Public Opinion and Defense Spending

Paper Summary:

The paper's analysis uses national public opinion data to assess the effect of different political opinions on defense spending preferences. The paper offers arguments for why the relationships between different variables and defense spending preferences develop over time. The paper appends several 'Determinants of Defense Spending Preferences' tables.

Outline:
Literature Review
Theory
Analysis
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Defense budgeting is a unique policy arena in the United States government. Military spending preferences tend to follow different trends than domestic spending arenas when considering the effect of political ideology and other characteristics. Public support for military spending also reacts to the rise and fall of actual defense buildup much like attitudes towards some domestic policy arenas react to the waxing and waning of actual spending (Erikson 107). Major political events and foreign circumstances can also have a significant impact on attitudes towards defense spending."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bartels, Larry M. "The American Public's Defense Spending Preferences in the Post-Cold War Era." The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 4. (Winter, 1994)pp. 479-508
• Erikson, Robert S. and Kent L. Tedin. American Public Opinion: Its Origins, Content and Impact. 7th edition. Pearson Education, 2007.
• Hartley, Thomas and Bruce Russett. "Public Opinion and the Common Defense: Who Governs Military Spending in the United States?" The American Political Science Review, Vol. 86, No. 4. (Dec., 1992) pp. 905-915.
• Weisberg, Herbert, Jon A. Krosnick and Bruce D. Bowen. An Introduction to Survey Research, Polling, and Data Analysis. 3rd edition. Sage Publications, 1996.

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