Ignorant armies: The state, the public, and the making of foreign policy

Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 14 (2-3):327-374 (2000)
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Abstract

A state's foreign policy is constrained by parameters that inhere in the structure of the international system and in the nation's own political‐constitutional, social, and economic systems. The latter, domestic parameters, include “public opinion.” Because the public is largely ignorant of foreign affairs, policy‐making elites have wide scope for acting more rationally than would otherwise be possible, although public opinion operates on the second‐order effects of foreign policy (e.g., taxes, casualties)—inviting mismatches of objectives and means. The prevalent nonrational theories of foreign‐policy derivation are themselves largely ignorant of the dominantly rational processes of the state, particularly in its foreign and military functions.

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Citations of this work

Ignorance as a starting point: From modest epistemology to realistic political theory.Jeffrey Friedman - 2007 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 19 (1):1-22.
Ignorance as a Starting Point: From Modest Epistemology to Realistic Political Theory.Jeffrey Friedman - 2007 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 19 (1):1-22.
What’s Empire Got to Do with It? The Derivation of America’s Foreign Policy.Earl C. Ravenal - 2009 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 21 (1):21-75.

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References found in this work

The nature of belief systems in mass publics (1964).Philip E. Converse - 2006 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 18 (1-3):1-74.
The Phantom Public.Walter Lippmann - 1925 - Transaction Publishers.
The Power Elite.C. Wright Mills - 1957 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 19 (2):328-329.
The Power Elite.C. Wright Mills - 2005 - In Christopher Grey & Hugh Willmott (eds.), Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie. Oxford University Press. pp. 328-329.

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