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Performing on Cue? The Formation of Public Opinion Toward War
Abstract
The public's inability to gain direct personal experience or information about American military operations means that individuals must rely on cues to form opinions about war. But in an environment filled will potential cues, which ones do Americans tend to rely on when deciding whether to support an ongoing military operation? This experimental study uses two distinct cues within the context of a newspaper story about the Iraq War to test four theoretical models of the American public's reliance on cues. The results provide fairly consistent support for the "surprising events" model of opinion formation, which suggests that individuals will attend to news events that conflict with their expectations in an effort to update their attitudes toward the war. These results also provide support for the cost/benefit perspective on the formation of public opinion toward war that underpins much of the literature on casualty tolerance during military conflicts.
... When a stakeholder provides information that primarily serves their own interests, recipients tend to perceive the information as biased (McCroskey, 1972). In essence, the public tends to accept information from a source only when they believe that the source possesses accurate knowledge and will not deceive them (Gelpi, 2010). As Dai and Luqiu (2020) found, political advertisements, which have little persuasiveness when featured on a news outlet controlled by the government, tend to be more persuasive when presented on an independent media platform and perceived as news. ...
... A statistical procedure helped us gather data from a representative sample of social media users. Although some scholars believe there are differences in political leanings between a matched opt-in panel and a random sample, Gelpi (2010) suggests that the biases produced by sample-matching techniques are modest. ...
In Chinese cyberspace, mass media and opinion leaders struggle over socio-political discourses. While the former propagates positive views on national policies, the latter often expresses dissenting opinions that challenge authoritarian rule. In the context of China–US competition, do citizens still perceive non-state sources as more credible? Taking the Belt and Road Initiative as the issue, this experimental study investigates how Chinese netizens process conflicting information from a government-owned news agency and two opinion leaders with varying levels of source credibility. Our findings reveal that high-credibility propagandistic news is effective, whereas low-credibility propaganda is not. Furthermore, an opinion leader perceived as independent surpasses government propaganda in influence, regardless of information credibility. However, when an opinion leader is perceived as backed by a rival nation, the former’s influence is counterproductive unless their message credibility exceeds that of propaganda. This study sheds light on the prevalence of nationalistic sentiment in China, which has raised concerns about the manipulation of Chinese netizens by hostile forces.
... At an individual level, incumbents might worry that unfavorable public opinion and political outcry could result in defeat in the next election (Tomz et al., 2020). Therefore, the linkage between public opinion, local affairs, and international relations is prescriptively important (Efimova & Strebkov, 2020;Foyle, 1999;Gelpi, 2010;Holsti, 1992;Jacobs & Shapiro, 1999;Tomz et al., 2020). ...
... A growing literature on foreign policy supports this view by extracting public opinion and inclination to acquire insights into international relations (Bell & Quek, 2018;Chu, 2018;Herrmann, 2017;Weiss & Dafoe, 2019). Although with valid reasons and dictated by their research designs, most of these studies focused only on public opinion in countries directly participating in the military conflict (e.g., Americans on the Iraq War (Gelpi, 2010)). One issue with this approach is the difficulty in accurately capturing "true" public opinion, conspicuously in territories with repressive and authoritarian forms of government. ...
With the aggravation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the rising involvement of foreign powers, it has become more substantial to identify whether an endorsement or condemnation of war efforts is the universal message. This goal is empowered by the clear literature on the vital linkage between public opinion and international relations. Thus, we investigated the sentiments and emotions of the international community on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A total of 27,894 tweets posted within the first day in the #UkraineRussia hashtag were analyzed. Results show that "war", "people", "world", "putin”, and "peace" were some of the most frequently occurring words in the tweets. There were more negative sentiments than positive sentiments, and sadness was the most salient emotion. To date, this study is the first to examine the Russo-Ukrainian War and one of the few sentiment and emotion analyses for exploring Twitter data in the context of war.
... The literature on foreign policy attitudes has identified multiple factors such as ideology (Herrmann, Tetlock & Visser, 1999;Holsti, 2004), elite and media cues (Gelpi, 2010;Gaines et al., 2007), personality traits and values (Bayram, 2016;Kam & Kinder, 2007;Kertzer et al., 2014), social networks (Radziszewski, 2013), attachment to national identity (Becker, 2009;Telhami & Barnett, 2002), and strategic factors (Jentleson, 1992;Gelpi, Feaver & Reifler, 2006) playing role in shaping an individual's attitudes toward foreign policy choices. These studies, however, focus primarily on what causes individuals to develop preferences in regard to the foreign policy choices of their own countries. ...
... In fact, it is for this reason that referring to the policy preferences of foreign states in order to understand how they are viewed abroad is problematic. It is not the actual policies, but the perceptions of these policies, which are often biased and distorted by the elite and media conditioning people's attitudes towards the source of these policies (Gelpi, 2010;Gaines et al., 2007). Indeed, Blaydes & Linzer (2012) also demonstrate the role of an elite component in anti-American attitudes among Middle Easterners, which is fed by a secularist-Islamist cleavage. ...
How do people react to foreign actors’ involvement in a conflict in a third party? Many studies have explored how individuals react to their country’s foreign policy choices, as well as how they react to the policies targeting their countries. Yet, we know less about how they form their attitudes regarding the policies not directly aiming at their own countries, and hence, their well-being. Building on intergroup relations and employing a social psychological approach, this article argues that identity serves as a heuristic through which individuals evaluate foreign actors, and their policies targeting in- and out-group members living abroad. Conducting a survey experiment in Turkey, I test my claims in the context of the Syrian Civil War. The findings of the experiments reveal that transnational identity ties have an impact on attitude formation: Turks and Kurds express positive/negative attitudes towards the USA and Russia conditional on whether their involvement to the conflict favor/disfavor their in-group/out-group across the border. Broadly speaking, the results show that domestic cleavages are of importance in predicting the public’s reaction to the developments in international politics, which implies a necessity of taking domestic politics in designing soft power promotion and public diplomacy strategies for many global and regional powers in attempting to win hearts and minds abroad.
... Gartner (2008, see also Gartner and Gelpi 2016) conducted a series of experiments on public responses to casualties and found consistent evidence in support of what a "rational expectations" model of opinion formation whereby individuals updated their attitudes toward war based on reasoned inferences from the exposure to new battlefield information. Similarly, in an experiment comparing the impact of battlefield information as reported by news media to elite rhetorical cues, C. Gelpi (2010) found that individuals updated their attitudes in response to surprising information that challenged their prior beliefs rather than rhetoric from the president. ...
... ectations camp find clear evidence of these effects (C. Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler 2009;Grieco et al. 2011;Golby, Feaver, and Dropp 2017). Second, when presented with new information, individuals tend to update their beliefs in ways consistent with rational expectations theory, although the effects are more muted for strong partisans (Gartner 2008;C. Gelpi 2010, 2016, Wood and Porter 2016. And third, while the formation of individual level attitudes can be influenced by partisan biases, American public opinion in the aggregate tends to respond to international events much as the "rational public" scholars would expect (Shapiro and Page 1988;Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson 2002). For example, Ber ...
The vast literature on the impact of democratic political institutions on foreign policy behavior has yielded some of the most important developments in our understanding of violence and war over the past thirty years. The Journal of Conflict Resolution has played a prominent role in this growth and development. Critics of the democratic peace have dismissed this literature as a correlation in search of an explanation. However, I argue that the democratic peace literature and its various descendants represent a surprisingly productive example of an empirically focused and puzzle-oriented research program that has produced cumulative scientific knowledge regarding our understanding of international politics. This sustained investigation of democracy and foreign policy has yielded an increasingly robust and sophisticated model of democratic constraint that is the consequence of a progressive research program that compares favorably to earlier research programs that emphasized clashing paradigms of international politics.
... There are a wide set of legal principles judges employ, and scholarship provides little insight into the public's attitudes over their use (with a few exceptions [e.g., Greene et al., 2011;Krewson and Owens, 2021], which we discuss further below). This contrasts with a literature that directly explores how the public wants political officials to behave in other institutional settings (e.g., Gelpi, 2010;Carpenter, 2014;Lapinski et al., 2016;Reeves and Rogowski, 2016). ...
We investigate the American public's attitudes over an integral component of judicial behavior: the legal principles judges employ when making decisions. Our theoretical perspective argues that political preferences shape individuals’ attitudes over how judges apply legal principles, mirroring ideological divisions expressed by political elites and judges. Using an original battery of questions, we find high support across all Americans for the use of certain, well-established legal principles, but stark differences in how liberals and conservatives evaluate the use of more controversial principles. In a survey experiment, we find that agreement (disagreement) between an individual's attitudes over the use of legal principles and the reasoning contained in a Supreme Court opinion is associated with increased (decreased) support for the Court decision.
