Course talk:POLI3802012/Survey/Afghanistan

In this section we should focus on having our laid out final questions. Just put your idea for a final question and then other people can try and "fix" it if need be. I know our other thread was intended for this but it's just gotten a little messy with everyone discussing in it. Try and keep you question concise and as on the subject as possible. Once this is done, we can choose the 5 we think are best and then simply cut and paste them across.

Guess I'll kick this off...

I met with Prof. Cutler yesterday and although he would like us to stick to five, he is quite in favor of one of those acting as a screening question. So, something along the lines of what Karlson and others were suggesting could be:

On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 is low and 10 is very high) how would you rate your level of interest (or should this be knowledge?) in Canada's involvement in the Afghan conflict?

Feel free to suggest modifications etc.

I think Ari's question is a good start for screening purposes. I'm just wondering how we are going to fit it into the rest of the survey. If they answer a "10" or very interested then are they now allowed to answer the rest of the survey, or specific questions? On the other hand if they answer a "1" or lack interest, are they now prevented from answering further questions on the survey? Or is this question just gaining a better perspective on the interest in Afghanistan and foreign policy? Just a few things to consider if we are going to submit Ari's question.

Personally I think that the following question would be an excellent way to conceptualize the general publics opinion on how they view their own military presence. It also explains whether the public views the mission to Afghanistan as mission for the general good or if it had interior motives:

"To what extent do you agree with the following statement: The purpose of Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is focused on peacekeeping operations." Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree

Let me know what you think.

As mentioned in the previous posts I think its important to somehow highlight Canada's alliance with US (+ NATO) as it seems to be one of the major factors in Canada's involvement in the war. Here is a suggestion, let me know what you guys think...

Given the importance of the Canadian alliance with the United States, do you agree with Canada’s decision to participate in the war in Afghanistan? Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree

OR (to be more specific, although might require extra knowledge)

Given Canada’s membership in NATO, do you agree with Canada’s decision to participate in the war in Afghanistan? Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree

Lastly, what do you guys think about proposing a question that targets the medias involvement in the perception of the war in Afghanistan?

I think Nikta's questions would not only give a good analysis of how Canadians feel about the war in Afghanistan but also provide data on how they generally view the country's membership in NATO and its alliance with the US.

I have a couple suggestions that largely concern whether Canada's participation in the war was in the nation's best interests, from a security standpoint.

"Do you agree that the Canadian government's decision to participate in the war in Afghanistan has made Canada and its allies safer from international terrorism?" Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree.

OR

"Given that Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is directly linked to the 9/11 attacks, do you agree that Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan has made the nation and its allies safer from international terrorism?" Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree.

Please give me your thoughts.

Patrick, I really like your first question! As for your second one, I kind of feel like using the first part of it would be like pushing a certain idea over others. By telling someone "given the involvement is directly linked to X.." (whatever factor you think is dominant), you are basically saying Canada would NOT be in Afghanistan today has 9/11 never happened. While this might be true, some people might feel that Canada's presence in Afghanistan has little to nothing to do with national security and 9/11, but other ideas that could vary from saving the world to converting all Afghans to Christianity (extreme example, but you get my point). HOWEVER, how about we stick with the second part or it, or your first version. I think its an important question to ask.

So after my corrections above, I suggest the following as a final question, based on Patrick's idea: "To what extent do you think the Canadian government's involvement in the war in Afghanistan has made Canada and its allies safer from international terrorism?" Possible Answers: Strongly disagree / disagree / neutral (did not make a difference)/ agree / strongly agree / Don't know.

Feel free to comment, etc., of course. However, since I feel like its about time we get questions finalized, lets try to keep it clear and concise from now on and get some final questions out there.

I think we should use this first one more as a means of gauging the participant's knowledge level than as a screening question per se. Comparing the survey responses on this question with those of the rest could, to some extent, help us gauge the confidence level of our participants.

