Who follows whom? A coincidence analysis of military action, public opinion and threats
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343319854787 |
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| Author | Tim Haesebrouck |
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Who follows whom? A coincidence analysis
of military action, public opinion and threats
Tim Haesebrouck
Department of Political Science, Ghent University
Abstract
Does public opinion act as a constraint on military action, are ordinary citizens the easily manipulated targets of the
public relations efforts of their governments, or does the general public react as assertively to threats as decision-
makers? This article examines the causal connection between military action, public opinion and threats. Empirically,
it focuses on the pattern of EU member state participation in two recent military operations: the 2011 intervention in
Libya and the operation against the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS). Three competing causal models on the
relationship between threats, public opinion and military action were derived from the scholarly literature and tested
with coincidence analysis. The results of the analysis show that public opinion acted as a constraint on executives
during the Libya operation. However, there was no direct causal link between public opinion and military partic-
ipation in the operation against IS, in which both military action and public support were an effect of threat. More
generally, the results suggest that the context of the intervention is decisive for the relation between threat, military
action and public support. More specifically, whether public opinion constitutes a constraint on military action or is
an effect of threats to national interests depends on whether these threats are clear and tangible.
Keywords
coincidence analysis, military intervention, public opinion
Introduction
Does public opinion act as a constraint on military
action, are ordinary citizens the easily manipulated tar-
gets of the public relations efforts of their governments,
or does the general public react as assertively to threats as
decisionmakers? There exists an extensive body of aca-
demic literature on the public opinion/foreign policy
nexus, in which two lines of work can be distinguished.
The first line of work, which is inspired by democratic
peace theory, examines public opinion as an independent
variable to explain the use of military force in interna-
tional relations. The second line of work examines public
opinion as a dependent variableand,interalia,tests
whether it is influenced by the interests at stake in the
operation or public relation efforts of governments fol-
lowing military deployment decisions. These lines of
work present competing theoretical expectations and
conclusions on the relationship between military deploy-
ment and the use of force. So far, no empirical study has
bridged the gap between these two schools by testing
these competing theoretical expectations in a single
analysis.
This study aims to fill this gap in academic research by
summarizing the main conclusions of these different
strands of scholarship into three competing theoretical
models, which are tested with coincidence analysis
(CNA). CNA is a recently introduced Boolean method
that does not require us to identify which variables are
effects and which are causes prior to the analysis. Hereby,
the method allows us to test expectations from the two
strands of scholarship on the link between public opin-
ion and military deployment in a single analysis. More-
over, CNA is capable of uncovering the complex causal
structures suggested by the academic work on the link
between the use of force and public opinion.
Corresponding author:
tim.haesebrouck@ugent.be
Journal of Peace Research
2019, Vol. 56(6) 753–766
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343319854787
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