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by Ole R. Holsti

Second installment

(Article continued from American Diplomacy, Vol. I, No. 1.)

(Note: We repeat here the hypotheses advanced by the author in the first installment — Ed.)

Hypothesis 1

 

  1. The end of the Cold War has triggered a decline of interest in the state of human rights abroad as a vital concern for American foreign policy.
  2. The end of the Cold War has increased American willingness to apply human rights criteria in the conduct of U. S. foreign relations.

Hypothesis 2

  1. Compared to leaders, the general public is likely to assign a higher priority to human rights goals in the conduct of American foreign affairs.
  2. Because they are more knowledgeable about the changing nature of international affairs in an age of interdependence, leaders are more likely than members of the general public to hold internationalist views and to understand that U. S. national interests usually parallel rather than work at cross purposes with the promotion and protection of human rights abroad.

Hypothesis 3

  1. Positions of support for or opposition to human rights focus in American foreign policy are specifically and narrowly grounded in pragmatic assessments of the feasibility and desirability of permitting national interests — and the strategies used to pursue such interests — to be defined and constrained by the human rights policies, practices, and preferences of other nations.
  2. Attitudes toward the priority that should be accorded human rights in the conduct of foreign affairs are likely to be embedded within a broader cluster of policy preferences — an ideology — that includes attitudes on domestic human rights issues.)

 

III. FINDINGSTHE FIRST PAIR OF HYPOTHESES introduced [in the first installment] provides divergent assessments about how the end of the Cold War may have affected attitudes toward human rights, whereas the second pair focuses on possible differences between the attitudes of leaders and the general public. As noted earlier, few surveys have repeated identical questions about human rights, making it difficult to undertake extensive trend analyses with confidence. The two exceptions are the CCFR and FPLP surveys, both of which have included some relevant questions asking respondents to indicate how much importance should be attached to a series of possible foreign policy goals. Several of these items were also included in a 1993 Times-Mirror survey of both leaders and the general public.Beginning in 1978, those taking part in the CCFR and FPLP surveys were asked to rate “promoting and defending human rights in other countries” as a foreign policy goal, with response options ranging from “very important” to “not important at all.” The results for both leaders and the general public, summarized in Table 1, yield several conclusions:

First, with one exception, in none of the surveys did human rights abroad emerge as a top priority goal for either leaders or the general public. The high point occurred in 1990, just a year after the Berlin Wall had come down, when 58 percent of the general public rated human rights abroad as a “very important” goal, but even then it ranked only sixth, placing it behind such economic and security goals as protecting the jobs of American workers, protecting the interests of American business abroad, securing adequate supplies of energy, defending our allies’ security, and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.
Second, even though human rights abroad never ranked among the top priorities during the 1970s and 1980s, the period since the end of the Cold War has nevertheless witnessed a somewhat reduced enthusiasm for this foreign policy goal. The evidence in Table 1 thus appears to provide greater support for hypothesis 1a than for hypothesis 1b.1
Finally, differences between leaders and the general public are rather muted, with the single exception of the responses to the 1990 CCFR survey.2 Consequently, the evidence does not provide a clear verdict in favor of either hypothesis 2a or 2b.

A SECOND HUMAN RIGHTS-RELATED QUESTION asked respondents to rate the importance of “helping to bring a democratic form of government to other nations.” It should be noted, of course, that there is a far from perfect correlation between democracy and respect for human rights. A government may be voted into office in “fair” elections on a platform of suppressing some minority; for a century after the American Civil War, for example, countless southern Democrats won office by promising to maintain segregation and otherwise preventing black Americans from enjoying the status of first class citizens. Nevertheless, the human rights records of democracies are, on balance, far better than those of most authoritarian regimes. It is thus likely that one of the reasons respondents might attach importance to promoting democracy abroad is precisely because of a belief that doing so might improve the overall state of human rights.

Promoting the spread of a democratic form of government to other nations has not ranked as a high foreign policy priority, at least during the past two decades. Indeed, more often than not it has been the foreign goal that was assigned the fewest “very important” ratings by both leaders and the general public responding to the surveys summarized in Table 2.3 Although some observers have criticized American diplomacy for misguided zeal in attempting to propagate the country’s values and institutions abroad, there is little evidence of public enthusiasm for such undertakings in the post-Vietnam era. Nor do the data in Table 2 indicate that the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union have kindled — or rekindled, as the case may be — any burning desires to promote the spread of democracy, even though the risks of igniting a superpower confrontation with Moscow by doing so have virtually vanished. Starting from a very low baseline, there has been a modest increase in leaders who assign a “very important” rating to the goal of promoting democracy abroad, whereas the opinions of the general public have remained stable during the past two decades. Thus, the evidence would not appear to provide compelling support for either hypothesis 1a or 1b.

Finally, compared to leaders, the general public has been somewhat more inclined to support the promotion of democracy abroad, but the differences between the two groups, most pronounced during the 1970s, have virtually disappeared. It might be noted in conclusion that the figures in the right hand column of Table 2 offer further evidence exonerating the public against the charge that its opinions on foreign affairs are afflicted by a high degree of volatility.

ALTHOUGH THE UNITED STATES has been involved in a broad range of economic assistance programs since the end of World War II, American officials have usually resisted any efforts to include economic-social “needs” as an integral part of human “rights,” preferring to confine the latter term to civil-political rights. But as noted earlier, this analysis adopts a broader view of human rights wherein appraisals of “helping to improve the standard of living in less developed countries” as a foreign policy goal are germane to the discussion.

Assessments of that goal by leaders and the general public are summarized in Table 3. The data reveal a rather consistent erosion of support for attempting to improve the standard of living in poor countries. The evidence from the CCFR surveys shows that support for this goal among leaders peaked in 1978 and has declined steadily since then, whereas assessments among the general public remained quite stable through 1990. The sharp decline among both groups in 1994, the first CCFR survey following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, provides support for hypothesis 1a and runs counter to hypothesis 1b.

