American Diplomacy

American Diplomacy

Volume I, Number 1, 1996

 

Public Opinion on Human Rights in American Foreign Policy *
By Ole R. Holsti

I. Introduction

The Vietnam War had a significant impact on American thinking about foreign policy, the processes by which it should be formulated, and the values that should be reflected in the country's external relations. Among the many debates stimulated by that conflict were two that are central to this paper. First, the conflict in Southeast Asia revived interest in an issue—the role of public opinion in foreign policy making—that had become rather passé for most foreign policy analysts. As a result of the Vietnam conflict, even the distinguished journalist Walter Lippmann, author of several books (1922, 1925, 1955) on the thesis that the public is inherently incapable of playing the role demanded by classical democratic theory, came to question his prescription that only strong executive leadership, insulated from the vagaries of public opinion, could ensure the survival of democracies in a dangerous world. The Vietnam War also contributed to a heightened interest in the role that human rights values should play in America's relations with both allies and adversaries. A combination of the civil rights movement at home, revelations of gross human rights abuses by some American allies—including the South Vietnamese regime on whose behalf the United States was expending vast treasure and lives—and reactions to the stark realpolitik foreign policies of the Nixon-Kissinger period combined to kindle interest in human rights foreign policy goals that had rarely played more than a secondary role during the height of the Cold War. 1

The links between controversies about the appropriate roles of public opinion and human rights are not, however, merely a coincidental result of having been stimulated by the same event. These issues were also central points of contention in the heated post Vietnam debates, both in academic and policy making circles, between proponents of two important and enduring perspectives on international affairs—realism and idealism.

I will begin with a brief review of the realist and liberal positions on public opinion and foreign policy, on human rights and foreign policy, and the linkages between the two topics. These two schools of thought lend themselves to some competing hypotheses, discussed in the next section, about public opinion on human rights. The third section describes the available survey data, and then analyses some evidence relating to these hypotheses. The conclusion addresses some policy implications of the findings.

Liberals versus realists on public opinion and foreign policy

At first glance it might appear that this discussion really addresses two quite distinct issues: The role of public opinion in foreign policy making, and human rights as a foreign policy goal. In fact they are linked in several ways. Both issues are at the core of the venerable debates between advocates of realism and liberalism, the two dominant theories on the conduct of foreign affairs. These two schools of thought generally hold sharply divergent views on both the role of public opinion in the foreign policy process and on the appropriate weight that should be accorded to human rights in relations with other countries.

The first issue centers on the role of public opinion and its ability to make a useful contribution to the quality of foreign policy and diplomacy. A long liberal tradition, dating back to Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham and continuing through Woodrow Wilson, asserts that democracies are more peaceful at least in part because the public can play a constructive role in constraining policy makers. Elihu Root, a distinguished Republican foreign policy leader, effectively summarized the case for democratizing foreign policy in the initial issue of Foreign Affairs : "When foreign affairs were ruled by autocracies or oligarchies the danger of war was in sinister purpose. When foreign affairs are ruled by democracies the danger of war will be in mistaken beliefs. The world will be the gainer by the change, for, while there is no human way to prevent a king from having a bad heart, there is a human way to prevent a people from having an erroneous opinion" (Root 1922: 5).

In contrast, Alexis de Tocqueville, Walter Lippmann, E.H. Carr, Hans J. Morgenthau, George F. Kennan and other realists are intensely skeptical of the public because the effective conduct of diplomacy requires long-term strategic visions of the national interest, combined with the ability to pursue those interests with speed, secrecy, and flexibility. These requirements would often be jeopardized were the public, whose preferences are allegedly driven by emotions and short-term considerations, to have a significant role in foreign affairs. Lippmann's indictment of the public would gain the support of many realists.

The unhappy truth is that the prevailing public opinion has been destructively wrong at the critical junctures. The people have impressed a critical veto upon the judgments of informed and responsible officials. They have compelled the government, which usually knew what would have been wiser, or was necessary, or what was more expedient, to be too late with too little, or too long with too much, too pacifist in peace and too bellicose in war, too neutralist or appeasing in negotiations or too intransigent. Mass opinion has acquired mounting power in this country. It has shown itself to be a dangerous master of decision when the stakes are life and death. (Lippmann 1955:20).

