Urban-Rural Differences in Respect for the Norms of American Civil-Military Relations

• Published date: 01 January 2025
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X241263085
• Author: Jennifer Lin,Kristin Lunz Trujillo
• Date: 01 January 2025

Article

American Politics Research

2025, Vol. 53(1) 36–47

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X241263085

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Urban-Rural Differences in Respect for the

Norms of American Civil-Military Relations

Jennifer Lin

1

and Kristin Lunz Trujillo

2



Abstract

Democracies require militaries that protect citizen well-being without threatening to overthrow the government or otherwise

jeopardize public safety. The military should therefore be firmly under the command of civilian electedleaders, playing a minimal

role in the political process. Previous research examines whether the public thinks such boundaries of civil-military relations

should exist, and finds that people can see the military as a check to democratically elected administrations in the opposing party.

Here, we ask a parallel question: Does place of residence influence attitudes about the boundaries of civil-militaryrelations? We

expect rural individuals and those higher in rural resentment to similarly see the military as a check to a civilian government as

previous research suggests that rural residents are resentful towards government andcenters of power. Using original survey

data, we find that people high in such rural resentment are sometimes more willing to defer to the military. Finally, we

successfully replicate findings from Krebs et al. (2023) under a Democratic administration. These results have implications for

democratic governance and public support, particularly among facets of the public that have lower trust in government.

Keywords

US civil-military relations, political geography, urban-rural, rural resentment

Democratic societies require a strong military to defend its

people, and their values, from external and internal threats.

The people entrust the government to raise and train a

militia that can use the most modern warfighting tech-

nologies to defend the country should such a threat arise.

At the same time, the people and their democratically

elected leaders must also ensure that the military does not

turn around to overthrow the government or otherwise

inflict unspeakable violence on the very people who fa-

cilitate their role (Feaver, 1999).

The study of civil-military relations focuses on how ci-

vilian elected leaders and the military interact in a context

where one side, the military, has a monopoly on the

knowledge of the use of force (Desch, 2001;Feaver, 2003).

The most ideal balance between the two entities, as spelled

out by Huntington (1957), is a world where the civilian

elected leaders focus on diplomacy while the military officers

and personnel focus on executing missions and fighting

conflicts. To achieve good civil-military relations, there needs

to be a lot of trust between members of both sides –the

civilians need to trust the military in their skills to effectively

execute a mission on the battlefield, while the military needs

to trust civilians to make the best decision about whether to

engage in conflict or to use diplomacy to solve international

conflicts (Owens, 2021).

However, there are many scholars who criticize the

Huntington (1957) model, including Brooks (2020),Feaver

(2003) and Cohen (2003). A true separation between civilian

and military entities in government poses many issues, in-

cluding woeful ignorance on the part of civilians in how to

fight wars when military intervention is necessary (Cohen,

2003). Additionally, it is difficult for the military to predict

the political consequences of their actions (Brooks, 2019).

Finally, it is rather difficult for the military to remain out of the

political fray as there is a system of separation of powers that

is present in the US government (Banerjee & Webeck, 2024).

As the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare

war and the President to be the Commander in Chief, the

military must work with different branches of government

and sometimes these interests can differ depending on which

political party is in charge (Weiner, 2022). That said, a better

model for civil-military relations in the United States is

1

Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

2

University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jennifer Lin, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, 601

University Place, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.

Email: jennifer.lin@northwestern.edu