Suchergebnisse

"This book examines the evidence for the theory that there are fundamental differences between American and European public attitudes about the acceptability of military force. Philip Everts and Pierangelo Isernia show that Americans and Europeans share similar attitudes on international affairs but do indeed differ considerably on the issue of military force. This became evident in a number of recent cases of international conflict and military interventions, such as the war over Kosovo just before the millennium, as well as the military actions in the fight against international terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. Using new data Everts and Isernia chart and explain these attitudes and their determinants. Public Opinion, Transatlantic Relations and the Use of Force takes a deliberately comparative and transatlantic perspective in exploring the sources of these differences and in discussing the political implications of the transatlantic gap on the use of force, as well as in its assessment of the conditions under which it could be bridged or might be aggravated"--

The paper discusses the role of public opinion in the foreign policy-making process of liberal democracies. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, public opinion matters. However, the impact of public opinion is determined not so much by the specific issues involved or by the particular pattern of public attitudes as by the domestic structure and the coalition-building processes among the elites in the respective country. The paper analyzes the public impact on the foreign policy-making process in four liberal democracies with distinct domestic structures: the United States, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Japan. Under the same international conditions and despite similar patterns of public attitudes, variances in foreign policy outcomes nevertheless occur; these have to be explained by differences in political institutions, policy networks, and societal structures. Thus, the four countries responded differently to Soviet policies during the 1980s despite more or less comparable trends in mass public opinion.

Preface : policy responsiveness and American democracy -- Democratic control of American school boards -- Financing public education -- Public opinion and Americans' commitment to educational spending -- Direct democracy, indirect democracy, and policy responsiveness -- Voting rights, electoral systems, and policy responsiveness -- Teacher's unions in state and local politics -- The gray peril reconsidered -- The democratic control of American school boards.

Nationally representative surveys conducted in 2008 and 2010 found significant declines in Americans' climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and trust in scientists. Drawing upon the Social Amplification of Risk Framework, this analysis empirically examines the impact of "climategate"—an international scandal resulting from the unauthorized release of emails between climate scientists in England and United States. The results demonstrate that "climategate" had a significant effect on public beliefs in global warming and trust in scientists. The loss of trust in scientists, however, was primarily among individuals with a strongly individualistic worldview or politically conservative ideology. Nonetheless, Americans overall continued to trust scientists more than other sources of information about global warming. Several other explanations for the declines in public understanding are also explored, including the poor state of the economy, a new administration and Congress, diminishing media attention, and abnormal winter weather.

The article aims to outline a concept of public opinion on foreign policy issues, which is forming in contemporary Russia within society as a whole, resting upon the data resulting from the sociological study of 2000s in comparison to 1990s surveys. At the same time, factors which determined and determine the Russians' perceptions of foreign policy problems are analyzed, and an attempt to apprehend the degree of the real public opinion influence on Russia's foreign policy development and implementation process is made.