ABSTRACT

The previous chapters have addressed several issues and problems related to the nature and impact of public opinion on foreign policy: it is time to sum up and point to possible conclusions emerging from the research reported in them. Being aware, however, that as much as the blind men in front of the elephant we face a host of difficult methodological and theoretical problems: different cases, in different periods, seen under different perspectives. This, of course, limits the generalisability of our results as much as their very comparison. Philip Everts in the Introductory chapter mentioned three main sets of issues that this book was to address: the nature, content and structure of public opinion on foreign policy issues in a comparative and dynamic perspective; the impact of public opinion on foreign and defence policy making, and the empirical support for the so-called ‘casualty hypothesis’ or ‘body-bag syndrome’.