... Elites are "individuals-often but not exclusively government officials-who by role, experience, or expertise are in a position to comment on matters of public concern and are seen to be in that position by those who would contribute to public understanding" (Brody, 1991: 65). The United States (US) public takes political cues from various domestic elites, including government officials, party leaders, generals, journalists, experts, and even celebrities (Berinsky, 2007;Gelpi, 2010;Golby et al., 2018;Guisinger and Saunders, 2017;Pease and Brewer, 2008). Americans also rely on cues from foreign elites when forming their attitudes on international affairs (Hayes and Guardino, 2011;Thompson, 2009). ...
This study argues that the adoption of a policy by the European Union increases popular support for that policy. Elite cue theory implies that this effect only materializes among those members of the public who trust European Union institutions. Moreover, European Union member states’ unanimous policy support conveys a stronger cue than the Union’s policy endorsement despite vocal dissent. The argument is tested through original survey experiments and the quasi-experimental analysis of a survey that was fielded while the European Council endorsed a salient policy proposal. Support of the policy surged immediately after this decision—but only among Europeans who trust the Union. Experiments in original national surveys confirm that citizens who trust the European Union respond to signals from Brussels. Unanimity in the Council of the European Union augments the impact of these cues.
... Moreover, political elites display some agency as they may sway citizens toward confrontation or peace. Still, despite the well-documented role of the political elites in shaping public perceptions of foreign policy issues (Brewer, 2006;Baum and Potter, 2008;Kertzer and Zeitzoff, 2017;Gelpi, 2010), existing theoretical frameworks in IR have neglected the mechanisms through which domestic elites interpret and integrate references to global power transitions into political communications. ...
Unlabelled:
When and how do the American political elites react discursively to China as a rising power? Do they depict it as an economic or military risk? What role do discursive references to China play in the US populist discourses? Relying on the thematic and critical discourse analysis of all the American presidential debates, this article explores the way US politicians portray China throughout three eras marked by distinct global power configurations. Several types of discourses have been identified. In contrast to the belligerent rhetoric of the early Cold War, when China was framed as a major military threat, after 2004, presidential candidates started referring to Beijing as an economic rival. By 2008, the emerging bipartisan consensus centered on China as mainly a trade competitor. By contrast, populist narratives in 2016 and 2020 stood out because they included emotional appeals and inflated the risks of the Sino-American rivalry to mobilize voters. In doing so, the populists sought to forge coalitions in favor of protectionist policies among those voters, who were employed in manufacturing sectors facing growing international competition. The anti-China mentions reached a peak during the 2020 debates amidst the pandemic when the populist candidate used biased language, relying on tropes resembling the 19th century racist "yellow peril" rhetoric.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11366-023-09857-z.
... Elites are "individuals -often but not exclusively government officials -who by role, experience, or expertise are in a position to comment on matters of public concern and are seen to be in that position by those who would contribute to public understanding ..." (Brody, 1991, 65). The U.S. public takes political cues from various domestic elites, including government officials, party leaders, generals, journalists, experts, and even celebrities (e.g., Golby, Feaver and Dropp, 2018;Guisinger and Saunders, 2017;Gelpi, 2010;Pease and Brewer, 2008;Berinsky, 2007). Americans also rely on cues from foreign elites when forming their attitudes on international affairs (Hayes and Guardino, 2011;Thompson, 2009). ...
This study argues that the EU's adoption of a policy increases popular support for that policy. Elite cue theory implies that this effect only materializes among Europeans who trust the Union. Moreover, EU member states' unanimous policy support conveys a stronger cue than the Union's policy endorsement despite vocal dissent. The argument is tested through original survey experiments and the quasi-experimental analysis of a survey that was fielded while the European Council endorsed a salient policy proposal. Support of the policy surged immediately after this decision-but only among Europeans who trust the Union. Experiments in original national surveys confirm that citizens who trust the EU respond to signals from Brussels. Unanimity in the Council of the EU augments the impact of these cues. Word count: 9,279 * I thank Jeffry Frieden, Roman Hlatki, Tobias Hofmann, Michal Parízek, and audience members at annual meetings of APSA and IPES in 2021 and ISA in 2022 for helpful comments. All errors are mine.
... This is because an average citizen's knowledge in relation to political issues is low (Converse 2006(Converse , 2000 and so they are unlikely to understand the issues at stake thoroughly. As the cost of becoming a well-informed citizen is high, an average citizen relies on cues from a range of sources including political and social elite, political parties, labour unions etc. to guide their policy attitudes (Gelpi 2010;Jones and Brewer 2020;Leeper and Slothuus 2014). Traditionally, the discussion of issues and mobilisation of opinion relied heavily on the mass media (McCombs 2014;Zaller 1992). ...
This study explores public sentiment in relation to the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) by analysing 18,481 tweets mentioning ACFTA over a three-month period. The findings highlight the dominance of actors outside the African continent in the public discourse on ACFTA thus indicating the importance of the African diaspora and foreign interests in framing the debate and influencing public opinion on the continent. They also highlight the salient issues in the public debate on ACFTA to include its potential effects on national economies and jobs as well as the potential for its exploitation by foreign interests. The study also points at a disconnect between governments and politicians promoting ACFTA on the one hand and the average citizen in Africa on the other as it shows a general negative sentiment in all regions and age groups, and more particularly in West Africa and amongst males towards ACFTA.
... In addition, in democratic countries, public opinion has been shown to play an important role in shaping the incentives of elected officials when they design state policy. While the extent to which leaders can exert top-down influence on public opinion is a central debate in the American politics field, with some scholars contending that public opinion is primarily a top-down process (Zaller 1992;Bartels 2000;Lenz 2013), others emphasize the conditions under which bottom-up processes predominate (Edwards 2006;Gelpi 2010;Levendusky and Horowitz 2012;Kertzer and Zeitzoff 2017). For example, in Western democracies, it is likely that there are some limitations to how strongly the government can control public opinion, particularly on issues that are familiar to the public (Canes-Wrone and Shotts 2004), when elections are close (Canes-Wrone and Shotts 2004), and when there is a robust opposition and independent media (Baum and Potter 2015). ...
Cybersecurity represents a unique national security challenge for states: data breaches with the potential for national, macro-level consequences are most likely to occur at the micro-level, originating through the security errors of individual computer users. Thus, aspects of national cybersecurity can often critically depend on the personal attitudes and behavior of average citizens connecting online. However, to date, theories of state cybersecurity have almost exclusively focused on the macro-level, and very little is known about how the mass public reacts to—and protects themselves from—cybersecurity threats. This study addresses this gap, drawing on psychological theories of risk perception to explain why the public simultaneously reports great concern about cybersecurity, yet does little to protect their personal safety online. Using a novel survey experiment, we examine how exposure to different types of data breaches impacts citizens’ cyber risk assessments, personal online behavior, and support for various national cybersecurity policies. We find that baseline concerns about cybersecurity and knowledge about safe online practices are very low. However, exposure to a personally relevant data breach heightens risk perception and increases willingness to engage in safer online practices. But these effects are circumscribed—actual online behavior is more resistant to change. These results have important implications for the design of effective state cybersecurity policy.
... Studies looking at the effects of exposure to information on attitude change find that Independents' opinions tend to move in the same direction as the information provided (e.g. Gelpi, 2010;Hayes & Guardino, 2011) since their opinions are not as crystallized as those of partisans (Zaller et al., 1992). Republicans and Independents (including leaners) are thus expected to show variation in their attitudes toward Muslim vs. Christian refugees depending on whether or not they are exposed to Fox News rhetoric. ...
Existing research posits that Muslims in the West tend to face more prejudice than other groups because they not only belong to ethnic outgroups but also religious and behavioral ones. Building on this literature, this study leverages the case of the Syrian refugee crisis to assess whether White Americans are less supportive of resettling Muslim refugees compared to Christian ones. I explore how different cable news outlets discussing refugees and experimentally test whether framing Syrian refugees as Christian or Muslim impacts the attitudes of regular viewers of cable news differently. Findings show a general preference for Christian compared to Muslim Syrian refugees. I find that conservative media emphasize threat pertaining to refugees more often than liberal media. Finally, I find that framing Syrian refugees as Muslim results in decreased support for refugee resettlement among Republicans and Independents who frequently watch Fox News but not among regular viewers of CNN or MSNBC.
... Other research has explored the connections between news consumers and news content. For instance, studies have focused on public perceptions of credibility regarding Iraq war reporting (Choi, Watt, & Lynch, 2006), the effect of exposure to war coverage on audience response and opinion formation (Andén-Papadopoulos, 2008;Dahmen, 2015;Gelpi, 2010), and public knowledge of military-or veteran-related issues (Gribble et al., 2012;Ministry of Defense, 2013). ...
Military-related journalism serves an important purpose, and has a special relevance in the modern era of nearly continuous American military involvement. Yet, conflicting goals have long made relations between journalists and the military difficult, and both institutions have faced abundant criticism regarding the role each plays in providing information to the public. This study seeks to provide additional perspective on the topic, and involves a consideration of the views held by individual military service members and veterans regarding military-related news. Data gathered from interviews suggests that, while a diversity of perspectives exist, widespread frustration with military-related reporting is very common among the military population.
