inbluevt | Date: Saturday, 2013/07/13, 10:24 PM | Message # 1 | DMCA |
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Getting the American public’s attention, let alone commitment to deal with international issues is as challenging as it has ever been in the modern era. Feeling burned by Iraq and Afghanistan and burdened by domestic concerns, the public feels little responsibility and inclination to deal with international problems that are not seen as direct threats to the national interest. The depth and duration of the public’s disengagement these days goes well beyond the periodic spikes in isolationist sentiment that have been observed over the past 50 years.
In the early 1960s, Princeton University social psychologist Hadley Cantril devised a series of questions to assess public support for internationalism. Cantril had long experience assessing the degree and nature of American isolationism. He had been President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s public opinion advisor as the U.S. was preparing to enter World War II. The Gallup Organization and, subsequently, the Pew Research Center have been tracking these measures ever since.Over the last 50-plus years, there mostly has been broad public support for internationalism, but there have been three times when that slipped significantly:- In 1974, after the end of the unpopular Vietnam War.
- In 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union when the “U.S. had no enemies.”
- In 2005 and 2006, when disillusionment set in following the protracted conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Read on
Message edited by inbluevt - Saturday, 2013/07/13, 10:24 PM |
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