International/Defense Issues: Civil Liberties, Terrorism, and...

International/Defense Issues: Civil Liberties, Terrorism, and War

How We See Ourselves

Pew Research Center, 2011 Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2012

Pew Research Center, 2011

How Others See Us

Percent in each country having a “favorable” opinion of the United States.

Beliefs about whether China will replace/ already has replaced the United States as the world’s leading superpower. Pew Research Center cross-national surveys

Chicago Council for Global Affairs, 2012

Pew Research Center, 2013 cross-national survey

America’s Role in the World

Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2010 Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2012

Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2012

At the aggregate level, however (score another one for Fiorina) . . .


On the Other Hand . . .


The Big Picture


Wait a minute . . . what?

Back to defense spending:


http://www.gallup.com/poll/146114/americans-remain-divided-defense-spending.aspx

http://www.gallup.com/poll/146114/americans-remain-divided-defense-spending.aspx�

http://www.gallup.com/poll/146114/americans-remain-divided-defense-spending.aspx










Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2010; globalization was presented to respondents as “the increasing connections of our economy with others around the world.”

Globalization

China, Again



Immigration (General)


Immigration (Illegal)

Pew Research Center, March/May 2013

Pew Research Center, 2013 Pew Research Center, 2012


Climate (not Climage) Change

Terrorism (and Civil Liberties)

Pew Research Center, 2010/2013

Original Stouffer Questions

Sullivan et al., Political Tolerance and American Democracy (1982), p. 63.

Support for Civil Liberties: Abstract vs. Specific Rights /

Trade-Offs (Freedom vs. Security)

Darren W. Davis, “Public Opinion, Civil Liberties, and Security in the Post-9/11 Context,” in Understanding Public Opinion, 3rd ed. (2010).

National Civil Liberties Survey, three-wave panel: Nov ’01 (1450), May ’03

(679), Nov ’04 (349). Research since the 1950s has shown that Americans generally exhibit

strong support for democratic principles (such as freedom of speech, the right to privacy, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right for protection against self-incrimination) in the abstract – but less so when those same principles are applied to specific situations or unpopular groups (such as communists or atheists).

Abstract Civil Liberties necessary to give up some civil liberties in order to curb terrorism vs.

preserve our freedoms even if there remains some risks of terrorism Specific Civil Liberties must carry national identity card at all times to show to police officer should be a crime to belong to or contribute money to any organization

that supports international terrorism (guilt by association) govt. able to arrest and detain a noncitizen indefinitely if suspected of

belonging to a terrorist organization law enforcement permitted to detain people based on racial or ethnic

backgrounds if thought to be likely to commit crimes (racial profiling) high-school teachers required to defend, not criticize, America’s policies warrantless searches allowed on suspicion that a crime or terrorist act is

being planned wiretapping and monitoring of e-mail allowed to prevent terrorist acts those who participate in nonviolent protests against U.S. govt. should be

investigated

Note: (1) less-than-overwhelming support even for civil liberties in the abstract following 9/11; (2) variation in levels of support for specific civil liberties; and (3) increased support over time for some – but not all – civil liberties (teachers criticize, guilt by association, detain noncitizens). Also . . .

(4) limited over-time stability (see column 1) in the answers given by many respondents, Cf. Converse’s nonattitudes.

Sociotropic threat concerns (how concerned are you that the United States might suffer another terrorist attack in the next three months – very, somewhat, not very, or not at all?) far outweighed perceptions of personal threat in all three waves of the survey, and played a much larger role in shaping people’s support for civil liberties. Further analysis showed that . . .

What factors determine where individuals are willing to draw the line on the trade-off between freedom and security? Three possibilities are examined: perceptions of threat, trust in government, and race.

Darren W. Davis, Negative Liberty (2007), p. 61. . . . support for freedom over security was greater among those with a less acute sense of sociotropic threat, those with less trust in government, and blacks (relative to both whites and Latinos) – also among liberals, younger people, less patriotic citizens, and those with less dogmatic person- alities (more open-minded, tolerant of others, and less likely to defer to authority.). Surprisingly, education didn’t matter much (significant only in wave 3) with the other factors taken into account.

Bottom line: According to Davis . . . What matters is how people view the trade-off between liberty and

security, not their level of support for liberty (tolerance) in abstract or unconditional terms.

