Public Opinion and British Foreign Policy

Younger, Kenneth

doi:10.2307/2609695

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…In the late 1950s, there was a rethink that came primarily from the Treasury and the Foreign Office rather than from public demand (Younger, 1964, p. 29). In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the British economy – and in particular that of its exports – was in a far better shape than continental economies and senior British civil servants had considered the risks to signing up to long‐term economic co‐operation with its European neighbours as being unnecessary and potentially damaging (Judt, 2005, p. 159).…”

Section: Background and Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The Formation of British Attitudes towards the Common Market: 1957–72

Kenny

2022

J of Common Market Studies

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This paper uses an extensive collection of historical surveys that have only recently been made available to researchers to examine the formation of British attitudes towards the then European Economic Community. It demonstrates thatup until 1967the demographic predictors of support for UK membership were unstable. Thereafter, coinciding with the second UK application, these attitudes started to stabilise and harden, with support becoming highest among men, the youngest age cohorts, the middle class and those with greater education. The renewed politicization of the issue in 1967 also coincided with Labour voters becoming significantly more likely to support membership. Following the change in the parties' positions, Labour voters subsequently become substantially less supportive than Conversative voters. The paper thus supports existing analyses on the role of elite cues, while providing new, robust evidence of the change in demographic associations over this formative period.

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Section: Background and Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The Formation of British Attitudes towards the Common Market: 1957–72

Kenny

2022

J of Common Market Studies

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“…Such multilateral instincts also show up in longitudinal studies of mass support for war : Bronski & Way's (2003) analysis shows that in Britain, as in the USA, the public is more inclined to rally round the flag in cases of joint military action. 4 Finally, Younger (1964) suggests that, even in the decades following World War II, when the public might be expected to have been more confident in Britain's capacity to act alone, there was nonetheless widespread internationalism and support for the UN.…”

Section: International Backing and Public Support For Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coalitions of the willing? International backing and British public support for military action

Johns

Davies

2014

Journal of Peace Research

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Studies of public support for war highlight the importance of context. Most people do not simply support or oppose the use of force but instead assess its merits depending on various aspects of the situation. One such aspect is the extent of international backing – whether from individual states or supranational organizations – for military action. This backing may be active, notably through the contribution of troops, or more a passive matter of endorsement or authorization of action. In this article, a survey experiment embedded in a major internet survey of British foreign policy attitudes (N = 2,205) is used to explore how international backing affects public support for military action. Britain’s military potential and recent history make it an obvious case study here. Both active and endorsement backing prove to have separate and significant positive effects on support. Importantly, the absolute number of troops involved matters far less than the proportion of total troop numbers to be contributed. And the perceived strength of the enemy predicts support only when the British are to contribute a large proportion of total forces. Predispositional variables are used to investigate the sources of the experimental effects but with little success: the impact of international backing proves remarkably consistent across the sample.

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“…64 In the pews opinion was as divided as in the rest of society, with Kenneth Younger suggesting that in fact the mass of ordinary people following the launch of the attack inclined to 'a nationalist not to say chauvinistic reaction'. 65 Public opinion ran broadly in favour of the Government for much of the period, with various intellectuals noting in diaries and letters that their own positions were out of tune with majority opinion. Equally divided were the newspapers, with The Observer experiencing a loss of advertising revenue as a consequence of its outspoken editorial position.…”

Section: The Collusion Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘On Very Slippery Ground’: The British Churches, Archbishop Fisher and the Suez Crisis

Anderson

2014

Contemporary British History

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Public Opinion and British Foreign Policy

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

The Formation of British Attitudes towards the Common Market: 1957–72

The Formation of British Attitudes towards the Common Market: 1957–72

Coalitions of the willing? International backing and British public support for military action

‘On Very Slippery Ground’: The British Churches, Archbishop Fisher and the Suez Crisis

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