Cold War,Public Opinion,and Foreign Policy Spending Decisions: Dynamic Representation by Congress and the President

Conventional wisdom before the Vietnam War held that public opinion exerted no influence on U.S. foreign policy decisions. Scholars working in Vietnam's aftermath found episodic influence of public opinion on foreign policy, but missing in our understanding were longitudinal examinations of public opinion's influence on foreign policy. A number of post-Vietnam scholars subsequently revealed a long-term relationship between public opinion and defense spending. This study extends that work by analyzing responsiveness to public opinion in different foreign policy arenas by different government institutions, and by accounting for a critical variable not relevant in most previous studies: the end of the cold war. We construct a model explaining the influences of public opinion and the cold war on spending proposals for defense and foreign economic aid by the presidency, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Both public opinion and the end of the cold war exert direct influence on defense spending proposals by the presidency, while the Senate and the House respond primarily to public opinion inputs and the partisan composition of the Senate. In the case of foreign economic aid, the cold war's end gives occasion for increasing spending proposals, contrary to the public's expectation that the end of the cold war minimized the need for the U.S. to provide foreign economic assistance.     

Presidential Impeachment and Institutional Dynamics in the Iran-Contra Affair and the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal

This paper analyzes institutional dynamics affecting Congress's impeachment decisions regarding the Iran-Contra Affair and the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. While other scholars have explained the Clinton impeachment by pointing to differences in the nature of the scandals–a decoupling of public opinion from legislative action, increasing partisanship, and a new media regime–these explanations overlook the nature of impeachment as an institutional confrontation, governed by institutional choices and dynamics. Taking an institutional approach, we argue that congressional decisions were strongly affected by the institutional arrangements adopted by Congress to handle the scandals' investigations. In brief, the earlier strategic approaches of party leaders and the congressional investigatory approach restrained inclinations to impeach President Reagan, while later ones promoted President Clinton's impeachment. More broadly, this analysis demonstrates the important interaction between institutional choices and party leaders' powers and strategies in affecting congressional action.     

Jobs,crime, proximity and boats: explaining Australian public attitudes to immigrant numbers

Despite the importance of immigration to Australia, there is little systematic research on the causes of support among Australian citizens for increased, stable or decreased immigration. This paper advances our understanding of Australian public attitudes to immigration levels in the light of the established international literature on public opinion and immigration. Using 2013 Australian Electoral Study (AES) data, we show that, as in other countries, Australian citizens’ attitudes to immigrant numbers are partly driven by a combination of sociotropic economic considerations and perceptions of the socio-cultural impact of immigrants. In addition, we argue that political mobilisation has an impact on attitudes toward immigration that has not received sufficient attention. We demonstrate that citizens who accepted the Coalition's rhetoric on asylum seeker arrivals were more likely to want overall immigrant numbers reduced. Finally, we combine the individual level AES data with electoral district level data to test the impact of contact with immigrants on attitudes to immigrant numbers. Australians living in electoral districts with higher percentages of non-white immigrants are more likely to want lower immigrant numbers than those living in districts with fewer non-white immigrants.     

The Dynamics of Environmental Issues in Australia: Concerns,Clusters and Carriers

Recent survey (AES and ISSP) data and public opinion polls show an interesting dynamic at work in public opinion on environmental issues in Australia. Environmental concerns lose urgency, detach themselves from environmental groups, their established issue-carriers, and further bifurcate into distinct 'green' and 'brown' issue clusters. These shifts in patterns of concern accompany changes in forms of public expression and in the diffusion of concerns. However, public concerns about the environment in Australia do not simply wane, but become 'routinised', that is, increasingly differentiated, independent of green groups, and linked with conventional institutional issue carriers.     

German Public Opinion and the Question of Industrial Modernity: Wilhelmine Depictions of the French Economy

This article re-examines the debate about industrialisation and modernity in pre-war Germany. Whereas most historians have concentrated on the critical, nostalgic, doom-laden and volatile reaction of writers and academics to economic transformation this study assesses the much more optimistic and approving verdict of popular newspapers, magazines and books. By 1900 the economy of the Kaiserreich was widely believed in Germany to have expanded more quickly and more successfully than that of France. The reversal of the two countries' fortunes, which was extensively covered in the press, overturned a long-held assumption of French superiority. Confronted daily with such evidence of German success vis-a-vis France, Britain and other European states, Wilhelmine public opinion had good cause to feel confident about the Reich's economic future.     

