Economic and Foreign Policy as Sources of Reagan Support

• DOI: 10.1177/106591299104400408
• Date: 01 December 1991
• Published date: 01 December 1991
• Author: Clyde Wilcox,Dee Allsop
• Subject Matter: Articles

ECONOMIC

AND

FOREIGN

POLICY

AS

SOURCES

OF

REAGAN

SUPPORT

CLYDE

WILCOX,

Georgetown

University

and

DEE ALLSOP,

The

Wirthlin

Group

he

substantial

attention

paid

to

the

sources

of

presidential

popularity

by

scholars

seems

justified

by

the

importance

of

JL

that

popularity

as

a

political

resource

in

dealing

with

Con-

gress

(Rivers

and

Rose

1985).

The

well-documented

decline

in

popu-

larity

of

most

presidents

over

the

course

of

their

terms

robs

them

of

this

resource,

and

makes

the

study

of

the

dynamics

of

presidential

support

an

interesting

and

important

enterprise.

A

well-established

lit-

erature

exists

linking

changes

in

presidential

popularity

to

economic

conditions,

but

far

less

attention

has

been

paid

to

the

role

of

foreign

policy

as

a

determinant

of

presidential

support.

In

part,

this

discrep-

ancy

is

due

to

the

nature

of

available

measures

of

foreign

policy

vari-

ables.

Although

a

wide

variety

of

monthly

economic

indicators

is

avail-

able,

foreign

policy

is

in

part

composed

of

discrete

and

isolated

actions

and

events

that

are

more

difficult

to

measure.

Thus,

for

those

who

look

at

aggregate

change

in

presidential

approval,

foreign

policy

events

are

usually

treated

as

perturbations

in

the

economic

model.

Nonetheless,

there

is

considerable

evidence

that

dramatic

foreign

policy

events

have

a

strong

and

generally

positive

effect

on

presiden-

tial

popularity,

as

the

public

&dquo;rallies

round

the

flag&dquo;

(Mueller

1973;

MacKuen

1983;

Brody

and

Page

1975),

though

the

longevity

of

the

effect

is

short.

Long-term

crises,

such

as

the

Korean

and

Vietnam

wars,

the

Iranian

hostage

crisis

and

the

Iran-Contra

scandal,

may

have

more

profound

negative

effects

(Sigelman

and

Conover

1981;

Kernell

1978).

The

relative

inattention

to

foreign

policy

as

a

source

of

presiden-

tial

support

is

doubtlessly

linked

to

the

conventional

wisdom

that

the

Received:

April

3,

1990

’

Revision

Received:

October

4,

1990

.

Accepted

for

Publication:

October

12,

1990

Note:

We

would

like

to

thank

Elizabeth

Cook,

Marc

Genest,

Eugene

Witkopf,

anonymous

reviewers

and

the

editors

for

helpful

comments.

The

data

were

provided

by

the

Wirthlin

Group

whom

we

would

especially

like

to

thank

for

producing

figures

1

through

8.

We

alone

are

responsible

for

all

interpretations.

942

public

is

generally

inattentive

to

foreign

affairs

(Almond

1950;

Cohn

1973).

Recently,

however,

scholars

have

begun

to

question

the

validity

of

the

traditional

assessment,

and

have

reported

that

many

individ-

uals

hold

well-formed

foreign-policy

attitudes

and

beliefs

(Aldrich,

Sullivan,

and

Borgida

1989;

Hurwitz

and

Peffley

1987b).

Indeed

Aldrich

et

al.

reported

that

among

the

majority

of

citizens

in

1984

for

whom

foreign

policy

attitudes

were

cognitively

accessible,

foreign

policy

attitudes

were

stronger

predictors

of

presidential

vote

than

domestic

policy

attitudes.

In

contrast,

a

large

number

of

studies

have

investigated

the

rela-

tionship

between

economic

trends

and

aggregate

presidential

popular-

ity.

Although

there

has

been

disagreement

over

model

specification

(particularly

over

which

economic

indicators

to

include

and

the

proper

lag

between

economic

events

and

public

response),

there

has

been

consensus

that

economic

trends

have

a

powerful

influence

over

aggre-

gate

presidential

popularity

among

the

general

public

and

specific

subgroups

(Kramer

1971;

Monroe

191;

Hibbs

with

Rivers

and

Vasilatos

1982;

Monroe

and

Laughlin

1983;

Chappell

and

Keech

1985

but

see

Norpoth

and

Yantek

1983).

Yet

individual-level

studies

have

generally

reported

that

personal

economic

hardship

is

not

a

strong

predictor

of

presidential

popularity

(or

votes

for

Congressional

candidates

of

the

president’s

party).

For

example,

Lau

and

Sears

(1981)

reported

that

various

indicators

of

personal

economic

grievances

were

not

associated

with

support

for

Carter,

except

among

those

few

voters

who

blamed

the

president

for

their

hardship.

The

implications

of

this

finding

are

that

the

impact

of

economic

hardships

on

individual-level

support

for

the

president

is

mediated

through

attribution

of

responsiblity

for

economic

conditions.

Many

Americans

do

not

blame

the

president

for

their

personal

economic

cir-

cumstances,

because

they

do

not

believe

that

the

government

should

help

them,

and

because

they

attribute

the

cause

of

their

distress

to

more

proximate

forces

(Brody

and

Sniderman

1977;

Feldman

1982).

Moreover,

many

Americans

do

not

believe

that

presidents

can

manip-

ulate

the

economy

successfully,

or

blame

Congress

or

past

administra-

tions

for

current

economic

woes

(Sigelman

and

Knight

1985;

Peffley

and

Williams

1985).

Among

those

who

do

hold

presidents

responsible,

comparisons

with

previous

presidential

performance

may

mitigate

neg-

ative

evaluations

(Hibbs

et

al.

1982).

The

disjunction

between

the

strong

relationships

in

the

aggregate

data

and

the

generally

weak

ones

in

individual-level

data

has

been