research paper on domestic policy

Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy

Countries differ in size, socioeconomic development, and political regime. They also vary in their political institutionalization and societal structures, military and economic capabilities, and strategic cultures. In addition, public opinion, national role conceptions, decision making rules and belief systems, and personality traits of political leaders vary from one state to another. These differences directly affect both foreign policymaking process and foreign policy decisions. Whereas the extant literature on foreign policy analysis (FPA) lacks a grand theory as to how domestic factors influence foreign policy and under what conditions these factors become more important, a large body of work shows that a state’s foreign policy relies heavily on unit-level characteristics, and it is not completely shaped by systemic-structural constraints and opportunities based on distribution of power and military capabilities.

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EDITORIAL article

Editorial: new perspectives on domestic violence: from research to intervention.

• 1 Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
• 2 School of Health and Social Work, University of Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom

Editorial on the Research Topic New Perspectives on Domestic Violence: from Research to Intervention

In a document dated June 16th 2017, the United States Department of Justice stated that Domestic Violence (DV) has a significant impact not only on those abused, but also on family members, friends, and on the people within the social networks of both the abuser and the victim. In this sense, children who witness DV while growing up can be severely emotionally damaged. The European Commission (DG Justice) remarked in the Daphne III Program that 1 in 4 women in EU member states have been impacted by DV, and that the impact of DV on victims includes many critical consequences: lack of self-esteem, feeling shame and guilt, difficulties in expressing negative feelings, hopelessness and helplessness, which, in turn, lead to difficulties in using good coping strategies, self-management, and mutual support networks. In 2015 the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights affirmed that violence against women can be considered as a violation of human rights and dignity. Violence against women exists in each society and it can be related to any social, economic and cultural status and impact at the economic level. It includes physical, sexual, economic, religious, and psychological abuse.

Although men experience domestic violence by women, the rate of DV among women is much higher than that of men, especially in the category of being killed due to DV.

Recent studies have shown that between 13 and 61% of women (15–49 years old) report to have been physically abused at least once by an intimate partner. Domestic Violence takes place across different age groups, genders, sexual orientations, economic, or cultural statuses. However, DV remains largely under-reported due to fear of reprisal by the perpetrator, hope that DV will stop, shame, loss of social prestige due to negative media coverage, and the sense of being trapped with nowhere to go:

Hence, it is estimated that 90% of cases of DV continue to be identified as a non-denounced violence.

The aim of this Special Issue of Frontiers of Psychology is to gather updated scientific and multidisciplinary contributions about issues linked to domestic violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV). We encouraged contributions from a variety of areas including original qualitative and quantitative articles, reviews, meta-analyses, theories, and clinical case studies on biological, psycho-social and cultural correlates, risk and protective factors, and the associated factors related to the etiology, assessment, and treatment of both victims and perpetrators of DV.

We hope that this Special Issue will stimulate a better informed debate on Domestic Violence, in relation to its psychosocial impact (in and outside home, in school, and workplace), to DV prevention and intervention strategies (within the family and in society at large), in addition to specific types of DV, and to controversial issues in this field as well.

The Special Issue comprises both theoretical reviews and original research papers. 7 research papers, 6 reviews (policy and practice review, systematic review, review and mini-review) and 1 methodological paper are included.

The first section comprises 2 systematic review and 3 original research papers focused on factors associated with Domestic Violence/Intimate Partner Violence/feminicide. Velotti et al. conducted a systematic review focused on the role of the attachment style on IPV victimization and perpetration. Several studies included failed to identify significant associations. The authors suggest to consider other variables (e.g., socioeconomic condition) that in interaction with attachment styles could explain the differences found between the studies. Considering the clinical contribution that these findings can provide to the treatment of IPV victims and perpetrators, future studies are needed. From a systematic review conducted by Gerino et al. focused on IPV in the “golden age” (old age), economic and educational conditions, younger age (55–69), membership in ethnic minorities, cognitive and physical impairment, substance abuse, cultural and social values, sexism and racism, were found as risk factors; depression emerged as risk factor and consequence of IPV. However, social support was identified as main protective factor. Also help-seeking behaviors and local/national services had a positively impact the phenomenon. Furthermore, the role of the parental communication was highlighted ( Rios-González et al. ) In that mothers encourage daughters to engage in relationship with ethical men, while removing from their representation attractive features and enhancing the double standard of viewing ethical man as unattractive vs. violent and attractive man. Fathers' communication directed toward young boys supports the dominant traditional masculinity, objectifying girls and emphasizing chauvinist values. These communicative dynamics impact males' behavior and females' choice of the partner while increasing the attraction toward violent men, and thus influencing the risk to be involved in IPV episodes.

Furthermore, factors associated with multiple IPV victimization by different partners were identified. From the study of Herrero et al. , experiencing child abuse emerged as a main predictor (“conditional partner selection process”). Similarly, adult victimization perpetrated by other than the intimate partner influences multiple IPV episodes. Moreover, this phenomenon is more frequent among younger women and those with lower income satisfaction. Length of relationship and greater psychological consequences to previous IPV are positively associated with multiple IPV episodes, while previous physical abuse is negatively related with subsequent victimization. The risk of multiple IPV episodes is reduced in countries with greater human development, suggesting the role of structural factors.

Regarding reasons of feminicide, passion motives assume the main role, followed by family problems, antisocial reasons, predatory crimes that comprise sexual component, impulsivity and mental disorders. The risk of overkilling episodes is higher when the perpetrator is known by the victim and when the murder is committed for passion reasons ( Zara and Gino ).

The second section includes papers focused on IPV/DV in particular contexts (one research paper, two reviews). Within separated couples, where conflicts are common, both men and women experience psychological aggression. However, some particularities emerged: women started to suffer of several kinds of psychological violence that was aimed to control (complicating the separation process), dehumanize and criticize them. Men report only few forms of violence experienced (likely due to the men's social position that narrows their disclosure opportunity), which mainly concern the limitation of the possibility to meet children ( Cardinali et al. ). Regarding same-sex couples ( Rollè et al. ), both similarities and differences in comparison with heterosexual couples emerged. IPV among LGB people is comparable or even higher than heterosexual episodes. Unique features present in same-sex IPV concern identification and treatment aspects, mainly due to the absence of solutions useful in addressing obstacles to help-seeking behaviors (related to fear of discrimination within LGB community), and the limitation of treatment programs tailored to the particularities of the LGB experience. Similarly, within First Nation's communities in Canada, IPV is a widespread phenomenon. However, the lack of preventing programs and the presence of intervention solutions that fail to address its cultural origins, limit the reduction of the problem and the recovery of victims. Klingspohn suggests the development of interventions capable to guarantee cultural safety and consequently to reduce discrimination and marginalization that Aboriginal people experience with mainstream health care system and which limit help-seeking behaviors.

The third section comprises two reviews and one research paper concerned with the impact of Intimate Partner and Domestic Violence. The systematic review conducted by Onwumere et al. highlighted the financial and emotional burden that violence perpetrated by psychotic patients entails for their informal carers (mainly close family relatives). Moreover, the authors identified within the studies included positive association between victimization and trauma symptoms, fear, and feeling of powerless and frustration.

Among people who suffered of Domestic Violence with a romantic or non-romantic partner who became their stalker, stalking victimization entails physical and emotive consequences for both male and female victims. Females suffered more than males of depressive and anxiety symptoms (although for both genders symptoms were minimal), while males experienced more anger. Furthermore, both genders adopted at least one “moving away” strategy in coping with stalking episodes, and the increasing of stalking behaviors determined a reduction in coping strategies use. This latter finding is likely to be due to the distress experienced ( Acquadro Maran and Varetto ).

Children abuse—which occurs often in Domestic Violence—results in emotional trauma as well as physical and psychological consequences that can negatively impact the learning opportunities. The school staff's ability to identify abuse signals and to refer to professionals constitute their main role. However, lack of skills and confidence among teachers regarding this function emerged, and further training for the school staff to increase support provided to abused children is needed ( Lloyd ).

Lastly, the fourth section includes two papers (one review and one methodological paper) that provide information on intervention and prevention programs and one research paper which contributes to the development and validation of the Willingness to Intervene in Cases of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women (WI-IPVAW) Scale. Gracia et al. The instrument demonstrated—both in the long and in its short form—high reliability and construct validity. The development of WI-IPVAW can contribute to the evaluation of the t role that can be played by people who are aware of the violence and understand attitudes toward IPV that can influence perpetrator's behavior and victim disclosure. The origin of violence within intimate relationship during adolescence calls for the development of preventive programs able to limit the phenomenon. The mini-review conducted by Santoro et al. highlighted the necessity to consider the relational structure where women are involved (history of poly-victimization re-victimization), and the domination suffered according to the gender model structured by the patriarchal context. Moreover, considering that violence can occur after separation or divorce, requires in child custody cases the evaluation of parenting and co-parenting relationship. This process can provide an opportunity to assess and treat some kind of violent behavior (Conflict-Instigated Violence, Violent Resistance, Separation-Instigated Violence). According to these consideration, Gennari et al. elaborated a model for clinical intervention (relational-intergenerational model) useful to address these issues during child custody evaluation. The model is composed of three levels aimed at understanding intergenerational exchange and identify factors that contribute to safeguard family relationship. This assessment process allows parents to reflect on information emerged during the evaluation process and activate resources useful to promote a constructive change of conflict dynamics and violent behaviors.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thanks all the authors and the reviewers who contributed to the present article collection, for their dedication to our topics and to their readiness to share their knowledge, and thus to increase the research in this field; KathWoodward, Specialty Chief Editor of Gender, Sex, and Sexuality Studies that believed in our project, and to Dr. Tommaso Trombetta for his collaboration during last year.

Keywords: domestic violence, intimate partner abuse, intimate partner violence (IPV), gender violence against women, same sex intimate partner violence, systematic review, perpetrator and victim of violence, perpetrator

Citation: Rollè L, Ramon S and Brustia P (2019) Editorial: New Perspectives on Domestic Violence: From Research to Intervention. Front. Psychol. 10:641. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00641

Received: 25 February 2019; Accepted: 07 March 2019; Published: 28 March 2019.

Edited and reviewed by: Kath Woodward , The Open University, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2019 Rollè, Ramon and Brustia. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Luca Rollè, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Article contents

Domestic politics and foreign policy analysis: public opinion, elections, interest groups, and the media.

• Douglas C. Foyle Douglas C. Foyle Department of Government, Wesleyan University
•  and  Douglas Van Belle Douglas Van Belle School of English, Film, Theatre and Media Studies, Victoria University of Wellington
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.9
• Published in print: 01 March 2010
• Published online: 20 November 2017

Societal factors such as public opinion, interest groups, and the media can influence foreign policy choices and behavior. To date, the public opinion and foreign policy literature has focused largely on data derived from the US, although this trend has begun to change in recent years. However, while much of the scholarly work suggests that public attitudes on foreign policy are both reasonable and structured, significant controversies exist over the public’s general influence on policy as well as the influence of elections on foreign policy. Meanwhile, the study of interest groups as a domestic source of foreign policy is dominated by two points of emphasis: ethnic groups acting as interest groups and the US case. These are most often considered together. This ethnic interest group literature stands largely apart from the literature on trade interest groups, which takes its inspiration from the economics literature. Finally, two aspects of media are specifically relevant to media and domestic sources of foreign policy. The first is the way the media serve as an arena of domestic political competition within democracies, and the second is the communicative role that media play in the formation of public opinions that are specific to and critical to foreign policy decision making.

• public opinion
• interest groups
• foreign policy
• public attitudes
• ethnic interest groups
• foreign policy decision making

Introduction

This review considers how societal factors influence foreign policy choices and behavior, with a central focus on public opinion, elections, interest groups, and the media. Across all these issues, it points to the need for better integration of this research into the core literatures in international politics as well as greater engagement with the American and comparative politics subfields. Consistent with other recent research that has recognized the centrality of the domestic and international relations link, it suggests that a full understanding of international political behavior requires the integration of concepts and insights from this literature. While much of this literature has understandably focused on the American case given the rich data available, this limitation raises concerns regarding the generalizability of these findings beyond this one case. To rectify the situation, more research of a comparative nature has emerged to evaluate the validity of these central findings. Ironically enough, at the same time, even though much of this work has focused on the United States case, it has failed to integrate effectively much of the literature from the American politics subfield, which opens further avenues for greater insight. In the end, while exciting work continues down many avenues, the field would benefit from a greater integration and interaction with other substantive scholarly traditions in international, comparative, and American politics.