The data in Table 3 also indicate that, compared to the general public, leaders have consistently accorded more “very important” ratings to the goal of improving living standards in the LDCs, thus providing some support for hypothesis 2b. But those differences, which were quite pronounced through the mid-1980s, have diminished more recently as respondents in both groups have expressed reduced interest in this goal. These results are consistent with other survey data that have shown a steady decline in public support for international economic assistance programs. But the public has spoken with a clear voice on one aspect of foreign aid by very strong majorities it approves linking international assistance to the recipient’s performance on human rights, and it is critical of aid to countries with poor human rights records.4

A SECOND QUESTION that bears on the economic aspects of human rights asked respondents to rate the importance of “combatting world hunger” as a foreign policy goal. Their appraisals, summarized in Table 4, reveal considerably greater support for coping with hunger than for the more general goal of raising the standard of living in the Third World. Two possible reasons come to mind. First, hunger represents a deprivation of the most basic human need. A second possible reason is that the means for dealing with hunger, at least in the short run, are more obvious and readily available, especially for a country such as the United States that consistently produces massive agricultural surpluses. In contrast, raising the standard of living in poor countries may appear to be an open-ended goal without a clearly defined end for which there are fewer ready and uncontroversial solutions.

Although there has been some erosion of support for coping with hunger as a foreign policy goal since the mid-1970s, the data in Table 4 do not provide significant support for either hypothesis 1a or hypothesis 1b on the impact of the end of the Cold War. Nor does the evidence yield a clear-cut verdict with respect to hypotheses 2a and 2b. With the single exception of the 1994 CCFR survey, the differences between leaders and the general public have not been of a striking magnitude. Through the early 1980s, leaders were somewhat more inclined to rate the goal of combatting hunger as “very important,” but since then the direction of the gap between the two groups has been reversed. Once again, responses of the general public have been marked by stability rather than volatility. The views of opinion leaders taking part in the FPLP surveys have also remained quite stable.

EVIDENCE ABOUT A FIFTH FOREIGN POLICY GOAL with a human rights dimension — “protecting the global environment” — is even sketchier than for the other four issues because the question did not appear in the CCFR surveys until 1990. We thus lack a Cold War era baseline against which to assess the more recent responses of the general public. There might be no special reason to suspect that the end of the Cold War would have a direct impact on attitudes toward environmental protection, but the collapse of communist governments in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the USSR did result in much fuller information about massive environmental depredations in many of those countries.

 

The limited evidence summarized in Table 5 provides little basis on which to assess the relative merits of the competing hypotheses on the impact of the end of the Cold War. Attitudes among the general public have remained quite stable, with more than half of the respondents consistently rating environmental protection as “very important.” In contrast, the views of leaders have been more variable, with increasing interest among those taking part in the FPLP surveys, and declining “very important” ratings among the leaders surveyed by the CCFR. These results do not give rise to any clear verdict about the validity of hypotheses 2a or 2b.

THE THIRD PAIR OF HYPOTHESES presented above posited quite different answers to the question of whether attitudes toward incorporating human rights concerns into foreign relations are narrowly circumscribed or, alternatively, whether such views are embedded within broader political ideologies. Table 6 summarizes the relationship between leadership attitudes toward “promoting and defending human rights abroad” and the other four human rights goals questions. The correlations are consistently very high, averaging .62 and falling below .50 only once. These figures indicate strong links between attitudes toward various aspects of human rights abroad. Had the correlations been very weak or negative, they would have provided strong evidence against the hypothesis [3b] that attitudes toward human rights are part of a broader belief system, but by themselves they are not sufficient to sustain that hypothesis.

In order to assess the relative merits of hypotheses 3a and 3b, the analysis will proceed in three stages:

  • The first will examine the relationship between appraisals of the human rights “goal” question and respondents’ political party and ideology, as well as two other attributes of opinion leaders — foreign policy orientations and domestic policy orientations.
  • A second step will examine the relationship between these respondent attributes and assessments of American foreign policy issues and decisions with significant human rights implications.
  • The final step will analyze the correlation between attributes of leaders and their answers to questions about several domestic human rights issues.

Assessments by both leaders and the general public of “promoting and defending human rights in other countries” are drawn from the Chicago Council and Times-Mirror surveys; the FPLP surveys provide additional evidence about the human rights views of opinion leaders.

Whereas Table 1 provided aggregate summaries of responses to the human rights goal questioning several studies, Table 7 reports assessments of that goal according to the party affiliation and ideological self-description by both leaders and members of the general public who took part in the CCFR and Times-Mirror surveys. Table 8 classifies opinion leaders who responded to the FPLP surveys according to four attributes: political party, ideology, foreign policy orientation, and domestic policy orientation.

The results summarized in Table 7 yield several conclusions:

  • First, Democrats have generally accorded higher importance to the goal of defending and promoting human rights abroad, although partisan differences among the general public were quite small during the peak years of support for human rights — 1986 and 1990. In the latter survey, the partisan gap was only four percent as a majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents assigned the highest rating to that goal.
  • Second, compared to the general public, partisan gaps have consistently been much wider among leaders. Differences between Republicans and Democrats reached a peak of 37 percent in 1994 when only nine percent of the GOP leaders rated human rights abroad as a “very important” foreign policy goal.

Further evidence of partisan differences among leaders emerges from the data in Table 8. Compared to Republicans, more Democrats gave the goal of human rights abroad the top rating in each of the four FPLP surveys. Although there has been a very modest increase in support for human rights among members of both major political parties, as well as independents, the gap between Democrats and Republicans has been consistently quite high, ranging between 21 and 38 percent.

When respondents are classified according to ideology, the range of opinions about human rights as a foreign policy goal has generally been even wider than partisan differences, and there is little evidence that the gaps have been narrowing with the end of the Cold War. Both the CCFR and Times-Mirror surveys found that liberals have consistently given a higher priority to human rights goals (Table 7). As was true of partisan gaps, the ideological differences are more pronounced among leader than the general public. Evidence of wide gaps in assessments of the human rights goal among leaders also emerges from the FPLP surveys (Table 8). In each of these surveys support for human rights increases steadily as one moves from the more conservative to the more liberal end of the scale. Whereas the assessments by self-described conservative leaders have remained rather stable during the 1980-1992 period, support for human rights as a foreign policy goal has increased among moderates and liberals.

The “foreign policy orientation” categories are constructed from responses to seven questions that deal with various aspects of “militant internationalism” (MI) and seven others that focus on “cooperative internationalism” (CI). Respondents who support MI but oppose CI are hard-liners ; the other three groups are isolationists (oppose both MI and CI), internationalists (support both MI and CI), and accommodationists (oppose MI, support CI).5 The data in Table 8 reveal sharp and consistent differences among opinion leaders in the four groups in their appraisals of human rights as a foreign policy goal:

  • Hard-liners and isolationists have consistently been the least inclined to accord importance to human rights, although probably for different reasons; whereas the former generally take a realpolitik stance that places little premium on human rights, the latter are wary of goals that may imply widespread American commitments abroad.
  • In contrast, respondents in the two groups that support cooperative internationalism — the internationalists and accommodationists — have consistently assigned greater importance to human rights as a foreign policy goal.
  • The gaps between the hard-liners and accommodationists are especially wide, ranging between 35 and 42 percent.