... Several studies have demonstrated the dialectical process whereby one way of representing social reality helped to legitimate one way of understanding it. Many of these studies (Chang & Mehan, 2007;Ferrari, 2007;Gelpi, 2010) have focused on the processes by which politicians and governments worked to put forward coherent positions in relation to the 2003 occupation of Iraq. points out that descriptions of events are "potentially arbitrary, variable, rhetorically designed, or interactionally occasioned" (p. ...
The articles in this collection were produced within the framework of the MA program “Maestría en Inglés”, Facultad de Lenguas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina. They are based on selected MA theses and dissertations on Applied Linguistics and Literary Studies. The collection focuses on EFL teacher training, pronunciation assessment, academic writing, Critical Discourse Analysis and Literature.
... However, the dynamics of "rally-round-the flag" are highly dependent on the costs of conflict (casualties) and the longevity of the wars. Analysis from the cost/benefit perspective about the formation of public opinion on wars that involve the United States concentrates on this casualty tolerance (Gartner 2008;Gelpi 2010), though Adam Berinsky (2007) emphasizes the cues that the ordinary public receives from the national elites in forming their beliefs about the level of support for the war efforts. Most of this work has been conducted in democracies where miscalculating the public mood can have electoral repercussions for elites. ...
In 2014, Ukraine descended into war. The geographically delimited nature of the war in Ukraine, confined to two eastern oblasts, raises the questions of whether war changes geopolitical attitudes in regions proximate to the fighting. Using attitudinal surveys with similar questions in April and December 2014 in the contested territory of southeastern Ukraine three possible effects--that war polarizes populations along national lines, that war rallies the majority to a patriotic cause, and that war induces strategic hedging among non-core nationality populations in government-controlled regions—are examined and generally supported by the survey results.
... Likewise, in a vignette experiment focused on public support for air strikes, Johns and Davies (2012) randomly assigned the regime type and religion of a hypothetical belligerent state acquiring nuclear weapons to learn if publics might be more hawkish toward an autocratic or Islamic enemy compared to a democratic or Christian opponent. Other studies have similarly used survey experiments with hypotheticals to explore public support for war and other uses of force given different randomly assigned aspects of the vignette context Gelpi 2010;Tomz and Weeks 2013;Wallace 2013a, b). ...
When do members of civil society view international election observers as legitimate? Motivated by recent work on the legitimacy of international organizations, we evaluate what type of information affects non-governmental organizations’ (NGOs) beliefs about international election observer groups, which include both intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) that seek to exercise authority, often regarding the same elections. Specifically, we examine the effects of two different types of information: information about the observers’ objective substantive features versus information that serves as heuristic shortcuts. Three survey-based experiments – one in Kenya and the others global – prime NGO respondents with information about both real and hypothetical election observer groups in ways intended to affect their votes for which organizations should be invited to observe the next election in their countries. In general, the primes about the objective substantive sources of legitimacy beliefs failed to produce consistent, measurable changes in responses among NGOs across both the hypothetical and real-world observer groups. That is, telling NGOs about the qualities of the organizations work failed to change perceptions. What mattered instead, however, was an organizations’ prominence or type, features that likely served as heuristic shortcuts. The findings, however, varied depending on whether we used hypothetical or real organizations. With hypothetical organizations, NGO respondents preferred other NGOs, suggesting an isomorphism heuristic. Conversely, with real organizations NGO respondents preferred more prominent and well-known intergovernmental organizations. This suggests that the isomorphism and prominence of observer organizations can drive legitimacy beliefs. Given the differences between using real versus hypothetical organizations, however, it also cautions against using hypothetical actors in survey experiments.
... The assumption here is that Israelis would be more likely to defend their own country's conduct. Unexpected messages are often seen as more credible, and criticism of one's own political party has been found to be influential because of its relative novelty (Gelpi, 2010;Groeling and Baum, 2008). American viewers might also perceive criticism of one's own state as somewhat unusual or unexpected. ...
As foreign sources in the news might help the public assess their home country’s foreign policies, scholars have recently turned attention to the effects of foreign source cues on domestic public opinion. Using original survey experiments, we explore the effects of domestic (United States) and foreign (Israeli, British, and Palestinian) criticism of Israel’s military actions and settlements on US attitudes towards the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. We find that foreign cues by government officials and non-governmental organisations have modest effects, and are generally not more influential than domestic cues. We also show that individuals might discount foreign criticism of Israel in the context of US bipartisan support for Israel. While our experiments reveal some heterogeneous effects related to partisanship, we are sceptical of significant movement in opinion in response to foreign cues. These findings provide insights into foreign source cue effects beyond the context of the use of military force.
... Experimental work, whether within the context of the actual conflicts or a hypothetical intervention (Gartner 2008;Gelpi 2010), largely follows the same pattern. Crawford, Lawrence, and Lebovic (2017) identified variance in public support based on the value of targets and the potential for civilian casualties. ...
What explains the American public’s support for military conflict with North Korea? Despite increased rhetoric, few analyses address American public opinion or whether priming the public to consider casualties influences their perceptions. The results of an experimental survey design suggest that mentioning the human cost—even without explicit references to American casualties—reduces support for American military action against North Korea but not broader perceptions of North Korea.
... In the post-Cold War era, researchers such as Richard Sobel, James Larson, Bruce Jentleson, Rebecca Britton, Eugene Wiittkoph, Miroslav Nincic, Bruce Russett, Ronald Hinckley, Peter Feaver, Christopher Gelpi, and Richard Eichenberg studied issues like public tolerance of war casualties, international trade, and military involvement (Jentleson 1992). Although no consensus exists among these scholars as to what determines people's attitudes toward these problems, most scholars assume that the public is both reasonable and reasoned (Gelpi 2010;Aldrich et al. 2006). ...
This chapter combines quantitative and qualitative research methods—content analysis of newspaper reports and analysis of health opinion polls to assess impact of media frames in shaping public opinion. Focusing on framing of transnational infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, SARS, and avian flu) as medical dangers, economic risks, security threats, and human rights concerns, the chapter draws attention to the role of media frames in enlisting active support and engaging public opinion for effective policy implementation to control spread of these infectious diseases. The findings also address the debate on the role and importance of domestic public opinion as a factor in domestic and foreign policy decisions of governments in an increasingly globalized world.
Conventional wisdom on alliances proposes that leaders comply with alliances because the public opposes violating alliance commitments. However, this assumes that the public can easily judge whether or not a particular policy violates an alliance treaty. This article challenges this assumption and develops a theory that elites have the opportunity to shape public understanding as to whether an action violates an alliance treaty. It shows that while alliance commitments continue to have an important impact on public opinion, signals from unified elites can significantly reduce public pressure to support an ally by arguing that the alliance treaty does not create a legal obligation to intervene. In a pair of experiments on large samples of American adults, we found that a unified signal from the president and the Senate opposition leader can significantly reduce support for sending troops to the embattled ally. Consistent with elite cueing theory, the president’s ability to move public opinion in this manner is eliminated if the Senate opposition leader disagrees with his argument.
Domestic support is crucial for state leaders facing international challenges. Previous studies suggest that in both democracies and autocracies, citizens tend to support their government in resisting external coercion, and state leaders would pay high political costs for backing down, especially after they have publicly committed to standing firm. But it is also frequently assumed that the public would grow weary of international conflict and turn to peaceful settlement. Empirical research on how and why this presumed shift in public opinion would take place remains relatively scarce. This article tackles this issue by examining the dynamics of Chinese public opinion during the US–China trade war in 2018. With a two-wave survey of Chinese citizens, I explore how the government’s strategy affected public approval through two causal mechanisms: the state’s reputation for resolve and economic impact. I find that respondents’ support for standing firm was strengthened by gains in reputation for resolve but attenuated by anticipated economic losses. I also find that respondents were more sensitive to the anticipated economic losses of a prolonged trade war over time and that respondents’ preferences were constantly conditional on their pre-existing anti-American sentiment. These findings illuminate the nuanced considerations of an authoritarian audience whose calculations extend beyond sheer nationalist beliefs and dynamically respond to changing circumstances.
Can religious leaders who oppose state violence reduce its use? Communal elites, such as religious leaders, may oppose human rights violations. This article argues that these leaders, part of institutions embedded in local communities and with influence based on traditional power, reduce repression when they oppose dictatorships. The argument’s main implication is tested in Argentina during the Dirty War of its 1976–1983 military dictatorship, using original archival data on the country’s Catholic bishops. Opposed bishops are associated with reduced disappearances and killings. A variety of evidence is consistent with opposed bishops taking two types of actions to resist repression: assisting likeminded local agents and participating in human rights advocacy campaigns. The findings point to the importance of influential civil society actors in reducing state violence.
