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September 10, 2018
National Security Advisor John Bolton says "the International Criminal Court is already dead to us." Americans disagree.
At a Middle East conference this month in Warsaw, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and Mideast adviser, said that the administration will unveil its much-vaunted Middle East peace plan after the April 9 Israeli elections.
The Trump administration has taken a hard line on China, but has failed to convince the American public or many allies to follow suit. Instead, publics around the world now see the United States as a major threat.
Recent surveys about the political crisis in Nicaragua
President Trump's demand that South Korea dramtically increase its burden sharing is uniting South Korean across the politica and age spectrum.
Publics in South Korea and Japan agree on the problems that need to be resolved, but there's little optimism they can find solutions.
In recent years, partisanship has become a major factor in foreign policy attitudes in the Chicago Council Surveys; not so long ago opinions on foreign policy seemed immune to partisan impulses. Here are seven striking examples from the 2018 Chicago Council Survey.
It's been a busy, eventful year around the world.
As the House becomes majority Democrat, there is low confidence among the American public for Congress--and several other institutions--to shape policies that benefit the United States.
President Trump pulled the United States out of the original Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations last year. But a majority of Americans seem to wish he hadn’t done that.
Past surveys have found that Americans want to cut US spending on foreign assistance and dramatically overestimate how much the US spends on those programs.
Dina Smeltz joined The Chicago Council on Global Affairs in February 2012 as a senior fellow in public opinion and foreign policy, and directed the Council’s 2012 survey of American public opinion (see Foreign Policy in the New Millennium). She has nearly 20 years of experience in designing and fielding international social, political and foreign policy surveys.
As the director of research in the Middle East and South Asia division (2001-2007) and analyst/director of the European division (1992-2004) in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the US State Department’s Office of Research, Dina conducted over a hundred surveys in these regions and regularly briefed senior government officials on key research findings. Her experience includes mass public and elite surveys as well as qualitative research. She has written numerous policy-relevant reports on Arab, Muslim and South Asian regional attitudes toward political, economic, social and foreign policy issues. Her writing also includes policy briefs and reports on the post-1989 political transitions in Central and Eastern Europe, and European attitudes toward a wide range foreign policy issues including globalization, European integration, immigration, NATO, and European security.
With a special emphasis research in post-conflict situations (informally referred to as a “combat pollster”), Dina has worked with research teams in Bosnia, Kosovo, Cyprus, Israel-Palestinian Territories and in Iraq (2003-2005), where she was one of the few people on the ground who could accurately report average Iraqis impressions of the postwar situation. In the past three years, Dina has consulted for several NGOs and research organizations on projects spanning women’s development in Afghanistan, civil society in Egypt and evaluating voter education efforts in Iraq.
Dina has an MA from the University of Michigan and a BS from Pennsylvania State University.
Feel free to email Dina with comments or questions at dsmeltz@thechicagocouncil.org
South Korea has officially invited North Korea for talks to lower tensions between the two countries. But these may cause ripples through relations with the United States and Japan.
Donald Trump kicked off his second official foreign tour today in Warsaw, Poland, giving a speech condemning Russian aggression amid a crowd enthusiastic about its government’s show of friendship with the US leader. For Trump, this first stop will likely be the easy part.
Is the US public turning on President Donald Trump like it turned on former President Richard Nixon? Running Numbers is digging out its archived polls to look back at Nixon’s approval ratings compared to those of Trump to see whether US public opinion is following a similar path.
South Korean President Moon Jae-In is in Washinton later this week for his first meeting with Donald Trump. North Korea tops the agenda, but there are several other issues that will be closely watched.
On the heels of the shocking General Election outcome, the UK-EU Brexit negotiations have begun. But the road ahead for these talks is far from smooth: recent polling indicates that the public is increasingly split on what exactly would qualify as an acceptable deal.
Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has passed away at the age of 87.
As the results of the United Kingdom’s snap election filtered in last Friday, most headlines echoed shock: Theresa May and her Conservative Party had lost the large majority in Parliament that seemed almost guaranteed just a few weeks ago. What drove this shocking shift? Did anyone see it coming?
President Trump recently announced that he plans on pulling the United States out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a decision that is out of step with the views of the public. According to a number of surveys conducted over the past year, a majority of Americans support US participation in the agreement.
Are Americans as divided along geographic lines when it comes to key foreign policy matters as their voting patterns suggest?
With the election of Moon Jae-In to the presidency of South Korea, there are concerns that the US-Korea alliance hangs in the balance. Those fears are overblown. While there are rough waters ahead, much of that will emanate from the Trump administration's handling of cost-sharing negotiations in the near future.
The Blob isn't just science fiction. When it comes to US foreign policy, its reach is far and wide with wide swaths of agreement between foreign policy elite and the general public. A new report from the Council and the Texas National Security Network explains.
Despite partisan differences on taking a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on the status of US-Israel bilateral relations, overall trends from Chicago Council Survey data indicate that the relationship between the United States and Israel will continue to be viewed warmly by the American public.
In the spirit of Throw Back Thursday, Running Numbers is digging out its archived polls to look back at America’s foreign policy feelings of old. This week, we’re looking at Council data on Americans' perceptions of the threat posed by chemical and biological weapons in the late 90s and early 00s.
In the spirit of Throw Back Thursday, Running Numbers is digging out its archived polls to look back at America’s foreign policy feelings of old. This week, we’re looking at the first time the Council asked Americans about their perceptions of various threats to the US and its interests.
The polling community took a lot heat following the failure of forecasters and data journalists to predict Trump's triumph in the 2016 election. But polls measure so much more than voting intentions says Council senior fellow Dina Smeltz.