These results are consistent with Forsythe’s finding that in congressional voting, “How one votes on a general series of foreign and military issues is thus an excellent predictor of how one will vote on more specific human rights issues.” (Forsythe 1988:41).

In the final part of Table 8 respondents are classified into four domestic policy orientation groups according to their answers to six questions on economic issues and to six others on social-value issues. These questions were first included in the 1984 survey and, thus, there are no data under the 1980 column of Table 8. According to this classification scheme, conservatives are leaders who express conservative policy preferences on both economic and social-value questions; the other three groups are libertarians (economic conservatives, social-value liberals), populists (economic liberals, social-value conservatives), and liberals (liberals on both sets of issues).6 The evidence reveals strong and consistent differences on human rights among respondents in the four groups. Not surprisingly, the widest gaps are between the conservatives and liberals, with the libertarians and populists in the middle.7

TO THIS POINT, the analysis has focused on a set of questions asking respondents to assess foreign policy goals. Although these questions have the virtue of having been asked over span of more than two decades with precisely the same wording, they have the disadvantage of being rather abstract and removed from the specific context of actual decisions and policies. Stated differently, the “goals” questions may provide evidence about what respondents believe to be desirable , but they tell us little about what they regard as feasible in given circumstances, or about how they may assess tradeoffs between goals.

Two of the most difficult and controversial issues touching upon the tradeoffs between human rights and other foreign policy goals have involved the former Soviet Union and China:

  • To what extent should the United States press for better treatment of Jews and other minorities in the USSR if doing so might endanger negotiations on arms control and other strategic issues?
  • Should the United States insist upon improvement of China’s human rights record as a condition for better relations, including normalized trade, with Beijing?

Some variant of the former question was posed at least fourteen times by several survey organizations during the decade and a half prior to disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. Although the wording of questions varied quite substantially, making it hazardous to attempt any direct comparisons among them, one clear conclusion emerges from the data: In every case but one, the public assigned a higher priority to arms control than to human rights goals. The exception occurred during the opening months of the Carter administration when 55 percent of the public agreed that President Carter should “continue to complain to the Russians about the suppression of human rights even if it slows down détente and the chances for an arms agreement.”8 A 1985 Gallup poll yielded a more typical result when 62 percent of the respondents supported the view that “arms control is so important we should negotiate in that area regardless of progress on human rights and regional conflicts,” whereas only 29 percent wanted to make agreement on an arms control treaty dependent on progress in resolving the other issues.9

The public has been much more ambivalent about the appropriate policy when faced with a tradeoff between improving relations and expanding trade with China versus pressing the Beijing regime for an improvement in its human rights record. Since the Tiananmen Square massacre of dissidents in 1989, various forms of the question have been posed at least fifteen times, with results that fail to yield a clear pattern of preferences. For example, between January 1990 and October 1991, four CBS News/New York Times surveys asked “when the United States deals with China, which do you think is more important: to criticize the way China suppresses human rights, or to avoid criticism in order to maintain good relations with China?” In none of these surveys did either option garner support from a majority of the respondents; the “good relations” policy barely prevailed in the first two surveys by 46-42 percent and 44-42 percent, whereas the “human rights” position was favored by margins of 48-37 percent and 44-40 percent in the last two polls.10 However, more recent surveys indicate that public attitudes are shifting in the direction of a more accommodating stance toward China despite the absence of visible improvement in that country’s human rights record. For example, a Times Mirror survey in 1995 revealed that 62 percent of the respondents believed that “the U.S. should not get involved in China’s domestic affairs, even if it means overlooking human rights abuses,” whereas only 29 percent stated that “the U.S. should try to promote democracy in China, even if it risks worsening relations with China.”11

THE NEXT STEP in assessing hypotheses 3a and 3b is an effort to overcome the limits of the goals questions by analyzing assessments of actual U.S. foreign policy decisions and actions on issues that have a significant human rights element. Table 9 summarizes responses by Republicans, Democrats and independents among the general public to several human questions posed in the Chicago Council surveys; comparable results for the CCFR leadership sample are presented in Table 10.

Several points emerge from these data:

First, compared to the general public, leaders generally expressed more support for pro-human rights positions. This was most notably the case on questions dealing with South Africa and, to a lesser extent, on Soviet treatment of its minorities. In contrast, leaders and the general public had quite similar views on dealing with friendly tyrants; both agreed that it is “morally wrong” to back such regimes, but they also accepted the proposition that it may be necessary to do so if they are “friendly toward us and opposed to the Communists.”
Second, some partisan gaps existed among the general public, but they were generally much smaller than those in the CCFR leadership sample, wherein Democrats were consistently stronger supporters of human rights positions.Further evidence on the impact of partisanship emerges from responses by opinion leaders taking part in the FPLP surveys to a series of foreign policy decisions with a human rights dimensions. Specifically, these include:

  1. Three decisions concerning the application of economic sanctions against South Africa (the Reagan administration’s decision not to invoke them, congressional action imposing sanctions on Pretoria by overriding a Reagan veto, and the lifting of sanctions by the Bush administration after steps by South Africa to abandon apartheid);
  2. the imposition of economic sanctions on Poland following the institution of martial law by the Polish government as a response to the Solidarity reform movement;
  3. the decision to return refugees to Haiti;
  4. the level of Iraqi casualties in the Persian Gulf War;
  5. the relative weights to be assigned to stability and self-determination in post-Cold War policies for dealing with civil wars; and,
  6. the grant of most favored nation (MFN) status to China in the wake of its violent crackdown on protesters in 1989.

