Caught in the Draft: The Effects of Vietnam Draft Lottery Status on Political Attitudes

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT S. ERIKSON ◽  
LAURA STOKER
Keyword(s):  
Military Service ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Political Socialization ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Draft Lottery ◽  
Vietnam Draft

The 1969 Vietnam draft lottery assigned numbers to birth dates in order to determine which young men would be called to fight in Vietnam. We exploit this natural experiment to examine how draft vulnerability influenced political attitudes. Data are from the Political Socialization Panel Study, which surveyed high school seniors from the class of 1965 before and after the national draft lottery was instituted. Males holding low lottery numbers became more antiwar, more liberal, and more Democratic in their voting compared to those whose high numbers protected them from the draft. They were also more likely than those with safe numbers to abandon the party identification that they had held as teenagers. Trace effects are found in reinterviews from the 1990s. Draft number effects exceed those for preadult party identification and are not mediated by military service. The results show how profoundly political attitudes can be transformed when public policies directly affect citizens' lives.

Political Socialization and Intergenerational Stability in Political Attitudes

1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Political Socialization ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Socialization Process ◽  
Western Democracies

Political socialization research has been characterized by a number of poorly documented but widely accepted generalizations. In particular, it has been assumed that indetgenarational consistency in political attitudes is the usual, if not the inevitable, outcome of the political socialization process in Western democracies.

scholarly journals Social penumbras predict political attitudes

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (6) ◽  
pp. e2019375118
Author(s):  
Andrew Gelman ◽  
Yotam Margalit
Keyword(s):  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Recent Immigrants ◽  
Political Clout ◽  
The Unemployed

To explain the political clout of different social groups, traditional accounts typically focus on the group’s size, resources, or commonality and intensity of its members’ interests. We contend that a group’s penumbra—the set of individuals who are personally familiar with people in that group—is another important explanatory factor that merits systematic analysis. To this end, we designed a panel study that allows us to learn about the characteristics of the penumbras of politically relevant groups such as gay people, the unemployed, or recent immigrants. Our study reveals major and systematic differences in the penumbras of various social groups, even ones of similar size. Moreover, we find evidence that entering a group’s penumbra is associated with a change in attitude on group-related policy questions. Taken together, our findings suggest that penumbras are pertinent for understanding variation in the political standing of different groups in society.

The Effect of Military Service on Political Attitudes: A Panel Study

1977 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 131 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Kent Jennings ◽  
Gregory B. Markus
Keyword(s):  
Military Service ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Panel Study

The Effect of Smoking in Young Adulthood on Smoking Later in Life: Evidence based on the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Eisenberg ◽  
Brian Rowe
Keyword(s):  
Cigarette Smoking ◽  
Health Effects ◽  
Young Adulthood ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Unresolved Question ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Vietnam Era ◽  
Draft Lottery

An important, unresolved question for health policymakers and consumers is whether cigarette smoking in young adulthood has lasting effects into later adulthood. The Vietnam era draft lottery offers an opportunity to address this question, because it randomly assigned young men to be more likely to experience conditions favoring cigarette consumption, including highly subsidized prices. Using this natural experiment, we find that military service increased the probability of smoking by 35 percentage points as of 1978-80, when men in the relevant cohorts were aged 25-30, but later in adulthood this effect was substantially attenuated and did not lead to large negative health effects.

The Obama Legacy and the Future of Partisan Conflict

2016 ◽  
Vol 667 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary C. Jacobson
Keyword(s):  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Past Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
Age Cohorts ◽  
Younger Age ◽  
The Future ◽  
Partisan Conflict ◽  
Demographic Subgroups

Past research has shown that the perceived successes or failures of presidents have a durable influence on the partisan leanings and political attitudes of people who come of political age during their administrations. Here, I examine data from 344 Gallup surveys with a total of 399,755 respondents interviewed during the Obama presidency to (1) document the extent to which generational imprinting is visible among citizens and demographic subgroups in their party identification and ideology, (2) determine how the political identities and ideologies of people who have come of age during Obama’s presidency have evolved compared with those of earlier presidential generations, (3) explore the implications of the population’s changing demographic makeup and the political attitudes expressed by younger age cohorts for the future partisan balance of the American electorate, and (4) consider how the competition to succeed Obama is likely to affect partisan identities forged during his administration.

Military Experience and Elite Decision-Making: Self-Selection, Socialization, and the Vietnam Draft Lottery

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle L Lupton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Military Experience ◽  
Self Selection ◽  
Draft Lottery ◽  
Vietnam Draft ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Scholars across international relations (IR) debate the role military experience plays in elite decision-making. I argue there are two critical problems with this debate. First, it fails to adequately consider the underlying mechanisms linking military service to elite policy preferences. Second, it narrowly focuses on the use of force and largely ignores other ways in which military experience may shape elite behavior. I employ vulnerability to the Vietnam draft lottery to disentangle the impact of two key mechanisms linking military service to elite preferences: self-selection and socialization. I compare the foreign and defense policy roll call votes of Members of Congress (MCs) in the House of Representatives across the 94th–113th Congresses who were eligible for the draft and served in the military to those who were eligible for the draft but did not serve. I find significant differences in the roll call voting behavior between these groups, particularly on issues associated with arming and defense budget restrictions, as well as broader oversight of the military. These effects are heightened for MCs who served on active duty, in the military longer, and in combat, providing strong support for socialization effects. My study carries implications for civil–military relations, elite decision-making, and the study of leaders in IR.

The Effect of Military Service on Political Attitudes: A Panel Study

1977 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Kent Jenning ◽  
Gregory B. Markus
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Socialization Process ◽  
Institutional Experience ◽  
Regression Techniques ◽  
The Military ◽  
Relevant Factors

Institutional experiences at the young adult stage may act to alter or reinforce pre-existing political attitudes. This paper focuses on military service during the Vietnam War as one such institutional experience. Data are drawn from a two-wave, 1965-1973 national panel study of 674 males. Approximately half of the panel saw active duty. Comparisons are made between civilian and military respondents and, among military respondents, according to the duration, recency, intensity, affective qualities, and institutional salience of the military experience. Bivariate and regression techniques are used in the analyses.Veterans are somewhat less cynical and have broader attention frames than civilians. Civic tolerance and feelings toward minority groups are also affected by aspects of military service. War-related opinions vary between civilians and veterans and across categories of veterans. These effects remain when other relevant factors, including prior attitudes, are taken into account. The results underscore the potential significance of adult experiences in the socialization process.

Are There Long-Term Effects of the Vietnam Draft on Political Attitudes or Behavior? Apparently Not

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (02) ◽  
pp. 71-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald P. Green ◽  
Tiffany C. Davenport ◽  
Kolby Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Economic Effects ◽  
Appreciable Effect ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Early Experiences ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Draft Lottery ◽  
Vietnam Draft

AbstractThe Vietnam draft lottery exposed millions of men to risk of induction at a time when the Vietnam War was becoming increasingly unpopular. We study the long-term effects of draft risk on political attitudes and behaviors of men who were eligible for the draft in 1969–1971. Our 2014–2016 surveys of men who were eligible for the Vietnam draft lotteries reveal no appreciable effect of draft risk across a wide range of political attitudes. These findings are bolstered by analysis of a vast voter registration database, which shows no differences in voting rates or tendency to register with the Democratic or Republican parties. The pattern of weak long-term effects is in line with studies showing that the long-term economic effects of Vietnam draft risk dissipated over time and offers a counterweight to influential observational studies that report long-term persistence in the effects of early experiences on political attitudes.

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