While recent scholarship suggests that conscription decreases support for military action, we argue that its effect is contingent both on a draft’s consequences for inequality in military sacrifice and on partisanship. In an experiment examining public support for defending South Korea, we find that reinstating the draft significantly decreases support for war among Democrats; however, this effect is diminished if the draft reduces inequality in sacrifice. Support for war among Republicans, by contrast, responds neither to information about conscription nor its inequality ramifications. A follow-up experiment shows that conscription continues to significantly decrease support for war, even in the context of a retaliatory strike against a foreign state that targeted American forces. Moreover, partisanship and the inequality ramifications of the draft continue to moderate the relationships between conscription and public opinion. More broadly, our study emphasizes the importance of examining how Americans evaluate foreign policy–relevant information through partisan lenses.
AlmondGabriel. 1950. The American People and Foreign Policy. New York: Praeger.
2.
AlthausScottBramlettBrittanyGimpelJames. 2012. “When War Hits Home: The Geography of Military Losses and Support for War in Time and Space.” Journal of Conflict Resolution56:382–412.
3.
AvantDeborah. 2005. “Private Security Companies.” New Political Economy10:121–31.
4.
AvantDeborahSigelmanLee. 2010. “Private Security and Democracy: Lessons from the U.S. in Iraq.” Security Studies19:230–65.
5.
BartelsLarry. 2002. “Beyond the Running Tally: Partisan Bias and Political Perceptions.” Political Behavior24:117–50.
6.
BartelsLarry. 2005. “Homer Gets a Tax Cut: Inequality and Public Policy in the American Mind.” Perspectives on Politics3:15–31.
7.
BaumMatthewGroelingTimothy. 2009. War Stories: The Causes and Consequences of Public Views of War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
8.
BerganDaniel. 2009. “The Draft Lottery and Attitudes toward the Vietnam War.” Public Opinion Quarterly73:379–84.
9.
BerinskyAdam. 2007. “Assuming the Costs of War: Events, Elites, and American Public Support for Military Conflict.” Journal of Politics69:975–97.
10.
BerinskyAdam. 2009. In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
11.
BerinskyAdamHuberGregoryLenzGabriel. 2012. “Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk.” Political Analysis20:351–68.
12.
BernsteinIver. 1990. The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press.
13.
BrandesLisa. 1994. Public Opinion, International Security Policy and Gender: The United States and Great Britain since 1945. New Haven, CT: Department of Political Science, Yale University.
14.
BrodyRichard. 1991. Assessing the President: The Media, Elite Opinion, and Public Support. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
15.
Bueno de MesquitaBruceLalmanDavid. 1992. War and Reason: Domestic and International Imperatives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
16.
CampbellAngusConversePhilipMillerWarrenStokesDonald. 1960. The American Voter. New York: Wiley.
17.
ChambersJohn. 1987. To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America. New York: Free Press.
18.
ConoverPamelaSapiroVirginia. 1993. “Gender, Feminist Consciousness, and War.” American Journal of Political Science37:1079–99.
19.
DavenportTiffany. 2014. “Policy-induced Risk and Responsive Participation: The Effect of a Son’s Conscription Risk on the Voting Behavior of His Parents.” American Journal of Political Science59:225–41.
20.
EichenbergRichard. 2003. “Gender Differences in Public Attitudes toward the Use of Force by the United States, 1990-2003.” International Security28:110–41.
21.
EichenbergRichard. 2005. “Victory Has Many Friends: U.S. Public Opinion and the Use of Military Force 1981-2005.” International Security30:140–78.
22.
EriksonRobertStokerLaura. 2011. “Caught in the Draft: The Effects of Vietnam Draft Lottery Status on Political Attitudes.” American Political Science Review105:221–37.
23.
FaustDrew Gilpi. 2008. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. New York: Knopf.
24.
FeaverPeterGelpiChristopher. 2004. Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-military Relations and the Use of Force. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
25.
FlynnGeorge Q.1993. The Draft: 1940-1973. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.
26.
FlynnGeorge Q.2002. Conscription and Democracy: The Draft in France, Great Britain, and the United States. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
27.
GainesBrianKuklinskiJamesQuirkPaulPeytonBuddyVerkuilenJay. 2007. “Same Facts, Different Interpretations: Partisan Motivation and Opinion on Iraq.” Journal of Politics69:957–74.
28.
GartnerScott. 2008. “The Multiple Effects of Casualties on Public Support for War: An Experimental Approach.” American Political Science Review102:95–106.
29.
GartnerScott. 2011. “On Behalf of a Grateful Nation: Conventionalized Images of Loss and Individual Opinion Change in War.” International Studies Quarterly55:545–61.
30.
GartnerScottSeguraGary. 1998. “War, Casualties and Public Opinion.” Journal of Conflict Resolution42:278–300.
31.
GartnerScottSeguraGaryWilkeningMichael. 1997. “All Politics Are Local: Local Losses and Individual Attitudes toward the Vietnam War.” Journal of Conflict Resolution41:669–94.
32.
GelpiChristopherFeaverPeter D.ReiflerJason. 2009. Paying the Human Costs of War: American Public Opinion and Casualties in Military Conflicts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
33.
