poll data available at the time on this question3 and supplements this with extracts from letters to major newspapers. Hayes (2012, p. 84) openly acknowledges that this data is ‘far from systematic’ and uses the evidence as supportive rather than dispositive. (It is interesting, for what will be considered in Chapter 2, to note that Roe and Hayes analyses represent two different positions with regard to the salience or prominence of the issue. In the case of the Iraq war in the UK, the issue had an extremely high salience, dominating media, political and public debates around 2003. Hayes’ analysis represents a case of low issue salience, where much of the US public was unaware or uninformed about the issue. As will be discussed in the next chapter, the visibility or salience of an issue is seen to be significant for both the robustness of public opinion and its impacts.) There is an issue, I would argue, with the way in which public views are brought into securitization analyses in these instances. Put simply, there is a tendency to treat the public audience as possessing “authentic” or genuine views or attitudes, which can be captured through instruments such as opinion polls. As will be argued in Chapter 2, this is a view which much positivist research on public opinion is content to work with, but which has been subject to considerable critique within and without public opinion research. Scholars have referred to “public opinion” as quantified in opinion polls as a “fiction” (Herbst 1998). Using such polls as a proxy for the views of the public, therefore, sits somewhat at odds with the broadly post-positivist bent of the securitization literature; a positivist bolt-on to a post-positivist framework. Security is treated as a complex intersubjective category, but the conceptualisation of “the public” used in these kinds of analysis is one which some would see as crude and problematic. As we shall see in Chapter 2, some research in political science conceptualises “public opinion” as a creation, a construction. Herbst (1998, p. 2), for example, sees public opinion as ‘contested’ and ‘malleable’. The book in subsequent chapters seeks to explore the ways in which political actors and security professionals seek to mobilise and understand the views of the public, and in doing so, serve to create and shape public opinion, rather than simply responding to a pre-given, fixed and stable “public opinion”. In sum, whilst Côté (2016) argues that securitization should do two things with regard to audience; to give them more attention and to grant audiences greater agency in securitization and security politics, we might perhaps add a third injunction. Studies of the politics of security should perhaps think about the audience (and how we capture its diversity, openness and contingency) in more sophisticated and complex terms, especially if we are thinking about the public audience. As will be discussed in the next chapter, how publics come to form views, which views politicians listen to – even whether one thinks the public possess views – are all important questions. An account of security politics which takes public views, for example, as expressed in opinion polls, as endogenous, fixed and given, is arguably missing much of the politics around such issues.

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(It should be noted here that the foreign policy literature has for some time considered the role of citizens and public opinion; e.g. Risse-Kappen 1991; Powlick 1995; Foyle 1997; Kertzer and Zeitzoff 2017. This literature will be examined more closely in Chapter 2, for although it could be considered as cognate to security studies, it has a great deal in common with the broader political science literature on responsiveness which will be considered in the next chapter.)

Towards a vernacular security studies Thus far the chapter has made two arguments. The first is that security studies in both its mainstream and critical guises often has little analytical room for the views, voices and perspectives of individual citizens, or public opinion more broadly. Security studies more often than not seem to consider security as something which elites do. The second is that notwithstanding this first point, there are elements of security studies which do point to a broader way of thinking about security. The Paris School, with its focus on security professionals and the routine, even mundane, ways in which security is enacted and performed shifts attention away from the “exceptional” acts of sovereign power which tend to dominate security studies. Calls for a politicisation approach to security, on the other hand, also point to a wider range of activities, persons and arenas to be considered as part of security practice. Yet both of these retain a residual, latent elitism. In the case of the Paris School, one might argue that the political elite is replaced by a technocratic elite and that whilst its attention to routine security practices broadens the focus in one sense, such “little security nothings” are (perhaps by design) beyond the purview and attention of individual citizens, thus still leaving them out of security. For the politicisation approach, the broadening goes only so far, to include other political actors, mainly legislative bodies. There remains a sense that security politics is not the domain of individuals and communities beyond the formal political sphere. And whilst audience studies within securitization delineate a space for “ordinary” people to play a part in security politics, it is perhaps an undernourished and underspecified space. What is needed is a richer understanding of both how individuals’ voices and views are heard, understood and mobilised and that such discourses be granted, at least potentially, more agential room to shape policy and not simply be passive respondents. To arrive at this, one needs, I would argue, to engage with the voluminous literature on public opinion, which is the focus of the next chapter. But prior to that, the chapter concludes by examining the body of security scholarship which most explicitly grants significance to the role of individuals and citizens, what some have termed vernacular security studies. Vernacular security studies place front and centre the discourses of “ordinary” people. This literature itself builds on trends and dynamics, some within security studies and some without to arrive at this juncture. Jarvis (2019) points to at least six streams of influence for vernacular security studies. He notes that

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the impulse to allow those more from the margins to “speak” is an impulse that has a much longer heritage, not least in feminist and postcolonial scholarship. In terms of the former, Lene Hansen (2000), from within the securitization approach, has pointed to the ways in which women’s gender can lead to restrictions and limitations on the ability to “speak security” and the need therefore, to consider a broader range of subjectivities and experiences to inform security and securitization analyses. Cynthia Enloe’s (2011, 2014) work has emphasised how the mundane or “everyday” is a crucial facet of international politics and security studies. Reflecting on the feminist adage “the personal is political”, she argues that power operates in and through the spaces of ordinary life. Interestingly, and something that will be returned to below, Enloe (2014, p.  447) points out that feminists’ attention to the mundane or everyday is not simply an exercise in cartography or raising the profile of women’s voices and experiences. In asserting that “the personal is political,” feminist analysts were claiming that the kinds of power that were created and wielded – and legitimized – in these seemingly “private” sites were causally connected to the forms of power created, wielded and legitimized in the national and inter-state public spheres. In other words, examining the spaces, voices and experiences of women/the “private” is important for the ways in which these influence and structure the social, political and economic world. Postcolonial critiques argue that IR and security studies have functioned with a Eurocentrism which focuses on “great power” dynamics, whilst obscuring and ignoring the experiences of much of the world’s population. [S]ecurity studies provides few categories for making sense of the historical experiences of the weak and the powerless who comprise most of the world’s population . . . a Eurocentric security studies regards the weak and the powerless as marginal or derivative elements of world politics. (Barkawi and Laffey 2006, p. 332) Therefore, postcolonial approaches to security studies have sought to foreground the experiences of “the weak” and those voices marginalised by a traditional focus on western states (see also Kinnvall and Nesbitt-Larking 2009; Bilgin 2010). The influence of such bodies of scholarship on vernacular security studies is clear. Within security studies itself, Jarvis points to the influence of human security, the Welsh school of security studies, ontological security and “everyday” security (see also Croft and Vaughan-Williams 2017). Attention to the idea of human security originated with the publishing of the UNDP report in 1994, which set out a number of basic, universal, human needs which all humans share and in doing so, (re)focused attention on the human subject as the

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referent object of security. Similarly, the Welsh school of security studies seeks to orientate around sources of human insecurity (Booth 1991, 2007). Here, security is a desirable, if perhaps never fully unattainable, means to other ends; something which allows individuals to live life as they choose. The framework of ontological security, prominently associated with the work of Laing (1960) and Giddens (1991), has been used to explore the ways in which the dynamics of international politics have impacted upon the ability of individuals to maintain or develop a stable sense of self, and hence their security (see Huysmans 1998; Croft 2012). All three of these literatures, whilst distinct and different, share a desire to turn away from a sole or exclusive focus on the actions of states and/or elites, and reorientate instead around the individual and their experiences and discourses of (in)security. Attention to “everyday” security is slightly different in that it eschews an explicit focus on individual experiences and appeals more, instead, to the routine or even banal and shares an affinity with some of the work of the Paris School noted earlier. There are in turn a number of influences to such approaches from Billig’s (1995) banal nationalism which examines the routine, “everyday” ways in which nations are (re)produced, through to Hobson and Seabrook’s (2007) work in IPE, which in a similar way to vernacular security studies, seeks to explore the ways in which the everyday plays a significant role in the global economy. Despite there being a certain definitional ambiguity around the “everyday” (Jarvis 2019; Vaughan-Williams and Stevens 2016), the literature here draws attention away from exceptional politics. This literature does not, per se, delineate a focus on individuals’ own discourses and understandings of security, but, as with the Paris School, it does contribute to the move away from an exclusive focus on the actions of political and security elites. To these conceptual/theoretical streams of influence for vernacular security studies might be added a more empirical influence. A number of scholars have noted and analysed the ways in which governments have increasingly sought to involve citizens in the architecture of security governance (which itself might be seen as part of the broader, deeper ways in which neoliberal governance seeks to responsibilise a range of actors beyond the state. See 6 et al. 2010; Clarke 2005; Rose 1999; Garland 1996). Jarvis and Lister (2010) note the ways in which governments increasingly appeal to their own citizens to participate in the provision of security, terming this “stakeholder security”. Nick Vaughan-Williams (2008) coins his own term of the “citizen detective” to capture this, pointing to a range of ways in which governmental bodies actively encouraged people to engage with counterterrorism policing. The “If you see something, say something” type of messages on public transport are paradigmatic examples of these kinds of invitations. Further, the Prevent statutory duty which legally enjoins around 3 million public sector workers to be aware of, and report on, potential “radicalisation” (Heath-Kelly 2017) makes it clear that the provision of security is no longer considered the preserve of a select few “security professionals” but is a much wider concern (this extending of policing functions can also be seen in immigration policy, and the “hostile

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environment” policy, where landlords have been positioned in such a way as to act as border officials. See Mckee et al. 2021). Yet such bringing of citizens into security governance goes further than simply opportunistically using the public as “eyes and ears” for police forces. As Vaughan-Williams and Stevens (2016) note, citizens are increasingly incorporated into strategic planning for security governance such as the UK’s National Security Strategy. The 2015 National Security Strategy (HM Government 2015, p. 81, emphasis added) itself makes explicit and clear reference to the views of the public being important: ‘In developing this strategy, we sought the views of external experts, our allies and the public . . . We received around 2,000 contributions from members of the public’. The extent to which these views from the wider public were in any way influential in crafting the strategy is unclear (see discussion below). These kinds of initiatives raise the profile of citizens within security politics. As VaughanWilliams and Stevens (2016, p.  41) point out, ‘relatively little is known about how citizens conceptualize and experience “threat” and “(in)security”’ – and to some extent, vernacular security studies seek to fill that gap. Taken together, these different streams all contribute in some way to the emergence of vernacular security studies. Yet what precisely do such studies find in their probing of how individuals think about and conceive of security and associated threats? And what, if anything, do such voices and discourses “do”? Are these just of “academic” interest, or do vernacular conceptions of security produce effects – do things? The chapter turns now to each of these questions in turn. The answer, particularly to the latter question, set important and significant frames for the arguments to come later in the book.

Vernacular security: what is it and what does it do? There are, I would argue, two questions which particularly animate research on vernacular security. The first is to address the basic question – how do people or communities think about security? This could be framed as a genealogical or topographical agenda – to uncover and map discourses (including absent or silenced voices/discourses). The second question is what happens when people speak or use these languages of security. Whilst to some extent, I would argue that all the vernacular security literature, to varying degrees, addresses both of these questions, in particular instances, as we shall see below, one or other of these questions may be emphasised. To some extent, these differences are one of research design. Some work, for example, specifically aims to “uncover” and render visible that which has been overlooked. Jarvis and Lister explicitly work with a “broadening” framework, to supplement the top-down nature of much security studies literature and ‘to offer a fuller genealogy of how and by whom security is spoken, performed and experienced away from the elites that typically capture constructivist attention’ (Jarvis and Lister 2013a, p.  162). Other analyses might see (vernacular) security as the thing to be explained. In the Shifting Securities project, which produced a number of important outputs which discuss how individuals think

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about security (Gillespie 2007; Gillespie and O’Loughlin 2009), the focus was on how the changing post-9/11 security environment and particularly the Iraq war 2003, had altered ‘concepts and perceptions of security in UK civil society’ (Gillespie 2007, p.  276). Similarly, as we shall see below, for other work, vernacular security is used as the thing which helps to explain or understand other processes or dynamics. The term “vernacular security” was first used by Bubandt (2005). He argues that security is a diverse and contested concept and that different people in different places, at different times, develop different conceptions of security. A key part of his argument is that different understandings of security (often located at different spatial scales) interact to produce particular effects. His own fieldwork in Indonesia demonstrates how different conceptions of security, from traditional, local discourses of tradition and ritual, through to national and global, interact and intersect. ‘[T]hey each contain their own contradictions, but also that they – far from being isolated cultural constructions – constantly interact with and affect each other’ (Bubandt 2005, p. 292). George points to these kinds of interaction effects, and in doing so, emphasises the performative effects of vernacular security. Her work in Fiji traces the ways in which localised institutions like the church promulgate particular understandings of threat and security which shape the way in which state policies on gender are implemented. In particular, George (2017) argues that the defence and protection of “traditional” gender roles and family structures has fused with a historic, enduring sense of Fiji as a place of insecurity, to see gender progressive social and policing policies along with behaviours or identities which go against traditional gender roles (e.g. homosexuality and/or sex workers) to be particularly threatening to Fiji and its continuation as a nation. There is here perhaps less attention paid to mapping the entirety of the diversity of security discourses in Fiji and more attention paid to the performative and constitutive power of particular local, vernacular security discourses. Jarvis and Lister (2013a) analyse how diverse groups of individuals across the UK understand the idea of security. Through focus group research in cities across the UK, they identify a sixfold typology of vernacular concepts of security expressed by their respondents. These range from ideas of security as (perhaps predictably) survival, through to less obvious understandings of security as freedom, or equality or hospitality. They state, ‘At the risk of stating the self-evident, our empirical research indicates considerable heterogeneity in public conceptions of security across the UK’ (Jarvis and Lister 2013a, p. 167). At the same time, though, there is also attention paid to the constitutive functions of such discourses – ‘things happen when it is employed’ (Jarvis and Lister 2013a, p.  169). They argue that these vernacular discourses of security (can) represent attempts by the speaker to assert their subjectivity (‘to carve out and express one’s relations to the external world’ Jarvis and Lister 2013a, p.  170) and/or to express empathy, whereby individuals expressed an awareness of the plurality of security discourses and how (in)security can be experienced differently by different people.

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In related work, Stevens and Vaughan-Williams also sought to explore how the UK public understand security. In addition to qualitative, focus groupbased research, they also conducted quantitative research, using questionnaires to gauge the distribution of conceptions of security. They found that the dominant understanding was one around personal, physical safety, followed by ideas of security as the absence of threats. Interestingly, echoing the work of Jarvis and Lister (and perhaps supporting ideas of human security) access to health care, education and resources for well-being was one of the next most commonly chosen – higher indeed than more militarised, state-based ideas (Stevens and Vaughan-Williams 2016, pp. 65–67). As with Jarvis and Lister, the effects of such vernacular conceptions of security are primarily looked to in terms of how they shape individuals’ own subjectivities and behaviours. In this instance, Stevens and Vaughan-Williams point to considerable variation and heterogeneity in effects of security perceptions on political attitudes and behaviours. This is underpinned by the concern that citizens who feel more threatened tend to adopt less liberal, less democratic political attitudes and behaviours (see Huddy et al. 2007; Kam and Kinder 2007). In terms of wider, state-level influence, they conclude that state actors have not really included such voices within strategic security planning. Despite the centrality of the citizen in successive National Security Strategies and an increasing emphasis on dialogue and inclusion in the rhetoric of UK national security policy, governments have not sought to listen to or incorporate the views of diverse publics. (Stevens and Vaughan-Williams 2016, p. 160) Whilst noting that many of the discourses and views of security which they encountered are reflective of dominant security framings, they argue that some vernacular conceptions of security may be disruptive of dominant security frames, through citizen contestation and advocacy (Vaughan-Williams and Stevens 2016. See also Jarvis and Lister 2013b). Similar emphasis on “uncovering” vernacular security can be found in the work of Huff (2017), in her analysis of how the people of the Mikea Forest in Madagascar think about security. This identifies the local concept of “velomanpò”, which refers to livelihood and encapsulates material aspects such as money and resources, but which is also broader than this, encompassing social networks and family relationships. Huff (2017, p. 162) posits the concept of “velomanpò” functions as a form of vernacular security. Again, whilst the emphasis is on uncovering and representing vernacular conceptions of security, Huff ’s work also emphasises that this concept does have a performative/ constitutive force, such that it structures and influences, in conjunction with or opposition to environmental security discourses of state actors. A final example of the kind of exploratory, genealogical tendency within vernacular security studies lies in Fisher and Leonardi’s (2021) exploration of the ways in which spiritual beliefs and practices might be seen as part of

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security. They argue that spiritual insecurity represents, in many parts of the world (including secular contexts), a significant concern for many people. Their own fieldwork, in Uganda, uncovers a range of ways of thinking about security which range from “orthodox” security issues such as conflict to more ‘quotidian’ (Fisher and Leonardi 2021, p.  391) issues like disease and crime. Also present, though, were discourses which invoked spiritual threats and concerns, which included God, religious belief and spirits, benign or otherwise – and these were frequently interlaced with the orthodox and quotidian issues. In terms of the performative or constitutive functions of such vernacular discourses of spiritual (in)security, Fisher and Leonardi point to the disruptive and challenging nature of such views. Spiritual (in)security challenges conventional understandings of security as something which requires action (often, but not always, by the state) and of the very nature of the state and its relationship to the governance of security. It is interesting to note, by way of a short summary, the diversity of both conceptions of security and of what such vernacular discourses do. To echo Jarvis and Lister’s point noted earlier, security means a great many things to many different people. In terms of its effects or constitutive and performative functions, research variously points to the shaping of state-level policy in some places (and also, the absence of such influence in others), impacts on individuals’ own subjectivities and attitudes, as well as structuring conflict situations. The literature therefore points to considerable heterogeneity in terms of not only how different people think about security but also the varying influences and effects that such discourses have in specific and particular contexts. It is this latter insight, in particular, which this book seeks to develop. The views about security – vernacular security – are not only of “academic” interest. These discourses, as I have noted, have effects from the level of individual subjectivity right through to state policy. Yet it might be argued that whilst this body of research sees these vernacular discourses as complex conjunctions which can exert significant influences on the politics and experiences of security, what is lacking is a richer account of how and in what ways political and security professionals come to appreciate, understand and make use of these. In other words, whilst vernacular security points to the richness and variations within the discourses, their constitutive function is either folded back into the subjectivity of the individual who holds such views (e.g. Vaughan-Williams and Stevens 2016; Jarvis and Lister 2013a) or if there is a constitutive effect on outside bodies, this is asserted in relatively opaque ways. The mechanisms by which vernacular security discourses impact on wider, external processes, therefore, is underspecified. This is problematic as vernacular security discourses are neither self-evident nor exogenous to these political processes. What people think is deeply shaped by the politics taking place. What this book seeks to argue is that vernacular security discourses are important to security politics but that this relationship is complex, multidirectional and constitutive – not simply a one-way causal flow. Rather, elites are deeply implicated in the construction of these discourses, both at a societal

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level, through shaping what comes to be known as “public opinion” but also in shaping what individuals at an intersubjective level come to see as their own views and attitudes. But to fully develop this account, there is a need to first consider the wide and voluminous literature on public opinion, to which the book now turns.

Conclusion This chapter has sought to do two things. The first is to explain the traditional silence of security studies, both mainstream and critical, in terms of the voices and views of individuals within security politics. The chapter has examined the ways in which security has tended to be seen as the prerogative and domain of sovereign elites. The second aim of the chapter was to explore the bodies of literature which begin to move away from such an elitist framing of security. These literatures, from the Paris School, politicisation of security approaches, the role of audiences in securitization theory and vernacular security all in different ways make arguments that there are important and significant actors, processes and institutions beyond the elite. In terms of individual citizens, the views of “ordinary” people, these approaches vary on the extent and the type of significance these are granted. Vernacular security studies offer perhaps the most developed conception of the relationship between the discourses of the lay public and security politics. Yet its sense of how such discourses relate to the wider body politic, I have argued, is perhaps underdeveloped. Vernacular security discourses are intimately related to broader political dynamics. To more fully appreciate this, a closer consideration of public opinion research is needed.

Notes 1 Bigo (a key figure in the so called Paris School) and McCluskey (2018) have guarded against the reification of such “schools” (e.g. Paris, Copenhagen, Welsh) on the grounds that such distinctions obscure commonalities and overlaps. 2 For an even stronger argument about the Eurocentrism – and more – of securitization theory, see the controversy around “Is securitization racist?” Howell and RichterMontpetit (2020), Hansen (2020), Wæver and Buzan (2020). 3 Interestingly, particularly for arguments to follow in Chapter 2, Hayes notes a significant amount of “no opinion” positions in this polling data. This is, Hayes argues, at least in part because the public were being asked about a hypothetical situation – Nixon did not pursue more strenuous action. Had he done so, the public mood or view might have been clearer, but in the absence of this, many people simply did not have a view.

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Exploring public opinion Beyond responsiveness

Introduction Chapter 1 analysed the (relative) silence of security studies as to the ways in which the views or voices of “ordinary” people shape or contribute to security politics. Yet, as pointed to in the Introduction, public opinion and public voices are seen by many to be important factors in the politics of counterterrorism; indeed, for some, such voices are an important, crucial, factor in counterterrorism taking the form that it has done. In simple terms, some such as Mueller and Stewart (2018) see public opinion as the primary driver of counterterrorism policy. If security studies offers only limited ways to analyse the relationship between what citizens, the public, think about terrorism and counterterrorism and policy outputs, what of the political science literature? As this chapter will demonstrate, the relative silence of security studies on these questions stands in stark contrast to the vibrant literature within political science that explores the ways in which citizens and public opinion relate to policy outcomes. This chapter explores this literature and its diversity. The analytical framework which emerges from this exploration is that we might see public opinion less as a “thing” which is “out there”, shaping and determining political choices but more as something which is created, constructed and deeply imbricated in the very political processes where policy is produced, as a social fact rather than a material fact. Thus, instead of seeing public opinion as external to political and policy processes, it is perhaps more, simultaneously, the outcome of those political processes, as well as something which drives and shapes them. In democracies, it is an article of faith that at some level and in some ways, the content of public policy should reflect the will of the people. Key (1961, p.  7) puts this forcefully. ‘Unless mass views have some place in the shaping of policy, all the talk about democracy is nonsense’. Yet behind this familiar proposition lie many difficult questions such as what we mean by (and how we conceptualise and measure) public opinion, whether politicians should always follow public opinion (or sometimes use their own judgement/expertise) as well as issues around the precise ways in which such influence occurs, or even if it occurs at all. DOI: 10.4324/9781003244585-3

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As we will see through this chapter, much of the debate about the ways in which “the will of the people” shapes policy outcomes is conducted in the language of “public opinion”. Which is to say the question is often (although not always) framed in terms of “does public opinion shape policy?” Before assessing these debates and what they may say for issues and questions as to the relationship between the views of ordinary people and counterterrorism policy, it is vital to pause to consider the concepts of “public opinion” and “representation”. As the chapter will make clear, the ambiguities around the concept of “public opinion” are crucially important. Whilst for some the conceptualisation and measurement of public opinion is a relatively straightforward, technical, enterprise, others raise a series of concerns and issues which pose significant challenges to such a view. Further, to speak of the influence of public opinion on policy is to come up against debates and concepts of representation – in both normative and empirical senses. Different models of representation have very different normative views as to the appropriateness of public opinion (however understood) influencing policy outcomes. And whilst it is possible for academics to separate empirical analyses of whether it does from normative arguments about whether it should, for political elites, these two things are much more tightly bound up. The views of political elites as to whether public opinion should influence policy shape their dispositions and actions as to whether public opinion does shape policy. Following these discussions, the chapter will then examine a range of different arguments and positions as to whether public opinion does influence policy. This is often conceptualised in terms of responsiveness, the extent to which political elites are responsive to public opinion. The first thing to note is that the mainstream literature on responsiveness paints a complex, nuanced picture. This is encapsulated in Burstein’s (2003, p. 29) comment ‘No one believes that public opinion always determines public policy; few believe it never does’. The chapter then goes on to consider five criticisms of those who argue that policy is, at times, responsive to public opinion. The first is to note that the responsiveness literature tends to focus on higher profile areas, ignoring the question of what happens in less prominent areas. Secondly, the responsiveness literature depends upon political elites knowing what public opinion is, in a reasonably accurate manner. But what if they don’t? The third and fourth critiques focus around correlation/causation; do political elites mould public opinion to conform to their own political priorities; and to what extent are any symmetries between polling and policy outcomes due to policy shaping public opinion? The final critique is the most trenchant, summed up in the (in)famous phrase of Bourdieu’s (1979), that public opinion does not exist. Despite the rather broad brush of this phrase, there are actually a number of different versions of this argument. All tend to focus on the relationship between public opinion and opinion polls. Some point to technical issues and problems with polling techniques, such as the phenomena of “non attitudes” where respondents express views on non-existent things, to suggest that opinion polls do not accurately or fully capture public opinion. Others push the argument further

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and argue that polls can never represent public opinion, either because the individualised nature of an opinion poll misses the essential “public-ness” of public opinion, or because people do not always have opinions on issues, such that the responses given to opinion polls do not represent stable, pre-formed attitudes. For such a position, polls are less accessing pre-existing views and opinions, as much as they are creating them through polling itself. Clearly, such a position poses profound challenges for the idea of responsiveness. If public opinion “does not exist” (in any of these senses) then it becomes deeply problematic to see policy as responsive to it. The chapter concludes by examining one response to this challenge. Susan Herbst (1998) argues that seeing public opinion as a social construction (rather than as something with an objective, pre-given and fixed nature which polls neutrally harvest), reframes the object of enquiry, to focus less on to what extent public opinion (however conceptualised or measured) shapes public policy, and more towards questions like “how do political elites come to conceptualise public opinion?” It is, to invoke Hollis and Smith’s (1990) classic distinction, a focus on understanding, rather than explanation. Herbst’s empirical work examines how state-level politicians pick and choose from different available sources of information to construct a “public opinion”. This work shifts analytical focus from “does policy respond to public opinion” and more towards what is the relationship between political elites and public opinion? How do elites come to understand it; what do they do with it; and what role do they play in constructing it? It is these questions and approaches which the book seeks to take forward into its examination of the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism policy in the UK.

Defining public opinion As Herbst notes, the term “public opinion” does not formally enter into usage until the 18th century, but concern with what the public thinks has a much older heritage, such that ‘understanding the sentiment of common people is a chronic desire of leaders and citizens alike, no matter the form of government, nation in question, or moment in history’ (Herbst 2012, p. 19). A crucial point of difference with regard to the concept of public opinion is whether the concept is aggregative or collective. In other words, does the concept of public opinion refer to an aggregate of individual opinions? Or does public opinion refer to a more esoteric, holistic entity, ‘a supra-organic being’ (Osborne and Rose 1999, p. 376)? This divide has at its roots the paradoxical nature of “public opinion”. Opinion is a property of individuals whereas “the public” is plural. Such a divide can be traced back at least as far as Rousseau’s (2019 [1762]) differentiation between the “will of the people” and the “general will”. As Price (1992) notes, the concept of public opinion is an attempt to join and reconcile the “one” and the “many”. ‘It is no wonder, then, that efforts to define the concept vacillate between holistic viewpoints, which locate public opinion in the realm of the collective, and reductionist definitions, which trace it to

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individuals’ (Price 1992, p. 2). The result of this paradox is that defining public opinion has proved to be a vexatious enterprise. Herbst (1998, p. 1) refers to it as ‘one of the most frustrating and challenging aspects of democratic practice’. Herbst (1993) argues that there is no shared, commonly accepted definition of public opinion and that instead there are four distinct definitions present within and across both academic and more general use. The first of these is what she refers to as “aggregation”. This is a conception which starts from the premise that atomised individuals possess opinions which can be measured and aggregated using survey instruments such as opinion polls. It is, Herbst notes, the most common conception of public opinion both amongst academic and pollsters. Given this, and the fact that there have been a number of concerns and criticisms of this conception, this perspective will be discussed at length below. The second definition Herbst presents is “majoritarian”. This derives some of its force by the fact that in democracies, not all voices and views count and that what is most important is the majority opinion. This conception of “public opinion” is similar to the first in that it seeks to aggregate individual opinions, but what it is interested in, is the views or opinions of most people, or the majority of individuals. A third definition of public opinion is referred to as “discursive/consensual”. Here the idea is that individuals do not possess pre-given and fixed opinions, but rather form their views, at least in part, in conjunction with the broader social setting and context in which they are articulated. Thus public opinion here is a socially embedded, situated phenomena, comprising individual beliefs and views which emerge as such in specific and particular social settings. This view of public opinion differs from the previous two in that, for this view, there is not a single public opinion and the views articulated should be seen as mutable and not pre-given or fixed, such that ‘opinions fluctuate as often as individuals talk to each other’ (Herbst 1993, p. 440). The final definition that Herbst refers to is “reification”. This conception of public opinion views it as, essentially, a fiction and as something that does not really exist – at least as understood by those subscribing to the “aggregative” view. Those operating within this conception of public opinion are critical of the ways in which pollsters and others manufacture or create, as they see it, a “public opinion” through particular instruments of data collection. Here, individuals often don’t possess stable, fixed or clearly identifiable views or opinions and the “public opinion” which emerges from polls is less the uncovering or discovering of actual, genuine “authentic” opinion, as much as it is a reflection of the survey instrument itself. Or, as Osborne and Rose (1999, p.  382) characterise it ‘public opinion is created by the procedures that are established to “discover” it’. It is, to put it another way, a social construct. That said, some sidestep such controversies and plump for a definition of public opinion which sees it straightforwardly as the aggregation of individual opinions, often captured through survey instruments such as opinion polls. For some, the idea that this thing called public opinion could be measured by

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interviewing a random sample of individual citizens, and that it could be used as a thing to measure policy against was a profoundly democratic one. In place of narrow, elite views dominating politics, the emergence of mass survey techniques in the 1920s and 1930s offered the ordinary citizen a voice, and a voice that was equal to all other voices. The founding of the journal Public Opinion Quarterly in 1937 contained a foreword in which this optimistic, democratic view was stated: Always the opinions of relatively small publics have been a prime force in political life, but now, for the first time in history, we are confronted nearly everywhere by mass opinion as the final determinant of political and economic action. (cited in Osborne and Rose 1999, p. 373) For others, such a move represents a privileging of the technical rather than any deeply held academic conviction that conceiving of public opinion as aggregated individual views is an intellectually superior way to define public opinion. Perrin and McFarland (2011, p. 93) argue that the dominance of public opinion as opinion polls is something driven by the emergence of more advanced survey techniques in the 1920s and 1930s and as such has been ‘driven by technical possibility rather than theoretical rigor’. Thus, as Herbst (1998, p. 1) notes, the great majority of those who conduct survey research have sought to ‘avoid the messy philosophical debates over the nature of public opinion’. Whether we see the dominance of aggregative conceptions of public opinion as reflective of a democratic optimism, a technical functionalism or research pragmatism, its pre-eminence is significant. As we shall see below, criticisms and concerns about what exactly is being measured through social surveys are not new (e.g. Blumer 1948) yet these concerns have largely been ignored in favour of a research paradigm which allows the measurement, quantification and influence of public opinion to be assessed. The chapter will turn to these criticisms at greater length, to show that the nature of the relationship between the views and voices of ordinary people and policy outcomes is a great deal more complex than aggregative approaches would allow for. Before moving on from this discussion, it is worth briefly considering where vernacular security studies might fit into Herbst’s definitional schema of public opinion. Whilst this literature does not identify itself as part of a “public opinion” tradition, the work does consider the views of “ordinary” people and so is cognate to public opinion scholarship. This also raises the question of whether anything which seeks or purports to represent the views of individuals, citizens or “ordinary” people should fall within the remit of the concept of “public opinion”. Yet there are obvious dangers in trying to combine or fold into, different traditions of scholarship. Here the purpose is not to try to fit vernacular security studies into public opinion scholarship, but merely to establish some commonalities and work towards, for this research, some common language.

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There is a certain plasticity here, given that “public opinion” has no fixed or agreed-upon definition and that the work identified as part of vernacular security studies in Chapter 1 has different conceptions of the articulators of vernacular discourse. For some such as George’s (2017) work on the significance of localised traditions and conceptions of security in Fiji, there is a sense in which these discourses represent, if not an aggregative sense of public opinion, then perhaps a majoritarian one. The vernacular security discourse in her work seems to be if not a numeric majority, then one which covers an establishment view, supported by institutions such as the Church. Other elements of vernacular security studies work would fit more comfortably within Herbst’s (1993) discursive/consensual model. As detailed in Chapter 1, some of this work (e.g. Jarvis and Lister 2013a, 2015a; Stevens and Vaughan-Williams 2016) explicitly works within a methodology which highlights the situated nature of the vernacular discourses uncovered. Therefore, whilst public opinion scholarship and vernacular security studies are, to some extent, working in separate and parallel traditions, from this point on, the concept of “public opinion”, with all its openness and ambiguity, is, I would argue, a term which can mesh with concepts within vernacular security studies. As the chapter goes on, it will further explain and delineate the conception of public opinion which the rest of the book will work with.

Representation Before moving on to consider whether public opinion does shape policy outcomes, it is important to consider the debates around whether it should. As we shall see, particularly in later chapters, these two questions, whilst analytically distinct, can be tightly linked, particularly in practice. Political elites’ views of whether they should incorporate the views of the public impact on whether those very political elites do incorporate the views of the public. Whether politicians should follow public opinion, however we understand the term, or whether at times (or indeed most of the time), politicians should exercise their own judgement, knowledge and expertise, is a debate that has existed for centuries. Rehfeld (2009) states that the distinction between trustees (who act in the broader interests of the nation, exercising their own faculties) and delegates (who follow the wishes of their constituents) has existed since at least the 13th century and the Magna Carta. Famously, Edmund Burke outlined a defence of the trustee position, as did J. S. Mill (Beetham 2003). More recently, political theorists have outlined and debated more nuanced versions of this binary. Mansbridge (2003) seeks to shift away from trustee/ delegate and provides four different conceptions of representation. The first of these, promissory representation reflects what Mansbridge (2003, p. 515) refers to as the ‘traditional model of representation’ whereby candidates make promises during election campaigns which they then keep – or do not – and which voters can then reward or punish as they deem appropriate. A second form of representation is anticipatory representation, where candidates represent their

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constituents’ interests and views by imagining what it is that they want, and implementing this on the basis that this will be electorally profitable and result in reelection, in the future. The difference between this and promissory representation is that candidates ‘focus on what they think their constituents will approve at the next election, not on what they promised to do at the last election’ (ibid.). In gyroscopic representation, Mansbridge’s third concept, the representative looks within themselves and to concepts such as “common sense”. The connection to constituents’ interests lies here not in policy preferences, but in the character, identity and dispositions of the representative. Voters choose a candidate who they feel represents their interests and values, and therefore select ‘representatives who can be expected act in ways the voter approves without external incentives’ (Mansbridge 2003, p.  520). Finally, the model of surrogate representation refers to a model where the candidate articulates representation of groups and peoples beyond their own electoral constituency, be these regional, national or international. For the purposes of the present discussion, what is significant in Mansbridge’s work is the highlighting that these different models work with different conceptions of public opinion. Promissory representation works with a fairly ‘unmediated version of the constituents’ will’ (Mansbridge 2003, p. 516) in that the voter makes a relatively straightforward calculation about whether the representative upheld their promises. The situation for anticipatory representation is rather different. Here the representative is creating an imagined sense of what the constituents will think at a future point in time (the next election). Such a model of representation works with a kind of marketplace idea, such that representatives (like private companies) seek to anticipate and satisfy what the public wants. This means that influence works both ways, from constituent, but also from representative. Like the customer/entrepreneur relation in the marketplace, the voter/ representative relation in anticipatory representation is best conceived as one of reciprocal power and continuing mutual influence. (Mansbridge 2003, p. 518, emphasis added) Thus, for Mansbridge in terms of anticipatory representation, representatives are involved in the construction of what people want; they seek to not simply satisfy a public opinion which exists in a stable and pre-existing form, but to anticipate, shape and influence what their constituents want. This is an important point which the chapter will return to below. Gyroscopic representation works largely without a concept of public opinion; here what matters more is identity and values rather than interests and opinions (which don’t influence the actions of representatives). Surrogate representation works with concentric notions of public opinion such that there are many public opinions to be (potentially) satisfied. These may be based on particular identity (e.g. ethnic minorities, LGBTQ communities), class (labour unions) or economic (business interests) cleavages. Such a conception arguably does not tie representation to

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interests or opinions; as Mansbridge (2003, p. 524) argues ‘legislators act to promote their surrogate constituencies’ perspectives and interests for various reasons internal to their own convictions, consciences, and identities’. Clearly, then, different models of representation – whether delegate, trustee, promissory, anticipatory, gyroscopic or surrogate – have different ideas about what the relationship should be between voters, citizens, “the public” and elected representatives and policy outcomes. Herbst sees evidence of this at the empirical level – that political actors when discussing public opinion and its role and influence, are (often implicitly) making arguments about democracy and representation. Indeed, this will also be found in subsequent chapters of this book (see Chapter 5). Reporting on how different political actors interpret, understand and construct (this latter point will be discussed in more detail below) public opinion, Herbst (1998, p.  7) contends ‘As they flesh out their definitions, it becomes clear that their meanings of public opinion are in fact arguments about both representation and democracy’. This is similar to Foyle (1997), who contends that the influence of public opinion on foreign policy is mediated by foreign policy actors’ own senses of the appropriateness and necessity of so doing. Thus whilst we might argue that conceptually, and academically, we can bracket and separate the empirical question of whether public opinion does influence policy from the normative question of whether it should, for political actors, the situation is not so easily demarcated. Herbst’s arguments are that such political actors behave in particular ways with regard to public opinion based on normative ideas of how the public should be represented. Or to put this another way, for those “out there” on the ground political actors, whether the public should influence policy is not easily indistinguishable from whether they do or not. Political actors have agency about deciding on that question. Their normative ideas and concepts shape how they use that agency. And more than that, questions as to whether public opinion should influence policy (along with questions such as whose voices, and at what times) also, as the chapter will examine below, potentially shape the very content of that public opinion. Saward’s (2006, p.  298) work on the “representational claims” seeks to further extend these debates by arguing for a focus less on the types or forms of representation, or a (potential) end state that may (or may not) be achieved, and more towards the actual process of representing and the mechanics of the act of so doing – ‘what is going on in representation – its dynamics’. He contends that most accounts of representation take the interests of the constituency (however defined, whether local, regional or national) as a given, a known or knowable characteristic. With a particular focus on the work of Hannah Pitkin, he argues that work of this sort ‘screens out by definitional fiat’ (Saward 2006, p. 300) any sense that the representative themself, in the act of representing, is in any way creating or calling into being, such interests. This is a problematic limitation for Saward, as the act of representing inherently involves a process of creation whereby the person of the representative necessarily conjures and imagines both who is to be represented and what their interests are:

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Just as representation is not a mere fact that ‘just is’, so representations (depictions, portrayals, encapsulations) of self and others in politics do not just happen. People construct them, put them forward, make claims for them – make them. More specifically, political figures (or political parties or other groups, for example) make representations of their constituencies, their countries, themselves . . . At the heart of the act of representing is the depicting of a constituency as this or that, as requiring this or that, as having this or that set of interests. (Saward 2006, p. 300, emphasis added) Saward invokes artistic metaphors in characterising the act of representation, to reflect the spirit of “art” and “creation” which it involves. Yet he is quick to argue that such “artistry” is bounded and both that representative claims – these depictions of communities and their interests – are necessarily and inherently contestable and that representative claims, to be successful, need to resonate with communities, normally by cleaving close to existing scripts and ‘familiar contextual frameworks’ (Saward 2006, p. 303). Thus, whilst political actors might be seen as creative, their depictions of constituencies and their interests, to be successful, cannot be pure fiction, a product solely of the political actors imagination and will; they are not, in Saward’s (ibid.) terms ‘magicians’. To be successful, such representative claims need to chime and work with existing ideas and discourses “out there”. Thus, to link to the present purposes and aims here, for Saward, political actors, in claiming to represent constituents, or the nation, are (a) making a claim to do so and (b) in doing that, they necessarily define who is to be included, who it is who is being represented and (c) what the views and interests are that are to be represented. (b) and (c) are, of course, necessarily connected. Considering some voices as those to be included, and importantly, excluding or ignoring certain other voices shapes the content of the views under consideration (as we shall see in Chapter 5). What this short discussion of representation suggests is that (i) how political elites think about whether public opinion should be included in decisionmaking is an important dynamic in whether it does, (ii) certain models of representation see the inclusion of public opinion less as incorporating pre-given and fixed views which are “out there” and more as a process of anticipating and creating such views. This latter shifts the focus from whether political elites are responsive to public opinion, to questions of how and in what ways political elites seek to construct, or call into being, public opinion. Yet before we get to that, the chapter will explore some of the more mainstream public opinion research, underpinned by an aggregative model of public opinion, to ascertain what the orthodox answer is to the question of whether public opinion shapes policy outcomes. It is necessary to explore and understand this literature, before departing to consider some of the criticisms of it and alternative modes of thinking. These alternative modes chime and resonate with the above work on representation which sees the relationship between public opinion and policy outcomes in complex, mutually instantiating ways.

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The responsiveness of public policy to public opinion Mainstream assessment of the significance of public opinion to policy outcomes comes from examinations of the “responsiveness” of politicians to public opinion. To what extent are politicians responsive to the needs and interests of the public? Or do they follow ideological or personal motivations instead? The overall findings of this literature are contested. As Manza and Cook (2002, p. 630) argue: Democratic governance assumes that the preferences of citizens are reflected in policy outputs. This objective has, however, proved extraordinarily difficult to attain in practice. . . . [A] considerable body of research and theorizing about the impact of public opinion on policy making in the United States has produced decidedly mixed assessments about the extent of responsiveness. Jacobs and Shapiro (2000) state that there are essentially two positions within this debate. There are those who claim that public policy is responsive, arguing that elections provide strong incentives for rationally self-interested politicians to cleave closely to public opinion. The other position is that politicians seek to implement the policy preferences and interests of their own and their supporters, and either work to shift public opinion to support these, or, if this doesn’t work, hide and obfuscate such policies. This is, in many ways, similar to Hay’s (1999) distinction between politicians as preference shapers and preference accommodators. The Thatcher administration is identified as a government which engaged in shaping the preferences of the electorate, whilst New Labour and their convergence and “catch up” with Thatcherism (and heavy engagement with public opinion through things like focus groups), is seen as an example of preference accommodation. Manza and Cook (2002) draw a similar binary between responsive/non-responsive, but also identify a third body of thought which argues politicians are not responsive, not due to their own interests, but rather because “public opinion” is inchoate and ephemeral (Converse 1964; Bourdieu 1979; Domhof 1998). Such views, it is held, are either too incoherent to drive policy or weakly held and thus susceptible to manipulation by politicians (and links to Herbst’s (1993) fourth conception of public opinion discussed earlier). This point will be discussed at further length, below. Within those who argue for responsiveness, empirical evidence generally provides a “yes, but . . .” argument. As Burstein (2003, p.  29) puts it ‘No one believes that public opinion always determines public policy; few believe it never does’. Large-scale quantitative studies have sought to map public opinion and relate this to policy outcomes and have generally identified evidence that government and politicians are, at least some of the time, responsive. For example, Stimson et al. (1995) have sought to measure a broad “public mood” which they argue correlates very strongly with

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public policy. Thus, they see politicians as highly sensitive to this broad public mood: ‘politicians are keen to pick up the faintest signals in their political environment. Like antelope in an open field, they cock their ears and focus their full attention on the slightest sign of danger’ (Stimson et al. 1995, p.  559). On some issues, and in some fora, public opinion appears to exert more or less influence on policy outcomes. Soroka and Wlezien’s (2005, 2010) “thermostat” model has been advanced to explain under what conditions public opinion exerts effects. Under this model, public opinion acts like a thermostat, responding to the level of policy provided by government. ‘That is, the public adjusts its preferences for “more” or “less” policy in response to what policy makers do. When policy increases (decreases), the preference for more policy decreases (increases)’ (Soroka and Wlezien 2005, p.  667). These findings, of correlations between public opinion and policy outcomes, have been identified by other studies (e.g. Bartels 1991; Page and Shapiro 1983, 1992; Wlezien and Soroka 2012). However, some research has argued that such responsiveness is real but is in decline. Monroe (1979, 1998) finds that between 1960 and 1979, policy followed majority opinion 63% of the time, but that this had declined to 55% between 1980 and 1993. One interesting finding within this work is that it is in policy areas such as defence (and hence perhaps security politics, broadly conceived) that the relationship between public opinion and policy is strongest. This finding sits in tension, if not outright contradiction, with the securitization approach discussed in Chapter 1, which held that security politics was a different kind of politics, closed and elite-driven. By contrast, Soroka and Wlezien (2005, p. 677) argue that defence spending is responsive to public opinion: ‘changes in defence spending do follow public preferences . . . [W]hen public support for more defence spending is high, politicians tend to provide defence spending. The effect is strong’. Similarly, Bartels (1991, p. 467) examining defence spending in the Reagan administration in America concludes public opinion was a powerful force for policy change in the realm of defense spending in the first year of the Reagan administration. Moreover, the impact of constituency opinion appears to have been remarkably broad-based, influencing all sorts of representatives across a wide spectrum of specific defense spending issues. Perhaps even more intriguingly for the preceding discussion concerning securitized and “normal” politics, the relationship between public opinion and policy seems to be weaker for more ordinary or “normal” types of policy. Soroka and Wlezien (2005) find that the influence of public opinion on policies such as health and roads is weaker than for defence. This may be due to issue salience, namely that it is in highly visible policy areas where “ordinary” people both are aware of policy and take a view on what policy should be. In less salient policy areas, such strong or clear opinions may be less obvious and therefore

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less influential (discussed in more detail below). These findings, against securitization theory, seem to suggest that areas like security which often attract high levels of media attention and public exposure are areas which “ordinary” people are most likely to have and express opinions which policymakers may subsequently act upon. In Chapter 1 it was argued that security studies, by and large, eschew analysis of public opinion, preferring instead to focus on the decisions, speeches and actions of elite actors. One potential exception to this is if one were to include the Foreign Policy literature, which has been considering for some time the ways in which views of the public impact upon foreign policy. Some of this literature was discussed in Chapter 1 as it linked to securitization theory and the ways in which public opinion functioned as an audience which accepted or rejected foreign policy/securitizing moves (Roe 2008; Hayes 2012). Despite earlier scepticism (Almond 1960), foreign policy scholars have become interested in and focused on the ways in which public opinion impacts on foreign policy (Wittkopf 1990; Powlick 1995; Foyle 1997; Sobel 2001). Risse-Kappen makes the argument that public opinion does influence the nature and content of foreign policy in liberal democracies. Reporting on a study of four democracies, the USA, Japan, Germany and France, Risse-Kappen (1991, p. 510) contends that ‘mass public opinion mattered’. This finding is qualified to some extent, with Risse-Kappen arguing that public opinion rarely straightforwardly shifts policy, but that, filtered through the nature of domestic political institutions, the influence of public opinion was often indirect, setting certain limits and parameters, rather than driving policy directly. These domestic institutions can also help to explain why foreign policy varies between states when (domestic) public opinion is similar. Western (2005) has similarly explored the extent to which the public audience accepts or rejects the “sales pitches” of political elites for foreign policy interventions. Interestingly, as well as examining those that succeeded, Western also looks to those which did not. He argues that when successful, the arguments of political elites struck a chord with the public, echoing Saward’s points, above, about representative claims needing to resonate with the public (this point will be discussed further towards the end of the chapter). Other scholars are a little more sanguine about the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy. Page and Barabas (2000) note that on a range of foreign policy issues, there often appear quite large gaps between the views of political elites and the public. And Jacobs and Page (2005) argue that when taking into account the influence of other groups/factors (e.g. business lobbies, experts and Labour unions) that the influence of public opinion on foreign policy was actually quite small (anticipating the following section, they argue that this finding has troubling implications for other assessments of responsiveness, as a strong bivariate relationship between public opinion and foreign policy ‘crumbled away almost completely when we included data on organized interests and experts in multivariate regressions’ (Jacobs and Page 2005, p. 121)).