Libya and the International System: Retracing the Aftermath of the Lockerbie Bombing

The defining moment of Libya's relationship with the United States during the last decade of the 20th century was the 1991 implication of Libya and its government by the United States and United Kingdom in the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The controversial decision of the United Nations Security Council to employ sanctions against Libya after its refusal to surrender two bombing suspects to the United States and United Kingdom was largely ignored by European countries with interests in Libya, and led to the eventual open opposition to sanctions by many of Libya's African neighbors. Libya was quickly found guilty in the U.S. and UK courts of public opinion; however the common assumption that Libya's refusal reflected its indignation toward the West is problematic, and does not take into account historical factors that pushed Libya away from compliance, nor the lengths to which Libya attempted to sidestep those factors in order to respect international law. This article places Libya's reaction to the destruction of Flight 103 into the context of its recent relationship with the United States, and argues that despite the tainted U.S. public perception of Libya and its leader, the aftermath of the destruction of Flight 103 no longer plays an important role in shaping United States–Libya relations.     

Howard's way? Public opinion as an influence on Australia's engagement with Asia, 1996–2007

Using the typology developed by Douglas Foyle, this article argues that John Howard behaved as a ‘pragmatist’ in dealing with situations where public opinion was relevant to Australia's engagement with Asia. Howard adhered to his own views on the relevant issues while attempting to lead public opinion in the direction he believed desirable. During the 1996–2007 period the most relevant issues relating to the impact of public opinion on Australia's Asian engagement were Australia's relations with Indonesia and Asian immigration. In the case of Australian–Indonesian relations the Howard government had to deal with various situations where an activated public opinion threatened to undermine the long term Australian approach that gave primacy to Indonesian concerns. Political leadership entailed developing a response that the government believed to be appropriate to Australia's long term objectives, while also attempting to persuade the public that this was the case. In the second instance policy developed in a more ‘deliberative’ context: Howard modified his earlier stance that was critical of Asian immigration, but continued to adhere to a strongly ‘integrationist’ position. This position was consistent with both his own views and his perception of public attitudes on the matter.     

Re-examining the Australian public's attitude to military casualties: post-heroic or defeat-phobic?

Australia, like most other developed democracies, is often alleged to suffer from ‘casualty phobia’. The perception that the Australian public will not tolerate casualties in foreign conflicts has shaped the decisions of both civilian and military policy makers. Measures taken to protect Australian forces from casualties may, for instance, also serve to increase the risk to civilians in the country to which they are deployed. The USA underwent a similar debate some years ago. Innovative public opinion research techniques—especially ‘survey experiments’ which allow researchers to establish causal relationships by consciously manipulating one variable while holding others constant—have established that the American public are not reflexively casualty-phobic and that the impact of casualties on public opinion can be outweighed by other factors, such as the public's confidence in the mission's overall success. In this article, the author replicates one of the key survey experiments from the US debate, suitably adapted to Australian conditions, with a nationally representative sample of Australian voters. The author finds that the same pattern holds in Australia as in the USA: casualties do lower public support for a given mission, but the mission's chances of success matter more.     

Ronald Reagan,the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign and the Nuclear scare of the 1980s

This article examines the Reagan's administration response to the nuclear scare and the ensuing antinuclear mobilization of the early 1980s. Specifically, it analyses the interaction between the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign (NWFC) and the Administration's Nuclear Arms Control Information Policy Group (NACIPIG), the ad hoc interdepartmental group created in order to counter the NWFC's influence on public opinion and regain control of the debate on nuclear arms negotiations. By looking simultaneously at the NACIPIG's records and the nuclear freeze campaign documents, the article analyses the interplay between the movement and the executive branch, aiming at understand how the White House responded to the domestic antinuclear challenge and in which way the movement influenced public opinion and affected in the end policy-making. The purpose is to offer a nuanced understanding of the role played by the antinuclear movement that, through its pressure on the U.S. public opinion and Congress, induced Reagan first to temper his bellicose rhetoric and then to alter his negotiating strategy with the Soviets.     

