Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: Elite Beliefs as a Mediating Variable

Scholars have become increasingly interested in the nature of potential linkage processes between public opinion and foreign policy. The literature on elite beliefs suggests that the beliefs decision makers hold concerning public opinion may have an important influence on this relationship. This article argues that how decision makers perceive and react to public opinion depends upon their views of the proper relationship between public opinion and foreign policy choices. A theoretical framework to analyze beliefs is suggested containing two dimensions: (1) normative beliefs relating to whether it is desirable for input from public opinion to affect foreign policy choices; and (2) practical beliefs regarding whether public support of a policy is necessary for it to be successful. To explore this issue, this article reports the findings of a qualitative content analysis of Dwight D. Eisenhower's and John Foster Dulles's public opinion beliefs. Predictions of behavior are tested in a case study of the September 1954 Chinese offshore islands crisis. The results of this analysis suggest elite beliefs regarding public opinion may provide an important intervening variable worthy of further examination.     

Advances and Opportunities in the Study of Political Communication,Foreign Policy,and Public Opinion

We review contemporary research at the intersection of political communication and foreign policy, highlighting four themes: 1) new, more realistic and psychologically-nuanced approaches that account for limited information and issue framing; 2) the question of whether the flow of communication between the state and the public is best conceived as a closed system, or one that is open to outside influences such as foreign elites; 3) how variations in political or governmental structures, patterns of media access or ownership, and other institutional factors can alter the relationships between foreign policy and communication processes; and 4) whether or not it is useful to distinguish between foreign and domestic policymaking when analyzing the role of political communication. We also suggest avenues for further research in each section and conclude by summarizing these opportunities for continued theoretical development.     

The Role of "Enemy Images" and Ideology of Elite Belief Systems

We use data from the Leadership Opinion Project (LOP), a panel survey of American opinion leaders which brackets the end of the Cold War, to investigate two interrelated questions about the structure of elites' foreign policy beliefs. We assess, first, whether the militant internationalism/cooperative internationalism scheme, developed primarily by Wittkopf (1981, 1990) and Holsti and Rosenau (1990), has continued relevance now that the USSR has collapsed; and second, whether Hurwitz and Peffley's (1987, 1990; see also Peffley and Hurwitz, 1992; Hurwitz, Peffley, and Seligson, 1993) domain-specific, hierarchical model of mass belief structure can be applied to elite belief systems. The evidence indicates that respondents' past stances toward military and cooperative ventures are highly predictive of their views once the Cold War ends. This continuity in leaders' postures toward international affairs, in itself, suggests that "enemy images" of the Soviet Union were less important within elite belief systems than Hurwitz and Peffley (1990; see also Peffley and Hurwitz, 1992) posited for the mass public. The starkest difference, however, between their findings for mass samples and our findings for a leadership sample centers on the importance of ideology in constraining foreign policy beliefs, and the close interconnection with domestic beliefs. Consequently, as we illustrate, predictable ideological divisions among opinion leaders persist in the post–Cold War era. In sum, our evidence demonstrates considerable continuity in elites' beliefs despite profound changes in the global system, and reaffirms the importance that ideology plays in structuring attitudes within elite belief systems.     

Securitisation from below: the relationship between immigration and foreign policy in South Africa's approach to the Zimbabwe crisis

The political and economic debacle in Zimbabwe has led to a large-scale influx of Zimbabweans into neighbouring South Africa. This article argues that there is a complex and significant link between the domestic response to this immigration influx and South Africa's foreign policy towards Zimbabwe. South Africa's foreign and security policy elite preferred to use an immigration approach of benign neglect as a tool to promote its ‘quiet diplomacy’ approach towards the Zimbabwean regime, treating the influx as a ‘non-problem’. But increased xenophobic violence, vigilantism and protests in townships and informal settlements against Zimbabwean and other African immigrants, culminating in widespread riots across the country in 2008, contributed to a change not only in immigration policy but also in the mediation efforts towards the Zimbabwean parties. I argue that this foreign policy change was pushed by a process of ‘securitisation from below’, where the understanding of Zimbabwean immigrants as a security threat were promoted not by traditional security elites but by South Africa's marginalised urban poor.     

