PUBLIC OPINION, SECURITY THREATS, AND FOREIGN POLICY FORMATION : How Domestic Public Opinion and External Security Threats Influence Foreign Policy Decision-making

ISBN-13: 9783639126471 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 72 str.

William Davis

Opis

This analysis focuses on the domestic factors, suchas public opinion, and international factors, such assecurity threats, which affect foreign policyoutputs. Much research has suggested thatgovernments foreign policy outputs are responsive topublic opinion in advanced democratic countries. Using the cases of Germany and several US Westernallies, I offer a theory of the effect of publicopinion on foreign policy. I employ severalstatistical and cross-sectional time series analysesas well as process tracing to test the theory and thegeneralizability of the hypothesis of anopinion-foreign policy nexus. I find that thepredicted effect of public opinion on foreign policyoutputs to be confounded by such factors as securitythreats. I conclude that a divergence between thethreat perception of leaders and of the public islikely to result in a lack of congruence betweenpublic opinion and a state s foreign policy outputs. Convergence between leaders and public opinion amongUS allies in post-Cold War period and particularly inGermany may have necessitated a reassessment of thelongstanding foreign policy relationship with the US.

O autorze

William Davis is a faculty member in the Government and Foreign Affairs department at Walsh University in the US. He received a BA degree from the University of the State of New York, a Master s degree from Harvard University in Government, a Master's and Ph.D. degrees in Political Science from the Florida State University.