Conventional wisdom on alliances proposes that leaders comply with alliances because the public opposes violating alliance commitments. However, this assumes that the public can easily judge whether or not a particular policy violates an alliance treaty. This article challenges this assumption and develops a theory that elites have the opportunity to shape public understanding as to whether an action violates an alliance treaty. It shows that while alliance commitments continue to have an important impact on public opinion, signals from unified elites can significantly reduce public pressure to support an ally by arguing that the alliance treaty does not create a legal obligation to intervene. In a pair of experiments on large samples of American adults, we found that a unified signal from the president and the Senate opposition leader can significantly reduce support for sending troops to the embattled ally. Consistent with elite cueing theory, the president’s ability to move public opinion in this manner is eliminated if the Senate opposition leader disagrees with his argument.

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操纵公众对联盟合规性的信念：一项调查实验

关于联盟的传统观点认为，领导人遵守联盟是因为公众反对违反联盟承诺。然而，这是假设公众可以轻松判断某项政策是否违反联盟条约。本文挑战了这一假设，并提出了一种理论，即精英有机会塑造公众对某种行为是否违反联盟条约的理解。它表明，虽然联盟承诺继续对公众舆论产生重要影响，但来自统一精英的信号可以通过认为联盟条约没有规定干预的法律义务来显着减少公众支持盟友的压力。在对美国成年人进行的两项大样本实验中，我们发现，总统和参议院反对党领袖发出的统一信号可以显着减少对向陷入困境的盟友派遣军队的支持。与精英暗示理论一致，如果参议院反对党领袖不同意总统的论点，总统以这种方式影响公众舆论的能力就会被消除。