Consensus and Diversity in Elite Opinion: The Views of the British Foreign Policy Elite in the Early 1990s

Abstract

The paper reports the results of a systematic and comprehensive survey of the attitudes of the British foreign policy élite that was conducted under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1990. British élite attitudes towards four major international actors – the United States, the EC, the Soviet Union and Japan – are examined in terms of trade relations, financial relations, political relations and security relations. It is argued that the complex pattern of consensus and dissensus evident in the attitudes displayed by the élite – a pattern that can be broadly characterized as agreement on ‘core’ values and disagreement on ‘peripheral’ values – is probably conducive to ‘good’ policymaking. A companion study analyses the extent to which the élite's attitudes appear to be changing over time and considers the distinctive attitude sets that are evident among different segments of the élite.