Presidential Leadership on Foreign Policy, Opinion Polling, and the Possible Limits of “Crafted Talk”

Rottinghaus, Brandon

doi:10.1080/10584600801985334

Cited by 23 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…George H.W. Bush's public opinion polls and focus groups showed that the public found rhetoric emphasizing axiological considerations such as the “evil” deeds of Saddam Hussein to be more compelling in justifying the Gulf War than rhetoric emphasizing economic reasons, such as jobs and oil (Rottinghaus, 2008). Thus, the legitimization effect of “good versus evil” rhetoric is widely acknowledged.…”

Section: Historical Roots and Variations Of American Exceptionalism Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Legitimizing the “War on Terror”: Political Myth in Official-Level Rhetoric

Esch

2010

Political Psychology

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This paper argues that mythical discourse affects political practice by imbuing language with power, shaping what people consider to be legitimate, and driving the determination to act. Drawing on Bottici's (2007) philosophical understanding of political myth as a process of work on a common narrative that answers the human need to ground events in significance, it contributes to the study of legitimization in political discourse by examining the role of political myth in official-level U.S. war rhetoric. It explores how two ubiquitous yet largely invisible political myths, American Exceptionalism and Civilization vs. Barbarism, which have long defined America's ideal image of itself and its place in the world, have become staples in the language of the "War on Terror." Through a qualitative analysis of the content of over 50 official texts containing lexical triggers of the two myths, this paper shows that senior officials of the Bush Administration have rhetorically accessed these mythical representations of the world in ways that legitimize and normalize the practices of the "War on Terror."

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Section: Historical Roots and Variations Of American Exceptionalism Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Legitimizing the “War on Terror”: Political Myth in Official-Level Rhetoric

Esch

2010

Political Psychology

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“…Past research into the American Presidency has clearly demonstrated that President's do have the ability to influence public opinion (Calder, 1993;Greenstein, 1974;Mayer, 1993;Neustadt, 1960Neustadt, /1990Rottinghaus, 2009). It has been said that public opinion is a "malleable resource" that can be used to generate support for the administration's policies; once a policy has been identified, then the public can be mobilized in support of it" (McAllister 2006, p. 263).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“Shaping history” or “Riding the wave”?: President Bush's influence on the public opinion of terrorism, homeland security, & crime

Hill

Oliver

Marion

2010

Journal of Criminal Justice

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“…One influential study by Jacobs and Shapiro (2000) finds little evidence that public opinion meaningfully affected the rhetoric of President Bill Clinton. By contrast, Rottinghaus (2008) uses White House archival data and demonstrates that public opinion places significant constraints on presidential framing. Evidence that reliably establishes a causal connection between public opinion and political speech, however, is scarce.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Public Opinion Affect Political Speech?

Hager

Hilbig

2020

American J Political Sci

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Does public opinion affect political speech? Of particular interest is whether public opinion affects (i) what topics politicians address and (ii) what positions they endorse. We present evidence from Germany where the government was recently forced to declassify its public opinion research, allowing us to link the content of the research to subsequent speeches. Our causal identification strategy exploits the exogenous timing of the research's dissemination to cabinet members within a window of a few days. We find that exposure to public opinion research leads politicians to markedly change their speech. First, we show that linguistic similarity between political speech and public opinion research increases significantly after reports are passed on to the cabinet, suggesting that politicians change the topics they address. Second, we demonstrate that exposure to public opinion research alters politicians' substantive positions in the direction of majority opinion.

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Presidential Leadership on Foreign Policy, Opinion Polling, and the Possible Limits of “Crafted Talk”

Cited by 23 publications

References 29 publications

Legitimizing the “War on Terror”: Political Myth in Official-Level Rhetoric

Legitimizing the “War on Terror”: Political Myth in Official-Level Rhetoric

“Shaping history” or “Riding the wave”?: President Bush's influence on the public opinion of terrorism, homeland security, & crime

Does Public Opinion Affect Political Speech?

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