Dr. Marianne Stewart
Dr. Harold Clarke
Two researchers in the UT Dallas School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences have received a grant to study the dynamics of public attitudes toward U.S. and global security.
Dr. Marianne Stewart, professor of political science, and Dr. Harold Clarke, Ashbel Smith Professor of Political Science will study global political hotspots such as Syria, Iraq and Ukraine, and public attitudes toward foreign policy and national security.
The National Science Foundation funded the project with a $132,000 award.
“The world is currently experiencing several significant challenges to global political order and international peace,” said Stewart, the principal investigator. “How the American public reacts to these challenges will have important implications for U.S. foreign policy and national security in the years ahead.”
The project will build on Clarke’s recent research on public opinion in the United States, France and Great Britain funded by the British Economic and Social Research Council.
The researchers will conduct multiple national panel surveys of the American electorate, studying the dynamics of Americans’ reactions to:
• The rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
• The conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
• The recent war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel.
• Other ongoing threats to global security in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Clarke and Stewart also will study the impact of foreign policy attitudes on voting in the upcoming November 2014 congressional elections.
“It is a longstanding conventional wisdom in American politics that partisan conflict stops at the water’s edge,” Clarke said. “This is no longer true, and public reactions to how President Barack Obama handles current international crises in the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere may have important effects on the choices voters make in the 2014 midterm congressional elections.
“In turn, the results of those contests will powerfully influence the domestic and international policies America adopts in the years ahead, as well as partisan politics in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.”