Electoral Accountability and Canadian Foreign Policy: The Case of Foreign Investment
| Author | Dale H. Poel,Don Munton |
| Published date | 01 March 1978 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207803300112 |
| Date | 01 March 1978 |
| Subject Matter | Opinion and Policy |
DON
MUNTON
&
DALE
H.
POEL
Electoral
accountability
and
Canadian
foreign
policy:
the
case
of
foreign
investment
The
notion that
the
public
will
guides
and
even
determines
pub-
lic
policy-making
is,
of
course,
one
of
the
fundamental
tenets
of
democratic
theory.
To
the
discomfort
of
most
democratic
theorists,
it
is
also
one
of
the
most
often
and
most
convincingly challenged.
Most
of
the
available
evidence
amassed
in
recent
decades
suggests
that
the
influence
of
public
opinion
on
policy-making,
particularly
foreign policy-making,
is
indirect
rather
than
direct,
sporadic
rather
than
steady,
and,
above
all,
complex
rather
than
simple.'
The
notion that
the
public
will pervades
the corridors
of
power,
particularly
those
of
a
foreign
ministry,
thus
appears
as
untenable
to
most
observers
of
those
corridors
as
the
thought
that
the
public
will
should
pervade
would
be
unenticing
to most
officials
who
walk
them.
If
it
is
indeed
the
case
that
public
opinion
has
very
little
im-
pact
on
day-to-day
foreign
policy-making,
democratic
processes
are
Don
Munton
is
an
associate
professor
in
the
Department
of
Political
Science
and
a
member
of
the
Centre
for
Foreign
Policy
Studies
at
Dalhousie University.
Dale
H.
Poel
is
an
associate
professor
and
chairman
of
the
Department
of
Political
Science
at
Dalhousie
University.
The
present
article
makes
use
of
data
from
the
1974
National
Election Study,
originally
collected
by
Harold
Clarke,
Jane
Jenson,
Lawrence
LeDuc,
and
Jon
Pammett.
The
original
collectors
of
the
data
bear
no
responsibility for the
analyses
or
interpretation
presented here.
The
authors,
however,
are
indebted
to
Jane
Jenson
for
her
assistance
in explaining
various
aspects
of
the
survey,
to
Dean
Swanson
for
archiving
the
data
at
Dalhousie,
and
to
the
members
of
the
Centre
for
Foreign Policy
Studies,
particularly
Denis
Stairs,
for
their
comments
on
a
presentation
of
the
material
in
this
paper.
i
See
the
excellent
discussion
by
James
N.
Rosenau,
Public
Opinion and
Foreign
Policy
(New
York
9g6i).
2
18
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
not
necessarily
absent.
The
public, after
all,
theoretically
have
that
ultimate
control
over
a
government
which
pursues
unpopu-
lar
foreign
(or
domestic) policies
-
they
can
vote
it
out
of
office
at
the
next
election.
Unfortunately
for
those
who
would
defend
democracy
in
this
way,
the
theory
of
electoral
accountability,
with
respect
to
foreign
policy
at
least,
has
received
scant
empirical
sup-
port.
2
Voters
seldom
appear
to
give
much
priority
to
foreign-
policy
issues
when casting
their
ballots,
and,
partly
as
a
result,
political
leaders
seldom
appear
to
concern
themselves
unduly
with
the
possible
electoral
consequences of
foreign-policy
decisions.3
Even
in
the
United
States,
where
international
problems
have
un-
derstandably tended
to
be
highly
visible
over
the
postwar
period,
public
opinion
on
foreign-policy
questions
constituted
only
'a
thin
veneer on
the
basic
structure
of
the
vote
decision.'
4
The
bulk
of
available
empirical
evidence
supports
the
conclusion
that
'dem-
ocratic
control
of foreign
policy
-
indeed,
of
any
particular
area
of
public
policy
-
by means
of
electoral
accountability
functions
weakly
when
it
functions
at
all.'
5
If
such
is
the
pattern
of
electoral
politics
in
a
superpower
with
global
responsibilities,
global
inter-
ests,
and,
hence,
far-flung
involvements,
it
would
be
surprising
if
2
On
the
general
question
of
electoral
accountability
and
'electoral
punishment'
with
respect
to
foreign-policy
issues,
see,
for
example:
Warren
C.
Miller,
'Vot-
ing
and
Foreign
Policy'
in
James
N.
Rosenau,
ed,
Domestic
Sources
of
Foreign
Policy
(New
York
1967),
pp
213-3o;
Kenneth
H.
Waltz,
Foreign
Policy
and
Democratic
Politics
(Boston
1967),
especially
chap
io;
Bernard
C.
Cohen,
The
Public's
Impact
on
Foreign
Policy
(Boston
1973),
especially
chap
6.
The
Cohen
book
includes
a
useful
critique
of
existing
research
on
the
relationship
between
public
opinion
'on'
and 'in'
foreign
policy.
3
The
consensus
in
the
American
voting behaviour
literature
that
issues
in
gen-
eral
were
of
lesser
importance
was
first
challenged directly
by
V.0.
Key,
The
Responsible
Electorate
(Cambridge
1966).
For
evidence
of
an
emerging
new
consensus
see
Richard
G.
Niemi
and
Herbert
F.
Weisberg,
eds,
Controversies
in
American
Voting
Behavior
(San
Francisco
1976).
4
Miller,
'Voting
and
Foreign
Policy,'
p
229.
5
Cohen,
The
Public's
Impact
on
Foreign
Policy,
p
185.
Indeed,
confirming
the
judgments
of
some,
but
not
all,
traditional
students
of
public opinion,
the
empirical
evidence
is
mounting
that
much
opinion
change
is
the
result
of
shifts
in
policy.
See,
for
example,
Martin
Abravanel
and
Barry
Hughes,
'The
Rela-
tionship
between
Public Opinion
and
Governmental
Foreign
Policy:
A
Cross
National
Study,'
Sage
International
Yearbook of
Foreign
Policy Studies,
I
(Beverly
Hills
1973).
To continue reading
Request your trial