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In
Thanks for Your Service, Peter D. Feaver shows that the public's high confidence in the military is based partly on deservedness and partly based on an underlying partisan gap and social desirability bias: extremely high confidence levels among self-identified Republican respondents but much less among Democrats and still weaker confidence among Independents. Not only does Feaver helps us understand how and why the public has confidence in the military, but he also exposes problems that policymakers need to be aware of. Specifically, he elucidates how confidence or over-confidence in the institution shapes public attitudes on the use of force and may not support the best practices in democratic civil-military relations.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Tables
- List of Figures
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- PART I: Who Has Confidence in the Military?
- Chapter 2: Confidence in the Military Over Time and Today
- Chapter 3: Confidence and the Gaps: Knowledge, Media, Education, Social Contact
- PART II: Why Do People Have Confidence in the Military
- Chapter 4: How Confidence in the Military Relates to Confidence in other Institutions
- Chapter 5: Performance, Professional Ethics and Public Confidence
- Chapter 6: Politics, Politicization and Public Confidence
- Chapter 7: How Social Desirability Bias Props Up Public Support for the Military
- PART III: Why Confidence in the Military Matters
- Chapter 8: Whether/How Confidence Shapes Concrete Support for the Military
- Chapter 9: Whether/How Confidence Shapes Attitudes about the Military as an Instrument of Foreign Policy
- Chapter 10: Whether/How Confidence Shapes Intangible Benefits Enjoyed By the Military
- Chapter 11: Conclusion
- List of References
- Index
About the author
Peter D. Feaver is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke University. He is Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy and co-PI of the America in the World Consortium. Feaver is also the author of Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (2003) and Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the United States (1992). He is co-author of Paying the Human Costs of War (with Christopher Gelpi and Jason Reifler, 2009); Getting the Best Out of College (with Susan Wasiolek and Anne Crossman, 2008, 2nd edition 2012); and Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force (with Christopher Gelpi, 2004). He has published numerous other monographs, scholarly articles, book chapters, and policy pieces on grand strategy, American foreign policy, public opinion, nuclear proliferation, civil-military relations, and cybersecurity. Feaver served on the NSC staff in both the Clinton (as a
Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control, 1993-1994) and Bush (as Special Advisor for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform, 2005-2007) administrations. He is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group.
Summary
A definitive study on the decades-long run of high public confidence in the military and why it may rest on some shaky foundations.
What explains the high levels of public confidence in the US military and does high confidence matter? In Thanks for Your Service, the eminent civil-military relations scholar Peter D. Feaver addresses this question and focuses on what it means for the military. Proprietary survey data show that confidence is partly based on public beliefs about the military's high competence, adherence to high professional ethics, and a determination to stand apart from the bitter divisions of partisan politics. However, as Feaver argues, confidence is also shaped by a partisan gap and by social desirability bias, the idea that some individuals express confidence in the military because they believe that is the socially approved attitude to hold. Not only does Feaver help us understand how and why the public has confidence in the military, but he also exposes problems that policymakers need to be aware of. Specifically, this book traces how confidence in the institution shapes public attitudes on the use of force and may not always reinforce best practices in democratic civil-military relations.
Additional text
Thanks for Your Service does an excellent job of empirically explaining why the public has high confidence in the US Armed Forces.
