A new study sheds light on why non-veterans like Cheney and Limbaugh are such avid militarists
What makes chickenhawkery such a distinctly American phenomenon is our culture's coupling of aggressive militarism with a lack of anything even resembling shared sacrifice. Quite bizarrely, we celebrate those who rhetorically promote wars as "tough" and "strong" without requiring those very warmongers to walk their talk. Shielded from any personal risk of injury or death, the chickenhawk is thus permitted to wrap himself in an American flag and goose step his way through television studios as the alleged personification of patriotic bravery.
For years, chickenhawkery's roots in this culture of unshared sacrifice have been a matter of theory -- albeit a logical, well-grounded theory. But now, thanks to a comprehensive new study, we have concrete data underscoring the hypothesis. It suggests that many Americans' aggressively pro-war ideology may fundamentally rely on their being physically shielded/disconnected from the human cost of war.
http://www.salon.com/news/us_military/i ... wk_origins
"Why do people become chickenhawks"
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stilltrucking
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"Why do people become chickenhawks"
Cut and Paste:
Re: "Why do people become chickenhawks"
maybe... gracias for sharing it, s-t!!!!!!!
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stilltrucking
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Re: "Why do people become chickenhawks"
Caught in the Draft:
Vietnam Draft Lottery Status and Political Attitudes
Robert S. Erikson
Professor of Political Science
Columbia University
RSE14@columbia.edu
Corresponding Author
Laura Stoker
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of California, Berkeley
stoker@socrates.berkeley.edu
Revised, February 2010
In 1969, the first Vietnam draft lottery assigned numbers to birth dates, determining which young men would be called to fight in Vietnam. We exploit this natural experiment to examine how draft vulnerability influenced opinions about the Vietnam War, party identification, political ideology, and attitudes toward salient political figures and issues of the day. Data analyzed come from the Jennings-Niemi Panel Study of Political Socialization, which surveyed high school seniors from the Class of 1965 both before and after the national draft lottery was instituted. Males holding low lottery numbers became more anti-war, more liberal, and more Democratic in their voting compared to those whose high numbers protected them from the draft. Trace effects are found even when the respondents were re-interviewed in the 1990s. Draft number effects typically exceed those for pre-adult party identification and are not mediated by military service or the acquisition of higher education.
.
I. Introduction
Experimentation is often employed in the study of political attitude change. Typically, the experiment is conducted in a survey or laboratory setting. Researchers randomly assign respondents/subjects to either the experimental group receiving the stimulus or to the control group that does not. Post-treatment attitudes of the two groups are then compared to estimate the short-term effect of the treatment.
Rarely do we find field experiments or natural experiments outside the lab for the study of attitude change (Dunning 2008). The present study offers an exception. The natural experiment is the imposition of the draft lottery of 1969 during the Vietnam War. In December 1969, men of eligible age were randomly assigned draft numbers based on their birthday. Numbers were assigned from 1 to 366, with those with low numbers called first for induction. Thus, young men could find themselves facing the likelihood of being sent to Vietnam, escape altogether, or some ambiguous status in-between.
Vietnam draft lottery status has been used as an instrument before, most famously as an instrument for military service as it affects lifetime earnings and other socio-economic outcomes (Angrist 1990, 1991; Hearst and Newman 1988). Here, as explained further below, we treat lottery status as an instrument for vulnerability to being drafted into the military rather than as an instrument for military service itself. A random draw that determines the possibility of change that is life-altering or even life-threatening is the type of stimulus that could compel major changes in one’s political orientation.
Consider the random draw from the draft lottery as an event that altered one’s self-interest. Those who found themselves suddenly free from the draft had less reason to oppose an unpopular war. Those who found themselves vulnerable to serving in an unpopular war had more reason to oppose it. Thus, we have the obvious hypothesis that the lottery number influenced attitudes toward the Vietnam War among young draft-age men who had not yet served in the military. We test this hypothesis in this paper.
Potentially of even greater interest, Vietnam lottery status can serve as an instrument for estimating change in one attitude affecting other attitudes and behavior. The opportunity is present to test
1
whether change in war attitudes imposed exogenously by Vietnam lottery outcomes led to further attitudinal and behavioral adjustments. For instance, if a low draft number resulted in opposition to the war, did this opposition lead to voting for McGovern, the anti-war presidential candidate in 1972? Did the newly induced war opponents change other attitudes in other ways to conform to their “dovish” war stance, for instance by becoming more politically liberal? If so, were these changes short-lived, or were they long-lasting, so that the draw of a lottery number influenced their political views down the long road of a political lifetime?
