Wars, Presidents and Popularity: The Political Cost(s) of War Re-Examined

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Extensive research demonstrates that war casualties depress incumbent popularity. The present study argues that analyses of the political costs of warfare should also account for the financial toll of wars since a) financial costs of wars are substantial, b) these costs are publicly observed and understood and c) fiscal policy affects incumbents' approval ratings. Empirical evidence based on US data for the 1948-2008 period supports this theoretical claim: pecuniary costs of warfare either directly affect presidential popularity (e.g., in the Korean War) or their inclusion affects the predicted political cost of war casualties (e.g., in the Korean and Iraq/Afghanistan Wars). Interestingly, the adverse effect of war-spending is strongest under favourable economic conditions (i.e. low unemployment). Terms of use: Documents in

Self-interest, partisanship, and the conditional influence of taxation on support for war in the USA

“…Greater wartime expenditures necessarily reduce public consumption; voters usually prefer guns to butter, and politicians respond accordingly (Carter and Palmer, 2015). Within the American context, Geys (2010) shows that increased wartime defense expenditures have systematically eroded the president’s public approval rating, particularly during the Korean War, which was the most costly of the post-1945 conflicts in terms of GDP. Most recently, Flores-Macías and Kreps (2015) have taken up Geys’s call (2010: 371) to examine whether the source of war spending affects public opinion.…”

“…Within the American context, Geys (2010) shows that increased wartime defense expenditures have systematically eroded the president’s public approval rating, particularly during the Korean War, which was the most costly of the post-1945 conflicts in terms of GDP. Most recently, Flores-Macías and Kreps (2015) have taken up Geys’s call (2010: 371) to examine whether the source of war spending affects public opinion. Their experiments show that the introduction of a new war tax significantly decreases public support for war in both the USA and UK across a range of hypothetical scenarios.…”

“…On the costs side of the ledger, most prior scholarship has focused almost exclusively on the critical importance of combat casualties in these calculations (Althaus et al, 2012; Gartner, 2008; Gartner and Segura, 1998; Kriner and Shen, 2010; Larson, 1996; Mueller, 1973; Voeten and Brewer, 2006). In contrast, comparatively few studies have examined how the financial costs of military action affect public support for war (although see Berinsky, 2007; Geys, 2010). Even fewer scholars have examined how the instrument chosen by political leaders to raise the requisite capital—be it varying forms of taxation or deficit spending—influences support for war.…”

Think Ahead: Cost Discounting and External Validity in Foreign Policy Survey Experiments

“…This is especially true of ACT experiments, which are meant to teach us something about how people reason about impending military engagement in foreign civil wars, a costly endeavor. Prior work tells us that pecuniary costs affect support for presidential belligerence (Flores-Macías and Kreps 2015; Geys 2010; Kriner et al 2015). Moreover, casualty levels—“the most salient cost of war” (Gartner 2008, 105)—have repeatedly been found to influence popular support for foreign intervention (Boettcher and Cobb 2006; Eichenberg 2005; Gelpi et al 2009; Karol and Miguel 2007; Kriner 2006; Walsh 2015).…”

Attribution Error in Economic Voting: Evidence From Trade Shocks

“…3 Some 2. There is also a large literature that shows the effect of noneconomic variables such as war casualties (Mueller 1973), fiscal cost of war (Geys 2010), and natural disasters (Cole, Healy, and Werker 2012;Healy and Malhotra 2009). We stay clear of these variables because of difficulties standardizing their selection and measurement across a large sample of countries.…”