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Criticisms of the responsiveness literature There are a number of qualifications and critiques to this literature. The first of these is the tendency for responsiveness studies to focus on high-profile policy areas, to the detriment of less prominent areas. Secondly, the notion of responsiveness is crucially dependent on politicians having an accurate sense of what public opinion is. But recent studies have cast doubt on the accuracy of political elites’ estimations of public opinion, and, therefore, question whether politicians can be said to be accurately responding to public opinion. Thirdly, some authors have posited that politicians and elites seek to cultivate and shape public opinion, such that when a covariance is established empirically, this is less politicians following the public than the other way around. A fourth area of critique also concerns the question of causation/correlation. Studies which identify “responsiveness” do so on the basis of a link between public opinion and attitudes and policy outcomes. But which drives which? Is opinion driving policy, or perhaps at least as plausibly, is policy driving opinion? Finally, as alluded to already, there is a body of scholarship which effectively argues that there is no such thing as public opinion, or at least the opinion polls and surveys which are used as proxies for public opinion are not capturing a fixed, stable, pre-existing public opinion as much as they are creating it. Polls might track policy outcomes, but this is not the same thing as policy being influenced by “authentic” or genuine public attitudes. A number of authors point to the importance of the prominence of the issue, or salience, for responsiveness – the relationship between public opinion and policy is stronger when the policy area is prominent and public opinion is well known (Page and Shapiro 1983, 1992). Relatedly (or conversely, perhaps), Culpepper (2010) argues that the power of business is lower in high-salience areas, because political elites are aware that people – and the media – are watching; in lower-salience areas, therefore, where people are not watching as closely, the power of business can be much greater. Thus, it is a criticism of many studies into responsiveness that the strength of any relationship is therefore overstated due to a focus on salient issues, to the detriment of less salient or visible issues (Barabas 2016). As noted earlier, this leads to the possibility – significant for this book – that higher profile areas, which security issues tend to be, are more likely to see a connection between public attitudes and policy outcomes, if for no other reason than public attitudes are more likely to be visible to, and be knowable by, political actors. This focus on high-profile issues is often methodologically necessary as public opinion – and polling data, its frequent proxy (although this is not without its problems as will be discussed further below) – is not known for less salient issues. Where public opinion is not known through polling data, it is clearly harder to infer or assess whether policy is responsive or not, at least through quantitative modelling. Thus the critique is twofold; that many existing studies overstate responsiveness by focusing on high-profile policy areas and also that we know little about responsiveness for lower-profile policy where solid public opinion data does not exist.

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A second area of critique concerns the level of knowledge and awareness that political elites have of public opinion. It seems axiomatic that for elites to be responsive to public opinion, that they must know what it is. But recent research suggests that leaders have a very thin grasp of what the public actually thinks. Reporting on a study of 886 politicians in four countries, Walgrave et al. (2023, p. 216) conclude that political elites regularly misperceive what the public thinks on a wide range of issues; ‘politicians are not very good at estimating public opinion’ (see also Broockman and Skovron 2018). Pereira (2021) argues that these misperceptions or errors are not neutral or random, such that political elites just “get it wrong” but that they reflect the differential access that different groups and constituencies have to political elites (in short privileged groups get more access and so get to disproportionately contribute to the information environment of political elites) as well as a tendency for political elites to project their own views and values onto the public. This “social projection” leads to elites overestimating support for policies they themselves support. Clearly, these findings pose troubling questions for notions of responsiveness. If politicians consistently get public opinion wrong, and perhaps even get it wrong in consistently biased ways, how can they be responsive to that public opinion? A third objection to the responsiveness literature is that politicians and government actively seek to shape public opinion so that it reflects the content of policies, which, rather than being in accordance with public opinion, reflect the interests/wishes of political elites. Thus, it is less policy responding to public opinion than public opinion being shaped to support policy priorities of elites. Empirically, this process might look exactly the same as “responsiveness” (i.e. an empirical covariance) but the underlying processes and dynamics would be very different. As Manza and Cook (2002, p. 639) state, studies identifying “responsiveness” ‘generally assess the one-way flow of influence from public opinion to policy, implicitly ignoring the possibility that politicians themselves may influence the policy preferences of citizens’. This is the argument of Jacobs and Shapiro (2000), who argue that concerns that politicians pander to public opinion are misplaced, and that whilst politicians may be obsessively interested in opinion polls and what the public wants, it is not necessarily in order to satisfy that opinion, but to shape it. ‘The irony of contemporary politics is that politicians both slavishly track public opinion and, contrary to the myth of “pandering”, studiously avoid simply conforming policy to what the public wants’ (Jacobs and Shapiro 2000, pp. 7–8). Politicians use “crafted talk” to mould and shape public opinion to better reflect the policy priorities of politicians themselves. ‘Politicians attempt to simulate responsiveness by changing centrist opinions to support their positions; if their efforts are successful, enacted politics are (in the end) in accord with public opinion’ (Jacobs and Shapiro 2000, p.  44, original emphasis). Thus, for Jacobs and Shapiro, the correlation between public opinion and policy is not necessarily the product of politicians enacting the wills and wishes of the public but could be down to politicians crafting and shaping that public opinion to mirror their own intentions (much as posited by Hay’s (1999) preference shaping mode, noted earlier).

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A related version of this argument can be found in the work of Herman and Chomsky (1988), where the operations of the mass media are held to systematically distort public views and perceptions, such that public opinion is the product of manipulations rather than any “authentic” expression of public views. In his work on authoritarian populism and Thatcherism, Stuart Hall also engages with the ways in which political elites construct and mould popular support. He draws attention to the ways in which crises are mobilised and defined in such a way as to make demands for greater authoritarian and illiberal measures appear as responses to demands from the bottom up, arguing that through the media, political elites are able to generate a public opinion which they then appear to be responding to: ‘By this means, first, by forming public opinion; then, disingenuously, consulting it, the tendency to “reach for the Law,” above, is complemented by a popular demand to be governed more strictly, from below’ (Hall 2021 [1979], p.  79). Despite noting that ‘ordinary people are not simple dupes of the media’ (Hall 2021 [1979], p. 83) Hall argues that ‘the media can, and do, construct public opinion’ (ibid.). In some ways, such positions link to arguments discussed below, which express scepticism that there are stable and pre-existing public attitudes. Stronger versions of arguments around media manipulation/distortion find their echo in Lukes’ third face of power, of preference shaping (Lukes 2005), and seem to rest on notions of false consciousness and true consciousness, which some find problematic. As Haugaard (2008, pp. 101–102) argues ‘Simply put, what gives the theorist the privileged insight into true consciousness whereby they know that the other, the social subject, is in some way deluded concerning their interests?’ A fourth critique also calls into question the direction of any empirical relationship between public opinion measured through polls and policy outcomes. The correlations which the literature, on occasions, establishes could be the result, it is argued, of policy influencing public attitudes, just as much as public opinion shaping policy. It should be noted that some scholars working within the responsiveness literature are open to the theoretical possibility that the link between policy and public opinion might contain elements of the former influencing the latter, but find little evidence for it (Stimson et al. 1995). On the other hand, the thermostat model developed by Soroka and Wlezien, whereby public opinion adapts to policy such that the public demands more or less policy in response to what politicians/government have done previously implicitly accepts that government and politicians can and do influence what the public thinks. In this instance, Soroka and Wlezien are perhaps appealing to the classic Schattschneider (1935) insight that policies produce politics (see below). Yet there is a concern amongst some that insufficient attention is paid within the responsiveness literature to policy feedback effects in particular. A key insight of the policy feedback literature is that public policy shapes the political realm in important ways, including the activities, views and opinions of citizens, communities and groups (see Skocpol 1992; Pierson 1993). As Campbell (2012, p.  334) argues ‘policies themselves can be causal, shaping

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the political landscape and influencing the capacities, interests, and preferences of political actors and of the state itself ’. This view, Soss and Schram (2007) note, reverses the traditional model of the relationship between preferences and policy, whereby the former is the input and the latter the output. Instead, policies, for this view, have important shaping effects on whole swathes of the political realm, including the identities and preferences of individual citizens. Campbell (2003) argues that public policy – and particularly its distributional effects – have significant impacts upon the participatory sphere. Using the example of social security in American, she outlines how the policy serves to mobilise certain segments of the population (in this case the elderly). Citing Pierson’s (1993) seminal work, she argues that policy produces both material and cognitive feedbacks. So policy can confer material resources on particular groups, which can influence their participation, but also the experience and effects of that policy have effects on how those individuals and groups understand politics more generally. Where individuals and groups experience policy in positive terms, they internalise, Campbell (2003, p. 6) argues, a sense of their position in the public policy firmament and their likely future experiences: Policy design sends messages to clients about their worth as citizens, which in turn affects their orientations toward government and their political participation. Policy experiences convey to target populations self-images and outgroup images (who is “deserving” and who is not). .  .  . Social Security fosters seniors’ participation not only by enhancing their participatory capacity and giving them a compelling reason to pay attention to public affairs but also by affirming their rights as citizens to defend their benefits. Similarly, Mettler and Soss (2004) argue that the nature of public policy shapes the political community in both positive and negative ways, shaping citizens’ views of their own political subjectivity but also the views of others. Thus policies ‘convey messages about group characteristics directly to members of a target group and to a broader public audience’ (Mettler and Soss 2004, p. 61). Where policies treat individuals, groups or communities as deserving or undeserving this afects not only how the wider political community views such groups, but also how individuals and groups see themselves, with knock on efects on their political identity and behaviour. As noted earlier, such a view complicates the more traditional view of the relationship between policy and preferences that underpins, for instance, the responsiveness literature. For policy to be responsive to public opinion, the latter must precede the former. But this is not what the policy feedback literature suggests happens. Policy, they argue, shapes political identities, subjectivities and opinions in significant ways. Thus, any simple, uni-directional relationship is to be questioned. Moreover, the policy feedback literature critiques the notion of a stable, fixed and pre-given “public opinion”. Rather what emerges from this literature is the idea that public opinion is something dynamic and

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fluid, formed in recurrent and iterative interactions. As Soss argues ‘policy makers play a key role in constructing the citizen “inputs” they respond to’ (cited in Campbell 2012, p. 342). This echoes Saward’s conception of the “representative claim” and Mansbridge’s notion of anticipatory representation, discussed earlier, and their emphasis on the capacity of politicians to shape the preferences to which they are held accountable. Thus public opinion, for this view, is less a fixed input to which politicians respond, than it is something which is, at least in part, shaped by political actors themselves. As Mettler and Soss (2004, p. 58) put it, ‘common patterns of political thinking in mass publics can be viewed as politically constructed outcomes’. This “social construction” of public opinion will be returned to below. But before that discussion, an even more trenchant objection to both the responsiveness literature and public opinion studies more broadly must be discussed.

Public opinion does not exist Beyond the claim that public opinion is not exogenous to policy but rather influenced and perhaps even created by it, lies a deeper critique of research which relies on public opinion being conceptualised and measured through opinion polls. Essentially, this body of literature argues that what opinion polls measure is not public opinion; or in Bourdieu’s provocatively titled 1979 essay “Public Opinion Does Not Exist”. There are a number of different positions here. For some, there are technical problems of measurement, such that the way in which many opinion polls are carried out creates errors or distortions in the accessing of “genuine” or “authentic” opinions (these are, for some, potentially resolvable through better, more refined, methods). Others make a more profound criticism that opinion polls could never access authentic “public opinion” either because such an atomised technique misses the fundamentally social nature of public opinion, or that for differing reasons (lack of education, lack of attention, or the complexity of issues faced by “ordinary” people) there are not such opinions to garner; that a great many people simply do not have stable, “authentic” views about political issues. Yet for each of these positions, whilst the potential solutions or responses may be different, there is a widespread scepticism towards the notion that opinion polls are a reliable measure of public opinion and instead a view that what such techniques do represents more creation (even fabrication) than it does measurement. It has been a concern of many – both within the mainstream tradition of survey research and outside it – that specific problems with surveys can mitigate and complicate the extent to which responses collected can be considered the “genuine” or “authentic” views of respondents.1 There are a range of such issues including how survey questions are worded and the order in which they are presented (see Bishop 2004; Perrin and McFarland 2011 for overviews). For example, different answers have been recorded on questions regarding attitudes to abortion depending on whether a question on religion, or women’s rights precedes it (Tourangeau et al. 1989). More directly in terms

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of counterterrorism, some studies have found that including a reference to “terrorism” in survey tools increases support for coercive responses (Brooks and Manza 2013; Merolla and Zechmeister 2009). For some, these are technical problems which require technical fixes. Responding to Bishop’s (2004) critique of many of the problems of survey research, Page (2007, p.  36) suggests that whilst there are some poor practices within survey research, that he broadly concurs with a school of thought that suggests ‘Too bad that those journalists (or politicians, or pollsters, or scholars) messed up. But we know how to do it right, and we usually do’. One of the main defences of polling to such critiques is to point to what some refer to as the “miracle of aggregation”, whereby errors present in polling responses average out (Manza and Brooks 2013). The point here is that whilst some people may respond in error, unless the errors systematically tend in one direction, they will average out. Whilst this may be the case, some of the criticisms above suggest that survey wording and framing may mean that errors do systematically tend in one direction. Other critics of the polling/public opinion conjunction have emphasised that rendering public opinion through aggregative surveys of individuals misses the fundamentally social nature of public opinion. Blumer (1948) was perhaps the first to identify this issue. He argues that public opinion as measured through aggregative opinion polls does not capture “public opinion”. He instead argues that public opinion is something that is formed in a social context; in, through and with group interactions which are stratified and political – which is to say that not all individual voices count equally. Ignorance of this, is for Blumer, the problem with the opinion poll/public opinion link, as it erases the social nature of public opinion and its formation. By treating society as an aggregation of individuals, polls ignore the ways in which ‘public opinion gets its form from the social framework in which it moves’ (Blumer 1948, p. 543). Thus, [t]he formation and expression of public opinion . . . is not an action of a population of disparate individuals having equal weight but is a function of a structured society, differentiated into a network of different kinds of groups and individuals having differential weight and influence and occupying different strategic positions. (Blumer 1948, p. 547) A similar concern has been articulated by the Frankfurt School. In work for a study conducted in 1955, Gruppenexperiment, but only recently translated into English (Pollock and Adorno 2011 [1955]), scholars of the Frankfurt School debate the utility of opinion polling techniques as a way of accessing the views of the public. Within the wider context of their work on the ways in which cultural hegemony within capitalism shapes individual subjectivities, the Frankfurt School conducted a research project into the German publics’ attitudes and the extent to which Nazi values had been retained or left behind. They evince a scepticism towards any simple relationship between polling and

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public opinion. For them, the results of polls do not take interest in or account of how such “opinions” were formed and ignore the ways in which opinion is structured and shaped by dominant economic and social relations. Fundamentally their argument is that individuals do not possess fixed and stable opinions on a wide range of topics and that the context in which opinions are garnered significantly shapes the responses gathered. Perrin and Olick (2011, p. xxx) characterise (and cite) the approach of Adorno and his colleagues thus: Goaded by the public opinion apparatus into expressing an opinion, interviewees just refract the dominant views of the society of which they are part. Because of the totally socialized nature of the opinion environment, “opinion research needs to free itself from the prejudice that opinions are . . . stable properties of individuals” and instead “approach as closely as possible the conditions under which actual opinions are formed, persist and change”. The purpose of the Gruppenexperiment study is not to better harvest the views of people, but to examine the ways in which opinions are formed and changed in specific contexts. Views and opinions cannot be separated from the context in which they are expressed. Perrin and Olick (2011) argue that the Gruppenexperiment study enjoins researchers of public opinion to consider the sources of public opinion which are social/collective and contextual; that public opinion is something deeply related to the broader social fabric as well as to the specifics of the environment in which they are expressed. (To link back to Herbst’s (1993) definitions of public opinion, the Frankfurt School here straddles both the discursive/consensual and the reification conceptions). As a brief aside and reference back to Chapter 1, it is worth noting that the vernacular security literature arguably takes the latter consideration into account (that public views are deeply related to the research context and the means by which such views are gathered and expressed) but not always the former, which is to say the vernacular security studies literature may need to pay more attention to the macro socio-political processes which inform the attitudes and voices of publics. The scepticism that the Frankfurt School displays towards the idea that individuals have stable and fixed opinions which can be straightforwardly accessed links to the final criticism to be considered in this section. Put simply, some scholars argue that people simply do not possess fixed and stable opinions or attitudes, or if they do, these are weakly held and shaped more by the process of collection itself (see below). This critique of polling and public opinion has a long history. One of the first such voices was Walter Lippmann (2010 [1925]) who argues that public opinion, as conventionally understood is a “phantom”. In colourful, if somewhat cynical terms, Lippmann (2010 [1925], p. 26) describes “ordinary” people with regard to political affairs as like members of a theatre audience who although they know they should be paying attention ‘cannot quite manage to keep awake’. A crucial problem for Lippmann is that

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“ordinary” people lack the time and the inclination to keep themselves abreast of all that they should know, or need to know, to act as responsible citizens; ‘the citizen gives but a little of his time to public affairs, has but a casual interest in facts and but a poor appetite for theory’ (Lippmann 2010 [1925], p. 29). Thus “public opinion” is too inchoate and ill-informed to direct public affairs and policy beyond periodic elections – which themselves are less endorsements of specific policies than a general siding, or alignment, with particular political factions. Moreover, the idea of a stable and consistent “public” which possesses opinions and views about the issues of the day is dismissed by Lippmann as a ‘phantom’ and ‘an abstraction’. ‘The public is not, as I see it, a fixed body of individuals. It is merely those persons who are interested in an affair’ (Lippmann 2010 [1925], p. 42). A more contemporary version of this argument can be found within the debate about “non-attitudes” or “pseudo opinions”. Broadly, this is the phenomenon where individuals respond to surveys with ill-conceived or random answers which seek to “satisfy” the interview situation but which do not represent real or genuine views (often because the views expressed relate to fictional events or processes). Converse (1964, p.  245) states, ‘Large portions of an electorate simply do not have meaningful beliefs, even on issues that have formed the basis for intense political controversy among elites for substantial periods of time’. This point has been further explored and developed by a range of authors. Zaller and Feldman (1992, p. 580) identify that if individuals are asked the same question at two different points in time, that only around half will give the same answer on each occasion. They conclude that people don’t have fixed, pre-given attitudes but rather tend to respond to questions based on vague ideas and recent stimulate, but that these do not constitute ‘true attitudes; rather, they reflect the thoughts that are most accessible in memory at the moment of response’. Bishop (2004) identifies non-attitudes through the examples of individuals who give opinions about non-existent legislation, even if explicitly given a “don’t know” option. A recent example from the UK comes from the Covid-lockdown breaking parties within the Conservative government, or “Partygate” as the media dubbed it. In a poll in 2022, a great many respondents said they had heard of Partygate, perhaps unsurprisingly as it had dominated media and public discussions. But 20% of respondents also said they had heard a lot about “Hikegate”, a fictional “scandal” involving the leader of the Liberal Democrats (Savanta 2022). Similarly, during the Conservative leadership contest in 2022, 31% of respondents to a poll claimed to have some level of awareness of a fictional candidate for the leadership, Stewart Lewis. Six percent claimed to have a great deal of awareness, 6% a fair amount, 9% not very much and 10% said they had heard of them but knew nothing about them (Ipsos 2022). Indeed, the proportion of people saying they had heard a great deal about this fictional candidate was greater than for one of the real candidates. A recent study by Sturgis and Smith (2010) in the UK similarly finds that substantial minorities of people will provide opinions on fictional policies and

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measures. They argue that ‘questions addressing diverse areas of government policy are likely to be “contaminated” by responses that are based on partially or wholly irrelevant considerations, as many have long suspected’ (Sturgis and Smith 2010, p.  79). In particular, their research suggests that individuals who do this are not simply flipping a coin or choosing at random, but that they try to garner cues and information from the question and the wider questionnaire and link this to existing attitudes and their partisan preferences. These kinds of dynamics, Sturgis and Smith argue, raise questions about what it is that opinion polling is doing, and especially the extent to which it can be considered to be “simply” measuring a pre-existing view; ‘in surveying public opinion, we do not simply reveal a pre-existing public mood but, to some extent, we serve to create it as well’ (Sturgis and Smith 2010, p. 67). Taken together, these three concerns about conceiving of public opinion as something which can be said to be represented by opinion polls – that such techniques shape the opinions that are gathered, that the opinion poll ignores the fundamentally social nature of public opinion and that in many cases, people simply don’t have stable opinions – pose a powerful challenge to mainstream public opinion research. There are those who see such concerns as overplayed; that even poorly informed individuals express views which are consonant with their broader values and beliefs and that error measurement is cancelled out in the aggregate (Page 2007; see also Bishop’s 2008 reply). Yet this chapter finds such breezy optimism misplaced. The above research, critical of the polling/opinion nexus, suggests that seeing opinion polls as reflective of an “authentic”, stable and pre-existing “public opinion” is problematic and flawed. Bishop (2008, p. 155) states, ‘Public opinion does not exist apart from the measurement act of fixing it in place by asking a question; Osborne and Rose (1999, p. 382) similarly contend ‘[P]ublic opinion is created by the procedures that are established to “discover” it. The phenomenon of opinion is an artefact of the technical procedures that are designed to capture it’; and Zaller and Feldman (1992, p. 582) likewise suggest ‘[S]urvey questions do not simply measure public opinion. They also shape and channel it’. Many of the “fixes” to such problems don’t deal with the more fundamental issues involved. As Perrin and McFarland (2011) argue, many of these solutions represent technical fixes to ontological questions. These all point to significant reasons as to why researchers ought to approach any polling/opinion link with circumspection. Further, if we add to the concerns noted earlier – about issue salience, elite knowledge of public views, the extent to which elites shape public opinion and about the directionality of the relationship between public opinion and public policy made by the policy feedback literature – there appear to be very good reasons to think that “public opinion” is heavily shaped by a product of survey techniques, public policy and political elites. Yet, as Perrin and McFarland (2011), Lewis (2001) and Herbst (1998) all point out, despite the fact that the above criticisms of the polling/opinion nexus have been around for some time, large amounts of research continue utilising exactly such a connection, basically ignoring all the above critiques

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and criticisms. Why is this? Perrin and McFarland (2011, p. 101) argue it is that if we were to break the polling/opinion link, there is little left to explore what the public thinks and how and whether this shapes public policy. But they [the above criticisms] are largely ignored by contemporary practitioners because they offer little middle ground to allow continued empirical research enlightened by the critics’ insights. In short, if “public opinion does not exist” .  .  . what ought a democratically minded researcher do in order to observe and represent the ideas and preferences of the people? Similarly, Lewis (2001, pp. 9–10) questions, if public opinion as measured by polls is seen to be an artefact of such polls, what exactly are public opinion researchers doing, and is the entire concept of public opinion doomed? If we see public opinion as a social construction – a product of a complex interplay of personal circumstances and ideological influences (such as the education system and the media) – it becomes a more difficult object to deal with. As a social construction, public opinion seems less authentic and, by definition, less independent. Indeed, it is not immediately clear what we are measuring. Are we measuring the way people think, or the power of certain institutions to influence how we think? Does public opinion, in itself, mean anything at all, or is it merely the consequence of the larger forces that surround it? This raises profound questions for democratic politics; if individuals do not have stable “authentic” opinions and preferences, how can policy be aligned with what people want? Writing following the US Presidential election in 2020, where polls predicted a comfortable Biden victory, in contrast to the more narrow one that occurred, Graham (2020) argues that such polling failures represent a disaster, not for missing the precise election result but because of the doubt that injects as to the accuracy of polling more widely. The real catastrophe is that the failure of the polls leaves Americans with no reliable way to understand what we as a people think outside of elections – which in turn threatens our ability to make choices, or to cohere as a nation. Such questions also link back to the issues of representation noted earlier. What kinds of representation are possible when the main tool for accessing what people think may be actively constructing those views? These questions do not have easy answers (although see Perrin and McFarland 2011 for one attempt to grapple with them). The last part of the chapter seeks not to answer these questions directly, but rather to outline an alternative approach which takes seriously the notion of public opinion as a social construction, but which argues that such a conception invites us to consider

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different research questions than the responsiveness literature. If public opinion is constructed and opinion polls are less accurate representations, than they are constructions of it, the chapter argues that we should think less about “does public opinion shape policy?” and think a little more about how does “public opinion” come into being? What happens when “public opinion” is invoked? Whose voices count as “public opinion”? Why are some voices included and others excluded? How do political actors understand “public opinion”? In this, there is a parallel to the definitional debate within Terrorism Studies. Here, for many orthodox studies of terrorism, the absence of an objective definition of terrorism is deeply problematic and inhibits serious scholarly endeavour. Ganor (2002, p. 288) argues an objective definition is ‘indispensable to any serious attempt to combat terrorism. Lacking such a definition, no coordinated fight against international terrorism can ever really get anywhere’. By contrast, Jackson argues, viewing “terrorism” as a social construct moves focus to a range of a different range of questions. Jackson et al. (2011), while problematising any sense that “terrorism” can be objectively defined, argue instead that it can be described. Whilst the former serves to fix and “reify”, in Herbst’s (1998) terms, descriptions emphasise complexity and the importance of interpretation. Descriptions of terrorism, Jackson et al. (2011) argue, recognise that “terrorism” comes into being when being specific acts are discussed by particular actors in particular contexts. Thus, recognising the ontological instability of terrorism emphasises that terrorism is a label, the precise meaning and content of which is mutable, and it is a label which is used by specific actors for specific purposes. There is, in this call for greater attention to the mutability and performativity of specific discourses, rich potential for studies of public opinion.

Public opinion as social construction As the criticisms of the polling/public opinion nexus are not new, so we should not be surprised that these insights have been taken forward by critical scholars of public opinion, to develop alternative research paradigms than the responsiveness approach (although this is, in comparison to the responsiveness literature, a road less travelled). Herbst’s 1998 study remains a significant exception to this. Noting many of the above-delineated concerns with public opinion as polling, as well as pointing to the conceptual problems that have plagued thinkers since Ancient Greece, about how exactly public opinion might be defined, Herbst (1998) reframes the object of enquiry. She argues that public opinion is ‘contingent’ (p. 1) and ‘socially constructed’ (p. 13). This argument is reflective of many of the above concerns such that public opinion should not be seen as a “file drawer” (Wilson and Hodges 1992) that individuals access, but rather something which is shaped and constructed through complex interactions within the broader socio-political context in which they are expressed (Mettler and Soss 2004). This argument, she acknowledges leads to concerns, as noted earlier, as to how we can study public opinion if we don’t grant it ontological stability, but

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see it instead as a social construction (Hacking 1999). The answer lies, for Herbst (1998, p.  2), in shifting the focus of research: ‘We should study how the entity of public opinion is created in the minds of political actors, as well as the sorts of very real effects this entity can have’. It should be noted that this echoes the invocations of earlier scholars. Rejecting aggregative polling models of public opinion Blumer (1948) argues that we should think about the issue in reverse, to start not with the views of the public, but to begin with policymakers and to trace what fragments and pieces of “public opinion” come to their attention and how they process and respond to such information. We ought to begin with those who have to act on public opinion and move backwards along the lines of the various expressions of public opinion that come to their attention, tracing these expressions backward through their own various channels and in doing so, noting the chief channels, the key points of importance and the way in which any given expression has come to develop and pick up an organized backing out of what initially must have been a relatively amorphous condition. (Blumer 1948, p. 549) It is just this kind of “moving backwards” approach, where public opinion is something mutable and constructed through iterative processes of interaction between various individuals and groups and policymakers, which Herbst takes (and which this book seek to adopt and extend). In a study of state-wide politics in Illinois, Herbst investigates how a range of actors involved in the policy process understand public opinion. Of particular interest and focus are the different sources of “public opinion” that diferent actors rely on. She finds that these actors sift through diferent sources of information to construct a notion of “public opinion” That public opinion is a social construction is in many ways quite obvious .  .  . Yet despite this shared knowledge about the uncertain nature of public opinion, researchers, politicians, activists and citizens pick and choose “reliable” indicators to public opinion in order to make the most effective arguments they can. Members of Congress, for example, are expert in choosing particular forms of data about public opinion over others in order to bolster their case for a favoured policy. (Herbst 1998, p. 14) This selection corresponds, amongst other things, to broader (often implicit) notions of how politics and democracy should work, such that Herbst argues we should see constructions of public opinion as corresponding, at least in part, to actors’ claims about politics and democracy more broadly (as argued earlier). ‘Conceptions of public opinion are tethered to models of democracy. The social construction of public opinion is rooted in and derives from our choice of ideal-typical democratic models’ (Herbst 1998, p. 16). Herbst

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argues, therefore, that for diferent actors (or even the same actor at diferent moments), public opinion is constructed diferently, from diferent fragments of available opinion information. ‘At times public opinion is represented by poll data. At other times it is represented by personal anecdotes. And sometimes, public opinion is quite clearly . . . projections of our leaders and of influential journalists’ (Herbst 1998, p. 18). Intriguingly, given the above discussions and critiques of polling as public opinion, Herbst finds that most of the political actors she interviews are sceptical of opinion polls as sources of public opinion. Indeed, direct unmediated public opinion seems not to figure prominently in these actors’ conceptions of public opinion. Instead, for reasons of efcacy and commitment to particular ideas about democracy and politics, she finds actors relying on interest groups and the media as their main sources of public opinion (see also Powlick 1995, for an analysis of the sources of information about public opinion which foreign policy makers draw upon). Questions which follow from Herbst’s study include – to what extent are the conceptions and constructions of public opinion found in Illinois in the late 1990s specific to that place and time? Given the theoretical precepts – that public opinion is socially constructed, there are very good reasons to think that different political conjunctions would find different types of “public opinion” construction and different types of politics around these. Yet there are few similar studies. One exception is Hendriks and Lees-Marshment’s (2019) examination of how political elites think about the public’s input to participatory, deliberative policy processes. They argue, in a similar vein to Herbst that political elites are not neutral receptors of public opinion and that they play an active role in constructing the public voice through their choices about what, to whom and how to listen. Elites are ‘not passive recipients of public input; they have participatory preferences’ (Hendriks and Lees-Marshment 2019, p.  609). This connects to Pereira’s (2021) research on biases in political elites estimations of public opinion, discussed earlier, and arguments around “social projection” where politicians project their own beliefs and values onto the public, in particularly leading them to overestimate support for policies they themselves support. Strong’s (2017) analysis of the ways in which public opinion shaped (or was shaped by) the British government’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 explicitly adopts a conception of public opinion as a social construction, as ‘a social fact constituted by elite debate’ (Strong 2017, p.  1), enabling a focus on the ways in which political elites navigated and constructed the climate of opinion around the invasion. A further example is Brown’s (2011) study of the way in which public opinion was understood and constructed in terms of penal policy within New York state. As Herbst does, Brown notes that there has been a ‘lack of attention to ways in which political actors make sense of and use (or seek to influence) public opinion’ and she argues for ‘the importance of considering how public opinion is constructed, interpreted, and used’ (Brown 2011, p.  425). Her overall findings concerning constructions of public opinion in some ways echo Herbst, in that political actors seem to discount polls, relying instead on

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‘hunches’ and ‘intuition’ as well as media reports as sources of “public opinion” (ibid.). In a difference to Herbst’s findings, though, where political actors were reluctant to draw on direct interactions with the public, there is a sense, amongst Browne’s respondents, that more direct, hands-on community-based interactions with voters and citizens are preferable to more artificial means such as polling, not least because “public opinion” is seen by these actors to be pretty close to “common sense”. Although, Browne notes, such constructions may serve (as they did amongst Herbst’s participants) to align with broader conceptions of politics and democracy The notion among interviewees that their assessments of public opinion are common sense or justifiably based on their instincts may allow them a short cut for reading opinion, but it may also serve as a justification for failing to grapple actively or continuously with evaluations of public views. (Browne 2011, p. 437) Browne (ibid., p. 441) further argues that however understood, political actors believe that public opinion is important to and exerts an influence on policy making. [I]interviewees argued that public opinion plays a big role in penal policy making despite their lack of consensus on how opinion is assessed, and despite their own uncertainty about what public opinion is and even whether it exists at all. In working through his own thoughts on public opinion, one advocate remarked, “In a sense it’s nothing; in a sense it’s everything”. This sense of the latent nature, as something both there and not there, of public opinion is something which will be returned to in subsequent chapters. But another way of thinking about this is that there may be various discourses of public opinion. And that such discourses are not neutral constructions, but rather implicated in the interests and concepts of specific political actors; which is to say that political actors work to construct particular constructs of public opinion which reflect their larger concerns and ideas about politics. The import and significance of these various discourses may lie in the intersubjective understandings of these; thus less what public opinion is, and more what political actors believe it to be and what they believe other actors, including the public, believe it to be. This perception of what others believe public opinion to be creates, Browne (2011, p. 444) argues, ‘the “bounded space” within which policy choices can be determined or justified’. Another way of thinking about this “bounded space” is the notion of “resonance” in the work of Saward (2006), discussed earlier. Putting these together, we might argue that whilst “public opinion” in the sense of detailed, specific and stable attitudes to public policy questions is socially constructed, that there is something to which these constructions must pay attention if they are to

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be successful. Browne’s intersubjective space and Saward’s resonance point in slightly different directions; Saward’s perhaps towards some notion of “public sentiment”, something looser than “public opinion”, a broad, general disposition or instinct about certain political issues which more concrete constructions of “public opinion” must chime with (see also Stimson et al.’s (1995) notion of a “public mood”, to which politicians are keenly sensitive). And in turn, this perhaps echoes Key’s (1961) distinction between latent and activated opinions. (There is, of course, the potential critique here that this is moving the conceptual deckchairs around, shifting the ontologically real aspect of public opinion down into “public sentiment”.) Browne’s work looks elsewhere, less towards any “real” dispositions and more towards intersubjectively held beliefs; thus it matters less whether articulations or representations of public opinion chime with any more general, looser attitudes to political and social issues that people may hold – and more with do they chime with what people think people think. In other words, “successful” constructions of public opinion resonate when they are in accordance with what actors – whether these be the wider public, or political elites – believe the public think. As Strong (2017, p. 4) argues ‘“public opinion” exists to the extent a society, or a group within a society such as a political elite, thinks that it exists’. In such a view, constructions of public opinion become both a representative claim (this is what people think) and an intersubjective claim (this is what other people think that people think), where the success of the representative claim depends upon the success of the intersubjective claim. The intersubjective claim can be bolstered and buttressed by evidence, of course. If I can point to specific evidence – such as polls – which support my representative claim, it is perhaps more likely, to be accepted. Of course, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, particularly Chapter 4 which examines Parliamentary discourse around public opinion, what counts as “evidence” might be seen very differently; in the case of Parliament, there is widespread scepticism of polling, but the constituency-MP link is held in almost reverential standing. Such attempts to buttress claims about “public opinion” might also be a motivation for the attempts to directly engage and reach out to communities and members of the public that are discussed in Chapter 5 (and with security professionals in Chapter 7).

Conclusion This chapter has explored the vast literature on public opinion. It began by noting the complexity and contested nature of the concept itself, with Herbst (1993) identifying four distinct definitions and conceptions. Claims about whether public opinion does influence policy are intricately connected to normative views about whether public should influence policy. Mansbridge’s and Saward’s work on representation notes the ways in which claims about representation involve construction; that the act of representing involves an element of bringing into being the very views which the representative seeks to convey.

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The chapter then reviewed the responsiveness literature, pointing to evidence that some policy, especially high salience policy, does appear to accord with broad trends in public opinion. Yet critiques of this literature pose challenges concerning the directionality of any such relationship, the accuracy of political elites’ knowledge of what the public think on issues, and whether “public opinion” can be said to be accurately captured by polling techniques. Questions as to whether polling and “public opinion” correspond, or whether such techniques are creating as much as finding public opinion feed into a general scepticism and concern about simple responsiveness models. This concern is picked up by those who seek to think about “public opinion” less in stable, objective terms, and more as a social construction. Here the focus of enquiry shifts from “does public opinion influence policy” to “how do political elites think about public opinion”. Herbst, Browne and others identify a complex and varied terrain with regard to how political actors go about piecing together a sense of what public opinion is, as well as the significance and impact of it with regard to policy (although this latter was less a focus of Herbst’s study). They outline a research paradigm which is less focused on whether public opinion influences policy outcomes, as in the responsiveness literature, and more concerned with the broader relationship between them. Do political elites see public opinion as important and influential? How do political actors understand public opinion and what sources of public views do they attach significance and meaning to? Such a view takes the analysis of the relationship between public opinion and public policy away from questions of causation and towards questions of instantiation and creation; away from “does public policy influence policy” to “how do politicians understand public opinion and what do they do with it?” and “how do politicians shape and create publics and public opinion”. If, as Mettler and Soss (2004, p. 58) argue, ‘common patterns of political thinking in mass publics can be viewed as politically constructed outcomes’, how are these constructions achieved? Do they reflect different conceptions of representation? It reframes the issue of the relationship of public opinion to public policy from a uni-directional causal one, to a messy, mutually instantiating, complex and iterative one. (It is also a series of questions which are less amenable to quantitative analysis.) However, before the book gets to the empirical chapters which explore the relationship between key counterterrorism actors – political and security – and public opinion, the book seeks to contextualise public opinion. Drawing on polls, qualitative data and media texts, Chapter 3 seeks to paint a picture of what the information environment was around counterterrorism between 2001 and 2015. The chapter is not arguing that this is or was public opinion in any simple sense. But rather the point is that if subsequent chapters are exploring the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism through elite interviews, what kinds of sources of information about public opinion did such actors have? Such information may be said to be part of that which sets or defines the “bounded space” in which claims about public opinion may or may not resonate and be accepted as public opinion. Amongst other things,

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what this analysis does is enables a contextualisation of some of the claims which are made about public opinion in later chapters; to assess in other words, whether the constructions of, or claims about, public opinion resonate or are in accordance with other constructions of, or claims about, public opinion. The chapters which follow will explore how political actors invoke, discuss, understand, and in some instances, create public opinion. Far from being “left out” of security politics such as counterterrorism, the findings will highlight the myriad ways in which the views and voices of ordinary people are brought into the counterterrorism policy space. But this relationship is varied and complex. The chapters will also examine the ways in which politicians perceive the influence of this “public opinion” which they have, in many ways, invoked/ created. These insights will flesh out and expand not only our understanding of the type of politics that security politics such as counterterrorism generate, but, in doing so, will illuminate the role and position of the views and voices of “ordinary” people in counterterrorism policy.

Note 1 Although it should be noted that where opinion polls are widely understood to have been “wrong”, the main concern within the polling industry – the main problem – is seen to be the lack of representative samples. In both the 2015 UK General Election and the 2016 US Presidential election, polls were seen to systematically struggle to contact supports of the Conservatives/Trump, respectively, thus overestimating support for their opponents. See Kennedy et al. (2017), Sturgis et al. (2016). It is interesting to note and reflect that this is one area where polling either appears as “right” or “wrong” – it either accurately forecasts the results of an election or it does not. Issue-based polling rarely has the same kind of verification device.

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Sources of public opinion information, 2001–2015

Introduction This chapter seeks to provide an overview of some of the main sources of public opinion for the period 2001–2015, which represents the timeframe covered by the empirical analysis in Chapters 4–5. The aim of the chapter is twofold; one to provide a summary of the kinds of “public opinion” information which was available to political actors during this period. In analysing this information, the chapter is not endorsing a view that this information is public opinion in any simple or straightforward way. For reasons that have been discussed in the previous chapter, the book views public opinion as a construction and takes a position of scepticism that opinion polls capture, straightforwardly, pre-existing and stable attitudes of individuals, which can be said to represent “public opinion”. Opinion polls provide a kind of information but due to issues around framing, question wording, non-attitudes and so on, the book is sceptical that these are “public opinion” in a totalising sense. They are better viewed as a representation of public opinion which may or may not appropriately capture public attitudes (as we shall see, there is some dissonance between various kinds of public opinion data which will be examined in the chapter). Yet they are important in the sense that many actors in the political realm view such polls precisely as accurate pictures of public opinion. In this sense, irrespective of their verisimilitude in terms of public attitudes, they are significant as they are taken to be accurate by some important political actors (although many, as we shall see in Chapter 5, disavow polls). Rather than taking things like polls as accurate representations of a fixed and stable public opinion, the second aim of the chapter is to argue that public opinion about counterterrorism is a) socially constructed and b) as represented in polls, more “soft”, more nuanced, complex and flexible than is frequently assumed. Through firstly, critical analysis of polling data, secondly, re-analysis of focus group data from 2010, and thirdly, a media content analysis, the chapter examines how public attitudes to counterterrorism powers as gathered through the above techniques are a little more hazy and uncertain than they first appear. Polls suggest a majority are in favour of “more security” for counterterrorism, but also that there is much less consensus (and more diversity) about the types of measures that this should DOI: 10.4324/9781003244585-4

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lead to. The findings broadly comport with Jackson and Hall’s (2016, p.  305) findings that public views about terrorism are ‘unstable, context-dependent, and dynamic’. The third source of the information environment around public attitudes examined is media reporting. As Herbst’s (1998) work from the US suggests, public officials frequently take media reporting seriously as a source of information about public attitudes (notwithstanding their obvious limitations as representing public opinion). Further, as we shall see in the qualitative interviews in Chapters 5 and 7, the respondents interviewed for this project also make reference to media reports in terms of public opinion, (although not always positively). This analysis similarly finds a diversity of opinion expressed in print media outlets. Whilst these outlets might not be equal in terms of their readership and scope (or influence on political elites), it is worth noting that across broadsheet and tabloid, there is both support for and opposition to, expansive counterterrorism measures. It is an information environment which does not have a singular, unanimous quality to it, suggesting that there is scope for political elites to narrate or articulate public opinion in a range of ways and that various different versions could command support (and/or opposition) from a section of the media. In selecting these three sources of information about what the public thinks, the chapter is not arguing or suggesting that these are exhaustive. Clearly, other things, such as protests, TV and radio phone-in shows and (as Chapter 4 will demonstrate) constituents lobbying their MPs are all important other sources of information which political elites will attune themselves to. Further, MPs, Ministers and private actors also have proprietary information which is not publicly available. Some of this will be discussed in subsequent chapters. Again, to emphasise, it is not the view of the book that these – either individually or collectively – comprise public opinion on counterterrorism. Rather, the purpose of reviewing these sources of information is that this approximates key parts of the information environment which the policy actors covered in Chapters 4 and 5 have had at their disposal. It, therefore, informs the analysis which follows, where the book assesses how key political actors go about understanding public opinion and the extent to which they “construct” an image of such, from the available information.

Opinion polls Chapter 2 discussed a wide-ranging literature which evinced a scepticism of a co-equivalence of opinion polls and public opinion, which is to say that a wide range of authors have cast doubt on whether opinion polls can be seen as a simple reflection of genuine/authentic public opinion. Without rehearsing in detail those arguments again, the scepticism can be said to be grounded in both technical, methodological issues and broader questions as to the ability of individualised polling to adequately represent the wider public. The technical concerns centre around how questions are worded and the ordering of

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questions in polls (the presence of certain questions prior to other questions can be said to have a “priming” effect. See Perrin and McFarland 2011). Pantazis and Pemberton (2012) raise a related concern by noting that opinion polls about counterterrorism measures nearly always occur in the wake of terrorist attacks – and that these violent incidents could be said to be “priming” respondents. They also note the propensity of polling companies to ask questions about counterterrorism measures in binary ways, often invoking the balancing (of liberty and security) metaphor. But as they note, posing questions in these terms a) presumes that liberty and security are in opposition – something that is at least debatable (see Waldron 2003) and b) removes any space for “third” options (which as we shall see, can have important effects). The chapter will first review the prominence/salience of terrorism between 2001 and 2015, before examining polling around specific themes. General attitudes towards counterterrorism powers and civil liberties will be considered first, before examining pre-charge detention, surveillance powers and Prevent (these were the highest profile issues at the time and which about, therefore, there is most publicly available polling). It is perhaps worth nothing that generally, available polling clusters around 2004/5 and 2015, perhaps reflecting the earlier-noted heightened salience of terrorism at these times.

