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U.S. Leadership in a Shrinking World: The Breakdown of Consensuses and the Emergence of Conflicting Belief Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

James N. Rosenau  and
Ole R. Holsti
James N. Rosenau
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Ole R. Holsti
Affiliation:
Duke University
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Abstract

The adaptation of the United States to its declining role as a superpower is examined through an inquiry into the belief systems of the society's leaders. Three sets of mutually exclusive domestic policy belief systems are identified, along with three sets of mutually exclusive foreign policy belief systems. The degree to which they are linked to each other is explored, and the connections are found to be tenuous—suggesting that the cleavages at work in American society are more enduring and less subject to change than may be readily apparent. The last section of the paper uses more recent data from a sample of American leaders to examine the degree to which foreign policy belief systems are susceptible to change over time, allowing for an analysis of the extent to which the hostage crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan affected pre-existing belief systems. The overall finding is that the impact was negligible, and that foreign policy belief systems are largely resistant to change.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , April 1983 , pp. 368 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1983

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References

1 For a stimulating analysis in which these changes are cast in terms of geographic perceptions, see Henrikson, Alan K., “America's Changing Place in the World,” in Gottman, Jean, ed., Centre and Periphery: Spatial Variation in Politics (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1980), 73–100.Google Scholar

2 For a discussion of this possibility, see Rosenau, James N., The Study of Political Adaptation (New York: Nichols Publishing Company, 1981), chaps. 8 and 9.Google Scholar

3 Rosenau, James N., The Study of Global Interdependence (New York: Nichols Publishing Company, 1980), chaps. 5 and 6.Google Scholar

4 We are indebted to Miriam Steiner for pointing out the need to clarify our position on the role of consensus in the policy-making process.

5 Graubard, Stephen R., ed., “The End of Consensus?” Daedalus, Vol. 109 (Summer 1980), 1–168.Google Scholar For other indications that widespread consensuses prevailed in the earlier period, see Barton, Allen H., “Consensus and Conflict among American Leaders,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XXXVIII (Winter 1974–1975), 507–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosenau, James N., National Leadership and Foreign Policy: A Case Study in the Mobilization of Public Support (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Barton, Allen H., “Fault Lines in American Elite Consensus,” in Graubard (fn. 5), 1.Google Scholar

7 Yankelovich, Daniel, “Economic Policy and the Question of Political Will,” in Hoadley, Walter E., ed., The Economy and the President: 1980 and Beyond (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980), 18–24.Google Scholar

8 For full discussions of the concept of belief systems, see Converse, Philip E., “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,” in Apter, David E., ed., Ideology and Discontent (New York: Free Press, 1964)Google Scholar, and Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misrepresentation in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), chap. 4.Google Scholar

9 “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, XXIV (July 1947), 566–82.

10 See Holsti, and Rosenau, , “The Foreign Policy Beliefs of Women in Leadership Positions,” Journal of Politics, XXXXIII (May 1981), 326–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Does Where You Stand Depend on When You Were Born? The Impact of Generation on Post-Vietnam Foreign Policy Beliefs,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XXXXIV (Spring 1980), 1–22; “Cold War Axioms in the Post-Vietnam Era,” in Holsti, Ole R., George, Alexander, and Siverson, Randolph M., eds., Change in the International System (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1980), 263–301Google Scholar; “The United States in (and out of) Vietnam: An Adaptive Transformation?” Yearbook of World Affairs (1980), 186–204; “America's Foreign Policy Agenda: The Post-Vietnam Beliefs of American Leaders,” in Kegley, Charles W. Jr, and McGowan, Patrick J., eds., Challenges to America: United States Foreign Policy in the 1980s (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979), 231–68Google Scholar; and “Vietnam, Consensus, and the Belief Systems of American Leaders,” World Politics, XXXII (October 1979). 1–56.

11 The data descriptive of these findings are to be found in Holsti, Ole R. and Rosenau, James N., American Leadership in World Affairs: The Breakdown of Consensus (Boston: George Allen & Unwin, forthcoming), chap. 5.Google Scholar

12 For a detailed analysis of the backgrounds of the leaders who endorsed each of the foreign policy belief systems, see Holsti and Rosenau, in Holsti, George, and Siverson (fn. 10).

13 The number of elected and politically appointed persons in our sample is too small to allow for anything more than a presumption as to their distribution throughout the government; for the data on foreign service and military officers, see Holsti, George, and Siverson (fn. 10).

14 See, for example, Barton (fn. 6), 8.

15 A recent historical precedent for this position is exemplified by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, all of whom espoused this combination of foreign and domestic beliefs.

16 Podhoretz, Norman, “The Neo-Conservative Anguish over Reagan's Foreign Policy,” New York Times Magazine, May 2, 1982, p. 89.Google Scholar

17 For an analysis of the data from the larger sample affirming this conclusion, see Holsti and Rosenau (fn. 11), chap. 6.