National identity, willingness to fight, and collective action

Abstract

Why do people risk their lives fighting in wars? This article looks beyond group grievance and material benefits to add another psychological mechanism explaining why people choose to fight or not to fight – perceived collective action. An individual is much more likely to fight when they perceive that others will also fight. Contrary to the expectations of social identity theory and social pressure theory, the effect of perceived collective action is stronger among those who have a weaker national identity because they are more likely to rationally calculate the chance of winning by accounting for others’ decisions. To mitigate the endogeneity in post-conflict cross-sectional surveys, we conduct a survey experiment (n = 1,001) in Taiwan manipulating perceptions of others’ willingness to fight in a potential China–Taiwan military conflict. Experimental evidence supports the hypotheses that perceived collective action works only on weak Taiwanese identifiers. The result holds in robustness checks and in another nationally representative survey.

‘Stand up like a Taiwanese!’: PRC coercion and public preferences for resistance

“…‘Balancing’ in the TNSS was notably in terms of cooperating with the USA and Japan to defy China at a time when both Washington and Tokyo were becoming increasingly bold in confronting Beijing across a range of issues, including support for Taiwan. Support for ‘balancing’ in the abstract or in the absence of options for partnerships is unknowable from the TNSS, although other surveys indicate some willingness by the Taiwanese public to resist Chinese aggression alone (Lin, 2018; Wang and Eldemerdash, forthcoming).…”

“…That PRC threats resulted in rising public support for external balancing rather than retaliation or immediate independence indicates a strong status quo preference among the Taiwanese public. Separate experimental survey research about growing support for defending Taiwan in the event of a PRC attack reinforces this impression (Wang and Eldemerdash, forthcoming). These observations imply that political parties have incentives to demonstrate resolve in maintaining Taiwan's de facto independent status and developing defensive capabilities rather than to accommodate Beijing or seek formal independence immediately.…”

“…Where publics feature, they tend to be part of audience cost models that try to examine public restraints on states and elites that initiate coercion (Slantchev, 2005; Thomson, 2016). Newer studies that look at public opinion in the face of coercive threats tend to use survey experiments rather than the effects of actual coercion on the public (e.g., Wang and Eldemerdash, forthcoming). We consider public responses to threats of force and the non-violent imposition of costs, such as economic punishment and diplomatic isolation.…”

Public Support for Self-Defence in Taiwan: The Current State of Research

“…In this vein, it is important to also pay attention to those with a dual identity, as many citizens might re-identify as both "Taiwanese and Chinese" when reverting from a Taiwanese-only identity. Wang and Eldemerdash (2023) found that compared to citizens who identified as Taiwanese only, those who did not have a solely Taiwanese identity were much more likely to rely on others' behavior to decide their own actions if a war occurred. In the experiment they ran, simply telling this group that 82% of Taiwanese would resist a Chinese invasion rather than 18% increased their willingness to fight by nearly 22%.…”