This review considers three central areas. First, in evaluating the public opinion literature, it suggests that while much of the scholarly work now suggests that public attitudes on foreign policy are both reasonable and structured, significant controversies still exist over the public’s general influence on policy as well as the influence of elections on foreign policy. Second, the interest group literature has focused mostly on the American case, with an emphasis on ethnic interest groups. This ethnic interest group literature stands largely apart from the literature on trade interest groups, which takes its inspiration from the economics literature. Third, unlike these previous two areas, the domestic politics of the media appears to be better integrated into the broader international politics literature on communication.

Taken together, the massive literatures that are only briefly summarized here point in numerous directions for further conceptual formulation and greater cross-fertilization across traditional scholarly divides.

Public Opinion

Almond-lippmann consensus.

The question of whether public opinion should guide policy making has engaged philosophers at least since the days of Plato’s Republic . To date, the public opinion and foreign policy literature has focused largely on data derived from the US, although this trend has begun to change in recent years. Despite a large and burgeoning research agenda which can be structured topically (Holsti 2004 ), the overall scholarly literature has developed little in the way of a central conceptual focus (Holsti 2004 ; Baum and Potter 2008 ; Berinsky 2009 ), with scholars attending to different aspects of the public opinion questions and different topics as their interest dictates. Although notable attempts have been made to synthesize a comprehensive public opinion model or model of governance that integrates public opinion into foreign policy making (Rosenau 1961 ; Powlick and Katz 1998 ; Western 2005 ; Baum and Potter 2008 ), no one approach has emerged to dominate the field. Instead, the field is best characterized by a diverse group of scholars focused mainly around a range of discrete issues which do not add up appreciably to a comprehensive intellectual model.

The main arguments within the field have progressed through two main phases, centered generally around what is now known as the Almond-Lippmann consensus: public opinion’s rationality, structure, and policy influence (Holsti 2004 ). The Almond-Lippmann consensus, which portrays a negative view of public opinion, reigned in the field from the 1920s through the early 1970s, and held that on foreign policy matters a largely ignorant public opinion reacted in an emotional, rather than reasonable or rational manner, which in turn led to high volatility in its attitudes (e.g., Almond 1950 ; Lippmann 1955 ). Further, these attitudes remained unstructured and had little relationship with each other (Converse 1964 ). Many proponents of this view, who hailed largely from the realist perspective on foreign policy (Foyle 1999 ), worried little about these fundamental concerns since they concluded that public opinion did not influence foreign policy (Cohen 1973 ), though some realists feared public opinion would affect policy in a negative manner (Lippmann 1955 ).

The Almond-Lippmann Consensus Challenged

The disastrous American intervention in Vietnam and the expansion of data regarding public attitudes with the advancement of survey techniques led to a reevaluation of public opinion which turned the Almond-Lippmann consensus views on their head. An extensive literature developed in the 1970s through the mid-1990s focusing on the questions of the rationality and structure of public attitudes, and it is safe to say that these revisionist views now dominate the field. First, although few scholars would argue that public opinion is infused with knowledge on the foreign policy events of the day, the prevailing view now portrays public opinion as possessing relatively stable attitudes and responding reasonably to foreign affairs information from the environment (Page and Shapiro 1992 ; Jentleson 1992 ; Knopf 1998 ; Herrmann et al. 2001 ; Isernia et al. 2002 ).

Second, an extensive literature developed regarding the question of whether a meaningful structure organized public attitudes. Although scholars disagree over the number of dimensions that characterize public attitudes, or how those attitudes arise or change, most agree that public attitudes do meet the criteria set by Converse ( 1964 ) of both stability and “some form of constraint or functional interdependence.” The most prominent analysis, by Eugene Wittkopf ( 1990 ), describes two dimensions for public opinion (yielding four beliefs system types), with a dimension on cooperative internationalism referring to whether an individual favors or opposes working with other nations to solve global and national challenges, and a militant internationalism indicating whether the person favors forceful action, possibly unilateral in nature, to pursue American interests. These dimensions characterize the views of opinion leaders as well (Holsti and Rosenau 1988 ). Other scholars (Hinckley 1992 ; Chittick et al. 1995 ) point to a third dimension consisting of a unilateralism and multilateralism scale. Hurwitz and Peffley ( 1987 ) provide a distinct hierarchical model that suggests the public’s attitudes descend from general core values eventually to more specific foreign policy attitudes. Despite nuances among these scholars, the virtual consensus points to a convergence around the view of the public with stable and structured beliefs.

The third component of the Almond-Lippmann consensus has experienced the most research attention in recent years, although no consensus exists on whether and under what conditions public opinion influences policy. Although it appeared at first that research into this area would reverse the Almond-Lippmann consensus position again, public opinion’s role in policy making remains the focus of intense controversy. First, some research continues to suggest that public opinion plays a limited role in foreign policy formulation. Most notably, in a statistically sophisticated examination evaluating public opinion’s effect on policy relative to interest groups and policy experts, Jacobs and Page ( 2005 ) found that public opinion’s influence paled in comparison to other policy actors and had little or no statistical influence. Interestingly, this finding is consistent with a growing trend (most notable in studies of US presidential politics) which suggests that presidents use the sophisticated polling techniques available to them to limit public influence. Presidents might use polls to build support for their chosen policies (Heith 2004 ), to construct policies which appear to reflect popular will (while being substantively incongruent with public attitudes), or enable leaders to ensure general popular support despite pursuing unpopular policies (Jacobs and Shapiro 2000 ).

The influence of elites on public opinion has also generated some controversy. For example, Edwards ( 2003 ) suggests presidential efforts at influencing opinion have largely failed despite extensive efforts. Others have suggested that public opinion tracks elite opinion rather than driving policy development (Witko 2003 ).

Second, a common finding in the literature suggests that public opinion constrains the policy options available to government leaders by limiting the range of choices they have available to them (e.g., Russett 1990 ; Hinckley 1992 ; Powlick and Katz 1998 ; Sobel 2001 ; Foyle 2004 ). While public opinion does not cause leaders to select particular policies, this research suggests that it has an important and strong influence on policy.

Third, some research employing statistical analyses finds that public opinion consistently influences policy. By tracking whether policy outputs were consistent with public attitudes (Monroe 1979 ) and whether shifts in opinion more often than not preceded changes in policy (Page and Shapiro 1992 ), some suggest an important relationship between public attitudes and foreign policy. Other scholars have followed up on this broad pattern of responsiveness with quantitative analyses suggesting a strong public role in defense spending (Hartley and Russett 1992 ), congressional voting (Meernik and Oldmixon 2008 ), presidential decisions on the use of force (Ostrom and Job 1986 ), and presidential rhetoric (Rottinghaus 2007 ).

Finally, some scholars have emphasized a range of conditional variables that influence public opinion’s effect on foreign policy, including level of public support for the policy (Graham 1994 ), domestic structure (Risse-Kappen 1991 ), elections (Gaubatz 1999 ), presidential attitudes toward public opinion (Foyle 1999 ), stage of decision making (Knecht 2006 ), and presidential popularity (Canes-Wrone 2006 ).

The role of elections runs throughout much of the public opinion literature and also has a heavy US focus. The first branch of this research addresses the issue of whether foreign policy affects vote choices during elections. The development of this literature tracks the broader trend in the public opinion and foreign policy literature, with earlier accounts suggesting that public opinion had only a limited influence, if any, on voting. Early analyses based on opinions and voting in the 1950s and 1960s suggested that foreign policy remained a secondary factor compared to other items in determining vote choice (Stokes 1966 ). As the bipartisan consensus over foreign policy broke up over Vietnam, foreign policy rose in prominence as a voting issue as partisan differences at the elite level emerged (Aldrich et al. 2006 ). In an article that provided the most important work in the area in the past two decades, Aldrich and his colleagues ( 1989 ) found that attitudes about foreign policy conditionally influenced vote choice. The strongest influence they found occurred when large differences between the candidates existed and the candidates emphasized the foreign policy issues during the campaign. The influence of foreign policy issues dropped to the extent that few differences existed between the candidates or the campaign did not feature foreign policy issues. Recent research employing a different dataset largely confirmed the core insights of this work (Anand and Krosnick 2003 ). Some recent work, emphasizing the effect of the Iraq War on voting, pointed to a continued influence of foreign policy attitudes on voting (Berinsky 2009 ; Gelpi et al. 2009 ).

The second strand examines the influence of elections on foreign policy choices. Unlike the first strand where the consensus suggests that foreign policy attitudes affect voting, a great deal of controversy exists over the influence of elections on foreign policy. Empirically, some scholars have found that approaching elections systematically push leaders to make more peaceful choices (Gaubatz 1999 ; Auerswald 2000 ). Second, others have argued that elections cause increased uses of force as leaders see foreign policy as a chance to either distract the public from unpopular domestic circumstances or artificially enhance public support (the bulk of this approach falls within the diversionary use of force literature discussed in the review entitled “Diversionary Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis” in this compendium). Thirdly, presidents might wish to avoid foreign policy choices of any kind during election years given the inherent risks involved in these decisions (Quandt 1986 ). Fourth, principal–agent models emphasize asymmetric information and potentially divergent goals between actors. Since the public cannot evaluate the quality of the leader’s decisions directly, it has to rely on another measure, such as policy success or failure, in determining whether the leader is “good” or “bad.” This situation then creates an incentive for leaders who are facing difficult elections to seek “successful” conflicts to mimic “good” leaders or to achieve a dramatic success in an ongoing conflict (Richards et al. 1993 ; Downs and Rocke 1994 ). Fifth, some scholars suggest that leaders become highly responsive during election years and pursue whatever policy the public prefers (peaceful, aggressive, etc.) (Geer 1996 ; Manza et al. 2002 , including especially Shapiro and Jacobs; Canes-Wrone 2006 ). Finally, disputing much of these claims are views that portray elections as having no influence on foreign policy decisions (e.g., Ostrom and Job 1986 ; James and Hristoulas 1994 ; Meernik 1994 ; Gowa 1999 ; DeRouen 2001 ; Fordham 2002 ). To this point, this research focused narrowly on the effect of elections on foreign policy has not been well integrated into the larger literature on the democratic peace.

Comparative Public Opinion and the Comparative Politics Subfield

While research moves apace on each of these questions, a newly burgeoning area has been to examine the questions engaged by the American literature in a comparative context (Gerber and Mendelson 2008 ). These efforts follow earlier calls in the literature to consider the applicability of findings from the American case to other political contexts and to consider how varying institutional and social environments might affect public opinion on foreign policy and its influence (Isernia et al. 2002 ; Foyle 2003 ; Holsti 2004 ). Spurred in part by the explosion of available data on public opinion in non-American contexts, this work has targeted each component of the Almond-Lippmann consensus as well as pushing into new frontiers to consider the influence of institutional context. Given the diversity of political variation even in the advanced industrial world (where the data for all these questions remain most available), further exploration will likely prove to be a useful avenue for exploration.

Examinations of the reasonability and stability of public opinion on foreign policy in other nations suggests results largely consonant with the American case. Several studies have considered public opinion’s attitudes in a number of non-American countries (Nacos et al. 2000 ; Isernia et al. 2002 ; Furia and Lucas 2006 ; Foyle 2007 ; Holsti 2008 ), evaluated the origins and structure of public attitudes (Bjereld and Ekengren 1999 ; Jenkins-Smith et al. 2004 ), and the influence of public opinion (Nacos et al. 2000 ; Gerber and Mendelson 2008 ). Some have begun to consider how institutional and political structures influence the opinion–policy process and have suggested that, as one would expect, there are important differences in how opinion affects policy in non-American cases (e.g., Risse-Kappen 1991 ; Nacos et al. 2000 ; Pickering and Kisangani 2005 ; Chan and Safran 2006 ). Given the promising findings from these comparative examinations, greater extension into new countries should yield exciting insights. As this work moves into non-US contexts, a greater presence from scholars and concepts from the comparative politics subfield will be needed to understand the complexities of public opinion in varying institutional and social contexts.

American Politics Subfield

Just as the field could benefit from better engagement with the comparative politics field, a stronger connection between the International Relations (IR) and American politics subfields would provide a mutual benefit to scholars working in both subfields. Although much of the foundation of the public opinion and foreign policy field emerges from core insights in the American politics subfield, too little cross-fertilization has occurred. Although there are notable exceptions, much of the literature cited in this review is written by scholars who would self-identify themselves as primarily within the IR subfield. In addition, much of the literature cited by these articles also refers predominantly to work written for an international politics audience, with much less engagement with the American politics subfield. Ironically, scholars in both international politics and American politics largely address the same questions, though they engage the topics through a different lens. For IR scholars, public opinion is viewed as a subset of how domestic factors (including, but not limited to, elections, interest groups, the media, governmental processes, and individual decision-making variables) influence a state’s international choices and behavior. American politics scholars view foreign policy as a particular substantive policy area in a much broader literature on public opinion and/or presidency studies. Unfortunately, with rare exceptions, the opportunity for useful cross-fertilization between the international politics scholars focusing on domestic politics and American politics scholars considering public opinion and the presidency has been missed.