Salience – concern about terrorism Prior to discussing opinion polls of counterterrorism measures themselves, it is useful to begin by reviewing polling data about how significant or important terrorism is as an issue for the public – as measured by polls. This is for two reasons. One, the more important an issue, the more salient it is, then perhaps the more “responsive” public policy is to it. As noted in Chapter 2, various studies (see, e.g. Page and Shapiro 1983, 1992) have argued that public policy is more responsive to public opinion in higher-profile policy areas. Part of the reason for this links to the second issue as to why getting a sense of the salience or importance of terrorism as an issue is important. This is that public opinion is easier to gauge for higher profile issues, at least in part because the public might be said to more clearly have opinions about issues which receive more attention. Lower profile issues are often not the subject of opinion polls and moreover, even if they are, potentially run into problems as regards the knowledge or otherwise, of the wider public (Converse 1964; Bishop 2004; Sturgis and Smith 2010). One way to assess the salience of terrorism is to look towards polling which invites respondents to specify the most important issues facing the country. One issue/problem which recurs with regard to opinion polls concerns the consistent wording of questions over time. Different pollsters may approach the same or a similar issue, but (as we shall see below) even minor adjustments to question wording can have significant effects (some would go further and suggest that even if you ask the same question, if the context is different – as it inevitably must be at different moments in time – that we cannot be certain that

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responses are equivalent and can be easily compared. This is because preferences have been shown to be quite loose and mutable. See Zaller and Feldman 1992; Perrin and McFarland 2011) Notwithstanding such caveats, examining a single pollster’s questioning about issue salience gives some, if imperfect, sense of which issues survey respondents feel are important. Here we examine IPSOSMori polling, which has consistently asked, over time, respondents “What do you see as the most important issue facing Britain today?” (IPSOS Mori 2015). Reported here is the proportion of people who selected terrorism as the most important issue facing the country. However, another concern immediately presents itself – IPSOS Mori list terrorism alongside a range of other terms – defence and foreign policy. Respondents have to select this option “defence/ foreign affairs/terrorism” and cannot specify which in particular they are referring to. This obviously means that we don’t know whether people are actually concerned about terrorism or defence policy, or foreign policy – which are obviously not the same things. Indeed, one can see this in the data as there is an increase in the number of people who select this as the most important issue around 2003. Whilst we cannot be certain, given that this was the time of controversy about the UK’s involvement in the invasion of Iraq, one assumes that this is the object of concern and not terrorism. But that is an inference and not something we can know with absolute certainty. Figure 3.1 displays the percentage of people who indicated that “defence/ foreign policy/terrorism” was the most important issue facing the country. It 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Jul-02 Jul-03 Jul-04 Jul-05 Jul-06 Jul-07 Jul-08 Jul-09 Jul-10 Jul-11 Jul-12 Jul-13 Jul-14 Jul-15

Figure 3.1 Percentage of people who say defence/foreign policy/terrorism is the most important issue facing the country 2002–2015 (source: IPSOS Mori)

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appears that concern around terrorism peaks – perhaps unsurprisingly – around the 7/7 attacks in London in 2005, and then the issue recedes from public consciousness until 2015, when probably related to an upsurge in violence associated with ISIS, (not least the twin attacks in Paris), the issue becomes more prominent again. Given the methodological problems of the “defence/foreign policy/terrorism” category, to shore up this picture somewhat, a different set of data might be invoked. YouGov data on a different question – asking people about the chances that they or their loved ones would be involved in a terrorist attack – shows a broadly similar pattern, with heightened concern around 2005, a drop off between 2006 and 2012, before an increase in 2013–2015 (YouGov 2015b). What these poll findings broadly suggest is that the salience of terrorism was highest around 2005, lower between 2006 and 2013 and picking up again in 2014–2105. Again, the point here is less that this is a completely accurate sense of the public’s concerns about terrorism (although it amounts to saying that the public is more concerned about terrorism in the wake of terrorist attacks, which is hardly controversial) than it is to say that this is the information environment available to political actors.

Counterterrorism or human rights? A number of polls ask respondents general questions about whether counterterrorism powers are sufficient and/or whether human rights or civil liberties should be curtailed to combat terrorism (see Table 3.1). Two polls conducted in the aftermath of the 7/7 attacks in 2005 (ICM 2005; YouGov 2005) both present the issue of counterterrorism and civil liberties in oppositional terms – that is, they give respondents two choices, to “choose” either security or liberty/human rights. There is no third option. Two further polls conducted later, ComRes (2014) and YouGov (2015c) also ask a question about whether respondents are in favour of greater counterterrorism powers, although these questions are not framed in terms of security/civil liberties. The responses suggest that the British public is, to varying degrees, consistently in favour of “more security”, this option being preferred by 73% (ICM 2005), 61% (YouGov 2005), 72% (ComRes 2014) and 47% (YouGov 2015c). It is a picture which is broadly in concurrence with Johnson and Gearty (2007), who, as part of the British Social Attitudes survey, find that during the late 1990s and early 2000s, publics were supportive of counterterrorism measures and that many were relatively unconcerned about civil liberty trade-offs (although it dated the decline in support for civil liberties to the 1990s, suggesting that perceived terrorism threat was not the prime factor in attitudes to civil liberties). However, the YouGov poll from 2014 is different in its approach – offering three, rather than two possible responses – and offers a glimpse of a somewhat different picture. To what extent, as Pantazis and Pemberton (2012) argue, is framing counterterrorism (and/or civil liberties) as a binary, in part, contributing to the “more security” results, noted earlier? Is framing the question in this way, particularly in the wake of a terrorist attack, (as in the two 2005 polls)

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Table 3.1 Opinion Poll responses on security/civil liberty questions (2005–2015) ICM (2005) Q. Tony Blair has announced a series of Right: 73% anti-terrorism measures following last month’s London bombings, which some Wrong: 17% people say might mean the loss of some civil liberties. Do you think it is right or wrong Don’t Know: 10% to lose some civil liberties to improve our security against terrorist attacks? YouGov (2005) Q. Critics of the 90 day [pre charge detention] proposal say that it would be bad for civil liberties, and won’t in practice help the task of catching, arresting and convicting suspected terrorists. Which of these statements comes closer to your view?

Critics of the police are genuinely concerned with the need both to protect civil liberties and also reduce the threat from terrorism – 31% The critics are more concerned with the civil liberties of suspected terrorists than the rights of everyone else to be protected from terrorism – 61% Don’t Know: 8%

YouGov (2014) Q. Thinking about how Theresa May has handled the issues of protecting against terrorism and protecting people’s human rights, which of the following best reflects your view?

Theresa May has gone too far with antiterrorism powers, infringing people’s human rights and giving the police and the security services too many powers to snoop into ordinary people’s lives – 18% Theresa May has not gone far enough with anti-terrorism powers and has not given the police and security services the powers they need to combat terrorism – 37% Theresa May has got the balance between protecting human rights and giving the police and security services enough powers to fight terrorism about right – 19% Don’t Know: 27%

ComRes (2014) Agree: 72% Q. Do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements about Islamic Disagree: 12% State, the militant group operating in Iraq Don’t Know: 16% and Syria, formerly known as ISIS? – Britain needs tougher anti-terrorism laws YouGov (2015c) Q. Generally speaking, do you think the British authorities – the police and security services – do or do not have sufficient powers to combat any threat from ISIS/Islamic State here in Britain?

Do have sufficient powers to combat ISIS/ Islamic State – 36% Do not have sufficient powers to combat ISIS/Islamic State – 47% Don’t Know: 18%

A table which details the findings of opinion polls which asked questions about security and civil liberties between 2005 and 2015. Full discussion is in the text

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putting a thumb on the scale? It is interesting to note that when this kind of question is asked but a third option is present as in the YouGov 2014 poll, that the picture which emerges is a little more complex. In this poll, “only” 37% evince a view that more security powers are needed to combat terrorism. 19% of people think ‘the balance’ between security and human rights is about right, with 18% thinking that counterterrorism powers have gone too far. And perhaps reflecting the lower salience of the issue than in 2005, more than 1 in 4 people say they don’t know. In other words, in this survey, 63% of people don’t subscribe to the “more security” position, either because they don’t know, they think security powers are sufficient or they think they’ve gone too far. What are we to make of this? One, simple explanation is that this is just one poll, and may be an outlier. Against this, as we shall see below, is that this dynamic can be observed in other polls on other issues as well. When respondents are given simple binaries, they tend to choose the “more security” option; when given more nuanced options, this “more security” majority is diminished. At one level, this is not surprising – providing more possible options is likely to dilute responses for any one category. Another explanation would be that the fact a more nuanced picture emerges in 2014 than in 2005 is due to actual changes in public views; that there had not been a significant terrorist incident in the UK since 7/7 may well have led to people having a more nuanced, less “pro-security” view. However, going against this reading are the findings of the ComRes (2014) survey which asks the question of whether more anti-terrorism powers are needed in a straightforward binary way at roughly the same time (August 2014 for the ComRes poll and November 2014 for YouGov). Yet they find very different pictures. The ComRes (2014) poll, (after priming/framing in terms of ISIS) gives a binary choice on “more security” and finds 72% of people in favour; in the YouGov (2014) poll, where people are given three choices, this halves to 37%. Therefore two polls at roughly the same time, produce very different findings. This leads to a third possible explanation. The questions are framed and worded differently, but there is a plausible argument that this difference is reflective of the binary v non-binary differences in the questions. It seems that when polls ask respondents in a binary fashion, whether they are in favour of greater counterterrorism powers, to varying degrees, majorities say yes. But when respondents are given a wider range of options and not a simple binary, the public view which emerges is more complex and the straightforward “more security” public view seems to evaporate. This does raise the possibility that the “pro security” majority in such polls is being shaped by question priming/framing and wording. It is possible that when respondents are given a more complex range of options, that the “pro-security” majority diminishes. Returning to the issue of how this contributes to the broader information environment for political actors, notwithstanding the more murky picture from the 2014 YouGov poll, generally such polls present a sense of a public which is not particularly attached to civil liberties, at least not when it comes to terrorism-related issues, and which desires greater counterterrorism powers.

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This may not be a fully accurate picture, as the above suggests, and the prosecurity majority may be at least partly related to the binary way in which such questions are posed.

Pre-charge detention One of the most polled counterterrorism topics between 2004 and 2010 concerns the government’s attempts (some successful, some not) to extend the period during which police can detain those suspected of terrorism offences before charging them. This pre-charge detention period has been subject to various changes over the period; increasing from 7 to 14 days in 2003, from 14 to 28 days in 2006 and reduced back to 14 days in 2012 (there were also attempts to increase this to 90 days in 2005 and 42 days in 2008). Table 3.2 reports on polls on this topic. There are three main aspects to discuss about the poll findings. The first is that the questions around this topic are worded in a wide variety of ways. People are asked their views about different pre-charge detention regimes, with options ranging from indefinite detention through to 48 hours pre-charge detention. Given this, it is not surprising, perhaps, that – secondly – there are a wide range of different responses. Indeed, this is seen clearly if we focus on the modal response – the most popular of the options presented. In the 2004 YouGov poll, indefinite detention is the modal (and majority) response. Yet in a 2005 YouGov poll, the modal response is that there should be a 90-day precharge detention period, but only if sanctioned by a judge. In a 2008 YouGov poll, the modal (and majority) response is 28 days pre-charge detention (which was the status quo at the time) but with post-charge questioning allowed. The 2008 ICM poll has 42 days as the modal response (although a third of these respondents change their minds with a follow-up question). Obviously, there is the aforementioned caveat that people’s attitudes may well change over the time period covered here – but notwithstanding this point, if we are to look at this data and consider “what do the public want” with regard to pre-charge detention, it’s hard to discern a clear view or pattern over this time period. The polls around 2005 (in the aftermath of the 7/7 attacks) do seem to indicate public support for extending pre-charge detention. More broadly, there is a relatively clear sense that the majority view over this time period is that there should be a lengthy period of pre-charge detention, something in excess of that for “normal” criminal offences. Eighty-nine percent of YouGov (2004) respondents favour a period of pre-charge detention longer than that for ordinary criminal offences. This figure is 91% for ICM (Weir 2008) and 87% for YouGov (2010). Yet as shown earlier, quite how long people think that should be depends considerably on how the question is worded. Thirdly, views on this issue are perhaps not as straightforward as this. Two polls attract circumspect answers and it is worth noting these were sponsored by organisations sympathetic to human rights agendas. The 2008 YouGov poll was commissioned by Liberty and the 2008 ICM by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. The questions asked in these polls are complex and longer

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Table 3.2 Opinion Poll responses on pre-charge detention questions (2004–2010) YouGov (2004) Q. The police now have the right to detain and question British citizens suspected of terrorism for up to 14 days before they must be charged or released. In contrast, people suspected of normal offences must be charged or released within 96 hours. Foreign citizens suspected of terrorist offences can be detained indefinitely.

The law should be changed so that the police treat them like normal suspects and hold them for no more than 96 hours: 7%

Which of these options do you most support for British citizens suspected of offences connected with terrorism?

Don’t Know: 4%

Police should have the power to treat them like foreign nationals suspected of terrorism and hold them indefinitely: 49% Current 14-day law is about right: 40%

ICM (2005) Q. To what extent do you support or oppose the introduction of each of the following anti-terrorism measures? Allowing the police to hold terror suspects for up to three months without charge, instead of the 14 days they are presently allowed to hold people.

Strongly support: 48% Tend to support: 21% Neither support nor oppose: 9% Tend to oppose: 9% Strongly oppose: 10% Don’t Know: 3%

YouGov (2005) Q. Which of these options would you personally support most?

The present 14-day limit for holding suspected terrorists without charge should be increased to 90 days: 31% The 14-day limit should be increased to 90 days – but only in those cases where the police can persuade a senior judge that the time is needed to gather evidence against the suspect(s): 41% The present 14-day limit should be extended, but only to 28 days: 16% The present 14-day limit should be kept as it is: 5% The present 14-day limit should be reduced to 7 days: 1% Don’t Know: 6%

YouGov (2008) Q. The police currently have the power to detain and question people suspected of terrorism offences without charge for up to 28 days. This is called “pre-charge detention”. The Government would like to extend this period to up to 42 days without charge. Which of these do you think is the

Because the Government wants to help the police do their job: 35% Because the Government wants to look “tough on terror”: 54% Not Sure: 11%

(Continued)

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Table 3.2 (Continued) Government’s main motivation for this proposal? ––

––

Q. At present, once someone is charged with a criminal offence, the police are not allowed to question them further on that or any related offence. It has been suggested that instead of being allowed to hold suspects without charge for up to 42 days, we should keep the 28-day limit, but give the police the power to charge suspected terrorists for a lesser offence (for example, possessing articles for terrorist purposes) and then, if the police gather fresh evidence, they should be able to question the suspects further, and to charge them later with a more serious offence (for example, conspiracy to murder). If you had to choose between these three options which would you prefer?

We should keep the present 28-day limit, and also keep the rule that prevents the police from questioning suspects after they have been charged: 27%

––

––

Q. Which of these statements comes closer to your own view?

If the pre-charge detention period were extended, it is very unlikely that wholly innocent people would be held on suspicion for as long as 42 days: 43%

The police should continue to be barred from questioning suspects after they have been charged, but the time limit for holding suspects without charge should be raised to 42 days: 13% The 28-day limit should remain, but the police should be allowed to question suspects further after they have been charged, if the police obtain fresh evidence on related offences: 70% Don’t Know: 10%

If the pre-charge detention were extended, there is a real risk of innocent people being held on suspicion for as long as 42 days: 39% Not Sure: 18% ICM (see Weir 2008) Q. Britain has long-standing rules and principles that have been put in place to protect people from being arrested and wrongly held for an indefinite time in custody. I would like you to think about the amount of time people should be held in police custody before they are charged with an offence or are released. For each of the following scenarios please tell me how long you think people should be held in detention for questioning before they are charged or released? People who may be innocent of guilty of a terrorist offence –– Q. [To all respondents who think people who may be innocent or guilty of a terrorist offence should be held for up to six weeks.]

Up to four days: 6% Up to one week: 10% Up to two weeks: 13% Up to four weeks: 32% Up to six weeks: 36%

–– Yes: 65% No: 35%

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Six weeks in custody is equivalent to the prison sentence which someone might serve if found guilty of an offence such as burglary or assault. Do you still think it is right to hold someone who may be innocent for so long? YouGov (2010) Q. Presently the law allows the police to hold people they suspect of terrorist offenses for up to 28 days without charging them. How long you think the police should be allowed to hold people they suspect of terrorist offences before they must either charge them or release them?

48 hours or less: 4% 7 days: 7% 14 days: 8% 28 days: 27% 42 days: 16% Longer than 42 days: 29% Don’t know: 9%

A table which details the findings of opinion polls which asked questions about pre-charge detention, between 2004 and 2010. Full discussion is in the text

than in most of the other polls, and they present options not covered by other polls, which tend to focus on the length of the pre-charge detention period only. Thus, in the 2008 YouGov poll, when given the option, 70% of people prefer to not extend the pre-charge detention period but to allow police to question suspects after charge. It’s also noteworthy that the questions this poll asks uncover a circumspection about the government and counterterrorism powers. Only a third of respondents believed that the government was seeking to extend pre-charge detention to help the police do their job, with the majority (54%) believing it was instead to look “tough on terror”. Further, the responses as to whether innocent people might be held for 42 days were evenly split with a significant minority – 2 in 5 people – being concerned that this would happen. The ICM poll (Weir 2008) finds that of the 36% of people who favour pre-charge detention of over 6 weeks, one-third of these changed their mind when it was pointed out that this period was a similar period of incarceration as for someone convicted of burglary offences; suggesting, numerically, that support for longer periods of pre-charge detention might be lower than it appears and that such opinions are “soft” in that there are significant numbers of people who are prepared to change their views if presented with different information. This point will be returned to below in the analysis of qualitative data. It is interesting to speculate whether these kinds of questions, if asked in 2005 (just after 7/7), would have attracted similar levels of support. In other words, are these responses in 2008 – which are less supportive of lengthy pre-charge detention – related to a slightly “calmer” public mood about terrorism concerns; or are they related to the questions and the way they are worded? Therefore, this polling presents a picture that (i) a majority do support longer than normal pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects; (ii) there is little

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clear consensus about how long this period should be and (iii) these views are malleable and not strongly held. As with the polling on counterterrorism (and human rights) generally, there appear to be strong question wording effects, with different pollsters asking different questions, and getting different answers.

Counterterrorism and surveillance The final area of polling to be considered concerns support or otherwise for what might broadly be termed government surveillance. During this period – and in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations – there was a general debate about what powers were appropriate for governments to possess to access information about both the general public and those suspected of criminal offences. A part of this concerned what powers governments should have in this sphere with regard to terrorism suspects. Table 3.3 reports on such polling: There are three things worth noting about this polling data. The first is the dominance of yes/no binary questions, as noted in the above section addressing Table 3.3 Opinion Poll responses on surveillance questions (2004–2015) YouGov (2004) Would you support or oppose each of the following measures to prevent terrorism in the UK? Introduce compulsory identity cards

Support: 78% Oppose: 16% Don’t know: 6%

Greatly increase the number of CCTV cameras

Support: 80% Oppose: 14% Don’t know: 7%

Monitor car number-plates at major junctions throughout the country

Support: 74% Oppose: 15% Don’t know: 11%

YouGov (2014) Below are some changes that people have suggested to help combat terrorism in Britain. In each case, can you say whether you think it would be a good idea, or would be an unnecessary overreaction? Requiring communications companies to store details identifying who was using a computer or mobile at a given time and make it available to the security services?

Would be a good idea: 51% Would be an unnecessary overreaction: 27% Not sure: 22%

Sources of public opinion information Requiring internet and social media companies to monitor content on their sites and inform the authorities of any communications that could relate to terrorist activity?

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Would be a good idea: 67% Would be an unnecessary overreaction: 18% Not sure: 16%

YouGov (2015d) Generally speaking, do you think the security services do or do not need more access to the public’s communications (such as emails and phone calls) in order to effectively fight terrorism?

Do need more access to the public’s communications in order to fight terrorism: 52% Do not need any more access to the public’s communications, they already have all they need or more than they need to fight terrorism: 31% Don’t Know: 17%

Currently the security services require the permission of the Home Secretary to access someone’s real time personal communications. Which of the following best reflects your view?

The security forces should need to get the Home Secretary’s permission before accessing someone’s personal communications: 51% The security forces should have general powers to access people’s personal communications without getting the permission of the Home Secretary: 35% Not sure: 13%

YouGov (2015c) Generally speaking, do you think the security services do or do not need more access to the public’s communications (such as emails and phone calls) in order to effectively fight terrorism?

Do need more access to the public’s communications in order to fight terrorism: 52% Do not need any more access to the public’s communications, they already have all they need or more than they need to fight terrorism: 31% Don’t Know: 17%

A table which details the findings of opinion polls which asked questions about surveillance between 2004 and 2015. Full discussion in the text

general counterterrorism attitudes. Middle way options are excluded or, sometimes (e.g. YouGov 2015c, emphasis added) squeezed together (respondents are given the choice “Do not need any more access to the public’s communications, they already have all they need or more than they need to fight terrorism”; this encompasses two separate views). Secondly, this tends to result in “more security” majority views, although in the 2014 and 2015 polls, this is a reasonably narrow majority. The contrast with the 2004 poll is striking – and although the polls are asking about different things (“public” surveillance of roads and streets etc in 2004; “private” electronic communications in 2014/2015) there is at least the possibility that the Snowden revelations have cooled enthusiasm for state surveillance even when dealing with terrorism. Finally, the “more security” position is the

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majority position but this appears to be quite narrowly favoured with substantial minority support for the status quo (or granting fewer surveillance powers – but as mentioned, the either/or questions don’t allow for consideration of this). This could represent, as mentioned, a “Snowden” effect. Another possibility is that mass collection of communications data is something which people feel is closer to them; that their data might be collected, stored, examined, etc. As Waldron (2003) argues, many people support harsh counterterrorism powers because they feel that they will not become subject to them. “Those suspected of involvement in terrorism” is a category to which the vast majority of people do not think they will fall into. Indeed, Jarvis and Lister (2013a, 2015a) found that some, generally white, respondents explicitly stated this, with one saying ‘All this is happening on a level that does not touch us’ (Jarvis and Lister 2013b, p. 667). Most of the questions in Table 3.3 make reference to powers that, at least in scope, encompass (potentially) everyone. There’s by no means enough here to be sure about such a conclusion, but it is a possibility that respondents to polls are a little less gungho about endorsing restrictions/counterterrorism powers which they themselves, even if indirectly, may be subject to. What does the above overview and analysis of polls 2004–2015 tell us about the public’s attitudes to counterterrorism policies? There are, of course, all the significant and important arguments discussed in Chapter Two, about the issues and problems with opinion polling – and certainly any simple equivalence between opinion polls and “public opinion” understood more widely/generally. The issues around question framing and wording are present for all to see; perhaps most pronounced in the pre-charge detention surveys, where very different questions led to the seeming endorsement of very different positions. But what might a “reasonable person” conclude about the public’s attitudes to counterterrorism? What kind of information environment does this present for political actors? There does seem to be public support for “more security” in general terms. In many ways, this is not surprising. Who would endorse “less security”? Or to put it a little less flippantly, are people, in a context where terrorist attacks have taken place, likely to support a position which says “yes, please do something about this” or “no, I think the authorities have enough support and powers to address this issue”. When questions are phrased in binary terms, as they often are, it might be argued that this is loading the dice a little. In some ways, the dissonance that sometimes comes when asking “ok – what kind of something would you like to be done”, perhaps supports the above argument. Poll respondents seem less sure about what they want to be done; and quite what “more security” constitutes seems to be swayed by the options presented. And as the ICM (Weir 2008) poll discussed earlier showed (where a third of respondents in favour of longer pre-charge detention changed their minds) potentially quite malleable. This perhaps links back to issues about information and non-attitudes. There is a risk of sliding into elitism, but what proportion of the public has thought at any length about the differences between and the relative merits of, 14 days pre-charge detention, 28 days precharge detention, 28 days pre-charge detention with post-charge questioning, 42 days pre-charge detention and 90 days pre-charge detention? This is not

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to make the claim that responses to such questions represent “non-attitudes”. Due to the salience and media profile of terrorism, most people will have some sense of the issue – should you detain people you suspect of terrorism for longer than usual? But once you get into the knotty weeds of number of days, and add in issues like post-charge questioning (is 28 days pre-charge questioning with post-charge questioning “better” or “harsher” than 42 days pre-charge detention with no post-charge questioning?), it moves into areas which people perhaps do not have either information, or fully formed or thought through views (see also Jackson and Hall 2016). It’s not surprising perhaps that views on such issues are not that strongly held (this will be discussed further below). But for political actors, at least those political actors “genuinely” trying to discern what the public wants, (as opposed to those who want to find support from the public for a pre-fixed agenda), something of a dilemma comes from this kind of polling. If you take such polls as approximating something like the public mood (and that is not a position this book endorses, but it is a position that some hold) then a reasonable conclusion of the above polls would be that the majority of the public want “more security” but they don’t necessarily have a clear sense of what that should be.

Qualitative research on public attitudes to counterterrorism This section presents an overview – and a reanalysis – of research undertaken by the author in a previous research project. ‘Anti-Terrorism, Citizenship and Security’ was funded by the ESRC and conducted 14 focus groups with different ethnic groups in different parts of the UK (see Jarvis and Lister 2015a for full details. See also Jarvis and Lister 2013a, 2013b, 2013c, 2016, 2017). The project explored, in a qualitative setting, how different communities across the UK understood terms like security, and their attitudes towards key counterterrorism measures introduced since 2001. This section will present a brief summary of the main findings of the project with regard to this latter component – attitudes to counterterrorism policies (a fuller discussion is in Jarvis and Lister 2015a). It will also re-analyse the data set (available through the UK Data Archive, Jarvis and Lister 2019) to illuminate the ways in which participants spoke about specific counterterrorism measures. This qualitative data can shed no light on the distribution of preferences – something which for all the issues noted in Chapter 2, that opinion polls and surveys are more suited. But what it can illuminate is how people think about these kinds of issues; their reasoning processes and the kinds of mental resources that they draw upon when framing and discussing their views (see also Jarvis and Lister 2015b) What emerges here is (a) that many individuals lack information about counterterrorism policies and therefore that (b) when discussing such policies with others, attitudes can be quite flexible and malleable. These are, of course, related. Many individuals have a sense of how they feel about a given issue, but, particularly if it is an issue which they either lack in-depth information or have not reflected on extensively, this initial feeling can change as they encounter new information and new perspectives. This of course links to Blumer’s (1948)

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argument that opinion polls, in individualising public opinion, miss the crucial social dynamic of public opinion.

Attitudes to counterterrorism The project presented to the focus groups a prompt card, which listed a number of controversial counterterrorism initiatives that had been introduced since 2001 (see Jarvis and Lister 2015a) and invited reflections and views. The measures included stop and search policies, pre-charge detention and making it an offence to glorify terrorism. Whilst it is not possible to neatly capture the diverse and nuanced views expressed in a corpus of text of some 200,000 words, what follows is a brief overview of the opinions and attitudes expressed. These were heterogenous. There were voices who spoke to support such measures and voices against. On stop and search, some participants were unconcerned by it, and felt it necessary. Such voices recognised objections but they were seen as minor inconveniences. Against this, other participants expressed more trenchant concerns about racial profiling and stop and search powers. Some questioned the impact on fundamental rights and/or the measure’s (in)effectiveness. Similar concerns were expressed with regard to pre-charge detention, with issues of fundamental rights, targeting of particular ethnic groups and the potential impact of such a measure on those subject to it – especially if they subsequently were released without charge. In terms of making glorifying terrorism an offence, a number of respondents had concerns about the potential breadth of such an offence, but many – including a number from ethnic minority backgrounds – were in favour of such a measure, despite such concerns, expressing a belief that there should be limits and restrictions on those expressing hateful or extremist views. Freedom of speech issues were rarely raised (see Jarvis and Lister 2015a for full discussion).

Information, complexity and flexibility The above summary is, in a sense, broadly unsurprising. Some participants spoke against the measures, some in favour (the distinctive contribution lies less in what people think than how they think). Yet a number of participants in these focus groups expressed either a lack of awareness or knowledge about many of the measures and some participants shifted and altered their views when in dialogue with others in the groups. In making the argument that some behaved in this way, is not to say, that all participants fell into these categories. Some participants were well informed and clear about their views, which did not alter through the course of the focus groups. But this was not everyone. In this section, three important qualifiers to the attitudes expressed earlier will be explored (full data set available Jarvis and Lister 2019). These qualifiers suggest that public attitudes to counterterrorism powers are more ambiguous and less certain than found in the polling data explored earlier. These three qualifiers are knowledge levels, complexity and flexibility. Taken together what these suggest

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is that in conversations with each other (as opposed to filling in pollster’s surveys individually) the public display certain dispositions which suggest that their views on counterterrorism measures are complex and unstable. One facet of this complexity and instability is that participants in these focus groups on occasions displayed uncertainty about key aspects of UK counterterrorism policy since 2001. Sometimes this lack of knowledge was broadbased. The following exchange occurred when the moderator introduced the prompt card which summarised key counterterrorism measures introduced since 2001, such as pre-charge detention, offences to glorify or incite terrorism and control orders. MO:

Anything over here that springs out at you perhaps? Any reactions? . . . Perhaps put it slightly differently; did everyone know about all of these things? Is there anything there that people didn’t know about? A: I didn’t know about none of these (London-Asian Focus Group). On other occasions, the lack of knowledge concerned either particular policies, or specific parts of policies. B:

I didn’t know, again it may be the wording of the . . . “stop and search a person or a vehicle without suspicion”. I thought there was something about reasonable grounds? I mean, whether or not . . . . . . You can do it for any reason at all, if it’s without suspicion? (Swansea White Focus Group).

Here the participant is aware of stop and search powers broadly, but is unfamiliar with the (now repealed) Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allowed for stop and search without suspicion in certain designated areas. This kind of uncertainty connects to information gaps where parts of the public either cannot recall, or accurately connect the sequencing of counterterrorism powers. This is not surprising. In the period here, counterterrorism powers changed at reasonably frequent intervals. As noted earlier, pre-charge detention moved from 7 to 14 days, then 28 days (with 90 days being the figure originally sought), with 42 days being rejected in 2008, before returning to 14 days in 2012. Similarly, foreign nationals suspected of terrorism could be detained indefinitely between 2001 and 2005, and as noted earlier, between 2000 and 2010, terrorism powers allowed for stop and search without suspicion. Thus, the public – to be fully informed about this area – not only need to be aware of what measures there are but the trajectory and history of these. It’s not at all surprising that some were not fully clear on some of these aspects. C:

Okay, with regards to the control orders, I see here indefinite detention of foreign nationals suspected of terrorism without . . . it is repealed and

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replaced with control orders. Now that was wrong. You can’t detain someone without charge. I mean, it’s just blatantly wrong. But, control orders. Is this the new . . .? Is that the control orders . . .? Citizens and foreigners subject to house arrest and restriction of movement. That’s what’s actually come in? Is that, was that . . . is that replaced? MO: That’s still ongoing . . . C: So what’s the new control orders that has replaced the indefinite detention of foreign nationals? What’s in place of that now? MO: Control orders came in to replace that indefinite detention. C: Well, you can’t indefinitely detain people under house arrest. . . . D:

I think a lot of people . . . a lot of people won’t realise what happened to them until after all these laws are in place, and then one day, they will wake up and say, oh, oh, we can’t do anything now (London Black Focus Group).

As alluded to above, whilst participants in this study, and perhaps the wider British public, might be said to have broad dispositions about security and counterterrorism, when it comes to the specifics and details of such policies, there appear to be, unsurprisingly, some gaps in knowledge and information. These gaps can be about generalities or specifics or sequencing. This latter part matters. Knowledge about what policy is and what is has been, might easily shape dispositions and attitudes about what it should be (indeed, Soroka and Wlezien’s (2005) thermostat model depends on the public knowing previous or existing policy). Many – but not all – of the above opinion poll questions give this kind of information. But as we shall see below, attitudes which are based on recently acquired information can be quite pliable. The pliable or plastic nature of some attitudes about counterterrorism emerged in some of the focus groups, where dialogues between participants revealed either new information, or new arguments which caused participants to re-evaluate their original positions. This suggests that public opinion about counterterrorism might not be all that rigid. Jackson and Hall (2016, p.  304) argue ‘individual beliefs are not static or pre-formed, but dynamic and frequently constructed inter-subjectively in situ in conversation with others’. Such dynamics are things which opinion polls struggle to account for. The following extract comes from a focus group where the participants were generally supportive of “more security” in terms of counterterrorism. Yet through a process of dialogue in the group, some of the robustness of such support was tempered a little. Again the extract begins just after the group was given the information prompt card about recent counterterrorism measures. E: F:

I don’t have a problem with most of these. Indefinite detention, I mean, indefinite is a word that would be quite worrying. Indefinite detention of foreign nationals . . . indefinite worries me . . .

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I suppose the word suspected as well. I mean, just because somebody . . . if they’ve no concrete proof, I mean, obviously it hasn’t . . . this is pre-trial isn’t it? Yeah, without trial. Unless you have any concrete proof, if you’ve just got the word of somebody else that said that they’d been making bombs or whatever

. . . E: Yeah,

an offence to directly or indirectly, that’s a good one. I don’t mind the power to stop and search a vehicle. It doesn’t bother me if they stop and search me. No, it doesn’t bother me either.

F: . . . F: Pre-trial

detention without charge after 28 days for terrorism suspects; why not? If you really . . . I don’t know what kind of suspicion you need, but no problem with that if you are . . . I think if there’s a time limit on it that, you know . . . E: The control order, I could go along with that apart from the fact that the lawyer and defendant have no right to see evidence against them. I think that’s wrong. I think if you’re holding somebody for whatever reason you should tell them why (Oldham White Focus Group). Participant “E” in this exchange begins by stating that they ‘don’t have a problem with most of these’. One wonders if they were given a simple checklist with support or oppose the five measures listed, whether they would simply have ticked “support” for them all. Yet as participant “F” introduces concerns about the (repealed) indefinite detention of foreign nationals suspected of terrorism, participant “E” shifts their tone slightly and joins in with the concerns being expressed, adding some of their own. Later they express concerns about the control order regime. This is all reconcilable with the original statement of participant “E”; they support “most” of the policies but not all. What is of interest is the shift in tone, from a relatively simple endorsement to a closer thinking through of the issues involved. This is a dynamic not easily captured by polling. Another example of this kind of dialogic reasoning through comes from a focus group conducted in London. Here one participant expresses support for stop and search powers, but this is then challenged by other members of the group MO:

What do you think these . . .? What effects do you think these measures have on your safety and security? G: Very little. H: I’m not sure that I’d agree with that. With the stop and search, I think it’s going to help us if they’re stopping people who are wishing to do harm to the general public. MO: So, you’d say that makes you feel more secure?

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Indirectly I suppose. But I don’t know if everybody acknowledges the fact, I don’t know, whether it’s a fact is that people think that there are people out there in England now who want to do harm to the general public. And if, and if you do acknowledge that fact then stopping and searching the suspect in my opinion . . . G: But it’s not the suspect, it says stopping and searching without suspicion. I: But they must also search with suspicion. H: Yes but it’s like I said before, without suspicion if they’ve, you know, got a rear tyre that’s balled then fine that’s it, and then, you know, but they’re not going to stop every Tom, Dick and Harry because they haven’t got the time. G: I just think it can be used dangerously . . . . . . H: Well, I suppose yes, I suppose what the worrying thing is they can stop somebody without suspicion, and then quite a few of the other points they can just take it on further and further without showing any evidence against them. So, that is quite worrying, yeah, definitely (London White Focus Group). H:

In this exchange, participant “H” initially expresses support for stop and search powers, but by the end of the extract, has come to a view that at least potentially, the power is ‘worrying’. The conversation moves on to a different topic at this juncture, but it’s not completely clear what “H” thinks about stop and search powers. This person may well initially have ticked “support” if given a closed question on a survey; that seemed to be their view at the start of the extract. But their attitude to the powers becomes a little more complex than a straightforward endorsement. Again, this mutability and complexity is not easily captured in polling which relies on closed questioning. This point leads to the final qualifier about public attitudes encountered in these focus groups, which is the complexity of the views expressed. When given the chance to expand on their attitudes and explain their reasoning, some reasonably complex views emerge. A frequent one was that participants would express support for measures in principle but be concerned about how they might be applied in practice. For example: J: So, my view in regards to a couple of these policies is that they are important but to be operated . . . is not to be used um, wrongly, if you know what I’m saying. I believe if, if the key ones are relaxed too much, you’ve got . . . these terrorists are looking for loopholes to get back in . . . So, while the police stop and search a personal vehicle without suspicion, I believe that is one which can be abused a lot . . . I believe that policies like these, indefinite detention of foreign national suspects, without charge or trial, all of them can be used in a certain order, but not to be taken advantage of. I mean, I’m glad that this one was – the indefinite detention of foreign nationals – was sort of amended and repealed and replaced with

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the control order act, but, at the same time, they all can be abused. That is one of the key factors that I’m picking up on about the anti-terrorism measures. They’re important but they can be abused. (London Black Focus Group) This participant articulates a view that measures such as stop and search, and control orders are important measures to address terrorism, but they are also concerned for the potential for their mis-use. A similar view is expressed by a different participant. K:

Sometimes especially when dealing with terrorism, there isn’t enough evidence right there and then to hold the person for something, and all these counterterrorism groups, MI5, they have to do all the research and do things, and bureaucracy takes time. 28 days – I think the only problem is the execution of these laws and the legislation . . . But again when you select a few, and target a few, and then only use those laws because you think they’re not from, shall I say indigenous people, and you use these laws on them . . . So I think it’s just majorly the expression of this law, not targeting a select few. I think that’s the major problem for me (Swansea Black Focus Group).

The opinions expressed in both of these extracts are complex and nuanced. They both express positive dispositions towards counterterrorism measures, accepting the rationale and need for them. But they also voice concerns about how they will be implemented. They are views and attitudes which would almost certainly not be captured fully by polling techniques. This brief re-analysis of focus groups conducted in 2010 suggests that public opinion around counterterrorism measures in the UK is more nuanced, complex and flexible than might initially be understood. This picture is not necessarily incompatible with the polling data analysed earlier. Whilst (caveats concerning polling notwithstanding) polling data suggested that respondents often appeared to be generally in favour of “more security” to deal with terrorism (although question wording and framing appeared to be reasonably significant issues), that picture becomes more fuzzy when moving to consider the precise measures which might be adopted. The focus group data is not suited to capturing distributions of attitudes but what it can do is illuminate how people think about these issues, how they reason, and probe these views in more depth. The picture here is that on occasions, respondents lacked prior information and knowledge about some of the specifics of counterterrorism measures and/or struggled to keep straight the changes and chronology of the introductions and repeal of measures. On occasions, this informational deficit led to attitudes being quite pliable. Respondents encountering information for the first time perhaps do not have firmly held beliefs and are evaluating and processing in “real time”. This process of reflexivity and flexibility in and through dialogue with

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other participants was also observed. Such a finding comports with Jackson and Hall (2016, p.  299), who similarly observe participants ‘dynamically constructing knowledge inter-subjectively in situ’, suggesting that public attitudes to counterterrorism powers are perhaps quite “soft” and subject to change. This might also explain why question wording in the opinion polls considered above seemed to have sometimes quite strong effects on the levels of support for measures. To return to where the chapter began, the purpose of this chapter is not to uncover or identify what public opinion is, in some fixed and unchanging way. Rather there have been two purposes, one is to point to the information environment about public opinion which political and security actors have had at their disposal when thinking about counterterrorism policy. The other has been to point to the ways in which public opinion as measured, is socially constructed; that the tools used to gather such information shape what is received in important ways. Whether it is the wording of poll questions, the range of options in a closed question, the conduct of focus group moderators or the challenges of fellow participants, the attitudes expressed in these settings should be seen as intimately bound up with these. This aligns with Jackson and Hall (2016, p. 293), who argue that public discourses around terrorism should be seen as ‘constructed inter-subjectively in social interaction’. In that sense, whilst there is and has been a “public opinion” around counterterrorism issues in the time frame being considered – there has been information around which purports to represent public opinion on these issues – that should not be taken as a reflection of a singular, stable or fixed public opinion. As we shall see in Chapter 5, a number of the policymakers interviewed for this book seem to share much of this view, not least a scepticism about polls.

Media and public opinion To round out the discussion of the information environment that political actors had between 2001 and 2015, the chapter presents a brief discussion and analysis of media representations. The media matters for public opinion in at least two ways. Firstly, often, but not always, opinion polls themselves are commissioned by media organisations. These then form the basis of articles, stories and programmes. Secondly, Herbst (1998) points out that political actors can view the media as public opinion. This, as Herbst notes, is not without its problems. But if public opinion is not readily accessible for political actors, it may be that media texts offer a convenient (if problematic – the content of news media is not public opinion but journalistic opinion) shortcut to access public views and voices. The chapter presents a short case study for one prominent moment of counterterrorism policy. In 2005, the UK government sought to extend the period for which those suspected of terrorist offences could be held before being charged from 14 days to 90 days. The government lost the vote, on 9th November 2005, although a compromise of 28 days was approved by Parliament. The

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chapter presents an analysis of media reporting on this issue in the immediate build-up and aftermath of this vote. Using media database Factiva and the Guardian’s own website, a sample was generated of articles from four national newspapers, The Times, The Guardian, The Sun and the Daily Mirror, between the period 1st November 2005 and 10th November 2005 which contained the phrase “90 days”. These newspapers represent a balance of broadly left-wing or liberal (The Guardian and the Daily Mirror) and right-wing (The Times and The Sun) papers, plus both tabloid (The Daily Mirror and The Sun) and broadsheet (The Guardian and The Times). Table 3.4 presents a summary of the articles, stratifying by broad perspective on the subject – whether they were supportive of the 90 days extension, neutral or balanced, or opposed to the extension (where the article has an identifiable author, it is referenced, along with the newspaper; where the article is an editorial, with no identifiable author, just the newspaper is referenced). This produced a total sample of 27 articles. A simple glance at the table reveals a diversity of positions; some articles are supportive, some against and some are neutral/balanced. Indeed, the latter position is the modal one. It is the case that there are more articles which are supportive of 90 days pre-charge detention (9) than against (6). Also relevant is readership/scope of the newspaper; The Sun – very supportive of the measure, Table 3.4 Media content analysis from four national newspapers of coverage of 90-day precharge detention for terrorist suspects vote 1–10th November 2005 Supportive of 90 days

Neutral/balanced

Opposed to 90 days

Godson 2005 [The Times]

Cowan 2005 [Guardian]

Kennedy 2005 [The Mirror]

O’Callaghan 2005 [The Sun] Branigan and Travis 2005 [Guardian]

Mansfield 2005 [The Times]

Kavanagh 2005a [The Sun]

Hinsliff and Temko 2005 [The Guardian]

The Guardian 2005

Kavanagh 2005b [The Sun]

Wintour 2005a [The Guardian]

Maguire 2005 [The Mirror]

Kavanagh 2005c [The Sun]

Hurst 2005 [The Times]

Sheridan 2005 [The Mirror]

The Sun 2005a

Wintour 2005b [The Guardian]

Kennedy 2005 [The Mirror]

The Sun 2005b

Blackman 2005 [The Mirror]

Hayman 2005 [The Mirror]

Webster and Riddell 2005 [The Times]

The Times 2005a

Tempest 2005 [The Guardian] King 2005 [The Guardian] Riddell 2005 [The Times] The Times 2005b

A table which summarises the newspaper texts used in the media content analysis of media coverage of 90-day pre-charge detention debate. Arranged by texts which were (a) supportive of the measure; (b) neutral or balanced and (c) opposed to the measure. Full discussion in the text

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with 6 articles in 10 days approving of the proposed measure – at that time, had a circulation nearly double that of the Daily Mirror and ten times that of The Guardian (Guardian 2011). Also interesting is that many of these pieces cite public opinion, with 10 of the 27 including some explicit mentioning of public opinion (highlighted in italics in Table 3.4). In all of these cases, this positions public opinion as supportive of extending pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects to 90 days. On some occasions, this is in passing, with a general reference to public views. The Guardian’s (2005) editorial, for instance notes the pressure on Labour MPs to support the 90-day period: ‘They have been bombarded with opinion polls signalling widespread public support for the plan’. In other places, the representation of public opinion is more detailed, including both polling and more qualitative invocations. In terms of the former, Hurst (2005) states: He [Blair] was boosted by a Sky News/YouGov poll which found that 72 per cent of people questioned backed extending the limit from its current 14 days to 90, a third of them regardless of judicial oversight, with only 22 per cent opposed to 90 days. This kind of representation of public opinion (the above extract is referring to YouGov (2005), considered above) was accompanied in some places, by the voices of individual citizens and members of the public, specifically victims of previous terrorist incidents. But last night relatives of those killed in London’s 7/7 outrages slammed MPs who are forcing a U-turn. Grieving June Taylor, whose 24-year-old daughter Carrie, right, died in the blast at Aldgate, said: “I will be bitterly disappointed if this Terror Bill is not passed. I’d hate anybody else to endure what we have because a terror suspect was released against police wishes. When police have enough suspicion to hold a suspect, they should be able to detain them as long as they need. I’ll be devastated if the comments of civil liberties campaigners prevents this”. (Kavanagh 2005b) Clearly, such emotionally charged testimony carries a kind of weight and force that is different to poll numbers – which are also mentioned (as supportive of the measure) in the same piece. The media environment for this issue, in 2005, therefore exhibits the following qualities. Firstly, there are a range of views expressed; both sides of the argument are represented in the major newspapers. Some of the dissenting voices come from establishment, legal figures (Kennedy 2005; Mansfield 2005) but some also come in a more “tabloid” style (Maguire 2005; Sheridan 2005). But, secondly, but the newspaper with largest circulation, The Sun, enthusiastically supports the measure. Often such support comes with invocations and

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representations of public opinion. And thirdly, when discussing public opinion and opinion polls the articles do so in such a way as to position the public as supportive of this kind of measure (as “public opinion” measured through polls suggested at the time). Overall, the point to be emphasised is that at a time when opinion polls showed public views to be broadly supportive of 90 days, that the media environment is more mixed. It is the case that the “loudest” voice, in terms of the paper with the largest circulation is avowedly pro-90 days. But looking at this particular media environment, it does not wholly endorse this view. In other words, the media environment is not one which wholly or universally endorses a particular view. There is not a “media consensus” on this issue which political actors might follow. There are different views which they could choose to follow; but not a singular course of action which all (or even most) recommend.

