Social Needs and National Attributes

Some foreign-policy objectives, decisions, and actions are formulated or taken to fulfill general social needs and advance more specific interests of domestic groups, political parties, and economic organizations. In the middle of the nine­teenth century, for example, the British government had little interest in estab­lishing new colonies. But by the 1890s, missionary societies, explorers, commer­cial firms, and military adventurers had prevailed upon the political parties and government to create colonies and protectorates to provide security under which they could conduct activities in Africa with safety. Partly in response to competi­tion from France and Germany, considerations of prestige, and importuning of pressure groups, the British government ultimately made expansion of the empire an official policy objective. The interests of some types of private groups can be secured only by government actions toward other states. If such groups are successful in their agitation, they may obtain official recognition of their interests by policy makers who will raise these private interests into collective objectives, demanding official time and attention, diplomatic representation, spending of public money, and occasional use of armed force. Typical examples occur when a government negotiates a tariff agreement with another state to benefit one of its own business enterprises or industries, or intervenes diplomati­cally or militarily in another country to protect the property and investments of its own citizens or business enterprises.

More important, the main geographic, demographic, and resource char­acteristics of a country help create general social and economic needs that can be fulfilled only through transactions with other states. The conditions may be so obvious that they are not openly acknowledged as crucial elements in a definition of a situation, but almost every political objective and diplomatic action implicitly gives recognition to their importance. Of the components in

²⁶ Richard C. Snyder and Glenn D. Paige, "The United States Decision to Resist Aggression in Korea," in Foreign Policy Decision Making, eds. Richard C. Snyder, H.W. Bruck, and Burton Sapin (New York: The Free Press, 1962).

336 Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

many definitions of situations, a country's geographic location and topographical features may be the most important, because they are the most permanent. Although modern technology can alter the political and economic significance of geographic characteristics, many of these characteristics still influence policies by providing opportunities or by placing limitations on what is feasible in both domestic and foreign policy programs. A country's size, population, distribution of natural resources, climate, and topography will have an important bearing on its socioeconomic development, needs vis-a-vis other nations, and access to other areas of the world. These conditions also have the greatest relevance to military and defense policies. Topographical features create avenues for inva­sion and suggest the best lines of defense; economic characteristics and distribu­tion of natural resources determine a nation's self-reliance or dependence on others in wartime as well as during peace; and climate imposes restrictions on the types of warfare that can be conducted in a particular area or the crops that can be grown.

British or Japanese foreign ministers are aware that their country is a small island, heavily populated, unable to grow adequate food supplies, and therefore highly dependent upon foreign trade to maintain an acceptable stan­dard of living. Given the essential goals of maintaining living standards and meeting demands for economic and social security, some foreign-policy objec­tives, such as trade expansion, naturally proceed from the economic and geo­graphic situation. Lack of raw materials and food within the islands makes it necessary for the British and Japanese to import these commodities; in order to import, they have to manufacture export goods that can compete successfully against the products of other exporting nations. The geographical characteristics of Japan and England thus help create persisting interests and objectives no matter what the circumstances abroad or which political party or foreign minister is in power. This does not mean that all people similarly interpret the significance of geographic and economic conditions or that any two governments will defend or achieve persisting interests in exactly the same way. The British Conservative party, responding to the need to expand trade, may promote this expansion by subsidizing exports; the Labour party may try to accomplish the same goal by lowering the volume of imports. In the 1930s, the Japanese sought to meet their resource needs by creating the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," a semicolonial region that would provide cheap raw materials, expanding mar­kets, and a region for settling Japan's surplus population. Since World War II, however, the Japanese have sought to satisfy their persisting socioeconomic needs by modernizing industrial capacity, rationalizing agriculture, and conduct­ing vigorous export sales programs in international markets.

Social and economic needs can be linked to policy outputs only in the sense that certain possibilities seem logical; in an era when economic welfare is a prime national value, we can predict with reasonable certainty that a resource-poor state will engage in foreign trade, and should that commerce be shut off, policy makers will define the situation as a near crisis and will take action to try to reestablish trade. We cannot say, however, that in all instances the

337Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

relationship would hold, because needs may be defined in many different ways. What about other national characteristics or attributes as explanations for for­eign-policy outputs?