Scholars working from the American politics subfield recognize the need for greater integration across these subfields with the recognition that foreign policy, rather than characterizing an exception to the “normal” policy process, progresses much like most domestic issues (Manza et al. 2002 , including especially Shapiro and Jacobs; Druckman and Jacobs 2006 ; Berinsky 2009 ). For IR scholars, conceptions regarding the relationships among elections, agenda setting, legislative–executive relations, and public opinion could inform key questions in the domestic politics literature such as the diversionary use of force, audience costs, and casualty aversion (see Edwards and King 2007 , especially chapters by Jacobson, Jacobs, and Blinder). On public opinion in particular, the edited volume by Manza et al. ( 2002 ) provides a broad range of insightful chapters engaging issues central to this field of study. In addition, a burgeoning literature exists on the origins of presidential polling and what it has to offer regarding leadership motivations to engage or deflect public opinion (Eisinger 2003 ; Heith 2004 ).

Although the IR literature tends to imply a uniform reaction to domestic concerns across leaders, a nuanced literature has developed in studying presidential responsiveness and suggests wide variation both individually and circumstantially. For example, Brandice Canes-Wrone ( 2006 :6–11, 123–8) usefully summarizes the range of perspectives on presidential responsiveness and decision making from American politics, each with potentially useful contributions to existing IR debates, while presenting her theory of conditional presidential responsiveness. She points to several views: (1) dynamic representation (Geer 1996 ; Erikson et al. 2002 ), portraying government leaders as responsive; (2) the need-based popularity perspective, suggesting unpopular presidents seek to align their policies with public opinion when unpopular (Manza et al. 2002 ); (3) a lack of policy responsiveness combined with what might be called public relations efforts (Jacobs and Shapiro 2000 ); (4) systematic reactions to latent public opinion, caring primarily about policy results (Key 1961 ); and (5) the influence of election cycles (Quandt 1986 ). Rather than portraying leaders as uniformly responsive to the same conditions, this research suggests a level of nuance which the existing IR literature would do well to integrate.

Additional Controversies

Several additional lines of research relate to public opinion and foreign policy but do not neatly fit into the central questions guiding this field. Given the diversity in research specialty of the scholars working on these concepts, the degree of integration of the central literature on public opinion and foreign policy into these debates varies considerably.

Rally Effects

The rally effect concept suggests that during times of international crisis or tension an upsurge in popular approval of a nation’s leadership will emerge. Substantive findings on the size of the rally effect vary considerably, as do causal explanations. The literature on this question originates from John Mueller’s definition of the rally as an event that is international, directly involves the president, and is “specific, dramatic, and sharply focused” ( 1973 :209). Four broad explanations have been suggested. First, Mueller ( 1973 ) pointed to an upwelling of patriotism in times of national danger as the motivating factor. Second, in a view seeing the public as reactive to elite messages, some (Brody and Shapiro 1989 ) argue that the silence of opposition elites removes negative news messages regarding the president and causes a positive message bias which then leads to increased public support. Third, crises might create a more generalized positive assessment of all social institutions, including the president (Parker 1995 ). Finally, since rallies must come from opponents shifting to supporters of the president, still other scholars have emphasized the interaction between information and partisanship (Baum 2002 ). Although no consensus exists on the cause of rallies or even that they are real (Baker and Oneal 2001 ; Colaresi 2007 ), the subject continues to draw attention, especially since it relates to important controversies in the field such as the diversionary use of force.

Audience Costs

The audience cost (Fearon 1994 ) concept remains a prominent feature in the international politics literature, yet this literature has failed to engage the main public opinion and foreign policy scholarship (though see Baum 2004 ). The audience costs concept suggests that crises force leaders to take highly visible international positions. If the leader backs down from this position, the public would notice and disapprove of this action, potentially leading to the leader’s removal from power. Given the costly nature domestically of making and then breaking public commitments in these circumstances, signaling by democratic leaders should become more clear and credible, which should allow democracies to achieve more favorable crisis outcomes. The initial insight created a large literature (e.g., Schultz 2001 ; Baum 2004 ; Slantchev 2006 ) and has been extended to non-democratic governments (Weeks 2008 ).

Public Support for the Use of Force and Casualty Aversion

Scholars have devoted considerable effort toward evaluating the factors that influence the public’s approval of the use of force and support for wars (Klarevas 2002 ; Eichenberg 2005 ). How leaders might react to public opinion on the use of force is considered elsewhere in this compendium in the essay on the diversionary theory of war or force. As with previous work in this field, a large portion of this work has focused on the US. Several viewpoints exist. First, some scholars have pointed to whether vital national interests are engaged as an important factor (Kohut and Toth 1995 ). Second, other scholars have concluded that multilateral military operations receive more support than unilateral ones (Kull 2002 ).

Third, Bruce Jentleson ( 1992 ) argued that the military’s mission drives public support, with humanitarian interventions and instances of “foreign policy restraint” (military action against an actor who acted aggressively against American interests) receiving greater public support than interventions in the internal affairs of other countries.

Fourth, still others have emphasized the existence (or lack) of consensus in elite political discourse as cuing public support (or opposition). When consensus reigns, the public supports the intervention. When disagreement emerges, the public divides behind the positions taken by leaders of the political party with which they identify (Larson 1995 ; Powlick and Katz 1998 ).

Fifth, an extensive casualty aversion literature has considered the effect that casualties have on the use of force, with the bulk of the literature suggesting that as casualties go up, support for wars decreases (Mueller 1973 ; Larson 1995 ; Boettcher and Cobb 2006 ) and votes for the leaders in power drop (Karol and Miguel 2007 ).

Finally, still others have suggested that perceptions of whether the use of force is likely to succeed or not has the strongest effect on public support for war (Gelpi et al. 2009 ).

Some have now begun to push beyond the US context and suggest that institutional variation has an important effect on the role that casualties have in affecting public support (Koch and Gartner 2005 ; Gerber and Mendelson 2008 ). Although most scholars in this debate acknowledge that multiple factors determine public support, the most active point of controversy lies between scholars supporting the casualty aversion hypothesis and proponents supporting the success hypothesis.

Demographic Variation

Despite the progress in this field, the influence of demographic characteristics remains an understudied area and has led to calls for greater attention (Berinsky 2009 ). When demographic characteristics have been considered in the past, the research typically concludes that foreign policy attitudes derive from an individual’s ideological and partisan predispositions (Holsti 2004 ). This emphasis has consigned other demographic characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, occupation, economic background, religious beliefs, region, and gender, to a residual category which has received little direct attention. While this inattention is surprising given the emphasis that sociological characteristics have in the American politics subfield on public opinion, political behavior, and voting, nearly every demographic subcategory could use additional attention. Several recent works have provided general demographic analysis regarding foreign policy attitudes (Gartner and Segura 2000 ; Eichenberg 2003 ; Holsti 2004 ; Berinsky 2009 ; Gelpi et al. 2009 ).

Interest Groups and Foreign Policy

The study of interest groups as a domestic source of foreign policy is dominated by two points of emphasis: ethnic groups acting as interest groups and the US case, most often considered together. There are, of course, numerous exceptions to this generalization, but this is one of those instances in which a simple characterization provides a fairly robust foundation for an initial approach to the field of study. Keyword and subject searches of conference paper archives or academic research databases inevitably produce results that are consistent with this generalization. That said, there is at least one significant and substantial area of research – interest groups influencing trade and economic policy – that is clearly relevant to any discussion of interest groups and foreign policy but appears to be largely estranged from most discussions of this topic.

This line of research has a very clear point of origin in Milbrath’s ( 1967 ) “Interest Groups and Foreign Policy” chapter in Rosenau’s edited volume on domestic sources of foreign policy (Rosenau 1967 ). Like most of the other chapters in the Rosenau book, the interest groups chapter is almost entirely devoted to building a foundation for future research by introducing ideas, theories and concepts from other areas of research and discussing how they might be fruitfully applied to the analysis of foreign policy. IR or foreign policy analysis references are almost completely absent from the bibliography of the chapter, but references to the study of communication, Congress, lobbying, and other areas are common.

US Foreign Policy and Ethnic Political Lobbies

While it would be difficult to assert that any study should be considered an iconic or seminal work on the ethnic political lobbies in the US, Foreign Attachments: The Power of Ethnic Groups in the Making of American Foreign Policy (Smith 2000 ) and Ethnic Identity Groups and US Foreign Policy (Ambrosio 2002b ) provide useful entry points, with Ethnic Groups and US Foreign Policy (Ahrari 1987 ) offering a valuable historical window on the earlier research. A comprehensive summary of ethnic political lobbying is provided in a separate compendium essay, “Ethnic Lobbying in Foreign Policy,” but two aspects of the subject need to be noted here as a way of explaining why ethnic lobbies are so prominent in the broader literature on interest groups and foreign policy. The first is the salience of ethnic lobbies in the news media and in the political discourse in the US. The second is the curious puzzle presented by the Cuban lobby’s success in influencing US foreign policy.

Israel and the Jewish lobby (i.e. Mearsheimer and Walt 2007 ) and Cuban American lobby groups (i.e. Haney and Vanderbush 2005 ) are both prominent in the literature. Given the historical importance of these two countries in US foreign affairs, this appears to be wholly unsurprising. However, Cuba presents a puzzle because the lobby group’s rise to prominence and much of its success in influencing US foreign policy is recent. The Cuba lobby group really didn’t come into existence until 1980 (Haney and Vanderbush 2005 ) and explaining how this ethnic group has continued to succeed in not just sustaining, but in many ways strengthening the US embargo in spite of the near disappearance of Cuba as a focus of US foreign policy, offers an opportunity to analytically and conceptually separate the mechanisms of domestic political influence from other influences on foreign policy. The success and ongoing effectiveness of the Cuba lobby cannot be explained in terms of high politics or external dynamics such as systemic, strategic, or economic imperatives. It can only be explained in terms of the efforts of the ethnic lobby and domestic political sources of foreign policy. Thus US policy toward Cuba presents a critical case. The isolation of the domestic factors in the case means that any theory, model, or explanation for the dynamics of interest group influence upon foreign policy must be able to account for the Cuba case and any argument against domestic influences upon foreign policy must offer a plausible alternative explanation for this case.

Congress and US Foreign Policy

Unsurprisingly, with ethnic lobbies of the US government as the most common subject of analysis in the study of interest groups and foreign policy, the literature on US congressional politics is usually the predominant theoretical foundation for analysis. Many of the recent studies engage the concept of entrepreneurship (i.e. Carter and Scott 2004 ) and use ethnic foreign policy lobbies to examine the ability or the mechanisms that Congress can utilize to drive the foreign policy agenda independent of, or contrary to, the leadership of the executive branch. This is a point that is particularly salient in the recent examinations of Cuba, but more generally, the dynamic of congressional entrepreneurship increases the “permeability” (Rubenzer 2008 ) of US foreign policy to interest groups. In terms of domestic sources of foreign policy, the US Congress is clearly more than simply a conduit for interest group access. In fact, in many ways it should be considered independently as a domestic source of foreign policy (see the overview offered by Ripley and Lindsay 1993 ). For the most part, examinations of theory, practice, process, and outcome of congressional involvement in US foreign policy, including the ethnic lobby literature, share a largely uncontested theoretical and conceptual core defined by the constitutional legacy of a division of powers between the executive and legislative branches of the US government. For a researcher unfamiliar with this area, a well balanced description of this conceptual core is provided by Carter and Scott ( 2004 ).

The recent research on congressional involvement in US foreign policy can be characterized as a debate over different aspects of the relative balance between the presidency and the legislative branch (Warburg 1989 ; Hersman 2000 ; Scott and Carter 2002 ). Consistent across nearly all of the research is the agreement that an era of presidential dominance in US foreign policy that could be largely attributed to the international political necessities of World War II and the Cold War was brought to an end by the Vietnam War. In the wake of Vietnam, the White House was subject to increasing congressional scrutiny, significant challenges to executive leadership in foreign policy, and far greater congressional assertiveness (Carter and Scott 2004 ). The resulting balance between Congress and the President, the trends in that balance, and questions of which branch does or should lead foreign policy are points that remain contested.

Interest Groups and Trade Policy

One of the more unusual aspects of the domestic sources of foreign policy literature has to be the estrangement of the study of interest groups as a domestic source of foreign policy from the literature on interest groups and trade policy formation. The division between these literatures is most obvious in the bibliographies of the works, where there is little if any overlap of references between the two avenues of research. However, it doesn’t take much of an examination of one of the more recent and more prominent works on interest groups and trade policy (Grossman and Helpman 2002 ) to understand why. Unlike the process and structural focus of the interest groups and foreign policy literature, the core of the trade policy research is built upon an economics and econometric approach to theory and research. Grossman and Helpman ( 2002 ) provide a key text for engaging this field, but even for a scholar with a reasonably extensive background in formal models and econometric analyses this literature presents a challenge.

