IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/compsc/v35y2018i1p43-64.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Self-interest, partisanship, and the conditional influence of taxation on support for war in the USA

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas Kriner

    (Boston University, USA)

  • Breanna Lechase

    (Marist College, USA)

  • Rosella Cappella Zielinski

    (Boston University, USA)

Abstract

Does the imposition of taxation inevitably erode public support for war? Through a pair of survey experiments we show that whether a war tax decreases public support for military action critically depends on the design of the taxation instrument itself. Broad-based, regressive taxes decrease support for war; progressive taxes targeted on the wealthy do not. We also uncover the mechanisms through which Americans incorporate information about war taxation into their wartime policy preferences. Economic self-interest, alone, cannot explain the individual-level variation in reactions to war taxation. Rather, Americans assess war taxation both through the lens of economic self-interest and by using partisan heuristics. The negative effect of taxation on war support is both conditional on the design of the taxation instrument and variable across segments of the public.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas Kriner & Breanna Lechase & Rosella Cappella Zielinski, 2018. "Self-interest, partisanship, and the conditional influence of taxation on support for war in the USA," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(1), pages 43-64, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:35:y:2018:i:1:p:43-64
    DOI: 10.1177/0738894215611133
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0738894215611133
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0738894215611133?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erikson, Robert S. & Stoker, Laura, 2011. "Caught in the Draft: The Effects of Vietnam Draft Lottery Status on Political Attitudes," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(2), pages 221-237, May.
    2. Page, Benjamin I. & Shapiro, Robert Y. & Dempsey, Glenn R., 1987. "What Moves Public Opinion?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 23-43, March.
    3. Flores-Macã As, Gustavo A. & Kreps, Sarah E., 2013. "Political Parties at War: A Study of American War Finance, 1789–2010," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 107(4), pages 833-848, November.
    4. Lucas, Robert Jr. & Stokey, Nancy L., 1983. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an economy without capital," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 55-93.
    5. Slantchev, Branislav L., 2012. "Borrowed Power: Debt Finance and the Resort to Arms," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(4), pages 787-809, November.
    6. Raj Chetty & Adam Looney & Kory Kroft, 2009. "Salience and Taxation: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1145-1177, September.
    7. Stuart Landon & David L. Ryan, 1997. "The Political Costs of Taxes and Government Spending," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 30(1), pages 85-111, February.
    8. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-971, October.
    9. Schultz, Kenneth A. & Weingast, Barry R., 2003. "The Democratic Advantage: Institutional Foundations of Financial Power in International Competition," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(1), pages 3-42, January.
    10. Verba, Sidney & Brody, Richard A. & Parker, Edwin B. & Nie, Norman H. & Polsby, Nelson W. & Ekman, Paul & Black, Gordon S., 1967. "Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(2), pages 317-333, June.
    11. Benny Geys & Jan Vermeir, 2008. "Taxation and presidential approval: separate effects from tax burden and tax structure turbulence?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 301-317, June.
    12. Ohanian, Lee E, 1997. "The Macroeconomic Effects of War Finance in the United States: World War II and the Korean War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 23-40, March.
    13. George A. Akerlof, 2007. "The Missing Motivation in Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 5-36, March.
    14. Gartner, Scott Sigmund, 2008. "The Multiple Effects of Casualties on Public Support for War: An Experimental Approach," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(1), pages 95-106, February.
    15. Michael Colaresi, 2004. "When Doves Cry: International Rivalry, Unreciprocated Cooperation, and Leadership Turnover," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(3), pages 555-570, July.
    16. Scheve, Kenneth & Stasavage, David, 2010. "The Conscription of Wealth: Mass Warfare and the Demand for Progressive Taxation," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(4), pages 529-561, October.
    17. Tiffany C. Davenport, 2015. "Policy‐Induced Risk and Responsive Participation: The Effect of a Son's Conscription Risk on the Voting Behavior of His Parents," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(1), pages 225-241, January.