Since I got no comments no this question on the other thread, and I actually came to like it, I am going to re-post one of my original questions here. Please do let me know what you think, I am sure it could use some editing:

"In your opinion, how has Canada's global reputation been affected by its involvement in the war in Afghanistan?" 

possible answers: "positive - showed full commitment to NATO which will benefit Canada in the future", "positive - proved military strength and leadership in world affairs", "it had no effect", "negative - Canada had a part in the murder and torture of innocent civilians", and "negative - the war was too long, cost too much, and hurt Canada's reputation as a peacekeeping nation"

Lee, although I like your question, I think there are a few implications with the answers. In particular, since the "negative" response are connected with "murder of innocent civilians" in addition to mentioning its high costs, people are going to likely provide ideal answers as opposed to how they truly feel. Furthermore, The reasons as to why people might disagree or agree with the question might be different than the choices you have provided. It might be a better idea to leave it as "positive, No effect (neutral) or negative". Let me know what you think! :)

Best wishes,

Nikta

I have to agree with Nikta, we can't risk editorializing the responses. Though we might want to break it down further into "very positively, somewhat positively, neutral, somewhat negatively, very negatively", or something similar.

Nikta, thank you for your feedback! I think you are right and that's why I wanted to hear what other people thought. I guess that on one hand I wanted to find out whether people saw the war as negative or positive in regard to Canada's reputation, and at the same time I was also interested in WHY they thought it was a good/bad thing. But I see how it can be problematic as a survey question - obviously my answers were slightly extreme (though, talking to Canadians about Afghanistan, that's the type of responses I'd normally get, which is why I put them as examples).

ANYWAY, bottom line, I'm going to change the answers to this question, following you suggestion to "positive"/"no effect"/"negative"/"don't know" (which I'll keep including unless someone objects).

Thanks again.

It might be a good idea to try and keep the number of answers the same. So for each question we end up with a scale going from 1 to 5 and potentially a 6 demarcating lack of knowledge.

Lee, in this case your question would have 6 potential answers, basically what Morgan suggested plus your "don't know" option.

Keeping this consistency throughout the survey would allow us to map the data much more easily, which is most likely what we're going to end up doing.

Ari, I don't know if I agree with you on this one. I'll explain: I think deciding to have a certain number of possible answers can really limit us in terms of the kinds of questions we ask. Also, keep in mind other groups are working on other questions for the survey, and from what I've seen some are as simple as "true/false". The way I see it, restricting ourselves to a certain type of questions would just make the survey a bit less interesting, but I'm curious to hear how you think it would help with mapping the data at the end, since it imght be something I have't thought of. I don't mind the changes regarding my question in particular, and in fact that might be a good idea. I just don't think we should insist on 6 potential answers as a general rule.

Ok, since we're getting pretty close to the deadline, I thought it might be best to gather all the questions we have thus far in one space...

1.How would you rate your level of knowledge in regards to Canada's involvement in the Afghan conflict? 1.Very high, 2. High, 3. Moderate, 4. Low, 5. Very low

2.To what extent do you agree with the following statement: The purpose of Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is focused on peacekeeping operations? 1.Strongly agree, 2.Agree, 3.Neutral, 4.Disagree, 5.Strongly disagree, 6.Don't know

3.Given the importance of the Canadian alliance with the United States (e.g. membership in NATO), do you agree with Canada’s decision to participate in the war in Afghanistan? 1. Strongly agree, 2. Agree, 3. Neutral, 4. Disagree, 5. Strongly disagree, 6. Don't know

4. To what extent do you agree with the following statement: The Canadian government's involvement in the war in Afghanistan has made Canada and its allies safer from international terrorism? 1. Strongly agree, 2. Agree, 3. Neutral (did not make a difference), 4. Disagree, 5. Strongly disagree, 6. Don’t know

5. In your opinion, how has Canada's global reputation been affected by its involvement in the war in Afghanistan? 1. Very positively, 2. Somewhat positively, 3. Neutral (did not make a difference), 4. Somewhat negatively, 5. Very negatively, 6. Don't know

Final comment's anyone?

Good idea to start gathering the questions!

In general, following the "Dummy variable" lab and my personal opinion, I would probably rather go with the lower numbers standing for more "negative" responses. That being said, I also left in bold questions I personally think should be on, and in italics are some of my comments.