The theoretical concepts in this economics-based literature on interest groups and trade policy are similar to the game theoretic, spatial approach to international negotiations which, ironically enough for the points made above, originates in the study of Congress (Weingast 1979 ) and is refined or adapted for the study of foreign policy and international negotiations by Hinich and Munger ( 1997 ), Bueno de Mesquita ( 1997 ), Kugler and Feng ( 1997 ), and several others. At the risk of grossly oversimplifying, the general idea pursued by both is to identify “win-sets” or ranges of possible equilibriums defined by overlapping, usually curvilinear, indifference curves. Both involve formal representations of the utilities derived from multilevel games, and actors are usually engaged in multiple, simultaneous interactions. Communication flows, particularly in terms of informational asymmetries, are theoretically significant in both. However, unlike international negotiations where “win sets” need to include all of a small number of actors, the “win sets” in the interest groups and trade studies involve a large number of actors and must be directly integrated with formal models for building winning legislative coalitions.

Media as a Domestic Source of Foreign Policy

As a preface to this brief discussion of media as a domestic source of foreign policy, it is critical to emphasize the word “domestic.” The role of media and communication in international relations figures large in this compendium, and there is an entire essay dedicated to “Foreign Policy and Communication.” This is a brief summary of the elements of that literature that are particularly relevant to a domestic sources of foreign policy perspective.

The Rosenau edited volume on domestic sources of foreign policy ( 1967 ) includes a chapter on mass communication (Cohen 1967 ), but very idea of a point of origin for media as a domestic source of foreign policy is probably inappropriate. Instead a planetary nebula image, or some other analogy that captures the idea of disparate elements coalescing into something almost definable is probably a better way to approach the subject. The process of coalescing into something coherent began somewhere in the mid-1980s, but most of what is now referenced as the more relevant research was included as part of broader works on media’s role in politics, such as Bennett’s News: The Politics of Illusion ( 1983 ). There were several studies specific to foreign policy, such as Cutler’s “Foreign Policy on Deadline” ( 1984 ) and Hallin’s The “Uncensored War” ( 1986 ). It is difficult to say when exactly these elements began to coalesce, but Serfaty ( 1991 ) published an edited volume on the news media in foreign policy in 1991 . In 1993 , what was probably the first, media-centered generalized model of foreign policy decision making was published (Van Belle 1993 ) and by the time the Bennett and Paletz edited volume Taken By Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and US Foreign Policy in the Gulf War was published ( 1994 ), media as part of the domestic side of the foreign policy decision-making process had clearly become something identifiable in the broader literature.

Part of the timing of this coalescence can be attributed to the methodological challenge of engaging the content of the media. When Cohen contributed his chapter to Rosenau’s 1967 edited volume, the content analysis tools to integrate media coverage into the study of foreign policy decision making simply did not exist. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that advances in coding methodologies could be combined with technological advances that made the computing resources for data management and analysis capable of dealing with the huge volumes of media content necessary for empirical study. However, the role of the media in Vietnam, the Sahal drought and the Somalia famine also could be cited as an influence pushing media into the forefront of public debates on world politics and foreign policy, and as such these events are probably just as relevant to the timing of the coalescence.

As should be obvious by the number of essays in the compendium devoted to international communication, media influence IR and foreign policy in a wide variety of ways, culture, surveillance, privacy, commerce, and diplomacy, it can be difficult to find an aspect of international politics where media are not considered a part of modern international politics. Out of all this, two aspects of media are specifically relevant to media and domestic sources of foreign policy. The first is the way the media serve as an arena of domestic political competition within democracies, and the second is the communicative role that media play in the formation of public opinions that are specific to and critical to foreign policy decision making. These two elements do not seem to be separable as all models appear to represent or assume an interactive relationship between democratic political competition and public opinion.

Media as an Arena of Domestic Political Competition

The domestic political imperatives mode of foreign policy decision making (Van Belle 1993 ) explicitly represents the domestic news media as an arena of domestic political competition and argues that they are the defining element of modern democratic foreign policy. It attempts to integrate concepts such as the rally-round-the-flag effect, media, and salience as an indicator of domestic political risks, costs and benefits into a stepwise mode of an iterated foreign policy decision process. The key argument is that the costs, risks and rewards for the foreign policy decision maker arise primarily out of the media-dominated domestic political arena, and the potential outcome of the policy is only relevant in the way it influences the domestic support for the leadership. This provides an explanation for why policies with almost no chance of resolving an international conflict, such as economic sanctions, are so often chosen. Those hopeless actions provide a beneficial image of action on a salient issue but their failure poses little if any risk to the leader’s domestic political support (Van Belle 1993 ).

Two notable lines of research have followed directly from this model. One adds an agency theory perspective to extend the media and domestic imperatives model to bureaucratic foreign policy (described below); the other has used the model to explore the role of the media in dehumanization as a key element in the foreign policy decision making related to violent international conflict.

Press Freedom, Dehumanization, and Getting to War

Ben Hunt ( 1997 ) argued that dehumanization of the enemy in the eyes of the domestic populace is a necessary condition that must be established before a leader can choose to go to war, and he also argued that the mass media was the primary means by which this dehumanization is accomplished. A parallel argument was developed from the domestic imperatives model but with a focus on the democratic peace (Van Belle 1997 ), arguing that press freedom, when it exists in two opposing countries, plays a key role in preventing the use of the mass media to dehumanize an opponent. As a result, shared press freedom prevents either leader from inflicting casualties upon an opponent. Hunt’s analysis examines the content of domestic media in the lead-up to wars and finds clear evidence of dehumanization, and Van Belle ’s analysis clearly demonstrates the precise pattern of behavior expected if the dehumanization as a necessary condition argument is correct and if the interdomestic communication enabled by shared press freedom prevents dehumanization. The series of studies that follow from the Van Belle ( 1997 ) study integrates these two lines of thought and shows that beyond just preventing war between liberal polities, shared press freedom is associated with a complete absence of lethal conflicts (Van Belle 2000 ).

A second wave of studies are just now appearing as variations on the dehumanization arguments and the role of media across the domestic/international divide, and are being applied to other issue areas, such as human rights (Whitten-Woodring 2009 ), but perhaps more interesting in terms of a summary of the broader field of media as a domestic source of foreign policy is the way this line of studies fits as one of many approaches to the concept of transparency in foreign policy decision making.

Transparency

In terms of media as a domestic aspect of foreign policy decision making, the concept of transparency is applied in two ways. First, there is a permeability of the state to external sources of information, which is how the press freedom arguments utilize the concept. The second is about internal transparency, which refers to the openness of a state’s government to media scrutiny. An edited volume on the subject (Lord and Finel 2000 ) provides a valuable entry point into this eclectic literature. In the years since 2000 , technology has grown to become an even more prominent issue.

The CNN Effect

Some readers might be surprised that the CNN effect is not the most prominent aspect of a summary of the news media as a domestic influence upon foreign policy decision making. However, most scholars studying media and foreign policy approach the CNN effect with extreme caution and discussing the reasons for that caution is probably the best way to present it here. Several comprehensive summaries of the literature are available (see Gilboa 2005 ) and need not be replicated here.

From the moment the term was coined, the CNN effect was immediately presumed to have suddenly altered the very nature of foreign policy (Kennan 1993 ; Mathews 1994 ) and global politics. From that starting point, the scientific and academic study of the possibility of a CNN effect was put in an unusual position. Instead of beginning with an idea and slowly building the evidence needed to convince skeptics, academic researchers were presented with the equivalent of a scientific fait accompli and the result was a debate that skipped right past any concerted effort to rigorously explore a proposed relationship and launched directly into debates about how the new media-driven foreign policy environment might usurp democracy, or prevent carefully considered policy choice.

However, even in the cases that might be offered as the most obvious examples, such as Somalia, the claim that leaders had lost control of policy to the whims of media coverage was immediately shown to be dubious (e.g., Livingston and Eachus 1995 ). More generally, even when the narrowest definition of the CNN effect was employed, the degree to which news coverage actually drove Western states to intervene in complex humanitarian emergencies was unclear, and almost certainly overstated (Jakobsen 1996 ; 2000 ; Natsios 1996 ; Strobel 1997 ). At the extreme, the CNN effect has been argued to be limited to the period of policy uncertainty between the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 attacks (Robinson 2005 ), or even an illusion created by a few high-profile cases (Natsios 1996 ; Van Belle 2009 ).

Bureaucratic Responsiveness to the Media

News media coverage and the international response to disasters is an area related to the CNN effect that is likely to expand in both scope and attention in the near future. While the salience of recent disasters such as the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina are part of the reason for a spike in scholarly attention, the fact that disaster assistance provides a window into the theoretical foundations of the bureaucratic aspects of foreign policy decision making is probably more important than the specific subject of study. This collection of studies combines an agency theory approach to understanding democratic bureaucracies (e.g., Wood and Waterman 1991 ) with the media’s role in domestically driven foreign policy (Van Belle 1993 ). The result is a model that expects foreign policy bureaucracies to try to avoid political punishment by staying in step with public demands for their actions or services. Taking their cues from elected officials, the bureaucrats use domestic news media salience to monitor public demand and respond to it accordingly. The effect is particularly clear in the bureaucratically dominated foreign aid decision (Van Belle et al. 2004 ).

Public Diplomacy

Public diplomacy is largely an applied field, and it largely studies the practice of intentionally using media to influence the domestic public opinion of other nations. From an academic perspective it is particularly interesting in the way it turns the question of media as a domestic source of foreign policy upon its head. Instead of media acting as a connection between the public and the government, or as a proxy measure for domestic public opinion, the media are treated as a tool for influencing publics. This can range from marketing style media and advertising campaigns to alter one public’s image of another country, to the propaganda of the Nazis.

For academics, the prominence of government public diplomacy programs can make it difficult to sort through to the underlying ideas, and the best resource for engaging or exploring the academic side of this literature is probably the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy. It maintains a substantial collection of web-based resources for engaging the extensive literature, including an archive of book reviews. A few of the most recent books that are particularly relevant to the academic include Cull’s ( 2008 ) book on the US Information Agency, Seib’s ( 2008 ) book on Al Jazeera , and the book by Bennett et al. ( 2007 ) on when the media fails to move governments and leaders. However, like the other works mentioned above, these are just entry points for a vast body of research.

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Links to Digital Materials

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. At http://people-press.org/ , accessed Jul. 2009. An independent, nonpartisan public opinion research organization, based in Washington, DC. Among its other activities in the US, the Center periodically fields major surveys on the news media, social issues, and international affairs.

German Marshall Fund of the United States. At www.gmfus.org/template/index.cfm , accessed Jul. 2009. A nonpartisan American public policy and grant-making institution which supports individuals and institutions working on transatlantic issues, convening leaders to discuss the most pressing transatlantic themes, and examining ways in which transatlantic cooperation can address a variety of global policy challenges. It mounts an extensive annual survey regarding foreign policy attitudes in Europe and the United States.

Program on International Policy Attitudes. At http://pipa.org/ , accessed Jul. 2009. Established in 1992 at the University of Maryland, PIPA publishes a wide range of surveys regarding foreign policy attitides from around the world in both developed and developing countries.

Roper Center Public Opinion Archives. At www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/ , accessed Jul. 2009. The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut holds a major archive of surveys of public opinion. The collection includes over 17,000 datasets and ranges from the 1930s to the present. Most of the data are from the US, but over 50 nations are represented.

Chicago Council on Global Affairs. At www.ccfr.org/ , accessed Jul. 2009. Founded in 1922 as the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, the Council acts as a forum for the discussion of world affairs and US foreign policy. Every 2 years it undertakes a large-scale public opinion study that compares American public opinion with elite opinion across a range of foreign policy issues.

Eurobarometer. At http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm , accessed Jul. 2009. The website of the Public Opinion Analysis sector of the European Commission gives access to Eurobarometer surveys on a great variety of Europe-wide issues, including climate change, the economy, and defense.

Afrobarometer. At www.afrobarometer.org/index.html , accessed Jul. 2009. An independent, nonpartisan research project that measures the social, political, and economic atmosphere in Africa. Afrobarometer surveys are conducted in more than a dozen African countries and are repeated on a regular cycle. They ask a standard set of questions so that countries can be systematically compared.

Americasbarometer. At http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/lapop , accessed Jul. 2009. The AmericasBarometer is one of the activities of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) hosted at Vanderbilt University. It measures democratic values and behaviors in the Americas using national probability samples of voting-age adults. The latest round of surveys, in 2008, included 23 countries throughout the Americas.