Domestic Instability

One of the oldest propositions has linked domestic instability or turmoil to expansion abroad and hostile diplomatic behavior. The reasoning is that in order to create national unity, governments may undertake foreign adventures. In Quincy Wright's words, a ruler prevents sedition by making external war.²⁷ In the contemporary context, observers have often asserted that the leaders of developing states display considerable hostility to Western countries or under­take programs of expansion as a means of overcoming or diverting attention from ethnic, religious, and ideological divisions. According to Kissinger, the international arena provides an opportunity for taking dramatic foreign-policy measures that are impossible at home.²⁸ To what extent can these propositions be supported by historical evidence?

In a study based on European diplomatic history since 1740, Richard Rosecrance concluded that whereas many wars and crises were not related to internal instability or domestic turmoil, many others could be traced to, or explained by, the insecurity of political elites.²⁹ But the evidence still allows us to state only that internal conflict may result in aggressive foreign policy.

Another method of exploring the proposition is to look at a great number of states within a shorter period of time. This way, we can focus attention not only on actors that became involved in wars—as would be the case in diplomatic histories—but on all states. Rudolph J. Rummel has pioneered an extensive body of research that has sought to find links between various national attributes (such as size, number of frontiers, wealth and the like) and national behavior (such as domestic violence) on the one hand and foreign policy conflict on the other. The usual method employed in these studies has been to gather data on the attributes and behavior of a large sample of states (usually more than seventy) for a period of several years and to do the same for external behavior. The national attribute and behavior data are gleaned from standard statistical sources, whereas foreign-policy actions are usually taken from newspa­per accounts. The data for the independent and dependent variables are then subjected to statistical treatment.

These studies have not yet uncovered any strong relationships. Rummel's work, for example, has demonstrated that at best, there is only a very weak covariation between foreign and domestic conflict behavior. On the basis of his research, one could not accept the proposition that governments generally display aggressiveness in foreign relations as a means of coping with domestic

²⁷ Quincy Wright, A Study of War, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 140.

²⁸ Henry Kissinger, American Foreign Policy: Three Essays (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 41.

²⁹ Richard N. Rosecrance, Action and Reaction in World Politics (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963), pp. 304-5.

338Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

instability.³⁰ Assuming, however, that there might be a time lag between the incidence of domestic violence and its expression in foreign policy, Raymond Tanter replicated some of Rummel's work and added more extensive data of his own. He found only a weak relationship between the variables. Given a certain level of domestic turmoil at a time x, he could not discover that there was any significant rise in external conflict behavior one or two years later.³¹ Using a very broad data base for sixty-nine countries for the period of 1966-1969, Michael Skrein made further investigations relating attributes and behavior to foreign-policy actions. He employed three different statistical manipulations with his data but failed to uncover evidence of any relationships between domes­tic instability or violence and foreign policy.³²

Type of Regime

In arriving at this conclusion, however, we have made no distinction between types of states. Another popular explanation for national aggressiveness holds that the type of political or economic regime in a state can be crucial. The reasoning is that "closed" systems can maintain secrecy and, by manipulating public opinion, can more easily arouse widespread support. Moreover, it is possi­ble that in a totalitarian or authoritarian political system, where decision making is limited to a few high-ranking individuals often cut off from objective analyses of internal and external conditions, there will be strong imperatives to undertake high-risk policies or to command sudden switches in objectives, roles, orienta­tions, or actions. Since many dictatorships are based on weak foundations, top leaders may also undertake foreign adventures to consolidate their positions. Or, using psychological variables, it could be argued that in regimes headed by charismatic leaders, decision makers can achieve considerable personal gratifi­cation from exercising power arbitrarily, seeking international prestige, or glori­fying themselves through military displays and expeditions abroad.³³

Using the Rummel and Tanter data, Jonathan Wilkenfeld has demon­strated that statistical relationships between internal and external conflict behav­ior do emerge if one takes into account types of states, types of internal and external conflict, and time lags. Thus, he found that for "centrist" states (mostly

³⁰ Rudolph J. Rummel, "The Relationship between National Attributes and Foreign Con­flict Behavior," in Quantitative International Politics: Insights and Evidence, ed. J. David Singer (New York: Free Press, 1968), pp. 187-214.