When governments ignore public opinion in foreign policy: Poland and the Iraq invasion

This article asks why the Government of Poland participated in the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 when a large majority of the Polish public was opposed to national involvement in Iraq. The aim is to further an understanding of the circumstances under which democratic governments ignore public opinion in their foreign policy decision-making. The article argues that a combination of three circumstances increased the willingness of the government to ignore the public. First, the Iraq issue had relatively low salience among the Polish voters, which decreased the domestic political risks of pursuing the policy. Second, the government's Iraq policy was supported by a considerable consensus among the political elite. Third, the political elites were unified in their perceptions that participating in the invasion would yield essential international gains for Poland.     

Evaluating Measures of Campaign Tone

Research on framing effects has demonstrated how elites can influence public opinion by the way they present and interpret political issues. However, these findings overwhelmingly stem from experimental settings that differ from how issues are typically discussed in real-world political situations. This study takes framing research to more realistic contexts by exploiting a natural experiment to examine the neglected role of political parties in framing effects. Examining the effects on public opinion of a sudden shift in how a major political party frames a salient issue, I demonstrate that parties can be powerful in shaping the policy preferences among their supporters. Yet, even strong partisans do not follow the party line uncritically. Rather, they judge the party frame according to their own beliefs about the problems surrounding the issue. Thus, party elites face the challenge of developing frames that resonate with their voters' preexisting beliefs if they want to shape policy preferences, even among their otherwise most loyal supporters. These dynamics have important implications for understanding interactions between political elites and the public.     

A New Kind of Competition: How American Producers Respond to Incoming Foreign Direct Investment

Domestic producers in the U.S. have not lobbied for formal restrictions on incoming foreign direct investment in the same way that they have for import barriers, even though both types of foreign competition depress profits. At the same time, many U.S.-based multinational corporations, despite their global orientation, have put forth demands for government policies that favor American ownership. Domestically based producers have conflicting economic interests; they want protection against foreign competitors, against the possibility of retaliation, and against the perceived injuries sustained from investment restrictions abroad. Economic interests, then, lead to indeterminate predictions of how firms will respond to IFDI. Firms will only demand policies that they see as feasible (which depends on the presence of domestic institutions to channel demands and supply the policy output) and legitimate (which depends on how the policy accords with widely held norms regarding the proper role of the state). Understanding the domestic responses to globalization requires more research on the political, as well as economic, origins of policy demands.     

Iran's perception of Western Europe: A study in national and foreign policy articulation

Acts of public communication cannot be isolated from other features of a political process. In fact, a study of public policy articulation can provide a valuable framework of national perceptions, demands and expectations through which a nation's evolving position in the international system may be analyzed. Iran offers a valuable opportunity in this regard because its policy articulation occurs through a limited number of communication channels‐one of which is the newspaper Kayhan. Kayhan has been chosen because of its clear capacity to reflect accurately the perceptions of Iran's political elite in regard to general national development and foreign policy objectives. This paper will concentrate on two reference periods‐one pre‐1973 and one post‐to analyze in terms of selected variables, Iran's evolving elite perceptions of its traditional relationship to Western Europe. Editorials and policy statements have been keyed to selected variables representing various channels of Iran's perceptions and then analyzed to chart shifting policy priorities among Iranian elites. The results indicate a radically altered self‐perception of both national development objectives and Iran's self‐perceived role in global power relationships.     

Understanding Broadcast Political Talk

In June 1989, when Chinese citizens were massacred at Tiananmen Square, and in August 1991, when antireform Communists attempted to lead a coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the American public in unusually high numbers paid attention to the crises; the public s views on policy matters were recorded in public opinion surveys; press coverage of both crises was exhaustive; and elite opinion about U.S. policy was widely aired through the media, exposing the American public to the full spectrum of elite opinion. In both cases elite opinion (voiced in the media and measured through content analysis) was compared with public opinion (measured in public opinion surveys) to test the theories of Walter Lippmann and others that the elites lead public opinion about American foreign policy. In neither case could the dependence of mass opinion on elite opinion be demonstrated. The two bodies of opinion appear to have formed and been expressed in two different, nonoverlapping worlds.     

