World Opinion in the Gulf Crisis

The authors investigate the empirical claim that a world opinion existed in the Iraq/Kuwait crisis. They find substantial agreement among citizens of a variety of world cities on the interpretation of events, on affect toward the major actors, and on the goals of the international community, but less agreement on the use of military force. There were significant differences in enthusiasm for that agreement across the various countries, but these mostly reflected differences in affect and in support for various goals. It appears that the attitudes of citizens of various world cities responded to the same factors.