Fears expressed by Lippmann and other realists notwithstanding, by the late 1960s or early 1970s a near consensus had developed on three points: public opinion is volatile, lacking any coherent structure, and is largely irrelevant in the conduct of foreign affairs. Were these three propositions generally valid, it would scarcely be of more than modest academic interest to devote much effort to describing public attitudes toward human rights. However, during the past quarter century some powerful challenges have been mounted against all three of them. Although the debate about the nature of public opinion is far from over, we now have a growing body of evidence that public attitudes are quite stable, have at least moderate degree of structure, and are often a significant factor in foreign policy decisions. (Holsti 1996).

Realists and liberals on human rights

Realists and liberals also disagree about the extent to which human rights and humanitarian concerns abroad are proper objectives of foreign policy. The realist thesis is grounded in three propositions. First, an effective foreign policy requires that national interests be pursued with a sound understanding of the balance between risks and rewards, on the one hand, and relevant resources on the other. It is necessary and sufficient that such policies be focused on the demanding task of influencing the international behavior of other states, without taking on the added and extraneous burden of judging and seeking to reform their domestic institutions and practices as well. Realists often cite with approval the 1821 Independence Day address by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, in which he answered demands that the United States should assist other nations in gaining their freedom: "Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [U.S.] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." 2

The doctrines of state sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries constitute the second pillar in the realist argument against a human rights priority in foreign affairs. In an imperfect world, these norms are essential to avoid constant conflict. Without them, the international system would more closely approximate a state of perpetual war because no injustice—real or perceived—would lie beyond the reach of external powers that might be tempted to launch crusades to redress them. Although realists are generally not counted among the staunchest defenders of international institutions, they frequently remind their liberal critics that Article 2, paragraph 7 of the UN Charter explicitly endorses the doctrine of non-interference: "Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter."

Realists often cite the absence of internationally accepted standards of human rights as a third important reason for skepticism. Even if there were such a consensus, because the multiplicity of national interests makes it impossible to be consistent in the pursuit of human rights goals, to do so selectively is merely to invite charges of hypocrisy. (See, for example, Morgenthau 1978; and Kennan 1985 86). 3

Although the conventional realist position, described above, opposes giving weight to human rights considerations in foreign affairs, some realists argue that although "morality should not drive foreign policy," there is no tradeoff to be faced because the diligent pursuit of American security interests automatically promotes global human rights: "Typically, of course, human rights and morality are advanced around the globe as a happy by product of specific American policies." (Pines 1991, 62; see also Billington 1987, Huntington 1989, Laqueur 1977, and Moynihan 1977).

Liberals bring forth a number of responses to the realist brief against a human rights priority in foreign affairs. They can muster evidence about the emergence of at least some international consensus on the definition of human rights. The 1926 international agreement to abolish slavery constitutes a pre-World War II example. The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and additional international and regional treaties and institutions created in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust constitute further indications of widening agreement that the doctrines of sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs are not absolute barriers against international concern with egregious violations of basic human rights. 4 Although events in Cambodia, Burundi, Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya, and elsewhere provide ample evidence that progress on protecting human rights is at best slow and uneven, there is a discernible international trend in direction of more rather than less concern for such rights. Thus, according to liberals, it is in its national interest for the United States to be a leader rather than a laggard in the undertaking. (See, for example, Hyland 1990, Kattenberg 1981; Maynes 1993-94; Posner 1994-95; and Vance 1986).

The links between public opinion and human rights

The role of public opinion in the policy process and the priority to be assigned human rights concerns in foreign policy are intimately linked in the liberal-realist debate. Not the least reason for realist skepticism about public opinion is the fear that the public will give undue weight to human rights and humanitarian goals—what Michael Mandelbaum (1996) has derisively called "foreign policy as social work." Indeed, one of the worst realist nightmares is that the public, aroused by vivid television presentations about gross human rights violations in some country of no vital national interest, will press Washington to undertake a costly and ill-fated intervention at the risk of major losses while achieving little more than salving the American national conscience. Moreover, should the undertaking result in even modest casualties, the public may then clamor for immediate withdrawal, further damaging America's credibility and reputation for mature international leadership. (See, for example, Kennan 1993).

