Citizen Support for Military Expenditure Post–9/11

• Published date: 01 October 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17741462
• Date: 01 October 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Citizen Support for

Military Expenditure

Post–9/11: Exploring the

Role of Race, Ethnicity,

and Place of Birth

Christopher A. Simon

1

, Nicholas P. Lovrich

2

,

Baodong Liu

1

, and Yehua Dennis Wei

3

Abstract

Citizens adjust their perceptions of military expenditure based largely on their

worldview, as defined by their race, ethnicity, ideology, gender, socioeconomic

status (SES), and education. Worldview might also reasonably be impacted by

nativity. We explore the relationship between nativity and public opinion about

military expenditure. Native-born survey respondents are less likely to believe

that military expenditures are excessive than those born abroad. Race, ethnicity,

ideology, nativity, and confidence in the military are the most significant variables

used in explaining attitudes about military expenditure. Interaction analysis

carried out for this article and reported here demonstrates that Hispanic and

Asian ethnicity impacts on public perception of military expenditure are signif-

icantly greater when factoring in the nativity of survey respondents. With a

growing portion of non-native-born citizens joining the electorate, public

opinion analyses regarding military expenditure should take into account nativity

as well as SES, gender, race, ideology, education, and ethnicity when seeking to

explain public opinion dynamics.

1

Department of Political Science, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

2

School of Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

3

Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

Corresponding Author:

Christopher A. Simon, Department of Political Science, University of Utah, 260S Central Campus Drive,

252 Orson Spencer Hall, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.

Email: simon@mpa.utah.edu

Armed Forces & Society

2018, Vol. 44(4) 688-706

ªThe Author(s) 2017

Article reuse guidelines:

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17741462

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Keywords

public opinion, military expenditure, native-born, race, ethnicity

Does nativity affect public opinion about defense expenditure and, if so, in what

direction? Perceptions of threat and public opinion about defense expenditures are

influenced by worldview (Wleizen, 1996) and the transformative process that immi-

grants often experience, as they blend home country values with the values of their

new homeland (see Ginieniewicz, 2008). Evidence suggests that policy attitudes are

related to ethnic and national origin (Lovelock, Jellum, Thompson, & Lovelock,

2013; Rouse, 2010).

The issue is particularly timely given the d emographic and political changes

taking place in the United States since the turn of the century. In 2014, over 13%

of the United States was foreign-born, which was the highest percentage of the

population since 1920 (Bhaskar, Arenas-Germosen, & Dick, 2013; U.S. Census,

2015). Exploration of the impact of nativity on defense policy expenditure provides

an opportunity to explore further the impact of nativity on policy prioritization as

well as to build on Leal’s (2005) prescient study of the impact of ethnicity on public

opinion toward the military.

Our primary hypothesis in the analysis set forth here relates to foreign-born

status. Foreign-born U.S. citizens are significantly less likely to support increased

military expenditures when compared with native-born U.S. citizens. Furthermore,

foreign-born status interacts with race and ethnicity, leading to significantly lower

support for increased military expenditure. Given that a majority of foreign-born

U.S. citizens come from Latin America (mostly Mexico), we rely on the work of

Gary Segura as set forth in his own exploratory hypotheses. Segura has reported that

foreign-born Latinos tend to be quite progressive politically in a number of respects,

and he presents some thoughtful speculations on why that might be the case given

the life-course experiences of many of these people. Our hypothesis also relies

heavily on the work of Leal (2005) who found that Hispanics were significantly

less likely to support increased defense expenditure in his single-year study early in

the first decade of the 21st century.

Nativity and Public Opinion

The role of nativity has not been a factor included in prior analyses of public support

for military expenditures. For public opinion studies conducted in the latter half of

the 20th century, this was likely not something that needed to be considered. The

percentage of foreign-born individuals in the U.S. Census declined from 6.9%in

1960 to 4.7%in 1970. However, by 1980, the percentage foreign-born estimated in

the U.S. Census had risen to 6.2%, and it rose further to 7.9%in the 1990 Census.

In the period between 2002 and 2014, the General Social Survey (GSS) random

Simon et al. 689