The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want U.S. to interven

The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want U.S. to intervene

By Kyle Dropp, Joshua D. Kertzer and Thomas Zeitzoff
April 7 at 10:18 am

Where’s Ukraine? Each dot depicts the location where a US survey respondent situated Ukraine; the dots are colored based on how far removed they are from the actual country, with the most accurate responses in red and the least accurate ones in blue. (Data: Survey Sampling International; Figure: Thomas Zeitzoff/The Monkey Cage)

Where’s Ukraine? Each dot depicts the location where a U.S. survey respondent situated Ukraine; the dots are colored based on how far removed they are from the actual country, with the most accurate responses in red and the least accurate ones in blue. (Data: Survey Sampling International; Figure: Thomas Zeitzoff/The Monkey Cage)

Joshua Tucker: The following is a guest post from political scientists Kyle Dropp (Dartmouth College) Joshua D. Kertzer (Harvard University) and Thomas Zeitzoff (Princeton University).

*****

Since Russian troops first entered the Crimean peninsula in early March, a series of media polling outlets have asked Americans how they want the U.S. to respond to the ongoing situation. Although two-thirds of Americans have reported following the situation at least “somewhat closely,” most Americans actually know very little about events on the ground — or even where the ground is.

On March 28-31, 2014, we asked a national sample of 2,066 Americans (fielded via Survey Sampling International Inc. (SSI), what action they wanted the U.S. to take in Ukraine, but with a twist: In addition to measuring standard demographic characteristics and general foreign policy attitudes, we also asked our survey respondents to locate Ukraine on a map as part of a larger, ongoing project to study foreign policy knowledge. We wanted to see where Americans think Ukraine is and to learn if this knowledge (or lack thereof) is related to their foreign policy views. We found that only one out of six Americans can find Ukraine on a map, and that this lack of knowledge is related to preferences: The farther their guesses were from Ukraine’s actual location, the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene with military force.

Ukraine: Where is it?

Survey respondents identified Ukraine by clicking on a high-resolution world map, shown above. We then created a distance metric by comparing the coordinates they provided with the actual location of Ukraine on the map. Other scholars, such as Markus Prior, have used pictures to measure visual knowledge, but unlike many of the traditional open-ended items political scientists use to measure knowledge, distance enables us to measure accuracy continuously: People who believe Ukraine is in Eastern Europe clearly are more informed than those who believe it is in Brazil or in the Indian Ocean.

About one in six (16 percent) Americans correctly located Ukraine, clicking somewhere within its borders. Most thought that Ukraine was located somewhere in Europe or Asia, but the median respondent was about 1,800 miles off — roughly the distance from Chicago to Los Angeles — locating Ukraine somewhere in an area bordered by Portugal on the west, Sudan on the south, Kazakhstan on the east, and Finland on the north.

Who is more accurate?

Accuracy varies across demographic groups. In general, younger Americans tended to provide more accurate responses than their older counterparts: 27 percent of 18-24 year olds correctly identified Ukraine, compared with 14 percent of 65+ year-olds. Men tended to do better than women, with 20 percent of men correctly identifying Ukraine and 13 percent of women. Interestingly, members of military households were no more likely to correctly locate Ukraine (16.1 percent correct) than members of non-military households (16 percent correct), but self-identified independents (29 percent correct) outperformed both Democrats (14 percent correct) and Republicans (15 percent correct). Unsurprisingly, college graduates (21 percent correct) were more likely to know where Ukraine was than non-college graduates (13 percent correct), but even 77 percent of college graduates failed to correctly place Ukraine on a map; the proportion of college grads who could correctly identify Ukraine is only slightly higher than the proportion of Americans who told Pew that President Obama was Muslim in August 2010.

Does accuracy matter?

Does it really matter whether Americans can put Ukraine on a map? Previous research would suggest yes: Information, or the absence thereof, can influence Americans’ attitudes about the kind of policies they want their government to carry out and the ability of elites to shape that agenda. Accordingly, we also asked our respondents a variety of questions about what they thought about the current situation on the ground, and what they wanted the United States to do. Similarly to other recent polls, we found that although Americans are undecided on what to do with Ukraine, they are more likely to oppose action in Ukraine the costlier it is — 45 percent of Americans supported boycotting the G8 summit, for example, while only 13 percent of Americans supported using force.

However, the further our respondents thought that Ukraine was from its actual location, the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene militarily. Even controlling for a series of demographic characteristics and participants’ general foreign policy attitudes, we found that the less accurate our participants were, the more they wanted the U.S. to use force, the greater the threat they saw Russia as posing to U.S. interests, and the more they thought that using force would advance U.S. national security interests; all of these effects are statistically significant at a 95 percent confidence level. Our results are clear, but also somewhat disconcerting: The less people know about where Ukraine is located on a map, the more they want the U.S. to intervene militarily.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...location-the-more-they-want-u-s-to-intervene/

 

Majority of Americans does not want sending troops in Ukraine.

 

Uncle Ferd thinks dem commies been hackin' our computers...

Russia-Ukraine Crisis Could Trigger Cyber War
April 20, 2014: WASHINGTON — On the day Crimeans voted in a referendum in March on secession from Ukraine, hackers from a group calling itself the "Cyber Berkut" pelted NATO websites with online nuisance attacks designed to knock the pages offline.

See also:

A quick end won’t serve Vladimir Putin’s purposes in Ukraine
April 20, 2014 ~ With expectations low, it came as a surprise to Western diplomats when Russia signed off on an agreement calling for armed separatists in eastern Ukraine to lay down their weapons and surrender the public buildings they have been occupying for weeks.

 

She is from Tehran. How exotic.

