Atomic Aversion: Experimental Evidence on Taboos, Traditions, and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (1) ◽  
pp. 188-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
DARYL G. PRESS ◽  
SCOTT D. SAGAN ◽  
BENJAMIN A. VALENTINO
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
The Public ◽  
Conventional Weapons ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Willingness To Use ◽  
Do So

How strong are normative prohibitions on state behavior? We examine this question by analyzing anti-nuclear norms, sometimes called the “nuclear taboo,” using an original survey experiment to evaluate American attitudes regarding nuclear use. We find that the public has only a weak aversion to using nuclear weapons and that this aversion has few characteristics of an “unthinkable” behavior or taboo. Instead, public attitudes about whether to use nuclear weapons are driven largely by consequentialist considerations of military utility. Americans’ willingness to use nuclear weapons increases dramatically when nuclear weapons provide advantages over conventional weapons in destroying critical targets. Americans who oppose the use of nuclear weapons seem to do so primarily for fear of setting a negative precedent that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons by other states against the United States or its allies in the future.

Weighing Lives in War: How National Identity Influences American Public Opinion about Foreign Civilian and Compatriot Fatalities

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-43
Author(s):  
Scott D Sagan ◽  
Benjamin A Valentino
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Military Operation ◽  
International Context ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Collateral Harm ◽  
Do So

Abstract This article explores how the American public weighs tradeoffs between foreign and compatriot fatalities during war. This focus provides an important window into the meaning and significance of citizenship and national identity and, in turn, the most fateful consequences of inclusion and exclusion in the international context. To examine these attitudes, we conducted an original survey experiment asking subjects to consider a fictional US military operation in Afghanistan. We find that: (1) Americans are significantly more willing to accept the collateral deaths of foreign civilians as compared to American civilians in operations aiming to destroy important military targets; (2) Americans are less willing to risk the lives of American soldiers to minimize collateral harm to foreign civilians as compared to American civilians; (3) Americans who express relatively more favorable views of the United States compared to other nations are more willing to accept foreign collateral deaths in US military operations; and (4) Americans are more willing to accept Afghan civilian collateral deaths than those of citizens from a neutral state, such as India. Many Americans recognize that placing a much higher value on compatriot lives over foreign lives is morally problematic, but choose to do so anyway.

Israel's Economic Espionage in the United States

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 20-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan L. Clarke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Proprietary Information ◽  
Conventional Weapons ◽  
Economic Espionage ◽  
Do So

Israel has conducted an aggressive campaign of economic espionage in the United States since 1948. This campaign has been critical to sustaining and modernizing Israel's nuclear weapons program and an array of its most advanced conventional weapons even while it has caused American firms to lose valuable proprietary information and unfairly advantaged Israeli companies in the international arms market. While other countries conduct economic espionage against the United States, Israel is the only major recipient of U.S. foreign aid to do so.

Cross-National Focus Group Response to Autonomous Vehicles

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812199236
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Norton ◽  
Melissa Ruhl ◽  
Tim Armitage ◽  
Brian Matthews ◽  
John Miles
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Total N ◽  
The Public ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Willingness To Use

The development of autonomous vehicles (AVs) is advancing quickly in some enclaves around the world. Consequently, AVs exist in the public consciousness, featuring regularly in mainstream media. As the form and function of AVs emerge, the attitudes of potential users become more important. The extent to which the public trusts AV technology and anticipates benefits, will drive consumer willingness to use AVs. Broadly, public attitudes will determine whether AVs can attract public investment in infrastructure and become a feature of the future transport mix or fail to realize the potential their developers assert. As part of UK Autodrive, a program trialing the introduction of AVs in the United Kingdom, researchers conducted focus groups in five UK cities, and a comparison focus group in San Francisco (December 2017 to September 2018) using representative samples (total n = 137). Focus group facilitators guided discussions in three areas considered central to usage decisions: trust in the technology, ownership models, and community benefit. This paper describes findings from a quasi-quantitative study supported with qualitative insights. This research provides three key takeaways centering on trust in the technology and in delivering benefit. First, some participants gain trust through experience and others through evidence. Second, participants had difficulty discriminating between AV developers, indicating a need for industry cooperation. Third, partnerships were found to demonstrate trust, highlighting the need for more and deeper partnerships moving forward. Generally, participants had positive attitudes toward AVs and expect AVs to provide benefits. However, these attitudes and expectations could change as AV development progresses.