Asia Barometer. At www.asianbarometer.org/ , accessed Jul. 2009. This regional survey network encompasses research teams from 13 East Asian political systems (Japan, Mongolia, South Koreas, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia) and five South Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal). The teams share a common framework and methodology to ensure that the data are reliable and comparable on the issues of citizens’ attitudes and values toward politics, power, reform, and democracy in Asia.

Douglas Foyle composed the section on public opinion and foreign policy; Douglas Van Belle composed the section on interest groups and foreign policy and the section on the media as a domestic source of foreign policy.

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Table of Contents

• 1. Views of the major problems facing the country
• 2. Views of government and the nation
• 3. Views of the economic system and social safety net
• 4. Views on race and immigration
• 5. Gender, family and marriage, same-sex marriage and religion
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Most Americans have doubts about the fairness of the federal tax system. About six-in-ten (62%) describe the current tax system as either not too fair (39%) or not at all fair (23%). About a third describe the system as moderately fair (35%) and just 2% say it is very fair.

Overall views of the tax system are similar across levels of family income. There are much larger differences by party: Democrats are broadly critical of the fairness of the tax system, while Republicans hold more mixed views. About half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (48%) say the tax system is either moderately or very fair, while about as many (51%) say it is not too fair or not at all fair. By contrast, 71% of Democrats and Democratic leaners describe the federal tax system as not too fair or not at all fair; just 29% of Democrats say the system is at least moderately fair.

When asked to consider their own tax burden, 51% of adults say they pay more than their fair share in taxes, considering what they get from the federal government. Fewer adults (40%) say they pay about the right amount; just 8% say they pay less than their fair share in taxes.

While Republicans have more positive views of the federal tax system than Democrats, they are more critical of their own tax burden. A majority of Republicans (56%) say they pay more than their fair share in taxes, compared with 38% who say they pay about the right amount. Democrats are more evenly divided: 46% say they pay more than their fair share, while 43% say they pay about the right amount.

Adults with family incomes below $30,000 a year are less critical of their own tax burden than those with higher incomes. Among those with incomes of less than $30,000 a year, 40% say they pay more than their fair share; about half or more in higher income categories say the same.

Higher-income Republicans are much more likely than lower-income Republicans to say they pay more than their fair share in taxes, considering what they get from the federal government. There are smaller differences in views among Democrats across income levels.

As a result, partisan differences in views of personal tax burdens are much larger among higher earners than lower earners. For instance, 67% of Republicans with family incomes of at least $100,000 a year say they pay more than their fair share in taxes, compared with fewer than half of Democrats (45%) in the same income range. This pattern is also seen among those with incomes of $75,000 to $99,999 a year.

By contrast, there is no partisan gap among those earning less than $75,000 a year. Similarly, 41% of both Republicans and Democrats with family incomes of less than $30,000 a year say they pay more than their fair share in taxes.

Views of tax rates for high earners and corporations

Overall, 58% of the public says that tax rates on household income of more than $250,000 should be raised either a lot (22%) or a little (36%). About two-in-ten (22%) think tax rates on income over $250,000 should be kept the same as they are now, while just 16% think rates should be lowered either a lot or a little.

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to favor raising tax rates on household income over $250,000. Seven-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners (71%) say these rates should be raised, including 31% who say they should be raised by a lot.

Views among Republicans and Republican leaners are more mixed: 44% say taxes on income over $250,000 per year should be increased, while 31% say they should be kept the same and 21% say they should be lowered.

Republicans with family incomes of at least $100,000 a year are about as likely to say tax rates on household income over $250,000 should be lowered (34%) as raised (30%). Among Republicans with lower family incomes, by contrast, there is more support for raising than lowering tax rates on high incomes. For instance, 54% of Republicans with family incomes of less than $30,000 think tax rates on household income over $250,000 should be raised, while just 16% think these rates should be lowered.

Majorities of Democrats at all income levels favor an increase in tax rates for household income above $250,000, though Democrats with incomes of less than $30,000 show somewhat less support for this policy (58% say these tax rates should be raised) than those with higher incomes (more than 70% say they should be raised).

The public also broadly supports raising taxes on large businesses and corporations. About two-thirds (68%) say tax rates on large businesses and corporations should be increased either a lot (42%) or a little (27%). Relatively few think corporate taxes should be lowered (11%); 16% say they should be kept the same as they are now.

A wide majority of Democrats (84%) say corporate taxes should be raised either a lot (59%) or a little (25%). Most Democrats across income levels hold this view, though those with the lowest family incomes (less than $30,000) are somewhat less supportive of this than those with higher incomes.

Republicans are divided: 50% support higher taxes on businesses and corporations, while 26% favor rates staying the same and 19% say they should be lowered.

Among Republicans, those with the highest family incomes are the least supportive of raising corporate taxes: 39% of those with incomes of $100,000 a year or more support increasing taxes for large businesses and corporations, compared with about half or more of those with lower incomes.

Public sees decline in unions as bad for the country

Over the past several decades, there has been a large reduction in the percentage of workers who are represented by unions. A majority of Americans (57%) say this change has been bad for the country, while about four-in-ten (41%) say it has been good.

Partisans strongly disagree over whether the decline of organized labor has been good or bad. About six-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (61%) say this change has been good for the country. By contrast, almost three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic leaners (74%) say the change has been bad. This divide is consistent with other recent Pew Research Center surveys showing that Democrats are much more likely to view labor unions positively than Republicans.

Ideological divides in views of organized labor exist within both parties. Among Republicans, 69% of conservatives say that the reduction in union representation has been good for the country. Moderate and liberal Republicans are more evenly divided: 50% say the decline has been good for the country, while 48% say it has been bad for the country.

Among Democrats, a large majority of liberals (81%) say the reduction in the share of workers represented by unions has been bad for the country; a somewhat smaller majority of conservative and moderate Democrats (68%) says the same.

In general, Republicans who are older, are wealthier and have higher levels of education are more likely to say that the decline in union representation has been good for the country than Republicans who are younger, less wealthy and have less education.

Nearly three-quarters of Republicans and Republican leaners ages 65 and older (73%) say the decline in organized labor has been good for the country. Smaller shares of Republicans ages 50 to 64 (60%), 30 to 49 (58%) and 18 to 29 (50%) hold this view.

The share of Republicans who say the reduction in union membership has been good for the country increases with income and educational attainment. A narrow majority of Republicans who have a high school diploma or less education (55%) say the decline in unions has benefited the country. Larger majorities of those with more education say the same. Similarly, Republicans with family incomes of $100,000 (73%) are more likely than those with incomes of less than $30,000 (52%) to view the decline of unions positively.

Democrats’ views about labor unions vary only slightly across age groups and levels of education and income. Majorities of all groups say the decline in unions has been bad for the country.

Views of stricter environmental laws, climate change

On environmental issues, 65% of adults say that stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost, compared with 33% who say they cost too many jobs and hurt the economy.

A large majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners (85%) say stricter environmental laws are worth the cost, including 92% of liberal Democrats and 79% of conservative and moderate Democrats.

Republicans and Republican leaners are more likely to say stricter environmental laws cost jobs and hurt the economy (55%) than that they are worth the cost (43%). However, there is a wide divide in views among Republicans by ideology. Two-thirds of conservative Republicans (who make up about two-thirds of Republicans and Republican leaners) say stricter environmental laws hurt the economy. Views among moderate and liberal Republicans are nearly the reverse: 60% say stricter environmental laws are worth the cost.

Majorities across age groups and levels of educational attainment say stricter environmental laws are worth the cost. Adults younger than 30 (74%) and those with a postgraduate degree (76%) are among the most likely to say this.

As other surveys have found , there also continue to be wide partisan differences in opinions about climate change. Among the public overall, 52% say the Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity, while 17% say it is getting warmer mostly due to natural patterns in the environment. About two-in-ten (21%) say there is no solid evidence that the Earth is getting warmer, and 9% say they are not sure.

More than three-quarters of Democrats (77%) say the Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity, including 87% of liberals and 68% of conservatives and moderates.

Republicans are divided in their views. Overall, 45% think the Earth is getting warmer, but this group is split between those who think this is due mostly to human activity (23% of all Republicans) and those who say it is mostly because of natural patterns (22%).

About four-in-ten Republicans (37%) say there is no solid evidence that the Earth is getting warmer, while 18% say they are not sure. This is much higher than the 2% of Democrats who express uncertainty about this.

Conservative Republicans (43%) are more likely than moderate and liberal Republicans (28%) to say there is no solid evidence the Earth is getting warmer.

Among the public, majorities of those with a four-year college degree or more education and those under the age of 50 say the Earth’s temperature is getting warmer because of human activity. Smaller shares of older adults and those with lower levels of education hold this view.

Majority of Americans say government has responsibility to ensure health coverage

A majority of the public (59%) says that the federal government has a responsibility to make sure that all Americans have health care coverage, while 41% say this is not the government’s responsibility.

However, most of those who say the government does not have a responsibility to provide health coverage nonetheless favor continuing programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Roughly a third of the public (35%) holds this view. Just 6% say the government should not be involved in providing health insurance at all.

Among those who say it is the government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage, there are differences over how to achieve this goal.

Overall, 30% of adults say government is responsible for ensuring that all Americans have health care coverage and that health insurance should be provided through a single national health insurance system run by the government. A similar share of the public (28%) thinks health care for all Americans is a government responsibility but supports providing health insurance through a mix of private companies and government programs.

Seven-in-ten Republicans and Republican leaners say it is not the government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health insurance. Among Republicans, conservatives (81%) are much more likely than moderates and liberals (53%) to take this view. Still, just 12% of conservative Republicans say the government should not be involved in health care at all.

Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, 83% say it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that all Americans have health care coverage, including 90% of liberals and 78% of conservatives and moderates.

While a large majority of Democrats believe that the federal government has a responsibility to guarantee access to health insurance, Democrats are divided over how government should meet this aim.

Among Democrats, 44% prefer that health insurance be provided through a single national system run by the government, while 38% prefer a mix of private insurance companies and government programs.

A majority of Democrats ages 65 and older (56%) prefer a mix of government and private insurance, compared with only 27% of those ages 18 to 29. Half of this younger group (50%) says there should be a single national government program. White Democrats (48%) are somewhat more likely to prefer a single government program than black (33%) or Hispanic (40%) Democrats.

There also is a clear ideological divide on this question among Democrats. A majority of liberal Democrats (55%) prefer a single national health insurance program run by the government, compared with 34% who prefer a mix of private and government programs.

Conservative and moderate Democrats are more evenly divided, with 35% favoring a single national program and 42% favoring a mix of programs.

Ideological differences within GOP on gun policy

Six-in-ten Americans say that gun laws should be more strict than they are today, while just 11% say gun laws should be less strict; 28% say current gun laws are about right.

Democrats and Democratic leaners overwhelmingly support stricter gun laws, with 86% saying this. By comparison, Republicans are more divided. About half of Republicans and Republican leaners (49%) say that current gun laws are about right. Three-in-ten Republicans say that gun laws should be more strict, and two-in-ten say they should be less strict.

About half of conservative Republicans say gun laws today are about right, while 22% say they should be more strict and a similar share (25%) say they should be less strict. By comparison, 44% of moderate and liberal Republicans (who make up about one-third of Republicans and Republican leaners) say that gun laws should be stricter, while roughly as many say they are about right (42%); 13% say they should be less strict. There are only modest ideological differences among Democrats on this issue, with 81% of conservative and moderate Democrats and 90% of liberal Democrats saying gun laws should be stricter than they are today.

(For more on views about gun policy, see the October 2019 post “ Share of Americans who favor stricter gun laws has increased since 2017 .” )

Long-term opinion trends about stricter environmental regulation

In recent years, Pew Research Center has transitioned from probability-based telephone surveys to the American Trends Panel , a probability-based online panel. The transition from phone surveys conducted with an interviewer to online self-administered surveys brings with it the possibility of mode differences – differences arising from the method of interviewing.

This section includes a question about whether stricter environmental laws and regulations “cost too many jobs and hurt the economy” or “are worth the cost.” This question has been asked on the Center’s telephone surveys beginning in 1994 and was included both on a survey conducted in September on the American Trends Panel (ATP), on which this report is largely based, and a contemporaneous telephone survey.

In the online survey, 65% say stricter environmental regulations are worth the cost, while 33% say they cost too many jobs and hurt the economy. Views in the phone survey are similar (61% vs. 35%).

The wide partisan gap on this question is also roughly the same online (42 percentage point gap in the share saying stricter regulations are worth the cost) as they are in the phone survey (40-point gap).

