Public Opinion,Elections and Foreign Policy: US Foreign Policy toward the Soviet Union,1968-88

Abstract

The question of how the domestic political context of democratic countries affects their foreign policies has received increasing interest in political science research during the last few years. In this article, the interrelationships between public opinion and public statements by presidential candidates are studied for the US presidential elections from 1968 through to 1988. The issues covered are the explanations of Soviet foreign policy and the prescriptions for US policy responses, here collectively called the image of the Soviet Union, which are offered by the two (in two cases three) main contenders for the presidency. It is found that there is a tendency for the main thrust of the debate on relations with the Soviet Union to shift from one election to the next, no matter what the Soviet Union has done between the elections. This shift can be summarized as a movement from a `hawkish' approach to a `dove-like' one. In particular, presidential candidates who ran for re-election changed their message from the first election to the next. The hypothesis that presidential candidates adjusted their images of the Soviet Union directly to the views of the public as expressed in opinion surveys did not receive confirmation, however.