When governments ignore public opinion in foreign policy: Poland and the Iraq invasion

AbstractThis article asks why the Government of Poland participated in the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 when a large majority of the Polish public was opposed to national involvement in Iraq. The aim is to further an understanding of the circumstances under which democratic governments ignore public opinion in their foreign policy decision-making. The article argues that a combination of three circumstances increased the willingness of the government to ignore the public. First, the Iraq issue had relatively low salience among the Polish voters, which decreased the domestic political risks of pursuing the policy. Second, the government's Iraq policy was supported by a considerable consensus among the political elite. Third, the political elites were unified in their perceptions that participating in the invasion would yield essential international gains for Poland.Keywords: elite consensusforeign policyIraq invasionissue saliencePolandpublic opinion AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank Jakub Swiecicki from the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and Mikael Blomdahl from Stockholm University for valuable comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article. Further thanks go to the two anonymous reviewers.Notes on contributorFredrik Doeser obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stockholm University in 2008. He is a Research Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (Utrikespolitiska institutet). His main research interest revolves around the relationship between foreign and domestic politics, especially in a European context.Notes1. Since these findings are based on a single case study, it is impossible to evaluate the extent to which they are generalizable to other cases of governments ignoring public opinion in foreign policy. As argued in the conclusions, the explanatory power and scope conditions of this particular combination of factors need to be examined further.2. Wolfe and Radziszewski (Citation2012) argue that public dissatisfaction with the Polish involvement in Iraq played some role in the government's later decision to reduce the size of the mission, but it was not fundamental in influencing the overall Iraq policy (or the initial decision to invade Iraq). The reason for this, according to the authors, was the low salience of the Iraq issue among the voters. Although this article agrees with the influential role played by issue salience, it argues that other factors also were important. Moreover, Copsey (Citation2009) finds evidence that the informed public has an impact on foreign policy-makers in Poland and Ukraine, in particular on the economic relations between the two countries. In addition to these two works, there is also a body of literature dealing with Polish public opinion on EU membership and EU policy (Szymański Citation2007, Jackson et al. Citation2011) and a recent study on the formation of public attitudes in Poland with regard to the Iraq war (Radziszewski Citation2013). However, this literature focuses on explaining changes in the attitudes of Polish voters, rather than the foreign policy of the Polish government, and is therefore not of immediate relevance for this article.3. Davis (Citation2012) argues that, when an external threat is significant, governments are likely to ignore pacific public opinion. When an external threat is not significant, governments are likely to take into account the views of the public opinion, whether the public is pacific or hawkish.4. According to Poland's 1997 constitution, the President is the commander in chief of the armed forces and acts as the representative of the state in foreign policy with responsibility for ratifying international treaties, appointing Polish ambassadors and accrediting foreign ambassadors in Poland. However, it is the cabinet that conducts foreign policy.5. That Polish elites decided to proceed with the invasion in spite of the lack of a clear UNSC endorsement was justified in two ways. First, the invasion was justified on the basis of earlier UNSC resolutions, most notably Resolution 1441. Second, Polish elites argued that Iraq 'was too urgent a threat to wait for a slow UN machine to cope with it' (Meyer and Zdrada Citation2006, pp. 34–36).6. Poland also contributed 2500 troops to the stabilization force and took chief responsibility for one of the four occupation zones in south-central Iraq from September 2003. The Polish forces were withdrawn from Iraq in October 2008.7. The Polish public is generally pro-American and was so throughout the Iraq war. Thus, its attitudes toward the Polish involvement were not related to any anti-Americanism (Lubecki Citation2005, p. 83).8. When investigating the salience of the Iraq issue, this article has relied extensively on the work of Wolfe and Radziszewski (Citation2012).9. In Poland, the public usually ascribes more importance to domestic political issues than to foreign policy issues, and the Iraq invasion was no exception to this 'rule' (Wolfe and Radziszewski Citation2012).10. However, it should be noted that these two parties entered the government in 2005, and, thereby, became a part of the Polish political elite from that time. In 2003, however, they were perceived as fringe parties by the other political parties (Millard Citation2009).11. Another bonus was the practical experience that would be gained by the Polish military units participating in the operation. As noted by the Defense Minister, Janusz Onyszkiewicz, in January 2003: 'it would be good if our partners and Allies let us send at least several Polish officers as interns who could assist US, British, or French officers and gain invaluable experience in carrying out this type of operation' (quoted in De Witt Citation2005, p. 48).12. The political elite in Poland did not see Iraq in the context of the war on terrorism and September 11. Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was rarely mentioned by Polish politicians (Osica Citation2004, p. 319). Although the WMD issue was referred to by President Kwaśniewski, this usually occurred when speaking to the foreign press or in post-hoc explanations of the war (Kwaśniewski Citation2003c).13. What if the Polish public had viewed the Iraq issue as salient and organized protests gathering 1 million people on the streets of Warsaw? In that case, the temptation of the opposition parties to challenge the government by starting criticizing its Iraq policy would most likely have increased.