When is the public more likely to defer to elites on foreign policy? Existing research suggests the public takes its cues from co-partisans, but what happens when co-partisans disagree? We argue that the public defers to elites whose prior experiences signal expertise and favorable intentions. Elites with backgrounds in socially esteemed institutions are thus especially powerful cue-givers, even when the core competencies of those institutions are not directly related to the issue at hand. Using two conjoint experiments, we find that the American public defers to more experienced elites generally, but is especially deferential toward elites with experience in trusted institutions: the public defers more to elites with military backgrounds, even when considering non-military issues. The theory and findings suggest that where elites sat in the past shapes how much power they wield once standing in office.
In this era of hyper-polarization and partisan animosity, do people incorporate the viewpoints of their political opponents? Perhaps not. An important body of research, in fact, finds that the provision of information about opponents’ policy views leads survey respondents to reflexively adopt the opposite position. In this paper, we demonstrate that such findings arise from incomplete experimental designs and a particular measurement strategy. In a series of experiments that vary information about both parties’ positions simultaneously and that solicit continuous, rather than discrete, policy positions, we find that partisans update their beliefs in accordance with the positions of Republican and Democratic leaders alike. Partisans are not perennially determined to disagree. Rather, they are often willing to incorporate opposing viewpoints about a wide range of policy issues.
What explains UN member-state personnel withdrawals from peacekeeping operations? Withdrawals can occur at the behest of contributor states, as contributions are voluntary. We argue that withdrawal is motivated by violence in the peacekeeping operation host state. Research shows that well-resourced missions improve the prospects of success. Personnel withdrawals are dangerous, as they are more likely when continued deployments are needed. We thus need to understand why some states resist withdrawing in the face of instability. We argue that democracies are more stalwart than their counterparts given their constituency interests, the democratic benefits of peacekeeping and the political cover offered to democratic policymakers.
What is causing the American public to move more openly into alt-right terrain? What explains the uptick in anti-immigrant hysteria, isolationism, and an increasing willingness to support alternatives to democratic governance? The Everyday Crusade provides an answer. The book points to American Religious Exceptionalism (ARE), a widely held religious nationalist ideology steeped in myth about the nation's original purpose. The book opens with a comprehensive synthesis of research on nationalism and religion in American public opinion. Making use of survey data spanning three different presidential administrations, it then develops a new theory of why Americans form extremist attitudes, based on religious exceptionalism myths. The book closes with an examination of what's next for an American public that confronts new global issues, alongside existing challenges to perceived cultural authority. Timely and enlightening, The Everyday Crusade offers a critical touchstone for better understanding American national identity and the exclusionary ideologies that have plagued the nation since its inception.
What explains the foreign policy gap between elites and the general public on nuclear proliferation? We investigate specific contexts in which experts’ nonproliferation information changes public attitudes toward nuclear weapons development using a novel attitude change experiment. By randomly assigning seven categories of nonproliferation information to pro-armament survey participants, we examine how different types of nonproliferation information affect pro-armament respondents’ opinions and behavioral choices. The results of our experiment demonstrate the enlightening effect of economic sanctions information. After learning about the economic costs and consequences of nuclear weapons development, pro-armament respondents substantially changed their opinion as well as behaviors toward nuclear proliferation. In comparison to economic sanctions information, other types of nonproliferation information (e.g. conditional military punishment, normative sanctions, nuclear technology sanctions, elite or public opposition to proliferation) have limited effects on pro-armament subjects’ attitude changes. These findings are the first to identify the relative explanatory powers of previous explanations for nuclear nonproliferation at the individual level.
Existing theories of foreign policy opinion formation tend to treat elites as a black-box category for members of the nonpublic. This misses important nuances in public perceptions of elites. We argue that elite vocation serves as an important source cue, signaling elite access to information and elite knowledge that can be brought to bear on that information. We use a survey experiment to evaluate our hypotheses comparing four types of elites: elected officials, academics, career professionals, and members of the media. We find that, even accounting for partisanship, people still evaluate elites as knowledgeable and credible. There are also important differences in public perceptions of elites that should be accounted for in our theories of opinion formation. These findings have important implications for the in vogue death of expertise argument as well as research on public perceptions of foreign policy and public opinion formation.
Recent studies question whether declining response rates in survey data overstate the level of polarization of Americans. At issue are the sources of declining response rates—declining contact rates, associated mostly with random polling mechanisms, or declining cooperation rates, associated with personal preferences, knowledge, and interest in politics—and their differing effects on measures of polarization. Assessing 158 surveys (2004–2018), we show that declining cooperation is the primary source of declining response rates and that it leads to survey overrepresentation of people who are more engaged in politics. Analyzing individual responses to 1,223 policy questions in those surveys, we further show that, conditional on the policy area, this survey bias overestimates or underestimates the partisan divide among Americans. Our findings question the perceived strength of mass polarization and move forward the discussion about the effect of declining survey response on generalizations from survey data.
Even if most European countries have not yet joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the treaty has been salient in a number of national settings. In the Netherlands, the TPNW enjoys broad societal appeal, and the Dutch parliament has, on a number of occasions, called on the government to explore options for joining the treaty. In this piece, we empirically study Dutch attitudes toward joining the TPNW. Our findings indicate that a majority of the Dutch would prefer to accede to the TPNW only if nuclear-weapon states or other NATO allies also joined, although unilateral accession received relatively strong support among the youngest respondents, women, and voters supporting the left-wing parties. The most popular option is to join the TPNW at the same time that the nuclear-weapon states do, which seems to be a rather distant prospect in the current international-security environment.
During his campaign and subsequent presidency, Donald Trump staked out and implemented an isolationist foreign policy agenda that sought to put “America First” and curtail U.S. participation in international treaties and trade agreements. Isolationism represented a dramatic turn away from the internationalism of all postwar presidencies, and Trump’s radical foreign policy changes raise two novel questions: Did isolationism resonate with American voters, and if so, how did this shape the outcome of the 2016 presidential election? We analyze how attitudes toward isolationism changed in the American electorate from 1992 to 2016, and whether aggregate changes in isolationism conferred any electoral advantages on Trump in 2016. The results indicate that while isolationism tends to be supported by a relatively small portion of the electorate, aggregate levels of support increased noticeably in 2016. Controlling for established factors, particularly partisanship, isolationism disposed voters to support Trump’s candidacy. These two developments delivered a measurable benefit to Trump, one that is of theoretical significance in going beyond partisanship to influence both Democratic and Republican identifiers. Future shifts in levels or political relevance carry with them a potential to shape elections and policy-making. We discuss implications of findings for scholarship in political behavior and political sociology.
An American’s yearly chance of being killed by a terrorist attack sits at roughly 1 in 3.5 million. Yet, over 40 percent of Americans consistently believe that they or their family members are likely to be a terror victim. Can these inflated estimates of the risks of terrorism be brought closer to reality? With trillions of dollars spent on the “War on Terror,” this question is not just theoretically but practically important. In order to investigate, we use an experimental approach assessing whether people update their beliefs about terrorism when given factual information about the relative risks it presents. We find that public fear of terrorism and demand for countering it can be sharply reduced with better information, dropping essentially to pre-9/11 levels after the treatment and staying that way two weeks later. These results suggest that countering the indirect costs of terrorism may largely require providing more context and perspective.
Existing theories of foreign policy opinion formation tend to treat elites as a black-box category for members of the non-public. This misses important nuances in public perceptions of elites. We argue that elite vocation serves as an important source cue, signaling elite access to information and elite knowledge that can be brought to bear on that information. We use a survey experiment to evaluate our hypotheses comparing four types of elites: elected officials, academics, career-professionals, and members of the media. We find that, even accounting for partisanship, people still evaluate elites as knowledgeable and credible. There are also important differences in public perceptions of elites that should be accounted for in our theories of opinion formation. These findings have important implications for the en-vogue death of expertise argument as well as research on public perceptions of foreign policy and public opinion formation.
What explains the South Korean public’s support for resettlement policies for North Korean arrivals and to what extent does the presentation of this issue influence these perceptions? A crucial and overlooked component of South Korea’s policy towards these North Koreans is the role of public perceptions. We contend that both the gender of the North Korean and the respondent shape perceptions. Via an original experimental web survey, we find a more than ten percentage point decrease in support for aid for North Koreans when the focus is on North Korean men compared to women or no mention of gender. Furthermore, we find lower support overall among female respondents. The results suggest a policy challenge for the South Korean government to meet their goals of integration for these arrivals.
What are the consequences of women dying in combat? We study how women fighting on the frontlines of the military affects public attitudes toward (1) military conflict and (2) women’s equality. We demonstrate through a series of survey experiments that women dying in combat does not reduce public support for war. However, women’s combat deaths do shape perceptions of women’s equality. Women dying in combat increases support for gender equality, particularly in the public sphere of work and politics, but only among women respondents. The findings indicate that women’s combat deaths do not undermine leaders’ ability to garner support for war, but combat service—and indeed, combat sacrifice—alone is insufficient to yield women’s “first-class citizenship” among the general US public. The results highlight how major policy changes challenging traditional conceptions of gender and war can generate positive attitudinal shifts concentrated among members of the underrepresented community.
