Shaping Foreign Policy Opinions

Donald L. Jordan and Benjamin I. Page
Additional contact information
Donald L. Jordan: U.S. Air Force Academy
Benjamin I. Page: Northwestern University

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1992, vol. 36, issue 2, 227-241

Abstract: Increasing evidence of connections between public opinion and U.S. foreign policy-making suggests the importance of determining what influences shape the collective foreign policy preferences of the public. A data set involving repeated measures of public opinion and content analyses of TV news broadcasts before and between opinion surveys is used to estimate the impact of news stories from various sources on opinion. Reported statements and actions by media commentators, allegedly nonpartisan “experts,†opposition party figures, and popular (but not un popular) presidents have the largest estimated effects, while the impact of other sources is negligible. Despite ideas about the “two presidencies†and the like, the process of shaping opinion on foreign policy does not appear substantially different from that affecting domestic policy preferences. Some implications for the democratic control of foreign policy are discussed.

Date: 1992
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002792036002001 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:36:y:1992:i:2:p:227-241

DOI: 10.1177/0022002792036002001

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().