1.How would you rate your level of knowledge in regards to Canada's involvement in the Afghan conflict? 1.Very Low, 2. Low, 3. Moderate, 4. High, 5. Very High

2.To what extent do you agree with the following statement: The purpose of Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is focused on peacekeeping operations? 1.Strongly agree, 2.Agree, 3.Neutral, 4.Disagree, 5.Strongly disagree, 6.Don't know - I think this question could use some clarification, if used. Does ANYONE think the operation was ever focused on peacekeeping? If so, a simple definition of peacekeeping might be helpful here

3.Given the importance of the Canadian alliance with the United States (e.g. membership in NATO), do you agree with Canada’s decision to participate in the war in Afghanistan? 1. Strongly agree, 2. Agree, 3. Neutral, 4. Disagree, 5. Strongly disagree, 6. Don't know - are we basically asking if Canada's involvement in Afghanistan strengthened the relationship? Just not sure what we are trying to get out of this question, but I still think CA-US relations and NATO are important issues to tackle

4. To what extent do you agree with the following statement: The Canadian government's involvement in the war in Afghanistan has made Canada and its allies safer from international terrorism? 1. Strongly disagree, 2. Disgree, 3. Neutral (did not make a difference), 4. Agree, 5. Strongly Agree, 6. Don’t know

5. In your opinion, how has Canada's global reputation been affected by its involvement in the war in Afghanistan? 1. Very negatively, 2. Somewhat negatively, 3. Neutral (did not make a difference), 4. Somewhat positively, 5. Very positively, 6. Don't know

Everyone, please do comment since we should probably get this done soon :) (is the final version due tomorrow?)

Nicely done Lee. Yeah, I totally agree with the scale reversal...seems to make more sense, from a visual as well as psychological stand point.

The deadline is tomorrow...I'm guessing the same as assignment 2, at 7pm?

In regards to

Question 2: Good point, very few would actually believe that the purpose was ever peacekeeping and it might in fact be misguiding to frame it this way...How about a potentially divisive statement like: To what extent do you agree with the following statement: The purpose of Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is to defeat the Taliban?

Question 3: I think the point of this question is to gauge the people's attitudes towards Canada's military and strategic alliances as they relate to the Afghan conflict. So how about: Do you agree that Canada’s decision to participate in the war in Afghanistan strengthened it's military alliance with the United States as well as it's position within NATO?

Lee and Ali,

I really like the way you guys have analyzed the questions! I think we should finalize these and put them up on the main page. I agree with both of your assessment of question 2. As for your reference to question 3, given that the major reason for Canada to participate in the war in Afghanistan was due to its alliance with the US (and its membership in NATO) I personally think it is important to assess how people view Canada's obligation to provide military support to allies. I think it will provide us with an answer that evaluates how people feel towards the alliance and military (defense) obligations in addition to how they would feel towards Canada's involvement in future wars. Let me know what you guys think!

Nikta and Ari, I see what you guys are getting at. Let me know what you think about the following re-phrasing of the question:

Keeping in mind Canada's strong alliance with the United States of America and its membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to what extent do yo think it was Canada's obligation to take part in the NATO led mission in Afghanistan? 1. Not at all Canada's obligation 2. to some extent 3. to a high extent 4. Don't know.

Also, inspired by the US election study from our assignment, what do you guys think about including a general question like "Overall, was the war in Afghanistan worth the cost for Canada?" Y/N. This can also be looked at as sort of a screening question.

So I posted on our main page the questions we seem to have general agreement on. Feel free to make adjustments or bring back to discussion whatever question you feel is unnecessary or incomplete. Additionally, we will have to decide on 2 more final questions to include if we all agree to have those three.

Since we're officially out of time, I went ahead and posted the other two questions. I'm sure we can still make modifications if there still remains any major issues with any of them.

Over all, great job everyone and thank you for the thought provoking discussion!

Cheerios,

Since we are going to start focusing on final questions in David's thread, I suggest we put all random thoughts/ideas (basically anything that is NOT a concise question) here.

I just encountered this: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/was-it-worth-it-canadians-reflect-on-the-war-in-afghanistan/article2326272/ on Globe and Mail, under the title "Canadians reflect on the war in Afghanistan". I thought it had some interesting points in regard to positive and negative aspects of the war in Afghanistan that could inspire some questions. For example, I came up with "In your opinion, how has Canada's global image been affected by its involvement in the war in Afghanistan?" possible answers: "positive - showed full commitment to NATO which will benefit Canada in the future", "positive - proved military strength and leadership in world affairs", "it had no effect", "negative - Canada had a part in the murder and torture of innocent civilians", and "negative - the war was too long, cost too much, and hurt Canada's image as a peacekeeping nation". This is just a quick draft, feel free to comment/edit. Regardless, I recommend reading the reflections even if only to get a better idea of the war and its aftermath.

