The U.S. military’s nonpartisan norms are an important part of healthy civil–military relations. Some research, however, suggest these norms are weakening. This study examines the evidence for eroding nonpartisan norms by analyzing U.S. military servicemembers’ partisan affiliations and political activism levels from 2008 to 2018. It finds that since 2008, military servicemembers have become more likely to identify as partisans. Servicemembers have also become more politically active than civilians, although this is due to decreasing activism among the American public. It also finds that longer-serving service members have stronger nonpartisan norms, but that newer servicemembers are more politically active than both longer-serving servicemembers and civilians. These findings provide a firmer empirical foundation for previous claims of eroding norms and suggest more research is needed to understand how increased partisanship and political activism impacts military readiness and civil–military relations.
BacevichA. J.KohnR. H. (1997). Grand army of the republicans: Has the U.S. military become a partisan force?New Republic, 217(23), 22–25.
2.
BartelsL. M. (2002). Beyond the running tally: Partisan bias in political perceptions. Political Behavior, 24(2), 117–150. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1021226224601
3.
BekkerP. A.WansbeekT. J. (1996). Proxies versus omitted variables in regression analysis. Linear Algebra and Its Applications, 237–238, 301–312. https://doi.org/10.1016/0024-3795(94)00591-5
BettsR. K. (2009). Are civil-military relations still a problem? In NielsenS. C.SniderD. M. (Eds), American Civil-Military Relations: The Soldier and the State in a New Era. Johns Hopkins University Press(pp. 11–41).
6.
CampbellA.ConverseP. E.MillerW. E.StokesD. E. (1960). The American voter (Unabridged ed.). University of Chicago Press.
7.
CialdiniR. B.RenoR. R.KallgrenC. A. (1990). A focus theory of normative conduct: Recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(6), 1015–1026. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.58.6.1015
8.
ClintonJ. D. (2003). Proxy variable. In Lewis-BeckM.BrymanA. E.LiaoT. F. (Eds), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods. SAGE Publications (p. 878).
9.
CohenE.A. (2003). Supreme command: Soldiers, statesmen, and leadership in wartime. Free Press.
10.
ColemanK. J. (2015). The uniformed and overseas citizens absentee voting act: Overview and issues (No. RS20764). Congressional Research Service. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS20764.pdf
DavisJ. A. (2001). Attitudes and opinions among senior military officers and a U.S. cross-section, 1998-1999. In FeaverP. D.KohnR. H. (Eds), Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security. MIT Press (pp. 163–212).
14.
DempseyJ. K. (2009). Our army: Soldiers, politics, and American civil-military relations. Princeton University Press.
FeaverP. D. (1996). The civil-military problematique: Huntington, Janowitz, and the question of civilian control. Armed Forces & Society, 23(2), 149–178. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X9602300203
21.
FeaverP. D.KohnR. H.KohnL. P. (2001). The gap between military and civilian in the United States in perspective. In FeaverP. D.KohnR. H. (Eds), Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security. MIT Press.
GiftK.GiftT. (2015). Does politics influence hiring? Evidence from a randomized experiment. Political Behavior, 37(3), 653–675. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-014-9286-0
HolstiO. R. (1998). A widening gap between the U.S. military and civilian society?International Security, 23(3), 5–42. https://doi.org/10.2307/2539337
28.
HolstiO. R. (2001). Politicization of the United States military: Crisis or tempest in a teapot?International Journal, 57(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.2307/40203630
29.
HuddyL.MasonL.AarøeL. (2015). Expressive partisanship: Campaign involvement, political emotion, and partisan identity. American Political Science Review, 109(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055414000604
30.
HuntingtonS. P. (1957). The soldier and the state: The theory and politics of civil-military relations. Belknap Press.
31.
InbodyD. (2009). Grand army of the republic or grand army of the Republicans?Political Party and ideological Preferences of American enlisted personnel (doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. http://search.proquest.com/docview/305020280/?pq-origsite=primo
32.
IyengarS.LelkesY.LevenduskyM. S.MalhotraN.WestwoodS. J. (2019). The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22(1), 129–146. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034
33.
IyengarS.WestwoodS. J. (2015). Fear and loathing across party lines: new evidence on group polarization. American Journal of Political Science, 59(3), 690–707. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12152
34.
JanowitzM. (1960). The professional soldier: A social and political portrait. Simon & Schuster.
McConnellC.MargalitY.MalhotraN.LevenduskyM. S. (2018). The economic consequences of partisanship in a polarized era. American Journal of Political Science, 62(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12330
40.
NielsenS. C.SniderD.M. (2009). Introduction. In NielsenS. C.SniderD. M. (Eds), American Civil-Military Relations: The Soldier and the State in a New Era. Johns Hopkins University Press.
SegalD. R.Freedman-DoanP.BachmanJ. G.O’MalleyP. M. (2001). Attitudes of entry-level enlisted personnel. In FeaverP. D.KohnR. H. (Eds), Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security. MIT Press (pp. 163–212).
TheodoridisA. G. (2017). Me, myself, and (I), (D), or (R)? Partisanship and political cognition through the lens of implicit identity. The Journal of Politics, 79(4), 1253–1267. https://doi.org/10.1086/692738
47.
UldrichJ. (2005). Soldier, statesman, peacemaker: Leadership lessons from George C. Marshall (First edition). Amacom.
UrbenH. A. (2013). Party, politics and deciding what is proper: army officers’ attitudes after two long wars. Orbis, 57(3), 351–368. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2013.05.010
50.
UrbenH. A. (2014). Wearing politics on their sleeves?: Levels of political activism of active duty army officers. Armed Forces & Society, 40(3), 568–591. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X12467774
U.S. Government (2016). Manual for courts-martial United States. Government Printing Office.
53.
Van RiperP. P.UnwallaD. B. (1965). Voting patterns among high-ranking military officers. Political Science Quarterly, 80(1), 48–61. https://doi.org/10.2307/2147183
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.