GerberAlanHuberGregory. 2010. “Partisanship, Political Control, and Economic Assessments.” American Journal of Political Science54:153–73.
34.
GerringJohn. 1998. Party Ideologies in America, 1828-1996. New York: Cambridge University Press.
35.
GevaDorit. 2013. Conscription, Family, and the Modern State: A Comparative Study of France and the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press.
36.
GorenPaul. 2002. “Character Weakness, Partisan Bias, and Presidential Evaluation.” American Journal of Political Science46:627–41.
37.
HackerJacobPiersonPaul. 2011. Winner-take-all Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class. New York: Simon and Schuster.
38.
HopkinsDaniel. 2014. “One Language, Two Meanings: Partisanship and Responses to Spanish.” Political Communication31:421–45.
39.
HorowitzMichaelLevenduskyMatthew. 2011. “Drafting Support for War: Conscription and Mass Support for Warfare.” Journal of Politics73:1–11.
40.
HowellWilliamPevehouseJon. 2007. While Dangers Gather: Congressional Checks on Presidential War Powers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
41.
HowellWilliamKrinerDouglas. 2009. “Congress, the President, and the Iraq War’s Domestic Political Front.” In Congress Reconsidered, 9th ed., edited by DoddLawrenceOppenheimerBruce, 311–35. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
42.
JacobsonGary. 2007. Divider, Not a Uniter: George W. Bush and the American People. New York: Longman.
43.
JacobsonGary. 2010. “A Tale of Two Wars: Public Opinion on the U.S. Military Interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Presidential Studies Quarterly40:585–610.
44.
JentlesonBruce. 1992. “The Pretty Prudent Public: Post Post-Vietnam American Opinion on the Use of Military Force.” International Studies Quarterly36:49–74.
45.
KantImmanuel. (1795) 1983. Perpetual Peace and Other Essays. Translated by HumphreyTed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
46.
KesterJohn. 1986. “The Reasons to Draft.” In The All Volunteer Force after a Decade: Retrospect and Prospect, edited by BowmanWilliamLittleRogerThomas SicilliaG., 286–315. Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey.
47.
KlarevasLouis. 2002. “The ‘Essential Domino’ of Military Operations: American Public Opinion and the Use of Force.” International Studies Perspectives3:417–37.
48.
KorbLawrenceDugganSean. 2007. “An All-volunteer Army?: Recruitment and Its Problems.” PS: Political Science and Politics3:467–71.
49.
KrinerDouglas. 2010. After the Rubicon: Congress, Presidents, and the Politics of Waging War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
50.
KrinerDouglasShenFrancis. 2010. The Casualty Gap: The Causes and Consequences of American Wartime Inequalities. New York: Oxford University Press.
51.
LarsonEric. 1996. Casualties and Consensus: The Historical Role of Casualties in Domestic Support for U.S. Military Operations. Santa Monica, CA: Rand.
52.
LeboMatthewCassinoDaniel. 2007. “The Aggregated Consequences of Motivated Reasoning and the Dynamics of Presidential Approval.” Political Psychology28:719–46.
53.
LeviMargaret. 1997. Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
54.
LevyYagil. 2013. “How Military Recruitment Affects Collective Action Its Outcomes.” International Studies Quarterly57:28–40.
55.
LippmannWalter. 1922. Public Opinion. New York: MacMillan.
56.
MandelbaumMichaelSchneiderWilliam. 1978. “The New Institutionalisms.” International Security2:81–98.
57.
McCormickJamesWitkopfEugene. 1990. “Bipartisanship, Partisanship, and Ideology in Congressional-executive Foreign Policy Relations, 1947-1988.” Journal of Politics52:1077–100.
McPhersonJames. 1988. Battle Cry of Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press.
60.
MoskosCharles. 1970. The American Enlisted Man: The Rank and File in Today’s Military. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
61.
MoskosCharles. 2001. “What Ails the All-volunteer Force: An Institutional Perspective.” Parameters31:29–47.
62.
MuellerJohn. 1973. War, Presidents and Public Opinion. New York: Wiley.
63.
NyhanBrendanReiflerJason. 2010. “When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.” Political Behavior32:303–30.
64.
PerriTimothy. 2008. “The Economics of U.S. Civil War Conscription.” American Law and Economics Review10:424–53.
65.
PorterBruce. 1994. War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundations of Modern Politics. New York: Free Press.
66.
ReichleyJames. 2000. The Life of the Parties: A History of American Political Parties. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield.
67.
RussettBruce. 1990. Controlling the Sword: The Democratic Governance of National Security. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
68.
SearsDavidLauRichardTylerTomAllenHarrisJr. 1980. “Self-interest vs. Symbolic Politics in Policy Attitudes and Presidential Voting.” American Political Science Review74:670–84.
69.
VasquezJoseph. 2005. “Shouldering the Soldiering: Democracy, Conscription, and Military Casualties.” Journal of Conflict Resolution49:849–73.
70.
VerbaSidneyBrodyRichardParkerEdwinNieNormanPolsbyNelsonEkmanPaulBlackGordon. 1967. “Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam.” American Political Science Review61:317–33.
71.
WeigleyRussell Frank. 1984. History of the United States Army. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
72.
ZallerJohn. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
