Why They Fight: How Perceived Motivations for Military Service Shape Support for the Use of Force

Author(s):  
Ronald R Krebs ◽  
Robert Ralston ◽  
Aaron Rapport

Abstract What shapes public support for military missions? Existing scholarship points to, on the one hand, individuals’ affiliations and predispositions (such as political partisanship and gender), and, on the other hand, factors that shape a rational cost–benefit analysis (notably, mission objectives, the prospects for victory, and the magnitude and distribution of costs). We argue that public opinion is also shaped by beliefs about why soldiers voluntarily enlist. Using novel survey data and an experiment, deployed to a nationally representative sample of Americans, we test how four conceptions of soldiering affect support for a prospective military operation. We find, in observational data, that believing that a soldier is a good citizen or patriot bolsters support for the mission, while believing that a soldier has enlisted because he wants the material benefits of service or has “no other options” undermines support. These results support our causal argument: Americans’ attitudes toward military missions are shaped by their perception of whether the soldier has consented to deployment rather than by feelings of social obligation. This article has implications for debates on the determinants of public support for military missions and the relationship between military service and citizenship in democracies.

1993 ◽  
Vol 31 (11) ◽  
pp. 41-44

The relationship between drug costs and treatment choices was the subject of the first annual Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin symposium held in March 1993.* In a time of severe financial constraints for the NHS it is important that the money available is well spent. In the case of treatment that means the benefits must be worth the cost. There is, however, no agreed way of deciding when a particular health benefit to an individual is worth the cost to the NHS. Drug prices are easier to measure and more consistent than the prices of other treatments, and may be more amenable to cost-benefit analysis. Treatment choices are made primarily by doctors but with critical input from patients, pharmacists, nurses and health service managers. In this article we give an overview of the symposium at which speakers described ways in which drug costs and treatment choices were tackled in general practice (Ann McPherson, John Howie), in hospital (Dorothy Anderson), in clinical research and audit (Iain Chalmers, Alison Frater), by consumers (Anna Bradley), by health economists (Mike Drummond) and by government (Joe Collier). We also take into account points raised in discussion by the participants.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 861-879
Author(s):  
Francesco Bogliacino ◽  
Cristiano Codagnone ◽  
Giuseppe Alessandro Veltri

AbstractIn this paper, we develop a framework to analyze the relationship between evidence and policy. Postulating a normative criterion based on cost–benefit analysis and the value of a piece of information, as well as a topology of the policy space defined by three characteristics (epistemic uncertainty, interests, and the degree of value conflicts), we identify the (Nash) equilibria of an interaction between experts and citizens in providing information to a decision maker. In this setup, we study three institutional arrangements (evidence-based policy, deliberative governance, and negotiated conflict) that differ in terms of reliance on experts and citizens for providing information. We show that different degrees of uncertainty, interests, and value-relevance surrounding the issue at stake result in vastly different arrangement performances; hence, to foster efficiency, rules should be contingent.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 527-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey P. R. Wallace ◽  
Sophia Jordán Wallace

This article assesses how different notions of citizenship shape mass attitudes toward immigration reform. We examine the underpinnings of the military service and college education provisions that were at the center of the 2010 DREAM Act, which sought to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrant youth in the United States. Employing a survey experiment on a nationally representative US sample, we unpack the extent to which the mass public is willing to support immigration reform based on criteria tied to undocumented immigrants’ educational attainment or enlistment in the armed forces. While education has little effect on its own, military service significantly increases public support for a pathway to citizenship. The positive effect of military service endures when it is paired with less popular provisions, suggesting that a military criterion can serve as a basis of support for broader immigration legislation. Moreover, the effects are strongest for those groups who are traditionally viewed as being most opposed to immigration reforms that expand access to citizenship. The results of this study have implications for public attitudes toward immigration, the persistence of the citizen-soldier ideal, and the importance of framing in the policy-making process.


2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (03) ◽  
pp. 1640013 ◽  
Author(s):  
YEW-KWANG NG

Mishan’s emphasis on the costs of economic growth half a century ago is becoming more important in this era of environmental concerns. More recently, another possible source of immiserizing growth is the one-child policy (recently relaxed) of China. This resulted in a biased sex-ratio and higher competition to earn incomes (to increase the probability of getting a wife), resulting in positive effects on GDP but negative effects on welfare. The implications of welfare-reducing growth for cost-benefit analysis and the legalization of prostitution are also discussed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beryl A. Radin

This article focuses on one expression of the relationship between science and policy analysis: the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget. It has used a classic policy analysis technique—cost–benefit analysis—as the way that the White House will review regulations. This discussion highlights the utilization of the cost–benefit method in the OIRA decision-making process, the roles of various actors in the system, and the response to that use by various policy actors. It illustrates the difficulty of utilizing rational analytical methods in an environment of political conflict.


