Are the U.S. Military’s Nonpartisan Norms Eroding?

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X211072892
• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Date: 01 April 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X211072892

Armed Forces & Society

2023, Vol. 49(2) 310 –329

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X211072892

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1134644AFSXXX10.1177/0095327X211072892Armed Forces & SocietyLythgoe

research-article2022

Are the U.S. Military’s

Nonpartisan Norms Eroding?

Trent J. Lythgoe

Abstract

The U.S. military’s nonpartisan norms are an important part of healthy civil–military

relations. Some research, however, suggest these norms are weakening. This study

examines the evidence for eroding nonpartisan norms by analyzing U.S. military

servicemembers’partisan aff‌iliations and political activism levels from 2008 to 2018. It

f‌inds that since 2008, military servicemembers have become more likely to identify as

partisans. Servicemembers have also become more politically active than civilians,

although this is due to decreasing activism among the American public. It also f‌inds that

longer-serving service members have stronger nonpartisan norms, but that newer

servicemembers are more politically active than both longer-serving servicemembers

and civilians. These f‌indings provide a f‌irmer empirical foundation for previous claims of

eroding norms and suggest more research is needed to understand how increased

partisanship and political activism impacts military readiness and civil–military relations.

Keywords

civil–military relations, military culture, professionalism/leadership, political science,

military effectiveness, discipline

Are the U.S. military’s nonpartisan norms eroding? The U.S. military has a long-

standing tradition of staying out of partisan politics (Bacevich & Kohn, 1997;

Huntington, 1957;Janowitz, 1960;Kohn, 2002;Liebert & Golby, 2017). This tradition

emphasizes social norms that admonish servicemembers to avoid “partisanship of word

Dept. of Political Science, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

Corresponding Author:

Trent J. Lythgoe, Dept. of Political Science, University of Kansas, 1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504, Lawrence, KS

66045-3177, USA.

Email: tlythgoe@ku.edu

Lythgoe 311

or deed, activity, or aff‌iliation”(Kohn, 2002, p. 27). Some studies suggest these

nonpartisan norms are weakening (Bacevich & Kohn, 1997;Betros, 2001;Dempsey,

2009;Dowd, 2001;Feaver et al., 2001;Holsti, 1998,2001;Kohn, 2002;Liebert &

Golby, 2017;Urben, 2013,2014,2017). However, these studies have empirical

limitations. Most use samples of military subgroups, and few measure how nonpartisan

norms have changed over time.

This study overcomes these limitations by analyzing U.S. military servicemembers’

partisanship and political activism using repeated cross-sectional data from the 2008-

2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Surveys (CCES) (2020). The analysis f‌inds

mixed evidence for eroding nonpartisan norms. Since 2008, military servicemembers

have become more likely to identify as partisans. However, servicemembers have not

become stronger partisans. And while servicemembers are more politically active than

civilians, it is because of decreasing political activism among civilians rather than

increasing activism among servicemembers. Additionally, servicemembers with more

time in the military are less partisan and politically active compared to younger

servicemembers who are more partisan and politically active than both their longer-

serving colleagues and civilians of the same age.

These f‌indings have important implications for civil–military relations scholarship

and military practitioners. They provide some support to previous researchers’claims

that nonpartisannorms are weakening and suggest more researchis needed to understand

the consequences of that change. Although political science has f‌irmly established the

powerful inf‌luence of partisan identif‌ication on citizens’political attitudes and behavior

(e.g., Bartels, 2002;Campbell et al., 1960;Taber & Lodge, 2006), scholars have not

examined if the military’s nonpartisan norms moderate these effects. For military

practitioners, these f‌indings highlight the importance of socializing nonpartisan norms,

especially since this study f‌inds new servicemembers have stronger political attitudes

than civilians of the same age.

Nonpartisanship and American Civil–Military Relations

Military nonpartisanship is a central tenet of American civil–military relations. The

fundamental problem in the American civil–military relationship is how to maintain

civilian control of a powerful standing military with signif‌icant latent political power

(Feaver, 1996;Huntington, 1957;Nielsen & Snider, 2009). In his inf‌luential 1957 book

The Soldier and the State, Samuel Huntington argues thatone of the keys to maintaining

civiliancontrol is a professional militaryoff‌icer corps with a strong apolitical ethos.In the

ensuing decades, Huntington’s view dominated civil–military relations scholarship and

practice (Nielsen & Snider, 2009). While scholars debate whether military leaders can

remain as unequivocally apolitical as Huntington requires (e.g., Janowitz, 1960;Cohen,

2003;Nielsen & Snider, 2009), there is nevertheless broad agreement that military in-

volvement in partisan politics is detrimental to healthy civil–military relations (Bacevich &

Kohn, 1997;Janowitz, 1960;Kohn, 2002;Liebert & Golby, 2017). Moreover,researchers

have moved beyond Huntington’s narrow focus on military off‌icers and argued that all

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