Public Opinion in American Foreign Policy: From Vietnam to the Nineties - Hardcover

Sobel, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195105273 ISBN 13: 9780195105278

Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, 2001

Synopsis

This study examines the role that public attitudes have played over the last generation in the making of United States foreign policy. It focuses on four of the most prominent foreign interventions of the last generation: the Vietnam War, the Nicaraguan Contra funding controversy, the Persian Gulf War, and the Bosnia crisis. Through its examination of these events, the book argues and demonstrates that public opinion constrained but did not set American foreign intervention policy during the second half of the 20th century.

About this title

Review:

represents a major step forward for research on public opinion in American foreign policy because of its methodological rigor and good judgement. ... provides considerable insight into an understanding of how past policymakers formulated - and in some cases, regretted - their response. (Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol. 30, no. 2)

important and well-researched ... thorough and fair assessment of the awareness and sensitivity of each administration to public opinion. Sobel is remarkably successful at wading through the rhetoric in the decision maker's public statements and determining when they were actually responsive to public opinion and when they employed it just to back up their pre-existing policy preferences. (Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol. 30, no. 2)

About the Author:

Richard Sobel is a Political Scientist at Harvard University and Senior Research Associate of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0195105273
• ISBN 13: 9780195105278
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272