当代哈萨克精英与社会转型

本文以哈萨克政治中的精英为研究对象,以历史脉络为线索,对哈萨克精英的形成过程、组成方式等进行分析,并探讨哈萨克社会转型与精英变迁之间的关系.在哈萨克汗国成立至今的五百多年间,哈萨克社会经历了两轮根本性的政治和社会转型,即苏维埃时期的社会主义化与独立后的资本主义化.而哈萨克精英则在此转型过程当中经历了三轮演变、两轮危机与...     

Local actors in the driver's seat: Transatlantic democracy promotion under regime competition in the Arab world

In studies of political transition, scholars started to explore the effect of competition between foreign policies of antipodal regimes on the political trajectories of transition countries, notably between traditional Western donors such as the European Union and the United States of America and regional authoritarian powers such as Saudi Arabia. Drawing on existing accounts, this article studies the conditions under which external actors can effectively steer local elite towards democratic reforms despite illiberal regional powers’ potential counteractions. We argue that the reform-oriented political elites in the recipient country are the ultimate judges in this competition for influence. If democracy promotion is credible, they will decide in favour of democratization, but only if the expected costs and benefits of democratic engagement resist solicitation by authoritarian powers. A study of post-Arab Spring democracy promotion in Tunisia supports the pivotal role of the external donors’ credibility in times of complex donor constellations.     

Think Tank Involvement in Foreign Policymaking in the Czech Republic and Poland

Studies on foreign policy think tanks have too often remained disconnected from the analysis of foreign policy outcomes. Yet, investigating the development, functions and influence of think tanks can provide valuable insights into the context in which foreign policy is formulated. The Czech Republic and Poland represent interesting comparative cases in this regard: while Polish think tanks are more numerous and tend to be better placed in international rankings, they are less involved in the policymaking process than their Czech counterparts. This contrast has mainly to do with the sociology of foreign policy elites and the role of political parties in both countries.     

Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of the Roosevelt Corollary

There is a broad consensus about the ways in which public opinion and domestic politics influenced American foreign policy during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. Historians generally concur that the American public was ignorant about and uninterested in international politics. They also agree that the president’s perception of public sentiment and his reading of the political landscape played essentially negative roles; that is, they were constraints at the point of implementation, rather than factors that shaped the substance of his policy, and were unquestionably a hindrance. Taking a fresh look at the origins of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine raises questions about this interpretation. Roosevelt believed that Americans were passionately opposed to the blockade of Venezuela by European Powers in late 1902 and early 1903 and viewed it as a threat to the Monroe Doctrine. This perception and Roosevelt’s 1904 presidential campaign therefore significantly affected the timing and content of the Roosevelt Corollary.     

Second Face of Security Strategies: Anglo-German and Anglo-Japanese Trade Concessions During the 1930s

Great powers can pursue deliberate Trojan horse policies to transform rising and threatening states into followers and supporters rather than challengers by altering their domestic political and economic institutions. I contend that a great power can use trade concessions, rather than punishment, to enable a favorable foreign policy coalition in a target country. The intent is to strengthen the political power of state and societal elites who have a stake in deepening international ties, while opponents of such policies will be weakened politically and economically. The societal winners will then apply pressure on the government to support their preferred outward-oriented grand strategy. I term this process the second face of security since it entails a less direct and more nuanced method of creating security. I examine Britain's commercial policies toward Germany and Japan during the 1930s to better understand second-face strategies. I argue that the intent of Britain's industrial and commercial policy was to strengthen conservative business, government officials, and economic circles in banking, light industry, and finished goods, and even heavy industry in order to steer Berlin and Tokyo away from rearmament, extreme autarky, and war.     

