| U.S. Report - pdf version |
| Leaders Questionnaire - pdf version |
| Public Questionnaire - pdf version |
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In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many commentators in the United States and around the world asserted that the world had changed. The fact that the continental United States had been attacked by foreign enemies for the first time since 1812—and with horrendous effect—was bound to change Americans’ thinking about the world and their role in it. The goals and priorities of U.S. defense and foreign policies would shift. Even the international system as a whole might be fundamentally altered.
Even if one did not fully accept such sweeping assertions, it was clear that 9/11 had a profound impact on the American mood. A little more than a decade after the end of the Cold War, a decade in which few foreign issues intruded much on the American consciousness, Americans had been shocked by their own vulnerability to unconventional and faraway threats. Few events in the nation’s history had been felt as widely and deeply.
Almost as immediately, U.S. relationships with old allies and friends as well as former enemies and nations in which we thought we had little stake were seen in a new light. Relations with key European countries, recently troubled, took on added importance. Russia quickly moved to the U.S. side in the war on terrorism. The salience of the Middle East and Arab nations to American security suddenly increased. Within four weeks the United States was at war in remote Afghanistan.
The 2002 Study
This was the context in which The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations began in late fall 2001 to plan its 2002 study of American public opinion, the eighth in its quadrennial series. Arguably, there had never been a more critical time since the Chicago Council studies began in 1974 to probe American attitudes toward a wide range of international issues and U.S. policy options.
The Chicago Council determined it was unusually well positioned to examine in 2002 whether in fact the world had changed in the minds of Americans, and if so, how. The Chicago Council studies comprise the longest series of surveys of American public and leader opinion on international affairs and U.S. foreign policy ever conducted. They are highly regarded for the rigor of their method, the combination of continuity and variation in questions asked, the quantity of data produced, and the opportunity to compare public and leader attitudes. They have been widely read and cited by policymakers and analysts, journalists, and scholars.
The 2002 Chicago Council study was greatly enhanced by an agreement between the Council and the German Marshall Fund of the United States to collaborate on a counterpart study of European attitudes. This proposal by the German Marshall Fund’s president, Craig Kennedy, came amidst increasing signs in early 2002 of rising tensions between the United States and its European allies and friends over how best to conduct the war on terrorism, policies toward the Arab-Israeli dispute, and other issues. A systematic comparison of American and European public attitudes would allow testing of the proposition that America and Europe were diverging in fundamental ways.
The collaboration between the Chicago Council and the German Marshall Fund on “Worldviews 2002” has been extraordinary in its scope and highly valuable in its findings. It has greatly broadened the relevance of the Chicago Council’s 2002 study and resulted in the most comprehensive comparative study of European and American public opinion on international issues ever undertaken.
At the same time, responding to the extraordinary circumstances resulting from the 9/11 attacks required several changes in the conduct of the U.S. survey. First, it was necessary to move up the usual schedule of the survey by about four months if the results were to be available for the first anniversary of 9/11. The U.S. data were gathered in June for release in September-October (as part of the overall “Worldviews 2002” findings) instead of being gathered in October-November for release in February-March as in the past. As a result, the study is dated 2002 instead of 2003, as would otherwise have been the case.
Second, in light of the historic nature of the 2002 study, a much larger amount of data was collected than in any previous Council study. This was made possible in part by a shift from face-to-face interviews, the mode of data collection in all previous Council studies, to telephone interviewing (see Notes on Methodology) for about 2,800 of the approximately 3,200 interviews conducted. The decision to move to telephone interviewing was necessitated by a change in practices of major survey organizations and by cost considerations. The Gallup Organization, which had fielded all earlier Council surveys (except 1974) through in-person interviews, no longer uses that collection technique for surveys of this magnitude and type. The cost of an in-person survey by other organizations was prohibitive. Harris Interactive was chosen to carry out the survey, including 400 in-person interviews, so that possible “mode effects” of the switch from in-person to telephone interviewing could be assessed.
