Cognitive Shortcuts and Public Support for Intervention

• Date: 01 February 2020
• Author: Jason Brownlee
• Published date: 01 February 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002719854210
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Cognitive Shortcuts

and Public Support

for Intervention

Jason Brownlee

1

Abstract

Scholars of public opinion on military intervention agree that survey respondents

make judgments from limited information. Yet researchers still question whether

ordinary Americans reflect elite attitudes or instead reach their own “pretty

prudent” conclusions from the stated principal policy objective (PPO). This article

adjudicates the debate while incorporating lessons from the study of bounded

rationality. Evidence comes from an original data set of aggregate US public opinion,

covering 1,080 nationally representative survey items about launching operations,

across thirty-five countries, during 1981 to 2016. Tests show that PPO matters:

pursuing “internal policy change” is less popular than restraining international

aggression. However, language reflecting White House cues and one prominent

cognitive shortcut (the “availability heuristic”) statistically and substantively out-

performs PPO at predicting intervention support. The results indicate that when

ordinary Americans are polled about using force against salient foes (Saddam

Hussein, al-Qaeda, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), elements of bounded rationality

can overtake the prudence expressed toward less vivid problems.

Keywords

foreign policy, humanitarian intervention, public opinion, Middle East, bounded

rationality, al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Saddam Hussein

1

Department of Government, Austin, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jason Brownlee, Department of Government, 158 W. 21st Street, Stop A1800, Austin, TX 78712-1704,

USA.

Email: brownlee@austin.utexas.edu

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2020, Vol. 64(2-3) 261-289

ªThe Author(s) 2019

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0022002719854210

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US public support for military interventions has reached historic levels in the early

twenty-first century. Over 80 percent of Americans approved of Operation Enduring

Freedom when US forces entered Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Some 70 percent

of Americans favored the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 (Gershkoff and Kushner

2005; Jacobson 2010). In isolation, these attitudes could be dismissed as a post-9/11

spike. But twelve years later, majorities again supported military action against a

foreign adversary. After Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS] fighters killed 130

people in Paris in November 2015, 68 percent of respondents thought President

Barack Obama—who had been bombing ISIS targets for over a year—was not being

aggressive enough. Fifty-three percent favored “sending [US] ground troops into

combat operations against ISIS,” even though Obama had slammed the idea as

reckless and ineffective (CNN/OR C 2015; Goldberg 2016; White House 201 5).

These examples suggest intervention support has varied in unexpected ways.

Scholars have previously concluded the public is reticent to intervene abroad

(Jentleson 1992; Page and Bouton 2006; Walt 2018) unless prompted by national

leaders (Berinsky 2009; Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler 2009; Lippmann [1922] 1998).

Broad backing for the use of force in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and then against ISIS,

raises the question: What other variables are operating to increase the American

public’s approval of military intervention?

I answer this question by (1) generating hypotheses from early and recent theory,

including lessons from the study of cognitive heuristics, (2) introducing a new data

set for assessing predictors of aggregate intervention approval, and (3) reporting the

results of hypothesis tests from a range of models.

The article follows this structure. First, I integrate existing theory in a common

frameworkof “intervention support as risk reduction” and derive fivehypotheses. (For

all hypotheses, the dependent variable is the aggregate public level of support for

initiating military action.

1

) Two hypotheses address Bruce Jentleson’s (1992) “pretty

prudent public” thesis, and one hypothesis gauges the influence of elite signals (the

“rally ‘round the flag” effect). The final two hypotheses assess the imp act of a

cognitive shortcut known as the “availability heuristic.” In the context of foreign

policy surveysamong ordinary (i.e., politically inattentive) respondents,the availabil-

ity heuristic disproportionately weights actors known for vivid acts of violence.

Second, I introduce a data set and research design for testing the hypotheses.

Using the iPoll Databank of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, I com-

piled 1,080 items, from survey questions on initiating US military action, across

thirty-five countries, during 1981 to 2016. I then individually coded each of the

observations, across a series of independent variables, based on the language of the

specific question. The data enable one of the most c omprehensive and rigorous

examinations of prior theory explaining intervention support.

2

Third, I report results of OLS regressions, with robust standard errors (clustered

by intervention site), that tested the hypotheses.

3

The results support the argument

that the American public is “pretty prudent” and that the public’s support varies

based on the principal policy objective (PPO) of the intervention. Specifically,

262 Journal of Conflict Resolution 64(2-3)