IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v64y2020i10p1828-1856.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Too Pacifist in Peace, Too Bellicose in War: Political Information and Foreign Policy Opinion

Author

Listed:
  • Benjamin O. Fordham
  • Katja B. Kleinberg

Abstract

Scholars of public opinion and foreign policy recognize that the general public is poorly informed about international affairs, but they disagree about whether and how this fact affects the policies that it will support. Some argue that the lack of information has little effect, at least in the aggregate, while others hold that political information mediates attention to elite cues. We investigate a third line of argument in which political information has a direct effect on the policy options individuals support. Low levels of political information give rise to a pattern of complacency toward likely international threats in times of relative peace and a contrasting tendency to support violent and aggressive policy options during war or acute crises. We test this argument using survey data from two relevant historical settings: the American entry into World War II and the response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin O. Fordham & Katja B. Kleinberg, 2020. "Too Pacifist in Peace, Too Bellicose in War: Political Information and Foreign Policy Opinion," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 64(10), pages 1828-1856, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:64:y:2020:i:10:p:1828-1856
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002720912818
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002720912818
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002720912818?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Darren W. Davis & Brian D. Silver, 2004. "Civil Liberties vs. Security: Public Opinion in the Context of the Terrorist Attacks on America," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(1), pages 28-46, January.
    2. Fordham, Benjamin O., 2008. "Economic Interests and Public Support for American Global Activism," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 163-182, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kenneth D. Nguyen & Heather Rosoff & Richard S. John, 2017. "Valuing Equal Protection in Aviation Security Screening," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(12), pages 2405-2419, December.
    2. Joseph A Hamm & Corwin Smidt & Roger C Mayer, 2019. "Understanding the psychological nature and mechanisms of political trust," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-20, May.
    3. April K. Clark & Michael Clark & Marie A. Eisenstein, 2014. "Stability and Change," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(1), pages 21582440145, March.
    4. Sambuddha Ghatak & Aaron Gold & Brandon C. Prins, 2019. "Domestic Terrorism in Democratic States: Understanding and Addressing Minority Grievances," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(2), pages 439-467, February.
    5. Henning Finseraas & Ola Listhaug, 2013. "It can happen here: the impact of the Mumbai terror attacks on public opinion in Western Europe," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 213-228, July.
    6. Niels Spierings, 2017. "Trust and Tolerance across the Middle East and North Africa: A Comparative Perspective on the Impact of the Arab Uprisings," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(2), pages 4-15.
    7. Alia Aghajanian & Patricia Justino & Jean-Pierre Tranchant, 2020. "Riots and social capital in urban India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-42, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Nikolova, Milena & Popova, Olga, 2023. "Echoes of the Past: The Enduring Impact of Communism on Contemporary Freedom of Speech Values," IZA Discussion Papers 16657, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Frederick Solt, 2008. "Diversionary Nationalism: Economic Inequality and the Formation of National Pride," LIS Working papers 495, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    10. El-Mallakh, Nelly, 2020. "How do protests affect electoral choices? Evidence from Egypt," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 299-322.
    11. R. Urbatsch, 2010. "Isolationism and Domestic Politics," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 54(3), pages 471-492, June.
    12. Bernd Schlipphak, 2015. "Measuring attitudes toward regional organizations outside Europe," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 351-375, September.
    13. Kim, Dayoung & Jesiek, Brent K., 2023. "Political ideologies and moral foundations of engineering professionals in the United States," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    14. Jennifer Byrne, 2018. "National Identity and Migration in an Emerging Gateway Community," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(5), pages 1-17, April.
    15. Tiberiu Dragu, 2017. "On repression and its effectiveness," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(4), pages 599-622, October.
    16. Nik Thompson & Tanya McGill & Anna Bunn & Rukshan Alexander, 2020. "Cultural factors and the role of privacy concerns in acceptance of government surveillance," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 71(9), pages 1129-1142, September.
    17. Brian Blankenship, 2018. "When Do States Take the Bait? State Capacity and the Provocation Logic of Terrorism," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(2), pages 381-409, February.
    18. Amelia C Arsenault & Sarah E Kreps & Keren LG Snider & Daphna Canetti, 2024. "Cyber scares and prophylactic policies: Crossnational evidence on the effect of cyberattacks on public support for surveillance," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 61(3), pages 413-428, May.
    19. Benedikt Goderis & Mila Versteeg, 2012. "Human Rights Violations after 9/11 and the Role of Constitutional Constraints," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 131-164.
    20. Riccardo Ladini & Nicola Maggini, 2023. "The role of party preferences in explaining acceptance of freedom restrictions in a pandemic context: the Italian case," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 99-123, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:64:y:2020:i:10:p:1828-1856. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.