Regime Change and War: Domestic Politics and the Escalation of the Ethiopia--Eritrea Conflict

The 1998-2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea seems to defy rationalist explanations. This paper contends that the escalation of the war, from an isolated border clash to the largest conventional war of the past decade, has its roots in the domestic politics of each of the two states. Quasi-democratisation in both countries created environments in which political elites were able to bolster their popular legitimacy by utilising nationalist and aggressive foreign policy rhetoric. The Eritrean leadership believed that a rapid escalation of the border clash to full-scale war would undermine domestic popular support and topple the Ethiopian People's Democratic Front (EPRDF) regime. War escalation had the opposite effect, strengthening the EPRDF domestically and provoking a massive Ethiopian retaliation. War thus served nation- and state-building goals in both countries. This paper provides a theory of the domestic political roots of international conflict in transitional regimes and applies this theory to explain the escalation of a localised border conflict into a highly destructive, full-scale war.     

State formation and economic development in post-war Somaliland: the impact of the private sector in an unrecognised state

ABSTRACT

Unrecognised internationally, Somaliland operates as a hybrid political order where a range of state and non-state entities provide security, representation and social services. Local business elites have impacted state formation after war by lobbying against a range of regulations, providing the government with loans and contributions rather than paying sufficient taxes, and by hindering the development of sound financial institutions. The success of such activities has led to de facto protectionism, where foreign ventures have had limited access to the Somaliland market. While such protectionism may have negatively impacted economic development and growth opportunities, recent engagements by multinational corporations in the Berbera port suggest that foreign private investments risk sparking violent conflict. In contrast, domestic businessmen have played a role in preventing or resolving violent conflict at crucial stages in Somaliland’s recent history. Based on fieldwork in Somaliland, we argue that the impact of international corporate actors in post-war contexts needs to be understood in light of local culture and power dynamics, in which the political and economic roles of local business elites are central.     

Nomenklatura democratization: Electoral clientelism in post‐soviet Ukraine

Electoral clientelism could represent a significant threat to democratic consolidation in post‐communist states. Recent elections in Ukraine provide a prime example of the way in which communist‐era elites have been able to use electoral mechanisms to launder their political resources. Evidence suggests that economic disarray has created a situation in which large sectors of the electorate are willing to have their votes bought by political machines, rather than having them won through competition between parties offering different policy packages. Clientelism of this type appears to be engaged in by two types of political actor in Ukraine: left wing parties and individual members of the economic and political elite.     

Thinking Outside the Bloc: Explaining the Foreign Policies of Small States

What explains change and continuity in the foreign policy behavior of small states? Given the proliferation of small states over the past century, this topic has received relatively little systematic attention. When researchers do focus on small states, the emphasis has been on external and international factors, and the primary conclusion has been that small states are more likely to bandwagon with threatening great powers than to balance against them. In this article, we suggest that state- and individual-level variables can play a greater role in explaining the foreign policy behavior of small states and that small states sometimes choose to balance rather than bandwagon, especially when elite ideology is deeply embedded in formulating foreign policy. We develop this claim in terms of elite ideas about the identity and purpose of the state and examine its plausibility using primary sources and exclusive interviews with the security and foreign policy elite in Georgia. We find that this approach offers a more plausible explanation for Georgia's otherwise puzzling foreign policy behavior than frameworks that focus on the international or regional system. Although Georgia may be the exception that proves the rule, it can advance an understanding of the conditions under which standard explanations of small-state foreign policy behavior may miss their predictive mark and when incorporating the role of elite ideas can provide additional explanatory leverage.     

Response to Herman and Chomsky

Under what conditions can political elites influence elections to favor their preferred policy outcomes by strategically crafting the language printed on the ballot? Drawing on psychological and political theories of voter cognition, we design a survey experiment to assess the degree to which ballot text can influence voter behavior in direct democracy elections and identify factors that may moderate such effects. We show that the language used to describe a ballot measure does indeed have the potential to affect election outcomes, including measures dealing with contentious social issues affecting individual rights. We also find, however, that exposing individuals to basic campaign information—in our case, endorsements from prominent interest groups—greatly attenuates the framing effects of ballot text. Our results suggest that the extent to which ballot text matters depends on the vibrancy of the campaign environment and other information available to voters.