Conclusion This chapter has sought to provide an overview of the information environment around counterterrorism issues between 2001 and 2015, the period covered by the analysis in Chapters 4 and 5. It found that whilst opinion polls appeared to present a solid “pro security” public opinion, that issues around question wording, as well as their framing (often being conducted in the aftermath of a terrorist incident) may well shape, construct even, this view. Indeed, where polls departed from binary options for respondents, people seemed a little less “gung-ho” about counterterrorism and a little more nuanced and circumspect. This is a finding supported by examining qualitative data from 2010, which traces how individuals, in a focus group setting, puzzle through their attitudes to some of these issues. Respondents occasionally display information deficits, and when encountering new information, sometimes modify or change their views. Finally, the media content analysis around the reporting of the attempt to increase pre-charge detention to 90 days shows that media reporting, whilst perhaps having a slight “pro 90 days” slant to it, was divided and multiple. Taken together, what this analysis suggests is that public opinion around counterterrorism in this period was at an initial glance, “pro security” (albeit, less certain about what, specifically that might look like), but that there are several reasons to think that this picture is heavily influenced by the survey tools themselves and that such attitudes may have been quite “soft”, such that different contexts and different information may produce different responses. But, a crucial question here is how did political elites read and understand this information environment. If, as argued in Chapter 2, constructions of public opinion resonate to the extent that others, including political elites, see them as reasonable and authoritative – and, moreover, that they think that other people see them as reasonable and authoritative – how did political elites see public opinion? What kinds of information did they incorporate to form a sense of public opinion? What significance did

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they attach to public opinion when framing counterterrorism policy? Is public opinion something which received significant attention for political elites in terms of counterterrorism? These questions are addressed in Chapters 4 and 5, which examine the constructions and positions of public opinion in counterterrorism policy making. Chapter 4 focuses on Parliamentary debates, before Chapter 5 considers how actors within the executive positioned themselves on these questions.

4

Representing public views in Parliament

The book has so far argued that public opinion may be an underexamined part of the politics of counterterrorism, and that contra some approaches informed by securitization theory, that security and counterterrorism policy may be less closed and elite-driven, such that public opinion is an important part of the political dynamics in this area. It has also been argued, at both a theoretical (Saward 2006) and empirical level (Herbst 1998), that political actors are active in the creation and construction of public opinion. In Saward’s terms, the “representational claim” necessarily involves an act of bringing into being; he argues that the public, and constituents do not have an obvious, clear or given set of interests which political actors can discern. Rather representatives deploy particular frames and particular scripts to depict who they are representing and what their views are. Herbst observes how political actors on the ground construct a sense of what the public thinks, from different sources. A key point here is that political actors choose who they listen to and thereby, are actively constructing the public opinion to which they listen, rather than passively imbibing it. This chapter seeks to empirically develop this argument through a Rhetorical Political Analysis of debates in the UK Parliament at two key moments for counterterrorism legislation, 2005–2006 and 2014–2015. There is limited work which examines how political actors in the UK construct public opinion (although see Soo et al. 2021; Strong 2017) and none which examines the ways in which images and constructions of public opinion relate to counterterrorism policy (in the UK or anywhere). Later chapters seek to explore this dynamic through elite interviews with key counterterrorism policy actors, both political elites and private security actors. In this chapter, however, the book focuses on Parliamentary discourses to explore the ways in which UK Parliamentarians invoke and discuss the views and voices of the public. Analysis of Parliamentary debates across these two moments finds that references to and discussions of public opinion, whilst not common across a wide range of policy areas (in other words, there does not appear to be much evidence for a “populist style” in legislative debates in the UK Parliament) are no more limited for counterterrorism legislation than they are for other areas of “normal politics”. If anything, counterterrorism legislation sees slightly more than average discussion of public opinion than other areas do. These findings lend credence DOI: 10.4324/9781003244585-5

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and support to the recent interventions into security studies, which seek to see security politics not as something exceptional or outside “normal” politics, but as something which is part of politics; to see security as politics (Neal 2019). The types of rhetoric invoked by MPs in security (and other) debates may not decisively shape the content of such policy, but the discursive character of Parliamentary debates is in some important sense, a part of the politics of security. And it is a part where the views of the public are present – at least as much as they are in other policy areas. Moreover, the analysis also sheds light on how politicians seek to represent public views; echoing the work of Herbst (1998) this analysis finds that representations of public views are not some sort of “simple” transmission of “what people think” but rather that politicians are active in selecting and thereby constructing what public views are. Yet such constructions are not “fictions” which are invented out of nothing by political actors; they draw upon particular voices and scripts which they shape and (re)deploy into Parliamentary debates. This highlights the complex nature of the relationship between public views and security politics. As will be discussed in more detail below, for politicians to raise or discuss “public opinion” (broadly defined as any invocation of the views of the public, whether in the form of opinion polls, or more narrowly as constituents’ views) in debates does not mean that such opinion is influential on that policy. But (a) if politicians are rational actors, interested in reelection – if, that is, they were making policy on the basis of public opinion – they might want to flag it up, to signal to voters this is what they are doing (see below) and (b) the discursive repertoire of a policy area – and its similarities or differences to other policy areas – is in a real sense, a non-trivial part of the politics of that area. So whilst the presence/absence of public opinion in such debates does not tell us definitively about the actual influence of public opinion, it still tells us something about the type of politics taking place. What this analysis shows is that counterterrorism policy debates are largely similar to other policy areas. To return to debates around securitisation and exceptionalism in Chapter 1, this suggests that there is little evidence that security politics like counterterrorism is all that different to other policy areas – at least in terms of this narrow element. The chapter begins by discussing two important bodies of literature which bear upon this analysis. The first of these is extant literature which has examined the invocation and discussion of public opinion in legislative bodies (although not the UK). This literature finds that such invocations are, perhaps surprisingly, quite limited. As is discussed later in the chapter, empirical analysis in this chapter broadly comports with this sense that politicians, perhaps counterintuitively, are quite reluctant to discuss the views of the public when making policy. This is at odds with examinations of other types of political speaking (speeches etc.) which finds that politicians are ever more attracted to discussing the views and voices of ordinary people. How can we explain this dissonance? Answers potentially lie in a second body of literature which seeks to assess and contexualise Parliamentary speech. What is happening when politicians speak in legislative bodies? Clearly, there is some sense in which they are legislating,

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but a range of authors point to other important factors to consider, such as ritual, symbolism and rhetoric. This literature provides important context and suggests that the dissonance between formal legislative speech (few references to public opinion) and less formal political speech making (party conferences, media appearance) may be due to the structured nature of speech in legislative assemblies. Following a discussion of methods, including sampling and the analytical approach, the paper presents a mixed methods analysis, based on two sets of Parliamentary debates, from Parliamentary sessions 2005–2006 and 2014–2015, and elite interviews. The debates are subject to a twin analysis. The first of these, a mixed methods, quantitative/qualitative analysis compares the prevalence of references to public opinion in counterterrorism debates to “other” policy areas. An important finding is that counterterrorism legislation looks, in terms of representations of public views, much like debates for other pieces of legislation at both time periods. Members of Parliament mention public opinion with the same kind of frequency in counterterrorism debates as they do for other policy areas (although this is a quite limited for all policy areas). This sheds light on arguments that conceptualising security as a fundamentally different kind of politics misses important dynamics and parts of security politics (Neal 2019). This does not “prove” that counterterrorism politics is “the same” as other policy areas, but it does suggest there is, at least in terms of discussions and representations of public opinion, little evidence of a distinct separation; that in terms of representations of public views, counterterrorism politics looks much the same as other policy areas. These findings are then cross-referenced with qualitative elite interview data with former Parliamentarians. This sheds further light on why references to public opinion are quite limited across all policy areas, with arguments about representation, Parliamentary convention and norms, and civic culture coming to the fore. The second level of analysis is qualitative and examines the way in which public opinion is spoken about in Parliament, with a particular focus on counterterrorism legislation. How do politicians speak of public opinion? In the act of mentioning public opinion, they are representing a version of that public opinion. How do they do this? The paper will present a range of examples, which indicate that politicians’ invocations of public opinion are diverse, reflecting different political aims and different conceptions of representation.

Public opinion and policy debates This chapter seeks to explore the ways in which politicians raise, invoke and discuss public opinion in policy debates. This question has received some, albeit limited, attention from scholars. At one level, as will be discussed below, just because politicians “talk” about public opinion does not mean that it holds a dominant place in their decision-making about issues. Politicians use language and discourse for many purposes, and not simply to indicate what their thinking on particular issues is, or what it is informed by. However, as Cook et al.

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(2002) argue, reference to public opinion is one way that politicians have to communicate that they are listening to what people want. Proksch and Slapin (2015, p.  13) contend that highlighting that politicians are aware of and promoting their voters’ interests is crucially important: Citizens in democracies expect their representatives not just to make policy but also to give voice to their views in parliament and to present them with convincing arguments about why policies should or should not be changed. Parliamentary debates are a central element of representative democracy where MPs do exactly that. Indeed Levasseur (2005, p. 160) points out that if we consider politicians to be rationally self-interested, we should expect frequent references to public opinion: If politicians’ self-interest (staying in office) depends upon satisfying the public’s wants, why would politicians be loath publicly to proclaim support for a policy because it satisfies those wants? After all, such an argument should prove quite compelling to a self-interested public that wants its wants satisfied. Finlayson’s more recent work has sought to explore and probe the aims and purposes of Parliamentary speech. Pointedly asking “what is the point of Parliamentary debate?”, Finlayson (2017) answers the question by referring to four main concepts; deliberation, oratory, opposition and spectacle. Parliamentary debate as encompassing deliberative functions and as possessing distinctive oratory features are perhaps well-rehearsed and familiar themes. Yet Finlayson suggests that such debates go beyond this, serving as an arena for public opposition on political issues and as a public spectacle, a visible manifestation of the process of politics. In this latter role, a crucial dimension is ‘the capacity of members to represent the outside on the inside and of publics to see them doing so and to judge them’ (Finlayson 2017, p. 25). Clearly direct reference to “the public” (either generally or in terms of specific members of the public) and public opinion more widely, do not exhaust the ways in which Parliamentarians may seek to represent “the outside”. But they are a prominent one. Such rhetorical spectacles [Parliamentary debates] are opportunities for different groups to see their “common sense” invoked or represented and to exercise a power of judgment over the performers and thus also over themselves and that common opinion. (Finlayson 2017, pp. 25–26) Yet despite Finlayson’s, Levassuer’s and Proksch and Slapin’s arguments, the main finding of the empirical literature which explores this issue, is that politicians reference public opinion (at least specifically in terms of opinion polls) in

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surprisingly small amounts – even in instances where policy was in accord with public opinion. Thus Cook et al. (2002) find that whilst general references to “the people” are relatively common, specific, detailed and accurate reference to public opinion are rare. Cook et al.’s research focused on social security debates in the United States. A follow-up study by Paden and Page (2003, p. 673) used a similar method to examine welfare reform debates in the US and found broadly the same picture, stating ‘political elites just do not seem to have paid much attention to public opinion in their utterances’. A somewhat more “positive” picture of the rhetorical use of opinion polls in political debate can be found in Petersen et al. (2008). Whilst they don’t assess how often/frequently such polls are mentioned (in comparison to the wider debate – and hence don’t comment on whether polls are mentioned frequently or infrequently) they do analyse the type of politician who makes use of them and their relationship to responsive, populist or deliberative styles. Their findings suggest that in their four cases (Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland and the UK), that polls are mentioned by politicians but perhaps not in ways which disrupt elite-driven politics: fears of an inflated “pandering to the public” with the help of opinion polls seem exaggerated. More often than not, the “will of the people” as presented by polls tends to be used to show general support for policies that were previously developed within parties or in other institutional contexts, and to a lesser degree as “mini-referenda”. Populism is not unknown in connection with polls, but also not the dominant style. Hence, the autonomy of the political realm and its parliamentary personnel does not really seem at risk. (Petersen et al. 2008, p. 333) Thus, this literature broadly finds that politicians don’t extensively or exhaustively talk about public opinion when debating policy. This is perhaps surprising. If, as large-scale quantitative studies suggest, public policy is responsive to public opinion, why would politicians (self-interested and seeking re-election) not trumpet this fact? (Some answers to this might be found in another literature, about political rhetoric, discussed below.) Yet whilst this literature does shed some fascinating light on more micro-level workings of the responsiveness question, there are some lacunae. Firstly, none of the above studies are comparative across the policy spectrum. Cook et al. (2002) and Paden and Page (2003) as a pair are comparative, but both of (what they identify as) highly salient areas. Whilst Petersen et al. (2008) are comparative cross nationally, their analysis does not segment by policy area but rather takes all such references to public opinion as a whole. Given the findings, above, of large-scale quantitative research, which suggests that policy salience impacts on responsiveness (Page and Shapiro 1983, 1992; Barabas 2016), it would be interesting and useful to explore whether politicians talk about the public more or less in diferent policy areas, including some areas, such as security politics, that have not received much attention.

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The finding from the above literature, that politicians do not reference public opinion extensively in a legislative setting is somewhat at odds with the broader literature on political rhetoric (Finlayson 2004; Finlayson and Martin 2008). Whilst it should be noted that such authors are often working with a different frame of reference, such as political speeches more broadly, and not just speeches in a legislative context, the findings are somewhat different. Atkins and Finlayson (2013) examined the content of British political leaders’ speeches to annual conferences, and chart an increase in references to, and anecdotes about, “ordinary people” from the early 1990s. Thus, instances like David Cameron saying “a forty year old black man made the point to me” (Atkins and Finlayson 2013, p.  161) in a TV leader’s debate and Jeremy Corbyn’s use of crowd-sourced questions at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons are, for Atkins and Finlayson a distinctive development and rhetorical style. They trace this to a number of factors, such as declining respect for “expert” testimony and the supposed authenticity of “everyday” experience, but also the increase of, if not outright populism, then a populist style prevalent in media more broadly, linked to the plethora of phone-ins, talk shows, and invitations to tweet or email comments (see also Turner 2010; Moffit 2016). Thus, and in contrast to the conclusions drawn from the above analyses of Parliamentary discourse, they conclude that a form of populism is influential in contemporary politics: Today it is thought unwise to risk the appearance of going against the stream of “ordinary” opinion and as a consequence it is imperative for political leaders to incorporate the ordinary into their appearances. (Atkins and Finlayson 2013, p. 174) Atkins and Finlayson (2016) also analyse the use of quotations (of various kinds, from media to literary sources) in the speeches of party leaders arguing that the deployment of such is a way for politicians to establish connections to audiences, echoing, perhaps, Saward’s (2006) discussion of how “representative claims” need to work within existing scripts and contexts. In one sense, the above two literatures are not strictly commensurate. Cook et al. (2002), Paden and Page (2003) and Petersen et al. (2008) focus narrowly on discussions of opinion polls whereas Atkins and Finlayson (2013, 2016) examine a wider repertoire of rhetorical frames. If not dispositive though, they are suggestive of a potential difference between political speech in formal, legislative settings, and political speech in less formal settings. Is politics rife with a populist style in which references to public experiences and views are rampant and widespread? Or are politicians more circumspect in their use of references to public opinion? Are there differences between different arenas (Parliamentary vs non-Parliamentary) or policy areas? As the literature below attests, there are reasons perhaps, to suspect that just such a difference exists – and that there are specific reasons for it.

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Rituals and symbols: making sense of parliamentary speech To begin to answer such questions, we can look to the literature which seeks to understand and contextualise what it is, exactly, that is going on when politicians speak in the formal setting of legislative bodies. This can be examined in broadly two ways. The first of these looks to the instrumental goals of such political speaking – in basic terms, to contribute to the making of laws; to legislate. A second body of literature, however, points to the more symbolic nature of speech in legislative settings, whether understood in terms of ritual or other forms. The book explores each in turn. Slapin and Proksch (2010) argue that politicians engage in legislative speech for three broad reasons; to argue for or against specific policy proposals, to scrutinise the executive and to communicate their policy and broader political positions to a range of audiences (party elites, constituents, media, etc.). These can be considered instrumental goals – that is, under such a view, politicians speak in legislatures to achieve particular goals – to legislate, to scrutinise and to communicate. They argue that of these, the most important is the communicative function; that is that the main purpose of speeches in legislative bodies is communication with diverse audiences, chiefly voters and constituents. These endeavours, they argue, are tightly structured and organised by party managers, so that who is allowed to speak in debates and for how long, is closely related to the wider political concerns of party elites (see Proksch and Slapin 2012, 2015). The significance of this, they argue, is that the content of legislative debate should not be taken as some sort of organic expression of the political will and interests of the constituent legislators, but is something which reflects a combination of factors, including the interests of party elites and the structure of the legislative body; ‘legislative speeches may, in some instances, underestimate the variation of preferences’ (Proksch and Slapin 2012, p.  521). The implications of this are that we should be cautious about interpreting the content of legislative speeches as they are the product of a managed process and not naturally occurring. In some ways, this links to research which points to the ways in which what is said and done in Parliament connects to the nature of institutional constraints. A growing body of literature has sought to focus on the role of ceremony and ritual within legislative bodies (Rai 2010; Atkins and Finlayson 2016; Jarvis and Legrand 2017b). Under this view, ceremony and ritual are crucial parts of what takes place in legislative bodies. Ceremony represents distinctive moments, “set pieces” such as the state opening of Parliament in the UK, whereas ritual represents the more routine and everyday sedimented practice. Rai (2010) argues that these both shape who belongs, who speaks and what voices are represented. In other words, behaviour and speech in such settings is shaped by the socialisation of specific rituals and ceremonies within specific legislative settings. As Finlayson and Martin (2008, p.  448) argue, ‘In a significant respect, parliament is a series of ritualised “speech moments” in relation to which members are arranged in a formal and informal hierarchy’ (see also Jarvis and Legrand 2017b).

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To link back to the discussions above, concerning a potential dissonance between a body of literature which finds few discussions of public opinion (conceived of as polls) in legislative bodies and a broader literature on rhetoric which finds less formal political speech to be replete with such “vernacular” references to, amongst other things, public opinion (more loosely understood), it might be argued that the ritualised and specific contexts of legislative bodies render political speech therein as more rule bound and formulaic. It is possible, in other words, that the rules, conventions and dynamics of legislative speech are less open to discussions and representations of “public opinion” (broadly understood). This would represent something of an irony; as a number of authors have pointed out, a key feature of legislative bodies is to allow for the expression of constituents’ interests and opinions and for these to be seen to be represented. Yet there is the possibility that the very rules, dynamics, norms, practices and rituals of such places render this less likely.

Methods To assess this possible disjuncture and to illuminate the wider research questions of the book – how does public opinion relate to counterterrorism policy; in what ways do political actors understand, discuss and construct public opinion and does this connect to policy outcomes? – the chapter presents a Rhetorical Political Analysis of debates from the House of Commons at two different points in time. Legislation from Queen’s speeches in the Parliamentary sessions 2005–2006 and 2014–2015 were examined. The reasons for comparing these two different time periods are twofold. Firstly, the book focuses on the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism policy. A focus at a single moment in time would provide a synchronic analysis, a snapshot of that relationship (Hay 2002). Furthermore, depending on which single moment was chosen, particular dynamics would be picked up in that single snapshot, dynamics which may be unique to that time due to the specific nature of that moment. More concretely, the 2006 Terrorism Act (the piece of counterterrorism legislation examined from the 2005–2006 Parliamentary session) stems from a period of time of heightened concern about terrorism. The 7th July attacks in London happened in 2005 (and the legislation was in many ways a response to these attacks), which themselves followed the 9/11 attacks in 2001 (which although in the USA, remains the single biggest loss of life of UK citizens in a terrorist attack). There were also high-profile arrests around bomb plots such as the one targeting transatlantic airlines in mid-2006. In August 2006, in a YouGov poll, 86% of respondents felt that a terrorist attack was either very or fairly likely within the next 12 months (UK Polling Report 2006). By the time of the 2014–2015 session, whilst there had not been a major terrorist incident in the UK since 7/7, the murder of Lee Rigby in London in 2013 and the twin attacks in Paris in 2015 had kept terrorism as a high-profile issue. Although not as pronounced as 2005–2006, fear of terrorism therefore continued to be heightened with 75% of respondents to a YouGov poll stating

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they were worried about ISIS committing a terrorist attack in the UK (YouGov 2015c). Thus, in basic terms, it might be suggested that the context is not all that different – in both time periods, there is concern about terrorism, as expressed in polls. Yet there are important differences, such as the global financial crisis and its aftermath. The backlash against UK involvement in the Iraq War was in full swing, with 59% of respondents to a 2014 YouGov poll thinking that it was wrong to invade Iraq and 62% of respondents thinking it had increased the risk of terrorism in the UK (UK Polling Report 2014). Whilst the UK had also been dealing with terrorism related to Al-Qaeda for nearly 15 years, the emergence of ISIS is one major difference to 2005–2006. The book is interested in exploring whether any dynamics uncovered in the 2005–2006 session continued to be present in 2014–2015, or whether the passage of time (and perhaps even familiarity with the issue/threat of terrorism) had engendered a shift in such dynamics. A second reason for the temporal comparison lies in the wider shifts in politics and political culture. As noted earlier, a number of scholars have identified populism as both an emerging political idea and as a distinct political style. Such populist influences were more pronounced by 2014–2015, than they were in 2005–2006. Some have referred to the 2010s as the ‘uneasy decade of populism’ (Baker 2019) and others point to the mid-2000s to mid-2010s as representing a high water mark of populists in power (Kyle and Meyer 2020). The book is therefore interested in whether the development of this populist or demotic style (Atkins and Finlayson 2013; Turner 2010) translates into differences in the ways in which MPs seek to represent public opinion – or in Saward’s terms, make their representative claims. Also relevant is that the two periods under consideration also represent different political parties in power, with Labour in government in 2005–2006 and the Conservatives (with Liberal Democrat support) in 2014–2015. Whilst there are not necessarily a priori reasons to expect discussions of public opinion to vary by political party (not least as all debates include speakers from across the political spectrum) it is perhaps worthy of examination. Finally, the research design of the book is interactive (Maxwell 2013), such that the elite interviews which follow (in Chapter 5) (a) cover roughly the same time period as the analysis in this chapter and (b) some of the interviewees were MPs during this time and were asked questions which speak to the analysis in this chapter. This mixed method approach enabled interviewees to speak about their views as to the prevalence (or otherwise) of discourses of public opinion in the speeches of MPs. Such a research design enabled greater contextualisation and understanding of the issues under consideration. For this to be meaningful, it was appropriate for the time period of the analysis of Parliamentary debates to roughly span the time periods which interview respondents were MPs. Twelve bills were selected for each time period, to cover a wide range of different policy areas. One of the 12 bills in each session was a counterterrorism measure; in 2005–2006, what became the 2006 Terrorism Act and the 2015

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Counter-Terrorism and Security Act. The Queen’s speech in 2005–2006 contained many more proposed bills than the 2014–2015 one, so a selection was made to have bills on similar policy areas. The rationale for this is that certain types of bills/acts shape the kinds of discussions and debates. High-profile policy areas tend to result in longer debates with more speakers; they may attract greater attention from media which may influence how MPs frame and shape their speech. Lower salience issues or more technical ones produce different kinds of debates, with different reference points and discourses. Therefore, a sample comparing a range of high-profile bills/acts with lower-profile ones may yield differences, but these may be due to the debates chosen rather than any deeper differences. Therefore, the sample tried to pair bills/acts which were on broadly similar topics. It is not possible to perfectly replicate legislation as governments have different legislative priorities and there is not always a piece of legislation which is similar. But every effort has been made to construct a sample which covers broadly similar topics in both time periods. The sample is therefore, in broad terms, balanced in terms of legislative topics covered (see Table 4.1). Finally, the 2nd reading debates for all bills/acts were chosen. The 2nd reading of a bill is where the broad principles of the proposed legislation are discussed. There is a 3rd reading debate as well, but this tends to be shorter and somewhat more technical, discussing the inclusion/excision of amendments generated through the committee stage (for an overview of the legislative process in Parliament see Norton 2013). Therefore, the 2nd reading debate offers a fuller opportunity to examine the ways in which MPs discuss and represent public opinion in designing policy. Table 4.1 Selection of bills from 2005–2006 and 2014–2015 Queen’s speeches 2005–2006 Session

2014–2015 Session

Armed Forces Bill

Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill Childcare Payments Bill Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill Modern Slavery Bill

Charities Bill Childcare Bill Company Law Reform Bill Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill Criminal Defence Service Bill Crossrail Bill Electoral Administration Bill Terrorism Bill Violent Crime Bill Welfare Reform Bill Work and Families Bill

Pension Schemes Bill Infrastructure Bill Recall of MPs Bill Counterterrorism and Security Bill Serious Crime Bill National Insurance Contributions Bill Taxation of Pensions Bill

A table which details the bills considered in the analysis of Hansard debates drawn from 2005–2006 and 2014–2015 Queen’s speeches.

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Coding and analysis The debates considered are over 100 hours in length and the total corpus of text analysed runs to 921,000 words. Table 4.1 summarises the sample, showing the rough “pairings” between bills/acts (each line represents a “pairing”). The analysis set out below sought to answer four main questions; (1) do MPs discuss or invoke public opinion more or less than other kinds of rhetorical justification?; (2) to what extent do MPs invoke public opinion when making counterterrorism policy?; (3) do they do so more, or less frequently than for other pieces of legislation; and (4) when they do discuss public opinion, how do MPs do so – broadly (in terms of polls, or national “public opinion”) or more narrowly (in terms of specific localised interests)? This analysis engages in a form of Rhetorical Political Analysis, which Finlayson (2004, p.  541) defines as ‘observ[ing] in action the processes by which political concepts are rhetorically formulated and deployed as ways of grasping a political situation and winning the consent of others for some course of action or another’ (see also Finlayson 2007; Finlayson and Martin 2008; Atkins and Finlayson 2013, 2016). The discussion or invocation of public opinion (broadly understood) is, at least in part, an attempt by the MP to persuade or justify a particular course of action or argument. Yet it is only one such rhetorical resource available to MPs (and as we shall see, not one that they avail themselves of all that frequently). Atkins and Finlayson (2013, p.  162) term these rhetorical resources or tropes ‘proofs’ which are invoked ‘in justifying claims and giving reasons for others to share them’. The analysis below seeks to understand both the extent and form of invocations of public opinion and contextualise this within the wider rhetorical repertoire of proofs that MPs deploy. It is not claimed that the rhetorical justifications analysed below exhaust the range of rhetorical tropes and proofs that MPs rely on in Parliamentary debate. In many ways, the main focus is on “views of the public” (see below) in terms of both the frequency and the discursive content of such invocations. The remaining codes serve to contextualise these findings, particularly in terms of the frequency of invocations of “views of the public”. It is of limited utility to uncover that Parliamentarians discussed views of the public X times in a debate, without knowing how that compares to other kinds of rhetorical tropes. Therefore, that there undoubtedly are other forms of rhetorical justification that MPs draw upon is less significant than providing some kind of contextualisation of reference to public opinion. Debates were downloaded from Hansard and coded and analysed using NVivo. This was done using the framework method (Ritchie and Spencer 2002). This involves a systematic sifting and organising of qualitative material such that large volumes of data can be summarised. A first step was to code the debates for a range of rhetorical tropes or justifications that MPs deploy in Parliamentary debates, using a combination of open and pre-defined codes (Gale et al. 2013). The pre-defined codes were “views of the public”, “statistics”, “expert opinion” and “MPs” (further explanation of these codes is below).

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These codes were expected either to be found in the debates (“statistics”, “expert opinion” and “MPs”) or the specific interest of the research (“views of the public”). The remaining codes emerged through a process of open coding, where an ‘immersive’ reading of a small number of the debates was conducted to establish the remaining codes and the broader analytical framework. Text could have more than one code. For instance, if an MP’s speech contained something which was invoked both “expert opinion” and “statistics”, it was coded as both. This process produced 11 codes in total (see Table 4.2).1 A few more explanatory notes about the coding are necessary at this point. Many of the codes are self-explanatory (e.g. quotations/aphorisms, international comparison, history) but a few require a little more detailed description. The first code in Table 4.2, community, is used when MPs make a reference to community, often as the bedrock or justification for a particular course of action. This usually entails MPs making claims about the character of specific communities (often their constituency) and that these characteristics therefore entail a particular course of action (doing or not doing something). Expert opinion has a very general character; and the “expert” part should be treated with caution. The coding makes no judgement as to whether the source being cited is indeed “expert” (I confess I have never read the journal Spend Matters (noted in Table 4.2) and therefore cannot comment on its expertise or otherwise). The reference to “expert” in this context is rather that the MP is holding up the source in question as an authoritative one, not that it necessarily is one. The exemplar/case study code refers to MPs invocation of particular, specific narratives, examples, incidents or moments, of the form “X has happened and this demonstrates Y”. This is a very wide category allowing for a wide range of framings, from the above example of an individual who absconded from a Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measure (TPIM), through to legal cases, prominent news stories, the activities of specific organisations and so on. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was one of the most prominent “proofs” or rhetorical justifications found in the sample. The “MPs” code covers moments when MPs explicitly refer back to the speeches or arguments of other MPs. There are a couple of caveats here. Second Reading debates are structured affairs which conform to a particular structure. Norton summarises thus: Second reading debates are wide ranging. Taken on the floor, the minister moves second reading and explains the contents and case for the bill, the minister’s shadow on the opposition front bench outlines the opposition’s stance, and then backbench members have the opportunity to catch the Speaker’s eye and contribute. At the end of the debate, an opposition frontbencher and a minister reply to what has been said. Opponents may divide the House – that is, force a vote. If it is a government bill, approval – as we shall see – is usually assured. (Norton 2013, p. 91)

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Table 4.2 List of codes, with examples, of Hansard debates 2005–2006 and 2014–2015 Code

Example

Community

‘Because charitable organisations are often grounded in local communities, they are well placed to grow social capital, which can deal with big social issues such as fighting crime, improving health or regenerating communities. Some of the most inspiring people whom I have met in my constituency are members of community organisations who are leading the local effort to tackle such types of disadvantage’ (Milburn 2006). ‘Does he agree with the journal of Spend Matters, which has said that their proposals are “meaningless manifesto fodder”?’ (Smith 2014) ‘It is good that Brunel has been mentioned in the debate, as he built the first Crossrail. There is nothing new about what we are debating today. The first trains to go across London were Great Western trains, which went underground at Paddington and all the way to Aldgate. They were not viable and were withdrawn’ (Luff 2005). ‘If they are brought back, they have to be monitored so they do not end up putting on a burqa, leaving a mosque and leaving the country, as Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed did. He wanted to stay in Somalia but was brought back to this country and now is nobody knows where’ (Vaz 2014). ‘If our aim is to reduce violent crime, we should be paying more attention to international comparisons, in particular the example of New York. During the 1990s, violent crime in New York fell by 60 per cent. and there are clear lessons for us to learn from that city and the policies followed there’ (Gauke 2005). ‘I do not know what the Welsh Assembly Government are considering, but the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), has consistently tried to introduce reforms that will make child care provision an attractive career’ (Coffey 2014). ‘At the 2005 general election, 12 per cent. of the electorate registered for postal votes, accounting for 14.5 per cent. of the votes that were cast’ (Love 2005).

Expert Opinion History

Exemplars/case studies

International Comparison

Other MPs

Statistics

MPs personal biography Quotations/ aphorisms The public

Views of the public

‘I worked with child trafficking victims for nearly a decade before I came to this place, so I know, and the Home Secretary knows, that children go through a gruelling process’ (Nandy 2014). ‘As we know from the saying usually ascribed to Talleyrand, revenge is a dish best enjoyed cold’ (Dobson 2014). ‘Our peoples expect not only the protection of individual rights but the protection of democratic values such as safety and security under the law’ (Clarke 2005). ‘A number of constituents, especially young mums, have told me that they feel under enormous pressure to go back to work and get their children into child care as soon as possible’ (Bone 2005).

A table which details the codes considered in the analysis of Hansard debates drawn from 2005–2006 and 2014–2015 Queen’s speeches. Full discussion in the text

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A key point here is that the end of each debate contains a summing up by both front benches. These speeches, amongst other things, invoke and discuss the contributions of MPs who have spoken in the debate. These were coded as single instances of “MPs”. To do otherwise and code each individual mention of an MP in these sections would have distorted the overall analysis as convention seems to dictate each front bench contribution mentioning the contributions of the great majority of MPs who have spoken. As with “expert opinion” the code “statistics” makes no judgement as to the accuracy or veracity of the figures which have been cited; again what is being highlighted is the use of statistics as authoritative sources which are drawn upon to communicate, persuade, signal etc. MPs personal biography refers to incidences when MPs make explicit reference to their own biography, as in the example above, to give force to an argument. Finally, the last two codes, “the public” and “views of the public” are distinguished by the former being represented when MPs talk about the public in a largely passive way, as a body or entity which requires, needs or expects certain things. “Views of the public” refers to public opinion in the broad sense in which it will be explored in the rest of the book – anything from the above example of the views and thoughts of specific individual citizens, through to larger claims about what the country as a whole thinks about a given issue (sometimes represented through opinion polls). Again, in this latter category, no judgement is made as to whether such representative claims, in Saward’s (2006) terms, are accurate; only that MPs are drawing on such characterisations to buttress arguments they are making.

Findings: (1) do MPs discuss or invoke public opinion more or less than other kinds of rhetorical justification? The most basic way to begin to analyse the findings is to present a simple table of the distribution of the codes across all 24 debates (see table 4.3) There are certain limitations to this presentation and it doesn’t shed a great deal of light onto most of the specific research questions about counterterrorism policy which the chapter is interested in. It does shed some kind of light on the first question stated earlier, though; do MPs discuss or invoke public opinion more or less than other kinds of rhetorical justification? The answer appears to be that they, by and large, do not invoke this all that often, but that it is used. The most common “proofs” or rhetorical justifications are “expert opinion”, “statistics” and “exemplars/case studies”. This is perhaps not all that surprising; by its very nature “expert opinion” is (at least in the eye of the beholder) necessarily a source of authority. It has been noted for some time (e.g. see Rose 1991) that numbers and statistics are held to have salience, significance and substance. And exemplars/case studies are perhaps one of the easiest and quickest ways to access what Saward (2006, p.  303) refers to as “ready mades”, which he defines as ‘existing terms and understandings which the would-be audience will recognize’ and which thereby bolster and inform representative claims.

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Table 4.3 Distribution of codes across all 24 debates Code/”Proof”

Number (rank in brackets)

Community Expert Opinion History Exemplars/case studies International Comparison Other MPs Statistics MPs personal biography Quotations/aphorisms The public Views of the public

261 (7) 762 (1) 100 (10) 479 (3) 144 (9) 463 (4) 702 (2) 172 (8) 47 (11) 386 (5) 288 (6)

Table which summarises how often each code was mentioned across the 24 debates. Full discussion in the text

Views of the public rank 6th overall, just about in the middle of the 11 “proofs” considered here, mentioned less than half as much as the leading ones. At a very basic level, this suggests that, contrary to the findings of Atkins and Finlayson (2013) about less formal political speech, that set piece, formal debates in Parliament are not awash with “populist” references to what people think about key legislative issues. This finding aligns with the findings of other studies of this issue noted earlier (Cook et al. 2002; Paden and Page 2003; Petersen et al. 2008). It seems that in the UK, as in other systems, representatives are not all that keen to mention public opinion in legislative settings. As the above discussion of ritual notes, Parliament is a tightly structured political space, with the kinds of party management strictures identified by Proksch and Slapin (2015) as well as the formal/informal rules, rituals and conventions which cover Parliamentary debates (Rai 2010; Atkins and Finlayson 2016; Jarvis and Legrand 2017b). There are certain expectations and conventions which govern Parliamentary speech. And whilst invoking public opinion is not taboo – it does happen – it seems that it is not understood to be authoritative. This may reflect, as was discussed in Chapter 2, the varying views of the appropriate relationship between representative and represented. Herbst (1998) argued that politicians approach public opinion informed by a model of democracy, about how the system should work. It is beyond the scope of this project to assess how many MPs view their relationship to their constituents in essentially Burkean terms – to serve their constituents through exercising their own judgement rather than following their constituents’ will – but speculation would suggest that at least some do (see below). Moreover, some of the elite interviews which form the basis of the analysis in Chapter 5 were conducted with individuals with experience of the House of Commons (for more information on the design, conduct and analysis of these interviews see Chapter 5). In total, the five relevant respondents have over 100 years of experience of sitting in the House of Commons. At the end

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of the elite interviews (which mostly focused on their experiences of making counterterrorism policy within the executive branch) a question was asked about their views as to why discussing or representing public opinion does not seem to be all that common. Their responses broadly fell into four categories; that a (relative) lack of overt discussion of public opinion in House of Commons debates was due to (i) a Burkean conception of representation; (ii) the particular rituals and conventions of the House of Commons as a debating chamber; (iii) that such invocations would lack authority and (iv) a lack of clearly identifiable “public opinion” to invoke and represent. Each will be discussed briefly. A number of the respondents articulated a Burkean notion of representation; a sense that MPs needed to be careful to represent their constituents, but that this needed to be moderated, or filtered through the MPs’ own judgement. One respondent articulated this point vividly when discussing terrorism legislation. I don’t remember debates where anybody, ministers or MPs stood up and said, “my constituents are outraged by what’s happened and want to send everybody back to Pakistan”. I don’t remember those, but I remember hearing that in the street time and time again. And . . . you know, MPs have to . . . walk that tripwire. They’ve got to be careful not to trip those wires. They got to be able to walk that tightrope all the time. As an MP, you’re going to hear this stuff, time and time again. At the height of concerns about terrorism, I couldn’t walk down [XXXX] without somebody stopping me and saying “when are we going to send these buggers home?” But I was never going to stand up in a public meeting and say, “Look, my constituents think they should all be sent home”. You don’t do that, you’ve got to try and find a way through that. But at the same time, try to be honest about reflecting that fear and those dreadful uncertainties. (Interview 9) In this instance, at least part of the Burkean imperative stems from a pragmatic concern with defending basic liberal values – and in that sense, putting the views of (some of) the public as beyond the pale and not appropriate for inclusion in public, Parliamentary debate. Yet there remains a sense in which MPs cannot simply dismiss these voices, even if they cannot (should not?) be explicitly verbalised in Parliament. This sense of the representative as filter was also mentioned by another respondent who stated, it [mentioning public opinion] has to be done properly . . . everything we do simply isn’t reflecting everything that the public think . . . sometimes it’s [public opinion] wrong . . . in the end, MPs make up their own minds and take their decisions. (Interview 8)

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The second rationale that was advanced was that, reflective of some of the points concerning the structured and ritualised nature of Parliamentary debate noted earlier, that the House of Commons itself as a debating chamber exercises influence over the content and form of speeches made within it. Thus one interview stated: So maybe it is that people find that it doesn’t have the resonance inside the chamber that they thought it would have. And . . . the chamber is a very unusual conduit for debate. It is different to debating on radio or television, or in a public meeting or a party conference – totally different . . . I suspect that it’s the reaction within the chamber and because it is the chamber – that has put people off doing it. The kind of sigh of “oh not again, we all have constituents, why is she or he parading their contact with the public. Do they think they’ve got something up on the rest of us?” . . . There’s an unusual culture and atmosphere within the House of Commons chamber which does change the nature of how you present. (Interview 1, emphasis added) A number of points are worth unpacking here. Firstly, clear and explicit reference is made to the ways in which the formal and informal rules, conventions and rituals of Parliament shape the content and form of speech. Secondly, there is a sense in the above extract, that the audience for such speeches lies within the chamber and that to such an audience, references to public views don’t carry much weight. This perhaps reflects that although Parliamentary debates are televised, viewing figures are incredibly low outside of things like Prime Minister’s Questions. The above interview sees the audience as other MPs, and given that all MPs have constituents, invoking their views is not going to carry performative force. The suggestion is that invoking such views and voices would fail as a “proof ” to support a particular position. This latter point is made by another respondent; ‘You’d always hope the arguments for any particular change would stand or fall on their merits and so making the argument “the public wants this” would not be seen as a key argument in doing it’ (Interview 2). Finally, one interview lamented a breakdown in broader civil culture which meant that identifying what the public wants has become an increasingly difficult thing to do. Under this account, flying somewhat in the opposite direction to arguments about populist and demotic styles (Turner 2010), MPs don’t discuss or invoke public opinion because they don’t have a clear sense of what it is. There’s an issue about the political awareness and understanding of the public. . . . But the dearth of political understanding and knowledge . . . and the breakdown of community . . . all of that kind of bit of civil society is fractured, underfunded, under respected. So is it any wonder that the public kind of react to almost like being pricked, and then they go [pop] . . . we have virtually no mechanisms on a regular basis of taking the

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temperature of the public. And I think it’s a great shame. And we should invest more money in it. (Interview 7) For this respondent, the relative lack of representation of public opinion masks a deeper problem, that large swathes of the public lack political knowledge and awareness, such that opinions are either not there or are not considered or well formed (here echoing some of the discussions about non-attitudes discussed in Chapter 2). It should be noted that whilst some of the bills included in the sample could be said to be high profile, or of high salience (terrorism bills, (violent) crime bills), others are more obscure and specialised (e.g. taxation of pensions). There is also a concern with the mechanisms by which politicians engage with the public and uncover what it is that people think about issues. These interview findings help to explain the seeming paradox which was noted earlier on in the chapter, between research which suggests British politics is awash with demotic or populist references to the people and their interests and the findings presented here (which largely supports the findings of Cook et al. (2002) and Paden and Page (2003)), that elected representatives are not over keen on discussing or raising public opinion when legislating. The fourth point discussed earlier draws attention to wider issues, but the other three arguments – that MPs need to filter what their constituents want, exhibiting a commitment to a Burkean form of representation; that Parliament’s rituals, norms and structures shapes and conditions political speech therein; and that, as the audience is primarily other MPs, such invocations would lack performative, or rhetorical force – tend to support arguments made earlier in the chapter as to why such a difference in political speech exists in formal versus informal forums.

(2) to what extent do MPs invoke public opinion when making counterterrorism policy?; (3) do they do so more, or less frequently than for other pieces of legislation Moving to the second and third of the research questions listed earlier, one way to begin to explore this is to unpack Table 4.3 by each debate, so that the distribution of “proofs” or rhetorical justifications can be seen for each debate/ policy area. This is broken down by Parliamentary session, with 2005–2006 in Table 4.4 and 2014–2015 in Table 4.5 (see below). The figures displayed this time are not raw numbers but percentages, where each cell represents the proportion of the total number of “proofs” mentioned in the debate. This is primarily as debates are of differing lengths (the longest debate covered ran to over 55,000 words – Recall of MPs – whereas the shortest ran to just over 8,000; clearly the longer the debate the higher the number of “proofs” are likely to be mentioned), so the raw number of instances of a particular “proof ” or rhetorical justification only says so much. A long debate may have a higher number of mentions, of say, MPs biography, than a much shorter debate, although the shorter debate may see greater reliance on MPs biography as a proportion

Table 4.4 Distribution of “proofs” for 2005–2006 Parliamentary Session, by bill/debate (in percentages) Expert

History

Exemplar

Int Comp.

MPs

Stats

MP Bio

Quotes

“Public”

P. View

Work and Families Welfare Reform Violent Crime Terrorism Electoral Administration Crossrail Criminal Defence Services Corporate Manslaughter Company Law Reform Childcare Charities Armed Forces

0.7 8.3 10.7 10.6 9.2

25.0 15.7 9.2 19.8 19.6

0.7 1.8 0.0 2.3 2.2

3.7 6.5 19.9 26.7 14.7

2.2 3.2 3.1 4.1 3.3

17.6 12.0 7.7 12.0 13.0

29.4 28.6 25.0 4.6 13.6

11.8 0.9 1.0 4.1 2.7

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.9 0.5

3.7 18.9 5.1 6.0 13.6

5.1 4.1 18.4 8.8 7.6

19.3 1.7

12.2 10.2

3.0 1.7

3.6 6.8

3.0 0.0

14.7 16.9

9.1 37.3

2.5 11.9

2.5 0.0

7.1 13.6

22.8 0.0

1.4

19.0

0.0

23.1

2.0

13.6

14.3

9.5

0.0

11.6

5.4

1.6

32.8

0.0

18.4

5.6

11.2

13.6

4.8

1.6

2.4

8.0

7.0 9.4 0.7

25.1 26.8 13.3

2.1 4.7 0.7

11.8 14.2 37.0

2.7 0.8 3.0

9.1 16.5 17.8

19.8 13.4 4.4

5.9 6.3 4.4

1.1 0.8 0.0

8.6 1.6 7.4

7.0 5.5 11.1

Average (exc CT) Average (inc CT)

6.4 6.7

19.0 19.1

1.6 1.6

14.5 15.5

2.6 2.8

13.7 13.5

19.0 17.8

5.6 5.5

0.6 0.6

8.5 8.3

8.6 8.7

Table which summarises in percentage terms, how often each of the codes was mentioned in the 2005–2006 debates. Full discussion in the text

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Community

105

Taxation of Pensions Social Action Small Business Serious Crime Recall MPs Pensions National Insurance Modern Slavery Infrastructure Counterterrorism and Security Childcare Payments Armed Forces Act Avg (exc CT) Avg (inc CT)

Community

Expert

History

Exemplars

Int Comp.