Responses by Republicans, Democrats, and independents to these actions, all of which were taken by the administrations of Republican Presidents Reagan and Bush, are presented in Table 11. The imposition of economic sanctions on Poland was supported by moderate majorities among members of both major parties as well independents, with a rather modest ten percent gap between the more enthusiastic Republicans (64 percent) and Democrats. Wide partisan gaps characterized responses to the remaining issues, with Democrats taking the stronger pro-human rights position on all seven of them. Five of the issues found a majority of Republicans on one side and a majority of Democrats on the other. The gap between members of the two political parties ranges between 20 percent and 44 percent, and the responses of the independents are in all cases approximately midway between those of the Republicans and Democrats.Because all of these decisions and actions were undertaken by Republican administrations, the evidence does not enable us to answer one key question: Do these results merely reflect partisan support or opposition to administration policies, or are they expressions of more fundamental beliefs about the appropriateness of applying human rights criteria to foreign affairs?12

The next three tables explore the impact of ideology on assessments of foreign policy decisions that involve human rights issues. Table 12 and Table 13 summarize the views of self-described conservative, middle-of-the-road, and liberal respondents to several questions posed in the Chicago Council surveys. The evidence points to two main conclusions:

  • Although earlier analyses of these questions (tables 9 and 10) revealed the existence of partisan gaps, differences across ideological groups are considerably deeper.
  • And, as was true of partisanship, the ideological gaps are most pronounced among leaders, with differences between liberals and conservatives exceeding twenty percent in almost every case.

Further evidence of ideological differences among leaders emerges from the CCFR surveys. Table 14 presents assessments of the eight foreign policy decisions by respondents when they are classified according to their self-placements on a standard “very conservative-to-very liberal” ideology scale. Aside from the imposition of sanctions on Poland — an issue with strong Cold War implications for which a punitive American response would be expected to gain the strongest support from conservatives — liberals have consistently expressed the strongest pro-human rights views. Gaps between the most liberal and most conservative opinion leaders are typically huge, ranging from 28 percent upward to 73 percent on the question whether “too many Iraqis were killed in the Persian Gulf War.” There is, moreover, a steady increase or decline of support for the human rights position as one moves from one end of the scale to the other.

When leaders taking part in the FPLP surveys are classified according to their general foreign policy orientations, their assessments of all but one of the foreign policy decisions once again reveal substantial differences (Table 15). The decision to grant China MFN status is the exception; only a third of the leaders expressed approval of President Bush’s action, and differences across the four groups are not significant. The China MFN case aside, there are wide ranges of assessments, exceeding twenty percent, on all of the policy decisions. The hard-liners supported the imposition of economic sanctions on Poland but were consistently the least enthusiastic about allowing human rights criteria to govern policies toward South Africa, Haitian refugees, the Gulf War, and the maintenance of international stability. On the other hand, the accommodationists were the strongest supporters of human rights except on the issue of economic sanctions on Poland. In each instance, the isolationists and internationalists took positions in between the other two groups.

One of the key differences between hypotheses 3a and 3b is the extent to which human rights attitudes on domestic issues carry over to foreign affairs issues, and vice versa. The evidence summarized in Table 16 is especially germane because the four groups —liberals, populists, libertarians, and conservatives — are defined solely on the basis of their responses to a wide array of domestic issues. According to hypothesis 3a, assessments of the eight foreign policy decisions should differ little, if at all, among leaders in the four groups. Hypothesis 3b, on the other hand, stipulates that there should be significant differences among them.

The results in Table 16 are generally consistent with the latter hypothesis. Leaders in all four groups defined by domestic policy preferences expressed moderate support for the imposition of economic sanctions on Poland, with somewhat stronger approval from the conservatives. Assessments of the remaining seven decisions gave rise to a consistent pattern wherein liberals took the strongest position in support of human rights emphasis, the conservatives were the most skeptical, and the populists and libertarians were arrayed in between. The range of responses among the leaders in the four groups was uniformly large, exceeding twenty-five percent in all cases.

THE FINAL STAGE of the analysis related to hypotheses 3a and 3b focuses on a number of domestic issues with a human rights dimension, including freedom of dissent, busing for purposes of school integration, the death penalty, the Equal Rights Amendment, and discrimination against homosexuals. Each of these questions was posed in three FPLP surveys. The analyses are initially aimed at discovering whether the background attributes that have already been shown to be strongly correlated with positions on the use of human rights criteria in the conduct of foreign affairs — party, ideology, and foreign policy orientation — are also associated with preferences on the domestic issues.13

The relationship of party affiliation to the five domestic human rights issues is summarized in Table 17. With one exception — the policy of “barring homosexuals from teaching in public schools,” which steadily lost support between 1984 and 1992 — aggregate opinions on these issues have been remarkably stable, varying by only the slightest amounts over eight year periods. Partisan differences also have remained consistently large. In each case, Democrat expressed far stronger support for the right to dissent, school busing, abolition of the death penalty, and the Equal Rights Amendment, while Republicans were the stronger advocates of preventing homosexuals from teaching in public schools. Except on the latter issue, the policy preferences of both Democrats and Republicans remained quite stable across the three surveys. In all instances, independents as a group expressed views that placed them between members of the two major political parties.

When leaders taking part in the FPLP surveys are classified according to their self-placements on the ideology scale, the range of responses to the domestic human rights issues can only be described as huge (Table 18). Although fewer than a third of the leaders judged that the right to dissent damages American foreign policy, differences between liberal and conservatives on that question are consistently very large. For all of the other issues, the gap between the most conservative and most liberal leaders exceed sixty percent in each of the three surveys. But wide differences are not merely confined to those at the endpoints of the ideology scale; even those who describe themselves as “somewhat conservative” hold sharply different views from leaders who regard themselves as “somewhat liberal”; the gaps between them are typically forty percent and higher. Nor is there much evidence that the stark ideological differences of the earlier surveys are being bridged in the later ones.

THE FINAL STEP IN THIS ANALYSIS examines the relationship between foreign policy orientations and the domestic human rights issues. A consistent pattern emerges from the data in Table 19. On each issue, the hard-liners are the strongest advocates of preventing homosexuals from teaching in public schools and are most critical of the freedom of dissent; they are also the strongest critics of school busing, abolition of the death penalty, and the Equal Rights Amendment. Responses of the accommodationists, as a group, are precisely the reverse on all five issues. In each case, the isolationists and internationalists expressed views that placed them between the hard-liners and accommodationists.

The correlations between leadership opinions toward human rights abroad and at home are reported in Table 20. They provide further support for the hypothesis that views about human rights are in fact embedded within a broader political ideology.

