The Political Legacies of Combat: Attitudes Toward War and Peace Among Israeli Ex-Combatants

Abstract

Recent research has highlighted combat's positive effects for political behavior, but it is unclear whether they extend to attitudes toward the conflict itself. We exploit the assignment of health rankings determining combat eligibility in the Israel Defense Forces to examine the effect of combat exposure on support for peaceful conflict resolution. Given the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to global affairs, and its apparent intractability, the political consequences of combat become all the more pressing. We find that exposure to combat hardens attitudes toward the rival and reduces support for negotiation and compromise. Importantly, these attitudes translate into voting behavior: combatants are likely to vote for more hawkish parties. These findings call for caution in emphasizing the benign effects of combat and underscore the importance of reintegrating combatants during the transition from conflict to peace.Policy-makers' long-held view that ex-combatants threaten postconflict transitions has led to a rise in combatant demobilization and reintegration programs in societies recovering from violent conflict. Yet much of the international relations literature has challenged this perception, arguing that military service leads to greater caution regarding the use of force, since veterans have personally borne the costs of war. 1 Recent microlevel research also rejects negative portrayals of ex-combatants, maintaining that the political effects of combat are surprisingly benign. Military experience has been linked to increased political participation, 2 greater volunteerism, 3 and higher voter turnout. 4 Similarly, an emerging literature on civilians in conflict

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