52 research outputs found
The Acceptability of War and Support for Defense Spending: Evidence from Fourteen Democracies, 2004â2013
We study the factors that influence citizen support for defense spending in fourteen democracies over the period 2004â2013. We pose two research questions. First, what factors influence citizen support for war and military force? We refer to this as the acceptability of war. Second, in addition to the acceptability of war, what other factors affect support for defense spending? Our principal finding is that citizen acceptance of war and support for defense spending are most influenced by basic beliefs and values. Gender also has a strong negative influence on attitudes toward war and thus indirectly lowers support for defense spending among women. Attitudes toward war and defense spending are also sometimes influenced by short-term threats and by alliance considerations, but the effects are not as substantively meaningful. We conclude with a summary of the results and a discussion of the implications for theory and policy
Gender Difference or Parallel Publics? The Dynamics of Defense Spending Opinions in the United States, 1965-2007
Gender is now recognized as an important dividing line in American political life, and
scholars have accumulated evidence that national security issues are an important
reason for gender differences in policy preferences. We therefore expect that the
dynamics of support for defense spending among men and women will differ. In
contrast, several scholars have shown that population subgroups exhibit a ââparallelââ
dynamic in which the evolution of their preferences over time is very similar, despite
differences in the average level of support. Unfortunately, there is little time series
evidence on gendered reactions to policy, including defense spending, that would
allow one to arbitrate between these competing perspectives. In this research note,
we assemble a time series of support for defense spending among men and women
and model the determinants of that support for the period 1967â2007. We find that
women are on average less supportive of defense spending than are men. However,
we also find that the over time variation of support for defense spending among men
and women is very similarâeach is conditioned principally by the past yearâs change
in defense spending and occasionally by war casualties and a trade-off between
defense and civilian spending
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Globalisation from Above? Corporate Social Responsibility, the Workers' Party and the Origins of the World Social Forum
In its assessment of the origins and early development of the World Social Forum this article challenges traditional understandings of the Forum as representing âglobalisation from belowâ. By tracing the intricate relations among elements of business, civil society, and the Workersâ Party in the first years of the Forum, this article reveals the major role played by a corporate movement stemming from the Brazilian democratisation process in the 1980s, and how this combined with the transformed agenda of the Workersâ Party as it gained higher political offices to constrain the Forumâs activities from the outset. In so doing, this article challenges not only widespread conceptions of the Forum as a counterâhegemonic alternative but also current critiques concerning its subsequent limitations. Furthermore, it reveals how traditional understandings of the World Social Forum and of global civil society are underpinned by flawed assumptions which typecast political activities in the global âSouthâ
Straightjacket? public support for defence spending in four western democracies, 1960-1988
SIGLEUuStB Koeln(38)-911101844 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman
Representing Defense : Democratic Control of the Defense Budget in the United States and Western Europe
There is now substantial evidence that defense spending decisions in the United States are influenced by
citizen preferences. However, there is little time-series evidence for countries other than the United States.
Regression models of citizen responsiveness and opinion representation in the politics of defense spending
in five democracies are estimated. Results show that public opinion in all five countries is systematically
responsive to recent changes in defense spending, and the form of the responses across countries uniformly
resembles the âthermostatâ metaphor developed by Wlezien and the more general theory of opinion dynamics
developed by Stimson. Findings show also that defense budgeting is representative: public support for
defense spending is the most consistently significant influence on defense budgeting change in four countries;
thus, a parsimonious theory of comparative policy representation is potentially within reach. The
implications of the results for defense spending in the NATO alliance and the European Union are discussed
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