Support for civil liberties is neither immutable nor unequivocal, but rather situational for many citizens. Following the 9/11 attacks, it was directly affected by sociotropic threat (perceived threat to society as a whole) – but not by perceived personal threat (to one’s physical or material self).

Foreign Policy Attitudes and Voting

Early research suggested that people’s foreign policy attitudes had little impact on vote choice because those attitudes were generally unstruc-tured and based on extremely limited information. More recent studies, however, indicate not only that Americans’ foreign policy attitudes are structured, meaningful, and accessible (up to a point) – but they also help to determine candidate preference, especially in presidential elections.

John Aldrich et al., “Foreign Affairs and Issue Voting: Do Presidential

Candidates ‘Waltz Before a Blind Audience?’” APSR (1989). Answer: No. Foreign policy issues had a fairly large impact on presidential

vote choice in 1980 and especially 1984 (as did domestic issues). The authors argued that this impact will probably vary from one election to the next according to such factors as (a) the salience of foreign policy issues/events to voters (higher salience → more people having opinions, and more of those opinions being strongly held); and (b) the clarity of candidate/party stands on the issues (a more clear-cut choice was pre-sented in 1980-84 than, for example, in 1968 when salience was very high w/regard to Vietnam).

Shana Kushner Gadarian, “Foreign Policy at the Ballot Box: How Citizens Use Foreign Policy to Judge and Choose Candidates,” JOP (2010).

The argument: The effect of foreign policy attitudes may be asymmetrical

due to issue ownership (w/Republicans usually being seen as better able to hand these issues); that is, voters are expected to weigh foreign policy more heavily when evaluating Republican candidates – an asymmetry that should be most prominent in elections when foreign policy issues are highly salient.

Results (ANES): In elections from 1980-2004, respondents’ views about

defense spending had between 2 and 7 times greater impact on their evaluations of Republican presidential candidates (feeling thermometer) compared with Democratic candidates. On the other hand, voters tended to rely more on their attitudes about domestic spending when evaluating Democratic candidates.

Numerous studies, many of them based on aggregate-level analyses (states, counties), suggest that popular reaction to the war in Iraq had an impact on election results in both ‘04 and ‘06. For example . . .

Douglas Kriner and Francis Shen, “Iraq Casualties and the 2006 Senate Elections,” Legislative Studies Quarterly (2007): Change in vote share from 2000 to 2006 for Republican Senate candidates at both the state and county level was significantly and negatively related to the number of local casualties in Iraq.

Christian Grose and Bruce Oppenheimer, “The Iraq War, Partisanship, and

Candidate Attributes: Variation in Partisan Swing in the 2006 Election,” Legislative Studies Quarterly (2007): Partisan swing from ‘04 to ‘06 in Republican congressional districts proved highly sensitive to the number of Iraq war deaths from that district and, to a lesser degree, to the roll-call vote of Republican House members on the war resolution.

The Importance of Iraq

Results such as these appear to support the “casualties hypothesis,” i.e., that public support for war is inversely related to the number of war-related deaths. Or, if it’s not casualties per se, perhaps public opinion is moved by other “events” associated with a war. (Good example: The Tet Offensive in Vietnam, January 1968.) Well, maybe not . . .

There is also the possibility that partisanship (“mediated reality”) has a lot to do with shaping how voters perceive such things. Remember this from earlier in the course?

PIPA/Knowledge Networks, October 2003

The role of partisanship in shaping public opinion about Iraq is explored by: Adam J. Berinsky, “Public Opinion and the Iraq War,” in Understanding Public Opinion, 3rd ed. (2010).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/public-opinion-is-settled- as-iraq-war-concludes/2011/11/03/gIQADF2qsM_blog.html

And then, a few years later (2011) . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/public-opinion-is-settled-as-iraq-war-concludes/2011/11/03/gIQADF2qsM_blog.html�




















Adam Berinsky in Understanding Public Opinion, 3rd ed. (2010)

The role of information (or, as Berinsky describes it, awareness of and atten- tiveness to the cues provided by party leaders) . . .

A Quick Word about Rally-Round-the-Flag Events

Hetherington-Nelson, PS: Political Science and Politics (2003)

Hetherington-Nelson, PS: Political Science and Politics (2003)

Not only do the political advantages of rally events tend to be brief; they also are usually centered on the president himself rather than his party.

International/Defense Issues: Civil Liberties, Terrorism, and...

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