³¹ Raymond Tanter, "Dimensions of Conflict Behavior Within and Between Nations, 1958-1960," Journal of Conflict Resolution, 10 (1966), 61-62.

³² Skrein found a tendency for less politically advanced nations to be more generally hostile than the politically mature ones (p. 43), and there were some strong associations between various national attributes and degrees of cooperative behavior. Michael Skrein, "National Attributes and Foreign Policy Output: Tests for a Relationship," Support Study No. 4, World Event/Interaction Survey, Department of International Relations, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, June 1970 (mimeo).

³³ See R. Barry Farrell, "Foreign Policies of Open and Closed Political Societies," in Ap­proaches to Comparative and International Politics, ed. R. Barry Farrell (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1966), pp. 167-206.

J9 Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

one-party, authoritarian states), there is a relationship between (1) revolutions, number killed in domestic conflicts, purges, and general strikes, on the one hand, and (2) all types of external conflict behavior after a lag of either one or two years. But in "personalist" states (those ruled by personal dictatorships), all types of internal strife (including demonstrations, guerrilla warfare, assassina­tions, and the like) are related only to certain types of foreign-conflict behavior, including expulsion of ambassadors and officials from other states, and troop movements. For "polyarchic" nations (mostly Western democracies), there is a statistically significant relationship between antigovernment demonstrations, riots, and government crises, on the one hand, and all types of external conflict behavior, on the other, for all time periods.³⁴

Wilkenfeld's findings support the major propositions linking domestic attributes and foreign-policy actions: There are different patterns of relationship between internal and external behavior when we look at different sorts of re­gimes. But explanations for these relationships remain to be put forth, and it is significant that, using different data, Skrein did not find meaningful statistical relationships between type of political system, levels of internal conflict, and foreign-policy actions. These contradictory findings are presented to demon­strate the uncertainty that the analyst of foreign policy must face and the necessity to recall that generalizations or explanations are at best tendency statements. A reasonable conclusion would be that there is some probability that, given certain manifestations of domestic instability, governments may find it necessary to un­dertake certain hostile actions abroad. President Sukarno's "confrontation" cam­paign against Malaysia from 1962 to 1966—a policy involving verbal threats, guerrilla warfare, and economic actions—was undertaken in part as a means of creating domestic unity, a heightened sense of nationalism, and a reduction of the divisive political infighting between the Indonesian Communist party (PKI) and the army. The program had an external target, but it was used, partly at least, as a means of bolstering Sukarno's political position in the country.³⁵

But we cannot formulate a generalization from a single case. In fact, Wilkenfeld and Zinnes found in a subsequent study that countries experiencing a great degree of internal instability appear to reduce levels of externally directed activities.³⁶ The reasoning must be, as suggested in the case of the United States and Vietnam and many others, that when top bureaucratic and political officials become concerned with the essential foundations of the nation (in coping with a secessionist movement for instance), little time or attention can be paid to foreign policy questions of any kind. A policy of "drift" is not likely to antagonize others.

³⁴ Jonathan Wilkenfeld, "Domestic and Foreign Conflict Behavior of Nations," Journal of Peace Research, 1 (1968), 56-59.

³⁸ Franklin B. Weinstein, "The Uses of Foreign Policy in Indonesia . . ." ³⁶ "Analysis of Foreign Conflict Behavior," in Peace, War, and Numbers, ed. Bruce Russett (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1972). For a review of the literature, see Michael P. Sullivan, International Relations: Theories and Evidence (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976), Ch. 4.

340Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

What of the proposition that types of foreign-policy actions can best be explained by the sorts of regimes that govern a country? Is there validity to the hypothesis that democratic states are more pacific than "closed" states? A number of research projects have explored this and similar questions. The procedures are like those used in analyzing the relationship between domestic and foreign violence: States are categorized into "open" and "closed" types and compared against data about their foreign-policy actions over a period of time. These studies reveal that closed states do not engage in conflict acts— ranging from verbal threats to the use of force—significantly more than open states do.³⁷ Nor do states with strong nationalist leaders have more conflict behavior in their foreign policies than do states with other types of leadership.³⁸ Despite examples such as the late President Sukarno, when nations are aggre­gated, no important difference exists with respect to type of regime or leadership. Although it is true that large closed states give evidence of more conflict acts in their external behavior than do small open states, it is the size of the state (mea­sured by population) rather than the type of regime that probably accounts for the difference.

The relationship between type of regime and other forms of policy output such as objectives, roles, and orientations has never been explored. Are closed states more likely to form long-range goals than open states are? Does type of regime dispose a government to have an orientation of isolation, nonalign-ment, or alliance making? Do closed states have more national role conceptions than open states do? No research has yet uncovered evidence to answer such questions.

Size of Country

If type of regime does not explain differences in types of foreign-policy actions, size, as measured by population, appears very significant. Historically, the major powers have used organized force or have been involved in wars, far out of proportion to their numbers in the international system. To put it another way, the great powers are vastly more prone to war than are small states. The history of war is largely the story of great-power activity.³⁹ Large states (defined as those with a population over 30 million) are also initiators of more conflict acts, aside from the use of force, than are small states. This is particularly true of the use of economic sanctions.⁴⁰ In contrast, small states are more likely to use international organizations as arenas in which to pursue their objectives,

³⁷ Rudolph J Rummel, The Dimensions of Nations (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications. 1972), Chap. 14. For different results, cf. James N. Rosenau and Charles F. Hermann. "Final Report to the National Science Foundation on Grant GS-3117" (mimeo, n.d), p. 20.

³⁸ Rosenau and Hermann, "Final Report," p. 7.

³⁹ George Modelski, "War and the Great Powers," Peace Research Society (International) Papers. Vol. 18 (1971), 45-60; and Wright, A Study of War, pp. 53, 58.

⁴⁰ Maurice A. East, "Size and Foreign Policy Behavior: A Test of Two Models," World Politics, 25 (July 1973), 571; and Peter Wallensteen, "Characteristics of Economic Sanctions," Journal of Peace Research, No. 2 (1968), 248-67.

341Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

and, as we might expect, they are more apt to initiate joint foreign-policy ventures.⁴¹

In the case of national role conceptions, the evidence is also clear. Large states are much more involved in different areas and issues of international politics and see themselves as having a larger number of persisting tasks and functions abroad than do small states.⁴²

Although no systematic counts have been made, we can assume that large states, at least those with superior capabilities, also have more objectives to achieve or defend in international politics. Indeed, the scope of objectives, combined with the elements of power, is probably the main characteristic of the great powers. They are able to do more things in international politics because they have superior capabilities; to put it another way, the larger the state, the more power, and the more power, the more ambitious its goals. The more interests it has to extend or protect, the more likely it is to become involved in conflict. States with weak capabilities are less likely to formulate ambitious objectives, although the actions of Indonesia under Sukarno, Egypt under Nasser, and Libya under Qaddafi show that lack of capabilities does not necessarily inhibit a state from pursuing broad revolutionary objectives. There is, neverthe­less, a strong relationship between a state's capabilities and the type and number of objectives it pursues.

Level of Development

We might assume that the needs of developing countries are more acute than those of the industrial nations or that the legacies of colonialism might prompt Third World states to embark on aggressive foreign adventures. Although many of the newer states have become involved in other countries' internal problems or have sought to resolve ethnic and language divisions by threats and force, on an aggregate level their actions are not distinct from those of the developed countries. The essential finding of the studies mentioned above is that although small developed states tend to be more involved in international political and economic issues than developing states (explained largely in historical terms; Belgium has been an international actor much longer than Chad, for example), they do not initiate more conflict or cooperative acts than small developing states do.⁴³ On the number and types of national role conceptions, level of development does not explain more than the well-known fact that most develop­ing countries see themselves as nonaligned, whereas most developed countries belong to one of the major military blocs.