scholarly journals Chinese views on nuclear weapons: Evidence from an online survey

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 205316802110328
Author(s):  
Naomi Egel ◽  
R. Lincoln Hines
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Public Views ◽  
Chinese Public

What are Chinese public attitudes regarding nuclear weapons? Although scholars have studied Chinese elites’ views on nuclear weapons, surprisingly little is known about the views of China’s public. To understand Chinese public views on nuclear weapons, we conduct an online survey ( N = 1066) of Chinese respondents. This is, to our knowledge, the first survey of Chinese public attitudes towards nuclear weapons. We find that although Chinese citizens view the possession of nuclear weapons as important for their country’s security, they strongly oppose the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances. We also provide respondents an opportunity to describe their views on nuclear weapons in their own words. Using computer-assisted text analysis, we assess patterns in these open-ended responses and compare across age groups. We find that younger respondents emphasize non-material factors such as having a greater voice internationally, whereas older respondents emphasize self-defense. Overall, this analysis sheds light on the public attitudes that may shape China’s evolving approach to nuclear weapons.

Reality Asserts Itself: Public Opinion on Iraq and the Elasticity of Reality

2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Baum ◽  
Tim Groeling
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sustained Change ◽  
Disaggregated Data ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Over Time

AbstractPrevailing theories hold that U.S. public support for a war depends primarily on its degree of success, U.S. casualties, or conflict goals. Yet, research into the framing of foreign policy shows that public perceptions concerning each of these factors are often endogenous and malleable by elites. In this article, we argue that both elite rhetoric and the situation on the ground in the conflict affect public opinion, but the qualities that make such information persuasive vary over time and with circumstances. Early in a conflict, elites (especially the president) have an informational advantage that renders public perceptions of “reality” very elastic. As events unfold and as the public gathers more information, this elasticity recedes, allowing alternative frames to challenge the administration's preferred frame. We predict that over time the marginal impact of elite rhetoric and reality will decrease, although a sustained change in events may eventually restore their influence. We test our argument through a content analysis of news coverage of the Iraq war from 2003 through 2007, an original survey of public attitudes regarding Iraq, and partially disaggregated data from more than 200 surveys of public opinion on the war.

Revealing public opinion towards COVID-19 vaccines with Twitter data in the United States: a spatiotemporal perspective (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Hu ◽  
Siqin Wang ◽  
Wei Luo ◽  
Mengxi Zhang ◽  
Xiao Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Spatiotemporal Trends ◽  
The Us ◽  
Key Events

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a large, initially uncontrollable, public health crisis both in the US and across the world, with experts looking to vaccines as the ultimate mechanism of defense. The development and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines have been rapidly advancing via global efforts. Hence, it is crucial for governments, public health officials, and policy makers to understand public attitudes and opinions towards vaccines, such that effective interventions and educational campaigns can be designed to promote vaccine acceptance OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to investigate public opinion and perception on COVID-19 vaccines by investigating the spatiotemporal trends of their sentiment and emotion towards vaccines, as well as how such trends relate to popular topics on Twitter in the US METHODS We collected over 300,000 geotagged tweets in the US from March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021. We examined the spatiotemporal patterns of public sentiment and emotion over time at both national and state scales and identified three phases along the pandemic timeline with the significant changes of public sentiment and emotion, further linking to eleven key events and major topics as the potential drivers to induce such changes via cloud mapping of keywords and topic modelling RESULTS An increasing trend of positive sentiment in parallel with the decrease of negative sentiment are generally observed in most states, reflecting the rising confidence and anticipation of the public towards vaccines. The overall tendency of the eight types of emotion implies the trustiness and anticipation of the public to vaccination, accompanied by the mixture of fear, sadness and anger. Critical social/international events and/or the announcements of political leaders and authorities may have potential impacts on the public opinion on vaccines. These factors, along with important topics and manual reading of popular posts on eleven key events, help identify underlying themes and validate insights from the analysis CONCLUSIONS The analyses of near real-time social media big data benefit public health authorities by enabling them to monitor public attitudes and opinions towards vaccine-related information in a geo-aware manner, address the concerns of vaccine skeptics and promote the confidence of individuals within a certain region or community, towards vaccines