The increasing visibility of national leaders in news media generates cues that might contribute substantially to the structure of international mass opinion regarding their nations. This study shows that Americans’ behavioral intentions in favor or against a foreign nation are affected by their perceptions of its leader. Using data from four experiments (N = 1,751), we demonstrate that exposure to news coverage of a foreign leader's behaviors is causally related to intentions (a) to support a foreign policy (i.e., economic and military aid) in favor of that leader’s country, (b) to purchase products imported from there, and (c) to visit it as a tourist. We discuss the theoretical implications of the findings for the management of foreign relations, public diplomacy, and other aspects of the international arena.
It is often observed that public support for asymmetric wars diminishes over time, but the micro foundations of this observation are not fully understood. I present a modified war of attrition model for asymmetric wars which shows that as time passes, belligerents’ expectations for the remaining duration of war increase and they find fighting less favorable. Even when we keep the average rate of casualty accrual constant, the anticipated length of fighting into the future affects expected remaining costs of war. Therefore, in a cost-benefit calculation, observed duration causally affects expected remaining costs of war and, hence, leads to lower levels of support for war over time. The longer the war lasts, the more it will look like a never-ending war which may encourage the strong side to cut its losses short and stop the war. Because duration and aggregate costs are highly correlated in observational data, I use a randomized survey experiment to separate the effect of duration from the effect of costs on support for war. The result is that duration has a negative effect on public support which is independent of aggregate costs. This helps us better understand the limits of democratic states’ capabilities in fighting asymmetric wars and suggests that when military planners ignore the role of time, they deploy weaker-than-optimal forces.
When does interstate conflict lead to repression in warring countries? A long-held maxim in human rights literature is that governments repress when they feel threatened. International conflict would seem to threaten governments, yet recent literature has either ignored interstate conflict or found that international conflict has no effect in respect to human rights. In this article I examine how interstate conflict leads to domestic human rights violations by governments. Governments often attempt to increase their hold on political power by violating human rights when faced with external threats. Using a measure that incorporates information about the tangible costs of fighting, the location of conflicts, and the probability of defeat, I find that threatening international conflict has an immediate deleterious effect with respect to physical integrity rights and some civil rights.
Do women respond in different ways to foreign policy events and elite messages compared to men? This article integrates the literature on gender and conflict with that on public opinion to examine how gender matters for the effect of elite messages and national security events on public opinion regarding a foreign adversary. We theorize that women’s opinions of an adversary are more likely than men’s to be influenced by national security events because of the higher value they attach to the costs of conflict. Our empirical analysis takes advantage of the natural setting of inter-Korea relations, which includes unpredictable, thus plausibly exogenous, real-world national security events instigated by North Korea and contrasting messages regarding North Korea by South Korea’s elites during this timeframe. Using annual survey data from a nationally representative sample of South Koreans about attitudes toward North Korea from 2003 to 2016, we find that foreign policy events of high consequence for national security have a greater negative impact on women’s opinions. This is the case even in the face of positive elite messages that contradict those events.
Nous proposons un nouvel argument théorique permettant d’expliquer des situations pacifiques dans des modèles de conflit de type « Guns and Butter ». Notre modèle prédit que la paix peut émerger même dans des jeux à somme nulle pour autant que les deux décisions d’armement et d’initiation d’attaque soient assignées à des joueurs différents, et que ceux-ci communiquent de manière imparfaite. Nous proposons une application de notre modèle aux relations civiles-militaires, et aux implications au niveau des conflits internationaux.
Many theories of international relations assume that public opinion exerts a powerful effect on foreign policy in democracies. Previous research, based on observational data, has reached conflicting conclusions about this foundational assumption. We use experiments to examine two mechanisms—responsiveness and selection—through which opinion could shape decisions about the use of military force. We tested responsiveness by asking members of the Israeli parliament to consider a crisis in which we randomized information about public opinion. Parliamentarians were more willing to use military force when the public was in favor and believed that contravening public opinion would entail heavy political costs. We tested selection by asking citizens in Israel and the US to evaluate parties/candidates, which varied randomly on many dimensions. In both countries, security policy proved as electorally significant as economic and religious policy, and far more consequential than nonpolicy considerations such as gender, race, and experience. Overall, our experiments in two important democracies imply that citizens can affect policy by incentivizing incumbents and shaping who gets elected.
During democratic transitions, newly elected governments face public demands to reform the institutions of the old regime, especially the security forces; yet, these reforms often fail. I argue that politicians define policy issues in ways that maximize popular support for their own positions through well-established processes of elite issue framing. Politicians can reduce popular demand for difficult and costly reforms of the security forces by framing them as trade-offs with other types of reform. The argument is tested with original survey data from Tunisia, an important contemporary case of democratic transition. An embedded vignette experiment primes existing issue frames by asking respondents to adjudicate between investments in security reform versus economic or political reform. I find that framing a trade-off with a more popular policy, economic development, reduces public demand for security reform. These findings have important implications for security sector reform and democratic consolidation in Tunisia and beyond.
How does the oil wealth of a potential target state affect the likelihood of the US public favoring the use of military force? Recent studies suggest that public opinion on foreign policy is responsive to the core characteristics of target states, such as regime type and majority religion. This article advances this research agenda by examining the effects of intra-regime heterogeneity in respect of an important characteristic of target states: their oil wealth. To examine the relationship between oil wealth and US public opinion on war, we fielded a conjoint experiment with US citizens. Respondents chose between hypothetical pairs of target states that varied across seven different intra-regime characteristics. We found that that the oil wealth of a target exerts a statistically significant (albeit small) effect on public support for the use of force, independent of the effects of other regime characteristics. pre-print can be accessed here: https://lirias2.kuleuven.be/viewobject.html?id=2826276&cid=1
International relations scholars have found that multilateral approval increases public support for the use of military force and have developed competing explanations for this phenomenon. However, this literature has given little attention to the attitudes of individuals who participate directly in the foreign policy process or shape foreign policy debates. In this research note, we administer a survey experiment to both a cross-section of US foreign policy elites and a nationally representative sample of the US public. We find that US foreign policy elites are more responsive to multilateral approval than the US public, with elites with direct foreign policy decision-making experience valuing it especially highly. These findings point to the importance of considering differences between elites and the public when investigating or theorizing about the impact of multilateral cooperation on domestic politics.
As research on leaders matures, a next step is a better understanding of the advisers who surround them. This article explores the often-hidden politics of leader–adviser interactions, focusing on how leaders strategically manage elite cues from within their own circle that could engage otherwise dormant or permissive public opinion. Advisers can serve as cue givers when leaders contemplate the use of force, but leaders can shape which cues reach the public by accommodating advisers. This article explores this argument by combining a survey experiment with a case study of the 2009 escalation in Afghanistan, illustrating how the dynamics identified in the experiment motivate the president to bargain with advisers whose support or opposition would most influence public opinion. An important implication is that in the real world, damaging cues found in survey experiments may be diminished in volume or may not reach the public, whereas helpful cues could be magnified.
An old adage holds that “only Nixon could go to China”; that is, hawkish leaders face fewer domestic barriers than doves when it comes to pursuing reconciliation with foreign enemies. However, empirical evidence for this proposition is mixed. In this article, we clarify competing theories, elucidate their implications for public opinion, and describe the results of a series of survey experiments designed to evaluate whether and why there is a hawk's advantage. We find that hawks are indeed better positioned domestically to initiate rapprochement than doves. We also find support for two key causal mechanisms: Voters are more confident in rapprochement when it is pursued by a hawk and are more likely to view hawks who initiate conciliation as moderates. Further, the hawk's advantage persists whether conciliatory efforts end in success or failure. Our microfoundational evidence thus suggests a pronounced domestic advantage for hawks who deliver the olive branch.
Prominent perspectives in the study of conflict point to two factors that exert substantial influence on public opinion about foreign intervention: (1) news about casualties and (2) signals from partisan elites. Past work is limited, however, in what it can say about how these two factors interact. We present an experiment designed to understand the surprisingly common scenario where elites send competing messages about whether the public should support war or oppose it—and these messages do not coincide with party divisions. We find that partisans are generally insensitive to news about casualties, but they become noticeably more sensitive when they perceive within-party disputes over support for the war. Independents, however, respond to news of casualties irrespective of what messages elites send. These findings shed light on when and how the public responds to competing and unclear cues and speak to the role of public opinion in determining conflict outcomes and democratic foreign policy-making more broadly.
Combat drones are transforming attitudes about the use of military force. Military casualties and the costs of conflict sap public support for war and for political and military leaders. Combat drones offer an unprecedented ability to reduce these costs by increasing accuracy, reducing the risks to civilians, and protecting military personnel from harm. These advantages should make drone strikes more popular than operations involving ground troops. Yet many critics believe drone warfare will make political leaders too willing to authorize wars, weakening constraints on the use of force. Because combat drones are relatively new, these arguments have been based on anecdotes, a handful of public opinion polls, or theoretical speculation.