IV. CONCLUSIONTHESE ANALYSES DO NOT PROVIDE CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE supporting either of the hypotheses (1a or 1b) about how the end of the Cold War may have affected attitudes on human rights, or about the hypothesized (2a or 2b) differences between leaders and the general public on human rights attitudes. Possibly these inconclusive outcomes can be attributed at least in part the scarcity of relevant data.

A much clearer conclusion emerges on relative merits of the third pair of hypotheses (3a or 3b):

Attitudes toward incorporating human rights considerations into the conduct of American foreign policy are embedded within broader political belief systems that also encompass attitudes on domestic issues, and they are strongly associated with partisanship and ideological preferences.

There is little evidence to support the contrary hypothesis that skeptics are merely isolating foreign relations as a special domain that should be exempt from human rights concerns. But some caution is warranted even with respect to these hypotheses because the data are stronger for leaders than for the general public. Indeed, there are indications of stronger ideological linkages in the views of leaders than in those of the general public.

President Jimmy Carter had hoped that a concern for human rights abroad might provide one of the foundations for restoring at least some semblance of a bipartisan foreign policy consensus in the wake of the disastrous war in Vietnam. For many reasons — not the least of which is that even the most ardent advocate of human rights will concede that in the formulation of foreign policy this goal must compete with other national interests — President Carter was not more successful in this endeavor than his predecessors had been in promoting détente as a basis for a post-Vietnam consensus, or his successor was to be in creating a greater degree of unity by means of a massive arms buildup and a more confrontational stance toward the Soviet Union.

But that was then and now is now.

  • Has the end of the Cold War created a more benign environment within which to attempt, once again, to place human rights concerns near the top of the foreign policy agenda?
  • Specifically, have the dramatic international changes of the almost two decades since the Carter era been reflected attitudes that would provide domestic support for foreign policies that accord somewhat stronger weight to human rights criteria?

The evidence reviewed here, to repeat a point made several times above, falls short of the ideal. Nevertheless, it would appear to point toward some rather sober conclusions on this score.

First, there are few indications of a vast increase in Americans — either among leaders or the general public — who regard the post-Cold War international system as a more inviting arena for expressing human rights concerns. As was the case during the Cold War, when faced with tradeoffs in relations with other major powers, Americans are rarely inclined to place human rights concerns ahead of such security issues as arms control negotiations. The evidence thus does not provide much sustenance for the fears expressed by Henry Kissinger and other realists that a misguided public will endanger efforts to stabilize relations with major adversaries. Yet if human rights is not a top priority among the public, it is nevertheless a source of division. Heated controversies about appropriate American responses to events in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Rwanda, as well as China’s trade status, would appear to reflect at least in part the state of a very divided public.
More importantly, the data reviewed above indicate that human rights attitudes are deeply embedded in partisan and ideological differences that also encompass a broader range of questions about the proper American role in the post-Cold War international arena, the scope of the country’s global obligations — including to international organizations with human rights missions — and the resources that the United States can call upon in operating within that international system.14 These results provide further evidence in support of Forsythe’s (1988: 50) conclusion that, “Human rights voting in Congress is largely but not completely a partisan and ideological matter, a prospect that cannot be viewed with optimism by the victims of politics in various foreign nations.” That these differences also overlap with rather than cut across cleavages on some of the most contentious domestic issues is further reason for a cautious appraisal of the prospects for American leadership on human rights issues.


Acknowledgements:

Professor Holsti expresses his indebtedness to the National Science Foundation for five grants that supported the Foreign Policy Leadership Project surveys of American opinion leaders; to Eugene R. Wittkopf for sharing some of his data from the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and Times Mirror surveys; to Robert Jackson for obtaining data on human rights issues from the Roper Center; to Peter Feaver for helpful comments on an earlier draft; to Daniel F. Harkins for programming assistance; to David Priess for research assistance, and to Rita Dowling for secretarial assistance. Dr. Holsti prepared this article as a paper for the Nineteenth Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, June 30 – July 3, 1996.End.

 


TABLE 1
Assessments of Promoting and Defending Human Rights in Other Countries as a Foreign Policy Goal for the United States:
LEADERS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC, 1978-1994


Question:
“Here is a list of foreign policy goals that the United States might have. Please indicate how much importance you think should be attached to each goal.” [Answer = % “Very important”]

Key to Surveys:
CCFR = Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
FPLP = Foreign Policy Leadership Project
T-M = Times-Mirror Center for People and the Press
NA = Question not asked

Year Survey Leaders General Public
1974 CCFR NA NA
1976 FPLP NA
1978 CCFR 36 39
1980 FPLP 27
1982 CCFR 41 43
1984 FPLP 33
1986 CCFR 44 42
1988 FPLP 39
1990 CCFR 45 58
1992 FPLP 38
1993 T-M* 22 28
1994 CCFR 26 34

* Response options different from other surveys. Reported percentages are for top priority rather than very important.


Question:
“Here is a list of foreign policy goals that the United States might have. Please indicate how much importance you think should be attached to each goal.” [Answer = % “Very important”]

Key to Surveys:
CCFR = Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
FPLP = Foreign Policy Leadership Project
T-M = Times-Mirror Center for People and the Press

Year Survey Leaders General Public
1974 CCFR 13 28
1976 FPLP 8
1978 CCFR 15 26
1980 FPLP 9
1982 CCFR 23 29
1984 FPLP 18
1986 CCFR 29 30
1988 FPLP 24
1990 CCFR 26 28
1992 FPLP 23
1993 T-M* 21 22
1994 CCFR 21 25

*Response options different from other surveys. Reported
percentages are for top priority rather than “very important.”


TABLE 3
Assessments of Helping to Improve the Standard of Living in Less Developed Countries as a Foreign Policy Goal for the United States:
LEADERS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC, 1974-1994


Question:
“Here is a list of foreign policy goals that the United States might have. Please indicate how much importance you think should be attached to each goal.” [Answer = % “Very important”]

Key to Surveys:
CCFR = Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
FPLP = Foreign Policy Leadership Project
T-M = Times-Mirror Center for People and the Press
NA = Question not asked

Year Survey Leaders General Public
1974 CCFR 62 39
1976 FPLP 39
1978 CCFR 64 35
1980 FPLP 44
1982 CCFR 55 35
1984 FPLP 59
1986 CCFR 46 37
1988 FPLP 51
1990 CCFR 42 41
1992 FPLP 43
1993 T-M* 23 18
1994 CCFR 28 22

* Response options different from other surveys. Reported percentages are for top priority rather than very important.


