Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: Challenges to the Almond-Lippmann Consensus Mershon Series: Research Programs and Debates

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Wiley and The International Studies Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Studies Quarterly. This article surveys and assesses theories and research on public opinion and foreign policy. Most of the evidence is drawn from the literature on the United States. Three twentieth-century wars have had a significant impact on theory and scholarship. World War I-the first public relations war-and postwar efforts to create a new international order directed much attention to the nature of public opinion and its impact on foreign affairs, issues on which realists and liberals came to quite different conclusions. The period surrounding World War II coincided with the development of scientific polling. Much of the attention during and immediately after the war focused on the extent to which the public might support or oppose an internationalist American role. Extensive research during the first two decades after World War II yielded a broad agreement (the "Almond-Lippmann consensus") on three propositions about public opinion: (1) it is volatile and thus provides inadequate foundations for stable and effective foreign policies, (2) it lacks coherence or structure, but (3) in the final analysis, it has little if any impact on foreign policy. The Vietnam War and its aftermath stimulated a new outburst of research activity on public opinion and foreign policy, much of which has challenged each of these three propositions. The article concludes with suggestions for further research efforts, including: (1) case studies employing archival sources to assess more directly the impact of public opinion, (2) cross-national studies, (3) development of standard questions in order to encourage better cumulation of survey results, and (4) research that will enable us to distinguish findings that are timeand context-bound from those that transcend the Cold War period.Author's note: For helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper I am grateful to Stephen 1 Recent research has found that the foreign policies of democracies are indeed different from those of other polities and, further, that democracies do n-ot engage in war against each other.

Unidade partidária e política externa na América Latina

“…Por outro lado, há a percepção de um baixo interesse do eleitorado nos temas de política externa (Lima e Santos, 2001;Santos, 2006;Oliveira, 2003;Stuhldreher, 2003;Ava e Merke, 2011). Esse fator decorreria do elevado grau de complexidade da política, aparentemente sem consequência alguma ao cidadão como indivíduo, diferentemente de temas centrais da política doméstica mais imediatos, como a política econômica e social (Rosenau, 1967;Holsti, 1992). Podemos vislumbrar duas possíveis consequências no comportamento legislativo advindas da hipótese de desinteresse eleitoral na política externa.…”

Cry Havoc: Rhetorical Mobilization and Foreign Policy Decision Making During War-threatening Crises

“…The "Almond-Lippmann consensus," as Holsti (1992Holsti ( , 2009) brands it, maintains that because the average citizen pays scant attention to foreign policy, public opinion in matters of foreign affairs is fickle, unreasoned, and, most importantly for this inquiry, causally inert.…”

“…Although the Almond-Lippmann thesis retains many adherents, the apparent correlation of the anti-war movement with US policy changes in the later years of the Vietnam War reenergized the debate over the capacity of public opinion to influence foreign policy (Aldrich et al 2006;Holsti 1992). Challenging the conception of an inattentive, irrational, and easily ignored and/or manipulated public is a growing consensus that public opinion in matters of foreign policy is far more rational and consistent than the Almond-Lippmann thesis suggests (e.g., Caspary 1970;Jentleson 1992;Jentleson & Britton 1998;Nincic 1992;Popkin 1994;Russett 1990;Shapiro & Page 1988;Sobel 1993;Verba et al 1967), that both the degree of public attentiveness to foreign policy and elite attentiveness to the opinions of the general public are subject to variation, (e.g., Jacobs & Page 2005;Page & Shapiro 1983), and that democratic publics are far more resistant to manipulation than the deception thesis implies (e.g., Owen, 1997;Reiter 2012;Zaller 1992).…”

“…Casualty avoidance is one example. An executive fighting an already unpopular war will strive to 21 The "Almond-Lippmann consensus" (Holsti 1992) maintains that the percentage of Americans who are attentive to foreign affairs is miniscule. See especially Almond (1960); Converse (1962);Lippmann (1922);Rosenau (1961).…”

“…There is an impressive profusion of excellent studies that support the bottom-up thesis, that public opinion shapes foreign policy decision making (e.g., Aldrich et al 2006;Caspary 1970;Holsti 1992;Key 1961;Mueller 1973;Nincic 1992;Page & Shapiro 1982, 1983Popkin 1991;Russett 1990;Shapiro & Page 1988). These studies counterbalance and equally impressive volume of compelling arguments that tell a top-down story, that leaders manufacture consent for foreign policy decisions they have already made (e.g., Almond 1960Almond [1950Cohen 1973;Entman 2004;Herman & Chomsky 1988;Jacobs & Shapiro 1995Kull, Ramsay & Lewis 2003;Lippmann 2007Lippmann [1922; Margolis & Mauser 1989;Mearsheimer 2001Mearsheimer , 2011Saunders forthcoming;Verba et al 1967).…”