1. Public Opinion and Foreign Policy December 2, 2011

2. Overall Questions Is the general public influential with regard to the formulation of public policy, or are other non-policymakers more important? What place does public opinion have in the formulation of American foreign policy How does the public arrive at the positions it takes? What are the general orientations of the public with regard to broad foreign policy approaches?

3. Berinsky: The Costs of War An exploration of how the public goes about deciding whether to support or oppose the use of the military abroad ◦ Does it use events as the raw materials by which to make rational assessments of costs and benefits, particularly with regard to casualty levels and financial expenditures? ◦ Or does it not engage in that type of analysis, but rather follow the cues of important political leaders who hold views that conform to particular segments of the population?

4. Importance Unity If the public is rational and responding to the same set of events and information, then one would expect that public opinion would be united. If not, it will be divided Democracy If the public is rational and follow events, it makes up its own mind. If it follows elites, then it is not directly influencing policy, but delegating important responsibilities to elites.

5. Evidence Responses to author’s surveys regarding Iraq War Analyses of public opinion surveys in the leadup to and during WWII

6. Results Public possesses little accurate information regarding casualties and costs Support or opposition to particular policies relatively unchanged when accurate information is provided. Public opinion converges in support of a policy when elites are united behind that policy, and diverge when elites are split over support for a policy

7. Conclusion The public does not react in an unmediated fashion to events and make its own decisions based on a weighing of costs and benefits. Rather, segments of the population delegate such analysis to elites which they respectively believe to hold the same political values and follow the cues of those leaders in either supporting or opposing the deployment of the military.

8. Jacobs and Page: Who Influences American Foreign Policy? An assessment of the possible influence of a variety of actors within the American political system, including public opinion as a whole. Important for thinking about who should influence foreign policy: Realists: elites should be the determiners of foreign policy Democrats: the public as a whole should determine foreign policy

9. Structure Possible players: ◦ Business ◦ Knowledge elites ◦ General Public ◦ News Organizations ◦ Labor ◦ Religious Leaders Kinds of Influence ◦ Direct ◦ Indirect

10. Structure Institutions on which Influence is Measured ◦ House ◦ Senate ◦ Executive Branch Realms ◦ Diplomacy ◦ Security/Military ◦ Economic

11. Results Business has the most influence in all institutions and in all policy realms and its influence is both direct and indirect (through influence on knowledge elites) and instantaneous. Experts also have influence, but less than business and are also influenced by business Labor has some influence, mostly on economic issues and that influence is not instant Little influence measurable with regard to the general public, though possibly some delayed influence in the House.

12. Mead: Tea Party The rise of the Tea Party could have important implications for public support for foreign policy. However, as a movement, the Tea Party is amorphous and not entirely consistent in its positions. It has a more libertarian wing and a more traditionally conservative wing.

13. Characteristics The most important aspect of the movement is that it tends to be Jacksonian: Anti-elitist and anti-expert Believes that elites do not have more knowledge that ordinary people and use their positions to advance their interests. Judge policy matters by recourse to commonsense propositions that is based on a naïve empiricism. Do not support activist foreign policy in general, but do support such policies when US attacked or actively threatened. They then support the vigorous use of the military and unilateral actions unimpeded by influence of allies or strictures of international organizations. Thus strongly nationalist and believe the international arena a Hobbesian place. Reject Wilsonian project of building an international liberal community because such a project hopeless and its pursuit will merely restrict the ability of the US to protect its interests vigorously.

14. History Roosevelt able to harness Jacksonian elements when US attacked by Japan in 1941, but before that had little success. Truman able to harness Jacksonianism behind an effort to build a liberal world order by hiding that effort behind a project of opposing a mortal enemy– Communism. However, this had important side effects, as anti-Communism sometimes got the upper hand, making domestic politics dangerous and making the enactment of liberal internationalist policies sometimes difficult

15. Post Cold War With fall of Communism, Jacksonianism receded, but still was able to hamper Bush I and Clinton adminsitrations’ attempts to build a new liberal world order. 9/11 revived Jacksonianism. Instead of using it as did Truman, the Bush administration adopted an extreme Jacksonian foreign policy– reliance on military, unilateral, aggressive use of force

16. Obama Obama administration came into office hoping to greatly weaken the Jacksonian thrust of foreign policy and continue with a Wilsonian project of building a liberal world order. Has had pushback from Jacksonians.

17. Specific Policy Implications In general, Tea Party influence makes it more difficult for elites to find support for their influence over policymaking and for their policy proposals Tea Party split between “Paulites” and “Palinites” ◦ Paulites: withdraw from the world, stop supporting entities like Isreal ◦ Palinites: be vigilant and do not abandon allies like Israel; be proactive in dealing with terrorism, nations like Iran.