Performing on Cue? The Formation of American Public Attitudes Toward War

也许，美国公民托付给他们的民选官员的最重要的任务是决定在战斗中部署国家的军事力量。但是，美国公众有能力让他们的领导人对这种权力的使用负责吗？从规范的角度来看，如果公众要在民主社会中发挥引导政策的公民角色，就必须能够对使用武力的智慧做出理性和独立的判断。从经验的角度来看，许多关于民主对使用军事力量的影响的理论都是基于这样一个假设，即民意在国际政治中对民主领导人的行为起着独立的约束作用。公众真的能履行这个角色吗？最近关于公众舆论和战争的学术研究表明，当美国人的生命受到威胁时，有两个关键变量影响公众支持使用武力的意愿：对军事任务正当性的看法和对其可能成功的看法。一些人认为，这种对军事任务的正当性和成功的关注提供了证据，表明公众可以对战争做出“合理”的判断，从而使他们能够独立地约束他们的领导人。然而，其他人则认为，这样的判断似乎是“合理的”，但在很大程度上是由党派领袖的言论衍生出来的。根据这一观点，公众限制使用武力的能力不可避免地受到精英党派信息的限制。本研究采用调查实验探讨冲突线索和个人倾向在形成军事冲突态度中的潜在互动关系。特别是，这项研究调查了个人在多大程度上可以利用媒体报道来验证政治精英提供的线索。对于那些试图了解公众舆论的形成以及民主对外交政策的影响的人来说，美国公众执行这项任务的能力非常重要。它对美国的决策者、媒体和美国公众也非常重要。

Perhaps the most important task that American citizens entrust to their elected officials is the decision to deploy the country's military forces in combat. But is the American public capable of holding their leaders accountable for the use of this authority? From a normative perspective, it is important that the public be capable of reaching reasoned and independent judgments about the wisdom of using military force if they are to carry out their role as citizens who guide policy in a democratic society. From an empirical perspective, numerous theories of the impact of democracy on the use of military force begin with the assumption that public opinion acts as an independent constraint on the behavior of democratic leaders in international politics. Can the public actually fulfill this role?Recent scholarship on public opinion and war suggests that two key variables influence the public's willingness to support the use of force when American lives are at stake: perceptions of the justification of the military mission and perceptions of its likely success. Some have argued that this focus on the justification and success of a military mission provides evidence that the public can reach "reasonable" judgments about war that allow them to act as an independent constraint on their leaders. Others, however, have argued that such judgments appear to be "reasoned" but are largely derivative of statements made by partisan leaders. According to this view, the public's ability to constrain the use of force is inevitably limited by its dependence on partisan messages from elites. This study uses survey experiments to explore potentially interactive relationships among conflicting cues and individual predispositions in shaping attitudes toward military conflicts. In particular, this research investigates the extent to which individuals can use media reporting to verify cues offered by political elites. The American public's ability to carry out this task is of great importance to those who seek to understand the formation of public opinion as well as the impact of democracy on foreign policy. It is also of great importance to American policy makers, the media, and the American public.