User:Bridgetanzano/sandbox

Article Evaluation

The article I am referencing is about Public opinion on nuclear issues. I clicked on several of the links and they all worked. However, some words were linked that I didn't find added to the overall purpose of the article. For example, the words "attitudes" and "beliefs" were linked, which just took you to pages describing the generic nature of the word. These are simple and generally understood words in the English language, so I did not see a reason for them to be linked. There was a critique on the talk page that "nuclear issues" is very broad, so the article should be split into two: one on nuclear weapons and the other on nuclear energy. The author defended her decision to keep the article as one saying that nuclear in general, even if developed for energy, can easily be converted to weapons once the technology of nuclear is available. Because of this, I agree that the issues should be discussed in the same article, but the author should do more to distinguish between the two within the article as to avoid confusion. Overall, the article was neutral, mostly relaying poll results taken from reliable sources.

Article Proposal

The article US foreign aid has a section regarding US public opinion about foreign aid. This section is relatively short, so I could do more research and add to the data content and reliability of that section.

Bibliography

WPO Admin. “American Public Vastly Overestimates Amount of U.S. Foreign Aid.” World Public Opinion, 29 Nov. 2010, worldpublicopinion.net/american-public-vastly-overestimates-amount-of-u-s-foreign-aid/.

This website has polls regarding the average American’s knowledge about US foreign aid spending as well as ones that capture the opinions of Americans on foreign aid.

Hurst, Reuben, et al. “Analysis | Americans Love to Hate Foreign Aid, but the Right Argument Makes Them like It a Lot More.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 4 May 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/04/americans-love-to-hate-foreign-aid-but-the-right-argument-makes-them-like-it-a-lot-more/?utm_term=.bbd9ea3f8749.

The Washington Post wrote an article about how US public opinion on foreign aid is easily persuaded. This article discusses how, when presented with different arguments, people’s opinions about foreign aid change. I could discuss this in the section about public opinion on the wikipedia page to further examine how people view foreign aid and why.  

Kull, Steven. “Preserving American Public Support for Foreign Aid.” Brookings Blum Roundtable Policy Briefs, pp. 53–60.

The academic publishing, Preserving American Public Support for Foreign Aid, discusses how to shape people’s opinions on foreign aid. This would also further my discussion on the Wikipedia page regarding where and how people form their ideas about foreign aid. It also includes polling data about how public opinion on foreign aid has changed over the years and why.

Hu, Alice C. “Foreign Aid and the 28 Percent Myth.” Harvard International Review, 11 Mar. 2015, hir.harvard.edu/article/?a=8127

A Harvard International Review examines the effects of the US foreign aid budget being so largely misconceived. I would be able to use this article to link polls revealing how little people know to the political effects this lack of knowledge has.

Baker, Andy. 2015. “Race, Paternalism, and Foreign Aid: Evidence from U.S. Public Opinion.” American Political Science Review 109 (1): 93–109. 

This article discusses how white people in America are more likely to be in support of giving foreign aid to poor African countries over poor eastern European countries due to underlying racial paternalism. This is an interesting article because it evaluates why different types of people support different types of foreign aid.

Rough Draft

What does the US public know about foreign aid spending?

Several polls have been done assessing the knowledge of the US Public in regards to how much they know about the government’s foreign aid spending. A poll conducted by World Public Opinion in 2010 found that the average estimate for how much of the government’s budget is spent on foreign aid was 25 percent. The average amount proposed by the public was 10 percent of the federal government’s budget be used on foreign aid. In actuality, less than 1 percent of the US federal budget goes towards foreign aid. Less than 19 percent of respondents thought that the percent of the budget that goes towards foreign aid was less than 5 percent. Steven Kull, director of PIPA, relates this overestimation towards an increase in hearing about foreign aid efforts during the Obama administration, but estimates of foreign aid have always been high.

A poll conducted in 2013 by Research Pew Center found that the majority of Americans wanted to either maintain or increase spending on all US government initiatives except foreign aid. This is attributed to a gross misconception of how much of the federal budget is actually spent on foreign aid.

How do opinions on US foreign aid change?

A study by the Washington Post from 2017 shows that Americans are easily persuaded in regards to their opinions on US foreign aid. The percentage of people who were provided no argument regarding foreign aid and though the US spends too much on it was 67 percent. The percentage of people who were provided a positive argument for foreign aid and thought the US spent too much on it was 28 percent. The percentage of people who were provided a negative argument against foreign aid and thought that the US spends too much on it was 88 percent. This shows that the US public is perceptive to changing their beliefs about US foreign aid based on the information presented.

Because the US public is perceptive to information regarding public aid, Steven Kull, Director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, laid out steps to preserve or create a positive outlook on US foreign aid.

1. Understand the attacks on foreign aid.
2. Do not frame questions about public opinion in terms of priorities because people are likely to prioritize domestic issues.
3. Emphasize that only 1 percent of the federal budget goes towards foreign aid, as the Clinton administration did in the 1990s.
4. Americans feel that the US does more than its fair share on the world stage, so differentiate between foreign aid and military spending.
5. Note that other countries apart of multilateral frameworks are doing their part in contributing to foreign aid efforts.
6. Discuss that NGOs get a large sum of foreign aid to counter claims that aid only leads to further governmental corruption.
7. Point out that foreign aid is a safe way to improve US relations with other nation-states, therefore promoting self interest.

Who does the US public want to support with foreign aid?

A study by Andy Baker, a political scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, found that Americans are more likely to support foreign aid going to an African country than they are to support foreign aid going to an Eastern European country. Respondents averaged wanting to cut aid going to those of European descent by 40 percent, while respondents averaged wanting to cut aid going to those of African descent by only 11 percent. Baker attributes this to a paternalistic view Americans have of themselves over those of African descent.

How much does the US spend and where does it go?

Because of the enormity of the US federal budget, the .7 percent of the budget put towards foreign aid totaled 23 billion dollars in 2012. Most US foreign aid does not go other governments due to skepticism about corruption in other countries. There is a fear amongst the American people that foreign aid is funneled and used to increase the personal wealth of corrupt government leaders of foreign countries. However, about 85 percent of foreign aid goes to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and US-government contractors, meaning that most of foreign aid is not being given directly to foreign governments anyways.