The liberal rebuttal to the realist case begins with the propositions that promoting human rights constitutes the "right thing" and that doing so is consistent with the most basic American values, including those articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Liberals further assert that their concerns for public opinion and human rights are not merely a reflection of dedication to fundamental democratic values, but also that they are grounded in a sober appreciation of two important political realities. First, long term domestic support, a prerequisite for success in any significant international undertaking, can only be sustained when the public is persuaded that the ends and means of foreign policy are consistent with basic American values—including human rights. As Jimmy Carter put it in his May 1977 speech at Notre Dame: "I believe that we can have a foreign policy that is democratic, that is based on fundamental values, and that uses power and influence for humane purposes. We can also have a foreign policy that the American people both support and understand." (Carter 1977, 12). Moreover, although the public may not be sufficiently informed or sophisticated to understand all the nuances of international affairs, they correctly believe that regimes which consistently mistreat their own citizens cannot be trusted to behave responsibly toward other countries, much less to carry out their international agreements.

II. Hypotheses and Data

Some of the available survey data will be analyzed in the next section to assess three pairs of competing hypotheses about public and elite opinions on the appropriate role of human rights considerations in the conduct of American foreign relations. The hypotheses focus initially on the impact of the end of the Cold War, secondly on differences in the attitudes of leaders as compared to those of the general public, and, finally, on the extent to which attitudes toward human rights issues are embedded within broader political ideologies.

The end of the Cold War

The quarter century for which survey data on human rights are available has been a period of almost unprecedented international change. It spans the waxing and waning of détente during the Nixon, Ford and Carter years; the inception of Cold War II during the first Reagan administration; the onset of another period of détente during the late 1980s; the end of the Cold War and disintegration of the USSR; and, during the early years of the post-Cold War era, the outbreak of numerous intra state conflicts that have often been marked by massive violations of human rights. Although the euphoria that attended the end of the Cold War for example, the "end of history" thesis has been replaced by a recognition that the growth of democratic values and institutions is neither inevitable nor irreversible, there are nevertheless reasons for thinking that these developments have not been irrelevant to public thinking about human rights.

More specifically, it is possible to develop plausible arguments in support of diametrically opposite hypotheses about how the end of the Cold War has affected American attitudes on human rights. According to one line of reasoning:

1a. The end of the Cold War has triggered a decline of interest in the state of human rights abroad as a vital concern for American foreign policy.

This hypothesis is grounded in the view that the end of the Cold War has generally eroded American interest in international affairs, while also providing sustenance for the belief that the United States has neither compelling interests nor sufficient resources to permit it to assume either the roles of policeman or nanny of the world. (Schlesinger 1991 92). For example, Tonelson (1994-95, 127) has argued that in the absence of a powerful ideological Cold War rival, "the state of human rights around the world does not have, and never has had, any demonstrable effect on U.S. national security." 5 Many holding this view also assert that a long list of domestic problems, many of which were neglected during four decades of Cold War, provide an ample agenda for America's attention, energies, and resources. More specifically, the argument is that although the end of the Cold War has not, unfortunately, abated massive violations of human rights, after a half century of very active international leadership during the period between Pearl Harbor and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Americans are experiencing an acute case of "compassion fatigue."

The alternative hypothesis takes a very different view of post-Cold War attitudes on human rights.

1b. The end of the Cold War has increased American willingness to apply human rights criteria in the conduct of U.S. foreign relations.

According to this position, the end of the Cold War has freed the public from any compelling need to view human rights issues through the lenses of its rivalry with the Soviet Union. Americans are no longer constrained by the argument, for example, that it is expedient turn a blind eye toward human rights violations by friends and allies—especially if the victims of such abuse can be depicted as "communists" or "communist sympathizers"—because the imperatives of the global competition with the Soviet Union must be given a priority that overrides undue fussiness about the domestic policies of those on the free world side of a bipolar world. (Hyland 1991 92). Or, as John F. Kennedy is reported to have said of Dominican dictator and human rights abuser par excellence Raphael Trujillo, "Sure, he's a bastard, but at least he's our bastard." Even some of those who earlier may have been persuaded by Jeane Kirkpatrick's (1979, 1981) apologias for support of some less-than-democratic Cold War allies, based on a distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, may now be more likely to question whether her thesis provides a compelling rationale for overlooking systematic human rights violations. Finally, in contrast to the earlier period, the pursuit of human rights goals in the contemporary world runs less risk of triggering a major power crisis—a confrontation with China is perhaps an exception—than would have been the case during the Cold War.

Leaders and the general public

A second pair of competing hypotheses centers on differences between leaders and the general public on the appropriate weight to be accorded to human rights in the formulation of American foreign policy. The first hypothesis is closely linked to a realist perspective.

2a. Compared to leaders, the general public is likely to assign a higher priority to human rights goals in the conduct of American foreign affairs.

