Let’s Get a Second Opinion: International Institutions and American Public Support for War1

Grieco, Joseph M.; Gelpi, Christopher; Reifler, Jason; Feaver, Peter D.

doi:10.1111/j.1468-2478.2011.00660.x

Cited by 151 publications

(104 citation statements)

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“…To "learn what they need to know" (Lupia and McCubbins 2000) and form political judgments, members of the public thus turn to trusted cue-givers, typically prominent members of their preferred political party. Actual events matter on the ground less than what prominent Democrats 1 Cue-taking models of public opinion about foreign policy do not limit themselves exclusively to party leaders as cue-givers: Golby, Feaver, and Dropp (2017) look at the cue-giving effects of military generals; Hayes andGuardino (2011) andMurray (2014) at those of foreign leaders; Thompson (2006), Chapman (2011), and Grieco et al (2011 at the endorsement effects of international institutions; and Pease and Brewer (2008) at that of Oprah Winfrey. Actual events matter on the ground less than what prominent Democrats 1 Cue-taking models of public opinion about foreign policy do not limit themselves exclusively to party leaders as cue-givers: Golby, Feaver, and Dropp (2017) look at the cue-giving effects of military generals; Hayes andGuardino (2011) andMurray (2014) at those of foreign leaders; Thompson (2006), Chapman (2011), and Grieco et al (2011 at the endorsement effects of international institutions; and Pease and Brewer (2008) at that of Oprah Winfrey.…”

Section: Three Images Of the Public In Foreign Affairsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bottom‐Up Theory of Public Opinion about Foreign Policy

Kertzer

Zeitzoff

2017

American J Political Sci

200

100

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If public opinion about foreign policy is such an elite-driven process, why does the public often disagree with what elites have to say? We argue here that elite cue-taking models in International Relations are both overly pessimistic and unnecessarily restrictive. Members of the public may lack information about the world around them, but they do not lack principles, and information need not only cascade from the top down. We present the results from five survey experiments where we show that cues from social peers are at least as strong as those from political elites. Our theory and results build on a growing number of findings that individuals are embedded in a social context that combines with their general orientations toward foreign policy in shaping responses toward the world around them. Thus, we suggest the public is perhaps better equipped for espousing judgments in foreign affairs than many of our top-down models claim. . Thanks to Kyle Dropp for his assistance with fielding Experiments 1-2. Kertzer acknowledges the support of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance. series of polls found that Democrats and Republicans in the public were divided. In a Pew poll conducted July 24-27, 60% of Republicans blamed Hamas for the violence, whereas Democrats were split, with 29% blaming Hamas, and 26% blaming Israel. A Gallup poll conducted July 22-23 detected a similar pattern: 65% of Republicans thought Israel's actions were justified, but Democrats were divided, as 31% backed the Israeli response, and 47% called it unjustified. This pattern-where political elites are united but the public is divided-is particularly interesting for political scientists because it violates the assumptions of a commonly held theory about public opinion, in which the public knows relatively little about foreign affairs and thus structures its beliefs by taking cues from trusted, partisan elites-a top-down process in which members of the public adeptly swallow whatever their preferred elite cue-givers feed them. Yet if the mass public knows so little and can only regurgitate carefully pureed talking points, why does it often disagree with what elites have to say? We argue here that partisan elite

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Section: Three Images Of the Public In Foreign Affairsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bottom‐Up Theory of Public Opinion about Foreign Policy

Kertzer

Zeitzoff

2017

American J Political Sci

200

100

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“…See also Lacina and Lee (2012), who examine how regime type affects perceptions of threat, and Geva and Hanson (1999), who focus on sociocultural similarity. 2 For other recent examples of experiments about international security, see Herrmann, Tetlock, and Visser (1999); Herrmann and Shannon (2001); Berinsky (2007; ;Gartner (2008); Baum and Groeling (2009) ;Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler (2009) ;Grieco et al (2011); Horowitz and Levendusky (2011);McDermott (2011); Tingley (2011); Tingley and Walter (2011);Tomz (2007); Trager and Vavreck (2011); Levendusky and Horowitz (2012), and Press, Sagan, and Valentino (2013). hypothesis that the preferences of ordinary voters contribute to peace among democracies.…”

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Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace

2013

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ew findings in political science have received as much attention as the "democratic peace," the discovery that democracies almost never fight other democracies (Doyle 1986;Russett 1993). To some, the absence of military conflict among democracies is so consistent that it approaches the status of an "empirical law" (Levy 1988).Some authors have attempted to explain the democratic peace by highlighting the role of public opinion. They observe that democratic leaders are beholden to voters and claim that voters oppose war because of its human and financial costs. This argument, which dates to Immanuel Kant, predicts that democracies will behave peacefully in general-avoiding war not only against democracies but also against autocracies. History shows, however, that democracies frequently fight autocracies.A different possibility is that democratic publics are primarily averse to war against other democracies. If leaders are responsive to voters and voters are more reluctant to fight democracies than otherwise equivalent autocracies, then public opinion could play an important role in the dyadic democratic peace. To date, however, surprisingly few studies have investi- gated whether democratic publics are more reluctant to attack democracies than autocracies.1 Moreover, the small body of existing work has not accounted for variables that could confound the relationship between shared democracy and public support for war, nor has it investigated the mechanisms by which the regime type of the adversary affects the public mood. Despite decades of research on the democratic peace, we still lack convincing evidence about whether and how public opinion contributes to the absence of war among democracies.We used experiments to shed new light on these important questions.2 Our experiments, embedded in public opinion polls that were administered to nationally representative samples of British and American citizens, involved a situation in which a country was developing nuclear weapons. When describing the situation, we randomly and independently varied four potential sources of peace: the political regime, alliance status, economic ties, and military power of the adversary. We then asked individuals whether they would support or oppose a preventive military strike against the country's nuclear facilities.Participants in our experiments were substantially less supportive of military strikes against democracies than against otherwise identical autocracies. Moreover, because we randomly and independently manipulated the regime type of the adversary, the observed preference for peace with other democracies was almost certainly causal, rather than spurious. Our findings therefore provide empirical microfoundations for the 1 For exceptions, see Geva, DeRouen, and Mintz (1993); Johns and Davies (2012);Rousseau (2005). See also Lacina and Lee (2012), who examine how regime type affects perceptions of threat, and Geva and Hanson (1999), who focus on sociocultural similarity. 2 For other recent examples of experiments about internatio...

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“…See Jervis 1968and 1976and Johnson 2004. 12. There is a growing and promising literature that uses survey experiments to probe how individuals make decisions related to international relations; see Tomz 2004 andPutnam and Shapiro 2009;Hainmueller and Hiscox 2010;Gartner 2011;Grieco et al 2011;McDermott 2011;Mintz, Yang, and McDermott 2011;Tingley andWalter 2011a and2011b;Tingley and Wang 2010;Tingley 2011;and Trager and Vavreck 2011. So far, none of this experimental research has looked at how behavioral traits affect preferences.…”

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Decision Maker Preferences for International Legal Cooperation

Hafner-Burton¹,

LeVeck²,

Victor³

et al. 2014

Int Org

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Why do some decision makers prefer big multilateral agreements while others prefer cooperation in small clubs? Does enforcement encourage or deter institutional cooperation? We use experiments drawn from behavioral economics and cognitive psychology-along with a substantive survey focused on international tradeto illustrate how two behavioral traits (patience and strategic reasoning) of individuals who play key roles in negotiating and ratifying an international treaty shape their preferences for how treaties are designed and whether they are ratified. Patient subjects were more likely to prefer treaties with larger numbers of countries (and larger long-term benefits), as were subjects with the skill to anticipate how others will respond over multiple iterations of strategic games. The presence of an enforcement mechanism increased subjects' willingness to ratify treaties; however, strategic reasoning had double the effect of adding enforcement to a trade agreement: more strategic subjects were particularly likely to favor ratifying the agreement. We report these results for a sample of 509 university students and also show how similar patterns are revealed in a unique sample of ninety-two actual US policy elites. Under some conditions certain types of university student convenience samples can be useful for revealing elite-dominated policy preferences-different types of people in the same situation may prefer to approach decisionmaking tasks and reason through trade-offs in materially different ways.What determines preferences for international legal cooperation? What determines how decision makers prefer to design or whether they aspire to ratify international

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Let’s Get a Second Opinion: International Institutions and American Public Support for War1

Cited by 151 publications

References 43 publications

A Bottom‐Up Theory of Public Opinion about Foreign Policy

A Bottom‐Up Theory of Public Opinion about Foreign Policy

Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace

Decision Maker Preferences for International Legal Cooperation

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