 

Surely you'd know at least two facts which would let you place Ukraine on a map: it's coastal, and it borders with Russia. How are people unable to pick it out on a map? Do they think it's Finland? lol.

I don't blame Americans for this - I'm sure Europeans are just as bad at picking out American states as Americans are at picking out EU states. People are stupid, and that's a worldwide phenomenon.

[hr][/hr]

As for intervention - how did the US get to the point where this is even a question that needs answering? Ukraine presents absolutely no identifiable threat to the US homeland. It's strange how times have changed, from pre-WWI when Americans were generally hesitant to get into prolonged conflict, to today - when any semi-crisis anywhere in the world requires Team America: World Police to swoop in and "help".

 

This looks like a lot of people that did this poll didn't give a crap about the poll itself. Americans are bad about geography but the ones choosing our own country, they are just making a joke out of the poll.

 

They don't know a lot about Ukraine, but they know a lot about Russia: it look more like a way to fight against Russian than a way to help Ukraine's people.

 

clarisse150, you are exactly right. Unfortunately, we have to admit that Americans are well trained to hate Russia, they do not know about geography and also about socialism, communism and history. They inherited cold war mentality and remain frozen in this state. This makes it easier for Putin to proceed, because he is the only leader, who really cares about people in at least eastern and southern parts of Ukraine. This is how he got much of support in both Ukraine and Russia.

 

Another interesting thing:
Eight crazy things Americans believe about foreign affairs :

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ns-believe-about-foreign-affairs-8217998.html

 

Okay buddy, let's play.

 

Iran's Sex-Change Operations Provided Nearly Free-Of-Cost

WTF Iranians?

 

Well, Iran is the second in sex-change operation in the world and it is almost free-of-cost covered by insurance companies. What does it mean? a good Health Insurance system. But another interesting thing for you Americans:

Military rape: The invisible war :

Read more:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/op...&utm_term=plustweets&utm_medium=MasterAccount

 

But you kill gays.

Why dont you guys shutup and suicide yourselves into Israel already.

(will return shortly with the wacky amazing incredible beliefs held by followers of shia islam.)

 

we suicide ourselves into Israel????!!!!!! to kill who? Jews??
The same as your compatriots, you don't know anything about world so discussing with you is wasting time.

 

You are miles away from coherency.




Savages.

 

This is very much true: we do not care of people, only "interests of the USA". Poor knowledge of the world outside USA is typical of average American, including our leading politicians, because we elect them not because of their best suitability for the job, but rather because of their "squeaky clean" reputation among conservatives and good look. However, they know of Iran a little more then about Ukraine. This is because of oil. Greed overrules over anything else.

 

Ooh, and I can counter that in a second with all kinds of wacky amazing incredible beliefs held by followers of Christianity. Shall we begin with talking snakes, or would you prefer flying, flaming chariots and unicorns? No? Ok, then how about being impregnated by a ghost or walking on water?
Why don't you guys shut up...

- - - Updated - - -

Photoshop, and a very poor effort at that.

 

My newfound atheism has me wondering what you are going on about.

Learn some consistency old man. The rights of gays and women in Iran is horrendous

 

It's quite simple really; you started with the "wacky beliefs" stuff and I responded with my own observation of christianity. The rights of gays and women in Iran were not an issue until Americans decided that Iran's democracy was not to their taste, overthrew it, installed a dictator who was himself exiled, and whose overthrow inspired the Islamic revolution and everything America now whines about. Cause and effect writ large.

 

You talk like a wino.

 

Ok, and which of the above facts in my post would you like to argue against? Or is it that you simply don't understand plain English?

 

Islamic Prostitution/ Nikah al Mut'a :-

According to the majority of Shi'a school of thought Nikahu’l-Mut‘ah literally means, marriage for COMFORT and FUN, and is the second form of marriage, described in the Quran (4:24).

Mut'ah is a type of marriage, used in the same way as a permanent marriage (Nikah) in order to make a man and woman physically HALAL to each other. It is a FIXED-TIME marriage which, according to the schools of Shari‘a (Islamic law), is a marriage with a preset duration. After this period expires, the marriage is automatically dissolved.
Mut'ah has many Shari'a rules / regulations .

Similar rules that apply for Nikah apply for Mut'ah - if certain types of women are haram for a man to contract Nikah then the same rule applies with Mut'ah. A man cannot contract Mut'ah with a married woman, as is the case with a normal marriage.

A woman cannot enter into Mut'ah marriage, till the time she has become pure by observing the 'iddah (waiting period) from her earlier husband; just like in Nikah. Also, the same principle/rights apply - two people cannot contract Mut'ah with the same woman at one given time

After expiration of Mut'ah marriage, again she has to observe 'iddah, before getting married (either Nikah or Mut'ah) to any other person.

There is no difference between the children of Nikah or Mut'ah. Both are considered legitimate under the Shari'a - they inherit from their parents, and all Islamic laws apply with regards to paternity.

The Mut'ah is the most controversial Fiqh topic; Sunnis and Shi‘a hold diametrically opposed views on its permissibility after Muhammad's era.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikah_mut‘ah

Day in the life of a filthy Iranian.

- - - Updated - - -

Okay guy who doesn't know how to respond to someone without jumping topics entirely.

 

its regular Westerners approach to everything in the World, the less they know the more they meddle.

 

You're right, when we come from a froeing country, we can easly see how american people hate socialism, communism, and all the countries as Russia or China who have something to do with that! That's really in the mentality. I am not socialist, but I think that american's hate of them is quite diproportionate!

I don't think that Ukraine's people hate Russian - these countries are very close and Ukraine is a former important part of Russia; Ukraine haven't got a lot of comon point with USA... Their history aren't linked.
I'm not sure that they will enjoy USA to "help" them.