Oct 8, 2026 · 44 min · 8 segments
In democratic countries, foreign policy is often assumed to be shaped, at least in part, by public preferences. But that raises an important question: do policymakers have an accurate understanding of…
Jonathan MontenGuest
Alan RenwickHost
And can you just help me get my head around why are we more interested in the difference that is made by whether or not NATO supports or opposes intervention than in simply whether people support or oppose intervention? Yeah.
So you might think that if you take a very isolationist view, then you're going to oppose intervention in an African humanitarian cause, whereas if you have a more internationalist approach, you would support that kind of intervention.
So why is it the NATO endorsement that is the important thing for getting at things here?
I think the underlying idea behind using NATO endorsement as a proxy for being pro-internationalist is that engaging in a large-scale foreign intervention in the face of foreign opposition represents a kind of, not necessarily isolationism, but unilateralism, a disregard for global public opinion, a disregard for the institutions of global governance, and in the case of NATO, a disregard for the view of our closest allies.
whereas supporting military intervention because it has the endorsement of and the approval of an international organization effectively represents the opposite of those things.
And I should also say here that there is a larger side literature in international relations and the study of international relations sort of on this question, investigating this question in detail.
And the basic idea behind that literature is that The public, when forming views about foreign policy questions such as intervention, relies on a series of informational cues around them.
And the question that literature asks is, what about informational cues from international level actors? Do they have a similar kind of effect on the public? And the assumption is, yes, that it represents a kind of proxy for being in favor of multilateral action as opposed to unilateral action.
And I guess that relates to a question that I had when I read through the paper, that you test the effect of one particular informational cue, the effect of NATO supporting or opposing this intervention.
What if you used a different informational cue? So it was the president is favorable, or you said generally people think that this is a good idea or a bad idea, or you said that...
I mean, I guess it could be that you would find just the same sorts of effects there and that actually you're just picking up the effects of a positive cue rather than specifically the effects of an internationalist positive cue.
Yeah, you're identifying exactly the sort of issue at the core of these studies and also a limitation of them, which is that in real-world scenarios, how do people sort out the variety of informational signals and cues they're getting? And I think one assumption that drives this research in the international relations literature is that it is distinct from domestic politics in the sense that people typically or arguably have more stable and well-formed views about domestic political issues that affect their everyday life.
For example, the level of taxation or public funding for education or for healthcare issues that they they tend to have a stable view about things that affect their everyday life compared to foreign affairs issues, which can be more distant, less consequential for their everyday environment.
And can you just help me get my head around why are we more interested in the difference that is made by whether or not NATO supports or opposes intervention than in simply whether people support or oppose intervention? Yeah.
So you might think that if you take a very isolationist view, then you're going to oppose intervention in an African humanitarian cause, whereas if you have a more internationalist approach, you would support that kind of intervention.
So why is it the NATO endorsement that is the important thing for getting at things here?
I think the underlying idea behind using NATO endorsement as a proxy for being pro-internationalist is that engaging in a large-scale foreign intervention in the face of foreign opposition represents a kind of, not necessarily isolationism, but unilateralism, a disregard for global public opinion, a disregard for the institutions of global governance, and in the case of NATO, a disregard for the view of our closest allies.
whereas supporting military intervention because it has the endorsement of and the approval of an international organization effectively represents the opposite of those things.
And I should also say here that there is a larger side literature in international relations and the study of international relations sort of on this question, investigating this question in detail.
And the basic idea behind that literature is that The public, when forming views about foreign policy questions such as intervention, relies on a series of informational cues around them.
And the question that literature asks is, what about informational cues from international level actors? Do they have a similar kind of effect on the public? And the assumption is, yes, that it represents a kind of proxy for being in favor of multilateral action as opposed to unilateral action.
And I guess that relates to a question that I had when I read through the paper, that you test the effect of one particular informational cue, the effect of NATO supporting or opposing this intervention.
What if you used a different informational cue? So it was the president is favorable, or you said generally people think that this is a good idea or a bad idea, or you said that...
I mean, I guess it could be that you would find just the same sorts of effects there and that actually you're just picking up the effects of a positive cue rather than specifically the effects of an internationalist positive cue.
Yeah, you're identifying exactly the sort of issue at the core of these studies and also a limitation of them, which is that in real-world scenarios, how do people sort out the variety of informational signals and cues they're getting? And I think one assumption that drives this research in the international relations literature is that it is distinct from domestic politics in the sense that people typically or arguably have more stable and well-formed views about domestic political issues that affect their everyday life.
For example, the level of taxation or public funding for education or for healthcare issues that they they tend to have a stable view about things that affect their everyday life compared to foreign affairs issues, which can be more distant, less consequential for their everyday environment.
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