TABLE 4
Assessments of Combatting World Hunger as a Foreign Policy Goal for the United States:
LEADERS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC, 1974-1994


Question:
“Here is a list of foreign policy goals that the United States might have. Please indicate how much importance you think should be attached to each goal.” [Answer = % “Very important”]

Key to Surveys:
CCFR = Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
FPLP = Foreign Policy Leadership Project
T-M = Times-Mirror Center for People and the Press
NA = Question not asked

Year Survey Leaders General Public
1974 CCFR 76 61
1976 FPLP 52
1978 CCFR 67 59
1980 FPLP 51
1982 CCFR 64 58
1984 FPLP 56
1986 CCFR 60 63
1988 FPLP 57
1990 CCFR NA NA
1992 FPLP 54
1993 T-M NA NA
1994 CCFR 41 56

 


TABLE 5
Assessments of Protecting the Global Environment* as a Foreign Policy Goal for the United States:
LEADERS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC, 1974-1994


Question:
“Here is a list of foreign policy goals that the United States might have. Please indicate how much importance you think should be attached to each goal.”[Answer = % “Very important”]

Key to Surveys:
CCFR = Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
FPLP = Foreign Policy Leadership Project
T-M = Times-Mirror Center for People and the Press
NA = Question not asked

Year Survey Leaders General Public
1974 CCFR NA NA
1976 FPLP NA
1978 CCFR NA NA
1980 FPLP 48
1982 CCFR NA NA
1984 FPLP 54
1986 CCFR NA NA
1988 FPLP 69
1990 CCFR 72 58
1992 FPLP 69
1993 T-M** 45 56
1994 CCFR 49 58

*The CCFR and T-M survey wording: “Improving the global environment.”
** Response options different from other surveys. Reported percentages are for top priority rather than “very important.”


TABLE 6
Correlations Between Assessments of Promoting and Defending Human Rights in Other countries and Four Other Human Rights Goals in the 1980-1992 Foreign Policy Leadership Project Surveys


Correlations between the importance attached to the goal of Promoting and defending human rights in other countries and:
Year Spreading democracy abroad Improving standards
of living
Combatting world hunger Protecting
the global environment
1980 .58 .58 .70 .56
1984 .46 .62 .78 .63
1988 .50 .61 .78 .55
1992 .62 .65 .75 .62
Coefficients are gamma.

TABLE 7
Assessment of Promoting and Defending Human Rights Abroad,
LEADERS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC, 1978-1994

[% Very important]
1978 1982 1986 1990 1993 1994
GENERAL PUBLIC [CCFR] [CCFR] [CCFR] [CCFR] [T-M]* [CCFR]
All respondents 39 43 42 58 28 34
By party:
Republicans 34 35 43 57 20 23
Democrats 44 48 42 61 26 37
Independents 39 42 41 56 21 34
By ideology:
Conservatives 38 41 37 57 NA 29
Middle-of-the-road 36 46 41 56 NA 34
Liberals 47 44 52 64 NA 43
LEADERS
All respondents 36 41 44 45 22 26
By party:
Republicans 20 18 24 23 14 9
Democrats 37 46 54 48 36 46
Independents 46 32 42 47 26 24
By ideology:
Conservatives 16 15 26 27 12 NA
Middle-of-the-road 24 25 35 40 23 NA
Liberals 55 53 59 54 42 NA

* Reported percentages are for top priority responses.
NA = Question not asked
CCFR = Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
T-M = Times-Mirror Center for the People and Press survey


TABLE 8
Assessment by U.S. Opinion Leaders of Promoting and Defending Human Rights as a U.S. Foreign Policy Goal, FPLP Surveys

[% Very important]
1980 1984 1988 1992
[N=2.502] [N=2.515] [N=2.226] [N=2.312]
All respondents 27 33 39 38
By party:
Republicans 15 16 25 25
Democrats 36 47 53 52
Independents 26 35 36 35
By ideology:
Very conservative 14 10 21 17
Somewhat conservative 17 17 24 22
Moderate 26 30 36 38
Somewhat liberal 41 53 55 52
Very liberal 48 61 67 70
By foreign policy orientation:
Hard-liners 6 9 16 6
Isolationists 5 7 15 6
Internationalists 29 29 37 37
Accommodationists 38 47 51 48
By domestic policy orientation:
Conservatives NA* 13 19 18
Libertarians NA 23 33 40
Populists NA 28 31 33
Liberals NA 51 55 52

* NA = Questions used to develop the domestic policy orientation scale not asked.


TABLE 9
Attitudes Toward Human Rights Issues in the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations Surveys of the General Public: 1974-1986:
THE IMPACT OF PARTY

[% Agree strongly + Agree somewhat]
Year All Republicans Independents Democrats
It is morally wrong to back military dictatorships that deny basic rights, even if we have military bases in those countries. 1974* 74 75 77 72

The United States may have to support some dictators because they are friendly toward us and opposed to the Communists. 1982 63 72 60 60

We should take a more active role in opposing the policy of apartheid–that is, racial segregation–in South Africa. 1974 34 28 34 36
1978 40 31 43 44
1982 45 37 44 49

Support total or partial economic sanctions on South Africa 1986* 57 55 56 59

How the Soviet Union handles the treatment of Jews or other minority groups is a matter of internal Soviet politics and none of our business. 1974 41 37 42 42
1978 49 54 47 49

The U.S. should put pressure on countries which systematically violate basic human rights. 1974* 68 70 70 67
1978* 67 66 70 70

Differences significant at the .001 level unless indicated otherwise by asterisk [*].


TABLE 10
Attitudes Toward Human Rights Issues in the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations Surveys of Leaders: 1974-1986:
THE IMPACT OF PARTY

[% Agree strongly + Agree somewhat]
Year All Republicans Independents Democrats
It is morally wrong to back military dictatorships that deny basic rights, even if we have military bases in those countries. 1974 72 57 73 80

The United States may have to support some dictators because they are friendly toward us and opposed to the Communists. 1978 63 83 54 59
1982 65 84 60 52

We should take a more active role in opposing the policy of apartheid–that is, racial segregation–in South Africa. 1974 59 31 61 72
1978 66 48 77 68
1982 79 62 75 89

Support total or partial economic sanctions on South Africa 1986 79 65 73 95

How the Soviet Union handles the treatment of Jews or other minority groups is a matter of internal Soviet politics and none of our business. 1974 34 45 41 22
1978 30 48 22 34

The U.S. should put pressure on countries which systematically violate basic human rights. 1974* 87 84 89 88
1978* 78 57 87 76

Differences significant at the .001 level unless indicated otherwise by asterisk [*].