The telephone trend shows that although the partisan divide on these views is little changed over the past five years, it has grown substantially since the question was first asked in 1994. Throughout most of the 1990s and 2000s, Republicans and Republican leaners were more likely to say regulations were worth the cost than to say they cost too many jobs and hurt the economy, but since 2011 the balance of opinion within the GOP coalition has shifted. At the same time, the trend of opinion among Democrats and Democratic leaners has moved in the opposite direction: While the view that stricter environmental regulations are worth the cost has consistently been held by a majority of Democrats, the size of that majority has grown.

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Domestic Institutions and the Political Economy of International Agreements: A Survey and Hypotheses

• First Online: 26 September 2021

Cite this chapter

• Florian Kiesow Cortez 8  

Part of the book series: International Law and Economics ((ILEC))

Constitutional rules according to which political power is acquired and exercised have a systematic influence on the nature of the political game and thus on policy outcomes. The present paper explores whether systematic differences in foreign policy decisions follow from the different political accountability dynamics connected to alternative constitutional arrangements. The following hypotheses linking domestic institutions to foreign policy choices are proposed. First, the number of institutional and partisan veto players is likely to affect the incentives of governments to use international agreements as a signaling device to lend credibility to domestic reforms, but also as a tool to lock in these reforms. Second, electoral systems were found to influence the political decision to provide either public goods or benefits targeted at narrow groups. Politicians might find it useful to tie their hands through international agreements to thwart electoral pressures to please narrow groups. In brief, the focus lies on domestic political economy factors motivating governments to make use of international agreements.

An earlier version was published as:

Kiesow Cortez, F. (2012). Domestic Institutions and the Political Economy of International Agreements. In: J. Bełdowski, K. Metelska-Szaniawska, and L. Visscher (eds.) Polish Yearbook of Law & Economics (pp.133–59). Warsaw: C.H. Beck.

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Compare, for example, Moravcsik ( 1997 ), Snidal and Thompson ( 2003 ), Mansfield and Pevehouse ( 2008b ), Johns and Rosendorff ( 2009 ).

Putting emphasis on domestic considerations in explaining foreign policy does not imply that strategic considerations in response to external pressures have no role to play. Nevertheless, domestic political constraints for foreign policy choices are generally not sufficiently appreciated.

Before Kant, a more traditional view, manifested in the writings of the Greek historian Thucydides (400 B.C./ 1951 : 2.25.70), was skeptical of the idea that democracies, the “inconstant commons”, cooperate more. The reverse should be true, based on the understanding that democratic governments must be more volatile and unreliable.

After Kant, several sophisticated explanations for the existence of a democratic peace were suggested. It could be the result of shared norms (Maoz & Russett, 1993 ), credible signals due to transparency (Schultz, 1998 ), greater probability of stable bargaining outcomes (Lipson, 2003 ), democratic audience costs (Tomz, 2007 ; Fearon, 1994 ), or restraint on government (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 1999 ), among other explanations.

Compare Bättig and Bernauer ( 2009 ).

Of course, the contradictory results arise partly due to disagreements about the appropriate empirical strategies to be pursued. No consensus exists about which theoretical mechanisms bring about cooperation, which makes disagreement about appropriate research designs likely.

See, for example, Rogowski ( 1999 ).

See Goldsmith and Posner ( 2006 ).

On the other hand, it might be argued that international law symbolizes shared principles on the international plane that can have an aspirational character. From this point of view, international law is not expected to have immediate effects, but embodies principles that might be respected at some future point as states gradually adapt their behavior.

See Keohane ( 1982 ) and Abbott and Snidal ( 1998 ).

See Voigt and Salzberger ( 2002 ).

Leeds et al. ( 2009 ) find quantitative evidence for this claim in an empirical analysis of premature alliance termination: leadership change increases the probability of premature alliance termination only for non-democracies.

Weeks ( 2008 ) questions the hypothesis that audience costs are generally more pervasive in democracies as compared to non-democracies. She argues that dictators also have the ability to generate audience costs, as long as there is a domestic elite that can coordinate to impose costs on the leadership in case it backs down from its foreign policy announcements.

It was also noted that domestic constraints can be exploited by the executive to enhance her bargaining position at the international table. This notion is known as the Schelling conjecture: it postulates that the state representative at an international negotiation can point to a hawkish legislature back home to extract concessions from the other country (Schelling, 1960 ; Putnam, 1988 ).

Dreher et al. ( 2015 ) discuss possible costs of international agreement violation. First, formal and informal sanctions by other members to the agreement could be applied, including the freezing of aid, the refusal to cooperate on trade in the future, or an economic embargo. Second, non-compliance could be disapproved domestically by voters, interest groups, and the press, especially if they fear the country’s international reputation will suffer. Finally, international commitments cannot be modified easily when a country changes its mind about the original terms because all the other participating countries would need to agree to the changes.

In a recent contribution Simmons and Danner ( 2010 ) employ credible commitment theory to explain the decision of states to join the International Criminal Court.

Snidal and Thompson ( 2003 ), Drezner ( 2003 ), and Fang and Owen ( 2011 ) make similar points.

See Tsebelis ( 2002 ).

Keefer and Stasavage ( 2003 ) distinguish between policy stability and policy credibility. They argue that these are different concepts. Policy stability is high when, given the institutional arrangements, the set of policies that are preferred by politicians over the status quo is small. Policy credibility refers to the probability that politicians opportunistically break earlier promises when they observe that private agents believed in the promises and adjusted their behavior accordingly. Here it is recognized that policy stability and policy credibility are distinct concepts, but it is argued that policy credibility is more likely to be achieved when policy stability is high.

Focusing on macroeconomic policy, Persson and Svensson ( 1989 ) and Alesina and Tabellini ( 1990 ) are early political economy contributions developing the idea that governments have incentives to take action to constrain their successor’s range of options.

The accounts by Battaglini and Harstad ( 2020 ) and Betz ( 2020 ) raise questions for the argument that politicians would join IAs to constrain political adversaries that might succeed them in power. These articles argue that locking in a policy undermines a party’s ability to distinguish itself from rival parties in future elections and to leverage differences to rivals for political gain.

See the literature discussing the possibility of international trade agreements serving as commitment devices, e.g. Staiger and Tabellini ( 1987 ), Maggi and Rodríguez-Clare ( 1998 , 2007 ), Mitra ( 2002 ), Liu and Ornelas ( 2014 ), and Grossman ( 2016 ).

See Helpman and Persson ( 1998 ).

Nevertheless, sometimes it makes sense to distinguish all three aspects, because there are also several examples of mixed systems and it could be the case that the different aspects are associated with different hypotheses and could have different effects.

Weingast et al. ( 1981 : 643).

This means that project costs exceed project benefits.

Pork barrel spending refers to government expenditures that are financed by broad-based taxation but provide benefits limited to specific geographic constituencies.

See also Strömberg ( 2008 ) for a model of the U.S. electoral college system that predicts strategic candidate attention to decisive districts, a prediction corroborated by data on the U.S. presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004.

Compare, for example, Goldstein ( 1996 ).

See the literature dealing with the drivers of compliance with international agreements (e.g. Simmons, 1998 ; Downs et al., 1996 ; von Stein, 2012 ). Martin ( 2012 ) offers a critical view of how compliance is conceptualized in the literature.

See Martin ( 2000 ).

See Henisz ( 2004 ).

In legal systems of the monist type international obligations become automatically legally binding domestically (Aust, 2013 ).

Compare Trachtman ( 2010 ).

Duverger ( 1954 ) discusses the link between electoral system and the number of parties.

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Kiesow Cortez, F. (2021). Domestic Institutions and the Political Economy of International Agreements: A Survey and Hypotheses. In: Kiesow Cortez, F. (eds) The Political Economy of International Agreements. International Law and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85194-1_2

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Domestic violence against women in India: A systematic review of a decade of quantitative studies

Ameeta kalokhe.

a Division of Infectious Diseases, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA

b Hubert Department of Global Health, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Atlanta, GA, USA

Carlos del Rio

Kristin dunkle.

c Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Atlanta, GA, USA

Rob Stephenson

d Center for Sexuality and Health Disparities, University of Michigan School of Public Health and School of Nursing, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Nicholas Metheny

Anuradha paranjape.

e General Internal Medicine, Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Seema Sahay

f Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, National AIDS Research Institute, Pune, India

Associated Data

Domestic violence (DV) is prevalent among women in India and has been associated with poor mental and physical health. We performed a systematic review of 137 quantitative studies published in the prior decade that directly evaluated the DV experiences of Indian women to summarise the breadth of recent work and identify gaps in the literature. Among studies surveying at least two forms of abuse, a median 41% of women reported experiencing DV during their lifetime and 30% in the past year. We noted substantial inter-study variance in DV prevalence estimates, attributable in part to different study populations and settings, but also to a lack of standardisation, validation, and cultural adaptation of DV survey instruments. There was paucity of studies evaluating the DV experiences of women over age 50, residing in live-in relationships, same-sex relationships, tribal villages, and of women from the northern regions of India. Additionally, our review highlighted a gap in research evaluating the impact of DV on physical health. We conclude with a research agenda calling for additional qualitative and longitudinal quantitative studies to explore the DV correlates proposed by this quantitative literature to inform the development of a culturally tailored DV scale and prevention strategies.

Introduction

Domestic violence (DV), defined by the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 as physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, and economic abuse against women by a partner or family member residing in a joint family, plagues the lives of many women in India. National statistics that utilise a modified version of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) to measure the prevalence of lifetime physical, sexual, and/or emotional DV estimate that 40% of women experience abuse at the hands of a partner ( Yoshikawa, Agrawal, Poudel, & Jimba, 2012 ). Data from a recent systematic review by the World Health Organization (WHO) provides similar regional estimates and suggests that women in South-East Asia (defined as India, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Timor-Leste) are at a higher likelihood for experiencing partner abuse during their lifetime than women from Europe, the Western Pacific, and potentially the Americas ( WHO, 2013 ).

Among the different proposed causes for the high DV frequency in India are deep-rooted male patriarchal roles ( Visaria, 2000 ) and long-standing cultural norms that propagate the view of women as subordinates throughout their lifespan ( Fernandez, 1997 ; Gundappa & Rathod, 2012 ). Even before a child is born, many families have a clear preference for male children, which may result in their preferential care, and worse, sex-selective abortions, female infanticide and abandonment of the girl-child ( Gundappa & Rathod, 2012 ). During childhood, less importance is given to the education of female children; further, early marriage as occurs in 45% of young, married women, according to 2005–2006 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) data ( Raj, Saggurti, Balaiah, & Silverman, 2009 ), may also heighten susceptibility to DV ( Ackerson, Kawachi, Barbeau, & Subramanian, 2008 ; Raj, Saggurti, Lawrence, Balaiah, & Silverman, 2010 ; Santhya et al., 2010 ; Speizer & Pearson, 2011 ). In reproductive years, mothers pregnant with and/or those who give birth to only female children may be more susceptible to abuse ( Mahapatro, Gupta, Gupta, & Kundu, 2011 ) and financial, medical, and nutritional neglect. Later in life, culturally bred views of dishonour associated with widowhood may also influence susceptibility to DV by other family members ( Saravanan, 2000 ).

In addition to being prevalent in India, DV has also been linked to numerous deleterious health behaviours and poor mental and physical health. These includes tobacco use ( Ackerson, Kawachi, Barbeau, & Subramanian, 2007 ), lack of contraceptive and condom use ( Stephenson, Koenig, Acharya, & Roy, 2008 ), diminished utilisation of health care ( Sudha & Morrison, 2011 ; Sudha, Morrison, & Zhu, 2007 ), higher frequencies of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and attempted suicide ( Chandra, Satyanarayana, & Carey, 2009 ; Chowdhury, Brahma, Banerjee, & Biswas, 2009 ; Maselko & Patel, 2008 ; Shahmanesh, Wayal, Cowan, et al., 2009 ; Shidhaye & Patel, 2010 ; Verma et al., 2006 ), sexually transmitted infections (STI) ( Chowdhary & Patel, 2008 ; Sudha & Morrison, 2011 ; Weiss et al., 2008 ), HIV( Gupta et al., 2008 ; Silverman, Decker, Saggurti, Balaiah, & Raj, 2008 ), asthma ( Subramanian, Ackerson, Subramanyam, & Wright, 2007 ), anaemia ( Ackerson & Subramanian, 2008 ), and chronic fatigue ( Patel et al., 2005 ). Furthermore, maternal intimate partner violence (IPV) experiences have been associated with more terminated, unintended pregnancies ( Begum, Dwivedi, Pandey, & Mittal, 2010 ; Yoshikawa et al., 2012 ), less breastfeeding ( Shroff et al., 2011 ), perinatal care ( Koski, Stephenson, & Koenig, 2011 ), and poor child outcomes ( Ackerson & Subramanian, 2009 ). These negative health repercussions and high DV frequency speak to the need for the development of effective DV prevention and management strategies. And, the development of effective DV interventions first requires valid measures of occurrence and an in-depth understanding of its epidemiology.

