Doctoral Dissertation Research: Explaining Presidents' Use of Humanitarian Justifications for Military Intervention.

在过去25年的每一次军事干预中，美国总统都用人道主义理由--指保护平民--向美国公众解释军事行动。该项目的重点是在主要出于国家安全考虑的干预行动中使用人道主义主张，以更好地了解这些理由如何影响公众与战争之间的关系。PI认为，公众对人道主义干预的高水平支持，促使总统们扩大人道主义主张的限度，这可能会产生两个意想不到的潜在负面后果。首先，总统可能会用人道主义理由来说服公众支持原本不受欢迎的干预。其次，过度使用人道主义主张可能会引起公众的怀疑，使建立支持以防止未来发生大规模暴行变得更加困难。PI通过三种方式调查这种人道主义框架的使用的后果：1)她考虑人道主义理由的重要性如何随着时间的推移而变化，2)她检查总统最有可能依赖人道主义主张的时间，以及3)她检查公众接受人道主义解释的意愿是否有限。这项研究对美国未来何时干预，特别是对大规模暴行的反应，以及公众让总统对军事行动负责的能力具有影响。技术总结为了检查人道主义理由在当代美国军事干预中的作用，PI采用了多方法方法，包括三个不同的步骤：1)总统演讲的内容分析，2)干预的比较案例研究，3)关于个人支持人道主义呼吁的条件的调查实验。首先，PI使用基于词典的国家总统演讲内容分析来构建原始数据集，跟踪1945至2013年间美国所有潜在干预措施的三个理由类别的频率。其次，她考察了来自三届总统政府的三对干预和不干预。利用国家安全档案馆和总统图书馆的主要资料，这些案例研究考察了在干预案例中，总统最有可能在什么时候强调人道主义主张。案例研究还突出了人道主义关切如何以及为什么成为采取军事行动和国际行为者作用的官方理由的一部分。第三，PI使用调查实验来调查人道主义理由增加对干预的支持的条件。特别是，它考虑支持是否以公众相信人道主义要求是真诚的以及军事行动主要是出于人道主义关切为条件的。

General SummaryIn every military intervention of the past twenty-five years, U.S. presidents have used humanitarian justifications?references to the protection of civilians?to explain military action to the U.S. public. The project focuses on the use of humanitarian claims in interventions driven primarily by national security concerns to better understand how these justifications affect the relationship between the public and war. the PI argues that high levels of public support for humanitarian interventions create an incentive for presidents to stretch the limits of humanitarian claims, which can have two unintended and potentially negative consequences. First, presidents may use humanitarian justifications to convince the public to support otherwise unpopular interventions. Second, the over-use of humanitarian claims may create a skeptical public, making it harder to build support to prevent mass atrocities in the future. The PI investigates the consequences of this use of the humanitarian frame in three ways: 1) she considers how the prominence of humanitarian justifications has changed over time, 2) she examines when presidents are most likely to rely on humanitarian claims, and 3) she examines whether there are limits to the public' willingness to accept humanitarian explanations. The research has implications for when the U.S. will intervene in the future, especially in response to mass atrocities, and for the public's ability to hold presidents accountable for military action.Technical Summary To examine the role of humanitarian justifications in contemporary U.S. military interventions, the PI employs a multi-methods approach with three distinct steps: 1) content analysis of presidential speeches, 2) comparative case studies of interventions, and 3) a survey experiment on the conditions under which individuals support humanitarian appeals. First, the PI uses dictionary-based content analysis of national presidential addresses to construct an original dataset that tracks the frequency of three justification categories for all potential U.S. interventions from 1945 to 2013. Second, she examines three pairs of interventions and non-interventions from three presidential administrations. Using primary sources from the National Security Archives and presidential libraries, these case studies examine when, within cases of intervention, presidents are most likely to emphasize humanitarian claims. The case studies also highlight how and why humanitarian concerns become a part of official justifications for military action and the role of international actors. Third, the PI uses a survey experiment to investigate the conditions under which humanitarian justifications increase support for intervention. In particular, it considers whether support is conditional on the public's belief that humanitarian claims are sincere and that military action is primarily motivated by humanitarian concerns.