    18. Douglas Kriner & Francis Shen, 2014. "Responding to War on Capitol Hill: Battlefield Casualties, Congressional Response, and Public Support for the War in Iraq," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(1), pages 157-174, January.
    19. de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno & Siverson, Randolph M., 1995. "War and the Survival of Political Leaders: A Comparative Study of Regime Types and Political Accountability," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(4), pages 841-855, December.
    20. Berinsky, Adam J. & Huber, Gregory A. & Lenz, Gabriel S., 2012. "Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 351-368, July.
    21. Alan S. Gerber & Gregory A. Huber, 2010. "Partisanship, Political Control, and Economic Assessments," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 153-173, January.
    22. Ashworth, John & Heyndels, Bruno, 1997. "Politicians' preferences on local tax rates: An empirical analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 479-502, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gustavo A. Flores-Macías & Sarah E. Kreps, 2017. "Borrowing Support for War: The Effect of War Finance on Public Attitudes toward Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 61(5), pages 997-1020, May.
    2. Sunjoo Kwak & Jongmin Shon, 2022. "Tax Salience and Cyclical Asymmetry in Tax Rate Adjustments: Testing the Indirect Tax Hypothesis," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 240(1), pages 3-29, March.
    3. Bharatee Dash & Angara Raja, 2014. "Do political determinants affect revenue collection? Evidence from the Indian states," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 61(3), pages 253-278, September.
    4. Siu, Henry E., 2008. "The fiscal role of conscription in the U.S. World War II effort," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 1094-1112, September.
    5. Veronica Grembi & Tommaso Nannicini & Ugo Troiano, 2011. "Policy Responses to Fiscal Restraints: A Difference-in-Discontinuities Design," Working Papers 397, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    6. Martin Fernando M., 2012. "Government Policy Response to War-Expenditure Shocks," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-40, July.
    7. Sarah Kreps & Sarah Maxey, 2018. "Mechanisms of Morality," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(8), pages 1814-1842, September.
    8. Ellen R. M cG rattan & Lee E. Ohanian, 2010. "Does Neoclassical Theory Account For The Effects Of Big Fiscal Shocks? Evidence From World War Ii," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(2), pages 509-532, May.
    9. Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2023. "On the Economic Mechanics of Warfare," Working Papers 2023-007, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised Oct 2023.
    10. Douglas L. Kriner & Francis X. Shen, 2016. "Conscription, Inequality, and Partisan Support for War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 60(8), pages 1419-1445, December.
    11. George J. Hall & Thomas J. Sargent, 2020. "Debt and Taxes in Eight U.S. Wars and Two Insurrections," NBER Working Papers 27115, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. George-Marios Angeletos & Alessandro Pavan, 2009. "Policy with Dispersed Information," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(1), pages 11-60, March.
    13. Pintér, Gábor, 2022. "The procyclicality of inflation-linked debt," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    14. Hayo, Bernd & Neumeier, Florian, 2017. "The (In)validity of the Ricardian equivalence theorem–findings from a representative German population survey," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 162-174.
    15. Martin, Fernando M., 2015. "Debt, inflation and central bank independence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 129-150.
    16. Marcet, Albert & Scott, Andrew & Faraglia, Elisa, 2014. "Modelling Long Bonds - The Case of Optimal Fiscal Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 9965, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    18. Gorostiaga, Arantza, 2003. "Should fiscal policy be different in a non-competitive framework?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1311-1331, September.
    19. Christopher Sleet, 2004. "Optimal Taxation with Private Government Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(4), pages 1217-1239.
    20. Fernando Lefort & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel, 2002. "Indexation, Inflation and Monetary Policy: An Overview," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Fernando Lefort & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Serie (ed.),Indexation, Inflation and MOnetary Policy, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 1, pages 001-018, Central Bank of Chile.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:35:y:2018:i:1:p:43-64. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.