The preceding might sound like an ideal research design. But to implement it one needs not only respondent lottery numbers but also data regarding attitudes and behavior subsequent to the draft lottery. Fortunately that data is at hand. The data for this study is the Jennings-Niemi Political Socialization Study. For this study, a national sample of high school seniors was interviewed in 1965. They were then subsequently interviewed in 1973. Then they were interviewed two more times, in 1982 and 1997, providing more than half of a political lifetime’s worth of attitudinal data and reports of voting behavior.
II. The Political Socialization Data Set
The Political Socialization Panel Study was initiated by M. Kent Jennings and carried out by the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center and Center for Political Studies. The original core of the project consisted of interviews with a national sample of 1669 high school seniors from the graduating class of 1965, distributed across 97 public and non-public schools chosen with probability proportionate to size (Jennings and Niemi, 1974, Appendix). In January through April 1973, 1119 of the initial respondents were again interviewed in person, while an additional 229 who were too remotely located completed a self-administered questionnaire. The resulting N of 1348 represents an unadjusted retention rate of 80.8%. Surveys were completed with a total of 935 individuals across all four waves of the study, for a 4-wave unadjusted retention rate of 56%.1 Almost all of our analysis works with data from the
1 In 1982 a mailback questionnaire was again used to obtain responses from remotely located individuals. In 1997, which introduced computer-assisted interviewing, about half of the respondents were
2
1965-1973 panel file (ICPSR study #7779). However, we also make use of the 4-wave panel in an examination of long-term draft lottery effects (study #4037).
Of course for the data from the Political Socialization study to be usable for studying these effects, we need respondent dates of birth. Fortunately these are available in the study’s data base. Lottery numbers were ascertained by linking birth data to the corresponding number signifying priority for being called into the army. The study is also rich in outcome measures. As described in more detail below, we make use of questions ascertaining opinions on the Vietnam War and other political issues, attitudes toward the military, evaluations of presidential candidates and other prominent political figures, vote choice in the 1972 election, and additional measures of political involvement and attentiveness.
In some respects, the timing of the fieldwork for the Political Socialization Panel Study is also ideal for our purposes. This is because many in the class of 1965 were just then losing their educational (college) deferments around the time of the 1969 draft. Those that were still in school at the time knew that their draft lottery number would prevail when their four allotted years of deferment for their schooling had ended. Thus the 1969 draft lottery occurred at an acute moment for this particular age cohort.
A seeming handicap for our study is that the response measurement, in early 1973, occurred over three years after the draft. It is possible that draft lottery outcomes affected war attitudes in the short run but that these attitudinal shifts faded away by the time of the 1973 survey. Another handicap of sorts is that only about one-fourth of the subjects of the study are useful for our study. About one half are women, who were not subject to the draft. Of the men, about half again had already enlisted in the armed services by the time of the 1969 draft lottery. The yield for our study is a set of 390 usable respondents—men who had not served in the military as of 1969 and had been interviewed in both 1965 and 1973. We ask, did the draft numbers for these 390 men alter their political attitudes in 1973 (and beyond)?
interviewed in person and half by phone.
here is the rest of the study with the data. I tried to read it but I got bored.
http://www.columbia.edu/~rse14/vietnam_rev_Feb2010.pdf
Vietnam Draft Lottery Status and Political Attitudes
Robert S. Erikson
Professor of Political Science
Columbia University
RSE14@columbia.edu
Corresponding Author
Laura Stoker
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of California, Berkeley
stoker@socrates.berkeley.edu
Revised, February 2010
In 1969, the first Vietnam draft lottery assigned numbers to birth dates, determining which young men would be called to fight in Vietnam. We exploit this natural experiment to examine how draft vulnerability influenced opinions about the Vietnam War, party identification, political ideology, and attitudes toward salient political figures and issues of the day. Data analyzed come from the Jennings-Niemi Panel Study of Political Socialization, which surveyed high school seniors from the Class of 1965 both before and after the national draft lottery was instituted. Males holding low lottery numbers became more anti-war, more liberal, and more Democratic in their voting compared to those whose high numbers protected them from the draft. Trace effects are found even when the respondents were re-interviewed in the 1990s. Draft number effects typically exceed those for pre-adult party identification and are not mediated by military service or the acquisition of higher education.