The growth of antinuclearism in New Zealand

This paper explores the transformation of antinuclear opinion in New Zealand into a more durable and structured political orientation. Antinuclear opinion first gripped a large portion of the New Zealand public after that nation's government banned the entry of United States nuclear warships in 1984. At that time, the public rallied behind the government's action. This consolidation effect, however, showed signs of being impermanent by 1986; antinuclear opinion appeared to be on the wane. Surprisingly, by 1989 this sentiment had finned into a more structured attitude, regardless of the fact that the government responsible for the nuclear ships ban had become very unpopular. The youthful cast to antinuclearism in New Zealand suggests that this orientation is in the process of becoming a fixture of that country's political culture. Political socialisation experiences best explain the continuation and growth of this orientation. The database used in this study comes from a series of national surveys—the most pertinent of which are polls conducted in 1985 and 1989.     

Political and Socioeconomic Indicators of State Restrictiveness Toward Abortion

We compare the relative impacts of political and socioeconomic factors on state restrictiveness toward abortion during the pre-Roe, pre-Webster and post-Webster time frames. This analysis tests the value of cycle theory, where shifting epochs dominated by liberalism and conservatism enhance the role of political variables in shaping policy formation. It also tests the explanatory value of public opinion theory which holds that bimodal issues which cut across party lines accentuate the role of socioeconomic variables in shaping issue evolution. The results of this analysis lend support to cycle theory and public opinion theory, although public opinion theory receives stronger support. When socioeconomic independent variables are regressed against our dichotomous measures of state restrictiveness toward abortion, they explain more variance than political independent variables. Political variables were more important in the conservative era (1989) than in the liberal era (1972).     

Does foreign policy represent the views of the public? Assessing public and elite opinion on New Zealand's foreign policy

This article1 1. We would like to thank Philip Nel, Robert Patman, Steve Hoadley and Chris Rudd for their advice and overall contribution to this research project. We would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions. View all notes investigates public opinion on New Zealand's foreign policy, drawing on the findings of a comprehensive poll of general public and elite opinion conducted in 2008. It analyses what New Zealanders think about a range of foreign policy issues and whether public opinion matches actual foreign policy. It argues that the majority of the public support the broad parameters of official policy, but that there are significant differences of opinion in some specific areas, particularly trade agreements and defence. These differences correspond in particular to political orientation and age, gender and income level. The article also outlines the key differences between public opinion and the opinion of the positional elite. Overall, it is argued that the New Zealand public does have clear opinions on foreign policy issues and that these are generally consistent. The article proposes more frequent polling and more public debate over foreign policy.     

Speaking the Truth to the Power of the Presidency

Abstract

Instead of focusing on what characteristics the next president of the United States should have, we need to focus on the institutional realities of the presidency. Those realities consistently reflect a system dedicated to maintaining the dominance of the United States through economic and military power, and maintaining the ruling elite's control of economic and political power in this country. Persons committed to the practice of the Gospel, especially in solidarity with the poor, must name, confront and resist those institutional and cultural realities. This truth-telling can take many forms, such as life in community with the poor, public speaking, preaching, writing, demonstrations, civil disobedience, and some involvement in electoral politics. All of these will be informed by a realism that struggles faithfully without placing undue hope on presidential politics.     

Re‐mythologizing the State: Public Security, ‘the Jesus Strategy’ and the Fiji Police

ABSTRACT My primary concern is with tracing how the police force has been transformed from a secular institution into an overtly religious one. Drawing from scholarly work on charismatic leadership and its routinization in institutional forms, much of it inspired by Max Weber's early work on these themes, my overarching aim is to grapple with the significance of Commissioner Teleni's reforms not only for the Fiji police force but more broadly for the shape of the Fijian state. While recognizing the acute importance of international relations in establishing and supporting Fiji's various political regimes, my focus here is firmly on the domain of the nation‐state as I wish to assess how politicians, military leaders, and now the Commissioner of Police attempt to constitute mass public support through their use of Christian rhetoric.     

Revisiting Dred Scott: Prudence,Providence, and the Limits of Constitutional Statesmanship

Abstract

After the Dred Scott decision in 1857, Abraham Lincoln embarked on a public campaign to prevent the expansion of slavery in the federal territories. Lincoln's opposition to Dred Scott was, however, bound up with a certain theoretical orientation that is often rejected in the general milieu of modern constitutional theory. Within the context of two recent revisionist accounts of slavery and American constitutionalism, I argue that our retrospective evaluations of the sixteenth president's statesmanship must enter into a deeper engagement with Lincoln's attachment to natural law and his theological interpretation of the Civil War.     

