The idea that domestic factors constrain foreign policy is at the
heart of modern liberal theories of international relations. This
is also the major premise that guides Robert Putnam's seminal work
on two-level games in international relations. Putnam sees the
process of many international negotiations as a two-level game
where "central decision-makers strive to reconcile the domestic and
international imperatives simultaneously" (Putnam, 1988, p.460). At
the national level, public opinion as well as a host of other
interested factors pressure leaders to embrace policies they favor.
At the international level, governments seek to maximize their
degrees of freedom to satisfy domestic pressures while limiting the
harmful impact of foreign developments.
Underlying the premise that public opinion constrains policy is, of
course, the assumption that the public's policy preferences and
governments' preferences do not necessarily coincide, and that
leaders cannot take for granted their public's consent. Moreover,
the "game" metaphor suggests a mutual dependency between publics
and leaders. It thus implicitly rejects theories of powerful
framing in which publics are at the mercy of their leaders' full
control of information, or claims for powerful publics that
hopelessly tie their leaders' hands. More recent works, building on
Putnam's metaphor, see public opinion not only as a constraining
factor, but rather as an imperative capable of opening new
opportunities for leaders' international games.
What is Public Opinion?
But what is public opinion and how are these premises related to
the Israeli- Palestinian conflict resolution process? Commonly the
concept of public opinion is taken literally to mean the opinion of
the public. While this is not incorrect, it constitutes a rather
naïve understanding of the concept. A more sophisticated
conception must acknowledge the element of publicity in public
opinion: "public" opinion as distinguished from "private" opinion.
Indeed public opinion is a shared aggregate phenomenon. It is a
collective social entity, and publicity is necessary for its
formation. It is the knowledge of the very existence of others who
share values, beliefs and concerns that forges a host of discrete
opinions into a viable social entity.
Public opinion holds an essential role in society. It mediates and
accommodates social integration and social change. As a normative
force it nurtures integration and stability. As a mechanism of
aggregate foresight it paves the way to social and political
change. Public opinion is thus a multidimensional phenomenon. In
addition to its evaluative attitudinal facet, it comprises a strong
normative component, a prospective informational one, and an
expressive behavioral element (Shamir & Shamir, 2000). A fuller
understanding of public opinion thus entails not only the tracking
of the majority opinion, but also of the normative opinion - the
opinion perceived to be the majority opinion. Similarly important
are people's expectations of future events and developments, as
well as overt verbal symbolic and behavioral expressions of
opinion.
Why is it Important to Conflict Resolution?
Why is this important to conflict resolution? Different facets of
public opinion can work in different ways to influence policy
makers' decisions. Public opinion confers legitimacy. Legitimacy by
its nature has a strong normative component and is intimately
related to the normative facet of public opinion. While success in
an election is usually necessary to secure legitimacy, it is not
always sufficient. Currently, legitimacy has become a major issue
in the Palestinian Authority (PA), evident in the competition
between Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and Marwan Barghouti over who
gains recognition as the genuine successor of Yasser Arafat and his
legacy. Apart from a leader's legitimacy, bold policy decisions
must also obtain legitimacy and leaders often work hard to secure
it. Here, too, contrary to common beliefs, majority support for a
policy option is perhaps necessary for its implementation, but it
does not always entail normative legitimacy of it.
The Disengagement Example
In this respect, it is useful to reconstruct the manner in which
the disengagement plan has been revealed to the Israeli public.
Although Ariel Sharon hinted in his election campaign that Israel
would have to make painful decisions, it is doubtful he had a clear
idea at that time on how to proceed. The disengagement plan
materialized only much later, toward the end of 2003. The first
trial balloon was released by Ehud Olmert in early December 2003,
when he suggested a disengagement from most of the territories to a
line that would be unilaterally determined by the Israeli
government. At that time, 46 percent of the Israeli public
supported Olmert's proposal. The actual disengagement plan was
declared three weeks later in Sharon's Herzliya speech. This speech
provides a fascinating example for the usefulness of our
multifaceted approach to public opinion and its importance to
conflict resolution. Since the end of 2002, more than 60 percent of
Israelis have been supporting the dismantling of most settlements
for peace. This, however, was still not perceived to be a normative
policy option. Tracking the normative facet of public opinion, we
could see that all that time only a minority of the public believed
the majority supported the removal of settlements. When did this
option become normative? Immediately after Sharon's public
declaration of his disengagement plan! The percent of people
realizing that this policy option enjoys majority support jumped
from 37 percent before the speech to 56 percent after it,
increasing even further to 63 percent in the following months. In
his Herzliya speech of December 18, 2003, Sharon went out of his
way to secure a broad consensus of the Israeli public. A careful
reading of his speech reveals that he appealed to the most widely
cherished societal values: security, Jewish identity, peace and
democracy, with security and Jewish identity emphasized most.
