Abstract
AbstractWhile public opinion about foreign policy has been studied extensively in the United States, there is less systematic research of foreign policy opinions in other countries. Given that public opinion about international affairs affects who gets elected in democracies and then constrains the foreign policies available to leaders once elected, both comparative politics and international relations scholarship benefit from more systematic investigation of foreign policy attitudes outside the United States. Using new data, this article presents a common set of core constructs structuring both American and European attitudes about foreign policy. Surveys conducted in four countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany) provide an expanded set of foreign policy‐related survey items that are analysed using exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM). Measurement equivalence is specifically tested and a common four‐factor structure that fits the data in all four countries is found. Consequently, valid, direct comparisons of the foreign policy preferences of four world powers are made. In the process, the four‐factor model confirms and expands previous work on the structure of foreign policy attitudes. The article also demonstrates the capability of ESEM in testing the dimensionality and cross‐national equivalence of social science concepts.
Highlights
Foreign policy is an important part of what governments do, yet surprisingly little research compares public attitudes about international affairs across countries
There remain unresolved questions concerning foreign policy opinions in other countries. We contribute to both the study of comparative politics and international relations by asking a simple question: Do the core constructs structuring American attitudes about foreign policy translate well to the mass publics of key European powers? Using data from the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany, we identify a structure of foreign policy attitudes that fits opinion data in all four countries
European Journal of Political Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Consortium for Political Research
Summary
Foreign policy is an important part of what governments do, yet surprisingly little research compares public attitudes about international affairs across countries. There is variation in their political institutions: the United States is a presidential system, France is a semi-presidential one, and the United Kingdom and Germany are parliamentary democracies While such institutional differences are not our primary concern, it is important to note that more direct comparisons of attitudes at the mass level may help isolate the effect of institutions on observed foreign policy differences. Perhaps in response to defeats in the First and Second World Wars, eschews high-intensity combat (Rynning 2003) How these different legacies shape foreign policy attitudes is an important question that we hope future research will address. Majorities of the British, American and French publics agree that their country does ‘enough to help the world’s poor’, as does a plurality of the German public
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