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Obama goodwill, parental role good for U.S. policy, image
Barack Obama’s role as a father of young children should positively influence the image of the United States, both among its own citizens and abroad.
A UB political scientist and her colleague in the Department of Sociology say that Barack Obama’s extraordinarily strong approval ratings abroad, as well as his role as the father of young children, should bode well for U.S. foreign policy and the nation’s image, both at home and abroad.
Michelle Benson, assistant professor of political science, says the high opinion in which the overseas public holds Obama “bodes very well for his ability to alter the outcome in issues of international concern to the United States, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and international cooperation in Afghanistan.”
Benson, whose expertise includes international conflict and intergovernmental organizations, notes that Obama’s popularity “will not make political adversaries turn into staunch allies; however, it will likely alter the ability of the U.S. to influence and alter conflicts around the globe.”
“For example, it was relatively easy for world leaders to reject proposals by President Bush due to his high level of unpopularity among the populations of relevant countries,” she says. “Those same leaders will now face important pressure from their constituencies to consider and likely support proposals from this new president.
“In essence,” Benson says, “President-elect Obama has a historic amount of international goodwill and therefore an important but limited opportunity to further U.S. interests and submit proposals that might have been met with immediate dismissal during the last eight years under George Bush.”
That goodwill, adds Sampson Lee Blair, associate professor of sociology, should be enhanced by Obama’s role as a father.
“People tend to perceive a parent, especially a parent of young children, as kind, nurturing, protective and possessed of a beneficent nature—one that is pleasant and concerned about the well-being of others,” says Blair, who studies marriage and the American family.
“Obama will not only be a young president, but a young father, and it will be assumed that his domestic and foreign policies will be colored by the effects they will have on his daughters.”
Blair says most of us presume that parents, the most important socialization force in the lives of children, are keenly aware of their substantial influence on their sons and daughters. As guides, disciplinarians and role models, they often give considerable thought to how their choices and actions directly or indirectly will influence their kids.
Given our understanding of this, the fact that he has young children may have sent more than a few votes Obama’s way, Blair says.
“As president, I would certainly expect to see Obama looking at the country, and the rest of the world, through the lens of fatherhood,” he says.
“Understandably, most parents want to be able to help their children to have a better life than they had. Parents want their children to have both more and better quality education, they want their children to have a better job and they want their children to live in a safe and peaceful world.
“Although virtually every parent aspires to give such things to their children,” he says, “President Obama will be in a unique position to give these to not only his daughters, but to the entire generation of children that his daughters represent in his eyes.
“This is a very appealing and reassuring proposition for the public,” Blair says.
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