While many aspects of DV are similar across cultures, recent qualitative studies describe how some aspects of the DV experienced by women in India may be unique. These studies highlight the role of non-partner DV perpetrators for those living in both nuclear and joint-families ( Fernandez, 1997 ; Kaur & Garg, 2010 ; Raj et al., 2011 ). (These families are patrilineal where male descendants live with their wives, offspring, parents, and unmarried sisters.) They discuss the high frequency and near normalisation of control, psychological abuse, neglect, and isolation, the occurrence of DV to women at both extremes of age (young and old), dowry harassments, control over reproductive choices and family planning, and demonstrate the use of different tools to inflict abuse (i.e. kerosene burning, stones, and broomsticks as opposed to gun and knife violence more commonly seen in industrialised nations) ( Bunting, 2005 ; Go et al., 2003 ; Hampton, 2010 ; Jutla & Heimbach, 2004 ; Kaur & Garg, 2010 ; Kermode et al., 2007 ; Kumar & Kanth, 2004 ; Peck, 2012 ; Rastogi & Therly, 2006 ; Sharma, Harish, Gupta, & Singh, 2005 ; Stephenson et al., 2008 ; Wilson-Williams, Stephenson, Juvekar, & Andes, 2008 ).

This paper presents a systematic review of the quantitative studies conducted over the past decade that estimate and assess DV experienced by women in India, and evaluates their scope and capacity to measure the DV themes highlighted by recent qualitative studies. It aims to examine the distribution of the prevalence estimates provided by the recent literature of DV occurrence in India, improve understanding of the factors that may affect these prevalence estimates, and identify gaps in current studies. This enhanced knowledge will help inform future research including new interventions for the prevention and management of DV in India.

We utilised PubMed, OVID, Cochrane Reviews, PsycINFO, and CINAHL as search engines to identify articles published between 1 April 2004 and 1 January 2015 that focused on the DV experiences of women in India ( Figure 1 ). Our specific search terms included ‘domestic violence’, ‘intimate partner violence’, ‘spouse abuse’, ‘partner violence’, ‘gender-based violence’, ‘sexual violence’, ‘physical violence’, ‘wife battering’, ‘wife beating’, ‘domestic abuse’, ‘violence’, and ‘India’. We first removed duplicate articles and then filtered the articles based on our inclusion criteria: quantitative studies evaluating original data that had been published in English and directly surveyed the DV experiences of women. While we recognise that in cultures where DV is commonplace the reporting of DV perpetration by men may be as high as the frequency of experiencing DV reported by women ( Koenig, Stephenson, Ahmed, Jejeebhoy, & Campbell, 2006 ), we restricted our eligibility criteria to studies directly surveying women about their DV experiences to reduce further inter-study variation and allow for more accurate cross-study comparisons. We excluded reviews, case reports, meta-analyses, and qualitative studies. A single author (ASK or NM) reviewed each individual article to determine whether it met inclusion criteria. If questions arose regarding its inclusion into the review, they were discussed with a second author (SS) until concordance was reached regarding whether or not the paper was to be included.

Adapted PRISMA Flow Diagram demonstrating study selection methodologies and filter results.

Note: An initial PubMed search of articles published between 1 April 2004 and 1 January 2015 focusing on the DV experiences of women in India is depicted. This figure illustrates the search terms, search engines, applied inclusion and exclusion filters, the process by which articles were chosen to be included in the study, and the results of the selection process.

We collected data from each study regarding study population; study setting; use of a validated scale; forms of, perpetrators of, and time frame during which DV was measured; whether an attempt was made to measure severity of DV; whether potential DV correlates were evaluated; and whether DV prevalence was estimated. We subcategorised the forms of violence into physical, sexual, psychological, control, and neglect based on descriptions of questions provided in the studies. Emotional and verbal forms of abuse were classified as psychological abuse and deprivation was classified as neglect. If the study asked participants about agency or autonomy, this was noted in the summary tables. In publications where information about the DV assessment tool and its validation was not provided, we contacted the authors for more information. If authors reported having conducted formative fieldwork to generate questions, pre-tested the items, and/or conducted some assessment of the measurement tool’s expert or face validity, we reported the validation as ‘limited’. If we did not hear back from the authors, we stated the data were ‘not reported’.

Article yield of systematic search

Our initial search of DV articles published in PubMed, OVID, Cochrane Reviews, PsycINFO, and CINAHL between 1 April 2004 and 1 January 2015 yielded 3843 articles ( Figure 1 ). We identified 628 articles using search terms ‘domestic violence’ and ‘India’, 283 articles using ‘intimate partner violence’ and ‘India’, 98 articles using ‘spouse abuse’ and ‘India’, 221 articles using ‘partner violence and India’, 54 articles using ‘gender-based violence’ and ‘India’, 199 articles using ‘sexual violence’ and ‘India’, 120 articles using ‘physical violence’ and ‘India’, 1 article using ‘wife battering’ and ‘India’, 51 articles using ‘wife beating’ and ‘India’, 10 articles using ‘domestic abuse’ and ‘India’, and 2022 articles using ‘violence’ and ‘India’. Of the 3843 articles, 3705 articles were removed because they (1) were duplicated in the search, (2) focused on extraneous topics, (3) lacked Indian context, (4) were not based on original quantitative data, or (5) were based on study data that were not directly obtained through surveying women about their personal DV experiences. Thus, the selection criteria yielded a total of 137 studies examining the DV experiences of women in India: 14 international studies (see Table 1 in supplementary material ), 50 multi-state India studies (see Table 2 in supplementary material ), and 73 single-state India studies (see Table 3 in supplementary material ).

The scope and breadth of recent studies: study populations

Collectively, the reviewed studies provide information on the DV experienced by young and middle-aged women in traditional heterosexual marriages from both urban and rural environments, joint and nuclear families, across Indian states ( Figure 2 ). Among the studies specifying age limits, the vast majority (88% or 92/104) evaluated DV experienced by women age 15–50, with only 11% (11/104) of studies surveying DV suffered by women above age 50 and 1% (1/104) evaluating DV experienced by young adolescents (wed before age 15). Only one study assessed DV experienced by women in HIV discordant. No studies surveyed DV in non-traditional relationships, such as same-sex relationships or live-in relationships. Less than one-third (29% or 40/137) collected data differentiating DV experienced by women in joint versus nuclear families. Thirty-seven per cent (51/137) evaluated domestic abuse suffered by women living in urban settings, 18% (24/137) in rural, and the remainder (44% or 60/137) in both rural and urban environments. Only one examined DV experienced by women residing in tribes. Twenty-three per cent (32/137) and 3% (4/137) utilised a nationally representative and sub-nationally representative study population, respectively. Southern Indian states were by far the most surveyed in the literature (Maharashtra 66 studies, Tamil Nadu 59 studies, and Karnataka 51 studies) and Northern Indian states the least (Uttaranchal, Sikkim, Punjab, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, and Assam each with 33 studies).

A summary of the distribution of recent Indian DV literature by region, state, surveyed perpetrator, and family type.

Note: (a) demonstrates the distribution of studies by rural versus urban region, (b) by state, (c) by the perpetrator surveyed, and (d) whether the survey collected data differentiating DV in joint versus nuclear family households.

Prevalence of DV in India

Collectively, the reviewed studies demonstrate that DV occurs among Indian women with high frequency but there is substantial variation in the reported prevalence estimates across all forms of DV ( Figure 3 ). For example, the median and range of lifetime estimates of psychological abuse was 22% (range 2–99%), physical abuse was 29% (2–99%), sexual abuse was 12% (0–75%), and multiple forms of DV was 41% (18–75%). The outliers at the upper extremes were contributed by a study of in low-income slum communities with high prevalence of substance abuse( Solomon et al., 2009 ) and a second study conducted in a tertiary care centre where surveys were self-administered and thus participants may have felt increased comfort in reporting DV( Sharma & Vatsa, 2011 ). The median and range of past-year estimates of psychological abuse was 22% (11–48%), physical abuse was 22% (9–90%), sexual abuse was 7% (0–50%), and multiple forms of DV was 30% (4–56%). The outlier of 90% for physical abuse was contributed by a study of women whose husbands were alcoholics in treatment ( Stanley, 2012 ). As expected, higher DV prevalence was noted when multiple forms of DV were assessed. Of all forms of DV, physical abuse was measured most frequently, with psychological abuse, sexual abuse, and control or neglect receiving substantially less attention. Further statistical analysis beyond these descriptive statistics was not conducted due to the large inter-study heterogeneity of designs and populations limiting comparability across studies.

A summary of the lifetime and past 12-month prevalence estimates of the various forms of DV as documented by each individual study.

Note: Circles, squares, upright triangles, and inverted triangles represent prevalence estimates of psychological, physical, sexual, and multiple forms of DV, respectively, as provided by each individual study. While medians and ranges are provided, further analysis was not carried out due to the limited homogeneity between studies impeding accurate comparison.

The scope and breadth of recent studies: study design

The past decade of quantitative India DV research has included a breadth of large regional and international studies as well as smaller scale, single-state studies. However, the capacity to draw causal inferences from this literature has been limited by the nearly exclusive use of cross-sectional design. The country and regional-level studies utilised larger, often nationally or sub-nationally representative samples (average sample size: 25,857 women, range: 111–124,385), to provide inter-country or regional epidemiologic comparisons. The single-state studies tended to use smaller sample sizes (average: 1109 women, range: 30–9639) to provide a more in-depth evaluation of DV experienced in a particular population of women.

The vast majority of all reviewed studies utilised cross-sectional design, with only 12% (17/137) using a prospective design to draw causal inferences. Six of these 13 utilised the NFHS-2 and four-year follow-up data from the rural regions of four states to evaluate the effect of DV on mental health disorders ( Shidhaye & Patel, 2010 ), a woman’s adoption of contraception, occurrence of unwanted pregnancy ( Stephenson et al., 2008 ), uptake of prenatal care ( Koski et al., 2011 ), early childhood mortality ( Koenig et al., 2010 ), functional autonomy and reproduction ( Bourey, Stephenson, & Hindin, 2013 ), and contraceptive adoption ( Stephenson, Jadhav, & Hindin, 2013 ), while one used the data to evaluate the effect of autonomy on experience of physical violence ( Nongrum, Thomas, Lionel, & Jacob, 2014 ; Sabarwal, Santhya, & Jejeebhoy, 2014 ). Only one study employed a case-control study to evaluate the link between DV and child mortality ( Varghese, Prasad, & Jacob, 2013 ) and another utilised a randomised control design to evaluate the effect of a mixed individual and group women’s behavioural intervention in reducing DV and marital conflict over time ( Saggurti et al., 2014 ). The remainder of prospective studies evaluated the causal association between DV and incident STIs and/or attempted suicide ( Chowdhary & Patel, 2008 ; Maselko & Patel, 2008 ; Weiss et al., 2008 ), DV and maternal and neonatal health outcomes ( Nongrum et al., 2014 ), the effect of the type of interviewing (face-to-face versus audio computer-assisted self-interviews) on DV reporting ( Rathod, Minnis, Subbiah, & Krishnan, 2011 ), trends in DV occurrence over time ( Simister & Mehta, 2010 ), and the effect of change in a woman or her spouse’s employment status on her experience of DV ( Krishnan et al., 2010 ).

The scope and breadth of recent studies: DV measures

Only 61% (84/137) of studies reported use of a validated scale or made attempts to validate the instrument they ultimately used. When use of a validated instrument was reported, most (82% or 69/84) had been developed for the cultural context of North America and Europe (i.e. modified CTS, Abuse Assessment Screen, Index of Spouse Abuse, Woman Abuse Screening Tool, Partner Violence Screen, Composite Abuse Scale, and Sexual Experience Scale). In fact, only 15 of the studies reporting use of a validated questionnaire adapted or developed their instrument to the Indian context by surveying themes raised by the prior qualitative literature (i.e. use of belts, sticks, and burning to inflict physical abuse, restricting return to natal family home, not allowing natal family to visit marital home). As expected, these studies reported higher frequencies of DV. In personal communication, some authors who chose not to use validated, widely used DV scales (i.e. CTS) stated they did so because of space limitations and inadequacy of existing tools for measuring DV in the Indian cultural context.