Quick question but, are we allowed to contextualize/define terms and concepts before we pose questions? For example, I can see how some Canadians might not understand what exactly "peacekeeping" entails or what NATO is (again as others have said, we need to remember that not all Canadians may know these English terms or are familiar with such concepts).

That's a good question. I think, or at least I hope, we could give some short explanations regarding such concepts. For example, if we ask something about peacekeeping (which I don't think has much to do with Afghanistan, but say we mention it), maybe we could start with something like. "According to the X dictionary/whatever source, peacekeeping is defined as ... Given that definition, do you believe that ... ...?". As for NATO, I would just explain what it stands for, and/or maybe also shortly mentioned when it was created and for what main purpose, whatever info is relevant to the question we are asking.

Lee, I hope a short explanation is possible. We should set a limit to the word length though just because people often may lose interest if they have to read a long explanation section first.

Keeping in mind that the topic is Afghanistan, how broad of a view do we want to capture? Do we want to gauge public opinion simply on Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, or are we more inclined to broaden the scope to try and capture opinion on our national foreign policy in general?

I think that, given our respondents may not have much knowledge on the specifics of Canadian involvement in Afghanistan or the specifics of Canadian foreign policy in general, our question will have to be fairly broad and straight forward - a general opinion type question. Maybe we could ask a question like: "To what extent do you agree with the following statement: 'In hindsight, Canada's choice to deploy troops to Afghanistan was the right decision.' Strongly Agree; Somewhat Agree; Neutral; Somewhat Disagree; Strongly Disagree."

This way, we don't assume much detailed knowledge about Canada's foreign policy or much detailed knowledge about the happenings in Afghanistan; however, we will be able to measure the sample's support for Canada's stance on foreign relations in general.

Just an idea of a possible direction :)

I think that's a great question, however, asking someone their opinion on Canada's involvement in Afghanistan does require some prior knowledge of the event (except for a neutral answer). I think it's difficult to have a broad question in terms of foreign relations due to the specific circumstances that occur. Some situations require more forceful action then others and gauging opinion on one specific event may have a limited capacity in explaining Canada's stance on foreign policy. So although I agree we should stay away from specific questions, we also can't lose the respondent by making them think of varying circumstances.

That is a good point and something to consider; however, I don't think we should completely avoid asking interesting, more specific questions just because some people might not be politically aware enough to be able to give clear answers. I suggest that in addition to strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree, we add another possible response to the more specific/"complex" questions (or all questions presented in this format) that will be along the lines of "Not sure/Don't know enough about the topic to form an opinion". This way, I feel like we can encourage more honest/accurate responses, and also add another component to possible future analysis (for example, we can look at how much Canadians know ABOUT our foreign policy, and not just at what they think about it, IF they know enough). I don't think we should only stick to very general questions. I also agree with Stephan that pretty much any question to do with Afghanistan, foreign policy - or politics in general - requires some prior knowledge, so it would be hard to start with the assumption that Canadians know nothing about politics while trying to conduct a political survey.

Also, in terms of the scope, going back to Ari's question, I think we should definitely consider/ask Dr Cutler's permission to broaden the scope to include other foreign policy issues, such as Canada's global ambitions (or what they should be/ if there should be), involvement in NATO, Canada-US relations, etc etc. I am surprised this is the only topic in the whole survey that has to do with IR... What does everyone think?

My only concern with broadening the scope would be that we might overwhelm our participants. Remember, we pay a lot more attention to issues of foreign policy than most people. While a lot of people know what Canada does in broad terms, I don't think they'd really understand, nor would they really care about Canada's involvement in NATO. I think keeping to things that are openly visible to the public would be best. That would involve the war in Afghanistan, Canada's relationship with the Syrian conflict (to a lesser degree) and even it's involvement (or lack thereof) in the War on Terror. These things are seen on the news and not just heard.

