ICPSR Instructional Subset: American Leadership Opinion and United States Foreign Policy, 1975 (ICPSR 7519)

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This study contains data on the attitudes of American national leaders toward American foreign policy in 1975. The study derives from surveys on the attitudes of the American public and national leaders toward foreign policy conducted by Louis Harris and Associates, commissioned by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in November 1974. ICPSR provides instructional subsets based on both the public and the leadership surveys. See the related collection, ICPSR INSTRUCTIONAL SUBSET: AMERICAN PUBLIC OPINION AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY, 1975 (ICPSR 7518). This leadership sample included 330 individuals in positions that made them likely to have influence upon and knowledge of foreign relations. Leaders were drawn in roughly equal proportions from among those in responsible positions in politics, government, business, communications, and education. Somewhat fewer respondents were interviewed from the fields of labor, religion, and voluntary and ethnic organizations. The public survey used a stratified systematic national sample of 1,513 Americans aged 18 years and older. In general, the questions in both surveys examined attitudes in a number of related areas, including the role and extent of United States' involvement in world affairs, the amount of domestic support for such involvement, and the relationship between domestic and foreign policies. The initial 71 variables in each subset reflect identical substantive questions asked of both populations, so that public and leadership attitudes on the same questions can easily be compared. These questions queried respondents on topics such as the value and effectiveness of the United States' economic and military aid and its effect on the American economy and national security, prevention of the spread of communism, and improvement of American foreign relations. Also asked were questions on the role of the United States in world affairs, its status compared to the previous ten years, its world military involvement, and lessons learned from the Vietnam War. Respondents were also asked to rate the president and Congress on foreign policy formulation achievements and to specify the appropriate responses to a number of possible future world developments. Demographic items specify age, sex, ethnicity, religion, political party affiliation, political philosophy, and leadership categories.

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