.
I. Introduction
Experimentation is often employed in the study of political attitude change. Typically, the experiment is conducted in a survey or laboratory setting. Researchers randomly assign respondents/subjects to either the experimental group receiving the stimulus or to the control group that does not. Post-treatment attitudes of the two groups are then compared to estimate the short-term effect of the treatment.
Rarely do we find field experiments or natural experiments outside the lab for the study of attitude change (Dunning 2008). The present study offers an exception. The natural experiment is the imposition of the draft lottery of 1969 during the Vietnam War. In December 1969, men of eligible age were randomly assigned draft numbers based on their birthday. Numbers were assigned from 1 to 366, with those with low numbers called first for induction. Thus, young men could find themselves facing the likelihood of being sent to Vietnam, escape altogether, or some ambiguous status in-between.
Vietnam draft lottery status has been used as an instrument before, most famously as an instrument for military service as it affects lifetime earnings and other socio-economic outcomes (Angrist 1990, 1991; Hearst and Newman 1988). Here, as explained further below, we treat lottery status as an instrument for vulnerability to being drafted into the military rather than as an instrument for military service itself. A random draw that determines the possibility of change that is life-altering or even life-threatening is the type of stimulus that could compel major changes in one’s political orientation.
Consider the random draw from the draft lottery as an event that altered one’s self-interest. Those who found themselves suddenly free from the draft had less reason to oppose an unpopular war. Those who found themselves vulnerable to serving in an unpopular war had more reason to oppose it. Thus, we have the obvious hypothesis that the lottery number influenced attitudes toward the Vietnam War among young draft-age men who had not yet served in the military. We test this hypothesis in this paper.
Potentially of even greater interest, Vietnam lottery status can serve as an instrument for estimating change in one attitude affecting other attitudes and behavior. The opportunity is present to test
1
whether change in war attitudes imposed exogenously by Vietnam lottery outcomes led to further attitudinal and behavioral adjustments. For instance, if a low draft number resulted in opposition to the war, did this opposition lead to voting for McGovern, the anti-war presidential candidate in 1972? Did the newly induced war opponents change other attitudes in other ways to conform to their “dovish” war stance, for instance by becoming more politically liberal? If so, were these changes short-lived, or were they long-lasting, so that the draw of a lottery number influenced their political views down the long road of a political lifetime?
The preceding might sound like an ideal research design. But to implement it one needs not only respondent lottery numbers but also data regarding attitudes and behavior subsequent to the draft lottery. Fortunately that data is at hand. The data for this study is the Jennings-Niemi Political Socialization Study. For this study, a national sample of high school seniors was interviewed in 1965. They were then subsequently interviewed in 1973. Then they were interviewed two more times, in 1982 and 1997, providing more than half of a political lifetime’s worth of attitudinal data and reports of voting behavior.
II. The Political Socialization Data Set
The Political Socialization Panel Study was initiated by M. Kent Jennings and carried out by the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center and Center for Political Studies. The original core of the project consisted of interviews with a national sample of 1669 high school seniors from the graduating class of 1965, distributed across 97 public and non-public schools chosen with probability proportionate to size (Jennings and Niemi, 1974, Appendix). In January through April 1973, 1119 of the initial respondents were again interviewed in person, while an additional 229 who were too remotely located completed a self-administered questionnaire. The resulting N of 1348 represents an unadjusted retention rate of 80.8%. Surveys were completed with a total of 935 individuals across all four waves of the study, for a 4-wave unadjusted retention rate of 56%.1 Almost all of our analysis works with data from the
1 In 1982 a mailback questionnaire was again used to obtain responses from remotely located individuals. In 1997, which introduced computer-assisted interviewing, about half of the respondents were
2
1965-1973 panel file (ICPSR study #7779). However, we also make use of the 4-wave panel in an examination of long-term draft lottery effects (study #4037).
Of course for the data from the Political Socialization study to be usable for studying these effects, we need respondent dates of birth. Fortunately these are available in the study’s data base. Lottery numbers were ascertained by linking birth data to the corresponding number signifying priority for being called into the army. The study is also rich in outcome measures. As described in more detail below, we make use of questions ascertaining opinions on the Vietnam War and other political issues, attitudes toward the military, evaluations of presidential candidates and other prominent political figures, vote choice in the 1972 election, and additional measures of political involvement and attentiveness.