In regards to Ari's question about the scope of our poll, I believe that broadening our question to gauge Canada's entire foreign policy strategy requires even more background to be supplied to the participant as Jamie and Stephan stated before. I do like the path that Jamie started with a simple question like: "To what extent do you agree with the following statement: 'In hindsight, Canada's choice to deploy troops to Afghanistan was the right decision.' etc etc That provides a simple straightforward (at least in my opinion) question. If we were to do something like that we could add a filler sentence directly before that question is stated, maybe along the lines of stating a few specific facts about outcomes, or current involvement to help the reader feel more comfortable, but we would have to be careful as not to contaminate our sample by supplying biased information.

In response to Lee's concerns about having people not being politically aware enough to answer the survey question. I think that if we make the question too specific than we will really narrow down our field for people who are able to participate in our survey, just a thought though. I do like the idea about adding an additional response to gauge how much Canadians know about our foreign policy. It will allow for future research possibilities to open up, which is always a plus.

I think our best bet would be to come up with a filler sentence or two before the question to provide some brief background knowledge on the topic of Canada's involvement in Afghanistan before we ask our research question. We will just have to be careful on how the sentence is framed as not to contaminate our sample or induce bias responses.

The main topic scope and premise could be: Military Force in Afghanistan

Also, the factors that could consist are:

• Military Effort Success
• Troop withdrawal Afghanistan stable government
• Supporting soldiers
• Problems for returning soldiers
• Veteran Medical Care

Thoughts?

Karli: Though these are important issues in there own right, it seems to me that some of them may be too specific thus moving us away from gauging opinion on Canada's foreign policy. The perceived success of our military effort in Afghanistan is indeed a highly relevant issue and can act as a good platform for relevant questions.

Regarding the scope in general, it appears to me as if we've reached the conclusion that a balance between specific and broad has to be achieved (easy to say, hard to do). Though perhaps somewhat challenging to accomplish, I think it's quite possible to gauge public opinion on general Canadian foreign policy via questions specific to the Afghanistan conflict if we look at our involvement in that nation as a case study representative of a broader national policy. Public sentiment in regards to Canada's policies and involvement in Afghanistan can be seen as a sample of opinion which, when scaled up, may represent opinion toward our foreign policy in general.

We seem to already be on our way in drafting questions within the 'Afghanistan Conflict' frame which should achieve the above-mentioned goals...

At second thought, I do agree with River and others who have suggested we concentrate on broader questions that the majority of the people would be able to answer. Of course, it'd be fascinating for us to hear what people think about some specific policies/actions, but it probably will not matter much if we only get very few who are able to answer those questions.

Karli, I also think those are interesting topics, but like Ari mentioned - maybe we should focus more on things that have to do with what Canada as a country does/achieves outside its boarders (with its troops, etc) and not the treatment they get here at home (as important as that is). So, for example, from the topics you suggested, I think military success and troop withdrawal would be a good place to start.

I agree with Lee, especially considering how Canada has already withdrawn from the Afghanistan mission and what is left is a minimal task force with a concentration on providing advising and training capabilities. What we might be/should be interested in is knowing whether the public will want Canada to participate in similar missions and how Canada wants to be viewed on the world stage in terms of military/peacekeeping contributions, given the Afghanistan experience.

Yes Lee, in addition to providing survey response options of strongly agree, agree, neutral,,disagree and strongly disagree we should offer another possible response option of ‘unsure’ or ‘not enough information to answer.’ As River mentioned, it will allow us to gage how confident Canadians are about their foreign policy knowledge. There is a difference after all between ignorance/lack of knowledge and indifference/neutral on subject matter.

Furthermore, regarding the scope, I agree with Ari that we should focus on military success and troop withdrawal to highlight Canada’s international actions and influence abroad. However, Karli maybe on to something for another future survey. Questions addressing Veteran’s Medical Care for example (a topic for Canadians at home) may receive greater feedback or stronger answers because of canadian's closer proximity to the issue and this may influence their emotional connection to the military and responses in turn.

I have a few sample questions that everyone can think about: "To what extent do you agree with the following statement: Canada should immediately remove all military personnel from Afghanistan." Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree "To what extent do you agree with the following statement: The purpose of Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is focused on peacekeeping operations." Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree "To what extent do you agree with the following statement: Overall Canada's mission in Afghanistan has been successful." Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree

All of these questions follow the same format as Jamie's example earlier. I feel as though it's a good way to add weight to the opinion of the responder. These questions are specific to Afghanistan and may require some knowledge of the events that transpired but also give some idea of the responder's opinion to foreign policy. These are just a few samples that cover a broad range of thoughts on Afghanistan, let me know what you think.

