Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel

Dill, Janina; Sagan, Scott D.; Valentino, Benjamin A.

doi:10.1080/09636412.2022.2038663

Cited by 46 publications

(17 citation statements)

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“…While this finding holds for both American and British citizens, the support for nuclear or chemical strikes was significantly lower in the UK than in the USA. This is in line with the latest experimental study by Dill, Sagan, and Valentino (2022), who found that Americans are more supportive of nuclear weapon use (involving civilian casualties) against a terrorist base in Libya than British citizens are. Similar to the authors of this study, we suggest that the stronger retributive tendencies among the American public, previous use of US nuclear weapons in military conflict, as well as a more general willingness to approve of the use of military force to achieve foreign policy goals can help to explain the lower strength of the nuclear nonuse norm in the USA (Dill, Sagan and Valentino, 2022: 5–7).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…This is in line with the latest experimental study by Dill, Sagan, and Valentino (2022), who found that Americans are more supportive of nuclear weapon use (involving civilian casualties) against a terrorist base in Libya than British citizens are. Similar to the authors of this study, we suggest that the stronger retributive tendencies among the American public, previous use of US nuclear weapons in military conflict, as well as a more general willingness to approve of the use of military force to achieve foreign policy goals can help to explain the lower strength of the nuclear nonuse norm in the USA (Dill, Sagan and Valentino, 2022: 5–7). 9 Moreover, while we cannot support it with empirical evidence, the relatively higher aversion of British citizens to the use of chemical weapons could have also been reinforced by the more proximate direct experience with chemical agents in the infamous Salisbury attacks of 2018 (Chinonso Mark, 2018).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…For example, a recent study found that when it comes to military strikes against terrorists that involve the risk of civilian casualties as collateral damage, “the general public is more averse to the use of nuclear weapons than to the conduct of massive conventional strikes, yet still see their hypothetical use more approvingly than the limited employment of chemical weapons” (Smetana and Vranka, 2021: 375–376). From the victim perspective, the authors of a recent paper asked their respondents across four countries (USA, UK, France, and Israel) what method of killing people (nuclear bomb, conventional bomb, nerve gas or machine gun) they found to be the most terrifying (Dill, Sagan and Valentino, 2019: 32). In all countries, nerve gas was found to be more terrifying than a nuclear bomb or any of the two conventional alternatives.…”

Section: Nuclear and Chemical “Taboos” In A Comparative Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Notwithstanding objective characteristics, there are reasons to believe that not everyone shares the view that chemical weapons are, in comparison with nuclear weapons, the “lesser evil.” For example, a recent survey experiment found that the American public tends to see the use of a chemical agent against a terrorist camp less approvingly than a low-yield nuclear strike (Smetana and Vranka, 2021). Another survey conducted in the USA, the UK, France and Israel observed that, on average, individuals perceive chemical nerve agents to be more terrifying than nuclear weapons (Dill, Sagan and Valentino, 2019: 32). 1 Such findings would be in line with some earlier scholarship, which suggested that there may be stronger cultural or even socio-biological inhibitions on the use of chemical weapons than on the use of nuclear weapons (Mandelbaum, 1981, chap.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our study contributes to contemporary scholarship on the “taboos” surrounding unconventional weapons in world politics. In particular, we provide an important comparative perspective to the new wave of scholarship studying public attitudes toward the use of nuclear weapons (Press, Sagan and Valentino, 2013; Sagan and Valentino, 2017; Haworth, Sagan and Valentino, 2019; Rathbun and Stein, 2020; Sukin, 2020; Koch and Wells, 2020; Montgomery and Carpenter, 2020; Smetana and Vranka, 2021; Egel and Hines, 2021; Onderco and Smetana, 2021; Allison, Herzog and Ko, 2022; Horschig, 2022; Bowen, Goldfien and Graham, 2022; Smetana and Onderco, 2022a; Dill, Sagan and Valentino, 2022). Comparative research in this area is ever more pertinent given the recent use of chemical weapons in Syria (Bentley, 2016, 2017; Geis and Schlag, 2017; Chapman, Elbahtimy and Martin, 2018; Edwards and Cacciatori, 2018; Henriksen, 2018; Price, 2018, 2019; Koblentz, 2019), repeated employment of chemical agents as an assassination tool (Lewis, 2018; Kaszeta, 2021: chap.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

