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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
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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

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