Suchergebnisse

ObjectiveWe extend prototype theory to explain why nonmembers who are socially connected to group members hold political attitudes that differ from nonmembers lacking that connection. We anticipate that the intensity of nonmember attitudes varies by connection to a prototype or periphery group member.MethodsUsing data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), we model group‐salient political attitudes for veterans, union members, and their family members.ResultsWe find social distance from group members is theoretically linked to within‐group variation that distinguishes prototype from periphery group members.ConclusionAnalysis of political attitudes is enhanced beyond the traditional member/nonmember dichotomy by accounting for nonmembers' social distance from group members.

The article focuses on group-based features of issue publics and advances the concept of residual group saliency as a way to organize members of issue publics. We accord veterans exemplar or prototype status, and civilians as periphery members of this issue public. As issue public exemplars, veterans anchor the "right" attitudes and behaviors for the veteran issue public, and civilians, especially those with family ties to veterans, gravitate toward those exemplar attitudes. We argue that pressure to conform to these "right" attitudes among civilians who are connected to a veteran is greater when there are more veterans in their environment. However, veterans and civilians who are not connected to a veteran are not responsive to such contextual effects, the former because they are already exemplars, and the latter because there is no motivation to evaluate the self in relation to veterans. We test and find support for these claims using data from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. We conclude with an evaluative discussion and suggestions for future research.

Public opinion studies on war attitudes say little about civilians who are related to military service members. The authors argue that military "service-connected" individuals are missing voices in the research that examines public support for war. Using over 50,000 observations from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, the authors estimate attitudes toward the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the use of US military troops in general. The authors find that service-connected civilians express greater support for war and the use of troops than civilians without such a connection. This study discusses the implications of these findings for theoretical advancements in the literature addressing war attitudes and the conceptualization of the "civil-military gap.". [Reprinted by permission; copyright Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society/Sage Publications Inc.]

Public opinion studies on war attitudes say little about civilians who are related to military service members. The authors argue that military "service-connected" individuals are missing voices in the research that examines public support for war. Using over 50,000 observations from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, the authors estimate attitudes toward the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the use of US military troops in general. The authors find that service-connected civilians express greater support for war and the use of troops than civilians without such a connection. This study discusses the implications of these findings for theoretical advancements in the literature addressing war attitudes and the conceptualization of the "civil–military gap."

Under what circumstances will the public support military intervention in other countries? Recent answers have focused on the importance of identity and attachment to one's nation to explain variation in public support. We posit that some segments of the public are more willing than others to support military action even when there is perceived risk due to a psychological attachment to veterans. We distinguish kinship, geographic, and psychological forms of propinquity and argue that the psychological attachment of an individual to a group drives disparate attitudes about military force when their group is threatened. Using a unique national data set, we examine public attitudes across a range of hypothetical and actual military interventions and find that psychological attachment, measured using identity fusion, helps to explain the pattern of support across interventions. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings on the use of force literature.