The Influence of the Justification for the Use of Force on Support for War Over Time

Abstract

In recent history, political analysts have frequently referred to the American public as war weary, but the characterization is imprecise and largely untested. One way to think about war weariness is to consider the justification for the war and its congruence or incongruence with the progress of the war. Scholarship concerned with the justification for war is generally focused on support levels at initiation, which are important in terms of establishing a baseline, but does not provide insight into the process by which the public becomes weary of war. Opinion over time is likely to reflect some combination of elite messaging and wartime events, but the onset of war weariness signals a diminished influence for elite messaging. I address the following research questions: To what extent, and how, does the justification for the use of force (or war’s purpose) influence the American public’s wartime attitudes? Under what conditions do events take precedence over elite messaging in shaping perceptions and preferences? How do shifting perceptions of purpose and progress contribute to the likelihood of disapproval over time? I challenge two theoretical perspectives: 1) the application of partisan elite cue theory to understanding wartime opinion, and 2) the constancy and political relevance of expectations regarding the public’s preference for wars of foreign policy restraint. I address my research questions through a comparative analysis of perceptions and preferences associated with the Gulf War and the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This analysis includes a qualitative and a quantitative component. I found that the public’s preference for foreign policy restraint (FPR) was evident in most responses to relevant questions across wars and at different times within each war. However, a majority of the public was also willing to support other mission types. Contrary to existing theory, I found that while the public maintained reasonable concerns about the costs and risks associated with the postwar period, support for FPR missions matched support for stabilization and rebuilding missions. Further, the influence of the war’s purpose on general support levels declines over time. I found strong evidence that the public was attentive and responsive to wartime events, and that the influence of elite cues on wartime opinion was bounded by those events. My analysis supports the plausibility of nuanced thinking, and suggests a level of cognitive complexity during wartime that would not be predicted by elite cue theory.