The Trump Divide and Partisan Attitudes Regarding US Foreign Policy: Select Theoretical and Empirical Observations

Shah M. Tarzi

International Studies, 2019, vol. 56, issue 1, 46-57

Abstract: This article presents select data, recent trends and empirical analysis concerning American voters’ attitudes on American foreign policy in the Trump era. Accordingly, it addresses several vital questions: (a) whether and to what extent Trump Republicans hold views that are distinct from non-Trump Republicans and from average US voters?; (b) how widespread is support for President Trump’s foreign policy?; and (c) whether partisanship has intensified? Importantly, the study deduces preliminary theoretical observations and highlights select new pathways for future research. The key findings of the article are: (a) Trump supporters hold distinct views from the general public; (b) President Trump’s positions are not popular; (c) partisanship has intensified under Trump; (d) on the broad contours of American foreign policy, the American public, including the non-Trump Republicans, express noteworthy continuity, stability and support in spite of a deeply polarizing American president. The article offers select theoretical insights, including recognition of the role of core value in ordering belief systems, thereby offering a modicum of internal coherence, stability and structure to foreign policy views of American mass public, thus transcending the traditional Almond–Lippmann theoretical consensus regarding the content of American public opinion.

Keywords: Trump; partisan attitudes and foreign policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020881718824488 (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:intstu:v:56:y:2019:i:1:p:46-57

DOI: 10.1177/0020881718824488

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().