In summary, of all the national attributes related to foreign policy, only size—and by implication, capabilities—seems to account for major differences

⁴¹ East, "Size and Foreign Policy Behavior," p. 465; and William D. Coplin and Martin J. Rochester, "The PCIJ, the ICJ, the League of Nations, and the United Nations: A Comparative Empirical Survey," American Political Science Review, 66 (June 1972), 529-50.

⁴²K.J. Holsti, "National Role Conceptions."

⁴³ Rosenau and Hermann, "Final Report," p. 19.

342Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

in foreign actions and national role conceptions. But these studies are based primarily on data from the 1950s and 1960s, when most developing countries faced their positions of dependence with equanimity and often resignation. Those that control scarce raw materials, such as oil, are likely to become more involved and influential in international political and economic issues. It is possi­ble, therefore, that in the 1980s, level of development may be a factor for both more cooperative and more aggressive foreign-policy actions.

Public Opinion

Probably no aspect of the study of foreign policy is more difficult to generalize about than the relationship of public opinion to a government's external objec­tives and diplomatic behavior. More research on this area, particularly in non-Western countries, needs to be completed before students of international relations can offer generalizations with much confidence. The characteristics of political systems in the world today vary so immensely—from primitive, pa­triarchal, or religious oligarchies to modern industrial democracies and totalitar­ian dictatorships—that any proposition would have to be qualified at least in terms of the type of society being considered. Our comments will refer, therefore, primarily to those societies in which the public has relatively free access to information from abroad, where there is a general awareness of the external environment, and where formal political institutions are maintained by wide­spread political support.

First, we should eliminate those hypotheses that suggest either that for­eign-policy goals and diplomatic behavior are merely a response to domestic opinions or that public attitudes are virtually ignored as important components of a definition of a situation. Some government officials have claimed frankly that their decisions could not be influenced by fickle public attitudes; it is also easy to cite examples where officials yielded to public pressures despite their own preferred policies. Instead of assuming a simple or direct relationship be­tween public opinions on foreign affairs and government policies, we should distinguish (1) who is expressing opinions concerning (2) what issues in (3) which situations. The characteristics of these three qualifiers may have important effects on the ultimate influence of public opinion on the formulation of objec­tives and actions.

Studies of public attitudes conclude that the vast majority of people— even in highly literate societies—are unknowledgeable, uninterested, and apa­thetic with regard to most issues of world affairs.⁴⁴ They also reveal that public images and attitudes toward foreign countries are highly resistant to change

⁴⁴ For example, Gabriel Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1950); Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), esp. Part II regarding knowledge of, and interest in, domestic policies; Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes, "Constituency Influence in Congress," American Political Science Review, 57 (1963), 45-56; and Milton J. Rosenberg, "Images in Relation to the Policy Process: American Public Opinion on Cold-War Issues," in International Behavior, ed. Kelman, pp. 277-334.

Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

even when dramatic events radically alter the main issues of international politics.⁴⁵ Other studies suggest that government, university, and private pro­grams that have sought to create wider public knowledge and appreciation of the complexities of international politics have seldom met with success.⁴⁶ An investigation of opinions and actions on the Vietnam conflict, undertaken through a sample survey of American respondents during 1967, revealed that although a large proportion of the people were concerned about the war, only 13 percent reported that they had tried to convince someone to change his views on the war, and only 3 percent had done anything such as writing to officials or newspapers. Less than 1 percent of the 1,499 respondents had partici­pated in marches or demonstrations.⁴⁷ Considering the very contentious nature of the war and the heated discussion it aroused, the figures are extremely low.