In some respects, the timing of the fieldwork for the Political Socialization Panel Study is also ideal for our purposes. This is because many in the class of 1965 were just then losing their educational (college) deferments around the time of the 1969 draft. Those that were still in school at the time knew that their draft lottery number would prevail when their four allotted years of deferment for their schooling had ended. Thus the 1969 draft lottery occurred at an acute moment for this particular age cohort.
A seeming handicap for our study is that the response measurement, in early 1973, occurred over three years after the draft. It is possible that draft lottery outcomes affected war attitudes in the short run but that these attitudinal shifts faded away by the time of the 1973 survey. Another handicap of sorts is that only about one-fourth of the subjects of the study are useful for our study. About one half are women, who were not subject to the draft. Of the men, about half again had already enlisted in the armed services by the time of the 1969 draft lottery. The yield for our study is a set of 390 usable respondents—men who had not served in the military as of 1969 and had been interviewed in both 1965 and 1973. We ask, did the draft numbers for these 390 men alter their political attitudes in 1973 (and beyond)?
interviewed in person and half by phone.
here is the rest of the study with the data. I tried to read it but I got bored.
http://www.columbia.edu/~rse14/vietnam_rev_Feb2010.pdf
-
stilltrucking
- Posts: 20607
- Joined: October 24th, 2004, 12:29 pm
- Location: Oz or somepLace like Kansas
Re: "Why do people become chickenhawks"
I wonder if anyone has done any research on why women become chicken hawks?
"If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.—"
Madeleine Albright
Former Secretary of Snakes of the former United States of America
Re: "Why do people become chickenhawks"
interesting article, and I couldn't help but make the connection to our debt "crisis"
with the common thread being the shared sacrifice.....it's so stark, yet seems to go unnoticed by the tea party supporters.....it seems winning is what matters, even if the prize is cutting off your nose to spite your face.....
I turned 18 prior to the lottery, when it was automatic at age 18 for a boy to be inducted into the army....I joined the Navy, hoping it would keep me out of the jungle......and it worked......but I can't say whether I would have gone to Vietnam or not even if I got my orders......probably would have headed for Canada since I didn't believe in that immoral war.....but never had to choose.....so I got an honorable discharge.....
lost many friends there, many came back very different people, others died later in years from exposure to Agent Orange, one friend is now crippled from moving shrapnel and has always had ringing in his ear from a landmine ....18 year old kids sent to do the bidding of politicians that wouldn't dare let their own kids go....how many in Congress right now have kids in Afghanistan or Iraq?
very few.......I think Joe Biden's son might be there, but there aren't many...
and so back again to the economy, we the least able, are asked to make the lion's share of the sacrifice......and so it goes......the rich get richer........
with the common thread being the shared sacrifice.....it's so stark, yet seems to go unnoticed by the tea party supporters.....it seems winning is what matters, even if the prize is cutting off your nose to spite your face.....
I turned 18 prior to the lottery, when it was automatic at age 18 for a boy to be inducted into the army....I joined the Navy, hoping it would keep me out of the jungle......and it worked......but I can't say whether I would have gone to Vietnam or not even if I got my orders......probably would have headed for Canada since I didn't believe in that immoral war.....but never had to choose.....so I got an honorable discharge.....
lost many friends there, many came back very different people, others died later in years from exposure to Agent Orange, one friend is now crippled from moving shrapnel and has always had ringing in his ear from a landmine ....18 year old kids sent to do the bidding of politicians that wouldn't dare let their own kids go....how many in Congress right now have kids in Afghanistan or Iraq?
very few.......I think Joe Biden's son might be there, but there aren't many...
and so back again to the economy, we the least able, are asked to make the lion's share of the sacrifice......and so it goes......the rich get richer........
If you do not change your direction
you may end up where you are heading
you may end up where you are heading
Re: "Why do people become chickenhawks"
in those times when there isn't a literal draft, there is generally an "economic draft" in various ways. the big pyramid (scheme) of wealth/ health is great when "we're" winning. not so great in those times of endless (sometimes patriotic) sacrifice to the altar of big business...
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