Drones and Support for the Use of Force uses experimental research to analyze the effects of combat drones on Americans’ support for the use of force. The authors’ findings—that drones have had important but nuanced effects on support for the use of force—have implications for democratic control of military action and civil-military relations and provide insight into how the proliferation of military technologies influences foreign policy.
Americans think the US foreign aid budget is far too generous. Can information change those views? We identified ten prominent arguments about aid in public discussion, five positive and five negative. In a survey experiment, we exposed respondents to one of those arguments with five associated facts. Most of the arguments in favor of aid made respondents more supportive, while most of the arguments against aid made them less supportive. Arguments that focused either positively or negatively on economic development in recipient countries or advancing US interests made little difference. In contrast, arguments about the domestic costs of foreign aid or those that invoked moral considerations like recipient need or corruption had fairly large effects on attitudes. The most successful argument, on the low cost of aid, reduced aid opposition from 67 to 28 percent. When respondents saw both pro and con arguments together, however, arguments generally lost their efficacy. The only exception was the argument about the low cost of aid, which altered opinions in some ways—even when countered with anti-aid arguments. Our results are somewhat surprising given the conventional wisdom that people are motivated reasoners who reject new information that does not conform to their worldview.
How do citizens respond to dramatic foreign policy events, such as the recent changes in Soviet U.S. relations, when a traditional foe exhibits strong signs of conciliatory behavior? Using panel data collected before and after the nuclear arms summits of 1987 and 1988, we explore both the consequences and antecedents of changing images of the Soviet Union. Having shown in a prior cross-sectional study that Soviet images constrain policy attitudes in a static sense, the current panel study finds evidence of what Converse (1964) labeled dynamic constraint, in that softening perceptions of the Soviet Union appeared to precipitate more "dovish" policy attitudes. Our study also extends earlier work on enemy images in finding that some people are more resistant to change than others, notably political experts with extremely negative (i.e., "bad faith") initial images. The general importance of studying enemy images in the post-Cold War era is discussed.
Weappreciate Berinsky and Druckman's thoughtful critique of our recent work regarding the public's willingness to bear the costs of war (Berinsky, A., J. Druckman. 2007. "Public Opinion Research and Support for the Iraq War."Public Opinion Quarterly 71:126-41). We are fortunate to have such preeminent scholars constructively engaging our work. In their review, the authors raise four major concerns about our analysis: (1) our measurement of "war support,"(2) our measurement of perceptions of success, (3) our claim that perceived success is a cause of war support (measured as casualty tolerance), and (4) our lack of attention to elite rhetoric as a cause of war support. We address each of these concerns below.While we remain confident in our original conclusions, we believe that their comments identify important questions that remain unanswered in this area of research.
This article analyzes the high and sustained levels of popular support for President Bush's policies during the Gulf War using a composite model of public opinion formation drawing on the rally around the flag effect noted by political scientists, the spiral of silence hypothesis drawn from communications studies, and the concepts of priming and framing drawn from political psychology. By linking the aggregate effects noted in the rally and spiral of silence hypotheses with models of individual cognitive processes, the composite model explains, better than either the rally or the spiral hypothesis alone, the sudden shift toward supporting the use of force on January 16, 1991 and the high levels of support that persisted through July.
This aricle analyzes data from the Pew Research Center’s 1998 to 2004 Biennial Media Consumption Surveys to identify demographic and behavioral factors that predict Americans’ exposure to cable and broadcast nightly news. While many predictors are significant across sources, much of the evidence indicates the audiences are unique. The network news audience is becoming increasingly older, and the Fox News and CNN audiences are becoming increasingly polarized. Compared to the CNN audience, Fox News watchers are less likely to follow stories that are critical of the Bush administration but more likely to follow entertainment-based news stories. The findings also suggest that Fox News watchers enjoy news that shares their personal views, while the CNN and network news audiences prefer news that has more in-depth interviews with public officials. Finally, evidence suggests that the Fox News watchers were more likely than nonwatchers to underestimate rather than overestimate, the number of American casualties in Iraq.
The research reported here addresses the role of casualties in domestic support for U.S. military interventions. Its principal contribution is that it provides a systematic and integrated view of the major factors that are associated with public support for U.S. military operations: the operation’s perceived benefits, its prospects for suc- cess, its costs, and leadership consensus or dissensus about these factors. This work should be of interest to policymakers, commanders, and planners who desire an understanding of domestic political support for the use of the U.S. Armed Forces and who are concerned about the impact of casualties on support.
In their article "Success Matters: Casualty Sensitivity and the War in Iraq," Christopher Gelpi, Peter Feaver, and Jason Reifler attempt to flush out the relationship between public opinion and the use of force as it pertains to the Iraq war. The authors promote the following proposition: "Our thesis is that expectations of future success are the key determinants of public casualty tolerance. That is, the U.S. public can accept that the war is not yet won and will involve continued and even mounting costs, provided that events thus far are not convincing it that eventual success is impossible" (p. 24).
This statement actually contains two theses. First, public support for a military operation will not necessarily wane in the face of rising casualties. Second, the public's tolerance for casualties is most affected by its expectation of victory (i.e., ultimate strategic success). These theses are consistent with Feaver and Gelpi's argument in their earlier work: "Casualty phobia is not the dominant feature of the general public. On the contrary, policymakers can tap into a large reservoir of support for missions, even missions that entail a fairly high human price, provided those missions are successful. The public is defeat phobic, not casualty phobic."
Applying this argument to Iraq, Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler assert that, as long as Americans expect victory, they will tolerate mounting casualties and thus support the war. Put another way, they claim that opposition to the Iraq war is driven not by casualties per se, but by the expectation of failure: "When the public believes that the mission will succeed, it continues to support the mission, even as costs mount. When the public thinks victory is unlikely, even small costs will cause support to plummet" (pp. 15–16).
To test their theses, Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler begin by trying to establish that rising casualties do not necessarily produce a corresponding drop in public support. To do this, they tracked presidential approval ratings against casualties over a twenty-month period (from March 2003 through October 2004) and divided this period into three phases of the war. They report their findings as follows:
U.S. military deaths did not appear to have the same impact on presidential approval in the 'major combat,' 'occupation,' and 'sovereign Iraq' phases of the war. For example, presidential approval actually increased despite the toll of U.S. casualties during the major combat phase of the war. This is not to say that the public increased its approval of the president because U.S. soldiers were being killed. Rather, the public rallied to support the president despite the casualties because it was confident that the United States would succeed. After the onset of the insurgency, however, presidential approval dropped steadily as the death toll increased. After the U.S. transfer of sovereignty to Iraq, on the other hand, U.S. casualties continued to mount at the same rate as during the occupation, but presidential approval oscillated at about 50 percent despite the mounting death toll.
At first glance, Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler's analysis seems to question the impact of casualties. Yet a closer examination of the study raises significant methodological concerns that evoke suspicions about such conclusions. First, the authors use presidential approval ratings as their dependent variable for public support of the war. Assessments of the president's overall job performance, however, do not provide accurate reflections of support (or opposition) for a specific military operation. Consider how events exogenous to war can drastically swing such ratings. One need only recall how the disclosure of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's identity, the failed nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, the poor federal response to Hurricane Katrina, or the rising price of gas drove down President George W. Bush's approval ratings to see that expecting such numbers to reflect only war support is problematic. Therefore, reading war support in overall approval ratings should be avoided, especially given the scholarly consensus that there are other survey questions that do capture public sentiment on war quite well. In particular, scholars have found greater reliability when tracking questions that assess the president...
Since the Vietnam War, U.S. policymakers have worried that the American public will support military operations only if the human costs of the war, as measured in combat casualties, are minimal. Although the public is rightly averse to suffering casualties, the level of popular sensitivity to U.S. military casualties depends critically on the context in which those losses occur. The public's tolerance for the human costs of war is primarily shaped by the intersection of two crucial factors: beliefs about the rightness or wrongness of the war, and beliefs about the war's likely success. The impact of each belief depends upon the other. Ultimately, however, beliefs about the likelihood of success matter most in determining the public's willingness to tolerate U.S. military deaths in combat. A reanalysis of publicly available polls and a detailed analysis of a series of polls designed by the authors to tap into public attitudes on casualties support this conclusion.
Drawing on a multitude of data sets and building on analyses carried out over more than a decade, this book offers a major new theoretical explanation of how ordinary citizens figure out what they favour and oppose politically. Reacting against the conventional wisdom, which stresses how little attention the general public pays to political issues and the lack of consistency in their opinions, the studies presented in this book redirect attention to the processes of reasoning that can be discerned when people are confronted with choices about political issues. These studies demonstrate that ordinary people are in fact capable of reasoning dependably about political issues by the use of judgmental heuristics, even if they have only a limited knowledge of politics and of specific issues.
