Elite-public gaps in attitudes to nuclear weapons: New evidence from a survey of German citizens and parliamentarians

Michal Smetana, Michal Onderco

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)
213 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

A recent surge in survey-based scholarship has shed new light on public attitudes toward nuclear weapons. Yet, we still know little about how these public attitudes differ from those of political elites. To address this gap, we conducted an original survey on a large representative sample of German citizens and on a unique elite sample of German parliamentarians. In the survey, we asked the respondents about their views on different aspects of NATO's nuclear sharing practice. We found support for several hypotheses concerning nuclear use, extended deterrence, withdrawal of forward-deployed weapons, and the feasibility of global nuclear disarmament. As such, we provide systematic empirical evidence that there are, indeed, important gaps in public and elite attitudes toward nuclear weapons. Our findings underscore the argument that scholars should survey both political elites and the general public to obtain a comprehensive picture of attitudes toward pertinent questions in our field.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbersqac017
JournalInternational Studies Quarterly
Volume66
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 May 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) (2022).

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Elite-public gaps in attitudes to nuclear weapons: New evidence from a survey of German citizens and parliamentarians'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this