For purposes of analysis, any society has a small top layer of the "atten­tive" public ⁴⁸ that is reasonably well informed, articulate, and interested, al­though not necessarily more prone to change basic attitudes when subjected to new information, propaganda, or dramatic events abroad. In most Western countries, the attentive public is closely correlated with higher education, urban domicile, professional occupation, higher income, middle age, and male sex. Estimates of the size of the attentive public range from 1 to 15 percent, depending on how the category is defined. Next to the attentive public in developed coun­tries exists a layer of the population, normally comprising 30 to 50 percent of the total, that possesses established attitudes toward, and images of, foreign countries and their actions, some knowledge of a limited range of issues, and some capacity to express opinions if asked. Finally, the rest of a society, in some cases constituting 70 percent or more of the population, can be character­ized on most issues as apathetic, uninformed, and nonexpressive, although in certain circumstances, these people can display considerable interest in some issue areas and, if properly mobilized, can express great hostility or loyalty to foreign nations or their political leaders.

On what kinds of issues are the opinions found in different layers or groups within society expressed as demands to establish certain foreign-policy goals or to undertake certain actions vis-a-vis other states? The attentive public is likely to be concerned with a wide range of foreign-policy problems and to express opinions on them either directly to policy makers or simply to friends and associates. They constitute probably the only segment of society that intro­duces ideas for the consideration of politicians and foreign-policy officials.⁴⁹ They are also likely to have adequate information on a number of foreign countries,

⁴⁵ Deutsch and Merritt, "Effects of Events on National and International Images."

⁴⁶ Joseph Frankel, The Making of Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 72.

⁴⁷ Sidney Verba and Richard A. Brody, "Participation, Policy Preferences, and the War in Vietnam," Public Opinion Quarterly, 34 (1970), 325-32.

⁴⁸ The concept is introduced by Almond in The American People and Foreign Policy.

⁴⁹ For further discussion and some empirical evidence, see Johan Galtung, "Foreign Policy Opinion as a Function of Social Position," in International Politics and Foreign Polity: A Reader in Research and Theory, rev. ed., ed. James N. Rosenau (New York: Free Press, 1969), pp. 55-72.

344 Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

well-defined opinions, and preferred solutions to contemporary problems. Al­though the bottom layer may be generally apathetic, on certain issues it may be­come highly involved and express views through diverse channels. Consider one hypothetical example. Wheat farmers in the prairie states may not have much general interest in world affairs, may possess little knowledge about foreign coun­tries and their problems, and may have unrefined attitudes and images based more on family or regional traditions than on a careful examination of contem­porary information. But if a problem relating to wheat export programs arises, the farmers will probably become highly involved, express their views in most vigorous terms to friends, associates, and policy makers, and suggest preferred solutions. In other words, apathy and ignorance end when a problem is perceived as having a direct impact on the life of the individual. The scope of public ex­pression is thus related to the nature of the issue or problem under consideration. It would still be an oversimplification to argue that those in the bottom layer of a society (in terms of interest and knowledge, not class) become involved only on issues of direct relevance to their private lives, whereas those of the attentive public are interested in a much broader scope of affairs. No matter what the level of interest or knowledge among people, they all hold some notions about appropriate and inappropriate foreign-policy goals and actions. Gabriel Almond has used the term foreign-policy mood to suggest those very general attitudes or predispositions that prevail in a nation at any given time. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States, the predominant public mood was isolation and indifference to European affairs. In the 1950s and more recently it has been a mood of pronounced fear of, and hostility toward, the Soviet Union. War weariness in Great Britain during the 1930s was an important basis for England's appeasement policy toward Hitler and Mussolini. Such moods, while not suggesting concrete foreign-policy objectives, at least set limits around the theoretical policy alternatives of policy makers. The prime minister of neutral Sweden could not, for example, annouce one day that he had concluded a military alliance unless large segments of the population also believed that neutrality was outmoded, ineffective, or incompatible with some value such as national survival. Nor would the president of the United States be likely to proclaim that he would withdraw all American commitments abroad and turn the country into an isolated "Fortress America." On the major questions of a country's general orientation to the rest of the world, war and peace, and general style of diplomacy, everyone has opinions and is likely to express them when chal­lenged. When the scope of public opinion is so broad, it is likely to have great influence on the alternatives that policy makers would regard seriously. The mood, in other words, has a constraining effect on policy alternatives, but not much direct impact on specific issues. The American public in the early 1980s seems to support increased defense spending, but their mood does not specify which weapons should be developed. In Galtung's words, the public establishes a vast region of admissible policies surrounded by a belt of inadmissible policies. The vast majority of citizens or subjects thus figure in the definitions of situations by policy makers only in setting bounds to various alternatives. On most speci-

