•  
  •  

Scholar Commons > Open Access Journals > GSP > Vol. 20 (2026) > Iss. 1 (2026)

 

Abstract

We examine U.S. public opinion during the Rwandan genocide in the spring and early summer of 1994. Drawing on more than a dozen public opinion polls fielded during this period, we analyze Americans’ levels of knowledge about the violence in Rwanda, their views on United Nations involvement, support for U.S. military intervention, and evaluations of President Bill Clinton’s handling of the crisis. Longstanding theory recognizes public opinion as an important variable in explaining foreign policy choices during international crises. In the case of U.S. policy toward the Rwandan genocide, our analysis reveals widespread public unfamiliarity with a distant African conflict experiencing severe violence and declining levels of support for intervention over time. We place these patterns alongside presidential statements, institutional decisions, and policy signals, and show that public sentiment increasingly converged with the Clinton administration’s posture of executive detachment. This posture was marked by limited rhetorical engagement, avoidance of commitment signals, and resistance to expanded involvement, even after the U.S. government eventually acknowledged the violence as genocide following a period of delay. These findings highlight the capacity of presidential leadership not only to mobilize public opinion through active engagement, but also to shape public attitudes through strategic inaction and agenda management during international crises.

First Page

82

Last Page

106

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Andrew Beddow for his research assistance and Lilian Barria for her helpful comments and suggestions. We also appreciate the feedback provided by Katie Davis, Paul Persaud, Andrew Johnstone, and Matthew Shannon at the University of Toronto 2024 Public Opinion and International History Workshop sponsored by Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History. Finally, we are grateful for the feedback provided by Rachel Ibreck and participants of the 2024 Travels Beyond the Holocaust Conference sponsored by the Globalized Memorial Museums project.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.20.1.2065

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

Download

Share

COinS