Two-thirds of studies (64% or 87/137) assessed two or fewer forms of DV. Of all forms of DV, physical abuse was evaluated most frequently (96% or 131/137), followed by sexual abuse (58% or 79/137), psychological abuse (44% or 60/137), neglect and control (4% or 7/137). Only 11% (15/137) of studies evaluated DV perpetrated by non-partner family members. For these studies evaluating DV perpetrated by partners and non-partner family members, available estimates of lifetime sexual and psychological abuse were always higher than the median prevalence estimates of reviewed studies; available estimates of lifetime physical abuse were often, but not universally, higher. Only 20% (109/137) attempted to evaluate different levels of DV severity. While many (43% or 59/137) studies evaluated lifetime violence, a considerable number assessed recent DV (42% or 58/137 past-12 month DV, 5% or 7/137 past-6 month DV, 4% or 5/137 past-3 month DV, and 4% or 6/137 the time period of current or research partnerships). Additionally, 10% (14/137) evaluated DV occurrence during pregnancy or the peri-partum period.

The scope and breadth of recent studies: measured outcomes

Figure 4 provides a framework for synthesising the potential DV correlates measured to date. It demonstrates that the focus of the quantitative literature has largely been on the mental health and gynecologic consequences of DV but has only begun to evaluate repercussions on physical health and health behaviour. Twelve per cent (16/137) of the studies evaluated one or multiple mental health disorder as outcomes of DV, including PTSD, depression, and suicide, but not anxiety. The literature provided a comprehensive evaluation of the association between DV and gynaecologic health including sexual (15% or 21/137) and maternal health (8% or 11/137). However, only six studies were dedicated to evaluating physical health outcomes (oral health, nutrition, chronic fatigue, asthma, direct injury, and blindness during pregnancy). And while 17 studies were dedicated to evaluating the association between DV and uptake of health behaviours, 11 of the 15 were focused on behaviours related to sexual and maternal health. Thus, the association between health behaviours like the woman’s substance abuse and adherence to medical and clinical care remains largely understudied, as does the link between DV and physical health outcomes such as cardiovascular and gastrointestinal disease, chronic pain syndromes (including migraines), and urinary tract infections.

A framework for conceptualising the reviewed studies.

Note: The proposed framework provides structure for interpreting and synthesising the prior decade’s quantitative research evaluating the domestic violence experienced by women in India.

The past 10 years have been an incredible period of growth in DV research in India and South Asia. Our systematic review contributes to the growing body of evidence by providing an important summary of the epidemiologic studies during this critical period and draws attention to the magnitude and severity of the ongoing epidemic in India. Comprehensively, the reviewed literature estimates that 4 in 10 Indian women (when surveyed about multiple forms of abuse) report experiencing DV in their lifetime and 3 in 10 report experiencing DV in the past year. This is concordant with the WHO lifetime estimate of 37.7% (95% CI: 30.9%43.1%) in South-East Asia (defined as India, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Timor-Leste) and is higher than the regional estimates provided by the WHO for the Europe, the Western Pacific, and potentially the Americas. In addition to highlighting the high frequency of occurrence, the studies in this review emphasise the toll DV takes on the lives of many Indian women through its impact on mental, physical, sexual, and reproductive health.

Perhaps the most striking finding of our review was the large inter-study variance in DV prevalence estimates ( Figure 3 ). While this variability speaks to the capacity of the India literature to capture the breadth of DV experiences in different populations and settings, it also underscores the need for standardising aspects of study design in the investigator’s control to make effective inter-study and cross-population comparisons. Standardisation of the instruments used to measure DV should be a priority. To optimise the yield of such an instrument in capturing the DV experiences of Indian women, it should build upon currently available, well-validated instruments, but also be culturally tailored. Thus, it should account for the culturally prominent forms of DV identified by the Indian qualitative literature and social media, survey abuse inflicted by non-partner perpetrators, survey multiple forms abuse (i.e. physical, sexual, psychological, and control), and ideally, include a measure of DV severity (i.e. based on frequency of affirmative responses, frequency of abuse, or resultant injury). Our review demonstrates that current studies fall short, with only 61% reporting use of validated questions (rarely developed or adapted to Indian culture), 11% surveying DV perpetrated by non-partner family members, 64% assessing more than two different forms of abuse, and 20% evaluating level of DV severity. Our review also suggests that when questions assessing DV are culturally adapted and validated, evaluate multiple forms of abuse, and survey abusive behaviours by non-partner family members in addition to partners, reporting of DV increases.

While our search yielded many well-designed cross-sectional studies providing insight into the epidemiology of DV in India (i.e. patterns of occurrence, socio-demographic, and health correlates), it also revealed many gaps and thus, a potential research agenda. Future qualitative studies are needed to examine the link between DV and correlates identified by the cross-sectional literature, to inform the development of future prevention strategies, and to enhance delivery of DV supportive services by examining survivor preferences and needs. Additional longitudinal quantitative studies are also needed to better understand predictors of DV and to explore the direction of causality between DV and the physical health associations identified in the reviewed studies. They are also needed to assess the link between DV and other physical health outcomes like injury, cardiovascular disease, irritable bowel syndrome, immune effects, and psychosomatic syndromes as well as non-sexual health behaviours such as substance abuse and medication adherence. This is particularly paramount in India, where physical injury and cardiovascular disease together account for over a quarter of disability-adjusted life years lost ( National Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, 2005 ).

Additionally, our review also exposed gaps in the current understanding of DV in some populations and regions of India. For example, most studies focused on women of age 15–50. Only 11 reported on the DV experiences of women over 50, a stage where frailty, financial and physical dependence, and culturally engendered shame and disgrace associated with widowhood may heighten their risk of experiencing DV, neglect, and control by various family members ( Solotaroff & Pande, 2014 ). And, while 43% of Indian women aged 20–24 marry before the age of 18, we encountered few studies evaluating DV experienced by pre-adolescents or young adolescents married as children ( UNICEF, 2014 ). An additional gap is in evaluating the DV experiences of women engaging in live-in relationships as opposed to marital relationships, divorced or widowed women, women involved in same-sex relationships, and in HIV serodiscordant and concordant relationships, settings in which social and family support systems are already weakened ( Kohli et al., 2012 ). Next, beyond the national and multi-state data sets, there is little representation of the northern states of India (i.e. Uttaranchal, Sikkim, Punjab, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, and Assam) and of women residing in tribal villages ( Sethuraman, Lansdown, & Sullivan, 2006 ). The vast cultural, religious, and socio-economic inter-regional differences in India highlight the need for more in-depth study of the DV experiences of women in these areas.

The high prevalence of DV and its association with deleterious behaviours and poor health outcomes further speak to the need for multi-faceted, culturally tailored preventive strategies that target potential victims and perpetrators of violence. The recent Five Year Strategic Plan (2011–2016) released by the Ministry of Women and Child Development discusses a plan to pilot ‘one-stop crisis centres for women’ survivors of violence, which would include medical, legal, law enforcement, counselling, and shelter support for themselves and their children. The significant differences in women’s empowerment and DV experience by region and population within India ( Kishor & Gupta, 2004 ) underscore the need to culturally- and regionally tailor the screening and support services provided at such centres. For example, in resource-limited states where sexual forms of DV predominate, priority should be given to the allocation of health-care providers to evaluate, document, and treat associated injuries and/or transmitted diseases. In settings where financial control and neglect are common, legal, financial, and educational empowerment may need to be given precedence.

Our review is not without limitations. First, our analysis relied solely on data directly provided in the publications. We did not further contact the authors if information was not provided. Second, a single author (ASK or NM) reviewed the individual papers for inclusion into the review, which may have introduced a selection bias. We tried to limit this bias through discussion of the papers in which eligibility was not clear-cut with a second author (SS) until agreement about the inclusion status was reached. Next, we included studies whose main intent was to evaluate the DV experiences of Indian women as well as studies whose main aim may not have been related to DV at all, but included DV as a covariate in the analysis. Thus, many of the studies that solely included DV as a covariate may not have had the intent or resources to fully examine the DV experience. While this may be viewed as a limitation, our goal was not to critically evaluate each individual study, but to comprehensively review the information currently provided in the Indian DV literature. Lastly, inclusion of multiple studies that utilise the same data set (e.g. NFHS) may have skewed the overall median estimate of DV prevalence and the remainder of our analysis. We felt, however, that the substantial differences in DV assessment (e.g. measurement time frames, forms of DV assessed, whether DV severity was assessed, and measured health correlates) between these studies legitimised their need to be included as separate entities in the review.

In conclusion, our literature review underscores the need for further studies within India evaluating the DV experiences of older women, women in same-sex relationships, and live-in relationships, extending the assessment of DV perpetrated by individuals besides intimate partners and spouses, and assessing the multiple forms and levels of abuse. It further stresses the necessity for the development and validation (in multiple regions and study populations within India) of a culturally tailored DV scale and interventions geared towards the prevention and management of DV.

Supplementary Material

Tables and table references, acknowledgments.

This work was supported by the US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, Fogarty International Center [grant number 1 R25 TW009337-01 K01 TW009664].

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2015.1119293

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ameeta Kalokhe , http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3556-1786

Seema Sahay , http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6064-827X

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Domestic and Immigration Policies Research Paper

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Introduction

Domestic climate policy framework, immigration policy.

A policy is an official statement or set of statements used to define how particular issues are to be tackled by stakeholders. A policy gives a framework within which individuals, private and public institutions may carry out their activities. A policy comes into focus when decisions are being made.

It has been used mostly by government institutions to achieve objectives of national interest. This paper focuses on both domestic and immigration policies.

Climate change has serious negative implications to both economic and social development within the country (Weiss, 2010). It is therefore important that domestic policy makers should come up with a mechanism to incorporate the Domestic Climate Policy Framework into widely accepted environmental policy. In order to achieve this, policy makers should pay attention to the argument of elite theory (Dalton & Klingermann, 2007).

Elite theory is a theory of the state whose main theme is to explicate the relation of power within the modern society. According to the theory, a significant amount of power is held by networks of policy planners and economic elite members; the elite group consists of minority members who have a significant influence in the way policies are formulated in the United States.

The power they hold is independent of state and is not subject to democratic process of elections. Therefore, policy makers should involve these elite members if Domestic Climate Policy Framework is to be successfully incorporated into a widely accepted environmental policy.

For instance, the elite members run multimillion dollars businesses. As such, they have their own climate or environmental policies which they definitely consider to be cost effective for them; involving them will give them the opportunity to present their views. Hence, the policy makers should ensure that the elite members’ business interests are taken into consideration.

This can best be achieved by allowing them to play a major role in the process of policy formulation and incorporation with other policies. Another instance is that the elite members have financial powers and are able to fund various policy networks to their own advantage.

It is therefore in order to involve them in the incorporation of the Domestic Climate Policy into a widely accepted environmental policy so as to get their full support.

Dye’s argument that the success of immigration reform in the United States has been partially successful is right (Dye, 2010). It is important to note that immigration has contributed to the diversification of the United States’ culture. It has also increased the population of the United States.

However, the government’s immigration policy has not been sustainable. This endangers the United States’ economy, diplomacy and security. The current immigration reform has a gap that has been utilized by illegal immigrants to the detriment of American citizens.

National security is important when it comes to the formulation of immigration policies (Thangasamy, 2007).Therefore, policy makers need to keep in mind the national security when formulating every immigration policy.

This is because weak and ineffective immigration policy has the potential to allow illegal immigrants with dangerous antisocial ideologies into the United States. This may compromise national security. For instance, the terrorist attack on the United States’ soil in 2001 was suspected to have been masterminded by foreign immigrants.

Besides, there are individuals living in the United States without proper legal documentation. This has the potential to jeopardize the dreams and freedom of children parented by such people.

The policy makers should therefore pay critical attention to children whose presence in the United States was due to their parents’ decision and not their own; in other words, the immigration policy should not make innocent children suffer from the sins of their parents. Otherwise, the United States may compromise its status as a democratic state.

The policy makers should also focus on immigration policies of other allies of the United States. This will save the United States the possible diplomatic fallout due to misunderstandings which may be attributed to conflicting immigration policies.

Both domestic and immigration policies are good for the United States. Policy makers should ensure that all the elite members in the United States are involved in the process of incorporating Domestic Climate Policy Framework into a widely accepted environmental policy. Besides, the argument by Dye (2010) that the success of immigration reform in the United States has been partially successful is true.

The reform has not addressed the gaps used by illegal immigrants to get into the United States. Therefore, the policy makers should have in mind the nation’s security when formulating immigration policy. This should also apply to innocent children who could not control their immigration to the United States.

Dalton, R. & Klingermann, H. (2007). Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior . Oxford: Oxford Handbooks Online.

Dye, T.R. (2010). Understanding Public Policy . New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Thangasamy, A. (2007). Explaining Policy Making for Undocumented Immigrants in the United States . Cambridge: ProQuest.

Weiss, J. (2010). The Economics of Industrial Development . New York: Taylor & Francis.

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Bibliography

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