Categorically Different: Americans and Their Leaders on Foreign Policy Objectives

By Alvin Richman

The important roles that U.S. elites and the public play in the development and pursuit of American foreign policy objectives, and whether their views agree, has stimulated a number of surveys over the past thirty years. None has been more important than the surveys of U.S. "leaders" and the general public by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR), initiated in 1974 and repeated every four years through 2002, and again in 2004.

Underlying comparisons of elite and public opinion is the usually unstated but important assumption that the survey questions eliciting these opinions have comparable meanings for both groups. This is possible only if the opinions of respondents in each group reflect similar sets of attitudes.

Complicating the task of comparison is the voluminous and diverse body of survey data contained in the CFFR (and other) surveys. If we know the basic dimensions of the attitudes underlying a large number of opinion items, we can substitute a few simple categories for them, and see more readily the similarities and differences between the two groups of respondents.

To accomplish this, our study used factor analyses of questions in the 1994, 1998, and 2002 CCFR surveys that asked respondents how much importance they placed on various goals for U.S. foreign policy. The results showed that both the American public and leaders organize their views on these goals in four distinct groups, with the leaders' views more complex in structure than those of the general public.

Military Security pertains to such items as defense of U.S. allies. An inwardly focused Domestic Issues group encompasses foreign policy objectives that impinge directly on American society, such as protecting jobs.

There are two outwardly focused "global issues" groups. Global Interests covers goals the United States shares with many other countries, such as preventing nuclear proliferation, strengthening the United Nations, and protecting the environment.

The variables comprising the public's fourth factor, Global Altruism, split into two related but distinct subgroups for the leaders: Economic Global Altruism includes such objectives as providing foreign aid, while Political Global Altruism pertains to such goals as promoting democracy abroad.

U.S. leaders in various government and private organizations and the American public make similar distinctions among the goals comprising Global Interests-goals widely seen as shared with many other countries. Since 1990, when the three primary Global Interest measures were initially used together, both leaders and public have accorded highest priority to the goal of "preventing the spread of nuclear weapons," which was rated very important by 87 percent of U.S. leaders and 73 percent of the public in 2004. Large majorities of both leaders (85 percent) and the public (87 percent) also favored U.S. participation, specifically, in "the treaty that would prohibit nuclear test explosions worldwide." Both leaders and the public have consistently ranked "improving the global environment" second and "strengthening the United Nations" third among the Global Interest goals (see Figure 1 for 2004 ratings).

While both groups gave strengthening the U.N. relatively low priority, with 40 percent of leaders saying it was very important compared with 38 percent of the public, other questions in the CCFR surveys showed large majorities of both leaders and the public generally support resolving international problems within the U.N. framework. A 78 percent to 20 percent majority of leaders (and a 66 percent to 29 percent majority of public) agreed with the statement that, "The U.S. should be more willing to make decisions within the United Nations even if this means that the United States will sometimes have to go along with a policy that is not its first choice." A majority of leaders (67 percent) and the public (74 percent) also approved the creation of a "standing U.N. peacekeeping force... commanded by the United Nations," as a way to strengthen the U.N.

The goal of combating terrorism is a "complex variable," in that it correlates highly with items on both the Global Interest and Military Security dimensions. Both leaders and the public regarded "combating international terrorism" in 2004 nearly as important as preventing the spread of nuclear arms, with 84 percent of leaders and 71 percent of the public finding it very important.