Although there are some important distinctions among the various realist approaches to international affairs, adherents to this school of thought share a highly skeptical view about whether the public can make a constructive contribution to foreign policy. 6 Because the average citizen is less sophisticated than leaders in his factual and conceptual understanding of international affairs, he is less capable of appreciating the distinction between core and peripheral national interests. Thus, members of the general public are more likely to indulge in emotional rather than reasoned and hard-headed appraisals of what is generally desirable and feasible in the international arena, as well as in any specific situation. Especially in an era when CNN can bring into every home graphic evidence of such human rights violations as deliberate starvation of populations, ethnic cleansing, extra-judicial punishment of dissidents, and other abuses, members of the general public are more prone to fall prey to the belief that for each such outrage there is an effective American remedy. In contrast, leaders are more likely to appreciate that in the real world, as distinct from some hypothetical ideal one, assigning a high foreign policy priority to human rights abroad is neither feasible nor desirable in most cases.

In contrast, the alternative hypothesis posits a quite different relationship in the human rights attitudes of leaders and the general public.

2b. Because they are more knowledgeable about the changing nature of international affairs in an age of interdependence, leaders are more likely than members of the general public to hold internationalist views and to understand that U.S. national interests usually parallel rather than work at cross purposes with the promotion and protection of human rights abroad.

This hypothesis is not grounded in a denial of the strong evidence that leaders are better informed and more sophisticated than the average citizen about international affairs. Rather, it is based on the reasoning that leaders have a better appreciation that such vital long-range national interests as a stable and sustainable world order are linked to the state of human rights and the growth of democracy abroad. Moreover, governments that respect human rights "are likely to be more stable and reliable strategic allies." (Posner, 1994-95, 136) In contrast, members of the general public are more inclined to accord primacy to short term goals and domestic problems, on the one hand, and, on the other, to experience "compassion fatigue" about the plight of human rights victims abroad.

Human rights views: pragmatism or ideology?

The third pair of hypotheses yields divergent expectations about the extent to which views about human rights in foreign policy are narrowly circumscribed or, alternatively, are embedded within a broader political ideology. The first hypothesis adopts the former view:

3a. Positions of support for or opposition to a human rights focus in American foreign policy are specifically and narrowly grounded in pragmatic assessments of the feasibility and desirability of permitting national interests—and the strategies used to pursue such interests—to be defined and constrained by the human rights policies practices, and preferences of other nations.

According to this hypothesis, skeptics agree with the classical realist thesis that a priority on human rights is neither desirable, because it may run counter to more compelling national interests as well as the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal of other states, nor feasible, because it is rarely possible to extend effective American protection to victims of human rights violations abroad. According to this hypothesis, such views are quite independent of other policy preferences, for example, on domestic human rights issues. A concern for human rights must be situational, and opponents argue that foreign affairs generally constitute the wrong situation, especially because the fiat of American values and preferences does not extent beyond the country's frontiers. Moreover, if human rights criteria are to be invoked in any specific circumstances, they should reflect a sober appreciation of power considerations; it is more prudent to invoke them, for example, against Grenada or Panama than against China. Consequently, positions on human rights in foreign affairs are not correlated with general preferences on a broader political agenda, including domestic issues bearing upon human rights. According to this hypothesis, a pragmatic skepticism about a human rights emphasis in foreign policy should also be independent of partisanship and ideology.

The competing hypothesis stipulates that attitudes in support or opposition to a human rights focus in American foreign policy are part of a broader political ideology.

3b. Attitudes toward the priority that should be accorded to human rights in the conduct of foreign affairs are likely to be embedded within a broader cluster of policy preferences—an ideology—that includes attitudes on domestic human rights issues.

The reasoning behind this hypothesis is that supporters of a strong human rights focus are likely to believe that concern for such values should be circumscribed by neither geography nor political boundaries; concern for human rights is a core or terminal value, rather than an instrumental one. Or, to paraphrase Lincoln, they might argue that the world cannot—and should not—long endure a situation in which half of the people enjoy human rights that are systematically denied to the other half. 7 Thus, according to this hypothesis, there should be a strong correlation between attitudes toward human rights issues at home and abroad. Moreover, these attitudes are likely to be embedded in wider ideologicaldifferences and, to the extent that party and ideology are correlated, in partisan ones as well.

