Is foreign policy realism actually popular?

Daniel Drezner, who teaches at the Fletcher School at Tufts and is, from my personal experience, a smart and good guy, has an interesting article in the journal Perspectives on Politics. He argues that most observers believe the idealist tradition -- Wilsonian interventionism -- is popular among the general public, while the Realist school, more hardheaded, suffers from unpopularity. Looking at public opinion surveys, however, he argues that the Realist tradition is surprisingly popular. It's the elites who are addled by Wilsonianism.

Here's his post at his blog (it's on my bloglist, check it out) announcing the article, and here's a link to the article itself. It's fairly long and a bit academic (surprise!) but well worth the time spent reading it.

Here's the abstract:

For more than half a century, realist scholars of international relations have maintained that their world view is inimical to the American public. For a variety of reasons—inchoate attitudes, national history, American exceptionalism—realists assert that the U.S. government pursues realist policies in spite and not because of public opinion. Indeed, most IR scholars share this “anti-realist assumption.” To determine the empirical validity of the anti-realist assumption, this paper re-examines survey and experimental data on the mass public's attitudes towards foreign policy priorities and world views, the use of force, and foreign economic policy over the past three decades. The results suggest that, far from disliking realism, Americans are at least as comfortable with the logic of realpolitik as they are with liberal internationalism. The persistence of the anti-realist assumption might be due to an ironic fact: American elites are more predisposed towards liberal internationalism than the rest of the American public.

Secretary of State speculation

I want to recommend a post from Daniel Drezner, whose blog I've been meaning to add to the blogroll for some time. Informed stuff mostly on foreign policy. Dan teaches at Tufts, the Fletcher School, formerly taught political science at Chicago. He was moderator at the seminar I attended last month, under Institute for Humane Studies and Liberty Fund auspices, on globalization and Free Trade, and struck me as bright, fair, and exceptionally well-informed. He's also written a book for the CFR that assesses the arguments for free trade and fair trade remarkably even-handedly, which I plan to review for the Register in a few weeks. Since book reviewing is not my main racket, I tend to review only books I can recommend, though sometimes with reservations.

The other kind of reviewing -- cleverly eviscerating a book by some writer with whom you disagree profoundly and don't respect to boot -- is usually more fun, and I've occasionally indulged in it. But since my schedule and other obligations allow me to review perhaps 20 books a year for the Register, it seems like a waste of the opportunity to use those occasions just to diss a book I don't like, and there must be 20 books a year published that are worth reading. Might do the other if I retire and do freelancing.

Anyway, Dan speculates, based on no inside information he says, as to whom the various candidates might nominate as Secretary of State and National Security Adviser. Don't know if he's right, but the thought process is interesting.