BUSTING OUT

Abstract

This report explores Iranian popular opinion on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the determinants of Iranian attitudes. Using data from a 2008 survey of 710 Iranians administered by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, we find that that a significant minority of Iranians (10 percent in 2006 and 14 percent in 2008) would prefer that Iran withdraw from the NPT. Our statistical analysis shows that Iranians who fear a US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and distrust the International Atomic Energy Agency are more likely to want to quit the NPT. We therefore argue that those who do not trust other nations are most likely to oppose the NPT.

Keywords:

• Iran
• Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

Notes

1. Pew Global Attitudes Survey, “Global Opinion Trends 2002–2007: A Rising Tide Lifts Mood in the Developing World—Sharp Decline in Support for Suicide Bombing in Muslim Countries,” Pew Organization, 2007, <http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/257.pdf>; Dalia Mogahed, “The Battle for Hearts Moderate vs. Extremist the Muslim World,” Gallup Organization, 2008, <http://media.gallup.com/WorldPoll/PDF/GALLUPþMUSLIMþSTUDIES_ModerateþvþExtremistþViews_11.13.06_FINAL.pdf>; “Muslim Public Opinion on US Policy, Attacks on Civilians and al Qaeda,” WorldPublicOpinion.org, 2007, <www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/apr07/START_Apr07_rpt.pdf>; “Poll of Iranians and Americans,” WorldPublicOpinion.org and Search For Common Ground, 2008, <www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/.../Iran_Apr08_quaire.pdf>; “Results of a New Nationwide Public Opinion Survey of Iran before the June 12, 2009 Presidential Elections,” Terror Free Tomorrow, 2009, <www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/TFT percent20Iran percent20Survey percent20Report percent200609.pdf>.

2. One exception is C. Christine Fair and Steven M. Shellman, “Determinants of Popular Support for Iran's Nuclear Program: Insights from a Nationally Representative Survey,” Contemporary Security Studies 29 (2008), pp. 538–58. As the authors of that paper note, they confronted a serious technical issue, as the data they used (from a 2006 survey of Iranians conducted by the United States Institute of Peace and the Program on International Policy Attitudes) split the sample on key questions pertaining to support for the program.

3. This is a substantially revised version of a paper that appeared in the Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies in December 2012. The authors thank Sarah Watson Jordan for providing support editorial assistance. The authors also thank panel participants and audience members alike at both the 2011 Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association and the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association who offered helpful insights and critiques. The authors alone are responsible for errors of fact of interpretation.

4. IAEA Board of Governors, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” GOV/2011/29, May 24, 2011, <www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2011/gov2011-29.pdf>; Mohamed Elbaradei, The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011).

5. Karim Sadjadpour, “How Relevant is the Iranian Street?” Washington Quarterly 30 (2006–07), pp. 151–62.

6. Babak Dehghanpisheh, “Iran's Hushed Up Civil War,” Newsweek, June 8, 2010, <www.newsweek.com/2010/06/08/iran-s-hushed-up-civil-war.html>.

7. Kayhan Barzefar, “The Paradox of Iran's Nuclear Consensus,” World Policy Journal 24 (2009), p. 24.

8. Barzefar, “The Paradox of Iran's Nuclear Consensus,” p. 26.

9. Lev Grossman, “Iran Protests: Twitter, the Medium of the Movement,” Time, June 17, 2009, <www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1905125,00.html>.

10. “Poll of the Iranian Public,” United States Institute of Peace, 2007. <www.usip.org/files/MWI/iran_presentation.pdf>.

11. “Poll of the Iranian Public,” United States Institute of Peace, 2007.

12. “Poll of Iranians and Americans,” WorldPublicOpinion.org, 2008.

13. “Poll of Iranians and Americans,” WorldPublicOpinion.org, 2008.

14. Paul Brewer and Marco Steenbergen, “All Against All: How Beliefs about Human Nature Shape Foreign Policy Options,” Political Psychology 23 (2002), pp. 39–58.

15. Kevin Binning, “It's Us against the World: How Distrust in Americans versus People-in-General Shapes Competitive Foreign Policy Preferences,” Political Psychology 28 (2007), pp. 777–99; Paul Brewer, Kimberly Gross, Sean Aday, and Lars Willnat, “International Trust and Public Opinion about World Affairs,” American Journal of Political Science 46 (2004), pp. 93–109; Brewer and Steenbergen “All against All”; Jack Citrin and John Sides, “Immigration and Imagined Community in Europe and the United States,” Political Studies 56 (2008), pp. 33–56; Francisco Herreros and Henar Criado, “Social Trust, Social Capital, and Perceptions of Immigration,” Political Studies 57 (2009), pp. 337–55; Benno Torgler, “Trust in International Organizations: An Empirical Investigation Focusing on the United Nations,” Review of International Organizations 3 (2007), pp. 65–93.

16. Edward Mansfield and Diana Mutz, “Support for Free Trade: Self Interest, Sociotropic Politics, and Out-Group Anxiety,” International Organization 63 (2009), pp. 425–57, and Karl Kaltenthaler, Ronald Gelleny, and Stephen Ceccoli, “Explaining Citizen Attitudes For Trade Liberalization,” International Studies Quarterly 48 (2004), pp. 829–51.

17. Jens Hainmueller and Michael J. Hiscox, “Learning to Love Globalization: Education and Individual Attitudes toward International Trade,” International Organization 60 (2006), pp. 469–98; Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); Kaltenthaler et al., “Explaining Citizen Attitudes For Trade Liberalization.”

18. If we had found that our analysis yielded low levels of significance, we would have suspected that the small sample size reduced our chances of getting statistically significant results. We would also have had to consider whether our predictors were useful for understanding Iranian attitudes toward the NPT. In any case, we have highly significant statistical results, which indicate that our small sample size is not a problem.

19. Mahnaz Afkhami and Erika Friedl, In the Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran, (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994); Valentine Moghadam, “Patriarchy and the Politics of Gender in Modernising Socities: Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan,” International Sociology 7 (1992), pp. 35–53; Valentine Moghadam, ed., Gender and National Identity (London: Zed Books, 1994); Myron Weiner and Ali Banuazizi, The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994).

20. Adam Berinsky, “The Two Faces of Public Opinion,” American Journal of Political Science 43 (1999), p. 1,209–30; Jon Krosnick and Michael Milburn, “Psychological Determinants of Political Opinionation,” Social Cognition 8 (1990), pp. 49–72.

21. For a discussion of these challenges, see Fair and Shellman, “Determinants of Popular Support for Iran's Nuclear Program,” 2008.

22. Because the IAEA is more directly involved in Iran's nuclear issue than is the United Nations as a whole, the Iranian public has a more negative opinion of the IAEA.