Editor's note

This article examines the argument that the ability of a government to generate “audience costs”—to create a situation, that is, in which it would pay a domestic political price for backing down—plays a key role in determining how international crises run their course. It does this by looking at a dozen great power crises to see how well various aspects of the audience costs argument hold up in the light of the historical evidence. The audience costs mechanism, it turns out, does not play a major role in any of those crises—a conclusion which, the author claims, has certain important methodological implications.     

Editor's note

This study applies Elisabeth Noelle‐Neumann's spiral of silence theory to the controversial issue of whether children with AIDS should be allowed to attend public school. The study tests the theory's hypotheses in light of two content analyses of the media's treatment of the issue. The findings offer tentative and qualified support for Noelle‐Neumann's theoretical propositions about the relationship between individuals' perceptions of the issue and the media's tenor of the issue; particularly that of television. The findings suggest the need to address the role of other agents of influence, including reference groups, and to use time‐based data to unravel the causal order of the relationships.     

Titles of note

Laurence Martin and John Roper (ed.), Towards a Common Defence Policy, Paris: Western European Union Institute for Security Studies, 1995, vii + 155pp.,

Jeffrey Simon, Central European Civil‐Military Relations and European Expansion, McNair Paper 39 Washington, DC: National Defense University Institute for National Strategic Studies, 1995, 157pp.     

Title of note

Sergei Rogov et al., Security Concerns of the New Russia. Volume 1: The Challenges of Defending Russia, (eds.) Henry Gaffhey Jr. and Paul Olkhovsky (Alexandria VA: Center for Naval Analysis, 1995), 90pp.