Data

Although many efforts to put human rights on the international agenda arose from the horrifying experiences of World War II, especially but not limited to the Nazi Holocaust, until the early 1970s human rights concerns played a limited role in the conduct of American foreign relations. As noted earlier, the conjunction of the domestic civil rights movement, the costly but failed effort to preserve South Vietnam, and a backlash against the realpolitik foreign policy strategies of the Nixon-Kissinger period stimulated various congressional actions in 1973 aimed at injecting a human rights component into American foreign policy.

It is therefore not surprising that there are relatively few public opinion survey questions about human rights prior to the 1970s. Scarcer still are standard questions using identical wording that have been repeated with sufficient frequency to offer the possibility of reliable trend analyses. The situation described by Geyer and Shapiro (1988: 388)—"Strikingly few questions about human rights have been repeated verbatim in national surveys, making it extremely difficult to track opinion trends"—has not changed materially during the past decade. Even for the period since 1973 we have nothing that comes close to approximating the almost monthly surveys assessing presidential approval and performance ratings. There are, however, two continuing survey projects, both initiated during the mid-1970s and continuing into the present decade, that provide at least some evidence about American attitudes toward human rights.

In addition, the Americans Talk Security/Americans Talk Issues project has since the beginning of 1988 presidential election campaign undertaken a series of surveys, some of which include question about human rights. Finally, some additional evidence about human rights attitudes may be found scattered through surveys by such major polling firms as Gallup, Roper, Harris, and others. However, it should be emphasized that the existing survey data do not provide a fully satisfactory body of evidence to test the hypotheses presented in the previous section.

The analysis to be undertaken here is based on a broad rather than restrictive view of human rights. It thus goes beyond a narrow definition wherein human rights are limited to such civil and political "freedom of" rights as conscience, speech, assembly, and competitive elections, and "freedom from" rights against arbitrary arrest, excessive punishment, and the like. Evidence will also be presented about two economic aspects of human rights, as well as protection of the global environment. Thus, in terms of the classification scheme for human rights proposed by Scott Davidson (1993), the following analysis encompasses two core or "first generation" civil and political human rights, two "second generation" or economic-social-cultural human rights [hunger, the standard of living in less developed countries], and one third generation human right [protecting the global environment].

Continued in Volume I, Number 2.

Endnotes

Note *: Contents copyrighted by Ole R. Holsti. He expresses his indebtedness to the National Science Foundation for five grants that supported the Foreign Policy Leadership Project surveys of American opinion leaders; to Eugene R. Wittkopf for sharing some of his data from the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and Times Mirror surveys; to Robert Jackson for obtaining data on human rights issues from the Roper Center; to Peter Feaver for helpful comments on an earlier draft; to Daniel F. Harkins for programming assistance; to David Priess for research assistance, and to Rita Dowling for secretarial assistance.  Back

Note 1: For good discussions of the concept of human rights and the development of American human rights policy, see Donnelly (1985), Forsythe (1988, 1990, 1991, 1995), Fraser (1977), Jacoby (1986), Schlesinger (1978), Sikkink (1993), and Steinmetz (1994).  Back

Note 2: For example, this passage is quoted by Henry Kissinger (1994:35).  Back

Note 3: Morganthau 1978; Kennan 1985 86. According to James Billington, a human rights focus can serve to provide both the needed idealism or vision and realism for American foreign policy. However, he appeared to view it primarily as a Cold War weapon. After asserting that neither internal democratization nor imperial disintegration are likely to reduce the Soviet threat, he stated that, "Human rights provides a valuable vehicle for peaceful, evolutionary democratization throughout the communist world." Billington 1987:652.  Back

Note 4: For critiques of cultural relativism on human rights, see Emerson (1975), McFarland (1996), and Winston (1996).  Back

Note 5: A decade earlier Tonelson (1982 83: 53, 74) had proposed turning the Reagan administration's human rights policies on their head by "reserving America's harshest criticism and sanctions for those authoritarian regimes that President Reagan has favored, while responding to repression by totalitarian governments with a mixture of quiet diplomacy and economic incentives." He concluded that a "leverage and responsibility based human rights policy for the United States has become an imperative."  Back

Note 6: Kenneth Waltz (1967), the leading proponent of structural realism, is an exception.  Back

Note 7: Critics of a human rights emphasis in foreign affairs also cite Lincoln and his impatience with those who claim to be acting in accord with the will of Providence: "These are not, however, days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect a divine revelation. I must study the plain physical facts of the case, and ascertain what is possible and learn what appears to be wise and right." (Quoted in Morgenthau 1978:263).  Back

Note 8: Results from the 1996 survey will not be available until a later draft.  Back

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