American Foreign Policy and Global Opinion - Who Supported the War in Afghanistan - Benjamin E. Goldsmith, Yusaku Horiuchi and Takashi Inoguchi.pdf

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Journal of Conflict Resolution
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American Foreign Policy and Global Opinion: Who Supported the War in Afghanistan?
Benjamin E. Goldsmith, Yusaku Horiuchi and Takashi Inoguchi
Journal of Conflict Resolution
2005; 49; 408
DOI: 10.1177/0022002705276506
http://jcr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/49/3/408
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10.1177/0022002705276506
JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Goldsmith et al. / U.S. FOREIGN POLICY AND GLOBAL OPINION
American Foreign Policy and Global Opinion
WHO SUPPORTED THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN?
BENJAMIN E. GOLDSMITH
School of Policy
University of Newcastle, Australia
YUSAKU HORIUCHI
Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government
Australian National University
TAKASHI INOGUCHI
Faculty of Law and Graduate School of Public Policy
Chuo University
What affects global public opinion about U.S. foreign policy? The authors examine this question using a
cross-national survey conducted during and immediately after the 2001 U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. They
propose three models of global public opinion— interests , socialization , and influence —and discuss their
empirical validity. Socialization variables (e.g., Muslim population and past terrorist incidents) tend to
exhibit significant effects. A variable measuring shared security interests, North Atlantic Treaty Organiza-
tion membership, has significant effects in favor of U.S. policy, but other mutual defense pacts with the U.S.
have a backlash effect. Shared economic interests, represented by levels of trade, also have a positive influ-
ence. Variables measuring conflicting security interests as well as those measuring U.S. efforts to influence
foreign public opinion have insignificant or weak effects.
Keywords: foreign policy; global public opinion; terrorism; Afghanistan; United States
G lobal public opinion is not a new concern for U.S. foreign policy. Woodrow Wilson
often referred to it, even stating that it “ultimately governs the world” (cited in
Ninkovich 1999, 67). But it has gained attention recently, as globalization proceeds,
on one hand, and the U.S. economic, political, and military dominance in the world
becomes apparent, on the other. 1 The George W. Bush administration appointed a for-
mer advertising executive as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public
affairs to “rebrand American foreign policy” ( The Economist , February 23, 2002) and
established at least two new offices devoted to shaping perceptions about the United
States around the globe ( New York Times , February 19, 2002). Obviously, it is assumed
1. There are a growing number of empirical studies of global public opinion. For example, Millard
(1999) studies global opinion about the United Nations. Rusciano (2001) and Rusciano and Fiske-Rusciano
(1990) examine perceptions of world opinion in newspapers around the world. Wilcox, Tanaka, and Allsop
(1993) study world opinion about the 1990 Gulf War.
JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION, Vol. 49 No. 3, June 2005 408-429
DOI: 10.1177/0022002705276506
© 2005 Sage Publications
408
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Goldsmith et al. / U.S. FOREIGN POLICY AND GLOBAL OPINION 409
that public opinion abroad matters for the success or failure of U.S. foreign policy and
that the United States can influence it. But do U.S. behavior and efforts at persuasion
indeed influence foreign opinion about the United States and its international role?
More generally, what affects global public opinion about U.S. foreign policy? Despite
their growing importance, these questions have not been subjected to much empirical
investigation. 2 This article develops a relevant theoretical framework and presents an
initial empirical analysis of factors affecting global public opinion about U.S. foreign
policy.
In what follows, we first discuss our general theoretical framework. Considering
implications of existing theories, we propose three models of global public opinion:
interests , socialization , and influence . Second, we introduce our data and statistical
method. Third, we introduce testable hypotheses derived from our three models.
Fourth, we present the results of empirical tests. We found that socialization variables
(e.g., Muslim population and past terrorist incidents) tend to exhibit significant
effects. A variable measuring shared security interests, North Atlantic Treaty Organi-
zation (NATO) membership, also has significant effects in favor of U.S. policy, but in
general a mutual defense pact with the United States has a backlash effect. Shared eco-
nomic interests, represented by levels of trade, also have a positive influence. Vari-
ables measuring conflicting security interests as well as those measuring U.S. efforts
to influence foreign public opinion are found to have insignificant or weak effects.
