ICPSR Instructional Subset: American Public Opinion and United States Foreign Policy, 1975

Resource Information

The work ICPSR Instructional Subset: American Public Opinion and United States Foreign Policy, 1975 represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Bowdoin College Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

ICPSR Instructional Subset: American Public Opinion and United States Foreign Policy, 1975

Creator

• Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]

Author

• Chicago Council on Foreign Relations

Contributor

• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]

Subject

• data
• economic aid
• educational elites
• foreign policy
• government elites
• instruction
• instructional materials
• international affairs
• labor (work)
• Teaching
• military alliances
• national security
• politicians
• public opinion
• religion
• social sciences
• survey
• leadership
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975
• attitudes
• communist threat

Genre

• survey

Summary

This study contains data on the attitudes of the American public toward American foreign policy in 1975. The study derives from surveys on the attitudes of the American public and national leaders toward foreign policy conducted by Louis Harris and Associates, commissioned by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in November 1974. ICPSR provides instructional subsets based on both the public and the leadership surveys. See the related collection, ICPSR INSTRUCTIONAL SUBSET: AMERICAN LEADERSHIP OPINION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, 1975 (ICPSR 7519). This public survey used a stratified systematic national sample of 1,513 Americans aged 18 years and older. The leadership sample included 329 individuals in positions that made them likely to have influence upon and knowledge of foreign relations. Leaders were drawn in roughly equal proportions from among those in responsible positions in politics, government, business, communications, and education. Somewhat fewer respondents were interviewed from the fields of labor, religion, and voluntary and ethnic organizations. In general, the questions in both surveys examined attitudes in a number of related areas, including the role and extent of United States' involvement in world affairs, the amount of domestic support for such involvement, and the relationship between domestic and foreign policies. The initial 71 variables in each subset reflect identical substantive questions asked of both populations, so that public and leadership attitudes on the same questions can be easily compared. These questions queried respondents on topics such as the value and effectiveness of United States' economic and military aid and its effect on the American economy and national security, prevention of the spread of communism, and improvement of American foreign relations. Also asked were questions on the role of the United States in world affairs, its status compared to the previous ten years, its world military involvement, and lessons learned from the Vietnam War. Respondents were also asked to rate the president and Congress on foreign policy formulation achievements and to specify the appropriate responses to a number of possible future world developments. Demographic items specify age, race, sex, education, occupation, income, political orientation, religion, and region of the country