Mass and Elite Foreign Policy Opinions

Since the Vietnam War, public preferences on foreign policyissues have played a greater role in the American politicalprocess. Yet comparatively little is known about the mannerin which attitudes on international affairs are formed and howthey are related to other political cognitions. Using data fromtwo large studies of foreign policy opinion conducted by theChicago Council on Foreign Relations in 1974 and 1978, thisresearch examines the question of how mass and elite opiniondiffers in a number of foreign policy domains and looks at whetherthese distinctions have changed across years. In general, thereare patterns of difference in the foreign policy beliefs ofthe elites and the mass public, the most striking being in their"internationalist" view of the U.S. role in world affairs, withsmaller distinctions in the domains of human rights, detente,world problems, Americanism, and international organizations.