Conclusions are drawn, in the last section, regarding our broader understanding of
international relations. We acknowledge that our study examines the factors affecting
global opinion about just one (important) policy recently undertaken by the United
States, but we believe that the logical framework has general relevance and that our
conclusions are unlikely to be anomalous.
MODELS
Existing theories of international relations have paid some attention to transna-
tional linkages involving public opinion about foreign policy, but it has never been an
2. There are a limited number of studies examining the relationships between foreign public opinion
and foreign policy of another country. Cheeseman and McAllister (1996) find that party affiliation in Austra-
lia is related to attitudes toward relations with the United States. Isernia, Juhasz, and Rattinger (2002) pro-
vide evidence for negative European reactions to some U.S. cold war policies. Page, Shapiro, and Dempsey
(1987) find no significant effect of statements by foreigners in the U.S. news media on U.S. public
opinion. Wilcox, Tanaka, and Allsop (1993) and Wilcox, Hewitt, and Allsop (1996) study the relationship
of individual-level factors and opinion about the 1991 Persian Gulf War among residents of eleven major cit-
ies around the world.
AUTHORS’ NOTE: Replication data and a STATA do file are available at http://www.yale.edu/unsy/jcr/
jcrdata.htm. Earlier drafts of this article were presented at the Political Science Department Seminar, Na-
tional University of Singapore (August 2003), and at the Second International Symposium of the Core Re-
search Project, “Rethinking of American Studies in Japan in a Global Age,” Hokkaido University, Japan
(March 2004). The authors would like to acknowledge useful comments and suggestions from Hayward R.
Alker, Yongshun Cai, Alan Chong, Ole R. Holsti, anonymous reviewers, and participants in the aforemen-
tioned seminar and conference. Authors Goldsmith and Inoguchi also acknowledge partial support from the
National University of Singapore under a university research grant (No. R-108-000-009-112) and from the
Japanese Ministry of Education and Science under a scientific research grant (No. 15203005), respectively.
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410 JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION
issue of central concern (e.g., Keohane and Nye 1977; Putnam 1988; Rosenau 1969). 3
In this section, we propose three models of public opinion in country B with regard to
country A’s foreign policy. 4 We also discuss important connections to several existing
theories of international relations.
The first model, which we call an interest model, rests on an assumption that
publics are aware of state-level “material” interests. This model is most consistent with
realist theories of international relations, which assume that states pursue power.
Although most realists do not expect that public preferences have much influence on
foreign policy, this model would allow realist theories to incorporate public opinion
unproblematically. For example, Munton (1992, 237) argues that on issues of nuclear
security, the U.S. public thinks like “conventional military strategists.” In addition,
realists might assume that public opinion is malleable (e.g., Payne 1994), and there-
fore domestic public opinion about foreign policy is shaped along the linesof
“national interests” by leaders through their access to mass media (Hill 1996;
Morgenthau 1978).
Such interests are usually grouped into security and economic issue areas, but few
would argue they are sufficient guides to the foreign policy orientations of states and
their leaders. Even some realists concede this point (e.g., Waltz 1979). This should be
even more so for mass publics. Interests matter, but so do perceptions (Jervis 1976).
Thus, in our second model, which we call a socialization model, we focus on the role
of socialization of mass publics to certain perceptions—beliefs, values, and expecta-
tions about politics. Such socialization occurs through long- and short-term historical
experiences, as well as underlying social factors, such as democracy, religion, and eco-
nomic development. We believe that these factors are most usefully subsumed under
the general category of political culture. Duffield (1999) argues that political culture is
the most useful framework for understanding the effects of cultural factors on foreign
policy.
Finally, if public opinion matters for foreign policy, and if transnational influence
on public opinion exists, the leadership of country A would be interested in influenc-
ing public opinion in country B. Therefore, while material interests and socialized per-
ceptions may be important, we also believe that states seek to influence foreign public
opinion to their advantage. This is our third model, which we call an influence model.
This model also draws on existing theoretical frameworks, particularly second-image
3. Relevant examples of research based on Rosenau’s “linkage politics” model are James and Rioux
(1998), Jensen (1969), and Lohmann (1997).
