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Public Opinion and International Intervention: Lessons from the Iraq War
Author(s): Richard Sobel (Author), Peter Furia (Author), Bethany Barratt (Author)
- Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
- Publication Date: 15 May 2012
- Language: English
- Print length: 352 pages
- ISBN-10: 9781597974929
- ISBN-13: 1597974927
Book Description
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.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“This book is a splendid example of the globalization of scholarship. The authors carefully examine public opinion on the Iraq War in twelve countries, and the editors masterfully integrate and synthesize the results of these country-level studies. We gain notable insight into the dynamics of public opinion on this important international conflict.”–Tom W. Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Society, NORC at the University of Chicago
“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 PreferencesAbout the Author
Peter Furia is a lecturer in politics at the University of Virginia. He has published several articles on public opinion and international affairs.
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).
