The Partisan Mentality and Regime Change: An Analysis of Partisanship in the Korean, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan Wars

摘要

This article presents the results of an analysis of partisan attitudes towards war for the Korean, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan Wars. In total, 85 surveys conducted by the Gallup Organization starting in August 1950 (near the beginning of the Korean War) and ending May 2011 (recent events from the Afghanistan War) were analyzed. Previous research of public opinion during wartime indicates how powerful the influence of political party affiliation is in the United States on individualsa?? war attitudes, with several scholars suggesting that most people follow the cues provided by their most salient political reference groupa??their own party. Therefore, they are inclined to follow their President's lead no matter the Administration's policy on foreign affairs. There has been evidence to suggest that the earlier wars in modern America, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, that this was in fact true. In the later wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars closely linked to the a??War on Terror,a?? this did not occur. During times of regime change, the shift in power from a Republican Bush regime to a Democratic Obama regime has indicated that citizens are no longer following their party cue and in fact are more likely to reject the policies of their own party leaders. The evidence in this research points out that partisans can no longer be thought of as followers, which may suggest that leaders can no longer rely on their own party base for support on war policies.View full textDownload full textKEYWORDSWar, public opinion, polling, terrorismRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; var addthis_config = {"data_track_addressbar":true,"ui_click":true}; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19361610.2012.631109