MPs

Statistics

MP Bio

Quotes

“Public”

Pub View

0.0 8.8 12.6 6.7 1.7 0.0 2.1 1.0 12.1 17.0

29.2 24.6 18.4 32.1 1.3 16.4 31.9 28.3 20.0 22.9

0.0 1.8 0.0 2.2 11.3 2.6 0.0 5.1 2.8 6.5

0.8 12.3 12.6 16.4 10.4 1.7 0.0 12.4 7.9 15.7

0.0 0.0 4.2 2.2 8.2 10.3 0.0 6.4 5.2 3.3

15.4 14.0 5.8 9.7 17.3 7.8 17.0 13.4 6.6 13.1

20.0 24.6 30.5 20.9 3.5 28.4 42.6 11.8 22.4 8.5

3.1 1.8 7.4 3.7 5.6 1.7 0.0 7.0 2.8 1.3

0.0 3.5 0.0 0.0 2.6 0.0 0.0 1.3 4.1 0.7

23.8 0.0 3.7 3.0 28.1 25.9 6.4 10.5 8.3 4.6

7.7 8.8 4.7 3.0 10.0 5.2 0.0 2.9 7.9 6.5

1.6 3.4

15.7 34.1

0.0 1.1

0.8 12.5

3.9 0.0

10.2 11.4

48.0 17.0

3.1 6.8

0.0 10.2

11.8 3.4

4.7 0.0

4.5 5.6

22.9 22.9

2.4 2.8

8.0 8.6

3.7 3.6

11.7 11.8

24.5 23.2

3.9 3.7

2.0 1.9

11.4 10.8

5.0 5.1

Table which summarises in percentage terms, how often each of the codes was mentioned in the 2014–2015 debates. Full discussion in the text

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Table 4.5 Distribution of “proofs” for 2014–2015 Parliamentary Session, by bill/debate (in percentages)

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of the debate. A figure of the proportion of total proofs mentioned allows us to examine which types of “proof ” are drawn upon relative to others and to compare this across debates. It is this relative reliance; the extent to which particular “proofs” are drawn upon relative to others, which is of interest and which helps to assess whether debates on counterterrorism measures see more, or less, reliance on public views than policy debates in other areas. The final two rows present two averages; one for all bills and one for all bills, minus the counterterrorism bill. This allows a relatively easy comparison of whether debates on counterterrorism deviate from an aggregated sense of “the norm” in Parliamentary debates. Figure 4.1 also displays some of this data in graphical form, with the average for each Parliamentary session (minus the terrorism debate) against the relevant terrorism debate in each session. Before moving to address the overall questions as to whether debates on security politics like counterterrorism see more or less discussion of public views and opinions, a few basic features of the tables and charts are worth discussing. In terms of the preceding discussion as to the potential increase in reference to public views due to an increasingly populist or demotic style in politics, it is interesting to note that the 2014–2015 session sees less reference to public views than the earlier 2005–2006 session. So on the basis of this dataset, at least, it seems Parliamentary debate (in terms of legislative debate) has not become more marked by invocations of public views and voices. In terms of similarities between non-counterterrorism debates and counterterrorism ones, perhaps unsurprisingly, the “proofs” which were ranked 30.0

25.0

20.0 2005-06 avg

15.0

Terrorism Bill 2014-15 avg

10.0

CT and Security 5.0

0.0 ity

un

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C

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Ex

pe

rt H

is

to

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em

pl

ar

p.

s

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In

tC

Ps

M

tic is at St

s

o

P

M

Bi

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uo

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ub

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w

Figure 4.1. Comparison of average “proofs” for 2005–2006 & 2014–2015 sessions with Terrorism Bill (2005) and Counterterrorism and Security Bill (2015), figures as percentage proportion of total “proofs”

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lowest – MPs biographies, International Comparison, History and Quotations/Aphorisms – are the same for the non-terrorism bill average figures as well as the two terrorism debates. Similarly, Expert Opinion figures highly for all four of those measures. Yet there are some interesting differences. Compared to the average for each session, each of the terrorism bills sees a great deal less invocation of statistics and more reference to community and to exemplars/case studies. References to statistics for the terrorism debates are about a third of that for the average of non-terrorism debates. And there are around twice as many mentions of community and exemplar/case study “proofs”. The emphasis placed on community is perhaps explicable in terms of the ways in which counterterrorism strategy has sought to emphasise community (both as a source of vulnerability and as a potential resource against terrorism) particularly through the focus on the “Muslim Community” (despite the problematic nature of this categorisation) in the Prevent programme (Spalek 2010; O’Toole et al. 2016; Ragazzi 2016). Whilst this is not the main focus of this chapter, it is tempting to conclude that the avoidance of statistics and emphasis on exemplars and case studies reflects something about the character and construction of terrorism itself. As has been argued, often by those who see Western counterterrorism policies as excessive in nature and scope, statistically, terrorism remains a very low-probability event. As Mueller and Stewart (2011) and Jackson et al. (2011) have noted, the statistical probabilities of being involved in a terrorist attack are very, very low. Whilst this does not exhaust the range of facts and figures that could be invoked to support or contest counterterrorism policies, it may perhaps explain why terrorism debates are markedly lacking in appeal to facts and figures. Further, terrorism is sometimes seen to be a “spectacle”, particularly in terms of its media representations (Giroux 2016; Kellner 2016) and this can lead to a framing of terrorism which leans heavily on particular moments and events – both due to their “spectacular” nature and the fact that there are not (thankfully) a huge number of terrorism incidents to draw upon (9/11 is of course, the paradigmatic example of this. Although see Toros 2017 for a critique of the use and invocation of 9/11). This leads Mueller and Stewart to note how particular attacks and moments form the currency of discussions about terrorism; there is a focus on specific and individual attacks to the exclusion of wider patterns, as – for them – discussions of the wider patterns would lead to the conclusion that the threat of terrorism is quite limited. Actually, a most common misjudgment has been to embrace extreme events as harbingers presaging a dire departure from historical patterns. In the months and then years after 9/11, as noted at this book’s outset, it was almost universally assumed that the terrorist event was a harbinger rather than an aberration. There were similar reactions to Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 truck bomb attack in Oklahoma City, as concerns about a repetition soared. And in 1996, shortly after the terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo set off deadly gas in a Tokyo subway station, one of terrorism studies’ top gurus, Walter Laqueur, assured the world that some terrorist groups

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“almost certainly” will use weapons of mass destruction “in the foreseeable future.” Presumably any future foreseeable in 1996 is now history, and Laqueur’s near certainty has yet to occur. (Mueller and Stewart 2011, pp. 54–55) Moving finally to explicitly address the research questions noted earlier – do debates about terrorism and counterterrorism see greater or less discussion of public opinion? The findings here suggest no evidence that such debates see less discussion of public opinion. It is the case that the two terrorism debates in this sample do not see high levels of discussion of public opinion. In the 2005–2006 session, the highest proportion of views of the public “proofs” can be found in the debate on the Crossrail Bill (primarily as this involved a high degree of NIMBYism, and concerns expressed on behalf of constituents about what the proposed new train line would do to constituents’ property, green spaces and community). In the 2014–2015 session, the debate on the power for voters to Recall MPs saw the highest proportion of discussions and invocations of public views. Yet the two terrorism bills seem to sit just above the overall average for invocations of public views. This leads to the conclusion, at least in terms of this dataset, that MPs, when debating security politics like counterterrorism, discuss what the public thinks about the issue just as much as they do for other policies. It might be tempting to posit that Commons debates are highly structured afairs, such that they follow a particular pattern which does not vary from policy area to policy area. In other words, all 2nd Reading debates in the Commons follow similar structures and patterns, and that this extends to the rhetorical devices or “proofs” which speakers use. Against this, as we have seen earlier, there are noticeable diferences between debates on security issues such as counterterrorism and other policy areas (the diferences between invocation of statistics, community references and exemplars/ case studies). Yet the frequency with which public views are invoked is not one of those diferences. In terms of invoking public views, counterterrorism debates look much like debates for other policy areas. In terms of the debate around securitization, and whether security politics sees a different kind of politics, it is perhaps tempting to see this as some sort of evidence that security politics is not all that different to other areas of politics, at least in terms of this narrow issue of whether public opinion and voices are part of the debate. Yet there are also perhaps reasons to be cautious. On the one hand, MPs mentioning and discussing public opinion tells us very little about the overall influence or significance of such voices and views on policy overall. MPs may discuss public opinion until the veritable cows come home, and it might not make the slightest bit of difference to policy overall. To examine how the ways in which public views and opinions relate to policy outcomes, a different approach is needed, and one which will be explored in the next chapter. It should perhaps be noted here, however, that one elite interview argued that policymakers completely ignore the content of Parliamentary debates at their peril. ‘[T]here were times when I went back to the Department

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and said “Look I didn’t give an inch this afternoon [in Parliament] but that was a bloody good point that was made and we need to think about it and we need to have an answer”’ (Interview 1). However, securitization focuses heavily on speech and speech acts as a key part of security politics; it would be somewhat strange therefore to dismiss the content, form and nature of Parliamentary speech about security politics. Working within the securitization framework, rather than critiquing from without, one might see the representation and discussion of public opinion as an important way of persuading audiences of particular securitizing moves. To link Saward’s arguments (2006) about the representative claim to the securitization literature, one might contend that what MPs are doing when discussing public opinion is seeking to win consent and legitimacy for security measures (or perhaps contest government claims to such), by (re)presenting public views on security issues. Thus such appeals and invocations of public views may be seen as strategies and techniques for winning audience consent. A potential issue with this account is that, as was alluded to above, the primary audience of 2nd Reading debates is other MPs, not a wider public audience. It is perhaps the case that a speech in a sparsely attended chamber (which is the case for many debates) can be recycled through social media and constituency/ campaign literature, but in direct terms, the wider public is not the audience for such debates. On a slightly more prosaic level, putting the issue of what MPs invoking public opinion does, to one side, in some important senses, the discursive content and character of Parliamentary debates about legislative powers is, in and of itself, part of security politics. What gets said in Parliament and how it gets said can and should be seen as part of the politics of security. And in this sense, what the analysis of Hansard debates in this chapter shows, is that this is a politics in which public views, however indirectly, play a part. It may be a limited part and the analysis by no means suggests that MPs are screaming from the rafters about “what the people want” – just 6–9% of rhetorical justifications advanced by MPs in debates about counterterrorism were about public views. But MPs – when primarily talking to each other, not the public – do invoke public opinion in debates on security issues like counterterrorism, just about as much, if not more so, as they do for other policy areas. Before moving on to consider, in the next chapter, how key policymakers within the executive understand, deploy, construct and discuss public views when making counterterrorism policy in the executive, the chapter moves to conclude by turning one eye back to some of the issues discussed in Chapter 2. In particular, the book considers not only how often or not public views are mentioned, but following Herbst (1998) seeks to explore quite how MPs do so. What kind of public views – what kind of public – do MPs invoke when they discuss public opinion? Are these broad, wide representations of “the general public” or do MPs invoke more narrow, constituency-based public voices?

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(4) when they do discuss public opinion, how do MPs do so – broadly (in terms of polls, or national “public opinion”) or more narrowly (in terms of specific localised interests)? Across both debates, the 2nd Readings for the 2006 Terrorism Act and the 2015 Counterterrorism and Security Act contain what might be considered a just above-average number of references to views of the public, (albeit that the average is not very high). But in what ways do MPs raise and discuss public views and voices; “public opinion”? There are four main ways in which MPs represent views of the public: (i) opinions and views of Muslim communities; (ii) constituency-based opinion; (iii) general (but vague) public opinion and (iv) voices of individual people. For the 2005 Terrorism Bill 2nd Reading debate there was one other, the voices of victims of terrorism, but this did not appear in the 2015 debate (but will be discussed below). It should be noted that across both debates, with only a single exception, all references to public views were made by backbench MPs. Only one front-bench MP made a reference to public views. This is perhaps salient in terms of the above discussion concerning the influence of public views and voices on security matters like counterterrorism. Although as was also argued earlier, the rituals and strictures of the House of Commons may also play a role in shaping the particular discourses of front bench/back bench MPs (e.g. the contribution of the minister who introduces the bill by necessity runs through the detail of the legislation; as such it tends to have a strongly descriptive element running through it). In the 2005 debate, the most common way for views and voice of the public to be represented was to discuss and represent the views of Muslim communities. I wonder whether he understands the point that Muslims in my constituency made to me. They said that despite any assurances that prosecutions may generally not be in the public interest, the thousands of people who support resistance to what they regard as the occupation of Palestine or who support those whom they regard as freedom fighters in Kashmir will feel criminalised by this legislation. (Betts 2005) Today and over the past 10 days or so, the vast majority of people in the Muslim community in the United Kingdom, which numbers between 2.5 million and 3 million people, will have been apprehensive about what the Bill holds for them, how they will come to look at it and in what way they must play a part in delivering this policy and moving it forward. (Mahmood 2014) Most often (although not always), such representations were made either Muslim MPs or MPs who represented constituencies with significant Muslim populations. In this sense, these might be seen as eforts at representing constituencies, either geographical or demographic.

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Whilst there were a number of references to public views in general, it is worth pointing out that across both debates, there was not a single invocation of opinion polls, or surveys, which would evidence claims about public opinion. Rather these claims were general and vague in nature: ‘When the bombings took place in London, people said time and again that they did not want the bombings to change their way of life’ (Oaten 2005). In such cases, the MP appears to be making a representational claim for a wider public. It is a claim which lacks evidence and specificity seeking to speak for an undefined people (All people? Londoners? Most people?) yet which seeks to mobilise the rhetorical force of this vagueness and generality to support a particular point (in this instance, an argument against “over the top” counterterrorism measures). A third type of public views concerned constituency-level opinion. This is not at all surprising; backbench MPs raising the views and voices of their constituents could be seen to be a backbone of the UK political system. That said, as was discussed earlier, some MPs see their role as a moderating one, and that their role is to use their own judgement rather than simply acting on the wishes and views of their constituents. Nonetheless, a number of MPs raised their constituents’ views explicitly. (It is at least a possibility that the MPs who did do this do not adhere to the Burkean representational model as much as others.) Interestingly, the example below states exactly the kinds of views that Interview 9, above, considered to be beyond the pale. ‘There are many in my constituency who would like to see people in this situation given a one-way ticket and not allowed back into the country’ (Fuller 2014). Finally, some MPs referred to individuals, in one case even by name, or groups of individuals (in other instances, more general identifiers such as ‘a mother’ or ‘young men’). This kind of reference is close to the exemplar/ case study noted earlier, but it seeks to embroider specific narratives by inserting specific people into the story, presumably to add (emotional?) detail and thereby rhetorical force. The following example is an MP recounting an episode relating to the “Trojan horse” episode where concerns were raised about extremist influence in schools. I spoke to one of the parents, who said everything was fine and none of that happened. I asked whether any of her children went to the school in question. She said that both her son and her daughter went there. I asked her to ask one of them. She asked her son. He said, “Yeah, Mum, that happens normally.” The mother asked, “Why don’t I see it?” Her son said, “When you come to school, there’s a different arrangement from what we normally do in class.” On parents evening, the parents were shown the school acting normally, but when they were not present the girls were made to sit at the back and the boys in front. (Mahmood 2014) Representation of the dialogue between parent and child is interesting. Did this parent/child dialogue happen in front of the MP? Or is the MP rhetorically

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embellishing an account of this conversation which was subsequently told to him (in this instance, to support the argument that such extremist influence was real and significant)? Finally, as noted earlier, only once were a different “public” raised, namely the victims of terrorism. It has been noted particularly in the Spanish context (Alonso 2017) that victims of terrorism groups can be significant actors in counterterrorism policymaking (see McGowan 2022 for analysis of survivors/ victims of terrorism in the UK context). Their status as victims is held and seen by many to grant a privileged position from which to discuss and argue about terrorism issues. Yet in these debates, such voices were only a very marginal presence. However, I have spoken to the survivors and the families of the victims of the Bali, Turkey and Sharm el-Sheikh disasters, and there is a frustration that the energy and determination that has been expended to fight terrorism here in the UK is not matched by other countries around the world. (Elwood 2005) It is worth noting that the speaker here declares earlier on that they themself are a victim of terrorism, with a close family member being killed in one of the above attacks. Such personal interest and stake may explain why this particular MP was moved to articulate the interests of such individuals and groups. Whilst reference to and invocation of public views is not a common activity MPs undertake in debating legislation, there is still space for a wide range of constructions of such public views. Yet such representations are constructions, in the sense that they draw attention to particular interests and voices. And they do so in very opaque and broad terms; whole communities (“the Muslim Community” being the most prominent example) are spoken for, often without much evidence or substantiation. Or in some cases, as the example of the dialogue between parent and child, perhaps even stemming from embellished or second-hand dialogues. Such representations are seldom if ever challenged; there is little direct disputation, even if on occasions, alternative “voices” are brought to counterweight. This suggests that MPs do have a degree of authority and latitude, at least within the House, to define and construct the public as they see fit.

Conclusion The chapter began by positioning itself within a wider series of concerns about the relationship between the views of the public (broadly understood) and security politics like counterterrorism. It argues that this is a relationship which has traditionally been overlooked by security studies. The chapter begins to examine such a relationship in the UK context by examining the ways in which Parliamentarians do (or do not) discuss the views of the public when making counterterrorism law. It has also sought to contextualise such a relationship by

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considering “other” policy areas, so as to be able to offer insight into the distinctiveness or otherwise of counterterrorism policy. In addition, the chapter has explored exactly how public views are discussed; what kinds of public are discussed and to what ends? The findings are that (i) broadly, MPs do not discuss or invoked public views all that often in legislative debates in Parliament; (ii) in terms of counterterrorism debates, references to public views occur just as much, if not a little more so and (iii) that such discussions of public views are diverse, but tend towards representing the interests of specific constituencies and communities. Appeals and invocations of “what the public thinks” are more rare than invocations of specific publics (which the MP often has some kind of connection to). In terms of the wider significances, these findings lend credence and support to the recent interventions into security studies, which seek to see security politics not as something exceptional or outside “normal” politics, but as something which is part of politics; to see security as politics (Neal 2019). The types of rhetoric invoked by MPs in security (and other) debates may not decisively shape the content of such policy, but the discursive character of Parliamentary debates is in some important sense, a part of the politics of security. And it is a part where the views of the public are present – at least as much as they are in other policy areas. Moreover, the analysis also sheds light on how politicians seek to represent public views; echoing the work of Herbst (1998) this analysis finds that representations of public views is not some sort of “simple” transmission of “what people think” but rather that politicians are active in selecting and thereby constructing what public views are. Yet such constructions are not “fictions” which are invented by political actors; they draw upon particular voices and scripts which they shape and (re)deploy into Parliamentary debates. This highlights the complex nature of the relationship between public views and security politics.

Note 1 The dataset and coding for the 2014–2015 debates are available as an open data resource at https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/items/b779134e-7d5a-4e52-ba45-f8da d7723c2b/1/?search=%2Fsearching.do&index=3&available=70

5

Political elites, public opinion and counterterrorism policy in the UK

Introduction This chapter will explore the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism within the executive. The previous chapter, examining legislative debates, found evidence to suggest that public opinion was a part of counterterrorism debates (at broadly the same level as for other policy areas). Yet the UK Parliament is sometimes assumed to be a “weak” legislature, in that its capacity to initiate legislation is highly constrained (although Flinders and Kelso (2011) argue for a reappraisal of this argument, suggesting that Parliament is significant and important in shaping the nature of policy debates in other ways). Whether one sees Parliament as weak or not-so-weak, the executive is often assumed to be the true locus of power in British politics (e.g. Marsh et al. 2003); and indeed accounts of securitization examined in Chapter 1 foreground executive politics. Therefore, if Chapter 4 supports the argument that security politics like counterterrorism are not closed, elite-driven “anti-politics”, then what of the executive? What is the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism policy at the executive level? To answer this question, the chapter reports on a series of interviews undertaken with key counterterrorism policymakers in power for the period 2001–2011. The chapter argues that the political elites interviewed here articulate a somewhat paradoxical view about the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism. For nearly all the respondents, public opinion is seen to be a vital part of counterterrorism policymaking. Yet many respondents also express a view that (for a range of reasons) it is difficult to know what public opinion is. This slight paradox informs the ways in which these political elites construct public opinion. Spurred by a sense of its importance, yet hampered by not knowing it, political elites fill this void with their own constructions of public opinion. Often these are what the chapter terms “indirect” constructions, where political elites deploy their keenly attuned political sensitivities (and in many cases, their connection to a particular constituency as an MP) to discern what it is that the public wants. Often, but not always, these constructions seem closer to Browne’s (2011) ‘hunches’, rather than systematic DOI: 10.4324/9781003244585-6

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assessments of public opinion. They also often are, as was argued in Chapter 2, underpinned by particular normative conceptions of what kind of heed they should pay to public opinion. On some occasions, though, the political elites interviewed describe much more “direct” constructions of public opinion, where they participated in outreach and engagement activities with the public, to better understand and appreciate their views on counterterrorism policy. Here, by actively deciding who to talk with – and who not to talk with – political elites are shaping the very public opinion which they argue is crucially important to counterterrorism policy. Thus the chapter further instantiates the argument that the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism policy is complex and mutually constitutive. Elites argue that public opinion on counterterrorism matters, primarily because it is such a high-profile issue that concerns so many people. And this is borne out by the efforts they expend to engage with it. If public opinion is of no concern or importance for counterterrorism, political elites are unlikely to devote that rare commodity – time – to it. At the same time, the interviewees also make clear that political elites do not simply follow public opinion (indeed, some of the participants expressly argue against a simple kind of responsiveness). In projecting their sense of what the public thinks and wants on counterterrorism – whilst simultaneously expressing doubts about the fine grain of what public opinion is on this issue – they are constructing a representation (a representative claim, in Saward’s (2006) terms) of the very public opinion which they claim is important to consider.

Methods To understand in greater depth the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism policymaking within the executive, a series of in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with elite policymakers, who were in government between 2001 and 2011 (on elite interviews see Blakeley 2013; Berry 2002; Richards 1996). This covers the years during which Labour politicians sought to grapple with the aftermath of 9/11 and 7/7 and the early years of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government, which in turn sought to address whether the previous administration’s policies remained appropriate for the protection of the UK. A total of nine elite interviews were conducted between 2018 and 2020. Interviews were conducted through a series of open-ended, flexible questions. The questions asked respondents about: • • •

their experiences in drafting key counterterrorism legislation, the kinds of consultations and engagement with the public which might have been undertaken, their assessment as to the importance of including public opinion in counterterrorism policymaking

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whether public opinion played a similar or different role in counterterrorism to other policy areas they worked on in government how they became aware of public opinion and whether it is easy to know what the public thinks

Interviews typically lasted around an hour and were conducted in a range of locations across the UK, mainly in London. Interviewees held a range of positions within government (see Table 5.1). Whilst some respondents were happy to be referenced by name, the chapter seeks to maintain the anonymity of interviewees. This is for two reasons. Firstly, not all respondents were happy to be identified by name, so some being referred to by name and others remaining anonymous would be unbalanced. Secondly, a number of the interviewees can be considered to have a relatively high profile in public life. Identifying some respondents by name may produce a focus on what person X or person Y had to say. The chapter, rather, wishes to focus less on individual personalities and more on the views, assessments and opinions of individuals who held high office during this period. Table 5.1 gives basic information about the interviewees and their positions in government, which enables contextualisation of their views, but does not compromise their anonymity. The interviewees were selected through a mixture of purposive and snowball sampling. Certain high-profile individuals were approached because they clearly played a crucial role in counterterrorism during the period 2001–2011. Other individuals were subsequently identified as important figures by interviewees. The interviews generated a corpus of text of over 45k words. The interviews were analysed using a “framework” approach to

Table 5.1 List of interviews with political elites Interview One Interview Two Interview Three Interview Four Interview Five Interview Six Interview Seven Interview Eight Interview Nine

Cabinet level minister with counterterrorism responsibilities (Labour government) Cabinet-level minister with counterterrorism responsibilities (Labour government) Senior civil servant with counterterrorism responsibilities Cabinet-level minister with counterterrorism responsibilities (Labour government) Minister with counterterrorism responsibilities (Conservative/Lib Dem government) Special advisor with counterterrorism responsibilities (Conservative/ Lib Dem government) Cabinet-level minister with counterterrorism responsibilities (Labour government) Minister with counterterrorism responsibilities (Labour government) Minister with counterterrorism responsibilities (Labour government)

Table which gives basic details about the political elites interviewed. Details whether cabinet minister, senior minister, civil servant, special advisor

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qualitative discourse analysis (Ritchie and Spencer 2002; Law et al. 2011; Gale et al. 2013). This involves a systematic process of sifting, charting and organising qualitative material such that large volumes of data can be summarised in a manner grounded in participants’ own accounts (Jones 2000). An “immersive” reading of the transcript data had four stages (Gale et al. 2013); familiarisation with the text; deductive coding (for issues which were expected to be significant – for example, political elites’ views about the importance of public opinion to counterterrorism); inductive coding (codes which emerged through the coding process, such as constructions of public opinion); and application of the framework to the corpus of text. This approach is useful for producing a ‘set of codes organised into categories [creating] . . . a new structure for the data . . . that is helpful to summarize/ reduce the data in a way that can support answering the research questions’ (Gale et al. 2013, p. 1).

The importance of public opinion Perhaps one place to start this analysis is by observing and analysing that nearly all of the political elite participants express a commitment to the importance of public opinion (and whilst, as we shall see below, some query how much influence or impact such opinion had, none of the interviewees argue that it should not matter). One participant stated simply ‘if you legislate without taking account of what you think people are thinking, that’s a mistake and so one should try to take account of what people are thinking’ (Interview Two). Another says ‘I mean I think it’s a general proposition about government. You can’t govern well ignoring what people think – silly idea’ (Interview Five). Other interviewees link their sense that it was important to include public opinion in counterterrorism policy to explicit ideas and notions of democratic representation. One said ‘We’re a democracy. We’re democratic politicians. Of course we have to reflect what our own constituents think’ (Interview Eight). Another similarly stated: I don’t think that public policy is the preserve of politicians or civil servants. It’s, it’s kind of like in the name, it’s public. So, you know, obviously, we have a representative democracy. And so you ask the people that you elect to take those decisions, in your best interests, in the national interest . . . so taking their views into account is really important. (Interview Seven) One might be tempted to respond that “well they would say that wouldn’t they”; although not all the interviewees were elected politicians (the sample includes ministers who sat in the House of Lords, a special advisor and a senior civil servant), it might be suggested that all actors in the political realm

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are aware (to varying degrees, and with varying degrees of exposure) that being seen to be committed to being open to public views and opinions is a necessity (see also the discussion in Chapter 4). To that might be added that it is highly unlikely that anyone would say the opposite; that public opinion was unimportant and should be ignored. Yet the interviewees went further than this, often explaining and justifying their view that public opinion was an important factor for counterterrorism policy. There were two main ways this was done. One focuses on the politics of the issue, arguing, in efect, that ignoring public opinion around counterterrorism is politically problematic and likely to create political or electoral problems. The second leans more towards arguments around efcacy and efectiveness, making claims that efective counterterrorism policy requires engaging with public views. (It might be briefly noted here that, to refer back to Herbst’s four conceptions of public opinion, that the above two rationales for engaging with public opinion are based on two diferent conceptions of public opinion; the first relies on the generalised, aggregate notion of public opinion; the second as we shall see, is more focused around the views of particular publics; frequently, Muslim communities). The view that public opinion was important for counterterrorism policy is sometimes explained in terms of political necessity. This account argues that as counterterrorism is a high salience issue – that is, that it is something that many voters are aware of and which is important to them – that being cognisant and responsive to such views in some broad general sense, is important for retaining public trust and confidence. Speaking about the passage of key counterterrorism legislation in the mid-2000s, a former government minister said those counterterrorism bills took quite a long time, it was a very, very big issue at the time . . . if they [the government] were very considerably out of tune with public opinion that would have been incredibly damaging for the political party. (Interview Four) This argument – that attentiveness to public opinion is particularly important for counterterrorism policy – is expanded upon in other interviews. Against some of the more conventional readings of securitization theory which might suggest that security issues like counterterrorism are conducted away from the public by a closed elite, the policy elites interviewed here express the view that counterterrorism is an issue where it is especially important to engage with, and be responsive to, public opinion. One former cabinet minister explained this by saying that security issues like counterterrorism affect everyone, as opposed to many other policies which have impacts on specific sections of the public, and so making such policies chime with public opinion is of greater necessity than for other areas of policy.

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This [counterterrorism] is not a minority issue, it’s not somebody else’s problem, it’s not a problem that they [the public] see as being debated by those with some expertise or lived experience, it is a threat to them and to their nation, to the national wellbeing, infrastructure or economy and therefore that there is a more gut reaction to it than there would otherwise be . . . I do [think public opinion is more prominent for counterterrorism policy]. Just by the nature of it being universal and instinctive, as opposed to a particular issue affecting a particular cohort of the population . . . I think the weight of public opinion subliminally, is greater with counterterrorism . . . in our inner responses, we are more affected by something that has a direct physical wellbeing or wider impact on the nation as a whole, than we do when we are arguing about a particular cohort [where] it’s about policy as opposed to survival. (Interview One) This point that because counterterrorism is about public safety that politicians have to be more attentive to what the public think was reiterated by another interviewee, who said ‘Of course, we have to take into account people’s views. . . . [O]n something like protecting the people, I think that is a huge issue’ (Interview Eight). Another former cabinet minister took the argument about the importance of being engaged with public opinion on counterterrorism matters a stage further. They argued that public faith in the competence of the government is at stake, in a way that it is not with other policy areas: If they [the government] were very considerably out of tune with public opinion that would have been incredibly damaging for the political party. Assume that we completely and irredeemable f**ked up the reform of [other policy] . . . it wouldn’t have made any impact on our political standing because it was neither a salient issue in the sense that it was at the top of people’s concerns, nor was it an issue that people thought would define the competence of the government. . . . Public opinion, the need to reassure, the sense that you have to be legitimately seen to be doing things, the need all the time to be constantly exploring ways of making people safer is, in this particular area [counterterrorism], a huge driver. . . . Unless you are constantly in dialogue with the public you won’t retain public confidence. (Interview Four) This person contrasted counterterrorism with “other” policy areas, which might be supposed to not attract public attention or have a clearly defined, well-articulated public opinion around them. There is, they argued, ‘lots, lots and lots [of] policy like that’. However, they continued, ‘Counterterrorism is absolutely not one of those. Counterterrorism is one of those policies which is absolutely in your shop window. You cannot be Prime Minister unless you have the confidence of the country in relation to terrorism and counterterrorism’ (Interview Four). This point was returned to by another interviewee who

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argued that one of the reasons Jeremy Corbyn was not successful electorally was that he did not have the confidence of the country on (counter)terrorism issues, particularly in so-called “Red Wall” seats. [I]t’s one of the reasons why we lost the election in 2019. . . . And one big reason why we lost out was the perception that Corbyn and the party was seen to be soft on terrorism. Rightly or wrongly . . . but I was getting [that] on the doorsteps. (Interview Eight) Taking these points together, the argument being suggested is that because issues like counterterrorism involve the safety of the country and public as a whole, that awareness of and sensitivity to public opinion is more urgent than with other policy which might affect sub-sections of the population, and/or be of lower importance. Failure to be suitably connected and responsive to public opinion in this area would lead to a government losing public confidence, it was argued. The second rationale raised for the importance of public opinion was around policy efficacy, such that public opinion was seen to be important to the creation and drafting of effective and coherent counterterrorism policy. One former minister, when reflecting on the outreach and dialogue that they had engaged with on counterterrorism policy (see below), stated fairly simply that they felt this was important to do as government had gaps in its knowledge and these gaps would inhibit effective policy making: I think we did something rather different and in some ways, quite exceptional. It was partly because I said to myself “how am I going to understand what the problem is?”. So in a sense it was born of necessity – go out and find the people and talk to them . . . I learnt a great deal. (Interview Five) This was a view supported by a special advisor, also engaged in the outreach and dialogue with publics. They made the case that policy could not be driven “top down” and that it needed input from the wider public. They spoke of ‘the importance of finding a narrative that people can accept, understand and take part in and a sense that we need to construct this thing together’ (Interview Six, emphasis added). Another former cabinet minister also thought that it was important to engage with public opinion on counterterrorism because it enhanced government’s knowledge and increased the likelihood of coming up with effective policy, but they also argued that such engagement is likely to lead to more enduring policy solutions. People will say now some of the terrorist problems are like a public health problem, you need a population based approach, you know, you need to

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get people to want to change their lives, whether it’s five a day, or you know, obesity, or whatever else, these are social and cultural problems. And getting people to own the problem and then to come up with their own solutions that you then help them turn into reality will last a damn sight longer than any government up here saying, right, we’ve got an action plan. (Interview Seven) Thus, it seems that for counterterrorism policy, for a range of reasons, some principled, some practical and others more political, that the policy elites interviewed see engaging with public opinion around counterterrorism issues as vital. Sidestepping, or ignoring public opinion is not perceived to be a viable option. But how do those political elites come to understand public opinion? And is public opinion on this issue straightforward? As we have already seen in Chapter 2, whilst some sense that the public wants “more security” is a fairly recurring, if unsurprising, finding of polls, beyond this was a certain level of ambiguity about exactly what public opinion is/was on counterterrorism.

Ambiguity/uncertainty around public opinion Whilst public opinion may be seen as a crucial part of the counterterrorism policy matrix, knowing what that public opinion is, is not a straightforward issue. To put this differently, the first thing that should be noted when starting to build a picture of how political elites think about the content of public opinion on counterterrorism issues is that this all proceeds from a place of great epistemic uncertainty. Nearly all of the participants at some time or other expressed concern with the ability to truly know what public opinion is: ‘what the public think is difficult to judge’ (Interview Four). The following are a selection, but this was a recurrent theme across most interviews: When it comes to the whole question of public opinion, there isn’t of course, in this area, a single public opinion – you’ve got several different attitudes playing into. And some of them are in direct conflict with each other, there is disagreement so you haven’t got the luxury of being able to respond to one set of voices. (Interview Five) [Responding to question as to whether it is easy to know what public opinion is] I think it takes time. Because something like this [counterterrorism], it has blips. So when there’s an incident, everybody’s really, really concerned. And then if nothing happens, for six months, it goes off, off the boil. And also, it’s quite interesting, because there’s people who are in it, who are more knowledgeable, who are very concerned. And then there’s, if you like the wider periphery, and you know, they read a Sun

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editorial, that all these people are going to blow you up. And they suddenly become concerned. And they’ll be very concerned, but it’s quite surface. So I think you need to be forensic enough to be able to assess the level, and it’s not a perfect science. (Interview Seven, emphasis added) I think it’s very difficult to say what public opinion is, in any sense . . . [Referring to MP/constituency link] so they [the public] say what they think, and you kind of get a sense of what that is, but is that public opinion? Well, it’s certainly not scientific and you can have quasi scientific tests by polling and so on but as you know that depends very much on how the question is framed and so there’s a climate of opinion more than public opinion. And I would definitely say the climate of opinion was to use what measures you can to stop this kind of thing happening. A strong climate of opinion. But you couldn’t deduce from that that there was strong public support for measure X or measure Y because it was very inchoate in the way that it was expressed. (Interview Two, emphasis added) Each of these three extracts refers to the difculties of knowing precisely what public opinion is, albeit each of them places the sources of this uncertainty in slightly diferent places. For the first extract, from Interview Five, the complexity and difculty of knowing what the public thinks lies in the polyvocality of public opinion – there are many diferent opinions and “boiling them down” to one single, “public opinion” is difcult, if not impossible. To some extent, this is a position which is reflective of the fundamental tension within the idea of public opinion noted in Chapter 2; opinions are individually held, but a public is plural. The second of the above extracts refers to the difculty of ascertaining the intensity, reliability or fixity of attitudes expressed; as events wax and wane, various opinions become manifest, but the extent to which these are deeply held, firm or fixed opinions, or more transient, mutable ones requires, for Interviewee Seven, skilful discernment and is not immediately apparent. The last of the above extracts similarly identifies plurality in the information environment around public opinion but traces this to the diferent ways in which “public opinion” can become manifest. The creates, for Interviewee Two, a broad information environment, a ‘climate of opinion’, composed of diferent bits of information – MPs representations of constituency-based opinion, plus opinion polling and other things – but for Interviewee Two, this is inchoate. In this context of uncertainty about public opinion it is worth spending some time analysing the interviewee’s different perspectives of the MP/constituency link. Frequently this was held up as some kind of gold standard for knowing public opinion. In the context of a discussion of the difficulty in knowing public opinion, one former minister, (recalling counterterrorism policy making the wake of 9/11 and 7/7) highlighted that MPs occupied a

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particular position from which they could advise government of the public mood: Members of Parliament are still a conduit for gathering, collecting opinion and being subject to substantial lobbying. Email was only just in, so people were just getting used to emailing their Members of Parliament, but they held advice surgeries and were in their communities. Hence the ability of some people to be able to criticise the government’s proposals on the grounds that they’d received representations of disquiet. (Interview One) This person continued, explaining the importance of advice surgeries and contacts with people in their constituency to their activities as a minister [That direct contact] made a difference. I think it’s the great strength of single member constituency. . . . As people really do have to hold those meetings and have to be part of and responsive to their community. I still believe that matters. (Interview One) Other interviewees similarly valorised the ability of MPs to “keep their ear to the ground” and have, in a way, a privileged sense of public opinion, and saw MPs as representing a particular, unique, source of knowledge about public opinion. For one former minister, however, this was an under-utilised resource which government didn’t make sufcient use of. And one of the things that I was disappointed with was we didn’t try to tap the intelligence that was being gathered by MPs, what they were experiencing in their communities. You can’t really do it in a debate in the House of Commons, you need something much, deeper and richer and grainier than that, if you want to if you want to come up with real insights into what’s going on. And we never did that. . . . And it seemed to me that that sort of – call it whatever you want, intelligence gathering, information coming in, nous you might have possessed as somebody who lives in the community and understands it – we never . . . the government, then or now, ever really tapped that. (Interview Nine) Despite the concerns that government did not use it enough, the view here privileges the kind of “thick”, granular knowledge about the public that MPs can discern from their being within particular communities. Others though, were more sceptical of the importance or significance of the MP/constituency link’s facility to generate accurate, or representative, knowledge of public opinion. Some raised mild concerns or observations as to whether what a given MP heard from their constituents could be said to approximate public opinion.

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One of the virtues of the parliamentary system is that MPs, including me . . . would be in constituencies on a regular basis. . . . MPs will constantly be approached by people in their constituencies just in the ordinary course of events as they walked around, people would say “what are you going to do about this” or whatever, usually in a non-adversarial way. But they believed the MPs job is to listen to what they think and so they say what they think, and you kind of get a sense of what that is, but is that public opinion? (Interview Two) Others more explicitly raised questions as to whether the voices that MPs heard from could be considered to be representative: [I]t’s a very important qualitative way of doing it. [But] If you do get a sense of what is going on in your constituency, that will be not a perfectly objective sense. But you’re there and you’re actually going and talking to people, they certainly get a sense of the political engaged part of your constituency and understand what – you won’t get a sense of the disaffected and alienated parts of your constituency. You’ll find supporters and opponents but the there’s a chunk of people who are just, you know, fed up with the whole process and have lost interest. You find it really hard to find out what those problems are. You also get a disproportionate sense of things being worse because people who visit your constituencies surgeries are always people with problems . . . the mistake people would make was thinking that their constituency is somehow representative of the country at large. And it never is. (Interview Six) The point was similarly made by two other interviewees, who, interestingly, also like Interviewee Six, were not elected politicians. It seems that support for and belief in the significance of the MP/constituency link is strongest amongst MPs themselves. Here, there are echoes of the way in which the Westminster Model, of which the MP/constituency link is an important part, functions as a legitimising mythology (see Richards 2007). Others working within the policy space seem to have a more sanguine view of the relationship: I think that MPs spend far too much time in the surgery dealing with people’s complaints about their benefits or their what have yous, rather than actually getting out and talking much more generally. And of course the town hall meeting has disappeared. You talk to your followers these days . . . my criticism is that I’m not sure the MPs do know what’s going on in their constituencies . . . they spend their time acting as case officers. So I just do wonder if the MPs don’t flatter themselves about how good a transmission belt they are. (Interview Five)

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Because I was in the Lords it was assumed that I knew absolutely nothing about what public opinion was. I was also not experiencing what they were experiencing . . . when they went back to their constituencies. I was quite resentful of that lack – it makes you a much, much weaker political player. I used to think that they were getting the view of whatever particular section of the public would be in say, Liverpool or Birmingham. I was getting full blast whatever the public opinion was in [XXX]. All in their own particular way, equally both representative and unrepresentative. (Interview Four) Therefore, whilst for some, the MP/constituency link ofers a valuable, perhaps even unique, insight into public opinion, for others it is not a panacea to the problem of knowing exactly what public opinion is. The problem can be that what MPs hear from particular people in particular constituencies is not generalisable to the broader public. And/or that MPs don’t quite do enough outreach and engagement to really know what the public thinks even in their specific and distinctive locale. Either way, the faith that some MPs have in the link is called into question and it may not be a simple solution to the problem of knowing what public opinion is.

Constructing public opinion Putting the previous two discussions next to each other, the picture which emerges is a somewhat paradoxical one. On the one hand, many of the policy elites interviewed identify public opinion as an important factor in counterterrorism policy for a range of reasons. But, that public opinion which is seen to be important, is at one and the same time, hard to know. The conjunction is significant. Were public opinion not seen to be particularly important for counterterrorism policy, it’s epistemic fragility would not really be an issue; it could either simply be ignored or be left as an unexplored curiosity. That public opinion is frequently seen to be important and it is seen as difficult to know raises a particular set of issues. Ignoring public opinion is not seen to be an option. So it appears that political elites must do their best to engage with public opinion. This engagement with what is understood variously as incomplete or partial knowledge of public opinion takes two main forms, which will be discussed in turn below. The first of these, an indirect construction of public opinion, is to make a judgement about or a representation (to invoke Saward’s term) of public opinion. And as discussed in Chapter Two, for Saward (2006), such representations are necessarily creative acts; when political actors represent the public and public opinion, they are in a very significant sense, constructing that opinion. (Soo et al. (2021) also point to the ways in which political elites rely on their own judgements to interpret what public opinion is). There are limits and boundaries to such creativity and representations which do not resonate with the public are likely to be rejected. But, as we shall see, political elites may use their judgement, their political antennae, along with the various

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information sources at their disposal, to come to a view about what the content of public opinion is. They do so in a context of uncertainty, but understand themselves to be faced with the political necessity of so doing. The second way in which the political elites interviewed engage with the epistemic uncertainty of public opinion is a more direct construction of public opinion, by seeking to gather further knowledge and information, to bridge, or cover, such gaps or holes. We will examine each of these strategies in turn. But the argument for both of these is that what political elites are doing here is constructing public opinion. The point here is not that they are fabricating public opinion (not least because, given the arguments analysed in Chapter 2, there may not be a preexisting public opinion to fabricate), at least not in the pejorative sense, but rather faced with a (perceived) need to be attentive to public opinion, but also unsure about public opinion as they see/know it, they construct a version of it.

Constructing public opinion (1): political judgement The epistemic uncertainty about public opinion seems to lead to – for a great many of the respondents – a sense that knowing what public opinion is, is something that requires discernment and judgment. It’s not something that is immediately obvious or apparent, and either by balancing different viewpoints, different sources or weighing the worth, intensity and permanence of views, political elites must employ their political experience and judgment to come to understand and appreciate what public opinion is through a reflective process, weighing a number of different considerations. The interview responses which make these claims are strongly redolent of Stimson et al.’s (1995, p. 559) imagery (discussed in Chapter 2) of politicians as like ‘antelope’ with political antennae keenly attuned to political moods. This process of weighing or evaluating different information sources on public opinion leads to three different pictures or constructions of public opinion on counterterrorism. The most frequent – indeed, the dominant – construction of public opinion put forward by the policy elites interviewed, is of a public which is hardline on counterterrorism issues, desirous of “more” powers to combat terrorism and not particularly concerned with civil liberty issues. This image of public opinion was asserted in the great majority of interviews. The following are some examples of these discussions: [T]he instinct I think of a lot of people over terrorism is “lock em up”. “Lock em up”. “Be tough”. “This is our society” and the desire for . . . the use of force and revenge is probably there. (Interview Five) [T]the politicians were incredibly keen to react to the mood of the public. And the mood of the public was – they wanted action . . . Had we done nothing after 9/11 I think people would have thought “f**k, what are we doing, nothing at all?” (Interview Four)

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[T]he public as a whole was strongly in favour of taking action to provide greater security. (Interview One) Most of these examples refer to public opinion about counterterrorism in general terms. On occasions, some participants articulate a conception of public opinion about specific counterterrorism policies. Recalling the debates and discussions within government about how to respond to the Law Lords ruling that indefinite detention of foreign national suspected of terrorism was illegal, one former senior civil servant said: And that was a moment where you could sense there was going to be public outrage that these people were going to be let out – huge public pressure to do something . . . And that [Control Orders] was very much trying to catch a public mood, satisfy a public mood. “You can’t have these dangerous people walking amongst us”. (Interview Three) On occasions, these constructions draw on particular, local and specific “public opinion”: Going around my old constituency, in [XXX] working class constituency, mainly. I remember talking to people about these issues in the elections of 2005 and 2010. To quote somebody from a council estate . . . “I know what I’d do, [XXX], I’d lock the buggers up and throw the key away”. (Interview Eight) There are a number of interesting and significant points to further explore in the above constructions of public opinion around counterterrorism measures. The first is to note that they broadly resonate with the available evidence from the information environment about these issues discussed in Chapter 3, where (notwithstanding issues around framing, question wording and so on) it seemed public opinion was supportive of “more” security when it came to counterterrorism. Two points follow from this; firstly, this should not be a surprise. The political elites interviewed were successful political actors and as Saward (2006) argues, representations, or depictions of public opinion which are out of step or do not resonate with publics, are likely to be rejected and this would have political consequences. There’s a danger of circularity to this point, but with a degree of caution, a broad point might be made that political elites have significant incentives to depict public mood in a way which chimes with the public. A cardinal sin for a politician is to be “out of touch” (as can be seen in the ways in which politicians not knowing the price of milk or bread can cause acute political embarrassment). The second point is that although this reading of public opinion about counterterrorism seems reasonably in accordance

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with available information and evidence, it remains a construction. The overview of (some but by no means all) information about what the public thought about counterterrorism identified a number of alternative possibilities. Chapter 3 pointed to particular questions about the “softness” or otherwise of public opinion and that, when prompted by certain questions, a higher degree of ambiguity emerged than from simpler, binary questions about “more” or “less” security. Indeed, at least one of these possibilities is picked up in the above extracts. The former cabinet minister in Interview Two points towards the lack of granularity or detail in public opinion, going as far as preferring to use the term ‘climate of opinion’ rather than public opinion. Another former cabinet minister stated: Public opinion is normally not engaged in the detail of things, so the precise days of detention, although that became quite an important issue, or the precise terms of Control Orders – public opinion won’t be particularly engaged in the detail of that. (Interview Four) In other words, whilst we might conclude that the representations of the political elites interviewed as to the shape and content of public opinion on counterterrorism appear to be consonant with the information environment around public opinion at the time, other representations are possible (in the same way that a painting of a scene or person, no matter how realistic or “lifelike” does not preclude other depictions, which may also move or appeal, perhaps in diferent ways, through diferent types of representation to “capture” the essence or likeness of an image or object). Public opinion could have been seen to be often supportive of greater security measures but concerned about going too far beyond existing legal precedents (as respondents appeared to be in YouGov (2008) and ICM (Weir 2008) polls). Given the plurality of views in the media, it would be possible to articulate a public mood that was concerned about terrorism but also wary of introducing draconian powers, which might be more for political show than for actual efect. These would have also been “reasonable” interpretations of the public information environment at the time. Therefore, a key point to emphasise is that the view of the public as wanting greater counterterrorism powers is a construction of public opinion, albeit one which broadly resonates with much (although not all) of the information about public opinion available at the time. It is also worth noting that, importantly, given the opinion polls at the time this is also a view which would likely command intersubjective agreement; as noted earlier in terms of the seeming consensus amongst the interviews here, it probably represents what other people, elite or otherwise, considered public opinion to be. In other words, it not only represented what a specific political actor thought the public wanted, but also what that political elite thought others – other political elites, the public – thought public opinion looked like on this issue.

