Naming and shaming, government messaging, and backlash effects: Experimental evidence from the Convention Against Torture

Conventional thinking proposes that naming and shaming pushes publics to oppose government policies that are claimed to violate human rights. We explore the extent to which international organizations’ (IOs’) efforts to name and shame target governments can be frustrated by the target governments’ efforts to advance a counter-narrative. We test this using a survey-based experiment that focuses on the use of prolonged solitary confinement in US prisons. The results suggest that government messaging has powerful effects on public opinion. These effects are more readily discernible than the effects of IO signals. We also find some limited evidence to suggest that messages from international nongovernmental organizations can, by themselves, elicit a backlash among the respondents. Surprisingly, we found similar effects among both Democrats and Republicans. This demonstrates important limitations to IOs’ naming and shaming tactics.