4. The relationship between public opinion in country A and country A’s foreign policy has been
extensively studied. Many scholars recognize the effect of domestic public opinion on U.S. foreign policy
(e.g., Holsti 1992; Monroe 1998; Nacos, Shapiro, and Isernia 2000; Payne 1994; Risse-Kappen 1991; Sobel
2001; Strobel 1997) and that domestic public opinion on U.S. foreign policy responds in “rational,” “pru-
dent,” or “sensible” ways to events and new information (e.g., Holsti 1992, 1996; Jentleson 1992; Jentleson
and Britton 1998; Munton 1992; Nincic 1992; Page and Shapiro 1992; Shapiro and Page 1988). A number of
studies also point to similar stability and rationality of public opinion about foreign policy in Western Europe
and Russia (e.g., Eichenberg 1989; Isernia, Juhasz, and Rattinger 2002; Munton 1992; Zimmerman 2002).
And it has been shown that television news coverage, as well as “spin” efforts by popular presidents, can
move U.S. public opinion (e.g., Iyengar and Kinder 1987; Iyengar and Simon 1993; Jordan and Page 1992;
Page, Shapiro, and Dempsey 1987; Powlick and Katz 1998).
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Goldsmith et al. / U.S. FOREIGN POLICY AND GLOBAL OPINION 411
reversed and two-level games. The second-image reversed approach (Gourevitch
1978) is concerned with effects of the international environment on domestic political
structures and processes. Gourevitch’s (1978) examples, however, also imply that
country A’s influence to affect things such as domestic coalitions and elite beliefs in
country B has foreign policy relevance. This is closely related to what Putnam (1988)
calls “reverberation” within his two-level game model of diplomacy. While the
emphasis is on elite-level transnational influence, there is also recognition that rever-
beration can “mobilize and/or change public opinion” (Dieter Hiss, cited in Putnam
1988, 455). Trumbore (1998) has used this two-level game framework to study British
and Irish public opinion in the Northern Ireland peace process. It is important to note
that Putnam’s concept of “negative reverberation” also recognizes possible backlash
or unintended consequences of foreign attempts at persuasion or pressure.
To summarize our three models: (1) state-level interests shape public opinion in
country B with regard to country A’s foreign policy (interest model), (2) political cul-
ture and historical experience shape public opinion in country B with regard to country
A’s foreign policy (socialization model), and (3) foreign pressure of country A shapes
public opinion in country B about country A’s foreign policy (influence model).
DATA AND METHODS
To evaluate global public opinion about U.S. foreign policy, we need a cross-
national survey that satisfies at least two conditions. First, the survey must ask a ques-
tion (or questions) relevant to U.S. foreign policy. Second, to represent “global” public
opinion, the survey must be administered in as many countries as possible and/or in
randomly sampled countries. One of the few cross-national surveys that largely meet
these conditions is the Gallup International End of Year Terrorism Poll 2001, con-
ducted by Gallup International and its member companies between November 7 and
December 29, 2001. For this survey, more than 60,000 individuals from sixty-three
countries and regions were interviewed about the U.S.-led military action in Afghanistan.
We could obtain only the county-level aggregate results of this survey. Although
the interpretation of findings based on such data requires some caution, this is not nec-
essarily a critical limitation. Page and Shapiro (1992) make a strong case that the use of
aggregate opinion data on foreign policy is more appropriate than individual-level
data. As they argue, what matters both for foreign policy makers and studies of public
opinion and foreign policy is collective public opinion, rather than individual public
opinion. 5 Furthermore, if we use individual-level data, we may suffer measurement
problems, which “could lead to unstable responses by individuals even while the same
surveys were accurately measuring real and stable collective public opinion” (Page
and Shapiro 1992, 8; also see 15-34). It is also important to note that we do not attempt
5. The two studies that use individual-level data to assess world opinion about another U.S.-led con-
flict (the Gulf War) find significant national (i.e., aggregate-level) variation while controlling for a number of
individual-level demographic and attitudinal factors (Wilcox, Tanaka, and Allsop 1993; Wilcox, Hewitt, and
Allsop 1996).
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