Intervening in Anti-Immigrant Sentiments: The Causal Effects of Factual Information on Attitudes toward Immigration

2021 ◽  
Vol 697 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-191
Author(s):  
Maria Abascal ◽  
Tiffany J. Huang ◽  
Van C. Tran
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Social Cognitions ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Factual Information ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Contrast Information ◽  
Attitudes Toward Immigration

If preferences on immigration policy respond to facts, widespread misinformation poses an obstacle to consensus. Does factual information about immigration indeed affect policy preferences? Are beliefs about immigration’s societal impact the mechanism through which factual information affects support for increased immigration? To address these questions, we conducted an original survey experiment, in which we presented a nationally representative sample of 2,049 Americans living in the United States with facts about immigrants’ English acquisition and immigrants’ impact on crime, jobs, and taxes—four domains with common misperceptions. Three of these factual domains (immigration’s impact on crime, jobs, and taxes) raise overall support for increased immigration. These facts also affect beliefs that are directly relevant to that information. Moreover, those beliefs mediate the effect of factual information on support for increased immigration. By contrast, information about English acquisition affects neither policy preferences nor beliefs about immigration’s impact. Facts can leverage social cognitions to change policy preferences.

Quitting globalization: trade-related job losses, nationalism, and resistance to FDI in the United States

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yilang Feng ◽  
Andrew Kerner ◽  
Jane L. Sumner
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Investment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Firms ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Domestic Investment ◽  
Business Investment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Chinese Investment ◽  
Chinese Business ◽  
Public Imagination

AbstractExisting research has found that American politicians benefit from trying to attract investment and creates jobs. In this paper, we build on this work by describing the drivers of Americans' attitudes toward inward foreign investment (FDI). We posit that foreign and Chinese investment are different than domestic investment in the public imagination and that nationalism and proximity to deindustrialization interact to shape public opinion about them. We propose and test two theories of this interaction using a survey experiment that randomizes whether a respondent is responding to a statement about “business investment,” “foreign business investment,” or “Chinese business investment”. We find that (1) Americans are skeptical of business investments by Chinese, and, to lesser degree, “foreign” firms; (2) the gap in enthusiasm for generic business investment and foreign/Chinese business investment rises with local trade-related job losses; and (3) the distinction between nationalists' and non-nationalists' attitudes toward FDI declines in local job losses.

Misperceptions of Chinese Investments in Canada and Their Correction: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaojun Li ◽  
Yingqiu Kuang ◽  
Linting Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Direct Investment ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Relative Size ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Chinese Investment ◽  
Corrective Information ◽  
Business Ties ◽  
Public Opposition

AbstractForeign direct investment (FDI) from China has recently met with increasing public opposition in many host nations. Why does the public respond less favourably to Chinese FDI than to FDI from other countries? We explore this question by conducting a series of survey experiments in Canada, where the majority of the public holds a negative opinion of Chinese investment. We find that the bias can be attributed to innumeracy about the relative size of China's FDI and misinformation about investment rules that govern FDI projects in Canada. Correcting both misperceptions substantially reduces the bias of respondents against FDI projects from China. These results suggest that corrective information can lead to positive change in public attitudes, a finding that has important policy implications for Canadian leaders hoping to expand the country's business ties with China.

Beliefs and Stereotypes About LGBT People

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary R. Hicks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Lgbt People ◽  
Lgbt Individuals

The public’s perception of, beliefs about, and interest in LGBT individuals and the issues impacting them has long had great significance to the community’s social, political, and legal progress. The last decade has seen monumental changes in public attitudes about LGBT people and the laws that affect them in the United States and around the world. Much of this change has been positive, including the landmark Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage. In some parts of the world—even those that have witnessed great strides for LGBT equality—there have also been signs of a backlash against the community’s newfound rights and visibility in society. Stereotypes of LGBT individuals, mostly negative, have been responsible for much of this reaction, as well as their historically negative view in by the public. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the mass media has played a major role in creating and perpetuating these stereotypes.

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