The Commander-in-Chief Test

Public Opinion and the Politics of Image-Making in US Foreign Policy (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

By: Jeffrey A. Friedman

Narrated by: James McSorley

Americans frequently criticize US foreign policy for being overly costly and excessively militaristic. With its rising defense budgets and open-ended "forever wars," US foreign policy often appears disconnected from public opinion, reflecting the views of elites and special interests rather than the attitudes of ordinary citizens.

The Commander-in-Chief Test argues that this conventional wisdom underestimates the role public opinion plays in shaping foreign policy. Voters may prefer to elect leaders who share their policy views, but they prioritize selecting presidents who seem to have the right personal attributes to be an effective commander in chief. Leaders then use hawkish foreign policies as tools for showing that they are tough enough to defend America's interests on the international stage. This link between leaders' policy positions and their personal images steers US foreign policy in directions that are more hawkish than what voters actually want.

Combining polling data with survey experiments and original archival research, Friedman demonstrates that public opinion plays a surprisingly extensiveand often problematicrole in shaping US international behavior. With the commander-in-chief test, Friedman's insights offer important lessons on how the politics of image-making impacts foreign policy and how the public should choose its president.

The book is published by Cornell University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2023 Cornell University (P)2023 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"This is the best book yet written on the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy." (Brian Rathbun, author of Reasoning of State)

"A must-read for anyone interested in American presidential leadership." (Robert Y. Shapiro, coauthor of The Rational Public)

"Will surely be seen as the authoritative treatment of how American foreign policy works..." (James N. Druckman, coauthor of Who Governs?)