American foreign policy and public opinion : moods and cycles

Vita.Three schools of thought have sought to explain the relationship between American foreign policy and public opinion. These schools of thought are easily distinguished by the way they characterize public opinion. These characterizations are: 1) public opinion is moody and unpredictable, 2) public opinion is rational; that is, opinion is reasonable and stable across time and 3) public opinion is moody but cyclical. Aligning with the school of thought that public opinion is moody but cyclical, the relationship between American foreign policy and public opinion is investigated. Two kinds of mood are theorized as having an impact on American foreign policy: 1) a foreign policy mood based on internationalism and 2) a domestic policy mood based on liberalism. A foreign policy mood index is created; a domestic policy mood index has already been developed. These mood indices are tested with aggregate events data from the Conflict and Peace Data Bank (COPDAB) from 1948-1978 and the World Events Interaction Survey (WEIS) from 1968 to 1978 as well as USIUSSR relations from 1968- 1988. Vector autoregressions using quarterly data are specified. Macro foreign policy activity is measured by summing all the actions directed at the United States, and separately all foreign policy acts of the United States. These two macro foreign policy indicators, foreign policy mood and domestic policy mood are found to be cointegrated. Foreign policy mood is cointegrated with the unweighted US macro foreign policy in both the WEIS and COPDAB data versions. Cointegration implies a long term impact of the variables upon each other. Foreign policy mood and domestic policy mood are found to have inverse short term impacts upon US foreign policy actions and upon foreign policy actions directed at the US. Foreign policy mood is established as a defining influence on American foreign policy interactions causing them directly and indirectly. Similar results are discovered using USIUSSR data from 1948-1988 (COPDAB coded) and from 1968-1988 (WEIS coded). No USIUSSR variables were cointegrated. In short, both long term and short relationships were discovered between US foreign policy and foreign policy mood