Representing Defense

Richard C. Eichenberg and Richard Stoll
Additional contact information
Richard C. Eichenberg: Department of Political Science Tufts University
Richard Stoll: Department of Political Science Rice University

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2003, vol. 47, issue 4, 399-422

Abstract: There is nowsubstantial evidence that defense spending decisions in the United States are influenced by citizen preferences. However, there is little time-series evidence for countries other than the United States. Regression models of citizen responsiveness and opinion representation in the politics of defense spending in five democracies are estimated. Results showthat public opinion in all five countries is systematically responsive to recent changes in defense spending, and the form of the responses across countries uniformly resembles the “thermostat†metaphor developed by Wlezien and the more general theory of opinion dynamics developed by Stimson. Findings showalso that defense budgeting is representative: public support for defense spending is the most consistently significant influence on defense budgeting change in four countries; thus, a parsimonious theory of comparative policy representation is potentially within reach. The implications of the results for defense spending in the NATO alliance and the European Union are discussed.

Keywords: Democratic control; defense spending; public opinion; citizen responsiveness; alliance dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002703254477 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:47:y:2003:i:4:p:399-422

DOI: 10.1177/0022002703254477

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().