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The second point to emphasise about these constructions of public opinion as hardline and supportive of more counterterrorism powers is that they generally (but not always) treat the public – or depict the public – in monolithic terms, ignoring or downplaying the nuance and variation that exists amongst the public. In one sense here, political elites are shifting between different conceptions of public opinion, between public opinion as an aggregate of individuals opinions and public opinion as majority public opinion (Herbst 1993). But in slipping between these conceptions of public opinion, what is sometimes lost is the uncertainty and difference that is to be found in public opinion on counterterrorism. Some of the political elites interviewed displayed recognition of this. ‘[T]here’s inevitably a difference of views amongst people of Asian origin in parts of England, they may take a different view on the Prevent measures and so on, probably do’ (Interview Eight). However, as the above extract indicates, the reference to diverse views is nearly always “othered” or otherwise exceptionalised to dissenting voices. So whilst pointing to the diversity of views on counterterrorism by way of reference to Muslim communities was one explicit recognition of diversity/complexity, another was to hive off “dissent” or departure from the mainstream view to lawyers or other types of “purist”: [W]hat happens when public opinion is divided? . . . Counterterrorism, honestly, was not that area. Counterterrorism is an area where it’s the lawyers versus the rest, basically. And the lawyers always want restraint . . . and public opinion always wants more, basically. (Interview Four) I think the 90 days, which was hugely contested, the control orders were hugely contested, not necessarily in the public .  .  . you’ll always have some, and I don’t blame them, you know, you need them in a free society, some intellectual purists who will say, under no circumstances can you impinge on people’s fundamental freedoms, and it’s a dangerous path, and you have to be very careful. (Interview Seven) What’s interesting here is that in these interviews, there is occasionally an acknowledgment that there are diferent views about counterterrorism, but these are rarely, if ever attributed to the public at large. Minority groups can have diferent views. Interest groups, lawyers and intellectuals can have diferent views, but “the British public” is not included in this diversity. No accurate reading of the polls (with all the caveats about what polls can tell us) would ignore that a minority – and sometimes a significant minority – of “the British public” seemed to have qualms about many of the measures introduced. Even in a question which is potentially loaded towards getting a “more security”

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answer, like a binary yes/no as to whether the rise of ISIS meant Britain needed tougher counterterrorism laws (ComRes 2014), more than 1 in 9 people disagreed. Where questions were less “loaded”, the proportion of the public who did not support the “pro security” option seemed larger still. Nearly 1 in 3 respondents to an ICM poll in 2008 backed a pre-charge detention period of less time than 28 days (the limit at the time). Nearly 1 in 4 of those polled were concerned that extending pre-charge detention to 42 days would lead to innocent people being detained (YouGov 2008). These findings (again, with all the caveats about polling) do not sit easily with a simple narrative that “the public want more security”. In large part, of course, when making such claims about public appetites for more counterterrorism measures, political elites slip between aggregative and majoritarian conceptions of public opinion, but such elisions happen without fanfare. And this is one area in which the constructions of public opinion could be said to be less resonant with the available information about public opinion, or perhaps more accurately, underrepresenting the complexity and diversity of such opinion. Related to this point, representations of the public as a homogenous block also often brush over the extent to which opinion in this area may be “soft” or malleable. As noted in Chapter 4, qualitative research shows that public support for counterterrorism attitudes may not be as robust or as fixed as polls sometimes suggest. When encountering new information, or challenges to (initially) held views, individuals sometimes shift in their views and attitudes. This “softness” in attitudes is sometimes picked up in polls as well. An ICM (Weir 2008) poll which pointed out to people who had professed support for an extension to 42-day pre-charge detention that this exceeded prison sentences for burglary, found that 1 in 3 changed their position. The lack of attention to this potential pliability of public opinion may be commensurate with the view expressed by Interviewee Four, above, that the public are not engaged in the detail of policy. The larger point the chapter would seek to make, however, is that the information landscape about public opinion would allow for alternative readings and depictions of public opinion; as something perhaps generally supportive of “more security”, but also unsure and circumspect, with significant minorities – and not just “minority groups” or “the usual suspects” – who opposed such measures. That this depiction of public opinion was not found amongst the interviewees is less significant than that it would, I would argue, represent a “reasonable” interpretation of the information/knowledge about public opinion on counterterrorism at the time. Indeed, one might push the argument a little further and suggest that this would be a more accurate representation than that which found amongst the interviewees. The final point to draw attention to is that the above assertions of public opinion generally come without supporting evidence. The general line that the public wanted more security powers for the government/state to address terrorism was not one that was buttressed by reference to polls, or indeed, any other kind of data or proof. (There is an exception to political elites not

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referring to supporting evidence, and this was particularly prominent in the representations and activities around Muslim opinion, which is discussed in the next section.) This perhaps reflects four things. Firstly, it may simply be an artefact of the interview setting. As far as possible the interviews were conducted in a naturalistic fashion, to allow the interviewees to converse as they saw fit. In this context, it would perhaps seem to be unusual or stilted to “reference” opinions or views (although Cook et al. (2002) and Paden and Page (2003) and Chapter 4, note that policymakers seem reluctant to refer to things like polls in formal legislative settings as well); such conversations did not adhere to academic referencing norms or procedures. A second explanation refers back to the work of Herbst (1998) and Brown (2011) who found that politicians frequently eschew a reliance on formal means of assessing public opinion, preferring hunches and intuition. For such accounts, in one sense, there would be no data or evidence to reference as the picture of public opinion is not drawing on such data, and is rather coming from the actor’s own senses and sensibilities. Related to this, a third explanation would be that (as Herbst (1998) and Brown (2011) also found) that political elites often are suspicious of the ability of opinion polls to capture public opinion. This has been demonstrated in the sample of political elites interviewed here, as discussed earlier. Finally, given that the interviewees were being asked to recount experiences and moments from the past, it may be simply that such evidence/proofs has not stuck in their minds, particularly as they are likely not to have been centrally involved with the collection of such information (and more likely, civil servants or advisors collated these kinds of information for ministers). Therefore, whether due to the informality of the setting, the fact that such depictions of public opinion had no formal supporting evidence, that politicians are reluctant to cite polls, and/or the passage of time, political elites, in this and in other samples, seem reluctant to buttress their depictions of public opinion explicitly with evidence. Therefore we might sum up this analysis of political elites’ assessment of public opinion and counterterrorism with three points. (1) Political elites tended to represent the general public as a homogenous block that was in favour of expanding counterterrorism measures. (2) This depiction or construction is not a fantasy; in many ways it comports with many aspects of the available information environment and could be seen as a “reasonable” depiction. Yet it could also be seen as a partial or incomplete picture and one which either elides dissenting voices, or which (re)locates such voices away from “the British public” (to minority groups, intellectuals or lawyers) and which overlooks the potential plasticity or “softness” of the seeming support for greater counterterrorism measures. (3) Perhaps reflecting (2) the depictions of public opinion come without evidence to support or substantiate. This may reflect the uncertainty about knowing public opinion decisively. But it also further draws attention to the point that what political elites say about public opinion represents a

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construction and not something objective, given, or a simple empirical process of counting or listing. Constructing public opinion (2): constructing the community

There is one further, more direct, way in which the interviewees constructed public opinion on counterterrorism. Whereas in the previous section political elites provided an assessment of what public opinion was (perhaps drawing on existing information which was apparent to them), in the instances considered here political elites directly engage the public with the effect of shaping the “public opinion” which emerges. This specifically happened with regard to the opinions of Muslim communities. In the interviews conducted, two separate but contemporaneous efforts by the main political parties, Labour (in government) and Conservative (in opposition), to engage in dialogue with Muslim communities in 2006–2007 were discussed. In both cases, ministers and shadow ministers devoted considerable time, effort and energy to these efforts. In one case, the directive to pursue this kind of engagement came directly from the Prime Minister, Tony Blair in the wake of 7/7: And so I remember Tony getting everybody together in the Cabinet Office, it’s as clear today, sort of 10 years on as it was then. And he didn’t quite say something must be done . . . But it was very much in that sense of goodness me, you know, this is seismic, and what are we all going to do? . . . And basically, the Prime Minister really wanted to kind of dig under the surface and see what was going on in our communities that could lead to this kind of an event. I think the whole kind of country was totally shocked that this could happen. So it fell to me . . . to go out and visit all the communities around the country in the next 12 months, particularly where there is a significant Muslim population. (Interview Seven) The former minister estimated that this entailed around 50 meetings with community leaders, groups and individuals, ‘And, you know, it was every week, up and down the country’ (Interview Seven). Another interviewee, a former minister from a diferent government department to Interview Seven, was also part of this. They explained that ‘We weren’t that well informed about what was going on in these communities’ (Interview Nine), but also recounted their: rolling sense of shock, and discovery, and just what hostility we faced in our attempt to combat the ground out of which this terrorism was growing . . . I hadn’t realized the gulf that there was between these attitudes and I suppose what you could call mainstream public opinion in Britain. So, so there were lots of those meetings. (Interview Nine)

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Parallel to this efort by government ministers, shadow ministers and advisors for the Conservative Party were engaging in a similar exercise. Although more limited in scope than the exercise undertaken by the Labour administration, a (then) shadow minister characterised it thus: [W]e certainly did a lot when we were still in opposition. We had all sorts of groups in and individuals in. The more people discovered that we were listening, the more different groups of Muslims would come along and say we’d like to talk . . . Very often, we’d go to the mosque. Or we would go to [town X], and we would go round [town Y] talking to different people. (Interview Five) We will come, in turn, to consider the significance and impact (broadly) conceived of these engagements below. But what is emphasised at this stage is the efort that went into creating these opportunities for dialogue. A politician’s – and particularly a minister’s – most precious commodity is arguably time. So to have multiple government ministers (and shadow ministers) and advisors engaging in such extensive dialogue and engagement activities, ranging over a long period of time and wide geographic distances, suggests that this was a serious endeavour. It would stretch credulity to argue that this kind of efort was a paper exercise, or a sham consultation; why expend all the efort of senior ministers and ofcials if this was not a serious enterprise? Both endeavours listed a lack of knowledge about Muslim communities and the opinions and views of British Muslims as a main driving force for their activities. Thus alongside the widespread uncertainty that public opinion about counterterrorism can be easily known, ran a more specific concern expressed in a number of interviews that when focusing on public opinion in certain communities (and here it was almost always “Muslim communities” which was the reference point), there were particular problems. Whilst knowing “public opinion” at a national level was beset by the kinds of problems listed earlier, such issues were magnified when it came to knowing Muslim opinion, if indeed, such a thing can be said to exist – British Muslims exhibit diversity and the label/term “Muslim opinion” or “Muslim community” presupposes or imposes an unwarranted homogeneity (Gilliat-Ray 2010). Sometimes this complexity was acknowledged and the diversity of a “Muslim community” singular, or even “Muslim communities” plural was seen as part of the difficulty with regard to public opinion. Part of the problem with Islam is that it doesn’t have an organised hierarchy in the way most religions do and that’s one of the things that a Christian dominated society finds puzzling – “who do I talk to?” . . . So when you asked me the question – who did you consult – it’s quite hard to answer that question because the nature of the organisations inside that particular minority community is extremely fragmented. Very often, we’d

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go to the mosque . . . And the communities – there were commonalities but also real differences. (Interview Five) A particular point of note, for this interviewee, was that community leaders tended to represent an older, typically, male perspective. Such leaders were seen as important voices, but their unrepresentativeness of the community as a whole was also asserted, such that these voices needed to be complemented with other voices and views: Community leaders . . . do tend to exist in minority communities, people with prestige and influence in the local community. But given the generational differences that isn’t adequate, that isn’t enough and it took us a long time to learn that. You do actually need to have peer voices. So you do need, if you’re dealing with young people and you’re trying to prevent them going off the rails, you need other young people. (Interview Five) One interviewee, a former special advisor, recounted that part of their motivation for getting involved in the counterterrorism policy space was seeing how “Muslim communities” were being represented and discussed in terms of counterterrorism in various reports and policy documents. And I was reading them and then I looked at the participants, I came to the participants of the youth group and I realised I knew everybody on the youth group. I had gone to university with them and they weren’t people I would say would be my first choice for preventing extremism. Many of them were quite closely connected to the XXX, and I thought well what’s going on here, why – partly it was XXX representing themselves as a non-extremist organisation, so they were saying “we are not al-Qaeda, we are very religious Muslims but we don’t want violence”. Which is true, however they have a very hardline religious content to their views .  .  . and they try and present themselves as the monopoly interpreter of Muslim belief which is completely false. It’s actually a community where . . . there’s a very wide range of views and they’re just one strand of a very diverse community. (Interview Six) A similar point was made by two ministers working on the consultation undertaken by Labour. In a somewhat similar vein to the extract above, Interviewee Nine forcefully asserted that “community leaders” sought hegemony over the Muslim community, and to exclude other voices: The community leaders, for whatever reason, usually, they’re usually head of a little group or a cabal, usually self-appointed, or else it’s a group based

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around some mosque or something. And I often used to try and ask “Who the hell made you the spokesperson for this group?” And they could never come up with an answer really. Very often, I think it is the result of bullying or politics, smart moves by influential people in communities. Community leaders . . . I’d mistrust that term hugely. (Interview Nine) This concern with community leaders sometimes saw explicit reference to the Muslim Council of Britain, as a barrier to open and full dialogue with Muslim voices. [T]he Muslim Council of Britain, I mean, we said we aren’t going to talk to you because we’re going to talk to all Muslims, they’re equal citizens and we’re not going to use you as some kind of colonial interface. They didn’t like that at all, as you can imagine, so we were attacked and at that stage they were very much in the lead of Muslim opinion”. (Interview Five) Another former minister didn’t necessarily see the unrepresentativeness of Muslim community leaders in such stark or deliberate terms, but in their outreach and dialogue activities, they felt the same need as the above interviewees to not simply rely on “community leaders” and instead to seek out women and young people in particular: And so I made a couple of conditions going around, I said that I wasn’t going to meet anybody unless there were women present, which was kind of quite life changing for some people. And sometimes I met the women publicly, sometimes I met them privately. And I also wanted to make sure that there were young people, because in the community, then there was very much a tradition of elders. And I wanted to really find out why these young people were quite so angry. (Interview Seven) Later this former minister gave more detailed information about their interactions with a Muslim group: I mean, when I first got there, the established groups . . . were used to basically having exclusive access to ministers. . . . And so, again, when I first became minister, they came to see me and they were all older men. And I said, Oh – I didn’t say this, in terms to them – But I said, they’re not coming back unless they’ve got women and young people. So they did, they came back with, like, two women and a teenager. And then I said, I want to see other people and I want us to be not creating people and controlling them, but actually sowing the seeds of new voices. (Interview Seven)

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What is striking in these discussions and extracts from the interviews is both (a) the concern with the views of “Muslim communities” and (b) the overt attempts to supplement and add additional voices and perspectives to that which was apparent, seemingly, in the judgement of policy elites, to correct for the unrepresentativeness of that extant “Muslim opinion”. The veracity or otherwise of these judgments or claims is, for the purposes of the present analysis, somewhat beside the point. What I seek to emphasise is that policy elites were, in a very conscious and deliberate way, seeking to “construct” public opinion (indeed, one could argue that the positioning of “Muslim opinion” as unrepresentative, conservative etc. is itself a construction). In terms of a more “political” analysis of this, whether such constructions represent a genuine, politically or value neutral attempt to correct for a clear and obvious imbalance in how the opinion of a particular community was being represented – or whether it represents a more politically driven attempt to shape the discourse of “Muslim opinion” to one which seems more supportive of policy and/or the values of the political elites themselves, is not straightforward to answer. But the larger point is that policy elites were very clearly doing this. They sought to edit, to complement, to add voices to those that were apparent. In doing this, they may very well have been producing a more representative “Muslim public opinion”; that is difcult to judge. But what they were doing was producing public opinion. Each outreach made choices about who was going to speak; and these choices produced narratives. Diferent choices would have produced diferent narratives. The political elites, therefore, were shaping the very discourse that, earlier on in this chapter, they identify as being central to listen to and be responsive to. The extract below gives one very direct example of how the choices about who speaks leads to diferent narratives about of what Muslim public opinion comprises: [F]or example, when I met a lot of the [Muslim] women, they said, very often, our young people are being radicalized on the internet. And they had no internet skills at all. . . . And so they were very fearful that they weren’t, if you like, doing their duty as mums or sisters, in protecting, particularly their young men from this exposure, or at least being able to have a discussion about “is it a good idea that you keep watching these violent videos?” And so one of the things in the Prevent program was to set up programs for women to be able to look at internet use to have the tools themselves for simply monitoring and controlling and moderating and their families use, for them to look out for the first signs of radicalization, and then to have routes through and people to go and see the Prevent coordinators in every borough that kind of thing. . . . And it is very difficult to draw the line between telling people what to think, and protecting people from vicious and wicked, violent stuff that’s out there. So I understand why it’s contested. But the anti-Prevent people, I think, have done their communities a great disservice. . . . Many of them are very knowledgeable, very educated, very skilled. And they’re talking to people

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who don’t have those advantages, and telling them that, you know, preventing violent extremism is somehow an attack on their culture, which is ludicrous. So I feel very strongly about that. So that that was a direct read across from talking to the public. I probably did more, you know, listening to people in that year, on a particular policy issue than probably anything else I’ve done. (Interview Seven) This lengthy extract has a number of aspects which are worth exploring. In it, the Prevent programme is positioned as being responsive to the needs of Muslim women, the kinds of women with whom the former minister engage personally. As stated earlier, this former minister made the presence of women a condition of these dialogues. This may be a perfectly justifiable decision, which corrects for gender imbalances in hitherto representations of Muslim public opinion which have not included women. The point I would emphasise here is that the former minister’s choices about who was to speak/be present at these dialogues generated the aforementioned discourse of Muslim women concerned about their sons and husbands and wanting, needing help with information technology. Here the Prevent programme is positioned as being responsive to the wishes and needs of (elements of) Muslim public opinion. Yet the opinion to which the minister’s policies are responding is generated by and through decisions made by the minister. One doesn’t need to push the argument as far as suggesting that political elites are cynically constructing a public opinion which is sympathetic to and compatible with their wider political goals and values (although it’s not precluded). Indeed, the way in which Interviewee Nine expressed shock at the nature of the opinions encountered in some of these dialogues suggests that they were not always straightforwardly stage-managed to produce particular types of opinion. The point I wish to emphasis is that through the decisions about who gets included to speak, the exercise of engaging the public (and/or sections of the public) in dialogue actively shapes the kind of “public opinion” which emerges. This is, in a very straightforward sense, constructing public opinion. A different example of the same kind of homology between engagement/ dialogue choices and policy goals can be found in the outreach of the Conservative Party. Both the shadow minister responsible and special advisor emphasised the extent to which their dialogues sought to engage with Muslims as individuals, not through community leaders (who were viewed with suspicion, as having their own, perhaps more “extreme” agenda). Conservative Party policy at the time was concerned about an excess of multiculturalism which might be in danger of ‘veering dangerously down the road of separate but equal’ (Interview Five) and which wished to assert a greater degree of cultural homogeneity ‘Multi-faith, multi-race . . . but single culture’ (Interview Five). This was likely not to find a receptive audience amongst traditional faith and community leaders, so again (as above) there was an attempt to shift the participants in the dialogue

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And government essentially after 7/7, went on asking a kind of question like “who are Muslims”. And the people who answer were the people who primarily identify themselves as Muslims rather than other things. So they were members of more religious Islamic organisations, organised political movements, rather than people who, yes might happen to be Muslim, but have many other aspects to their life and don’t think of it as an overriding part, their belief. People might be doctors, footballers, lawyers, whatever, business people. So we had to, one of the things we had to do, was to explain to the policymaking community that this, that the claims being made by these groups were not representative . . . And one of the reasons we took these, we organised these seminars was to try and understand direct experience of people. (Interview Six, emphasis added) So whilst these dialogues are being engaged in, the policy goal is to move towards a less group-based identity and a more individualised one, where the dominant identity is not Muslim but British. In light of this, that the outreach/ dialogue activities were pursued with individuals rather than groups is not surprising. This is another instance of the way in which political elites shape the nature and content of public opinion through the decisions they make about who speaks. These twin examples of direct engagement with the public leading to particular depictions and constructions of Muslim opinion, placed alongside the more indirect ways in which political elites construct public opinion considered above, show that (a) public opinion about counterterrorism is not an objective “out there” phenomena to be discovered, but rather something which is called into being by specific political actors. It is, in other words, a social construction. What specific political elites understand – and project – as political opinion is an act of representation, an act of creation. It appears to be created in specific ways to reflect the wider interests and values of a given political actor, albeit the wider interests and values asserted are often broad (as opposed to specific policy goals), focusing on concepts of representation, pluralism, etc. All the while, it is important to maintain the point of view that with different values, different choices, alternative depictions and representations would be possible.

Does this matter? To conclude the discussion, the chapter will reflect on the extent to which this matters. More specifically, it could be argued that the significance or relevance of the point or argument that political elites “construct” public opinion around counterterrorism issues is moot, or of limited interest because such public opinion does not play any kind of role in policy itself. The securitization literature discussed in Chapter 2 (Buzan et al. 1998) saw security politics as elite-driven and closed off from normal deliberative processes. The argument might be something along the lines of “who cares if political elites construct

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public opinion – it doesn’t play a role in what actually happens”. A version of this might continue that what is going on here is really about providing a gloss of legitimation, and that the constructions themselves have little significance or import on policy themselves. This would link to the arguments of authors like Herman and Chomsky (1988), and Hall (2021 [1979]) noted in Chapter 1, who suggest that public opinion is moulded into being supportive of the political priorities of elites, rather than the other way round. There are a number of ways to respond to this kind of argument. One way could be to refer back to the discussions in Chapters 1 and 2, which examined the extent (and nature) of the influence of public opinion on policy. The consensus view within this literature is captured perhaps by the statement ‘No one believes that public opinion always determines public policy; few believe it never does’ (Burstein 2003, p. 29). But how do the political elites interviewed for this project view this relationship? On one level, there is an obvious issue – to what extent can the recollections of former politicians be relied upon to give an accurate assessment of the varying influences on policy choices, some ten years or more after such policy was made? There are reasons to be sceptical about their views. Would politicians who had ignored public wishes and followed an ideological agenda declare this openly, even if they had retired from public life? Even putting such reputation management to one side, to what extent would a single political figure, no matter how senior, give an accurate assessment of the relative influence of the multiple sources of influence for complex public policy. These are not inconsiderable objections/questions. (Although as has been argued in Chapter 1, quantitative assessments of the influence of public policy are also beset by potential methodological problems.) And were the point of exploring such discourses be to definitively adjudicate on such an issue, in the fashion “does public opinion influence policy?” the objections would be weighty. However, that is not what the chapter aims to do. Rather the aim is to understand what political elites say about the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism policy and to explore that relationship in greater detail. Framed thus, the partial and subjective assessments of key political actors can provide important insights. They may not be completely reliable or completely accurate, but they matter because they, as political elites, are important players in this process. So whilst political elites may “gild the lily”, that process in and of itself is of significance and import. Some of what political elites think in terms of the influence of public opinion on policy has been covered earlier, when discussing their assessments of the importance of public opinion. In these discussions, public opinion is identified as being important for principled, democratic reasons, political expediency and to fill knowledge gaps. Unsurprisingly, then, one can identify similar rationales as to the assessment of the influence of public opinion. For instance, in terms of political expediency, one respondent noted that public opinion shaped counterterrorism policy for fear of the political, electoral consequences of not being seen to respond adequately to terrorist incidents. They noted a concern that

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if you didn’t respond properly that the public would not have confidence in the government. That’s the way the views of ordinary people came strongly into the response. And it was very, very influential. And the responses are driven in these circumstances by an overwhelming desire to reassure and give people confidence that you’re actually doing something about it. (Interview Four, emphasis added) Similarly, another respondent who had emphasised that the public outreach and dialogue activities that they had engaged in were to address knowledge gaps, felt that these engagements had shaped policy. They reported that the understandings as to how particular groups in the UK felt and thought about counterterrorism issues, filtered into policy. When asked whether this influence could be characterised as a direct, clear type of influence, they demurred, saying, ‘I think it was more iterative. And because you couldn’t . . . people don’t have public policy fully formed in their own mind, what they know is what they’re angry about’ (Interview Seven). They went on to state their view that as a result of these dialogues ‘I think the policy was diferent, richer, more based in experience’ (Interview Seven). In addition to this sense of influence of public opinion, albeit an influence mediated by political actors themselves, is a view that public opinion influence varied according to the level of counterterrorism policy under consideration. One former senior civil servant stated that at the level of overall strategy, public opinion had little influence ‘the overall strategy, how you balance the different elements out, to start with government was nervous about going too public with that’ (Interview Three). However, at a more specific level, where public opinion was perceived to be (a) mobilised and (b) relatively clear, public opinion was seen to be more influential. Referring to the decision of the Law Lords to declare the detention of foreign nationals without charge as illegal, the respondent stated that public opinion was a significant factor in the decisionmaking process: That’s when the Home Office came up with control measures, tagging, restrictions on internet access and so on for suspects. And that was very much trying to catch a public mood, satisfy a public mood . . . the Home Office responded very quickly, amazingly quickly, coming up with a package. (Interview Three, emphasis added) Others were sceptical about the extent of public opinion’s influence. One former government minister who had been shocked by the nature of the public interactions they had had in Muslim communities argued that whilst he communicated his experiences, that these were ignored, in the service of other political goals. When asked if their outreach activities had shaped or influenced policy, they stated:

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No I don’t think so, I don’t. I mean I kept writing reports and so on, but . . . I don’t think anybody paid any attention to them really. I think the big worries were really about what they kept referring to as community relations. (Interview Nine) Similarly, a special advisor to government felt that their (diferent) outreach activities had been ignored amid competing political priorities: It was sort of taken up and then largely speaking . . . was ignored. National security wasn’t a policy area that [was] cared about at the time .  .  . the financial crisis happened [and] overwhelmed everything. (Interview Six) A final sense in which public opinion could be said not to be influential on counterterrorism policy is the notion that public opinion actually wanted policy to go further and be more stringent, draconian even (it is interesting, in terms of considering the evidence in Chapter 3, whether this would resonate more widely. Perhaps more apposite here is the sense that this particular construction of public opinion did not have a great deal of influence). One former senior minister stated: People at the time would not have seen this but much of the pressure that I was receiving was to be even tougher. They couldn’t understand why we just didn’t sling people out of the country, irrespective of whether they were going to be tortured or not in their country of origin. Or irrespective of whether that country of origin would not accept them as being legitimate citizens and therefore provide them with necessary documentation and it was quite difficult to explain to people writing in to you that we have the rule of law . . . but we actually believe those conventions and we do want to deal with people as human beings. That’s quite difficult. So the pressure from . . . the broader public and some parts of the media, it was you’re being too soft. I never thought I was being too soft. I would think I got the balance right, wouldn’t I? Naturally. (Interview One) This short discussion in many ways reflects the Burnham quote which began this section, that public opinion does exert some kind of influence, but not a determinative one, and not all the time. Linking back to some of the arguments in Chapter 2, as well as the discussions here, it seems that at some levels, at some moments, public opinion exerts some kind of influence on counterterrorism policy. This finds support with other similar strands of research. Hendriks and Lees-Marshment (2019) also identify enthusiasm amongst political elites for engaging with public opinion and public voices. They note that whilst political elites do not in any straightforward sense “follow” public opinion, that such

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engagement can and does feed into the policy process, sometimes altering, or contributing to policy outcomes. They find that elites don’t necessarily say they follow public opinion, but rather that they integrate parts of what they hear, selectively, into decisions and policy. The significance here is that if we are to take this fairly mild proposition – not that public opinion determines counterterrorism policy or shapes it all the time, simply that at some moments, it plays some kind of role – then, that such public opinion can or should be seen, at least in part, as a construction of political actors, is something of significance. These constructions matter because they shape policy; they should not be dismissed as unimportant. This suggests a complex, messy, relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism policy. Rather than the simple, one-way relationship envisaged in some models of responsiveness, the picture which emerges here is one where political elites identify public opinion as important for counterterrorism policy, but that they also shape those very opinions, or what comes to be thought of as public opinion. The direct outreach activities, also contribute to the construction of public opinion by shaping the nature of intersubjective assessments about public opinion. Political elites are important, powerful figures. By engaging with specific communities and thus generating particular discourses about public opinion, they shape not just what those particular elites who participated in the engagement activities, but what other people think public opinion represents as well. In other words, these activities shape the information environment for many political actors, not just the one engaging in the dialogue/outreach.

Conclusion The analysis presented in this chapter has developed empirical support for the two main arguments presented in the Introduction to this book; that public opinion is an important part of the politics of counterterrorism, and that this public opinion is itself constructed, not least by the political elites who attest to its significance and importance. More specifically, in this chapter, the analysis finds that political elites express consistent support for the proposition that public opinion is important for counterterrorism. Indeed, those interviewed here express that it is more important for counterterrorism than it is for many other policy areas. Further, the chapter demonstrates the ways – direct and indirect – in which political elites construct public opinion in this area. These constructions, particularly those direct interventions and engagement, help to shape conceptions and views about what the public (and specifically what Muslim publics) think about counterterrorism. Aside from any conception of influence (which elites attest is there), these very constructions constitute an important part of the politics of counterterrorism. They – and the “indirect” constructions of what the public think, often based on more instinctive readings of public mood, or the climate of public opinion – also have the capacity to shape what other people think public opinion is on these issues. In other words, if, as was argued in Chapter 2, a significant component in

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authoritative, resonant conceptions of public opinion is what people think other people think public opinion is, then the constructions of political elites, whether disseminated formally though speeches, policy documents or other governmental activities, or informally, through private conversations with other political elites, have significant capacity to shape the ways in which other people perceive public opinion – and thus the way in which public opinion is perceived intersubjectively. This is significant, as political elites interviewed here think that being “in touch” with public opinion on counterterrorism is vitally important. And yet such actors have the capacity to shape not only what counts as public opinion, but also what other people think counts as public opinion. Such dynamics render these constructions of public opinion meaningful and important parts of the politics of counterterrorism.

6

Private security and counterterrorism

Introduction Thus far, the book has focused on exploring the relationship between public opinion and the political actors who debate and make counterterrorism policy. It has uncovered a complex relationship where the views of the public are a part of counterterrorism policy debates, whilst at the same time being constructed and shaped (in a range of ways, direct and indirect) by those political actors. The focus of these final two chapters, however, shifts away from political actors towards what might broadly be termed security professionals. The remaining two chapters of the book explore the relationship between public opinion and those tasked, in various different ways, with implementing counterterrorism policy. This chapter outlines the rationale for such a focus and proceeds in two main sections. Firstly, it will consider the disparate arguments that those who deliver policy actually play significant roles in shaping that policy. This is a point made within security studies, by approaches such as the Paris School, but also from other areas of social science, such as the “street-level bureaucrat” literature and the governance literature. Although different in origin and orientation, these different bodies of literature alert us to the importance and significance of actors involved in the delivery of policy goals. Therefore, if we are interested, as this book is, in the relationship between a policy area like counterterrorism and public opinion, to omit those charged with delivering counterterrorism and how they relate to public opinion would be a significant limitation or oversight. The second section of the chapter then considers which actors are responsible for delivering counterterrorism policy. Clearly, public actors like police officers are crucially important. For organisations like the police, there is both a mandate, as public servants, to be responsive to public concerns (indeed, the notion of policing by consent is a central one within UK policing) as well as various mechanisms for that public opinion to be expressed and considered, such as public forums, consultations and so on. However, are the police the only significant actors in delivering counterterrorism? And if there are other actors involved, what is their relationship to DOI: 10.4324/9781003244585-7

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public opinion and how does this shape the form and content of counterterrorism? For some time, the extent to which security governance has shifted beyond the sole preserve of state officials has been noted. Counterterrorism is not immune to these wider dynamics, with a wide range of private actors now also involved in measures and policies designed to combat terrorism. In order to better understand some of the dynamics here, the chapter situates the expansion of counterterrorism responsibilities ever deeper into the private sector within the wider debates about the expansion of private security in general. The chapter points to tensions involved here, not least concerns about the accountability of private security actors and fears that the expansion of private security further exacerbates the distance between the public and the provision of this key public good, security. Yet elements of the literature also identify potential ways in which private security actors are connected to the concerns of wider audiences, perhaps even public concerns. Somewhat paradoxically, some scholars argue that private security companies (PSCs), because of the concerns about their legitimacy, are attentive to their public reputation, party as a way of enhancing their business model, but also partly in an attempt to enhance the reputation and respectability of the sector (Thumala et al. 2011). However, when thinking about private companies who do not have security as their main business concern, invocations or expectations that they deliver on security and counterterrorism goals clash more starkly with business models and profit motives. Such actors are, for de Goede (2017, p.  26) ‘reluctant security actors’. Where a reputation for competent delivery of security is peripheral to the business model (or perhaps even detrimental to it), does such a transmission belt from private company to wider audience function in the same way as for a PSC, where such reputations do matter? In the following chapter, these questions are considered in greater depth, drawing on and analysing in-depth qualitative interviews with a range of “security professionals”. The term “security professionals” here is being used in the broad sense proposed by the Paris School, which sees security professionals as encompassing ‘despite many differences . . . policemen, gendarmes, intelligence services, military people, providers of technology of surveillance and experts on risk assessments’ (Bigo 2008, p.  65). It should be noted that (a) police officers would be unlikely to see themselves as “security professionals” (they are police officers), not least because (b) the term “security professional” is one which the private security industry is keen to deploy to aid the professionalisation and reputational enhancement of the private security industry (Gill 2022). Nevertheless, the term can serve as a broad shorthand for those who deliver security governance at public and private levels. These interviews (the methodology underpinning these is explained in Chapter 7) are occasionally drawn upon in this chapter to illustrate and illuminate various aspects of the debates covered accounting for the significance of security professionals in counterterrorism policy.

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Significance of security professionals for policy There are a range of reasons for considering the significance of security professionals for counterterrorism policy. As has already been discussed in Chapter 1, those associated with the Paris School of Critical Security Studies have for some time emphasised the crucial role that security professionals play in security policy. Bigo (2002) asserts that through their expert positions, international networks, insider knowledge and professional secrets, security professionals are uniquely placed to shape security politics. To this can be added Huysmans’ (2011) arguments concerning the significance of “little security nothings”, the routine and everyday practices of security which expand and shape how security is practiced and experienced. As Neal (2019) points out these approaches identify the significance of security professionals but also point to the way in which such dynamics and processes often evade public notice and accountability. So security professionals are seen to be important, but this is often viewed as something which (perhaps further) moves security away from public view and accountability. Beyond the Paris School, Judith Butler (2004) has coined the term “petty sovereigns” to identify those individuals working within security governance who deploy powers that they did not authorise, but who can exercise sovereign, unilateral decisions. Yet the insight or argument that those charged with implementing policy significantly shape that policy is not confined to security studies. Michael Lipsky’s seminal 1980 book, Street Level Bureaucracy identified the ways in which those charged with implementing public policy – those who deal with policy delivery in a face-to-face fashion, interacting with citizens – are hugely important actors in such policies. This is because “street-level bureaucrats” often have reasonably wide powers of discretion and autonomy as regards how such policy is delivered. This autonomy is sometimes exacerbated by the fact that public officials lack resources to carefully and fully consider individual cases and so develop strategies or ‘routines of practice’ (Lipsky 2010[1980], p. xii) which help them to navigate the complexities of their day-to-day encounters with citizens and cases. Lipsky goes as far as arguing that in significant ways, the frames, ideas and decisions of such public bureaucrats are the policy. I argue that the decisions of street-level bureaucrats, the routines they establish, and the devices they invent to cope with uncertainties and work pressures, effectively become the public policies they carry out. I maintain that public policy is not best understood as made in legislatures or topfloor suites of high ranking administrators. These decisions are important, of course, but they do not represent the complete picture. To the mix of places where policies are made, one must add the crowded offices and daily encounters of street-level workers. (Lipsky (2010 [1980]), p. xiii, original emphasis)

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In some ways, this is a slightly diferent argument to the Paris School one about security professionals. There, due to their location within the security apparatus, security professionals are able to define what is and what is not security; their influence on policy can therefore be both at the level of delivery, but also at a strategic, macro level. As we shall see below, as private security companies become more central to security politics more generally, it is also argued that such private companies also exert influence on security politics and security framings (Löfstrand 2021; Berndtsson 2012). Lipsky and the street-level bureaucracy literature is less focused on that macro level and more emphasises that the ways in which actual embodied individuals make decisions and use cognitive frames and shortcuts, have a major impact on how the policy “on the ground” is delivered and experienced by those who become subject to it. In the counterterrorism realm, the point concerning variations in policy delivery set against policy design is a point taken up by O’Toole et al., who argue that perhaps a little too much attention is paid to counterterrorism policy documents and not enough attention to how these policy aims are actually delivered. While the discursive dimensions of Prevent, and the logics of governing and Muslim engagement that are expressed in policy documents, should be analysed, we suggest there has been a neglect within the literature on Prevent of the material practices of governing. .  .  . [S]tudies of Prevent and counter-terrorism policy have infrequently engaged with the practices, and conflicts, that have underscored the development and implementation of policy texts. . . . [A]s our data show, through analysis of how actors interpreted, responded to or implemented Prevent, we see that the practices of Prevent did not always cohere with the aims of Prevent that were expressed in various policy documents. (O’Toole et al. 2016, p. 165, original emphasis) Emphasis on how local and “street-level” dynamics are an important part of counterterrorism policy has also been emphasised by scholars working with the concept of governance. Bevir and Brown (2019) argue that too much literature on counterterrorism ignores the ways in which macro policy is embedded and actualised in specific contexts, with resultant variations and, on occasions, contestations (although see, amongst others, Jarvis and Lister 2013b). They seek to work with a concept of decentred theory, which sees public policy and governance as the product of the varying frames that diferent actors bring to specific contexts and situations. This results in an approach to counterterrorism which points to ‘the diverse ways in which local actors interpret and make sense of terrorism and counter-terrorism’ and which emphasises that ‘the identities of security actors and hence their agency are more complex than currently allowed for’ (Bevir and Brown 2019, pp. 6–7). A significant element here is the way in which counterterrorism governance has become increasingly passed down to non-security professionals. Measures like the Prevent Duty,

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where doctors, nurses, teachers and a wide range of public servants are legally obliged to be on the look out for potential signs of extremist, radical or violent behaviour, and other initiatives designed to engage the public in counterterrorism collectively expand the range and scope of those involved in the provision and delivery of counterterrorism (Heath-Kelly 2017; Jarvis and Lister 2010; Vaughan-Williams 2008). Scholars have emphasised how these interactions are significantly influenced, as Lipsky’s street-level bureaucracy would imagine, by the individual frames and concepts of those tasked with these responsibilities (Lakhani 2020; Busher et al. 2019; Heath-Kelly and Strausz 2019). Dresser argues that “gut feelings” are identified and emphasised by police ofcers as cognitive shortcuts to enable non-security professionals to navigate the complexities of the new counterterrorism requirements that public servants face. One of Dresser’s police interviewees states: I think a gut feeling is something . . . probably because it is so broad and everybody knows what you mean, because we do talk about theories of radicalisation, some of the concepts are difficult, you know? . . . People feel relieved that it is a term that they can completely understand and I don’t have to know what Terrorism Act, section one, part one is, you know? (Dresser 2019, p. 614) (The influence of “gut feelings” will be returned to in the analysis of interviews with security professionals in Chapter 7.) This strongly echoes Lipsky’s arguments concerning the ways in which street-level bureaucrats develop ‘routines of practice’, strategies and concepts to enact policies in a context of insufcient resources and time; forms of “work around” which enable administrative demands to be met and policy to be delivered, however imperfectly. Crucially, Lipsky (2010 [1980]) argues that these ‘routines of practice’ or “work arounds” end up strongly influencing the content of policy. This brief overview of diverse, although complementary strands of literature emphasises two points. The first of these is that the content of public policy, such as counterterrorism, is potentially significantly shaped by the ways in which it is delivered by those charged with such delivery. Whether remote border guards who are distant from public interactions or “street-level bureaucrats” such as police officers interacting with citizens, significant elements of security politics like counterterrorism, are shaped by the actors who deliver it. We cannot and should not simply “read off ” the form, content and structure of counterterrorism from the statements of political elites and what policy documents say. Secondly, these diverse actors charged with implementing counterterrorism bring with them a range of different cognitive frames and ‘routines of practice’ which are significant and important in shaping counterterrorism policy. Whether due to technocratic knowledge established across the “field of security” (Bigo 2002), or due to the difficulties of public servants to find enough time or resources to deal with their workload and thus developing shortcuts or “work arounds” (Lipsky 2010 [1980]), the subjectivities of these

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diverse actors are important and significant in shaping the content of counterterrorism policy. These twin dynamics – that the delivery of counterterrorism influences the shape of the policy; and that such delivery is significantly shaped by the varying subjectivities of the actors involved – would on their own suggest that an enquiry into the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism should examine the ways in which public opinion interacts with those who deliver counterterrorism. One focus might be to examine to what extent are the subjectivities, practices and cognitive frames – as well as more formal guidelines which steer policy implementation and delivery – which security professionals draw on when implementing counterterrorism policy, subject to the influence of public opinion. This would be a variant of the responsiveness literature, focusing on security professionals instead of political elites. But as has been argued and explored in previous chapters, if we take seriously the idea that public opinion is a construction, there are a different series of questions which emerge – less does public opinion influence security professionals, and more what is the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism policy delivery? Are security professionals – public and private – even aware of what public opinion is? In what ways do they come to understand it? What efforts, if any, do they make to directly understand public opinion? What significance do they attach to it? These questions will be explored and analysed in greater depth through an analysis of interviews with a group of security professionals, both public and private in the next chapter.

