Public opinion

Sociology

German

Archaeology

Sample (material)

Mathematics

Deterrence theory

Politics

Statistics

Epistemology

Philosophy

Political economy

Empirical evidence

Political science

Nuclear weapon

Survey data collection

Geography

Chemistry

Elite

Scholarship

Disarmament

Public relations

Argument (complex analysis)

Chromatography

Biochemistry

International Studies Quarterly

A recent surge in survey-based scholarship has shed new light on public attitudes toward nuclear weapons. Yet, we still know little about how these public attitudes differ from those of political elites. To address this gap, we conducted an original survey on a large representative sample of German citizens and on a unique elite sample of German parliamentarians. In the survey, we asked the respondents about their views on different aspects of NATO's nuclear sharing practice. We found support for several hypotheses concerning nuclear use, extended deterrence, withdrawal of forward-deployed weapons, and the feasibility of global nuclear disarmament. As such, we provide systematic empirical evidence that there are, indeed, important gaps in public and elite attitudes toward nuclear weapons. Our findings underscore the argument that scholars should survey both political elites and the general public to obtain a comprehensive picture of attitudes toward pertinent questions in our field.

Elite-Public Gaps in Attitudes to Nuclear Weapons: New Evidence from a Survey of German Citizens and Parliamentarians