TY - JOUR
T1 - Elite-public gaps in attitudes to nuclear weapons
T2 - New evidence from a survey of German citizens and parliamentarians
AU - Smetana, Michal
AU - Onderco, Michal
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) (2022).
PY - 2022/5/17
Y1 - 2022/5/17
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85132715448&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/isq/sqac017
DO - 10.1093/isq/sqac017
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85132715448
SN - 0020-8833
VL - 66
JO - International Studies Quarterly
JF - International Studies Quarterly
IS - 2
M1 - sqac017
ER -