Third, the Chicago Council and the German Marshall Fund decided to release the findings in two stages. The U.S. findings that were most relevant to the question of how 9/11 and its aftermath have affected American thinking as well as the U.S. and European data most directly related to transatlantic relations were released to the U.S. and European media in late August and early September 2002, in time to be discussed in connection with the first anniversary of the attacks. The full U.S. and European findings are herewith released in early October 2002. The findings are contained in three separate reports, one on the American data, one on the European data, and one on the comparisons between European and American attitudes.
The data from this survey will be placed on deposit with the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the Roper Center for Public Opinion in Storrs, Connecticut, and NORC (National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago. It will be available to scholars and other interested professionals.
Acknowledgments
A study of this magnitude and complexity requires the support and participation of many organizations and individuals.
Funding for the U.S. study and for the Chicago Council’s work on the European and comparative studies in collaboration with the German Marshall Fund came from several sources. The Chicago Council is deeply grateful to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for its lead support. The MacArthur Foundation has been the principal funder of the Council’s study over a number of years. Despite changes in the foundation’s guidelines, its president, Jonathan F. Fanton, and Mitchel B. Wallerstein, senior vice president for global security and sustainability, were open to continuing this crucial assistance.
The Chicago Council also wishes to thank the McCormick Tribune Foundation and its president, Richard A. Behrenhausen, for their early and vital support. The German Marshall Fund of the United States contributed much needed funds to the Council to help make possible the extraordinary collaboration between the organizations. The United States–Japan Foundation also provided valuable funding. The Chicago Council is grateful to the foundation’s president, George R. Packard, for his interest in this study.
The “Worldviews 2002” project was a team effort from the beginning. I served as co-editor for the U.S. study along with Benjamin I. Page, who is Gordon Scott Fulcher professor of decision making in the department of political science at Northwestern University. Other members of the Council’s “Worldviews 2002” team were Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA); Larry Jacobs, professor in the department of political science at the University of Minnesota; Richard Longworth, senior writer for the Chicago Tribune; Catherine Hug, president of Hug Communications; Christopher Whitney, program officer at The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, and Dukhong Kim, graduate student in the department of political science at Northwestern University. Martin Kifer, Laura MacDonald and Jane Kim also played important roles in the data analysis for the study. The Chicago Council expresses its great appreciation to these individuals who contributed intellect, experience, and time far beyond the call to the production of this landmark study.
The Council is especially grateful to Benjamin Page, who brought not only his rich insights as one of the United States’ leading scholars of public opinion and foreign policy to this effort, but also the benefit of his involvement in the Chicago Council studies from their inception in 1974. Steven Kull has brought a tremendous wealth of knowledge and experience to the 2002 study and has made invaluable contributions in each of its stages. Catherine Hug has been involved in the Council study for many years, but most importantly brought to the task her extraordinary skills as editor, drafter, designer, and arbiter of continuity and completeness. She has put in very long hours to bring this and the other two reports to press.
Very special credit is due to Christopher Whitney, who is truly the person most responsible on the Chicago Council team for the accomplishment of the “Worldviews 2002” project. From inception, the implementation of the project—design, fundraising, fielding, analysis, dissemination, and publication—were entirely in his very, very capable hands. He has been the Council’s highly effective and indefatigable coordinator, manager extraordinaire, problem solver, communicator, and many other roles. It is impossible to imagine this project succeeding without his intelligence, diplomacy, and dedication.
The Chicago Council wishes also to express its thanks and appreciation to the members of the German Marshall Fund team. A collaboration of this type requires leadership, persistence, and flexibility. The Council is grateful to Craig Kennedy for conceiving of this innovative collaboration and making it happen. Steven Grand played the central role for the GMF in the implementation of “Worldviews 2002,” and was throughout a colleague of great integrity, effectiveness, and good humor. Natalie LaBalme and Julianne Smith, the other key members of the GMF team, were valued colleagues in every phase of the project and vital to its success.
We also wish to express our appreciation to Harris Interactive for all the assistance they have provided with the study. In particular, we want to recognize Hal Quinley, Beverly Romanowski, David Krane, and Shawn Wade for all their hard work throughout the various stages of the project.
—Marshall M. Bouton
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