American Public Opinion on the Iraq War

Chapter 6: Broader Issues Concerning Public Opinion

chapter 6 Broader Issues Concerning Public Opinion It is time to step back from the vast volume of public opinion data to consider three questions arising from the Iraq War, the implications of which may extend beyond the con›ict itself. Public opinion and foreign policy. How, if at all, does this case address broader issues about public opinion and the conduct of American foreign policy ? Do the data on public opinion in the long con›ict in Iraq give rise to ‹ndings of a more general nature that may contribute to the long-standing debates about the role of public opinion in foreign-policy making? More speci‹cally, do they tend to support or refute the theories that depict public opinion as volatile and subject to random changes that may have little or no relationship to real world developments, and thus are a serious hindrance to the effective pursuit of vital national interests? The role of the media. For the vast majority of Americans, the media serve as the sole source of information about foreign affairs, and the media, in turn, are highly dependent on government of‹cials for the news that they report. One of the venerable issues in democratic governance is the proper balance between the media (the right of citizens to be informed about the major decisions and policies that are being conducted in their names) and the government (the need of public of‹cials, especially on matters vital to national security, to be able to deliberate some important issues away from the constant glare of public scrutiny). How, if at all, does the Iraq War shed signi‹cant light on the ageold tensions between these competing claims of the media and government of‹cials? 152 Possible stab-in-the-back explanations. Are there any possible dangers of a stab-in-the-back myth emerging from the Iraq War—or from the concurrent con›icts in Afghanistan and against terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda— to explain any perceived shortfalls from the ambitious goals set forth by Bush administration of‹cials during the run-up to the war? We know from earlier wars—including, most recently, the con›ict in Vietnam—that for some there may be irresistible temptations to locate the cause of defeat, or even setbacks short of defeat, not in events on the ground, nor in the performance of military but in the actions of “enemies” on the home front. Whether or not such claims are strongly rooted in the facts of the situation, they may live on well beyond the con›ict itself, continuing to poison domestic political processes and seriously hampering the effective conduct of foreign affairs. public opinion: randomly volatile or sensibly stable? The nature of public opinion is among the key issues that divides “realist” foreign policy theories from those of “liberals.” Realists typically view public opinion as volatile, ill-informed, uninterested except during crises or other dramatic events, and thus a very slender reed upon which to rely in efforts to pursue vital national interests. To buttress their skepticism, realists can point to substantial evidence that even in the“information age,”most Americans have rather limited factual knowledge about world affairs,and also to studies revealing that they fare poorly in this respect compared to publics in other developed countries.1 Among the most damning evidence, according to some realists, are surveys showing that when asked about what they regard as the“most important issues” facing the country, public views may change fairly rapidly. During World War II, polls repeatedly showed that issues relating to that con›ict ranked at the top of most Americans’ concerns, but soon after the guns had cooled in 1945 such domestic economic issues as postwar employment prospects took the top spot. In his pioneering study of public opinion and American foreign policy, Gabriel Almond cited such evidence as buttressing his fears about a postwar return to isolationism , as had occurred following World War I.2 The realist depiction of public opinion as volatile and subject to random changes that bear little relationship to careful assessments of vital national interests has come under serious empirical challenge. Although there remains little doubt that most Americans are poorly informed about world affairs, a multitude of studies during the past several decades have shown that changes in Broader Issues Concerning Public Opinion / 153 public opinion, in the aggregate, are not merely random ›uctuations; rather...