DBR40

Public Opinion and the Media in Foreign Policy

When we talk about the impact of public opinion and foreign policy, it matters whether we're talking about broad American public or whether we're talking about subgroups. The overall American public very seldom directly guides foreign policy. The overall public tends to have two indirect effects. The first is it can constrain the freedom of maneuver that presidents or Congress can have. The second is that public opinion tends to shape or influence what priority policymakers give foreign policy. Now when you think of subgroups of the public lobbies or special interest groups, they can often have a significant impact on foreign policy. They can do so because they're knowledgeable, they are highly motivated in often they act in numbers. Silicon Valley high-tech companies work very hard to get their input into US policy on, let's say, intellectual property rights have Angelica are very active in making sure that US family planning policy and funding overseas. This does not underwrite abortions. The mediates have far less impact on public opinion and on foreign policy than you.

You have first off, the fact that people come to the news with their own worldview. People tend to pick news sources that will give them to take on the world they want to hear. Second thing, oftentimes we talk about the impact media might have. What we're really talking about is the impact of an event. Take for example, 9, 11. Clearly that engendered wall to wall news coverage. But the fact that the American public suddenly braced a much more aggressive foreign policy had a lot less to do with how CNN or MSNBC or CBS News covered the story and the fact that the United States had suffered a horrific terrorist attack and at 3 thousand Americans had died and a beautiful sunny day. Generally speaking, the American public doesn't follow foreign policy very carefully. And so, all Americans may become concerned about an issue overseas. They won't necessarily have a detail view on exactly what it is that the United States should do. So, in that sense, the public often doesn't send clear signals to policymakers about what they need to do, It's important to keep in mind that public opinion can shift dramatically. That poses a real challenge to policymakers.

The fact that the public is with the President, with Congress. When policies enacted doesn't mean they will be with the President or Congress when the policy goes bad. Many Americans supported the Iraq War began in 2003. By 2006, In 2007, the public was much less enthusiastic. Control of Congress changed hands from Republicans and Democrats in good part because of dissatisfaction among the American public. But how the war was going, what you see is often also that American public opinion can have conflicting impulses. We might call double which the public wants to things, but they're in contact with each other. An example came in 2014 with the Obama administration facing the threat of ISIS fighters were the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Many Americans were horrified to see that American hostages had been killed by ISIS forces in wanted something done. But by the same token, the American public was pretty clear. He did not want to see American combat troops on the ground in Iraq, little loading Syria, it so that sense of where the public was wanting something done but not Y and put boots on the ground. And really bedevil President's policy.