TABLE 11
Assessments of U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents in the FPLP Surveys of U.S. Opinion Leaders, 1984-1992

[% Agree strongly or Agree somewhat]
“Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each statement.”
Year All respondents Republicans Democrats Independents
Failing to impose economic
sanctions on South Africa
1984 44 60 30 47
Placing sanctions on Poland after the imposition of martial law 1984 58 64 54 58
Imposing economic sanctions on South Africa for its policy of apartheid 1988 62 41 80 63
Lifting the economic sanctions that had been imposed on South Africa 1992 70 83 57 74
Returning refugees to Haiti 1992 50 71 31 53
Too many Iraquis were killed in the Persian Gulf War 1992 38 15 59 35
The U.S. should exercise its power in such a way as to assure continuing stability in world affairs even at the cost of denying self-determination to some groups 1992 52 63 43 52
Granting Most Favored Nation trade status to China 1992 44 46 24 35

Differences significant at the .001 level for all items.


TABLE 12
Attitudes Toward Human Rights Issues in the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations Surveys of the General Public: 1974-1986:
THE IMPACT OF IDEOLOGY

[% Agree strongly + Agree somewhat]
Year All Conservatives Middle of road Liberals
It is morally wrong to back military dictatorships that deny basic rights, even if we have military bases in those countries. 1974 74 69 75 80

The United States may have to support some dictators because they are friendly toward us and opposed to the Communists. 1982 63 68 65 58

We should take a more active role in opposing the policy of apartheid–that is, racial segregation–in South Africa. 1974 34 28 31 52
1978 40 32 42 53
1982 45 40 47 56

Support total or partial economic sanctions on South Africa 1986 57 54 56 67

How the Soviet Union handles the treatment of Jews or other minority groups is a matter of internal Soviet politics and none of our business. 1974* 41 47 38 41
1978 49 56 45 49

The U.S. should put pressure on countries which systematically violate basic human rights. 1974* 68 65 71 71
1978* 67 63 71 73

Differences significant at the .001 level unless indicated otherwise by asterisk [*].


TABLE 13
Attitudes Toward Human Rights Issues in the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations Surveys of Leaders: 1974-1986:
THE IMPACT OF IDEOLOGY

[% Agree strongly + Agree somewhat]
Year All Conservatives Middle of road Liberals
It is morally wrong to back military dictatorships that deny basic rights, even if we have military bases in those countries. 1974 72 51 67 82

The United States may have to support some dictators because they are friendly toward us and opposed to the Communists. 1978 63 75 73 45
1982 65 83 74 43

We should take a more active role in opposing the policy of apartheid–that is, racial segregation–in South Africa. 1974 59 22 51 78
1978 66 43 63 82
1982 79 57 74 91

Support total or partial economic sanctions on South Africa 1986 79 60 80 94

How the Soviet Union handles the treatment of Jews or other minority groups is a matter of internal Soviet politics and none of our business. 1974 34 46 40 26
1978 30 49 40 19

The U.S. should put pressure on countries which systematically violate basic human rights. 1974* 87 80 87 90
1978 78 59 69 89

Differences significant at the .001 level unless indicated otherwise by asterisk [*].


TABLE 14
Assessments of U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions by Self-identified Ideological Preferences in the
FPLP Surveys of U.S. Opinion Leaders, 1984-1992

[% Agree strongly or Agree somewhat]
“Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each statement.”
Year All Respondents Very Conservative Somewhat Conservative Moderate Somewhat Liberal Very Liberal
Failing to impose economic sanctions on South Africa 1984 44 70 61 44 26 16
Placing sanctions on Poland after the imposition of martial law 1984 58 73 62 55 57 45
Imposing economic sanctions on South Africa for its policy of apartheid 1988 62 28 44 64 83 95
Lifting economic sanctions that had been imposed on South Africa 1992 70 86 86 69 61 37
Returning refugees to Haiti 1992 50 76 71 51 32 17
Too many Iraquis were killed in the Persian Gulf War 1992 38 9 17 34 60 82
The U.S. should exercise its power in such a way as to assure continuing stability in world affairs even at the cost of denying self-determination to some groups 1992 52 73 62 52 44 28
Granting Most Favored Nation Trade Status to China 1992 34 48 41 35 26 20

Differences significant at the .001 level for all items.


TABLE 15
Assessments of U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions by Hard-Liners, Isolationists, Internationalists, and Accommodationists in the
FPLP Surveys of U.S. Opinion Leaders, 1984-1992

[% Agree strongly or Agree somewhat]
“Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each statement.”
Year All Respondents Hard-Liners Isolationists Interna-
tionalists
Accommoda-
tionists
Failing to impose economic sanctions on South Africa 1984 44 68 47 53 32
Placing sanctions on Poland after the imposition of martial law 1984 58 72 48 67 50
Imposing economic sanctions on South Africa for its policy of apartheid 1988 62 30 54 53 78
Lifting economic sanctions that had been imposed on South Africa 1992 70 84 81 78 62
Returning refugees to Haiti 1992 50 75 65 65 36
Too many Iraquis were killed in the Persian Gulf War 1992 38 10 24 19 56
The U.S. should exercise its power in such a way as to assure continuing stability in world affairs even at the cost of denying self-determination to some groups 1992 52 70 57 62 42
Granting Most Favored Nation Trade Status to China 1992 34 38 38 37 30

Differences significant at the .001 level for all items.


