Citation

Fordham BO. J. Glob. Secur. Stud. 2016; 1(4): 303-322.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, International Studies Association, Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/jogss/ogw014

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The military draft was once an important element of American national security policy with widespread popular backing. The collapse in public support for it is an important historical puzzle. Public opinion about the draft also offers an arena for assessing the role of war costs, such as military casualties, in shaping attitudes toward national security policy. The costs of the draft fall on a readily identifiable segment of the population. However, surveys administered during several different historical periods provide only limited evidence that these costs affect individual opinion. Draft eligibility reduced support for conscription during peacetime but not during major wars, when the cost of being drafted was greatest. By contrast, military service had a more consistent socializing effect, with veterans and their families expressing greater support for the draft. Together, these and other individual-level processes suggest a possible explanation for the decline in aggregate support for conscription that has more to do with changing force structure and elite leadership than with public aversion to the costs of war. The results also suggest that war costs have more complicated effects on public opinion than most research on public support for war implies.

Language: en