PUBLIC ATTITUDES TO WAR A nation of hawks or doves?
What do British citizens really think about military action and under what circumstances will they support the use of force? Robert Johns (left) and Graeme Davies investigate
N RECENT YEARS, UK forces have been deployed abroad in diverse places, for various reasons, and with sharply diverging degrees of success. Given growing competition over depleted resources, pressures for humanitarian intervention, and the number of small states and non-state actors with potentially devastating weapons, the number of possible military engagements seems likely to increase. Few decisions that governments make have more far-reaching ramifications for both public and policymakers than the use of force abroad. Public opinion played a prominent role in
I “ Committed hawks are in the
minority, while committed doves seem to be a gravely endangered species
discussions over the legitimacy of the Iraq war in particular, yet we have little systematic evidence about British public attitudes towards military action. Are we a nation of hawks or doves? And under what circumstances is the public more ready to support the use of force? In order to answer these questions, we undertook a major survey of the British public – funded by the ESRC and conducted over the internet by YouGov. Attitudes to military action are likely to be driven by ethical and practical considerations. To support a given military engagement, citizens have to regard it not only as morally justified but also as likely to be effective. Looking first at the use of force in general, we asked survey
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FIGURE 1: OPINIONS ABOUT THE JUSTIFIABILITY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF MILITARY ACTION
35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0
0
Justified Effective
respondents to rate it on two scales, running from ‘definitely cannot be justified’ to ‘definitely can be justified’ and from ‘not at all effective’ to ‘very effective’.
1 22 SOCIETY NOW AUTUMN 2010 2 3 4 Justifiability/effectiveness of war (0-6 scale) 5 6
Figure 1 shows the distribution of responses and reveals widespread ambivalence about military action. Most respondents are clustered at or around the midpoint of each scale. Only a very small proportion (four per cent) say that force definitely cannot be justified, and while a rather larger group (21 per cent) believe that it definitely can be justified, they are less easily convinced about its effectiveness. In short, committed hawks are in the minority, while committed doves seem to be a gravely endangered species. Evidence of public equivocation would at one time have been attributed to ignorance: assumed to be preoccupied with domestic issues, citizens were held to know little about foreign affairs and to lack coherent and stable attitudes in that domain. Yet, more recent studies have shown that the apparent volatility of foreign policy attitudes – and support for war in particular – reflects the importance of context. One obvious contextual factor is the purpose of military action. On the same scale, respondents were asked to rate the justifiability and likely effectiveness of force used for a range of reasons. Figure 2 shows the average ratings. Predictably, action to defend Britain from invasion is very widely seen as justified. Aside from that, there is less consensus. The public is more sceptical about the effectiveness than about the ethical justification of military force, especially where adversaries are suspected of abusing human rights, developing weapons of mass destruction or harbouring terrorists. The reverse is true of regime change, with removing a dictator from power seen as being more readily achieved than being justified. It is easy to discern the effects of recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in these responses. Both conflicts have shown that removing dictatorial regimes is rather easier than promoting democracy or unearthing terrorists. More broadly, recent experience provides another source of variation in support for military action. Citizens who are generally favourably disposed to the use of force might nonetheless be sceptical about an apparently unsuccessful engagement. There was certainly limited public enthusiasm for the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. A
% of respondents
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