What policymakers think the public thinks

UCL Uncovering Politics · Oct 8, 2026 · 43m

In democratic countries, foreign policy is often assumed to be shaped, at least in part, by public preferences. But that raises an important question: do policymakers have an accurate understanding of public opinion?

Research on domestic policy suggests that political elites can significantly misjudge what the public thinks, despite the abundance of polling and other sources of information available to them. But until recently, we have known much less about whether the same problem applies to foreign policy.

In this episode, we explore new research examining both American public opinion on…