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Public Opinion and the Contradictions of Jimmy Carter's Foreign Policy
Author(s) -
KATZ ANDREW Z.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
presidential studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.337
H-Index - 5
eISSN - 1741-5705
pISSN - 0360-4918
DOI - 10.1111/j.0360-4918.2000.00138.x
Subject(s) - public opinion , political science , foreign policy , white (mutation) , portrait , polling , public administration , law , public policy , politics , sociology , history , biochemistry , chemistry , computer science , gene , art history , operating system
President Jimmy Carter's failure to achieve popular support for his foreign policy is commonly attributed to his disregard of public opinion. The author evaluates this perception by examining the Carter administration's use of polls in the areas of human rights and U.S.‐Soviet relations. Archival material confirms that Carter did not ignore public opinion; rather, his polling operation did not provide the White House with a complete and objective portrait of public attitudes. Carter's team assumed that public opinion on foreign policy was malleable and lacked structure. Thus, no effort was made to determine whether the contradictions pollsters found on the surface were actually held together by an underlying structure. Therefore, the Carter White House had neither an accurate gauge of public attitudes nor an understanding of those attitudes sufficient to build support for its policies.