TABLE 16
Assessments of U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions by
Liberals, Populists, Libertarians, and Conservatives in the
FPLP Surveys of U.S. Opinion Leaders, 1984-1992

[% Agree strongly or Agree somewhat]
“Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each statement.”
Year All Respondents Liberals Populists Libertarians Conservatives
Failing to impose economic sanctions on South Africa 1984 44 27 50 54 63
Placing sanctions on Poland after the imposition of martial law 1984 58 54 56 56 64
Imposing economic sanctions on South Africa for its policy of apartheid 1988 62 84 54 54 32
Lifting economic sanctions that had been imposed on South Africa 1992 70 58 72 77 87
Returning refugees to Haiti 1992 50 32 64 52 63
Too many Iraquis were killed in the Persian Gulf War 1992 38 60 25 24 14
The U.S. should exercise its power in such a way as to assure continuing stability in world affairs even at the cost of denying self-determination to some groups 1992 52 41 57 55 66
Granting Most Favored Nation Trade Status to China 1992 44 26 36 43 43

Differences significant at the .001 level for all items


TABLE 17
Assessments of U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents in the FPLP Surveys of U.S. Opinion Leaders, 1976-1992

[% Agree strongly or Agree somewhat]
“Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each statement.”
Year All respondents Republicans Democrats Independents
The freedom to dissent at home inhibits the effective conduct of U.S. foreign policy 1976 28 40 19 40
1980 27 35 20 28
1984 27 40 26 28

Busing children in order to achieve school integration 1984 37 12 59 36
1988 40 17 62 36
1992 38 16 69 34

Banning the death penalty 1984 33 11 54 31
1988 35 13 55 31
1992 33 10 55 28

Reviving the Equal Rights Amendment 1984 56 29 77 56
1988 55 31 74 50
1992 53 31 74 50

Barring homosexuals from teaching in public schools 1984 38 60 22 37
1988 33 55 15 33
1992 28 48 14 27

Differences significant at the .001 level for all items.


TABLE 18
Assessments of Domestic Policy Issues by Self-identified Ideological Preferences in the
FPLP Surveys of U.S. Opinion Leaders, 1976-1992

[% Agree strongly or Agree somewhat]
“Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each statement.”
Year All Respondents Very Conservative Somewhat Conservative Moderate Somewhat Liberal Very Liberal
The freedom to dissent at home inhibits the effective conduct of U.S. foreign policy 1976 28 53 39 27 16 13
1980 27 44 36 25 16 10
1984 27 53 40 26 13 8

Busing children to achieve school integration 1984 37 4 12 33 65 85
1988 40 7 17 36 64 88
1992 38 6 14 37 60 79

Banning the death penalty 1984 33 4 11 19 59 78
1988 35 5 12 33 58 69
1992 33 4 12 25 58 80

Reviving the Equal Rights Amendment 1984 56 17 28 61 84 94
1988 55 19 31 55 81 93
1992 53 22 28 58 74 89

Barring homosexuals from teaching in public schools 1984 38 70 59 37 15 8
1988 33 75 51 30 12 6
1992 28 73 47 23 10 3

Differences significant at the .001 level for all items.


TABLE 19
Assessments of Domestic Policy Issues by Foreign Policy Orientations in the
FPLP Surveys of U.S. Opinion Leaders, 1976-1992

[% Agree strongly or Agree somewhat]
“Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each statement.”
Year All Respondents Hard-Liners Isolationists Interna-
tionalists
Accommoda-
tionists
The freedom to dissent at home inhibits the effective conduct of U.S. foreign policy 1976 28 42 25 38 15
1980 27 41 21 36 13
1984 27 48 27 41 14

Busing children to achieve school integration 1984 37 7 29 23 55
1988 40 11 28 25 57
1992 38 11 17 24 53

Banning the death penalty 1984 33 6 23 17 52
1988 35 10 20 18 53
1992 33 7 21 16 49

Reviving the Equal Rights Amendment 1984 56 23 50 41 76
1988 55 20 44 40 73
1992 53 10 39 42 67

Barring homosexuals from teaching in public schools 1984 38 66 34 55 21
1988 33 63 25 53 15
1992 28 53 28 43 15

Differences significant at the .001 level for all items.


TABLE 20
Correlations Between Assessment of Promoting and Defending Human Rights in Other Countries and Four Domestic Issues with a Human Rights Dimension in the 1984-1992 Foreign Policy Leadership Surveys


Correlations between the importance attached to the goal of “Promoting and defending human rights in other countries” and support for:
Year School
busing
Equal Rights
Amendment
Barring
homosexual
teachers
Banning
the death
penalty
1984 .46 .43 -.35 .50
1988 .40 .40 -.37 .45
1992 .40 .40 -.37 .45

Coefficients are gamma.
Because the domestic policy questions were not included in the 1980 FPLP survey, correlations are not reported for that year.

Contents copyrighted by Ole R. Holsti. He expresses his indebtedness to the National Science Foundation for five grants that supported the Foreign Policy Leadership Project surveys of American opinion leaders; to Eugene R. Wittkopf for sharing some of his data from the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and Times Mirror surveys; to Robert Jackson for obtaining data on human rights issues from the Roper Center; to Peter Feaver for helpful comments on an earlier draft; to Daniel F. Harkins for programming assistance; to David Priess for research assistance, and to Rita Dowling for secretarial assistance.
———————-

ENDNOTES

1. For good discussions of the concept of human rights and the development of American human rights policy, see Donnelly (1985), Forsythe (1988, 1990, 1991, 1995), Fraser (1977), Jacoby (1986), Schlesinger (1978), Sikkink (1993), and Steinmetz (1994).

2. For example, this passage is quoted by Henry Kissinger (1994:35).

3. Morganthau 1978; Kennan 1985 86. According to James Billington, a human rights focus can serve to provide both the needed idealism or vision and realism for American foreign policy. However, he appeared to view it primarily as a Cold War weapon. After asserting that neither internal democratization nor imperial disintegration are likely to reduce the Soviet threat, he stated that, “Human rights provides a valuable vehicle for peaceful, evolutionary democratization throughout the communist world.” Billington 1987:652.

4.For critiques of cultural relativism on human rights, see Emerson (1975), McFarland (1996), and Winston (1996).

5. A decade earlier Tonelson (1982 83: 53, 74) had proposed turning the Reagan administration’s human rights policies on their head by “reserving America’s harshest criticism and sanctions for those authoritarian regimes that President Reagan has favored, while responding to repression by totalitarian governments with a mixture of quiet diplomacy and economic incentives.” He concluded that a “leverage and responsibility based human rights policy for the United States has become an imperative.”

6. Kenneth Waltz (1967), the leading proponent of structural realism, is an exception.

7. Critics of a human rights emphasis in foreign affairs also cite Lincoln and his impatience with those who claim to be acting in accord with the will of Providence: “These are not, however, days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect a divine revelation. I must study the plain physical facts of the case, and ascertain what is possible and learn what appears to be wise and right.” (Quoted in Morgenthau 1978:263).

8. Results from the 1996 survey will not be available until a later draft.

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Dr. Holsti is George V. Allen Professor of International Affairs at Duke University and a member of the executive committee of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies.

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