Private security There is a further dimension to be considered before beginning to analyse and consider the relationship between public opinion and the actors who deliver counterterrorism. The range of actors who deliver counterterrorism has not just expanded within the public sector (as in the Prevent Duty) but also beyond the public sector. Increasingly, private actors have been directly and indirectly called upon to deliver aspects of counterterrorism policy. This will be explored and expanded in more detail below, but as a brief illustration of the ways in which private companies are expected to participate in counterterrorism security governance, it is worth considering the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017. The attack occurred when Salman Abedi detonated a suicide vest as concert goers were leaving a concert. It occurred in what the enquiry into the bombing described as a “grey space” which is ‘a space where there is a lack of clarity over ownership or where various neighbours, partners or tenants have responsibility for security’ (Saunders 2021, p. 32). Shearing and Stenning (1981) have referred to such areas as mass private property, spaces which are formally, legally, private but which are used predominantly as public spaces. In this respect, the Manchester attack differs to those in and around London Bridge and Westminster in 2017, and the 7 July 2005 bombings on public transport in London. For those incidents, which took place in more clearly

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public spaces, responsibility for security lay almost exclusively with police and security agencies like MI5. For the Manchester attack, security was the joint responsibility of a private security firm, Showsec, British Transport Police (the arena was located adjacent to a rail station) and the entertainment company SMG. The official enquiry is critical of the private companies (and British Transport Police) for not doing more to prevent the attack. The enquiry found that: Both SMG and Showsec failed to take steps to improve security at the Arena that they should have taken .  .  . SMG and Showsec did not take a number of necessary steps, some of which would have involved the spending of additional money, in order to provide a sufficient level of protection against the terrorist threat. (Saunders 2021, p. 45, emphasis added) In efect, the private companies are criticised by the report for inadequate and inefective counterterrorism measures, which they are expected to provide. In this case (and, as we shall see, more widely) private companies are expected to participate in and deliver counterterrorism. Indeed, the ofcial enquiry into the Manchester bombing recommended the introduction of a “Protect Duty”, in essence parallel to the Prevent Duty, whereby private companies would have a responsibility to develop security plans and provision to protect the public from terrorist attacks. It would ‘apply to every space to which the public has access so that wherever members of the public go within a public space some person or organisation will have the responsibility to take steps to protect them against a terrorist attack’ (Saunders 2021, p. 154). Proposals to legislate for such a Protect Duty (sometimes also called “Martyn’s Law” after one of the victims of the Manchester bomb), were included in the Queen’s Speech in May 2022 (BBC News 2022). Clearly, then both in terms of current expectations and (likely) future legal frameworks, private companies are significant actors in counterterrorism provision. Thus, if we are interested in the relationship between public opinion and the delivery of counterterrorism, then limiting the focus to public ofcials is not sufcient. Important elements of the delivery of counterterrorism, and therefore counterterrorism policy writ large, are in the hands of private actors. Before shifting to focus in more depth on private security and counterterrorism, it is worth locating this relationship within the broader growth and development of private security more generally. It’s common for scholars to point to the massive expansion of private security across the world since the late 1970s. For example, Chakrabarti (2014) cites data that in 2011, private security companies employed between 19.5 million and 25.5 million people worldwide, and that the turnover of such companies was between US$100 billion and US$120 billion. A number of authors point to the ways in which activities which had previously been seen as the (sole) responsibility of the state are now carried out by private actors in ways which challenge

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traditional, Weberian forms of the state (Abrahamsen and Leander 2016; White 2011; Abrahamsen and Williams 2009; Loader and Walker 2001; Loader 1997). While frequently seen as the last secure bastion of sovereignty in a rapidly globalizing world, the state’s much-vaunted monopoly of legitimate force is increasingly enmeshed in networks and relations that cannot be contained within the boundaries of the national state. Across the globe, from mega-cities, to isolated resource production facilities, security provision and governance takes place within assemblages that are deterritorialized in terms of actors, technologies, norms and discourses and are embedded in a complex transnational architecture that defies the conventional distinctions of public-private and global-local. Security, in other words, is increasingly beyond the state. (Abrahamsen and Williams 2011, p. 217) Berndtsson and Stern (2011, p. 423; see also Berndtsson 2012) similarly argue that such is the interwoven nature of public and private security provision that there is difculty in ‘maintaining sharp lines of distinction between public and private security provision and governance’. Such blurred lines between “public” and “private”, or even the effacement of such lines, have led to scholars examining the complex assemblages of security provision and governance (Berndtsson and Stern 2011; Abrahamsen and Williams 2011, 2009). The links and relationship between such changes and wider processes of neoliberalism have been identified (Abrahamsen and Leander 2016; Abrahamsen and Williams 2011, 2009, 2007) whilst other scholars have identified normative concerns about the implications for democracy and citizenship (White 2011; Loader and Walker 2001; Loader 1997). In terms of the present enquiry concerning the relationship between public opinion and policy outcomes and delivery, one particularly relevant and interesting branch of such scholarship concerns the extent to which the shift to a more complex network of security actors, a ‘global security assemblage’ (Abrahamsen and Williams 2009, p. 3) results in the public being left out or bypassed, as responsibility for security moves away from public bodies and actors towards private ones. For some, this shift is a depoliticising one, which takes security issues out of public realms of debate and accountability and towards technocratic calculations of efficiency. As security has become less tightly identified with the direct and exclusive authority of state officials and instead seen as service that can be bought and sold on a free market, it has been in a specific way de-politicized and partially transformed from a political problem requiring welfarist social policy and state intervention to a technical problem amenable to private solution. (Abrahamsen and Williams 2009, p. 5)

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This echoes, in many ways, the concerns of the Paris School and others (Bigo 2002; Huysmans 2011), that security professionals, removed from political arenas and accountability impose security solutions which evade conventional political and public debate. However, others see a more complex picture with regard to the political and public nature of private security. Such a view stems from the concerns that have been raised about the accountability of private security actors. Thumala et al. (2011) argue that despite the massive growth in the private security industry, that it is a sector which is marked by considerable unease (both within the industry and without) about its legitimacy. In part this stems from a widespread conception that private security actors and companies have a very low reputation with the public (van Steden and Nalla 2010; van Steden and Sarre 2007; Livingstone and Hart 2003). White (2011, p.  94) puts this starkly, arguing that private security ‘is widely regarded as being immoral and unjust, enjoying very little symbolic power, cultural support or legitimacy’. Some of this low reputation stems from deeply ingrained public assumptions and norms that security should be provided by the state and public entities (Loader and Walker 2001; Loader 1997). Thus, as private companies take on security roles and functions which might be seen as the prerogative of public bodies like the police, so this concern with public reputation increases (Berndtsson 2012). This concern with legitimacy has two dimensions; one concerns business/market dynamics, the other more philanthropic issues. In terms of business/market, a private security company which has a poor reputation and/or which is seen as lacking basic legitimacy is a company which may struggle to secure its market-based objectives (Abrahamsen and Williams 2011; Berndtsson 2012). And conversely, positive reputations for competence, perceptions of legitimacy and high standards in working practices may open further business opportunities by assuaging the concerns of some that private security work is somehow “dirty”, “grubby” or lacking in basic quality or legitimacy. Neocleous (2007) takes this ambivalence about the intermingling of private, profit-based companies and security, further, noting the uncomfortable connections between private security companies selling “security” whilst their entire business model is predicated on an absence of security creating a market for their services. Thumala et al. (2011, p. 299) refer to this as a ‘legitimacy deficit’, where public(s) are concerned about whether the services that are being sold are really necessary, appropriate or suitable – and that these concerns can never be assuaged ‘[w]hen what is being sold, and promised, is security, a social good that is ultimately impossible to realize by means of a purchase’. Such is the inherent nature of this tension or concern, no amount of legitimacy work or reputation management can ever quite make it go away; it is ‘an itch . . . that cannot definitively be scratched’ (ibid.; see also Neocleous 2007). Yet Thumala et al. (2011, p.  297) also note that reputation management and legitimacy enhancing efforts are not only aimed at security marketbased goals. Whilst acknowledging the importance of commercial concerns,

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Thumala et al. (2011) note that the attention to reputation management also serves wider, broader goals of how private security actors are perceived more widely. Those working in the industry appear not simply content to sell security products, turn a profit, or have the industry expand, but also crave a wider worth and credibility, long to be well-regarded and thought of as engaged in an activity which is socially valuable. We thus encountered the Managing Director of a security company who told us that he started the company in order to ‘give something back’ to the community following a previous career in marketing. As compared with his previous job, selling goods that protect people and their property from crime seemed to him like a form of philanthropy. Clearly one can interrogate the depth of such “philanthropic” convictions, but Thumala et al. (2011, p. 287) note that concerns about the private security’s credibility and reputation were recurring features of their research with participants as well as being detailed in professional publications. White (2011) also identifies motivations beyond crude commercial interests in private security companies’ reputation management exercises, but sees these more in terms of canny political strategy to overcome or assuage the concern that private security is a violation of a fundamental norm that security is a public good provided by the state. Private security companies’ eforts in legitimating their activities are ‘consciously seeking to disassociate their operations from the commercial logic which so “ofends” against popular sensibilities about domestic security’ (White 2011, p. 94). White further argues that these eforts, to adapt to a marketplace where norms of public provision are strongly engrained, means that many private security actors necessarily inhabit and assume readings and variations of “public good”, in order to thrive and survive. Petersen (2013) points to what she calls ‘neo-republican governance’ in the corporate world, which seeks to address risks like terrorism, and corporate action to prevent it, less through cost/benefit commercial logics and more through the moral and civic responsibilities of companies. Here, again, the issue of corporate reputation and interest in its preservation and maximisation also figure. In part, such eforts may also be a product of the revolving door nature of many (although not all) actors in private security, where backgrounds in public sector organisations are common (Petersen 2008, 2013). As well shall see in Chapter 7, almost all of the private security professionals interviewed had backgrounds in either the police or the military. Indeed, Petersen argues that such individuals who move from public security to private security occupy a “hybrid agent” position with regard to the public/private divide (Petersen 2013), so attuning to a “public good” ethos and seeking partnership with and legitimacy from public bodies is engrained in their backgrounds. Others have taken this argument in a slightly diferent direction, questioning whether for private businesses, security might be viewed akin to other social responsibilities housed within the Corporate

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Social Responsibility framework, such that we might speak of Corporate Security Responsibility (Wolf et al. 2007; see also Petersen 2008) The point here is not to adjudicate decisively on these claims and positions; rather it is to note that because of the concerns within and without the corporate world about private security, that how companies involved in security are viewed by others appears to matter to such companies. This opens a possibility that rather than being closed off from the public and existing within a shadowy private security sector that is opaque and invisible, that private companies involved in security work, are concerned with how such work is viewed and that it is of concern to such companies that this work is seen in a positive light. Clearly, there are a range of potential audiences for “legitimacy work”, and the wider public may well not be one, or be a distant one. This concern for reputation management is also clearly not the same thing as responsiveness to public opinion that has been discussed in terms of (public) political actors. But it does point to a vehicle, a line of transmission, where views of the wider public become potentially significant for private companies involved in security work. As a vehicle for accountability, it may well be lacking and inherently inferior to lines of accountability for public officials and institutions (Loader 1997; Loader and Walker 2001), but it appears to be the way in which public concerns become visible, and potentially influential for private companies. This (possible) connection between private companies and public opinion in terms of counterterrorism, will be explored in greater detail in the next chapter.

Private security and counterterrorism Thus far, the chapter has spoken about private companies and security in general terms. Yet the book is interested specifically in the relationship between counterterrorism and public opinion. To hone in more on this relationship, the chapter now turns to examine the extent to which private companies are engaged and involved with counterterrorism. This is a relationship which has been underexamined; ‘in much of the academic literature, there is still a substantial lack of appreciation of the many roles that various private actors play, both willingly and unwillingly, in the fight against terrorism’ (Bures 2013, p. 429). At this point, we should note and recognise that the “private security industry” is not a homogenous group (van Steden and Sarre 2007). There are at least three different types of private security actor which are relevant to security and counterterrorism. The first, and perhaps the most dominant one in the literature, is Private Military Security Companies or PMSCs which operate in conflict zones. Here the operations, functions, accountability and enmeshment in (state) security provision is explored with high profile groups like Blackwater and the Wagner Group featuring prominently (Marten 2019; Perry 2012; Petersohn 2011; Avant 2005; Singer 2003). In addition to such military/mercenary entities are a second group, Private Security Companies or PSCs, which lack the military dimension but where non-military security provision is their prime business. Groups like G4S,

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Securicor and others provide security services for governments and business in a range of settings and countries (Berndtsson and Stern 2011; Abrahamsen and Williams 2009). There is widespread evidence of such companies becoming increasingly core actors in counterterrorism policy delivery. Perry (2012) notes that from supporting counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, to fulfilling key intelligence functions, that private businesses are increasingly central to US counterterrorism activities. In the UK meanwhile, similar evidence of private sector involvement in key security and counterterrorism roles is in evidence, including intelligence gathering – where over £1.2 billion was spent on outside contractors in 2015/2016, one-third of the total intelligence budget (Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament 2017) – and drone strikes, where elements of drone missions will be undertaken by private companies (Daily Telegraph 2020). Thus, in simple terms, private businesses are increasingly important actors in counterterrorism. For both PMSCs and PSCs, security is their core business – and much of the literature has focused on them. But as some have noted, to these two types, we can add a third, which are more conventional private businesses which are not orientated around the sale or provision of security services but which are increasingly asked, expected and/or legally obliged to provide elements of security governance – and counterterrorism (Rosemont 2014). As seen above in the example of the Manchester bombing, states have sought to redefine expectations about private companies and security and counterterrorism. This change has been summarised by Janet Neapolitano, then Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2011: [T]he homeland security enterprise extends far beyond DHS and the federal government. As I said, it requires not just a ‘whole of government’, but a ‘whole of nation’ approach. In some respects, local law enforcement, community groups, citizens, and the private sector play as much of a role in homeland security as the federal government. (cited in Petersen 2013, p. 222, emphasis added) As part of wider, broader invocations for citizens and public servants to be vigilant and alert to potential terrorism concerns – to be, as Vaughan-Williams put it ‘citizen detectives’ (Vaughan-Williams 2008. See also Batley 2021; Koskela 2011; Jarvis and Lister 2010) – private entities are also increasingly expected to deliver security goods like counterterrorism. Bures (2013; see also Bures 2017; Bures and Carrapico 2017) points to financial institutions and their responsibility to alert authorities to suspicious financial transactions to prevent terrorism, whilst de Goede (2017) also highlights social media companies like Facebook and Twitter and the ways in which they have been called upon to deliver key aspects of counterterrorism/counterextremism. What is perhaps noteworthy about this third group is that there exists, arguably in ways which do not exist for the first two types of private actor, a tension between their core business model and security/counterterrorism.

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Compared to private military or security companies, however, banks, airlines, and social media companies are extremely reluctant security actors. Policy initiatives in the name of countering terrorism have positioned a diversity of non-security actors into the frontline . . . In the case of banks and Twitter, the political and moral pressure that they police their servers and mine their transactions databases is in tension with their profit motive and their obligations of client confidentiality, even if commercial objectives become sometimes grafted onto new security roles . . . The public/private relation here is one of friction, tension and contradiction. (de Goede 2017, p. 26, emphasis added) Above it was noted that PSC’s profit motive can place questions around their legitimacy and reliability. Yet in terms of “security” the desire for it and invocations to deliver it are welcome, even central, to PSCs. For non-security private companies, being tasked with providing security and counterterrorism places the company in a quandary, for a number of reasons. Such activities are likely to be at the expense of “bottom line” profitability; there is clearly also a freerider issue (why should they provide “security”, a public good – and won’t competitors free ride on their provision if they engage with this?). Indeed, as Bures (2013) points out, unlike states, companies have a wider range of options when seeking to address risks like terrorism, including simply stopping doing the thing which might be exposed to the risk and/or accepting the risk, viewing the costs of preventing it as higher than dealing with any occurrence. As discussed in Chapter 5, this is not an option many politicians feel that they possess (‘Had we done nothing after 9/11 I think people would have thought “f**k, what are we doing, nothing at all?”’ Interview Four). Also important is the fact that terrorism is, as critical scholars have noted (Jackson et al. 2011; Mueller and Stewart 2011), statistically, a low probability event. As has been heavily commented on, governments have tended to respond to the contemporary threat from terrorism through a precautionary lens, whereby where risks are perceived to be great, that an absence of clear knowledge about threats should not be a barrier to action (Aradau and van Munster 2007). This has tended to lead to policy being based on potential worst-case scenarios. As such, expenditure on counterterrorism has massively increased. And whilst calculating the effectiveness or otherwise of counterterrorism measures remains a fraught enterprise (Um and Pisoiu 2015; de Lint and Kassa 2015; Lum et al. 2006) scholars like Mueller and Stewart argue that the post-9/11 spending binge on counterterrorism has been ‘wildly inefficient’ (Mueller and Stewart 2011, p.  4). Such has been the level of spending that to be considered effective in a cost-benefit analysis, for the UK there would have to be 2 attacks per year like the 7/7 London attacks (Mueller and Stewart 2011, p.  91). Considering ‘far more likely’ attack scenarios of ‘property damage and death or injury to a few people and inflicting losses of $100 million’, Mueller and Stewart (2011, p.  92) argue that ‘the lack of cost-effectiveness reaches ridiculous proportions’.

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Clearly dynamics for public and private actors are different in this area (and stepping aside from the issues of whether private entities are appropriate providers for public goods like security). Whilst it may (or may not) be a wise political strategy for governments to confront the threat from terrorism working with “worst case scenario” estimates, for private companies to commit to high levels of spending informed by scenarios or assumptions which do not come to pass repeatedly – to bear, as Mueller and Stewart argue, ‘wildly inefficient’ costs – is not sustainable and would harm profitability or even the viability of the company. Thus the very maximal perception of threat which prompts governments to want private companies to be more involved in counterterrorism, works against their involvement. ‘As a consequence, when it comes to dealing with contemporary terrorism, at least some private sectors actors are likely to pursue different options than the public agencies, which are expected and tasked with ensuring the maximum level of security possible’ (Bures 2013, p.  451). Private companies working with different calculations about what is likely, what is a reasonable level of spending, come to very different conclusions about what can be justified in terms of security and counterterrorism. Thus the clash between security/counterterrorism and wider business orientation and profit, is particularly sharp. Bures (2013, p.  443) refers to this as a ‘profit versus security dilemma’, although in subsequent work notes that the precise contours of this tension will vary from area to area (Bures and Carrapico 2017). Petersen (2013) argues that corporate security professionals play a key role in navigating this tension, seeking to translate security concerns into a business case which is amenable to the business-orientated arm of the company, particularly as such individuals have often had a background in public security or police services. For instance, one respondent from the interviews with security professionals analysed in greater detail in the next chapter, explained the difficulties that heads of security have in explaining, or arguing for security-related expenditure: The measurement of success for security in a company is nothing happens. So you’re trying to justify a financial expenditure. .  .  . And your measurement of success is nothing happens. The second thing that you fall back on then is “what are our legislative requirements?” And you suddenly go, “Well, there aren’t any”. And the measure of success is nothing happens. “So why do you need that CCTV system?” Or “Why do you need those bollards changed?”, “Why do you need something else?” . . . So the hardest thing that there is in the civilian security sector is being able to put security requirements into an overall business case for the benefits of where the company is going, from a business perspective, not from a security perspective. (Security Professional Interview One) For these and other reasons (as we have seen in the above discussion of the Manchester bombing in 2017) this third type of private actor exists in an

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ambiguous relationship to security counterterrorism. It can result in deformed forms of compliance. Bures (2013) notes how requirements for financial institutions to report suspicious transactions, to aid the fight against terrorism, have actually complicated and made harder such a struggle. In order to ensure compliance with the regulations, financial institutions, Bures argues, have buried authorities in reporting, significantly increasing the number of transactions which are referred, erring on the “safe side” so as to avoid (a) complex investigations about what is and what is not suspicious and (b) financial penalties for missing a transaction that was subsequently identified as problematic. Therefore, whilst it was argued above that for (some) private security companies, reputation matters (in both a commercial and, perhaps, idealistic sense), does this apply to companies where security is not their main business? In other words, if the main vehicle or transmission, for private companies to attend to and be conscious of public opinion is (at least potentially) the management of their reputation, does this dynamic still hold for de Goede’s (2017, p. 26) ‘reluctant security actors’, that is private companies called to provide aspects of counterterrorism, but for whom security is not their main business?

Security professionals and public opinion This chapter has thus far put forward a number of arguments. The first is that important elements and dynamics of counterterrorism lie beyond political elites. Security professionals, both public and private, as well as “nonprofessional” security actors are now significant parts of the counterterrorism policy apparatus. Secondly, their role is not simply one of robotic or mechanistic implementation, but rather, it is argued, that regimes of practice, worlds of meaning and, more generally, the ways in which such actors fulfil these roles have a significant impact on the delivery and shape of counterterrorism. Thirdly, as such, any enquiry into the relationship between counterterrorism and public opinion would be missing a significant element by not exploring how these actors charged with delivering counterterrorism think about public opinion. What does the existing literature posit as to the nature of the relationship between security professionals and public opinion? The extant literature on this subject is unbalanced. There is a wide and voluminous literature about the relationship between the police and public opinion, whereas there is a far less developed literature on private security actors and public opinion. In terms of the police, a key principle that governs policing in the UK, is the idea of policing by consent. This concept implies that the police seek to act in such a way as to be in accordance with the will and wishes of the people, such that their actions are in rough harmony with public views. Jackson et al. (2012) note the ways in which a homology between police and community serves to enhance procedural justice and that this can represent an asset for the police in terms of crime reduction (see also Jones et al. 1994). Walsh and Conway (2011, p.  62) refer to the ‘the spectacular growth’ of policies and procedures designed to

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enhance and monitor police accountability. Yet these processes are incomplete, such that both high-profile policing problems (such as the Steven Lawrence murder enquiry which led to the MacPherson Report’s (1999) statement about the institutional racism of the police) and lower profile, every-day, issues with policing continue to occur (see Prenzler 2016). This incompleteness should not cloud the fact that at a normative level, it is well established (although imperfectly implemented) that the police should, to some extent, be responsive and attentive to public opinion (although see Turner 2014 on debates about whether the police should be “operationally independent” or more responsive to locally elected figures). Indeed, initiatives like the introduction of elected Police and Crime Commissioners in 2012 testify both to the incomplete nature of the responsiveness of the police to public opinion (based as they were on a sense of the distance between the public and the police) and to the (at least rhetorical) desire to link policing and public opinion (see Wells 2018). In the context of counterterrorism policing in the UK, much has been written about the ways in which the police have sought to engage with “Muslim communities” (Spalek and Imtoual 2007; Spalek and Lambert 2008; Spalek 2010) and the problems therein. Bullock and Johnson (2018) argue that these outreach activities should be understood within the context of the development of community policing, which is understood (in both a counterterrorism context and a “normal” policing context) to be more effective than “hard” policing, mainly due to the enhanced information flow which stems from the former. Thus, police officers engage in a range of engagement activities, including formal police and community meetings, informal networking, and increasingly, social media interactions (ibid.). Thus for both operational and principled reasons, we might expect that police officers responsible for counterterrorism have an in-depth and recurrent relationship with public opinion, using multiple different fora, and relationships which develop and are sustained over time. However, this literature has also shown that such interactions, particularly with Muslim communities, are fraught and difficult. Therefore the quality of such interactions and what stems from them is a more murky issue. If police officers have a widely accepted responsibility to engage with public views, what of the private sector? In one sense, as Petersen (2013) notes, one reading of private companies is that they have no other responsibility than to maximise profits. Whilst not all private businesses work along these lines (see Wolf et al. 2007) this does get to a fundamental point that private companies, whether those directly involved in security provision (PSCs) or businesses whose main operations lie elsewhere but who indirectly become responsible for security governance, have a different relationship to public opinion than the police. Yet, interestingly, some have pointed to the ways in which “streetlevel bureaucrats” find their activities and decisions shaped by public opinion. Lavee et al. (2018) argue that it is not only amongst political elites that we should expect to see the influence of public opinion. Indeed, given the “cheek by jowl” quality of many of the interactions of street-level bureaucrats, it would not be surprising if such exchanges had effects both on how officials

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think about and deliver policy: ‘[P]ublic opinion also matters in shaping policy via the interactions between citizens and street-level bureaucrats. These direct interactions are an important arena where street-level bureaucrats learn about public opinion’ (Lavee et al. 2018, p. 345). Thus, it is argued, as those responsible for the delivery of counterterrorism often encounter the public in recurring ways, we should not be surprised if public opinion becomes a significant part of their professional role. On the surface, this points to another difference with the Paris School where security professionals are often seen as technocrats, insulated and removed from public view and pressures. However, Bigo has noted differences in outlook and approach amongst security professionals based on their situation vis a vis contact with the public: What emerges from our interviews is the difference between national border guards working ‘on the line’ at the physical borders between countries, who value face-to-face relations with travellers and their practical sense of detection of false claims, and the more remote border guards who work in EU agencies. Immigration liaison officers and the EU agency Frontex are less inclined to valorize the border as the locus of effective control; they speak of preborder analysis. They are proud of their work in ‘intelligence gathering and risk assessment’. (Bigo 2014, p. 215, emphasis added) Thus, Bigo points to diversity within the ‘field of security’ (Bigo 2002, p. 8) and diferences between those who are closer to and more distant from faceto-face interactions with people. This is suggestive of a variable relationship between public opinion and security professionals, with those in who physically encounter individuals, as potentially more open to public opinion.

Conclusion This chapter has argued that strands within the existing academic literature are suggestive that public opinion is perhaps more important to security professionals working within counterterrorism than has hitherto been acknowledged. It has also sought to examine the kinds of security professional active in and responsible for counterterrorism, arguing that a wider range of actors than just police officers should be considered. Moreover, it has developed an argument that these security professionals have degrees of operational autonomy, such that how these individuals and organisations decide to implement counterterrorism policy importantly shapes how that policy is experienced by the public, but also in important ways, that such experiences become the policy for many. Yet this is also a terrain with cross cutting dynamics and priorities. Public security professionals such as the police work within institutions which have historical and social/cultural norms about engaging with public opinion. Such norms and experiences are lacking for private sector security professionals.

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Yet the chapter has argued that even here, where profit dynamics might be expected to be dominant, that there are ways in which public opinion could become an important factor. Particularly important here is the specific nature of private security entities; those who are more public facing and whose business is more directly concerned with security (PSCs, for example) might be expected – on the basis of “brand identity” – to be more sensitive and aware of public opinion. For those who are either more closeted from public interactions, or whose business model is not primarily orientated around security (and thus, whose “reputation management” depends less on their success or otherwise of performing security functions), we might expect a more limited or attenuated engagement with public opinion. The following chapter explores these issues and dynamics. It also seeks to address some of the same types of questions which animated Chapter 5’s analysis of the relationship between public opinion and political elites. How do security professionals think about public opinion? Do they consider it to be an important part of their counterterrorism security work? How do these individuals understand public opinion and their responsibilities and relationships to it? In what ways, if any, do they seek to engage with, and even possibly shape, that opinion?

7

Security professionals, public opinion and the delivery of counterterrorism policy in the UK

Introduction Chapter 5 sought to examine the ways in which political elites viewed public opinion as important and vital to counterterrorism policy, whilst at the same time, constructing that very opinion in various ways. It examined how political elites understood what public opinion is, what sources of information were seen to be significant (and which were dismissed). From this analysis, it was argued that political elites see public opinion in complex, uncertain terms, but view it as something that they must engage with. Political elites therefore make “representative claims” based on their experience and expertise, and in some instances, go further and actively engage in uncovering what public opinion is through outreach activities; some of which involved significant investments of time and resources. The political elites interviewed also claim that these representations of public opinion were important and influential in counterterrorism policymaking, due to the high-profile nature of the issue and that in being so would lead to better policy. In Chapter 6 an argument was made that security professionals – both public and private – have important roles in the ways in which counterterrorism policy is implemented and that as such, a full consideration of the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism should extend to a consideration of how these actors think about public opinion, their assessments of what public opinion is and the ways in which they become aware of what it is. To what extent can similar dynamics to those uncovered in Chapter 5, with regard to political elites, be discerned amongst security professionals, both public (the police) and private? This final chapter explores in-depth qualitative interviews with 9 security professionals to explore the ways in which they understand and discuss the relationships and dynamics between their own work in counterterrorism and public opinion. Do security professionals identify public opinion as important to their work? How do they come to understand, or perhaps even shape, what that public opinion is? And is there any sense in which such views and voices of the public shape or contribute to the work and practices on counterterrorism by security professionals? To

DOI: 10.4324/9781003244585-8

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some extent, this represents the “hard case” for the public opinion/counterterrorism relationship. The work of Bigo (2002, 2008, 2014) and others in the Paris School has characterised security professionals as technocrats who engage in their security work away from the public gaze, with potentially troubling implications for public and democratic accountability and control. At this point, it should be emphasised that there is potential for a divide between the security professionals interviewed; as noted earlier, those working within the police have a well-developed framework and expectation of some kind of public engagement and accountability. This may be imperfect, incomplete and problematic at times, but there is at the very least, some kind of rhetorical expectation that police officers are in conversation with the public that they police. Private security professionals working in the area of counterterrorism do not have this tradition and their loyalties are less “public” and more focused on contracts, clients and management boards (although as discussed in the previous chapter, Petersen (2013) argues that as many private security personnel have backgrounds in public bodies and agencies, such as the police and military, they may occupy a “hybrid agent” position). As we shall see, this does lead to some important differences in the relationships with public opinion, although the divide is perhaps not as stark as one might expect. The chapter begins with an analysis of how important (or otherwise) security professionals feel that public opinion is for their work in counterterrorism. This analysis shows that the attitude towards public opinion amongst security professionals interviewed is not as different to that of political elites as one might expect. Whilst some security professionals do express scepticism about public opinion, both public and private security professionals attest to its significance for their work. For public officials like the police, this is manifest through concepts like legitimacy; effective and legitimate counterterrorism work requires cognisance of and engagement with public opinion. For private sector security professionals, the dominant line of thought appears to focus on “brand identity”; that for private security actors, acting in accordance with public wishes around security and counterterrorism is a means by which to protect brand identity (and thus further commercial imperatives). The chapter goes on to discuss the ways in which security professionals construct public opinion. The indirect (to borrow the language of Chapter 5) constructions of public opinion, that is the images or views as to what the public think about counterterrorism, see the public as broadly supportive of police and other security/counterterrorism measures and actors. Yet respondents frequently see such opinion as either “fickle” or distracted; as something easily mobilised by terrorist incidents, but which can drift and fade. Others go further and note how public opinion, in comparison to the expertise of security professionals themselves, is not particularly well informed. More direct types of constructions of public opinion are to be found in two ways; the first, similar to Chapter 5, are the public outreach and engagement activities which the police engage

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in around counterterrorism. As previously discussed in making choices about who to include, what questions to focus on and so on, these activities actively shape what comes to be considered, by the police and others, as public opinion. A second type of direct construction of public opinion is when security professionals – public and private – seek to directly intervene and shape public opinion. This links together some of the points above. If public opinion is important (as many security professionals attest), if such opinion is occasionally fickle or even ignorant, and if as a security professional one feels that one has experience and knowledge about these issues, one might feel that “educating”, changing or otherwise shaping public opinion is appropriate, maybe even a responsibility.

Methods To understand in greater depth the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism with regard to security professionals, a series of in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with both public and private security actors. A total of nine elite interviews were conducted in 2020 and 2021 (see Table 7.1). As with Chapter 5, interviews were conducted through a series of open-ended, flexible questions. The questions asked respondents about: • • • • •

their experiences of counterterrorism security provision, the kinds of consultations and engagement with the public which might have been undertaken, their assessment as to the importance of including public opinion in counterterrorism how they became aware of public opinion and whether it is easy to know what the public thinks

Table 7.1 List of interviews with security professionals Security Professional Interview One Security Professional Interview Two Security Professional Interview Three Security Professional Interview Four Security Professional Interview Five Security Professional Interview Six Security Professional Interview Seven Security Professional Interview Eight Security Professional Interview Nine

Counterterrorism Police Officer Senior Police Officer with counterterrorism responsibilities Senior Police Officer with counterterrorism responsibilities Counterterrorism Police Officer Private security consultant Private security consultant working within counterterrorism Head of security for global financial institution Private security consultant working within counterterrorism Head of security for private security company

Table which gives basic details about the security professionals interviewed. Details whether police officer or private security actor

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The interviews typically lasted around an hour and were conducted in a range of locations and online (due to the pandemic). Interviewees were divided into two groups: public security professionals (police ofcers) and private security professionals. All interviews have been cleaned of any identifying information beyond this public/private distinction. The sample size is small, and by no means representative. Respondents were recruited using a snowball approach. (A larger group of potential respondents were contacted but some reticence and reluctance to be interviewed was encountered, from both police ofcers and private security professionals.) The methodology, of course, militates against any claim to representativeness. This is, first, because of the limited size of the sample and because of the non-probabilistic, purposive generation of that sample. It means that the findings cannot make judgments as to the distribution of such attitudes in the wider population of security professionals. What is needed, then, is to consider the validity of the findings and analysis away from any notion of statistical significance and with reference, instead, to its coherence and persuasiveness. Reconceptualising validity as such is a common feature of small-scale qualitative research and interpretivist work more generally (see, for example, Dunn 2006). The interviews generated a corpus of text of 55k words. As with Chapter 5, the interviews were analysed using a “framework” approach to qualitative discourse analysis (Jones 2000; Ritchie and Spencer 2002; Law et al. 2011; Gale et al. 2013). An “immersive” reading of the transcript data, comprising four stages – familiarisation, deductive coding, inductive coding and application of the framework to the whole text – was conducted.

The importance of public opinion As with Chapter 5, the analysis of the interviews with security professionals begins by exploring the significance and importance that the interviewees attach to public opinion. Perhaps slightly surprisingly, the normative attachment to public opinion did not differ between public and private security professionals as much as one might expect. The chapter will first discuss instances where there was some scepticism about the significance of public opinion (although even here, it is a qualified kind of scepticism), before going on to consider where respondents articulated the ways in which public opinion did matter. It is the case that some of the private security professionals did evince a scepticism towards public opinion in their work. One interviewee, a private security professional, stated that they self-consciously orientate themselves away from public opinion, so that they can work on the counterterrorism issues that they consider to be important, even if public opinion lies in a different direction. And it’s not a case that we’re looking at, we’re looking at polling on X, Y, Z, and trying to respond to that, in fact, a lot of the time, frankly, we would

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almost go the other direction. So, you know, we were spending a lot of time working on the neo-Nazi threat when . . . my instinct is the kind of . . . public discourse and public opinion was still of the opinion that jihadism was the primary threat. (Security Professional Interview Six, emphasis added) Occupying some of the space envisaged by the Paris School and others, this security professional almost viewed public opinion as a hindrance to efective counterterrorism work. Here, again, echoing the Paris School superior expertise and knowledge are advanced as rationales for not necessarily following public opinion. They invoked a medical metaphor to illustrate their point. When responding to a question as to whether public opinion was a problematic concept for their work, they responded: Yeah, I think so. I mean, counter extremism is one of those unfortunate areas that everyone in the comment section thinks they know what they’re talking about. And that’s a problem . . . I think that counterterrorism can be, and counter extremism, can be rooted in communities, done with communities rather than to communities, but also professionalized. The idea that, in the same way that cancer treatment needs to take account the societies in which you’re trying to implement these things, needs to take into account patient needs .  .  . but cancer treatment does not need to take into account whether or not how many people vote as to whether or not a certain cancer treatment works. Like if everybody votes lemon juice cures cancer, don’t make it so. And unfortunately, counter extremism is a similar space where I think it’s a democratic duty of those that lead the country to take into consideration the end goal that people want, which is reduction of extremism. But in between that end goal and implementation of policy, there’s a whole lot of crap. And those of us that are trying to actually get to the goal need to make sure that we don’t get distracted by that because not only is it dangerous in and of itself, it’s also counterproductive 98% of the time. . . . But again, to go back to the lemon juice analogy, lemon juice being a popular solution to cancer doesn’t mean that cancer research should shift gears. So I think that there’s a duty on this PVE sector in the CT sector, to professionalize itself. And then also to know when to listen and when not to listen. And both of those things need to happen hand in hand . . . So we as a sector need to professionalize. And with that professionalization, I think will come, frankly, the backbone to know when we should persist, regardless of public opinion, rather than responding directly. (Security Professional Interview Six, emphasis added) This is the classic territory of the security technocrat of the Paris School, where public opinion is conceived of as largely (although not totally) ill-informed (more on this below) and a barrier to the efective implementation of security solutions. Yet even here, for this interviewee, this would be something of a

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simplification. They position themselves as a ‘glorified activist’ in terms of their role in the security world, working withing a small-ish company which is not publicly listed and accountable to shareholders and/or boards. They state that they see their role, at times, as an educative one, with regard to public views: So, you know, we consider it our job at times to, I mean not very often, but at times, to try and steer public opinion. . . . And because we think we have an ethical duty to help inform on these things, we’ve recognized over time, that there’s never a shortage of talking heads to stir up fear, and division. And so we do make occasional interventions to try and steer public opinion towards a place that we think a) is, is more ethical but also b) is also more effective. (Security Professional Interview Six) Under such a view, public opinion is not unimportant. Indeed, putting the two sets of comments together, the view which emerges is that public opinion is an important, influential factor in the counterterrorism policy space. This particular actor in the private sphere identifies that their position (as a private company) means that they don’t need to follow public opinion (which is sometimes, perhaps often, misguided or wrong) but that they can, in occasions, intervene in such a way as to shape public opinion. Here again the complexity of the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism can be seen. A private actor, who ostensibly has no need to take account of public opinion (and professes a wish to some of the time, avowedly go against it), on occasions, addresses themselves to the task of shaping and moulding public opinion on counterterrorism. Whilst some private security professionals display a scepticism about public opinion and its significance in their counterterrorism work, other private security actors state that public opinion is important to the nature of their counterterrorism work. A crucial part of this is the idea (and protection/ defence) of brand identity. One interviewee stated clearly that protecting a private company’s “brand” was a crucial part of private sector engagement with counterterrorism. There’s two things that affect a company whenever an incident happens, whether it’s a terrorist incident, or a cyber incident or anything else, because [firstly] there’s the immediate damage that’s there. And the second bit, which is probably more important is the reputational damage. And therefore, if you get your counterterrorism approach, if you get your approach to security and other stuff wrong completely, the reputational damage is huge. And therefore, the court of public opinion is something that is, when it comes to private sector companies, always sitting there in the back of their mind. And always something that is a major factor whenever they’re looking at anything that they’re doing from a security perspective, a counterterrorism perspective. (Security Professional Interview Five)

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This interviewee went on to cite the example of a large private sector security company distributing trauma packs to buildings that they were responsible for, in the wake of the 2017 terrorist incidents in London. This, the interviewee noted, does not come from a commercial imperative, nor from a regulatory one (there was no legislative/regulatory requirement to do this). Rather, ‘that’s part of a maintaining our positive public opinion perspective and showing that we care from an almost completely private sector initiative’ (Security Professional Interview Five). Other interviewees also spoke about the importance of reputation and protecting “brand identity” and that this was a means or vehicle by which private companies viewed public opinion as important for their counterterrorism roles/activities. One interviewee, again working in private security, begin by noting, in a similar vein to many of the political elites, that public opinion can appear to be ‘nebulous’, but they go on: [B]ut there are other times when it’s very, very tangible. And, there’s another expression out there, which is “good security is good business”. And what I’ve definitely seen is, public attitude has informed the need for security, because . . . you have people who will stay away from commercial enterprises who don’t feel safe or secure. You get a greater number who probably don’t give a monkey’s and don’t really, you know, probably aren’t even aware of the problem but of course, that’s, that’s cyclical. So 2017, you will have definitely seen people staying away from events and activities, because either they were afraid, of something that might happen, or they were specifically concerned about the lack of protection. (Security Professional Interview Eight) They go on to discuss a specific entertainment company: Of course, their business would just go through the floor, if there was an attack at one of their locations, because the public would stop going. If you go down to [tourist attraction], you’ll see that they’ve got great security down there, because they recognize that people were getting really concerned. So I think public opinion, at times, definitely informs private sector response to security. In fact, I don’t think, I know that it does. (Security Professional Interview Eight, emphasis added) Perhaps the key dividing line between the views expressed by Interviewee Six, who was more sceptical about public opinion’s significance for their work, and Interviewee Eight lies in the commercial logics and business models of the respective private sector bodies which they are invoking. For small private security companies who do not directly deal with the public, reputational damage in terms of public mistrust is probably not a major factor in commercial decisions. This was a company whose revenue streams came not from the buying or selling of goods or services to the general public (but rather contracts with other private companies or governments). The kinds of companies that Interviewee Eight

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invokes, large entertainment companies are the precise opposite in this respect; their entire business model depends upon members of the public having confidence in their goods and services. Therefore, the issue of “reputational damage” is much higher than for the company represented by Interviewee Six. As we shall see, this concern to protect commercial reputations drives much of the private sector’s attention to public opinion when it comes to counterterrorism. Amongst police officers, perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a widespread (although not universal, and not without qualifications) view that public opinion mattered in terms of counterterrorism policing. A senior police officer said simply ‘public opinion on what constitutes terrorism or what they’re anxious about, certainly has an effect on policing and the wider political environment’ (Security Professional Interview Two). Another officer, working within policing strategy spoke about how public opinion linked to notions of legitimacy. For them, ensuring that counterterrorism policing had legitimacy meant bringing in public opinion and being attentive to it, although not necessarily straightforwardly responding to it: I think it [public opinion] links into legitimacy . . . in terms of understanding public opinion, to explore the notion of legitimacy. And legitimacy isn’t about, always just responding to public opinion, it’s about using public opinion as a start of a dialogue as well. And being able to better manage the conversation between the police between particularly CT policing, with the public, with government, with policymakers, so that it’s a more informed discussion. (Security Professional Interview Three) This complex and nuanced positioning of public opinion as both important to counterterrorism policing, and yet also as something which was to be held somewhat at arm’s length, was a recurring feature of discussions with police ofcers. One counterterrorism police ofcer referred to some areas of significance for public opinion but generally seemed to see it as a distant concern. ‘But as a rule, as a whole, I don’t, I can’t remember us engaging directly with the public, to discuss certain things’ (Security Professional Interview Four). Another ofcer, working within counterterrorism intelligence, initially similarly stated that their work had very little to do with public opinion, due to the specific, covert, nature of their role ‘in my experience, public opinion does not afect policing policy’ (Security Professional Interview One). Yet later in the interview, they qualified that statement: I think it’s probably, it’s probably a bit rash to say that public opinion doesn’t feed into – it certainly feeds into policing thinking about terrorism policy . . . But I think it would have to be something quite dramatic from the public opinion for chief officers to say, you know what, we’re not going to do that this year . . . So it will make them think but it might not make them actually say we are going to do this completely different this year. (Security Professional Interview One)

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This sense of public opinion feeding into, but not directly changing or determining counterterrorism was followed up by the senior ofcer cited earlier. [M]y perspective on public opinion is not to be too kind of responsive to what people are imagining, or what their kind of firmly held view on something might be. To take it into account, to understand when it has an effect on legitimacy, to be able to put some form of engagement around it, even if they’re wrong, so that we can explain at least what’s happening even if people don’t like it. We’ve got a way of communicating why we might be doing something the way that we’re doing it. (Security Professional Interview Two, emphasis added) From this perspective, public opinion was an important factor for police ofcers in terms of counterterrorism. But it was not often seen as determinative of policy outcomes, but rather something which fed into the wider context. There was a sense in which the more important thing for police ofcers, rather than being responsive to public opinion, was being aware of it, so as to be able to engage in dialogue. One ofcer also identified that knowing public opinion was important so as to be able to step in and challenge it where necessary, to “correct” it if it difered significantly from their own picture: it’s not just a reactive thing, it’s actually about making sure that our messaging is right to start informing that and changing it necessarily, if public opinion is kind of out of kilter with what our data analytics or scanning or what our picture is telling us, then that again, is about trying to shift that. (Security Professional Interview Three – see below for a further discussion of such efforts to “correct” public opinion) A further sense of public opinion being important was to be found in an argument concerning the importance of knowledge, and community knowledge in particular to efective policing. One police ofcer referred to policing as a ‘knowledge industry’ (Security Professional Interview Two) and in this light, they discussed how being familiar with their community and its views played a crucial role in being able to conduct efective counterterrorism policing So you have to understand why people are saying things. If you’re gathering community intelligence, are they saying it because they’ve got a grudge? Are they saying it because they want to use you as a lever to expand their operation by eliminating the opposition? You know, there’s lots of different things you look at from an intelligence perspective about why is this person saying this to me at this time? And who are they speaking to? You know, are they are they trying to puff themselves up? Or is this really kind of good factual information? (Security Professional Interview Two)

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This analysis suggests that public opinion is important for counterterrorism policing, but that ofcers view public opinion, at least in part, in instrumental terms. It is something that, as the above extract indicates, can aide efective counterterrorism policing, and support the legitimacy of counterterrorism policing, which are both valuable goals for the police. Ofcers are more circumspect as to whether public opinion is important in terms of being responsive to it. Although, as we will see below, instances where ofcers have made changes to policy based on public views were identified. In summary, in this section, we have seen that for both private and public security professionals, public opinion is seen as significant. It is not always seen as significant in wholly positive terms. At least one of the private sector security professionals positioned public opinion as something which may well be a hindrance to their work, a negative to be avoided. And yet elsewhere that person pointed towards the ways in which their work on counterterrorism would, at times, seek to shape and mould public opinion (see also discussion below). It was, therefore, something of significance to them, even if this significance was beyond the straightforward “responsiveness” model. Other private security actors, and those more associated with larger, public-facing private companies, identified the preservation of brand reputation as an important way in which public opinion mattered for private companies in terms of their engagement with counterterrorism. And police officers were hesitant about public opinion as an influence on their counterterrorism activities (although see below) but they did identify engagement with it as important for legitimacy and other instrumental policing objectives. In other words, even for the “hard case” of security professionals, public opinion seems to be something of import. None of the interviewees expressed a straightforward lack of regard or engagement. Even though the dynamics and imperatives are different than those for political elites, in similar and different ways, public opinion matters for security professionals, public and private.

Ambiguity/uncertainty around public opinion? In Chapter 5 a great many of the political elites interviewed raised concerns around the precise nature, content and definition of public opinion. In simple terms, they frequently expressed concerns about knowing what public opinion was, raising the slightly paradoxical situation where public opinion was seen as central to counterterrorism, yet at the same time, was seen as something slightly unknown and maybe even unknowable. This formed the context and background to many of the constructions of public opinion which political elites brought to bear. Whilst the methodology, and small sample size, of this analysis does not permit representative claims it is noteworthy that the uncertainty about public opinion does not seem to be as present in the security professionals interviewed. Only two interviewees expressed any doubt or hesitancy as to what public opinion was/is. One senior police officer stated simply ‘Nobody knows what the public opinion is, do they?’ (Security Professional

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Interview Two); another said ‘There’s not just one public opinion, that’s the thing. There’s such a myriad of public opinions’ (Security Professional Interview Three). Both of these interviewees worked at a more strategic, and less operational level. It may be that for security professionals working “at the sharp end”, either such abstract reflections are not a necessary or fruitful enterprise or that, as discussed in Chapter 6, that officials working with the public on a daily basis feel well acquainted with public views. A related potential explanation bifurcates along the public/private dimension for security professionals. For public security professionals (in this sample, the police) the lack of pondering and reflection about the nature of public opinion may reflect that (as we shall see below) a great deal of effort and energy goes into discerning what public opinion is, such that there is not a sense of uncertainty and that (rightly or wrongly) police officers believe that they have a good grasp of what public opinion is. As has been noted earlier, police officers appear to see knowing public opinion as a key part of policing (although presumably, this would also apply to political elites). For private security professionals, the absence of ruminations on the nature of public opinion may reflect that the whole area of public opinion is something which is much less systematically developed. Policing has been, in better/worse ways, engaging with public opinion as a key part of its work for decades. The expansion of private security, and particularly the expansion of private security to cover public roles and goods, is more recent and there is a sense amongst the private security professionals interviewed here, that this is an area which is nascent, developing and patchwork. It was common for the private security professionals interviewed to note that they did not seek out to discern public opinion in a rigorous or detailed fashion. As will be discussed below in more depth, private security professionals did not engage in the kind of public engagement activities that the police (and political elites in Chapter 5) did and tended to rely on either information from police and other sources trickling down or on the “spontaneous” interactions with the public that their workers and employees had going about their day-to-day business.