The disclosure that high officials within the Reagan administration had covertly diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras funds obtained from the secret sale of weapons to Iran provides us with a splendid opportunity to examine how the foundations of popular support shift when dramatic events occur. According to our theory of priming, the more attention media pay to a particular domain--the more the public is primed with it--the more citizens will incorporate what they know about that domain into their overall judgment of the president. Data from the 1986 National Election Study confirm that intervention in Central America loomed larger in the public's assessment of President Reagan's performance after the Iran-Contra disclosure than before. Priming was most pronounced for aspects of public opinion most directly implicated by the news coverage, more apparent in political notices' judgments than political experts', and stronger in the evaluations of Reagan's overall performance than in assessments of his character.
In an examination of responses to public opinion poll questions designed to assess the degree of generalized support for the wars in Korea and Vietnam, popular support for the two wars was found to follow highly similar patterns. Support was high initially but declined as a logarithmic function of American casualties, a function remarkably similar for both wars. While support for the war in Vietnam did finally drop below those levels found during the Korean War, it did so only after the fighting had gone on considerably longer and only after American casualties had greatly surpassed those of the earlier war. These trends seem to have been fairly impervious to particular events in either of the wars.
It is suggested that the greater vocal opposition to the Vietnam War reflects mainly a shift of opinion within the intellectual left on the wisdom of the two wars. Armed with new techniques of protest learned in its identification with the civil rights movement, the intellectual left has been able effectively to garner great attention for its cause during the Vietnamese War.
Also noted was the presence of a rather large body of opinion inclined to follow the President on war policy, giving him considerable room for maneuver, at least in the short run, and making public opinion in this area highly sensitive to current policy.
A crude comparison with data from World War II suggests that, while the earlier war was unquestionably more "popular" than the wars in Korea and Vietnam, support was less consensual than might be expected. The popularity of the Korean War rose slowly after its conclusion, but this sort of retrospective support for World Wars I and II may have declined as time went by and, at any rate, was quite sensitive to current events,
In repeated instances, differences in question wording were found to alter substantially the response generated to poll questions about the wars.
Public support for the war in Iraq has followed the same course as it did for the wars in Korea and Vietnam: broad enthusiasm at the outset with erosion of support as casualties mount. The experience of those past wars suggests that there is nothing President Bush can do to reverse this deterioration-or to stave off an "Iraq syndrome" that could inhibit U.S. foreign policy for decades to come.
The Cold War induced caution in nations that feared uncontrollable escalation. Now that confrontations are less likely to careen out of control, a new season of bellicosity is here. The U.S. military, trapped in a Cold War mindset, has failed to realize this. It is spending far too much on casualty-prone units in all the services, in an age when political opposition to casualties effectively makes these units unavailable for combat. The military should recalibrate its priorities and shift funds to weapons such as high-tech lasers, stealth aircraft, and cruise missiles that can make warfare less lethal for Americans.
Research in the field of political cognition has proceeded at a rapid pace, offering numerous new perspectives regarding the dynamics of mass political behavior. However, the primary focus of most such research has been the individual actor. For example, the political relevance of heuristic principles of judgment has been addressed in a variety of recent studies, all of which examine individual-level data. However, though it is certainly true that psychological processes operate on the individual, it is also quite clear that the political significance of mass behavior typically is found at the collective level. Thus, it is essential that researchers specify the aggregate consequences of those psychological processes that operate on the political judgments of the individual citizen. In this article, a unique aggregate-level data set is introduced to aid in examination of the broad significance of heuristic processing of source cues. The analysis reveals clear evidence that this individual-level cognitive efficiency mechanism exerts influence on the shape and character of mass opinion.
In recent decades, Democratic and Republican party elites have grown increasingly polarized on all three of the major domestic policy agendas: social welfare, racial, and cultural issues. We contend that the mass response has been characterized not by the traditional expectation of "conflict displacement" or the more recent account of "ideological realignment," but by what we term "conflict extension." Mass attitudes toward the three agendas have remained distinct, but the parties in the electorate have grown more polarized on all three. Conflict extension, rather than conflict displacement or ideological realignment, has occurred because there has been a limited mass response to the growth of elite-level party polarization. Only party identifiers who are aware of party elite polarization on each of the issue dimensions have brought their social welfare, racial, and cultural issue attitudes toward the consistently liberal or consistently conservative stands of Democratic and Republican elites. Analyses using data from the 1972 through 2000 National Election Studies support both the aggregate- and individual-level predictions of the conflict extension perspective.
How do Americans decide whether their country should use military force abroad? We argue they combine dispositional preferences and ideas about the geopolitical situation. This article reports the results of a representative national survey that incorporated five experiments. Findings include the following: (1) Respondent dispositions, especially isolationism versus internationalism and assertiveness versus accommodativeness, consistently constrained policy preferences, whereas liberalism-conservatism did not; (2) features of the geopolitical context-the presence of U.S. interests, relative power, the images of the adversary's motivations, and judgments about cultural status-also influenced support for military intervention; and (3) systematic interactions emerged between dispositions and geopolitical context that shed light on when and why ideological disagreements about the use of force are likely to be amplified and attenuated by situational factors. Our results are consistent with a cognitive-interactionist perspective, in which people adapt broad predispositions in relatively thoughtful ways to specific foreign policy problems.
We examine the accessibility of ideological and partisan orientations as factors affecting the political capacity of citizens. In particular, is the utility of partisan and ideological reasoning contingent on the accessibility of an individual's own self-identifications? Are people with accessible points of ideological and partisan orientation more likely to invoke these orientations in formulating political judgments and resisting efforts at political persuasion? Are they more likely to demonstrate politically compatible points of orientation? These questions are addressed in the context of a study conducted during the course of the 1996 election campaign. In order to measure the accessibility of respondents' partisan and ideological self-identifications, we record response latencies--the time required for respondents to answer particular questions. Based on our analysis, we argue that attitudes and self identifications are useful heuristic devices that allow individuals to make sense out of the complexity and chaos of politics. But some citizens are better able than others to employ these devices, and by demonstrating who these citizens are, the concept of accessibility becomes an important element in the explanation of political capacity.
This study evaluates the impact of the first presidential debate of 1976 on the rationality of voting decisions. Using data from a panel of eligible voters in Williamsburg-James City County, Virginia, three models of attitude consistency are tested: rational voting, selective perception, and persuasion. Rational voting is defined as choosing a candidate on the basis of issue positions. The debate increased voter awareness of Ford's and Carter's positions on the issue of unemployment, one of the key issues in the debate. However, there is no evidence of changes in candidate preference based on this issue. There is strong evidence of persuasion: voters adopted the position taken by their preferred candidate.
International relations scholars have long debated the usefulness of two main competing models of the foreign policy decision making process, the rational and the psychological. However, there have been few efforts at direct empirical testing in historical cases, largely because both models are so underpredictive that the question has been thought methodologically intractable. In consequence, most work in the field has relied on one or the other of these models, usually ignoring the other. This pessimism is misplaced; although certain hurdles must be overcome, successful competitive testing of decision making theories is possible. This article constructs a method capable of distinguishing the two models in historical cases, and uses it to test for psychological effects on German foreign policy decision making in the Moroccan Crisis of 1905-1906. The findings in this case support the psychological theories, although much wider testing is needed to establish the relative validity of the competing approaches.
Foreign policy seems to command more public attention than domestic policy and yet—insofar as it has been, researched—public opinion on foreign policy seems to have less impact on governmental decisions than does opinion in most other issue areas. There are at least two reasons, one normative and one empirical, why public opinion can be regarded as pertinent to some foreign policy questions—especially those associated with “life and death.” Normatively, it is desirable for political leaders in a democracy to commit national resources in ways generally approved by the populace. Large scale military commtiments should, if at all possible, meet with the approval of public opinion. Empirically, if they do not, experience has shown there are circumstances in which public disapproval of the course of foreign policy may be registered in national elections. Specifically, our one recent experience with a situation of partial mobilization and a limited but large-scale and indefinite commitment to military action in Korea did in time produce a distribution of opinion that suggested the war was very unpopular. And though its precise impact on the 1952 presidential election is difficult to assess there is little doubt that the Korean issue contributed significantly to the Eisenhower landslide.
Among the questions raised by the Korean experience is whether the American public will easily tolerate the prosecution of long drawn-out wars of partial mobilization. Therefore, it is not surprising that another such war, in Vietnam, has stimulated a concern with public opinion.
I examine the impact of long-term partisan loyalties on perceptions of specific political figures and events. In contrast to the notion of partisanship as a simple “running tally” of political assessments, I show that party identification is a pervasive dynamic force shaping citizens' perceptions of, and reactions to, the political world. My analysis employs panel data to isolate the impact of partisan bias in the context of a Bayesian model of opinion change; I also present more straightforward evidence of contrasts in Democrats' and Republicans' perceptions of “objective” politically relevant events. I conclude that partisan bias in political perceptions plays a crucial role in perpetuating and reinforcing sharp differences in opinion between Democrats and Republicans. This conclusion handsomely validates the emphasis placed by the authors of The American Voter on “the role of enduring partisan commitments in shaping attitudes toward political objects.”