The lesser evil? Experimental evidence on the strength of nuclear and chemical weapon “taboos”

Smetana

Vranka

Rosendorf

2022

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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We present findings of a survey experiment on a sample of 2350 American and British citizens, in which we examined attitudes towards nuclear and chemical strikes. Our findings demonstrate that even though the public accurately judges nuclear weapons as more destructive and indiscriminate, it is still more averse to the use of chemical than nuclear weapons. Our follow up study has shown that individuals are significantly more likely to associate chemical weapons with “rogue states” and terrorists, and associate nuclear weapons with modern powers. The findings contribute to scholarship on the “taboos” surrounding the (non-)use of WMDs in world politics.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Nuclear and Chemical “Taboos” In A Comparative Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The lesser evil? Experimental evidence on the strength of nuclear and chemical weapon “taboos”

Smetana

Vranka

Rosendorf

2022

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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Applying Bradford Hill to assessing causality in systematic reviews: A transparent approach using process tracing

Shimonovich,

Thomson,

Pearce

et al. 2024

Research Synthesis Methods

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BackgroundBradford Hill (BH) viewpoints are widely used to assess causality in systematic reviews, but their application has often lacked reproducibility. We describe an approach for assessing causality within systematic reviews (‘causal’ reviews), illustrating its application to the topic of income inequality and health. Our approach draws on principles of process tracing, a method used for case study research, to harness BH viewpoints to judge evidence for causal claims.MethodsIn process tracing, a hypothesis may be confirmed by observing highly unique evidence and disconfirmed by observing highly definitive evidence. We drew on these principles to consider the value of finding supportive or contradictory evidence for each BH viewpoint characterised by its uniqueness and definitiveness.ResultsIn our exemplar systematic review, we hypothesised that income inequality adversely affects self‐rated health and all‐cause mortality. BH viewpoints ‘analogy’ and ‘coherence’ were excluded from the causal assessment because of their low uniqueness and low definitiveness. The ‘experiment’ viewpoint was considered highly unique and highly definitive, and thus could be particularly valuable. We propose five steps for using BH viewpoints in a ‘causal’ review: (1) define the hypothesis; (2) characterise each viewpoint; (3) specify the evidence expected for each BH viewpoint for a true or untrue hypothesis; (4) gather evidence for each viewpoint (e.g., systematic review meta‐analyses, critical appraisal, background knowledge); (5) consider if each viewpoint was met (supportive evidence) or unmet (contradictory evidence).ConclusionsIncorporating process tracing has the potential to provide transparency and structure when using BH viewpoints in ‘causal’ reviews.

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The Laws of War and Public Support for Foreign Combatants

Lupu,

Wallace

2024

Int Org

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Are publics in great power democracies more likely to approve of foreign armed combatants that comply with international humanitarian law (IHL)? There is a wealth of evidence that armed combatants with an incentive to seek the support of outside compliance constituencies are more likely to adhere to IHL. Yet a key mechanism underlying these claims—that people in great power democracies are more likely to support armed combatants that comply with IHL—has not been directly tested. We address this question using a series of experiments embedded in nationally representative surveys conducted in three democracies that have frequently been involved in foreign interventions: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We find that belligerents—both governments and rebels—that comply with the laws of war are significantly more likely to garner support from publics in likely intervening countries compared to those who do not comply. In all three countries, compliance with international law caused greater approval of armed combatants as well as greater support for economic or military intervention (although support for military intervention remained relatively low in the treatment groups). This lends support to arguments that, to the extent combatants seek support from outside audiences, this can serve as a mechanism by which international law constrains armed combat.

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Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel

Cited by 46 publications

References 0 publications

The lesser evil? Experimental evidence on the strength of nuclear and chemical weapon “taboos”

The lesser evil? Experimental evidence on the strength of nuclear and chemical weapon “taboos”

Applying Bradford Hill to assessing causality in systematic reviews: A transparent approach using process tracing

The Laws of War and Public Support for Foreign Combatants

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