For decades U.S, foreign policy was focused on battling the menace of Soviet communism; then, seemingly overnight, the implacable foe collapsed. How did this extraordinary event come about? Political psychologist Steven Kull argues that only a revolution in the thinking of the country's top leaders can explain the swiftness and comparative peacefulness of the recent political transformation. His analysis, based on probing interviews with Soviet policymakers and on a careful reading of the ...

No longer preoccupied with the East-West divide, contemporary foreign policymakers now have to confront regional conflicts, peace-enforcing and humanitarian missions, and a host of other global problems and issues in areas such as trade, health, and the environment. During the Cold War a widely-shared consensus on national interest and security in the United States and western Europe affected news reporting, public opinion, and foreign policy. But with the end of this Cold War frame of ref...

Does public opinion matter in international conflict resolution? Does national foreign policy remain independent of public opinion and the media? International Public Opinion and the Bosnia Crisis examines, through U.S., Canadian, and European case studies, how public reaction impacted democratic governments' response to the ethnic and religious conflict in Bosnia during the period from 1991-1997. Each case study offers an overview of the national media coverage and public reactio...