The notion that the attitudes of the American public vis-a-vis the Soviet Union are driven essentially by emotion, and that they are more extreme and volatile than those of the government itself, is widely believed but may not be valid. While the public typically desires a combination of tough and conciliatory policies, it also tends to express, at any given moment, particular concern about whichever of the two it feels is most slighted in U.S. policy. Thus, the public will tend to seek conciliatory behavior from hawkish administrations while preferring a tough stance from administrations it deems dovish. By so doing, the public is likely to have a moderating effect on official behavior toward Moscow. The proposition is tested with reference to shifts in public approval of presidential Soviet policy, and certain implications are suggested for the manner in which political leadership perceives of its mandate.
The authors begin the construction of a generalizable theory of casualties and opinion, reexamining the logic employed by Mueller and showing that although human costs are an important predictor of wartime opinion, Mueller's operationalization of those costs solely as the log of cumulative national casualties is problematic and incomplete. The authors argue that temporally proximate costs, captured as marginal casualty figures, are an important additional aspect of human costs and a critical factor in determining wartime opinion. Using Mueller's data on opinion in the Vietnam and Korean wars, the authors find that marginal casualties are important in explaining opinion when casualty accumulation is accelerating, and earlier findings about the importance and generalizability of the log of cumulative casualties as the sole casualty-based predictor of opinion are overstated. Finally, the authors offer some thoughts about other factors that should be considered when building a model of war deaths and domestic opinion.
This article documents three types of media effects that operated on public opinion during the Persian Gulf crisis and war. First, the level of network news coverage matched the proportion of Gallup poll respondents naming the Gulf crisis as the nation's most important problem (agenda-setting). Second, use of data from the 1988, 1990, and 1991 National Election Studies (NES) shows that the weight respondents accorded foreign policy performance when evaluating George Bush significantly increased (priming) in the aftermath of the Gulf crisis. Third, content data (showing that network news coverage was preoccupied with military affairs and highly event oriented) and survey data are coupled to show that respondents reporting higher rates of exposure to television news expressed greater support for a military as opposed to a diplomatic response to the crisis (framing). In conclusion, it is suggested that these effects, in combination with the nature of the media's information sources, were conducive to legitimizing the administration's perspective on the crisis.
Although previous studies have examined U.S. public support for the use of military force in particular historical cases, and have even made limited comparisons among cases, a full comparison of a large number of historical episodes in which the United States contemplated, threatened, or actually used military force has been missing. An analysis of U.S. public support for the use of military force in twenty-two historical episodes from the early 1980s through the Iraq war and occupation (2003-05) underscores the continuing relevance of Bruce Jentleson's principal policy objectives framework: the objective for which military force is used is an important determinant of the base level of public support. The U.S. public supports restraining aggressive adversaries, but it is leery of involvement in civil-war situations. Although the objective of the mission strongly conditions this base level of support, the public is also sensitive to the relative risk of different military actions; to the prospect of civilian or military casualties; to multilateral participation in the mission; and to the likelihood of success or failure of the mission. These results suggest that support for U.S. military involvement in Iraq is unlikely to increase; indeed, given the ongoing civil strife in Iraq, continuing casualties, and substantial disagreement about the prospects for success, the public's support is likely to remain low or even decline.
Scholars of political communication have long examined newsworthiness by focusing on the news choices of media organizations (Lewin, 194734.
Lewin , K. 1947. Frontiers and group dynamics. Human Relations, 1: 143–153. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references; White, 195056.
White , D. M. 1950. The “gate keeper”: A case study in the selection of news. Journalism Quarterly, 27: 383–390. View all references; Sigal, 197347.
Sigal , L. V. 1973. Reporters and officials, Lexington, MA: Heath. View all references; Gans, 197919.
Gans , H. J. 1979. Deciding what's news, New York: Vintage Books. View all references). However, in recent years these traditional arbiters of the news have increasingly been joined or even supplanted in affecting the public agenda by “new media” competitors, including cable news, talk radio, and even amateur bloggers. The standards by which this new class of decision makers evaluates news are at best only partially explained by prior studies focused on professional journalists and organizations. In this study, we seek to correct this oversight by content analyzing five online news sources—including wire services, cable news, and political blog sites—in order to compare their news judgments in the months prior to, and immediately following, the 2006 midterm election. We collected all stories from Reuters' and AP's “top political news” sections. We then investigated whether a given story was also chosen to appear on each wire's top news page (indicating greater perceived newsworthiness than those that were not chosen) and compared the wires' editorial choices to those of more partisan blogs (from the left: DailyKos.com; from the right: FreeRepublic.com) and cable outlets (FoxNews.com). We find evidence of greater partisan filtering for the latter three Web sources, and relatively greater reliance on traditional newsworthiness criteria for the news wires.
This research examines in detail the structure of the issue public for health care reform, drawing from extensive, nationally
representative survey data tapping general attentiveness to news and public affairs, specific interests in health care issues,
and motivations (e.g., personal health and financial conditions) to follow health care reform issues. We furthermore adopt
a multi-dimensional approach to defining the contours of the issue public for health care policy, separately studying its
cognitive, affective, and behavioral underpinnings. Results indicate only weak interconnections across these dimensions—measured
through health care knowledge, holding strong opinions on health care issues, and participation in health-related political
activities, respectively—and somewhat different structural and motivational patterns underlying each. Theoretical, conceptual
and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.
This article challenges the often untested assumption that cognitive "heuristics" improve the decisionmaking abilities of everyday voters. The potential benefits and costs of five common political heuristics are discussed. A new dynamic process-tracing methodology is employed to directly observe the use of these five heuristics by voters in a mock presidential election campaign. We find that cognitive heuristics are at times employed by almost all voters and that they are particularly likely to be used when the choice situation facing voters is complex. A hypothesized interaction between political sophistication and heuristic use on the quality of decision making is obtained across several different experiments, however. As predicted, heuristic use generally increases the probability of a correct vote by political experts but decreases the probability of a correct vote by novices. A situation in which experts can be led astray by heuristic use is also illustrated. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for strategies to increase input from under-represented groups into the political process.
The four books reviewed here share a conviction that many important influences on the international behavior of nations flow from within them, that public opinion is a significant such influence and that, as a general rule, popular preferences are sensibly related to the sound conduct of foreign policy. As such, this body of recent literature should help the discipline of international relations free itself from the hold that political realism has had on it. A conception of rationality as “reasonableness” is one of its valuable contributions; another is the insight it provides into the relationship between public opinion, governmental interests, and media views. At the same time, this article suggests ways in which the study of public opinion and foreign policy could be directed in new theoretical directions.
We propose a model of motivated skepticism that helps explain when and why citizens are biased-information processors. Two experimental studies explore how citizens evaluate arguments about affirmative action and gun control, finding strong evidence of a prior attitude effect such that attitudinally congruent arguments are evaluated as stronger than attitudinally incongruent arguments. When reading pro and con arguments, participants (Ps) counterargue the contrary arguments and uncritically accept supporting arguments, evidence of a disconfirmation bias. We also find a confirmation bias—the seeking out of confirmatory evidence—when Ps are free to self-select the source of the arguments they read. Both the confirmation and disconfirmation biases lead to attitude polarization—the strengthening of t2 over t1 attitudes—especially among those with the strongest priors and highest levels of political sophistication. We conclude with a discussion of the normative implications of these findings for rational behavior in a democracy.
This study analyzes how broadcast news coverage of the toppling of a statue of Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003, employed a "victory" frame that crowded out other potential news narratives from that day, notably the heavy fighting continuing throughout Baghdad and other parts of Iraq. A second level of analysis comparing the news agendas of the 2 networks in the week prior to and the week after April 9th suggests that the victory frame had the effect of dramatically reducing the amount of battle-related stories.
Extending and further testing the theory advanced by Bruce Jentleson with post-cold war data, variations in U.S. public support for the use of military force are shown to be best explained by the principal policy objective for which military force is being used, with a third category of “humanitarian intervention” added to the previous two of “foreign policy restraint” and “internal political change.” The principal policy objective theory is shown through a series of tests, including regression and logistic analyses, to offer the most powerful and parsimonious explanation, both directly superseding and indirectly subsuming such other alternative variables as interests, elite cues, risk, and multilateralism. These findings support the broader theoretical view of a rational public purposive and not purely reactive in its opinion formulation and have important implications for the basic dispositions of the types of military interventions the American public will and will not support in the post-cold war era.
This article identifies a “post post-Vietnam” pattern in recent American public opinion on the use of military force. Data is drawn from eight cases of limited military force in the 1980s and the 1990–91 Persian Gulf war. Although other factors enter in, particularly the “halo effect” of quick-strike successes, the variations in public support are best explained by differences in principal policy objectives between force used to coerce foreign policy restraint by an aggressor state, and force used to influence or impose internal political change within another state. Distinctions are made both among and within the cases, showing the American public to have been much more supportive of the use of force when the principal objective was to restrain rather than remake governments. These findings have theoretical implications for the analysis of public opinion, prescriptive implications for U.S. foreign policy strategy, and normative implications for views of the role of the public in the foreign policy process.