The costs and benefits of large mines to local communities and the relationship between mining multinational corporations (MNCs), government, and communities are subjects that have become important in developing and developed countries alike. To date, there has been a dearth of comprehensive study on roles and responsibilities of mining MNCs with respect to women and gender equality. Given that the relationship between mining MNCs and communities is changing rapidly—albeit unevenly and unsystematically—the need to develop understanding to better assess the gender impact of different approaches on this relationship and on the ability to maximise sustainable benefits from mining has become paramount. This chapter identifies the linkages between, on the one hand, work and labour-relations issues (e.g., long hours), reform of gender diversity policies and initiatives in mining, as well as the cultural lag between policy and practise; and, on the other hand, the impact of mining on women in mining towns/communities, a gendered impact assessment tool, and the relationship between mining and socioeconomic wellbeing.


Author(s):  
Lucas E. Yamat ◽  
Claude G. Mung'ong'o

Abstract Despite a growing body of evidence that highlights the economic, social and environmental benefits of mobile pastoralism, few governments are ready to tolerate mobility and many policy makers promote knowingly or inadvertently the policies of sedentarization. This production system seems not to be clearly understood by many and has been characterized as backward, environmentally destructive and economically unsustainable; and the view is that it should be replaced with more sedentary forms of livestock production or other beneficial land uses. The overriding question is whether sedentary livestock keeping is more productive and utilizes fewer resources and less space than the mobile pastoral system. This study carried out a comparative cost-benefit analysis of the two production systems in selected villages of Kiteto and Karatu districts. The aim was to come up with credible data to test this hypothesis. Two alternatives were compared in terms of their net present value (NPV) to test a null hypothesis. The alternative with an NPV greater than zero or higher than its alternative was accepted to be more viable compared with the one with an NPV less than zero or less than its alternative. Whenever the NPV of the sedentary production system in the analysis was shown to be greater than zero and/or greater than the NPV of the mobile pastoral production system the null hypothesis was accepted and vice versa. The study was conducted in Makame village of Kiteto District and Dofa village of Karatu District. Makame village represents a mobile pastoral production system while Dofa village represents a sedentary production system. The study employed a quantitative approach using a household survey in the two villages. The comparative cost-benefit analysis was carried out using monetary values derived from the livestock unit statistical approach. The findings have revealed that the average cost of maintaining a mobile pastoral and sedentary production systems are TSh90,096,333 and TSh112,295,200, respectively. The cost-benefit ratios are 1:0.5 for a mobile pastoral production system and 1:0.25 for the sedentary one.


Author(s):  
Marina Povitkina ◽  
Simon Matti

Previous research on the relationship between quality of government (QoG) and environmental sustainability is scant, scattered across different disciplines, and is characterized by a disconnect between studies focusing on the effects of QoG on the micro level (individual behavior) and micro level (country policies and actions). The chapter synthesizes the different literatures on the connection between various elements of QoG, such as low levels of corruption, bureaucratic capacity, and rule of law, on the one hand, and environmental sustainability on the other hand. On the macro level, it theorizes the role of QoG in securing governments’ production of environmental public goods. On the micro level, the chapter discusses how QoG can shape cooperation in collective action dilemmas over natural resource use, as well as how it contributes to generating public support of and compliance with environmental policies.


Author(s):  
Rick Grush ◽  
Lisa Damm

The article explores the relationship between cognition and the brain. Some researches indicate that emotions provide information, anticipate future responses, influence reasoning strategy, index value, and direct attention toward particular objects but few psychologists have attempted to incorporate these results into an integrative general theory of cognition and emotion. Antonio Damasio claims that emotions are primarily representations of somatic states, including visceral and musculoskeletal, at the psychological level. The relationship between the event type and the associated emotional reaction is learned so that when the same type of event is encountered, or the same type of action considered, it can induce the corresponding emotion and the valance of that emotion can influence how the agent behaves in that situation. Damasio argued that somatic markers help facilitate reasoning by providing a rapid processing of potential decision outcomes based on immediate endorsement or rejection, which then helps constrain the decision-making space to a manageable size for which it becomes reasonable to employ more traditional means of evaluation such as cost-benefit analysis on the remaining options. Berthoz argued that the brain is a simulator of action and a generator of hypotheses such that anticipating and predicting the consequences of actions based on the remembered past is one of the basic properties of the brain.


2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 151-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Jamieson

This article focuses on intimacy in terms of its analytical potential for understanding social change without the one-nation blinkers sometimes referred to as ‘methodological nationalism’ and without Euro-North-American ethnocentrism. Extending from the concept of family practices, practices of intimacy are sketched and examples considered across cultures. The cultural celebration and use of the term ‘intimacy' is not universal, but practices of intimacy are present in all cultures. The relationship of intimacy to its conceptual relatives is clarified. A brief discussion of subjectivity and social integration restates the relevance of intimate relationships and practices of intimacy to understanding social change in an era of globalisation, despite the theoretical turn away from embodied face to face relationships. Illustrations concerning intimacy and social change in two areas of personal life, parental authority and gender relations, indicate that practices of intimacy can re-inscribe inequalities such as those of age, class and gender as well as subvert them and that attention to practices of intimacy can assist the need to explain continuity as well as change.


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