NO WILSONIAN CONSENSUS


It is tempting as a Wilsonian, to make the claim that in contrast to the Realist views of the foreign policy establishment, the American public is decidedly Wilsonian. This is how OxBlogger Patrick Belton optimistically reads
a recent PEW/Council of Foreign Relations poll on the American public's view of foreign policy.

Interestingly, it also shows the American public is solidly Wilsonian, with 72 percent believing the top priority for American foreign policy is to follow moral principles

As Daniel Drezner (another Wilsonian) notes, this finding doesn't quite jibe with the rankings on actual foreign policy issues, which place promoting democracy & improving living standards in poor nations dead last on a list of 19 priorities.

These results bolster a thesis that I've been cogitating on for the past few months: despite claims by international relations theorists -- including most realists -- that the overwhelming majority of Americans hold liberal policy preferences, it just ain't so. Even if those beliefs are extolled in the abstract, when asked to prioritize among different foreign policy tasks, the realist position wins.

I agree, somewhat. However, there is still the question of how to explain the 72% "moral principle" figure? First, I think this poll is a perfect example of where setting out a Wilsonian (as a proxy for idealist)/realist dichotomy breaks down, and once again it is preferential to use Walter Russell Mead's categorization of the four American foreign policy traditions.


The mere advocacy of a "moral" foreign policy does not make somebody a Wilsonian. There also needs to be a commitment to American promotion of universal values such as democracy and human rights (the means - unilateral or multilateral is what Wilsonians can disagree about). Thus, the size of the American public who can be fairly characterized as having principally a Wilsonian view of foreign policy correlates with the 24% who place democracy-promotion as a top priority (which by the way matches up roughly with the 25% who value idealism).


In addition to Wilsonians, the 72% figure also encompasses Jeffersonians, who also believe in a "moral" foreign policy. The difference is that they believe America acts morally when it does not utilize its military against weaker nations, is respectful of cultural difference, and does not provide aid to "immoral" regimes. No doubt the 72% also includes a number of Jacksonians who believe America has a "moral" obligation to defend its friends, and to exact vengeance upon its enemies. Finally the number includes those who can be said to have any principle foreign policy orientation.


So in order to get a better sense of the relative strengths of the different orientations, I repeated Drezner's exercise with the list of concrete foreign policy objectives, but instead using Mead's classification(Wilsonian-Wil;Hamiltoninan-Ham;Jeffersonian-Jef;Jacksonian-Jax).

Protect against terrorist attacks -- 88 (all)
Protect jobs of American workers -- 84 (Jax;Jef)
Reduce spread of AIDS & other diseases -- 72 (Wil)
Stop spread of weapons of mass destruction -- 71 (Ham;Jax;Wil)
Insure adequate energy supplies -- 70 (Ham;Jax)
Reduce dependence on foreign oil -- 63 (Jef;Jax)
Combat international drug trafficking -- 63 (Jef;Ham)
Distribute costs of maintaining world order -- 58 (Ham;Jax)
Improve relationships with allies -- 54 (Ham;Jef)
Deal with problem of world hunger -- 50 (Wil)
Strengthen the United Nations -- 48 (Ham;Wil)
Protect groups threatened with genocide -- 47 (Wil)
Deal with global warming -- 36 (Jef)
Reduce U.S. military commitments -- 35 (Jef)
Promote U.S. business interests abroad -- 35 (Ham)
Promote human rights abroad -- 33 (Wil;Jef)
Solve Israeli/ Palestinian conflict -- 28 (Ham;Wil)
Promote democracy abroad -- 24 (Wil)
Improve living standards in poor nations -- 23 (Wil)

Obviously, some of my assignments are open to debate, and most Americans do not neatly fall into any one category. But it seems to me that a plurality of the American public holds primarily Jacksonian views, which explains why there has been so much pandering in that direction by both candidates. Although there is a clear difference here, in that while Bush has actually conducted an especially Jacksonian foreign policy (with its tough rhetoric and disdain for world opinion), Kerry, who would conduct a foreign policy that was anything but Jacksonian, has to rely on symbolic appeals based on his military record).


The other three groups, at least with respect to those who hold these views as primary appear to be roughly equivalent. However, the appeal of issues such as the global AIDS crisis and global hunger suggests that there is a large amount of secondary, soft support for Wilsonian ideas that is not present for the other two groups. I believe it is this combination - the breadth of support for Wilsonian ideas combined by the softness of that support - that explains why advocates for a more ambitious Wilsonian agenda believe they have widespread support, only to find that support to be fickle and fleeting.