Faces of Internationalism in a Transitional Environment

Abstract

In the post-Vietnam Cold War environment, two dimensions—cooperative internationalism and militant internationalism—came to characterize the foreign policy beliefs of American leaders and the mass public. Although grounded in Cold War concepts and challenges, evidence from opinion polls in the transitional period to a post-Cold War world suggests that the cooperative and militant faces of internationalism persist. Furthermore, because they parallel realism and idealism, as competing orientations toward global problems, the two dimensions and the fourfold typology of foreign policy beliefs they define may help to understand the intersection of attitudes toward traditional security issues and the welfare issues that may dominate future global and national agendas. Preliminary evidence is used to probe the argument that hard-liners on national security issues will evince nationalistic and protectionist sentiments on environmental and trade issues. Contrariwise, accommodationists on security issues are hypothesized to be semisovereigns on environmental issues and half loafers on trade issues. Internationalists are most likely to embrace free trade, and isolationists will continue to shun U.S. involvement across all security and nonsecurity issues areas.