Public Opinion and International Intervention: Lessons from the Iraq War

Description

Rarely has a foreign policy event spawned such interest in international public opinion as has the Iraq War. What does this war indicate about the extent to which public opinion influences foreign policy leaders? Have leaders' decisions about participating in the Iraq Coalition reflected the willingness of their citizens to do so? Are leaders of some countries more responsive to public opinion than others? The editors address these questions using select case studies that explore the extent to which leaders and people in democracies that are capable of participating in the Iraq War Coalition have willingly done so. Each chapter is based on the premise that democracies are most responsive to public opinion and that the wealthiest democracies would be most capable, though not necessarily most willing, to participate in the Iraq War. The editors have assembled contributions that build on the successful model of Richard Sobel's International Public Opinion and the Bosnia Crisis. In this Iraq volume, leading scholars debate the role of public opinion in particular countries'decisions to participate-or not-in an international conflict, making it an essential text for any foreign policy course.

Bethany Barratt is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and director of the Joseph Loundy Human Rights Project. She is author of several journal articles and the books Human Rights and Foreign Aid: For Love or Money? (Routledge, 2007) and Human Rights Since 9/11: A Sourcebook (forthcoming). Peter Furia is a lecturer in politics at the University of Virginia. He has published several articles on public opinion and international affairs. Richard Sobel has pioneered research on public opinion and foreign policy. He has taught at Princeton, Smith, Harvard, and Northwestern, and been a Fellow at Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics, and Public Policy, Harvard's Kennedy School, and Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School. His books include The Impact of Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy Since Vietnam (Oxford Univesity Press, 2001).

-With the expansion of democracy in the post-Cold War world and new pressures for international intervention in foreign crises, public opinion and its constraint on governments have become of increasing interest and concern worldwide. The editors of this volume have most ably assembled a set of chapters that capture the importance--and complexity--of this by bringing into the picture not only the publics of the United States and the allies it has counted on in the past, but also India, Turkey, and Mexico.---Robert Y. Shapiro, professor of political science, Columbia University, and author of The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans' Policy Preferences--Robert Y. Shapiro