Paying Attention to Foreign Affairs: How Public Opinion Affects Presidential Decision Making

Introduction

Does public opinion influence U.S. foreign policy? The prevailing wisdom in the foreign policy literature is that public opinion can, at times, influence presidential decision making. Two examples in particular serve to illustrate the potential effect of the public on presidents’ policy choices. In March 1999, NATO warplanes bombed Serbian targets in an effort to end the violence against ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo region. In the prelude to conflict, only a plurality (46 percent) of Americans approved of using U.S. military force to protect Kosovars from Serbian ethnic cleansing.1 Despite such minimal public support for intervention, President Clinton believed that the situation in the Balkans justified U.S. military involvement. After committing U.S. forces to Kosovo without the backing of a majority of the American public, President Clinton opted for a low-risk military strategy specifically designed to minimize U.S. casualties in hopes of increasing domestic support for intervention . This strategy was largely a political success: no U.S. military personnel lost their lives in the Kosovo intervention, and public approval of Clinton’s decision to use force jumped to 68 percent by the end of the conflict.2 While campaigning for office in 1988, George H. W. Bush promised, if elected, to address the issue of global warming during his presidency. Despite introduction 1. Survey by the Harris Organization, March 19–23, 1999, from LexisNexis, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut (accessed April 1, 2004). “The Americans and some of our NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) allies have said that they will launch air attacks against the Serbs in, or near, Kosovo if the Serbs refuse to accept the peace agreement including the use of 25,000 NATO troops. Do you favor or oppose launching air attacks against the Serbs if they refuse to accept NATO troops in Kosovo?” 2. Survey by Princeton, June 9–13, 1999, from LexisNexis, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research , University of Connecticut (accessed April 12, 2004). “All things considered, do you think that the U.S. and NATO made the right decision or the wrong decision to conduct airstrikes against Serbia to force them to agree to the terms of the peace agreement and end the fighting in Kosovo?” this pledge, and despite the public’s concern with climate change (63 percent ), little effort was made to tackle global warming until late in Bush’s presidency .3 In June 1992, a framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was introduced at the Earth Summit Conference in Rio de Janeiro. Over 60 percent of the public believed that the United States should commit to the Rio Treaty, even at a potential cost of billions of dollars to the American taxpayer.4 This high degree of public support influenced the Bush administration’s decision to sign the treaty, even though the administration believed it to be fundamentally flawed and detrimental to U.S. interests. Two years after Rio, however, emission of greenhouse gases in the United States not only had failed to decline but had actually increased. These two examples demonstrate that public opinion can affect foreign policy making, and also that the public sometimes exerts influence at different points in the decision-making process. In the case of Kosovo, the public appeared influential in shaping how the United States would carry out its military intervention, but not in the actual decision to intervene. Conversely, the public influenced the George H. W. Bush administration’s decision to sign the Rio Treaty but seemed to play little role in subsequent enforcement of emission standards. Additionally, the point at which public opinion entered the decision-making process shaped policy outcomes in both cases. In Kosovo, a zero-casualty military strategy was effective in increasing public support for intervention, yet it proved strategically flawed when the United States made a number of military blunders, not the least of which was bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. In the global warming case, the decision to sign the Rio Treaty enjoyed strong popular support, yet lax enforcement of the treaty later undermined the public’s mandate to “do something” about global climate change. The purpose of this book is to develop and test a theory on the relationship between American public opinion and presidential foreign policy making. 2 paying attention to foreign affairs 3. Survey by the Gallup Organization, May 4–7, 1989, from the iPOLL Databank, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of...