Public opinion and security politics: Linking mass and elite perspectives across domestic, regional, and global contexts

The study of public opinion and security politics has emerged as a critical field exploring how citizens and elites interact to define and respond to threats in domestic, regional, and global contexts. Recent research highlights that public perceptions of vulnerability, institutional trust, and security legitimacy shape how governments mobilize defense resources, maintain international alliances, and justify coercive or exceptional measures. Yet, existing scholarship remains fragmented: studies of mass opinion tend to isolate specific security issues, while research on elite cognition and elite perceptions of public attitudes is often detached from broader societal dynamics. Furthermore, findings frequently fail to traverse boundaries between security domains, such as terrorism, military operations, or cyber defense. This fragmentation prevents a holistic understanding of how opinion and security politics mutually constitute each other and limits cumulative theoretical and empirical progress. Addressing these gaps requires an integrative framework capable of tracing how beliefs, perceptions, and feedback loops form across the mass–elite spectrum and within both domestic and foreign policy contexts.This Research Topic aims to bridge the divides between subfields of security studies and political behavior by uniting research on mass and elite perspectives across multiple levels of analysis. It seeks to understand how publics interpret threats, how elites perceive and respond to public preferences, and how these interactions vary across time, context, and domain. Central objectives include identifying the mechanisms that link opinion formation to security decision-making, explaining cross-domain and cross-national variation in public attitudes toward security, and developing theoretical approaches that capture the reciprocal influence between citizens and elites. By fostering dialogue across disciplines and approaches, this Research Topic seeks to advance a more integrated and comparative science of the public–security nexus.The scope of this Research Topic covers empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions that examine the interaction between public opinion and security politics across domestic, regional, and global contexts. To gather further insights into these multidimensional dynamics, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• Formation and evolution of mass and elite security perceptions• Public attitudes toward war, deterrence, and the use of force• Elite cue-giving and responsiveness to public preferences• Citizen support for defense spending, alliances, and counterterrorism policies• Trust in institutions, threat perception, and political consequences of insecurity• Disinformation, political violence, and the shaping of security narratives• Cross-domain comparisons (e.g., from terrorism to interstate conflict or emergency powers)• Comparative analyses across countries, regions, and time periods• Methodological innovations in measuring opinion and elite cognition in security research Topic editors: Eyal Rubinson, Tal Dingott Alkopher Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/82471/public-opinion-and-security-politics-linking-mass-and-elite-perspectives-across-domestic-regional-and-global-contexts