I also think it's important to consider the importance of framing. We do not want to impose on the responder a certain viewpoint or implant certain ideas in their mind before they answer. I believe Stephan drafted a very nice set of questions that were mindful of the concerns we raised.

Just wondering but you do all think we need screening questions as well? Questions of this sort will help us see if the responder is qualified to answer more specific questions on the matter (as Jamie brought up the point that not everyone is knowledgeable on Canadian foreign policy or on Afghanistan). For example, one of the first questions we could ask is: "Do you know about about the Canadian government's exit plan for Canadian troops serving in Afghanistan in 2011?" If yes, we can proceed to ask "Should Canada participate in more missions related to regime change (e.g. Afghanistan) or peacekeeping operations (e.g. Kosovo 1999, Haiti 2004, Sudan 2005)?" with answer options "Regime change missions" and "Peacekeeping operations".

Just some thoughts, feel free to comment.

Karlson:

I think you're idea of using screening questions is solid. That idea also ran through my mind but there was one snag; do those screening questions count towards our 5 total questions that we are allowed? I know I'm fairly late to join in on the discussion but from what I understand, we are only allow 5 questions in total for our survey. If we have two questions that serve as screening questions, then we'll effectively have 4 questions already done and we might not be able to cover all the bases we wanted to cover. If we are able to group the screening questions and the follow up questions as single question, then I think using them would be a great idea. It would just give us so many more things we can sort for. The screening questions may also allow us to attack questions with more depth, while not leaving behind some of the population that just is not concerned with foreign politics.

Stephan:

I think you bring up a great point with your example questions. The first thing that I noticed about your example questions was that it quickly formed the idea in my head that your questions really get at 'trusting' the government as an institution. All the questions you've posed, or at least how I see them, really question the decisions the government has made so far. In this regard, I differ with Karlson a little in that your questions aren't framing, but at the same time, if we really want to get at something, we might have to push to get answers - not necessarily answers we want to hear but rather issues that we'd like the population to think about while answering the questions.

My Views:

My addition to the questions put forward already would be, "Do you believe that the Canadian Government has been totally transparent with their motives for entering Afghanistan?" Similar to Stephan's question about the peacekeeping but a little more broad (might require more background knowledge though).

If I may throw my hat in with both Karlson and David, I also agree that screening questions could be quite useful in distinguishing the more knowledgeable respondents from the rest. But, as David points out, we are quite limited with the max 5 questions.

However, I don't see there being any problems with us breaking up the questions into multiple parts. So, some or all the questions could begin with a screening section. If, like Karlson's example, the answer is in the affirmative we proceed to the second and perhaps third section of the question. This doesn't necessarily mean that the questions will be much longer, we just have to make sure to be as clear and concise as possible.

I also agree that screening questions would be an excellent way to gauge both public knowledge of foreign policy and their opinions on such matters. My questions do seem very broad and may not "push for answers" as David pointed out, but if we want to proceed with screening questions, I think it's important that we ask Dr. Cutler just to be sure. If we are allowed to do so, it's important that we decide what areas of Afghanistan/foreign policy that we are intending to be more specific. I would agree with Lee's earlier comments about Canada's involvement in NATO and it's relation with the US. Karlson's ideas regarding other mission that Canada may or may not have been involved in is also a good topic. The success of the mission and the withdrawal of troops are other areas I think are important. Any other suggestions?

The screening questions would certainly provide greater insight on the average Canadian's understanding of foreign policy. I also agree with Lee and Stephan that we should enlarge the scope of questioning, including other areas of Canada's foreign policy and global commitments. Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is directly linked to its alliance with the United States and its membership in NATO. Karlson also has some good questions relating to Canada's involvement in future missions. We could also examine what effects the Afghanistan mission has had on public perception. Perhaps asking individuals if Canada's involvement in Afghanistan would make them more or less likely to support future interventions. Or if the Afghanistan mission has given them a more positive or negative view about Canada's membership in NATO.