15 Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

fie issues, they must be considered an insignificant element in policy making.

The impact of public attitudes and opinions on the selection of objectives and making decisions can be related, then, to the scope of the public, which in turn is related to the type of issue at stake. A third variable would be the general situation in which opinions are being expressed. Is the role of opinion in times of crisis the same as it is during a period of relative stability and nonin-volvement in international affairs? We would expect the scope of the opinion-expressing public to vary directly with the degree of urgency or threat in a situation. More people are probably aroused to take interest in foreign affairs when a conflict develops than when diplomatic conditions are "normal," and there is much historical and experimental evidence suggesting that even societies strongly divided among themselves tend to become united in times of conflict. If a diplomatic-military confrontation creates a public consensus, this opinion is likely to restrict the number of options diplomatic officials would seriously consider.

On the other hand, deep-seated attitudes of distrust toward other coun­tries are not easily changed simply by the development of new circumstances. During the critical period after the outbreak of World War II, President Roosevelt was cautious in making too many commitments in support of England because of the presence of a strong isolationist mood and anti-British sentiments. When the United States joined the war against Germany in December 1941, it took considerable effort at persuasion by the government before a large proportion of the American public would accept the need to create an alliance with the Soviet Union, a nation toward which Americans had directed considerable hostil­ity since the Bolshevik revolution. Similarly, the French government could with­draw from Indochina in 1954 because the French population was weary of sup­porting a distant military effort that was accomplishing little and involved great sacrifices; but no French government from 1954 to 1958 could have survived in office had it tried to negotiate a withdrawal agreement providing independence for Algeria. In this case, it was not so much that the French population was overwhelmingly in favor of "pacifying" Algeria, but that opinions were split among many different groups, none of which could command a convincing ma­jority. Finally, when the government of Ireland had to decide in 1939 whether to remain neutral or join England against Nazi Germany, the government felt compelled to accept the neutrality opinion because that choice was supported by most of the articulate population—despite some feelings among officials that the other course would have been preferable. Many similar cases could be sited, but they all suggest one conclusion: Public opinion in these critical situations, while it does not prescribe exact policies or responses, establishes limits beyond which few policy makers would normally dare to act.⁵⁰

In a crisis situation, however, public opinion probably constitutes only

⁵⁰ In examining a noncritical issue, however, one study suggests that policy makers in the United States enjoy considerable freedom from any restraints imposed on their decisions by public groups. See Raymond Bauer, Ithiel Pool, and L.A. Dexter, American Business and Public Policy: The Politics of Foreign Trade (New York: Atherton, 1963).

346Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

an insignificant factor in definitions of the situation. In contrast to a conflict, which may start slowly and drag on for years, a crisis is characterized by sudden unanticipated actions, high perceptions of threat, and feelings that something has to be done immediately (see Chapter 15 for further discussion). In these circumstances, decisions are almost always made by a few key policy makers; they believe that action of some sort is so necessary that there is little time to consult broadly among legislators or lower administrative officials, to say nothing of the public at large. Developments during a crisis may occur so fast, in any event, that the public seldom has the time to mobilize and express opinions through such institutionalized channels as political parties, legislatures, or inter­est groups. During the Cuban missile crisis, for instance, those who debated the various policy alternatives deliberately shielded themselves from public scru­tiny and did their work mostly in secret. In President Kennedy's opinion, a "good" decision would be more likely if policy makers were immune from consid­erations of public pressure.

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