What can we learn from this example? First, clearly the attitudinal
facet of public opinion opened an opportunity for Sharon. The
steady increase in the Israeli public support for the removal of
settlements since 200, turning into the majority position in 2002
set the necessary conditions for Sharon's disengagement plan.
Additional public pressure coming from the support for the Geneva
document and the dissident groups refusing to serve in the
territories provided a further push in this direction. This however
was still not sufficient and Sharon had to build up legitimacy for
his plan and make it normative. His very own declaration of the
plan in Herzliya had the dramatic effect of changing the
norm.
Second, the steady dovish increase in Israeli attitudes with
respect to the settlements demonstrates that the Israeli public
exercised an open-minded and resourceful process of learning and
prospective assessment of the situation. Just as we can speak of a
strong normative dimension in public opinion, we can also identify
a prospective informational facet that embodies the public's
wisdom. This has been widely documented in public opinion research
in recent years (e.g., Page and Shapiro, 1992; Gamson, 1992; Shamir
& Shamir, 2000). In the Israeli case, we have repeatedly
observed the public being ahead of its leaders in supporting policy
options that only later, and sometimes much later, became actual
policy. Attesting to the prospective orientation of public opinion
our joint Israeli-Palestinian research shows that both Israelis and
Palestinians are sensitive to political events. Assessing their
implications, the two publics develop similar policy expectations
despite being exposed to different messages from their leaders and
the media. Thus, while cues from leaders and the media are
influential and can affect the dynamics of public opinion, people
also utilize their popular wisdom and experiential knowledge to
reason about such cues and will often not accept them at face
value. It is always advisable to examine the fuller array of
information and the existence of supportive evidence that may
justify people's adherence to media frames or leaders' theories
that may seem unreasonable at first glance, before concluding
public opinion is irrational or dumb. There are also cases where
public opinion can be swayed by charismatic leaders or a monolithic
media; in the long run and with additional information, however
learning inevitably occurs and self-correcting processes take
place.
The "Democratic Peace" Phenomenon
Finally, the importance of public opinion to conflict resolution is
also stressed by one of the most robust generalizations produced to
date in the field of international relations: the "democratic
peace" phenomenon. (e.g., Rummel, 1983; Russett, 1990). Public
opinion, broadly conceived, plays a major role among the range of
explanations of this phenomenon. For example, public opinion is
considered a major force against belligerence in the "Kantian"
rationale for "perpetual peace." Normative explanations, which
emphasize political culture factors, suggest that norms of domestic
political conduct express themselves in the international arena.
Thus political cultures that nurture among their members values and
norms of "live and let live" will project these norms on to the
international arena, as well. Structural explanations in turn
emphasize the workings of democratic political institutions.
Belligerent decisions are constrained by the need of executives in
democracies to gain approval for war from the legislature and the
electorates. Either way, electorates holding liberal sentiments and
democratic norms and values seem to be central to peaceful conflict
resolutions. The process of democratization we are witnessing in
recent months in the Palestinian Authority is extremely important
in this respect. Its ultimate success will be judged not only by
the new institutional arrangements it will generate, but also and
even more so by the political culture it will nurture.
References
Gamson, William A., 1992. Talking Politics. Cambridge, MA:
Cambridge University Press.
Page, Benjamin I. & Robert Y. Shapiro, 1992. The Rational
Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans' Policy Preferences.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Putnam, Robert D., 1988. "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The
Logic of Two-Level Games." International Organization 42(3):
427-460.
Shamir, Jacob & Michal Shamir, 2000. The Anatomy of Public
Opinion. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.
Rummel, Randolph, J. (1983). "Libertarianism and International
Violence." Journal of Conflict Resolution 27: 27-71.
Russett, Bruce M., 1990. Controlling the Sword: The Democratic
Governance of National Security. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
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