A Bottom-Up Theory of Public Opinion about Foreign Policy
A Bottom-Up Theory of Public Opinion about Foreign Policy
复制标题
DOI：
10.1111/ajps.12314
复制
发表时间：
2017-07
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
Joshua D. Kertzer;Thomas Zeitzoff
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Joshua D. Kertzer;Thomas Zeitzoff
如果关于外交政策的公众舆论是一个精英驱动的过程，为什么公众常常不同意精英的言论呢？我们在此认为，国际关系中的精英暗示模式既过于悲观，又具有不必要的限制性。公众可能缺乏关于周围世界的信息，但他们并不缺乏原则，信息不仅需要自上而下的层层递进。我们展示了五项调查实验的结果，其中表明来自社会同侪的暗示至少与来自政治精英的暗示一样强烈。我们的理论和结果建立在越来越多的发现之上，即个人嵌入在一个社会背景中，与他们对外交政策的总体取向相结合，从而形成对周围世界的反应。因此，我们认为公众可能比我们许多自上而下的模型所声称的更有能力支持外交事务的判断。
If public opinion about foreign policy is such an elite-driven process, why does the public often disagree with what elites have to say? We argue here that elite cue-taking models in International Relations are both overly pessimistic and unnecessarily restrictive. Members of the public may lack information about the world around them, but they do not lack principles, and information need not only cascade from the top down. We present the results from five survey experiments where we show that cues from social peers are at least as strong as those from political elites. Our theory and results build on a growing number of findings that individuals are embedded in a social context that combines with their general orientations toward foreign policy in shaping responses toward the world around them. Thus, we suggest the public is perhaps better equipped for espousing judgments in foreign affairs than many of our top-down models claim.