Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T04:00:08.263Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public Opinion and the Common Defense: Who Governs Military Spending in the United States?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Thomas Hartley  and
Bruce Russett
Thomas Hartley
Affiliation:
Yale University
Bruce Russett
Affiliation:
Yale University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We measure the extent to which military spending policy reflects public opinion, while controlling for other reasonable influences on policy. We use survey data as an indicator of aggregate public opinion on military spending and find evidence that changes in public opinion consistently exert an effect on changes in military spending. The influence of public opinion is less important than either Soviet military spending or the gap between U.S. and Soviet military spending and more important than the deficit and the balance of Soviet conflict/cooperation with the United States. We also examine the hypothesis that public opinion does not influence the government but that the government systematically manipulates public opinion. We find no evidence to support this hypothesis.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 86 , Issue 4 , December 1992 , pp. 905 - 915
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almond, Gabriel. 1950. The American People and Foreign Policy. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Anderton, Charles. 1989. “Arms Race Modelling: Problems and Prospects.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 33:346–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arrow, Kenneth J. 1963. Social Choice and Individual Values. 2d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Brody, Richard. 1984. “International Crises: A Rallying Point for the President?” Public Opinion 6: 41–43, 46.Google Scholar
Brooks, Joel E. 1990. “The Opinion–Policy Nexus in Germany.” Public Opinion Quarterly 54:508–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnham, Walter Dean. 1982. The Current Crisis in American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Caplin, Andrew, and Nalebuff, Barry. 1988. “On the 64% Majority Rule.” Econometrica 56:787–814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caplin, Andrew, and Nalebuff, Barry. 1991. “Aggregation and Social Choice: A Mean Voter Theorem.” Econometrica 59:1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooley, Thomas F., and LeRoy, Stephen F.. 1985. “Atheoretical Macroeconometrics: A Critique.” Journal of Monetary Econometrics 16:283–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowden, Jonathan, and Hartley, Thomas. 1991. “House Bias in Aggregate Survey Data.” Yale University. Typescript.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1989. Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Edelman, Murray J. 1964. The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Eichenberg, Richard, and Stoll, Richard. 1991. “Straitjacket: Public Support for Defense Spending in Four Western Democracies, 1960–1988.” Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum fur Sozialforschung.Google Scholar
Etcheson, Craig. 1989. Arms Race Theory: Strategy and Structure of Behavior. New York: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Freeman, John R., Williams, John T., and Lin, Tse-min. 1989. “Vector Autoregression and the Study of Politics.” American Journal of Political Science 33:842–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ginsberg, Benjamin. 1986. The Captive Public: How Mass Opinion Dominates State Power. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Ginsberg, Benjamin. 1990. Politics by Other Means: The Declining Importance of Elections in America. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Joshua S., and Freeman, John R.. 1990. Three-Way Street: Strategic Reciprocity in World Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Graham, Thomas, and Hartley, Thomas. 1990. “U.S. Public Opinion Data on Military Spending, 1937–1990.” Yale University. Typescript.Google Scholar
Granger, C. W. J. 1969. “Investigating Causal Relations by Econometrics Models and Cross-Spectral Methods.” Econometrica 37:424–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1961. The Common Defense: Strategic Programs in National Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Harold K. 1985. “The Determination of the United States Military Posture: Political Processes and Policy Changes.” Woodrow Wilson Center. Typescript.Google Scholar
Kernell, Samuel. 1978. “Explaining Presidential Popularity.” American Political Science Review 72:506–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinsella, David. 1990. “Defence Spending and Economic Performance in the United States: A Causal Analysis.” Defence Economics 1:295–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindblom, Charles Edward. 1977. Politics and Markets: The World's Political Economic Systems. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lippmann, Walter. 1955. The Public Philosophy. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
McConnell, Grant. 1966. Private Power and American Democracy. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
McGinnis, Michael. 1991. “Richardson, Rationality, and Restrictive Models of the Arms Race: A Return to Simplicity.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 35:443–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marra, Robin F., and Ostrom, Charles W. Jr., N.d. “Issues in Defense Spending: Plausibility and Choice in Soviet Estimates.” In The Political Economy of Military Spending in the United States, ed. Mintz, Alex. London: Routledge. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Miliband, Ralph. 1969. The State in Capitalist Society. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Mueller, John E. 1973. War, Presidents, and Public Opinion. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Charles W. Jr.,, and Job, Brian. 1986. “The President and the Political Use of Force.” American Political Science Review 80:541–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, Charles W. Jr.,, and Marra, Robin F.. 1986. “U.S. Defense Spending and the Soviet Estimate.” American Political Science Review 80:819–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, Benjamin, and Shapiro, Robert. 1983. “Effects of Public Opinion on Policy.” American Political Science Review 77:175–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, Benjamin, and Shapiro, Robert. 1992. The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans' Policy Preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, Benjamin, Shapiro, Robert, and Dempsey, Glenn. 1987. “What Moves Public Opinion?” American Political Scienc Review 81:23–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, Lewis Fry. 1960. Arms and Insecurity: A Mathematical Study of the Causes and Origins of War. Ed. Rashevsky, Nicolas and Trucco, Ernesto. Pittsburgh: Boxwood.Google Scholar
Risse-Kappen, Thomas. 1991. “Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies.” World Politics 43:479–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russett, Bruce. 1983. “International Interactions and Processes. “ In Political Science: The State of the Discipline, ed. Firtifter, Ada. Washington: American Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Russett, Bruce. 1990. Controlling the Sword: The Democratic Governance of National Security. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russett, Bruce, and Barzilai, Gad. 1992. “The Political Economy of Military Actions: Israel and the United States.” In The Political Economy of Military Spending in the United States, ed. Mintz, Alex. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Russett, Bruce, and Graham, Thomas. 1989. “Public Opinion and National Security Policy: Relationships and Impacts.” In Handbook of War Studies, ed. Midlarsky, Manus. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, Emil E. 1960. The Semi-sovereign People. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden.Google Scholar
Sims, Christopher A. 1980. “Macroeconomics and Reality.” Econometrica 48:1–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U.S. Department of Defense. 1990. National Defense Budget Estimates for Fiscal Year 1991. Washington: Department of Defense.Google Scholar
U.S. Office of Management and Budget. 1991. Historical Tables: Budget of the United States Government. Washington: OMB.Google Scholar
Weissberg, Robert. 1976. Public Opinion and Popular Government. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Wildavsky, Aaron. 1964. Politics of the Budgetary Process. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Ward, Michael D., and Davis, David R.. 1990. “Risky Business: U.S. Soviet Competition and Corporate Profits.” University of Colorado, Boulder. Typescript.Google Scholar