Abstract
The sharp increase in suppport for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) poses a challenge to many of our conceptions of public opinion. Most large shifts in public opinion follow major events. Based on models estimated from the September to November NBC News/ Wall Street Journal surveys, I show this was not the case with respect to public opinion on NAFTA. Instead, the increase in support for the pact reflected a slower response to a public debate over the merits of free trade versus protectionism. As the debate proceeded, large segments of the public— including the least interested—developed more highly constrained belief systems. By the end of the public discourse, the most and least interested citizens both linked attitudes on the merits of trade to their positions on NAFTA and to their evaluations of the elites on each side of the issue. People made up their minds on NAFTA on the basis of arguments about trade, not about their own self-interest. The NAFTA case suggests that there may be a “rational public” at the individual level after all, even among people who may not usually be interested in public affairs.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Berelson, Bernard R., Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and William N. McPhee (1954). Voting. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Blustein, Paul (1997). NAFTA clouds prospects of new pact. Washington Post, May 3, pp. H1-H7.
Converse, Philip E. (1966). The nature of belief systems in mass publics. In David E. Apter (ed.), Ideology and Discontent (pp. 205–261). New York: Free Press.
Duncan, Phil (1993). Perot gores his own ox in debate. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, November 13, p. 3105.
Kinder, Donald, and D. Roderick Kiewiet (1979). Economic discontent and political behavior in the 1980 and 1982 congressional elections. American Journal of Political Science 23: 495–527.
Kolbert, Elizabeth (1993). A trade pact byproduct: $10 million in TV ads.” New York Times, November 13, p. 10.
Mondak, Jeffrey J. (1993). Source cues and policy approval: The cognitive dynamics of public support for the Reagan agenda. American Journal of Political Science 37: 186–212.
Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth (1984). The Spiral of Silence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Page, Benjamin I., and Robert Y. Shapiro (1992). The Rational Public. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pew Research Center for The People and The Press (1998). Pew values update: American social beliefs 1997–1987. Washington, DC, April 20.
Rielly, John E., ed. (1991). American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy 1991. Chicago: Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.
Rosenstone, Steven J., and John Mark Hansen (1993). Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan.
Schneider, William (1992). The old politics and the new world order. In Kenneth A. Oye, Robert J. Lieber, and Donald Rothchild (eds.), Eagle in a New World: American Grand Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era (pp. 35–70). New York: Harper-Collins.
Sniderman, Paul M., and Thomas Piazza (1993). The Scar of Race. Cambridge: Belknap.
Zaller, John R. (1992). The Nature and Origins of Mass Public Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Uslaner, E.M. Trade Winds: NAFTA and the Rational Public. Political Behavior 20, 341–360 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024847815352
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024847815352