American elites' reaction to the end of the Cold War: A 1988-1992 panel study

Using 1988-1992 panel data, this dissertation investigates how deeply the belief systems of American elites were affected by the end of the Cold War. I find that elites adjusted their opinions on those issues directly related to the Soviet collapse (e.g., their perceptions about the nature and motivations of Russia, their attitudes about the importance of containing communism), but adhered to old foreign policy postures about how the United States should interact with other countries. More specifically, respondents' positions on scales used to measure militant and cooperative internationalism remained quite stable over time.;Knowledge about the depth of people's reactions to profound changes within the international environment, in turn, provides a clue about the sources of their foreign policy beliefs. I demonstrate that elites' basic foreign policy orientations (defined as stances toward militant and cooperative internationalism) were bound together with, and constrained by, domestic ideological orientations both before and after the end of the Cold War. The evidence is consistent with the explanation that these basic foreign policy postures are an expression of more general values or ideological stances that apply to the domestic arena as well. Put differently, American elites have brought old values, ideological predispositions, and disagreements to new international circumstances.