The role of "enemy images" and ideology in elite belief systems

We use data from the Leadership Opinion Project (LOP), a panel survey of Am erican opinion leaders which brackets the end of the Cold War, to investiga te two interrelated questions about the structure of elites' foreign policy beliefs. We assess, first, whether the militant internationalism/cooperati ve internationalism scheme, developed primarily by Wittkopf (1981, 1990) an d Holsti and Rosenau (1990), has continued relevance now that the USSR has collapsed; and second, whether Hurwitz and Peffley's (1987, 1990; see also Peffley and Hurwitz, 1992; Hurwitz, Peffley, and Seligson, 1993) domain-spe cific, hierarchical model of mass belief structure can be applied to elite belief systems. The evidence indicates that respondents' past stances towar d military and cooperative ventures are highly predictive of their views on ce the Cold War ends. This continuity in leaders' postures toward internati onal affairs, in itself, suggests that "enemy images" of the Soviet Union w ere less important within elite belief systems than Hurwitz and Peffley (19 90; see also Peffley and Hurwitz, 1992) posited for the mass public. The st arkest difference, however, between their findings for mass samples and our findings for a leadership sample centers on the importance of ideology in constraining foreign policy beliefs, and the close interconnection with dom estic beliefs. Consequently, as we illustrate, predictable ideological divi sions among opinion leaders persist in the post-Cold War era. In sum, our e vidence demonstrates considerable continuity in elites' beliefs despite pro found changes in the global system, and reaffirms the importance that ideol ogy plays in structuring attitudes within elite belief systems.