The Public and the Assembly: Foreign Public Opinion and Voting in the UNGA

Abstract

Does public opinion of foreign countries matter for foreign policy? Scholars examining this question have largely focused on highly visible foreign-policy issues. I argue that public attitudes toward foreign countries influence foreign policy towards those countries beyond salient issues by shaping the environment within which foreign-policy decisions are made. Government interests in maintaining a coherent foreign-policy agenda and bureaucrats’ career incentives combine to link foreign public opinion to non-salient aspects of foreign policy. I analyze the relationship between mass attitudes toward foreign countries and measures of voting similarity in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) using a crossnational dataset. I find evidence that public opinion toward a foreign country is associated with UNGA voting with that country. Consequently, when it comes to foreign policy, both salient and non-salient actions appear to be influenced by public opinion.