Good Essay About Research Methods

Homework #5

Abstract
The article is missing the abstract but it usually has something in common with the introduction but is more concise. An abstract always contain the most fundamental issues and solid statements that are brought up by the author in the main body of the article. This article is about influence and interconnection between public opinion and foreign policy in India.

Introduction

Introduction serves as short notice of what article is about and why the author thinks it to be important. The issue that is brought up by the author is public opinion. The topic of the article is a link between public opinion and foreign policy. The social problem of the article is “how public opinion might affect Indian foreign policy” (Kapur 286). Its relevance is proved by the research done in this work. Also the author found it necessary to introduce the structure of the article.

Literature review

We know that public opinion and foreign policy of any country are deeply interconnected. In a true democracy where the full power belongs to citizens, they must dictate foreign policy and officials just make it possible. But as the citizens are more occupied with internal issues, foreign policy is left for elite. The literature review starts with the main body of the article and ends leaving only the author's conclusion. This article is deductive as it starts with general things about public opinion and foreign policy and then becomes more specific talking more about the USA and India and comparing them. The author succeeded to find some gaps in our knowledge such as some facts of public opinion (the lack of factual information does not imply a lack of public opinion (Kapur 288), the role of mass media and so on. Also the author proposes specific hypothesis of how public opinion might affect Indian foreign policy in the future.

Methods and Data

Analysis and Results
Basing on the conducted survey, the author came to conclusion that Indian public is not distant from politics and demonstrates realism. It judges the Indian government claiming it to be tougher in its relations with the USA. Kapur did make a casual argument because he stated that Indians are latent in the question regarding foreign affairs of their State but at the same time even “latent public opinion can still affect foreign policy decision making” process (304). He claimed that Indians elites may be surprised by those who showed interest in foreign policy. This claim is valid as now the growing demographic group that wants changes in foreign policy and possesses sophisticated nature of public opinion does have major influence on officials' decisions.

Discussion and Conclusion

This all means that sooner or later there will be a large group of Indian people who will make the government listen to their opinion. The survey shows that Indians are not naive about the US intentions and understand what influence the government of that country has on their policy. There are also some troubling findings about disagreement inside particular groups of population. This is key take-away point as in future such lack of consensus may create large political dissonance. Still the author suggests holding other surveys in future in order to control this problem.

Works Cited

Kapur, Devesh. “Public Opinion and Indian Foreign Policy.” India Review 8(3), 2009: 286- 305.