The foreign policy of First Republic Italy: new approaches

This introductory article deals with the most recent contributions by Italian historians on the Italian Republic's international role. It aims mainly to demonstrate that a new generation of younger Italian historians is successfully offering new views and interpretations on First Republic Italy's role in the international system, and is also focusing on aspects such as the culture of Italy's political parties, the economic dimension, the role of public opinion, and the influence of external actors on domestic Italian politics – in short, that there has been a turn away from traditional diplomatic history based upon the archives of the Foreign Ministry.     

The China Hearings: America's Shifting Paradigm on China

This article attempts to fill a hole in rapprochement literature by examining the 1966 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the People's Republic of China. Historian Michael Lumbers contends that the China hearings served as a watershed in American attitudes toward China. This article explains how and why this change occurred. The China hearings contributed to Sino-American rapprochement in two different ways. One, the witnesses suggested to the public a new policy toward China, containment without isolation. The popularity of containment without isolation and the Johnson administration's use of it in their policy reorientation suggest that the China hearings had an effect. The hearings were not only a turning point, but also the culmination of a larger process. It demonstrated that American sentiment toward China had clearly moved away from hostility and toward cooperation. And during the 1960s, scholars of East Asian studies served as opinion leaders in this process.     

A Tale of Three Variables: Exploring the Impact of Alternative Measures of Presidential Approval On Congressional Voting

This study explores the impact of three distinct measures of public approval on congressional voting. Specifically, we test for the relative impact of a president's national approval, his partisan approval, and his district- (or state-) level approval on congressional support, measured at the level of individual members of Congress. Though we remain consistent with other arguments that hold presidential approval is likely to act as a background variable rather than a determinant of congressional voting, we maintain that theoretically more meaningful relationships between public opinion and congressional voting can be developed. Specifically, we argue that a more relevant test can be made which includes opinion measured closest to where that opinion is likely to matter to members, namely among electoral copartisans and district-level constituencies. We estimate various models (bivariate and integrated multivariate), and find strong support for our hypotheses that, to the extent members of Congress use public approval as a voting cue, they do in fact pay far more attention to partisan and constituency interests than they do to national opinion.     

WHAT'S WRONG WITH ECONOMIC HISTORY?

In this polemical book, Francesco Boldizzoni argues that economic history is so moribund as to require resurrection. He maintains that economic history has been converted into a subfield of economics and has embraced the antihistorical and a priori intellectual style of mainstream economics departments: it has, in effect, ceased to be a form of history. Boldizzoni hopes to force a recognition of contemporary economic history's bankruptcy and to show the way toward a revitalization. He criticizes both economic history as retrospective econometrics, as in the work of Robert Fogel, and economic history as a branch of the new institutional economics, as in the work of Douglas North. Boldizzoni suggests that economic history should return to the sort of research and models that prevailed earlier in its own history—models based on induction from observed economic life rather than on deduction from the theories of contemporary microeconomics. He particularly singles out the work of Witold Kula, Moses Finley, and the Annales historians for emulation, but also praises the perspectives of economic sociology and economic anthropology. Boldizzoni's call for a return to a more inductive form of economic history is welcome, and his discussions of his heroes should remind us that economic history was once a vibrant and creative part of the history profession. But the book's advice is more useful for historians working on premodern than on modern economic life. The claim that self‐governing markets and interest‐maximizing individual actors are pure figments of economists' imaginations seems far less certain for recent than for premodern times. And his insistence that each society has its own distinct form of economic life that must be discovered inductively leaves unconceptualized the world‐spanning forces of capitalist development that increasingly shape societies everywhere. Boldizzoni's critique and his positive suggestions are certainly valuable, but he by no means supplies a sufficient recipe for economic history's resurrection as a vibrant field.     

Malthusianism,socialism and feminism in the United States

This article examines and compares Adam Ferguson's and Guillaume-Thomas Raynal's analyses of modern commercial states by reconstructing their accounts of the history and politics of the Dutch Republic. For both writers, the Dutch case stood as a clear instance of the political dangers implicit in a particular type of commercial polity, and both sought to apply its lessons to an understanding of the future of their own states. Although Ferguson's and Raynal's arguments about the decline of the Dutch trading state overlapped, their analyses reflected different evaluations of the relationship between modern states and modern economic institutions (trading companies and public debts). The broader purpose of the article is to shed light on the distinctive theories of commerce and models of European development that informed the major works of Enlightenment historiography and political thought produced by Ferguson and Raynal in the 1760s and 1770s.