What shapes public support for military missions? Existing scholarship points to, on the one hand, individuals’ affiliations and predispositions (such as political partisanship and gender), and, on the other hand, factors that shape a rational cost–benefit analysis (notably, mission objectives, the prospects for victory, and the magnitude and distribution of costs). We argue that public opinion is also shaped by beliefs about why soldiers voluntarily enlist. Using novel survey data and an experiment, deployed to a nationally representative sample of Americans, we test how four conceptions of soldiering affect support for a prospective military operation. We find, in observational data, that believing that a soldier is a good citizen or patriot bolsters support for the mission, while believing that a soldier has enlisted because he wants the material benefits of service or has “no other options” undermines support. These results support our causal argument: Americans’ attitudes toward military missions are shaped by their perception of whether the soldier has consented to deployment rather than by feelings of social obligation. This article has implications for debates on the determinants of public support for military missions and the relationship between military service and citizenship in democracies.

中文翻译：

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他们为什么战斗：服兵役的感知动机如何塑造对使用武力的支持

什么塑造了公众对军事任务的支持？现有的学术研究一方面指出个人的从属关系和倾向（例如政治党派和性别），另一方面指出影响理性成本效益分析的因素（特别是任务目标、胜利的前景） ，以及成本的大小和分布）。我们认为，公众舆论也受到关于士兵为何自愿入伍的信念的影响。使用新颖的调查数据和一项实验，部署到具有全国代表性的美国人样本，我们测试了四种士兵概念如何影响对未来军事行动的支持。我们发现，在观察数据中，相信士兵是好公民或爱国者会支持对任务的支持，而认为一名士兵入伍是因为他想要服务的物质利益或“别无选择”会削弱支持。这些结果支持我们的因果论点：美国人对军事任务的态度是由他们对士兵是否同意部署的看法而非社会义务感决定的。本文对关于公众支持军事任务的决定因素以及民主国家服兵役与公民身份之间关系的辩论具有启示意义。