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Abstract
In this dissertation I examine the impact of core values on foreign policy opinion, the dynamics of value change, and the differences between elites and the mass public in their values change. I find that two core values - humanitarianism and democracy - strongly affect citizens' support for various anti-terrorism measures in the second chapter. For the study I use the survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR) in 2004. Once I establish the central role of the two core values, I proceed to address the question of how individuals adjust their values in a changing political environment. The 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq are similar in that they both can be described as international political crises. They differ in that the former event drew unified support for dealing with external threats, while the latter event resulted in sharp divisions over the unilateral assertion of U.S. military power in world affairs. Combined with the characteristics of these events, individuals' partisanship and sophistication simultaneously define the way that they adjust their values. For this study, I use 3 surveys conducted by the CCFR in 1998, 2002, and 2004. Finally, I assess the proposition that elites and the mass public show differences in changing their values in response to the events by using the surveys of elites conducted in those years by the CCFR surveys. I found that elites' partisanship and their role in decision making play a significant role in changing their values in response to events. In adjusting their values, elites respond to the events with stability and sensitivity while the public tend to follow their own partisan elites. These findings suggest that citizens are competent in that they employ values to organize their foreign policy choices and update their beliefs in values by incorporating new information. However, this competence is limited in that they employ values that are salient and easily accessible but that are also potentially contradicting to the value choices themselves. Furthermore, the ways in which they react to the events in modifying their values reveal that they depend on partisanship and tend to follow their partisan leaders.
