Michal Smetana, Marek Vranka, and Ondřej Rosendorf explore public support for arms control in the third nuclear age, arguing its complexity lowers awareness. People rely on simple heuristics, making opinions elastic and open to “elite cues” from experts and politicians shaping attitudes.
We conducted a survey of Czech citizens and members of parliament on attitudes towards Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The results show that parliamentarians are more supportive of pro-Israel policies, blame Palestinians more for the conflict and view Czech-Israel relations more positively than the general population. Our findings provide the first empirical evidence of a gap between elite and public attitudes towards Israel, contributing to debates on foreign policy preferences.
We are happy to publish the new report on public support for nuclear arms control conducted by the Experimental Lab for International Security Studies (ELISS)!
The report offers results of a cross-national survey regarding public support for nuclear arms control with Russia and China, in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Poland. Furthermore, the survey included an embedded experiment investigating cross-national attitudes toward nuclear and chemical weapon use.
In this publication, Michal Smetana, Marek Vranka and Ondřej Rosendorf provide empirical evidence for the hypothesis that there are substantial elite-public gaps in support for the military use of nuclear and chemical weapons. These findings strongly contribute to the ongoing academic debate on the significance of nuclear and chemical weapon ‘taboos’ in global politics.
We are happy to publish the new report called Czech People and Israel 2023-2024 in collaboration with the Herzl Center for Israeli Studies!
The report compares public opinion surveys from January 2023 and January 2024, as well as a survey of political elites at the turn of 2022-2023. Key findings reveal a notable increase in Czech public’s rise in support for recognizing Palestine as an independent state, alongside a distinct polarization in opinions regarding the responsibilities in the conflict.