Constructing public opinion (1): professional judgement The findings thus far with regard to security professionals are only very slightly different to those for political elites. In the case of the latter, the situation is one where political elites view public opinion as vitally important to counterterrorism policy, but that these elites also express uncertainty about what that opinion is. In this context, they discern a necessity to use their political judgement to “fill” this uncertainty, and draw out a conception of what the public think on these issues, using their own experiences and judgement, complementing this with additional public engagement activities. Security professionals express a more nuanced view about public opinion; it’s seen to be important, but in different ways. Like political elites, security professionals do not always identify it as important to straightforwardly be responsive to public opinion in terms

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of counterterrorism, but do see engaging with it as important. But, as stated earlier, there appears to be less uncertainty about what public opinion is. In part this lack of uncertainty, or perhaps, relative confidence about public opinion, particularly from police officers, appears to derive from two sources; firstly, professional judgements or experiences, sometimes referred to as “gut feelings” and secondly, from the wide array of public engagement activities that the police engage in (considered in greater detail below). The significance which police officers on occasions attach to “gut feeling” has already been noted in the previous chapter (Dresser 2019), albeit for non-security professionals to navigate some of the nuances and complexities of counterterrorism. However, in the interviews, one counterterrorism police officer speaks at length about the importance of balancing professional experience and knowledge, with “gut feelings” which were based around a sense of what an ordinary person would do. For me, it’s been a gut sense. It’s always something, my default position, if I’ve been given an incident to deal with or think about or to try and risk manage in my own mind, I think what would somebody else expect? Not what would my boss expect – what would my wife at home expect that we would do in relation to this? And normally, when you talking about threats and risk, if I think my wife would expect us to do more on it, it is probably what we should be doing. If she thinks “Why are you wasting your time on that”, it’s probably the right thing. It’s just that leveller that sometimes you got to think, because of all the knowledge you have of criminals, and the way they think and the knowledge you have of legislation – stop trying to fit something in a box. It’s what should we do? What genuinely should we do? It’s definitely a gut instinct for me. (Security Professional Interview Four) In a separate part of the interview, this respondent again speaks about the importance of “gut feelings” or instincts. When asked to reflect on the role of public opinion in counterterrorism policing, the ofcer states that they feel that much of their activity and decision-making is informed by a ‘common sense’ understanding, based around ‘what a normal sort of average member of the public would expect’ (Security Professional Interview Four). They further state their view that what a normal person would expect forms a kind of “common sense” about counterterrorism, which places police ofcers and public in close alignment. This invocation of gut feeling mirrors, perhaps, the ways in which Herbst (1998) and Brown (2011) identify politicians relying on their “instincts” to discern what public opinion is on any given issue (rather than polls etc). It may also reflect value being attached to professional experience and identity. This (imagined) close alignment between public opinion and counterterrorism policing was picked up in a slightly different manner by another counterterrorism police officer. When asked about the influence of public opinion, this counterterrorism officer draws a distinction between “public opinion” which is

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generally supportive of the police and its activities and policies and ‘agitators’ who represent specific interest groups, supported by sections of the media. This distinction (similar, it should be noted to the “othering” of dissenting voices which was undertaken by political elites in Chapter 5) allows for the wider, general, public to be positioned – constructed – as supportive of counter terrorism policing: ‘in general, policing and counterterrorism and the way it’s presented to the public, public opinion is very much on our side’ (Security Professional Interview One). Further, opposition is seen to be the purview of a smaller group, who make noise and have influence which is disproportionate to their size and representativeness: ‘If it was just down to public opinion, I don’t think you would see so much as you do in the media, but they’re all driven by, they’re clearly driven by agitators of organizations’ (Security Professional Interview One). A stated in Chapter 5, it seems hard to account for the levels of opposition and concern about counterterrorism policies solely by reference to “agitators”, and again, one could note that there is a potential slippage here between aggregative and majoritarian conceptions of public opinion. One might therefore suggest that such constructions of public opinion are a little crude and lacking nuance – that public opinion is more divided and complex than this kind of picture allows for. However, in other areas, security professionals do display awareness of the nuances of public opinion. Security Professional Interviewee One notes how public support seems to wax and wane depending on the nature of events. And I think . . . the public, . . . in majority are mostly on policing side. And I think one of the things that really does galvanize people onto the policing side is when they see police officers being killed in public. So 2017 where you have officers being attacked where you had . . . the guy who was stabbed outside the Palace of Westminster. Things like that really do pull public opinion towards us. So, yeah, I mean, public opinion is important to policing. But it’s a bit of a fickle thing. Really, it really depends what’s happening at any one time, and how we are engaging with the public. (Security Professional Interview One, emphasis added) Elsewhere they note that when terrorist attacks recede from media attention and public consciousness, that public support falls; ‘because people don’t see attacks and don’t see people dying, it starts to drop of again’ (Security Professional Interview One). Here the ofcer displays awareness that public opinion is not a constant and that events can move public opinion in both supportive and less supportive directions, and that such changes can, in part, be based upon how the police are interacting with the public. This point was also made by other security professionals. One, a former police ofcer now working in private security, noted that public support for the police increases around attacks, but declines if subsequent media reporting draws attention to potential police shortcomings:

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[B]ut the next time we have a lone actor of events somewhere in the UK or London . . . that piques the interest of the public. . . . And the next time that the police officer runs towards a terrorist and takes them out and it’s suddenly the police are the best thing ever and the policy is fantastic. Until two days later, we find out that bloke was known by MI5, and then it takes a nosedive again. So and I think that cyclical kind of public opinion. (Security Professional Interview Seven) The head of security for a private security company noted that public compliance and support for counterterrorism measures peaks after major terrorist incidents, but would subsequently recede: [T]he Bataclan thing . . . where multiple people were killed, again, raises the level of awareness and perception with people. But over time that dwindles, and even when I was a director of corporate security for corporations, you always saw heightened awareness immediately after a terrorist incident – wherever it is, if it was publicized on the media, then that heightened awareness would be there. But that would very quickly diminish, and people would forget about it. (Security Professional Interview Nine) Thus in these constructions, the public are generally supportive of the police and their activities around counterterrorism, but this support can wax and wane. This view – construction – of public opinion as something which is generally supportive of the police/counterterrorism is close to that identified amongst political elites. It too tends to treat “the public” as a homogenous block, with dissent hived away from the public towards specific minority groups (“agitators” in this context). Yet these constructions of public opinion also take in an additional dimension not found amongst political elites, which is that public opinion is illinformed and/or distracted and easily manipulated. To some extent, this may represent a kind of technocratic elitism; a view from security professionals that the public simply does not understand the issues of counterterrorism in the ways that they do, and as such are ill-informed. This sense of the public as not educated or informed about security/counterterrorism may also link to the above-noted suspicion or wariness about public opinion. Above it was noted that many security professionals saw public opinion as important for counterterrorism policy, but few expressed enthusiasm for its direct incorporation and many seemed to view the proper relationship as one of dialogue and engagement, rather than responsiveness. Indeed, as we shall see below, in places this is taken further with a perceived need to shape, mould and change public opinion. Such views line up with one another, if – as the expert on an issue – one feels that public opinion is not well informed, one would perhaps be more reluctant to straightforwardly include it in policy and might well think the appropriate response is to educate and change that public opinion.

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One private security professional notes how they look at the world differently to “ordinary” members of the public. Again, following the above theme, or construction, that public opinion is broadly supportive of counterterrorism security measures, they argue that their view of the world is different to that of others, who are not security professionals. [Y]ou know, my entire life has been around trying to quantify risk. I see risk everywhere. I walk down the street, I look out my window now, I see risk. I see it. I don’t worry about it, but I see it. And so, for me, I have a much more heightened awareness of risk and I don’t think the public do and I think that’s the big problem is the public don’t see the risks that people like I do. (Security Professional Interview Eight) Similarly, a police ofcer notes the range of threats to safety and security which their work attunes them to, but which (in their mind), the public is largely oblivious to. Here the public are not so much ignorant of threats, but desensitised. You know, we live in a very dangerous society, from terrorism, domestic extremists, from the high levels of organized crime, through the amount of illegal immigration that’s coming in, right the way across the spectrum to the threat from the Russian state. We live in a very dangerous time. But the public is so, become so blasé to it, because everyone’s on threat fatigue overdrive. (Security Professional Interview One) This sense that the public does not fully appreciate the nature of threats from terrorism and other security challenges feeds into a view that the public are not well-informed about terrorism and security. In part this view can be seen in the above-noted discussion about the transient nature of public opinion, it’s “fickleness” and the extent to which it waxes and wanes in response to highprofile terrorist incidents. Other respondents are more explicit in their views that non-expert public opinion is not well-informed about security/counterterrorism issues. Speaking about the intricacies of facial recognition software, one respondent contends that some arguments against the use of such systems are based on misconceptions and misunderstandings So understanding the technology, the physical technology is one thing, . . . all that does is it grabs data. And therefore it’s how that data is taken, processed, stored, compared, held, managed, and everything else that’s the critical piece in all of this. And a lot of the do-good organizations forget that. They’re very good at trying to come up with the headlines like “automatic facial recognition is unsuccessful 97% of the time” and others . . . And, you know, the implication, whenever there’s press headlines written is that you

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walk past a police camera and a random number of people are going to be stopped and arrested and taken away because the camera says that you’re an evil person, and then you suddenly find that you’re not. Well doesn’t happen. Because there’s a human being in the loop, and they go, “No, that bollocks, that alarm that we just got from the camera, the camera’s got it wrong”. (Security Professional Interview Five) The veracity or otherwise about the functionings of such surveillance systems are not really the point here. Of more interest is how this expert, this security professional, positions other views as not legitimate because they are ill-informed. Here the views which are ill-informed are not the “public” at large, but media and “do-good organisations”, thus more voices within the public sphere than public opinion per se. But in any case, as the Paris School might lead one to expect, at least for this security professional, non-expert opinions around security are not necessarily to be trusted or given too much weight or significance because they are not well-informed. The view of the ill-informed nature of public opinion is also subject to nuanced reflection. One senior police officer reflects on the ways in which some members of the community, particularly Muslim communities, feel about the ways in which counterterrorism policing functions, with its focus on specific communities. They ruminate on whether the discomfort such individuals feel is rational or irrational, acknowledging that their position as a ‘white middle class white old bloke’ complicates their assessment. I think there is an irrationality to it as well, because, you know, rationally, they can see that they are not the people that are being spoken about. So, you know, putting them in that person’s place, would not seem to be rational. However, they do it. Because actually, what I guess we don’t understand is that, you know, there is a connection there that we don’t see. You know, so it’s irrational from our perspective, but entirely rational from theirs. And this is a bit about understanding, why they would say that. (Security Professional Interview Two) Here the disconnect or distance between “expert” views and public opinion is seen in slightly diferent terms – not straightforwardly as the product of ignorance, but of perspective. Under this perspective, the duty of the security professional is not just to “educate” or inform about incorrect or misguided opinions, but to understand such views and why they are held. Related to this, one security professional working within a financial institution discusses some of the complexities around requirements for security checks for opening bank accounts. They note how, in their view, the general public do not understand the point or purpose of such checks, but that this is ultimately a failure of communication by both private and public sectors.

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[I]t can be CT [counterterrorism] but that’s a good example of how Joe Public is impacted by security kind of regulation that comes from government, but is enforced by, or is undertaken, by the private sector, and Joe Public doesn’t understand either side of it. Now, that that’s in terms of opening a bank account, but there will be other similar issues where regulation requires business to do X. The people that are mostly impacted by that, are the service users of that business, the customers. No one’s ever told them why. (Security Professional Interview Seven) Sparked by a discussion about Brexit and some of the arguments that took place around the referendum, this interviewee continues to make the point that the public does not get good information about issues: Whether that’s true or not, that’s what they’ve been told by the Daily Mail. And that’s what they understand. That’s where they get their information from. They get their information from Facebook, they get it from The Sun, they gain from wherever they get it from, because there is a gap in the appropriate communication from business and from government to the service users, to you and I, to the customers up and down the street. And I think that’s a general issue, some of that crosses over into the world of terrorism and why certain things happen the way they do. (Security Professional Interview Seven) The implicit point here is that public and private sectors need to do a better job about educating and informing the public about security and counterterrorism practices and policies. Both this example, and that above of the police ofcer is suggestive of quite a deep level of engagement from security professionals with both what the public thinks about security and counterterrorism and how it comes to arrive at such opinions, which will be explored in more detail below.

Constructing public opinion (2) Thus far, the picture which has emerged from these interviews with security professionals has certain similarities with political elites, but also key differences. Like political elites, security professionals view public opinion as both important to what they do in terms of counterterrorism, and broadly supportive of counterterrorism powers. Also similar is the way in which dissenting views are acknowledged but “othered” as the views of factions or “agitators” and not therefore, representative of public opinion. However, security professionals display both less circumspection about what public opinion is and a greater degree of scepticism about its veracity and fixity. For security professionals – experts in counterterrorism and security – public opinion appears less informed and more fickle than for political elites. Such constructions about public opinion both relate to and inform other aspects of the relationship between public opinion

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and counterterrorism with regard to security professionals. Firstly, that security professionals – especially the police – appear confident about the content of public opinion is, I would argue, heavily related to the apparatus that the police have for collecting information from the public. They engage heavily with what communities and individuals think about policing issues and consider (rightly or wrongly) therefore, that they have a solid overview of such opinions and views. And yet these public activities, as with political elites, are, at least in part, shaping that very public opinion. The means by which the police engage with the public shapes the kinds of voices that become manifest as public opinion – something, as we shall see, the police themselves acknowledge. Secondly, the scepticism that many security professionals have about the quality of public opinion, aligned with a belief in its significance leads to an emphasis from many security professionals, on shaping or moulding that public opinion. Interestingly, explicit references to such preference shaping (as opposed to preference accommodating; see Hay 2002) were absent from discussions with political elites, where discussions coalesced much more around satisfying the preferences of the public, rather than shaping them. In part, I would argue, this difference might be explained through the “expert” nature of security professionals. Many of these interviewees have worked within the counterterrorism/ security sphere for decades. Armed with such experience and knowledge, they perhaps see their role, as experts, to share and impart these to the wider public and drag debates into more informed territory. As with political elites in Chapter 5, some of the security professionals – and here this means the police alone – expend considerable time and energy in engaging with people to gauge and assess public views. In and through such activities, public opinion is being constructed in a more direct and active way than through the discussions above, where security professionals provide a depiction, a construction, of what they consider public opinion is around counterterrorism issues. In this more active sense, through the decisions about who to speak to, about what and under what conditions, security professionals like the police directly play a role in what kinds of voices and views become manifest as “public opinion”. Again, as was the case in the previous chapter, the argument here is not that this represents some nefarious activity on the part of police officers to deliberately steer or manipulate public opinion, but simply to note that the decisions made in these outreach activities shape what kinds of views are expressed and on what issues (in the same ways that a polling company can be said to shape public opinion through the choices about what issues to poll and how to word questions, etc.). As noted earlier, public engagement is widely seen to be a core component of modern policing. Indeed, one senior officer interviewed described policing as a ‘knowledge industry’ (Security Professional Interview Two). It should not therefore come as a surprise that police officers interviewed describe a complex and expansive set of mechanisms to ascertain what the public think about counterterrorism. When asked how the police become aware of public opinion, a senior officer answers:

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In every possible way. So we get the right feedback. We are engaged 24/7 with people. And they will tell us what they think. And that will feed back into us either informally or formally. So we have daily meetings where we will, we will be asking questions around things like specifically community tensions. If there’s an incident, we have a process called the Community Impact Assessment, where we will take a view with communities and community leaders on what the impact of something has been. And we would set up a monitoring process to update that as often as we want on where community tensions are. And we can do that by speaking to people, we can do that by examining social media. Media in more general sense. There’s also covert intelligence gathering that goes on as well across a wide range of things, where we can get different forms of information coming through to us . . . And we have, we have one of the largest volunteer networks around in Neighborhood Watch, as an example. So we’ve got lots of different ways that we get information fed into us, that helps us understand the picture. (Security Professional Interview Two) Another ofcer describes the police conducting polling with the public: [Police Force X] and [Police Force Y] basically ran one of those public opinion polls, based upon the 2017 terrorist attacks, and what the public perception was of increased policing on the streets. So one of the key questions was, after Westminster, London based terrorist attacks, did you notice any change of your local policing infrastructure? Did you notice more armed police officers on the street? . . . And then after that question, it will be, did the policing response to the terrorist threat raise your awareness of the threat? Did it change your awareness to the threat? Did it make you feel any safer? (Security Professional Interview One) That these activities shape public opinion, as well as “uncovering” it, is implicitly acknowledged by this ofcer, who describes their own involvement in such questionnaires. ‘But the surveys are very specifically worded. I mean, I actually helped write, participate in the questioning. Because you know, . . . with any survey that you will you ask, unless you’re very specific with your question, and you can really go of on all sorts of tangents’ (Security Professional Interview One). Further “outreach” or engagement activities are noted, but these will be discussed below as they seem to represent cases more of the police seeking to “speak” (and shape public opinion) than to “listen” to public opinion (although, as I have argued, such “listening” – particularly in terms of who to listen to – does in fact represent a kind of shaping of public opinion, at least as far as manifesting what public opinion is to the police). Private security professionals, perhaps unsurprisingly, have a much less welldeveloped set of tools for gathering actively engaging public opinion. One respondent states simply,

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I’m not familiar with any of them [private security companies] ever doing their own desktop research or other forms of research around it. I think most companies I’ve worked with and come across, you know, their main focus or surveying, for example, is just customer satisfaction. (Security Professional Interview Eight); This was a view supported by other private security actors. Where private security companies may access developed and organised public opinion information is through partnership with the police, borrowing from the police knowledge base. Indeed, some private security professionals see such information sharing between the police and private companies as both vital in enhancing the efectiveness of counterterrorism, and an area of development and growth. Initiatives like Project Servator (Counterterrorism Policing n.d.) and Project Grifn (National Counter Terrorism n.d.) are mentioned as means by which police can work with businesses in specific areas to enhance information sharing (Security Professional Interviewees Five and Nine). Three respondents discuss work they have been doing themselves establishing closer links between public security forces and private companies – and between private companies themselves, specifically to enhance information sharing (Security Professional Interviewees Seven, Eight and Nine). At the same time, some interviewees express uncertainty about how efective such information sharing actually is. One interviewee, a former senior police ofcer, now working in private security describes the dynamic thus: [A] number of larger organizations are linked directly into counterterrorism policing and government through information exchanges. And the police obviously undertake their own public attitudes surveys around people’s awareness and fears of issues and counter terrorism policing does that regularly and shares those results with industry. Now, the way those information exchange groups are meant to work is that the privileged few come into the inner sanctum, and then are expected to share the information across their business sectors. I’ve yet to be persuaded that actually happens in practice. (Security Professional Interview Eight) Therefore, the police’s engagement with public opinion might be said to be doubly important as it also finds its way down into the private sector. Yet as has already been discussed briefly in the chapter, security professionals also state that they see their responsibilities sometimes in terms of directly shaping public opinion. This connects to themes already discussed, firstly, of the ill-informed (and perhaps unstable or fickle) nature of public opinion, secondly, of the expertise of security professionals and thirdly of the significance of public opinion. Putting these three dynamics together, it is not perhaps all that surprising that security professionals, both public and

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private see both an opportunity and perhaps a responsibility to shape that public opinion and push it towards a more informed and educated place. Of course, it goes without saying that this represents a fairly straightforward construction of public opinion, as an attempt to mould it into a particular image/conception. Private and public security professionals go about this in slightly different ways and for slightly different reasons. For the police, their attempts to “educate” the public are expedient, instrumental solutions to particular policing issues and dynamics. One senior police officer describes holding public engagement events with the specific purpose of clarifying what the police are trying to do in terms of counterextremism policies, with the aim that such clarification will shift public opinion to a place more conducive and sympathetic to the police’s overall goals. A lot of the engagement we did a few years ago was reassuring people what we think extremism is, absent a definition. So we were having community meetings and discussing it openly. People were nervous that they if they said something that sounded kind of anti-government, that they would be labelled as extremists. And we had to kind of say, well, extremism in our view is, are about violent behaviour and violent action. So if you’re just saying you don’t agree with something as long as you’re not saying, and therefore let’s do this violent thing about it, if you are – even if you are gathering up, you know, a community or a petition or movement or whatever, well, that’s fine, that’s democratic. Where it falls into unacceptable behaviours is where you’re saying, well, let’s burn things or let’s hurt people. So we did a lot of communication around that so that people felt empowered to have the kind of conversations they wanted to have without feeling that they were going to be targeted. (Security Professional Interview Two) Another ofcer is more explicit in stating that where public opinion conflicted with their own assessments of situations, that they feel they should intervene to attempt to move that public opinion to a closer alignment with their own positions. Because it’s not just a reactive thing, it’s actually about making sure that our messaging is right to start informing that and changing it necessarily, if public opinion is kind of out of kilter with what our data analytics or scanning or what our picture is telling us, then that again, is about trying to shift that. (Security Professional Interview Three) This kind of educative engagement was also reported by a counterterrorism officer working for another force. They similarly describe engaging with

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Muslim communities so as to attempt to (re)shape what such communities and individuals think about the police’s role and activities. [W]e have held . . . a couple of open evenings where we’ve invited members of the public through local policing groups, etc, to come along, and to represent different aspects of culture, religion, community. And then we basically given like a counterterrorism presentation, where we would talk about who we are, what we do, why we do what we do, what the current threat picture is. (Security Professional Interview One) Such attempt to mould public opinion are not confined to the police. Security professionals working within the private sphere also identify moments where they feel they should attempt to intervene and shape public opinion. Earlier in the chapter, there was a discussion about the significance or importance of public opinion to counterterrorism, with one respondent invoking a medical metaphor about public opinion around counterextremism, suggesting that public opinion may be akin to belief in “quack” cures for illness. Such a view, of course, implies a profound suspicion of the quality of that public opinion. Later in that interview, the respondent again returns to the idea that what they consider to be “efective” security work sometimes conflicts with public opinion. Here they are discussing responses to issues around whether those who went to Syria and Iraq should be allowed to return. I just think there’s a duty among all of us that work in this space, I think we should take the public with us. . . . But it’s a big ask, because it’s super easy to scream “take their passports away”. . . . And so, you know, the easy thing to do oftentimes is to say nothing or go along with it. But it doesn’t make right . . . And so I just – the overarching thing is, I think there’s a duty on all of us to work on this to have this conversation with the public as and when we need to, and to get the pushback you get from saying things like, “citizens should be, you know, come home from Iraq and Syria”. You know, people were screaming at you on Twitter and saying, “Oh, my God, you want them home?”. But if you are in a democratic society, you have to take the public with you. (Security Professional Interview Six) Here there is a strong sense that public opinion on this issue was “wrong” and ill-informed and that the professional and moral responsibility is to a) stand up against that opinion and b) to articulate the alternative case. It also again points to the significance of public opinion; in a democracy, you need to ‘take the public with you’. As noted earlier, it is interesting that this kind of preference shaping (as opposed to preference accommodating) behaviour is manifest amongst security professionals but not the political elites interviewed. Possible explanations for this may be that, as some interviewees

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from Chapter 5 suggest, it is understood to be vitally important to be “on the right side” of the public on this issue. Therefore, being seen (or being exposed?) to mould or otherwise shift this opinion may be seen as a very high-risk activity.

Does this matter? Thus far, the analysis of interviews with security professionals has made three arguments. The first is that, perhaps running against the grain of Paris Schooltype arguments (that security professionals are closed off from the public and public engagement/accountability) these interviews suggest that security professionals, both public and private, express a view that public opinion matters in terms of their counterterrorism work. It could be argued that this matters for different reasons; for the police, maintaining awareness of and dialogue with public opinion is crucial for legitimacy and operational effectiveness. Knowing what people think about counterterrorism policies is an important resource for police. For private companies, the rationale is slightly different. For private companies whose business is largely public facing, public opinion about counterterrorism mattered in terms of brand identity/reputation and business model. A public facing business which disregards public views about counterterrorism issues is one which is likely to encounter commercial problems. There is a desire, in other words, amongst such private companies both to reassure customers that businesses and premises are safe and secure and to ensure that a company’s brand identity is protected and not identified with terrorism/ counterterrorism problems. A second key argument has been to note that security professionals tend to put forward constructions about the nature of public opinion which are in some ways similar to those put forward by political elites, but with interesting differences. This might be summed up in the sense that public opinion is generally “pro-security” and in favour of what actors like the police are doing in terms of counterterrorism. Also similar to political elites is the sense in which where opposition to counterterrorism measures can be discerned, that this is the preserve of “others”, hiving such beliefs away from “the public” and locating it within special sectional interests. Yet there are some variations from the constructions put forward by political elites. As security professionals, the interviewees express less scepticism or doubt about the content of public opinion. It is an interesting question whether this stems from professional confidence as security experts, or whether political elites have more circumspection about public opinion because they are more expert in engaging/discerning public opinion (and thus more aware of the complexity and nuance inherent to public opinion). The issue of expertise also feeds into a sense that public opinion on counterterrorism is “fickle” or even ill-informed or wrong. Respondents from the police discuss a sense that public opinion was subject to variations depending on the proximity to high-profile terrorist incidents; other security professionals argue that their professional expertise gives them a heightened

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awareness or sense of counterterrorism and security issues that the general public does not have. A third key argument is that alongside these constructions are a range of public engagement activities, particularly from the police, which can be seen to inform and contribute to these constructions of what the public thinks about counterterrorism. In similar ways to the engagement and outreach activities conducted by political elites discussed in the Chapter 5, these activities can be seen to actively shape what public opinion is understood to be, by including/ excluding particular voices, and by asking/not asking about particular issues and topics. What comes to the police through these activities – “public opinion” – is in no small way, shaped by the decisions made by the officers who structure and organise such activities. As with Chapter 5, the argument is not necessarily to suggest that the police are “fabricating” or distorting public opinion deliberately to suit a particular agenda, but to acknowledge that such activities (a) indicate that security professionals like the police are sufficiently interested in and concerned with public opinion to devote time and resources to gathering information about it and (b) that the information which comes from such exercises is not “public opinion” in some pure and unmediated form, but a construction of it, a construction which is informed by the decisions of the officers responsible for such engagement. Private security professionals are less active in such outreach activities, instead relying more on the kind of “gut instinct” that some police officers discuss, as well as drawing on the information about public opinion which the police generate, through information sharing schemes. A further sense of public opinion being constructed by security professionals is discerned around statements that interviewees make that they, at times, see it as their role and responsibility to actively shape and inform that public opinion. Placing these arguments next to one another, the picture which emerges of public opinion and security professionals is again one of complexity. Public opinion is identified as important – albeit as experts, security professionals evince a slight scepticism about the stability and quality of that opinion. Yet security professionals also expend not inconsiderable resources in finding out what this public opinion is. As with Chapter 5, the potential rejoinder to these points is that this is of limited relevance, as public opinion is not driving policy here, but rather providing a post hoc gloss to rubber stamp or justify the actions of security professionals. This might link to the arguments of securitization theory and Saward’s (2006) “representative claim” such that constructions and narratives of public opinion could be seen as attempts to win consent and legitimacy for security measures. However, again as argued in Chapter 5, there are two rejoinders to such a position. The first is that even if public opinion did have no influence at all (which is not the position advanced here; see below), then the very fact that there is so much activity and engagement around public opinion constitutes a politics of sorts. As argued in Chapter 4 when analysing Parliamentary debates, it could be argued that such representations of public opinion and the attendant activities designed to elucidate it, constitute in a very real sense, a politics of security. That security professionals interviewed here

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express views that public opinion is important to their work and that they engage (in different ways) with this, is, in and of itself, part of security politics. It could be seen as part of what Booth (2007, p. 166) calls the securitization game; a game, in which public opinion appears to have a position and role. But this point can be extended, and the role and position of public views appears not to be solely one of providing legitimating gloss. Despite the abovenoted scepticism as to whether security professionals should be responsive to public opinion, interviewees did detail specific instances where they feel public opinion shaped policy. In some instances, as we shall see, even in ways that they themselves did not support, or in instances where they feel public opinion is misguided or partial. In other words, the constructions of public opinion which circulate in the politics of counterterrorism appear to have significance and in certain moments, can exert influence. Two specific instances are discussed across the participants (i.e. mentioned by more than one interviewee). The first concerns Prevent; the second the installation of security screening devices at Kings Cross Station in London. Prevent is a controversial part of the counterterrorism policy array, perhaps the most controversial (Busher et al. 2019; Dresser 2019; Heath-Kelly and Strausz 2019; O’Toole et al. 2016). It attracts considerable attention in both media and public debates about counterterrorism, with particular concerns that it represents a form of state-sponsored Islamophobia (Husband and Alam 2011; Kundnani 2014). Former senior police officers, such as Dal Babu, have referred to Prevent as a ‘toxic brand’ (BBC News 2015) and there is widespread concern and opposition to Prevent amongst many ethnic minorities. A recent poll found that over half of British Muslims surveyed had concerns about the way that Prevent operated (Clements et al. 2020). This controversy and opposition amongst at least some sections of the public is felt by police. More importantly, it filters into the way in which policing around counterterrorism is conducted. One senior officer talks about how organising events or initiatives under the Prevent label is difficult – due to the negative publicity and opinion which it attracts. So, you know, we don’t talk about Prevent, because it’s a toxic brand. And if I was to run a program . . . based on money that came from Prevent, if I wasn’t clear that that was Prevent money, so people could vote to whether the joined in with or not, my legitimacy would be dented. And I probably wouldn’t run a Prevent operation in [place X] because I, you know, my legitimacy would go down the drain with the people that I’m looking to engage with. So I steered away from that. (Security Professional Interview Two) Here it’s fairly clear that the nature of public opinion about Prevent influences this ofcer’s conduct and discharge of their counterterrorism/counterextremism role. They perceive the need to be very careful around what they do and don’t do with regard to Prevent so as to protect their ‘legitimacy’ with the

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community which they serve. In certain locations, they will not organise or run Prevent events/operations, in other places they will be very careful to be explicit about the nature of the events/operation so that people can choose to not attend, and don’t feel tricked or conned into participating in Prevent activities. This is a concrete example of the ways in which the views of the public shape the way in which counterterrorism measures are implemented on the ground. In terms of private security professionals, a number of respondents mention a specific incident, when it emerged that Kings Cross development in central London (a commercial area adjacent to the Kings Cross rail and underground stations) had been using facial recognition software across the 67 acre site between 2016 and 2018, to, in the developers words, ‘ensure public safety’ (Guardian 2019). The news created a public backlash, attracting the attentions and concerns of the Mayor of London, Camden Council and the Information Commissioner, with particular focus as to whether all data protection regulations had been complied with. Yet the public opinion dimension to the outcry and the subsequent removal of the cameras is emphasised by a number of security professionals interviewed as an example of where the security practices of private companies are impacted and altered by public opinion. [An] example where the reputational damage did come in quite quickly, and resulted in the withdrawal of the security capability was Kings Cross Station [sic], trialling facial recognition software . . . the court of public opinion, stirred up by those that were very anti any recording of biometric data and all the rest of it embarrassed Kings Cross Station [sic] to the point where they removed the capability. And there’s still a little bit of fallout around automatic facial recognition software at King’s Cross, it still keeps coming up in the press. So that so there is that element of reputational damage that’s there, because it was badly handled. (Security Professional Interview Five) For this interviewee the mechanism by which the Kings Cross developers removed the facial recognition software was reputational damage; that they had been using the system incurred negative publicity and negative public opinion. The developer thus stopped using the system to avoid continued reputational harm. Interestingly, the respondent points to the deployment of the cameras and the messaging/communication around it as being ‘badly handled’. This implies that private security companies need to pay attention and efort to the ways they “handle” communications with the wider public, so as to avoid these kinds of episodes. This would place public opinion in a place of some import to the activities of private security companies. A similar point was made by another respondent about the Kings Cross episode. They are directly involved with the installation and running of such systems, but similarly note the importance of taking the public along with private companies

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[E]verybody recognized that used effectively, facial recognition has a huge, huge part to play in making communities safer, not just for terrorism, but also for general crime as well. And I think, you know, from a technology point of view, the art of the possible is huge. And it’s only suppressed by our imagination as to how we can use technology to our benefit, our own benefit. But I think we’re still grappling with how we can get that over the line to keep the public engaged and make sure that they’re comfortable with some of those technologies. (Security Professional Interview Nine, emphasis added) Therefore, for both of these respondents, the Kings Cross episode demonstrates a number of things. One, that deploying security systems without public support is problematic and that in future, private companies need to pay attention to securing consent and being in accordance with public opinion. A second point is that where such support or consent is lacking, reputation harm can follow. And finally, companies need to pay attention to how they communicate and engage with public opinion around these issues. Taken together this is suggestive of the influence of public opinion in the private security world, an arena that is sometimes seen as technocratic and closed of from public debate and accountability. A further example of publicity leading to shifts in the policies of private companies with regard to counterterrorism/counterextremism is cited by one interviewee, who worked with some of the “big tech” companies. They relay how some of their work involves trying to draw attention to some of the issues “big tech” face with their platforms and terrorism/extremism, only to be ‘politely stonewalled’ (Security Professional Interview Six). However, if media or public attention is drawn to such issues, individuals working within these companies would panic, sometimes leading to rapid changes in policy direction Until there’s a newspaper article, or a politician asks the question, at which point everybody shits themselves, and they just want a solution now. Now now now now now now now now now, that they’re going to announce tomorrow “Oh, my God, oh, my God”, it’s like, “[Boss of tech company] is gonna have to go before a committee, what can we announce?” . . . I find the tech companies are very often kind of . . . they stop and then all of a sudden, there’s this great leap forward to panic, which, you know, whether or not responding to press, and responding to public opinion are the same thing again, we could debate but I would argue that they are at least joined. (Security Professional Interview Six) Although the interviewee is not using the word reputational harm, or similar, it’s fairly clear that, for this respondent, this is what prompts action on the part of larger private companies, such as “big tech” when it comes to security and counterterrorism. Fear of negative public or media attention (and,

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as the interviewee notes, whilst public opinion and media attention are not the same thing, they are connected) prompts concern. In a diferent context, a diferent interviewee explains how such negative publicity impacts private companies. [I]f you get one incident that either does go wrong, or you know, we have done something wrong, or the perception is that we’ve done something wrong, it can have a negative impact, and depending on the severity of it, it could either impact that specific contract, or it could impact our share price. (Security Professional Interview Nine) Here a fairly straightforward financial disincentive to negative publicity and brand identity is identified. It becomes clear why private companies would wish to avoid reputational harm and more generally, being out of synch with public opinion. There are of course, dangers of bending this argument too far. Clearly, a key part of this dynamic is awareness or publicity of any given action. In the Kings Cross example, the facial recognition software was in use for a two-year period, 2016–2018 (and had already been discontinued) before any public attention was drawn to it. Therefore, between 2016 and 2018, the public was ignorant of the cameras, had no “opinion” about them and no pressure was exerted on the company in any way. Therefore, where private companies can conduct themselves away from publicity, there is little incentive to respond to a public opinion, which in a very real sense, does not exist (in that the public can’t have an opinion about something which it doesn’t know about). The extent to which fear of exposure to negative public opinion can act as a safeguard against security or counterterrorism excesses seems unclear, but the signs are not all that optimistic. Therefore, where private companies are either public facing or their actions are visible and exposed to the public, the views of that public may exert pressure and influence on security/counterterrorism practices. But this may well be a haphazard and uncertain kind of influence, which also hides (more widespread?) practices where the public is circumvented. Yet what this analysis highlights is a mechanism by which public opinion can and does shape public opinion; it cannot answer how widespread or common this dynamic is. (There is a danger of entering circular arguments here, whereby when private security practices are not public, then they lack public accountability; as opposed to instances when they are public and there is greater public accountability).

Conclusion The chapter analysed the nature of the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism with regard to security professionals, by way of an analysis of in-depth elite interviews with security professionals, both public

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and private. It has found, in a similar vein to Chapter 5’s finding with regard to political elites, that this relationship is complex, working in both directions. The chapter did report on ways in which public opinion appears to have shaped the ways in which security and counterterrorism measures have been implemented and undertaken (although the mechanism by which this becomes possible – publicity and public awareness – may be a fragile one, as private companies in particular, may be able to evade such publicity). Yet the chapter has also pointed to the ways in which security professionals construct that very opinion, in direct and indirect ways. It has argued that these constructions are sometimes based on the assessment of expert, security professionals, that public opinion is somehow lacking; as either ignorant or “fickle”. Such professionals then perhaps see it as their responsibility to directly intervene, to educate or shape public opinion to a more informed place. More indirect constructions were also identified, depictions of public opinion which identify public opinion as broadly supportive of counterterrorism measures, and, as in Chapter 5, see dissent as the preserve of minorities and “agitators”. Therefore at a broad level, public opinion is an important part of the politics of counterterrorism for security professionals, as it was with political elites in Chapter 5.

Conclusion

The book began by suggesting that there are many reasons to think that public opinion may be an important dynamic within counterterrorism policy. Across the subsequent chapters, the book has made two key claims. The first of these is that public opinion is indeed a vital, vibrant, part of security politics such as counterterrorism at multiple levels. Analysis of speeches and debates in the House of Commons (Chapter 4), interviews with former members of the executive (Chapter 5) and interviews with security professionals (Chapter 7) have all identified ways in which public opinion is manifest in the design and delivery of counterterrorism policy in the UK. The significance is not, therefore, confined to one particular area or layer. Indeed, in one of the first direct examinations of private security professionals’ relationship to public opinion, even in this “hard case” (“hard” in that unlike politicians or public security professionals like the police, there is no obvious incentive or need to accommodate public views) public opinions appeared to have a presence and significance in security and counterterrorism policy. These empirical findings run against some variations of the securitization literature, which as argued in Chapter 1, tend to afford little space to things like public opinion, preferring instead to see security politics as closed and elite driven. The findings run with grain of the “security as politics” position developed by Neal (2019) and others (see also Hagmann et al. 2018; Hegemann 2018; Jarvis and Legrand 2017a; Wagner et al. 2017). This literature eschews the exceptionalism inherent in much (critical) security studies and instead points to the myriad ways in which security politics inhabits the same spaces and places as other forms of politics. This book contributes to this literature by pushing and extending this analysis. Where the “security as politics” literature perhaps still sees security politics as somewhat as the preserve of political elites (albeit a wider group of elites – not just executive actors but legislative ones too), this book suggests that security politics goes further, beyond political elites, and that public views and voices are an important part of security politics like counterterrorism in the UK. One potential criticism of this argument is that the significance or importance of public opinion for counterterrorism policy is limited; that political elites (and to some extent security professionals) have to genuflect to public opinion but that there is little “going on”. For this critique, policy is being DOI: 10.4324/9781003244585-9

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decided elsewhere and the engagement and discourses around public opinion are a kind of democratic theatre; a necessary performance which masks the true locus of power and decisionmaking. To some extent, the research design presented here cannot decisively refute this position. But there are three immediate rejoinders to set against this position. Firstly, it is not the argument of this book that public opinion is the central determining factor in counterterrorism policy. Such a position would be naïve and even the most optimistic embracer of ideas of responsiveness would demur from such a black and white contention. Secondly, the interview data analysed in Chapters 5 and 7 did provide evidence that is suggestive that at some moments and in some areas, public views do indeed influence policy and the way in which it is implemented. Whether it is the way in which the Control Order regime was quickly presented and rolled out (Chapter 5), the extent to which police officers feel they can conduct Prevent operations and initiatives in their area (Chapter 7) or decisions about whether private security companies continue their use of facial recognition software (Chapter 7), the primary data collected for this book points to concrete examples of instances where public opinion appears to have influenced the shape and course of counterterrorism politics in the UK. Thirdly, even putting to one side such “concrete” moments of public opinion shaping counterterrorism policy, the book has presented systematic and comprehensive evidence that political and security elites are occupied and concerned with what the public thinks. Irrespective of any “influence” or “impact” on policy, this in and of itself, constitutes a politics. That political and security elites attest that public opinion is important to their work (Chapters 5 and 7); that political elites spend significant amounts of time and resources engaging with public opinion (Chapter 5); that security professionals think it worthwhile attempting to change and mould public opinion (Chapter 7); that legislators discuss public views when making counterterrorism policy (Chapter 4) – all these taken together mean that public views are a vibrant part of security politics. They do not consistently and decisively dominate the content or shape of policy (although there appear to be moments where some degree of influence becomes more likely/possible) but public views form part of the space in which security politics plays out. The second key argument of the book is that in making the above argument the book also contends that the relationship between public opinion and counterterrorism is complex, not least due to the complexities of the notion of public opinion itself. Whilst some are content to simply equate public opinion with opinion polls and end the discussion there, Chapter 2 examined the complexity of the idea of public opinion and the ways in which opinion polls may less be neutral representations of public opinion than constructions of public opinion. The effects of question design, issue framing and the problem of “non-attitudes” (where there are not fixed, stable opinions or views to access) represent significant reasons to be sceptical about any simple link between public opinion and polling data. Herbst’s (1998) work suggests a different direction for scholars of public opinion; less does public opinion influence policy and

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more how do political elites think about public opinion? This book has provided the first examination of how this dynamic plays out in counterterrorism policy. Political and security elites, it has been argued, are less responding to an exogenous public opinion than they are deeply involved in “representing” (in Saward’s (2006), terms) and shaping what that very public opinion is. This is not necessarily nefarious. It is argued in Chapter 5 that political elites find themselves in a paradox; believing that public opinion on counterterrorism is and should be an important factor for consideration, but unsure exactly what it is. In such a context, the book finds, political elites fill this gap, with indirect and direct constructions of public opinion; indirect in terms of projections, representations of what the public thinks; and direct in terms of active, overt attempts to engage with the public. These decisions, particularly in terms of who to talk to – and who not to talk to – mean that political elites are simultaneously attempting to respond to a public opinion which, given their privileged position, they play a role in shaping. In other words, public opinion is not a given. It’s something that is, in no small part, socially constructed through things like opinion polls, but also by the actions of elites themselves, both political elites and security professionals. It would be mistaken to see political elites simply responding to a public opinion which is separate and independent from them. To the extent that they do respond, they are in part responding to something that they are shaping. Thus the nature of the politics of public opinion and counterterrorism is complex, multidirectional and constitutive. Related to this, one might ask as Jacobs and Shapiro (2000) do, whether political and security elites are pandering to public opinion? Or, if they are constructing public opinion, are they manipulating it for nefarious purposes? The answer in the analysis in Chapters 4–7 is neither. Evidence from this book suggests that political and security elites don’t simply do what public opinion says, not least because it’s not clear – at least to them – what public opinion says it wants, particularly in terms of detailed policy. They fill this gap with their own constructions of public opinion. Does this mean they are manipulating public opinion? Again, the answer would be no, not least because, the idea of manipulation presupposes that there is a “true” opinion which is being distorted. This rarely seems to be the case. There are broad “moods” or climates but these lack specificity and are inchoate. And these climates of opinion could, the book argues, be consonant with a range of different counterterrorism policy solutions. Political and security elites represent what they think the public wants – informed no doubt by their own political preferences. This is at one and the same time, a construction, but it is not manipulation in any straightforward or simple sense. By way of a final point, there is perhaps a sense, vernacular security studies approaches notwithstanding, that many within Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS) scholars have, like their securitization colleagues, been reluctant to engage with public opinion. This is perhaps, in part, because public opinion is often assumed to be very supportive of draconian counterterrorism measures. Manza and Brooks (2013, p. 8) refer to this as the ‘dark side of public opinion’,

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which they define as ‘a willingness to supress otherwise strong support for civil rights and liberties in the name of national crisis and perceived threats’. This “dark side” leads many scholars, and perhaps activists too, to avoid public opinion, perhaps seeing it as a dead end for avowedly critical enquiries. What resource or potential is there in “public opinion” if it is so trenchantly supportive of the things that, normatively, one stands so against? The book argues that the analysis presented here complicates this picture. Firstly, as analysis of polls in Chapter 3 suggests, the stability or fixity of support for draconian counterterrorism policies is not as strong as it may at first appear. Much of the apparent support can be accounted for by (a) people wanting “something” to be done to reassure them – people do appear to be “pro-security” (but then who would be otherwise?) and (b) question wording design which often forces binary choices on complex questions. Both more nuanced survey questions and qualitative focus group data analysed in Chapter 3 suggests that the public may well be more nuanced and a little less draconian than it first appears. Further, as has been noted (Johnson and Gearty 2007; Pantazis and Pemberton 2012) part of the reason for apparent public support for counterterrorism measures is that an elite consensus (amongst both political elites and security professionals) has emerged over these issues which is supportive of enhanced and broad counterterrorism powers. This itself may well influence how such elites position and construct what the public want. Yet, the book has shown that alternative readings and constructions of counterterrorism policy are possible, and may well resonate with the information environment. Were political elites and others to articulate and represent public opinion in alternative ways, might public opinion appear to be a little more cautious about some elements of counterterrorism? This may appear fanciful and the current elite policy consensus appears to have endured some 20 years past 9/11. But current events such as the war in Ukraine, cost of living concerns, rising energy prices and increasing concern about environmental degradation may open a space to crack this consensus. Are the public as committed to draconian counterterrorism in a context of a shifting security landscape? These reflections may, the book hopes, encourage scholars from a range of positions to (re)engage with public opinion – as both outcome and influence. It is, the book argues, an important factor in security politics, whilst also being at the same time, an important outcome of security politics.

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Index

7/7 1, 65, 67, 84, 94, 139, 150 9/11 1, 94, 108 Bigo, D. 16–17, 146, 147, 149, 161, 164 Blair, T. 1–2, 84, 133 Brown, E. 56, 132, 174 Cameron, D. 92 civil liberties 3, 65–67, 84, 195 control orders 77, 78, 80, 128, 129, 130, 141, 193 Corbyn, J. 92, 121 Côté, A. 21, 22, 23 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 96, 111 critical terrorism studies 194 defence policy 19, 42

Kings Cross 188–190 Manchester Arena bombing 150–151 Mansbridge, J. 37–39, 48 media 7, 82–85, 92 multiculturalism 138 Muslim communities 9, 108, 111, 113, 119, 130, 133–139, 160, 178, 184, 187–188 Muslim Council of Britain 136 Neal, A. 5, 7, 12, 13, 14–15, 17, 18–19, 88, 89, 147, 192 non-attitudes 51–52, 75, 104 ontological security 25 opinion polls 6, 22–23, 35–36, 48–54, 62–75, 76, 78, 82, 84, 85, 88, 90–92, 100, 112, 132, 181, 193

exceptionalism 13, 88, 192 Facebook 156, 179 Finlayson, A. 90, 97 foreign policy 43, 56 Frankfurt School 49–50 global financial crisis 95, 142 Herbst, S. 6, 7, 23, 34–37, 39, 50, 52, 54–56, 83, 87, 88, 101, 132, 174, 193 human security 25, 29 Huysmans, J. 13–14, 16–17, 147 indefinite detention 68, 69–70, 77–79, 80, 128, 141 Iraq 19, 22–23, 28, 56, 64 ISIS 65–67, 95, 131 Jarvis, L. 24–26

Paris attacks (2015) 65, 94 Paris School 15, 16–17, 24, 26, 145, 146, 147, 148, 153, 164, 167, 185 Parliament 7–8, 19–20, 58, 87–114, 115 police 9, 68–71, 80, 81, 84, 145, 159–160, 164, 170–172, 173, 180, 183, 185–186 policy feedback 46–48 populism 91, 92, 95, 101 postcolonial 25 pre charge detention 2, 7, 68–71, 75, 77, 78, 83–84, 131 preference shaping 41, 45–46, 180, 184 prevent 26, 108, 137–138, 148, 187–188, 193 Prime Minister’s Questions 92, 103 Private Military Security Companies 155

214

Index

Private Security Companies 151, 154–156, 157, 159, 160 Protect Duty 151 representation 33, 37–40, 53 responsiveness 5, 24, 33–34, 41–48, 54, 91, 116, 143, 150, 155, 172, 176, 193 Rhetorical Political Analysis 97 salience 23, 42, 44, 63–65, 119, 120–121 Saward, M. 39–40, 48, 57–58, 87, 100, 116, 126, 186 securitization 13–14, 20–23, 42, 43, 87, 88, 109–110, 115, 119, 139, 186, 192 security studies 5, 11, 12–14, 88, 114, 147 stop and search 76, 77, 79, 80, 81

street-level bureaucracy 147–149, 160–161 surveillance 72–74 Terrorism Act 2000 77 Terrorism Act 2006 94, 95, 111 Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measure (TPIM) 98 thermostat model 42, 46, 78 Ukraine 195 vernacular security 5, 24–31, 36–37, 50, 194 Welsh School 25 Westminster Model 125