Validating Threat: IO Approval and Public Support for Joining Military Counterterrorism Coalitions

Recchia, Stefano; Chu, Jonathan

doi:10.1093/isq/sqab032

Cited by 9 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…The prompts generate variation on two conditions: (1) multilateral authorization via the UN for the use of a drone strike (yes or no) and (2) the country approved to conduct a strike (US or France). While our scenario is consistent with other surveys designed to test the implications of multilateral approval through the UN for public support to interventions abroad (Recchia & Chu, 2021), we assume that respondents interpret the UN’s decision in response to an explicit request for endorsement of a strike. It is possible that respondents can understand the UN’s decision differently should they assume the UN was never consulted.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…The consistency of our results gives us no reason to believe that the scenario introduced bias, however. We also follow existing research by designing the scenario around terrorism, which Recchia and Chu (2021) note is a primary security threat to France and the United States. We attempt to enhance the realism of our scenario by including a statement about collateral damage that approximates how terrorists often respond to strikes to erode public support and legitimacy for drones.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The consent and cooperation afforded by UN approval also suggests that strikes are better constrained and more compatible with social goals shared by all countries. That other, potentially more suspicious countries endorse strikes signals that they are designed to achieve noble objectives, such as preventing a humanitarian crisis or interdicting terrorists (Kreps and Lushenko, 2021; Recchia, 2020; Recchia and Chu, 2021).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whether these advantages coincide with countries’ use of drones—which are used in part because they appear less costly, both militarily and politically—is unclear. Whether the advantages of multilateralism apply cross-nationally in countries that have a strong connection with international institutions, as does France, is even less obvious (Recchia & Chu, 2021; Staunton, 2020). While we may think that the public’s preferences for multilateralism extend to drones, we do not know for sure, suggesting the need for an empirical study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multilateralism and public support for drone strikes

Lushenko

Raman

Kreps

2022

Research & Politics

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The use of armed drones has emerged as a principal counterterrorism tool for western militaries, especially France and the United States. While France submits its strikes to the United Nations for approval, the United States typically does not. Does this difference matter for public support and perceptions of legitimacy? To better understand these dynamics, we fielded original survey experiments across nationally representative samples in France and the United States totaling in over 1800 respondents. Our results reflect that international approval is associated with both higher public support and greater perceived legitimacy for a strike. Further, we find that respondents emphasize international law as the basis for support and legitimacy, suggesting a cross-national belief in multilateralism for normative rather than strictly instrumental reasons. These relationships are moderated by the identity of the country conducting a hypothetical strike, implying both an “othering” effect and the emergence of distinct models of strikes across countries that deserve more study amid the ongoing proliferation of armed drones. Video Abstract: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YevyaKThae0

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Multilateralism and public support for drone strikes

Lushenko

Raman

Kreps

2022

Research & Politics

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“…Scholars are more likely to study how international institutions affect public attitudes (e.g. Grieco et al (2011); Kaya and Walker (2014); Greenhill (2020); Recchia and Chu (2021)), than scrutinize public attitudes towards international institutions themselves. Other studies use observational surveys to examine public opinion towards international cooperation in multilateral financial institutions (Edwards, 2009) or the United Nations (Torgler, 2008; Dellmuth and Tallberg, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elite Cues and Public Attitudes Towards Military Alliances

Alley

2022

Journal of Conflict Resolution

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Do elite cues exert extensive, conditional or minimal influence on public support for military alliances in the United States? I assess the boundaries of elite leadership on public opinion towards alliances by dividing partisan respondents into wings based on isolationism and militant assertiveness. If co-partisan elite cues change public attitudes across three or four wings within their party, elites exert extensive influence. Elite cues exert conditional influence if they reach two party wings, and minimal influence if they impact one or no wings. Using two conjoint survey experiments to examine public attitudes towards forming and maintaining international alliances, I find that elite cues exert extensive influence, but some individuals hold rigid alliance attitudes. Staunch alliance supporters in the Democratic party and consistent alliance skeptics in the Republican party both discount elite cues. Therefore, elites can lead most party wings with alliance cues, but intra-party divisions can constrain their influence.

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Understanding the public response: a strategic narrative perspective on France’s Sahelian operations

2022

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Strategic narratives now face unrealistic expectations as to what they can achieve in the military field. This article asks when and how such narratives lose traction during protracted military interventions. To address these questions, which are crucial at a time when so much modern warfare takes place in the 'fourth' dimension, this study develops a conceptual framework that focuses initially on the weakening of a narrative's content and, subsequently, on its loss of normative resonance and verisimilitude. The latter two factors are beyond the control of even the most skilful strategic narrator, particularly where narratives are required to appeal to audiences with different norms. Our framework is applied to the case of France's military operations in Mali (Serval) and the Western Sahel (Barkhane). It finds that, whereas France's compelling Serval narrative was congruent with strong French and Malian public backing, its Barkhane narrative weakened over time, resonating less with prevailing societal norms, becoming less attuned to events on the ground and ultimately coinciding with a sharp decline in public support in France and Mali. It concludes that strategic narratives afford agency to policymakers but are constantly open to contestation and struggle to cope with diverse audiences and deteriorating 'evenemential' contexts.Lawrence Freedman introduced the concept of strategic narratives to security studies, defining these as 'compelling storylines which can explain events convincingly and from which inferences can be drawn' (Freedman, 2006, p. 22). Yet, a decade later, Freedman (2015, p. 22) noted how '[t]he idea of a strategic narrative is now being used in a variety of different ways, one consequence of which may be to encourage unrealistic expectations of what might be achieved by attempts to get the "narrative" right'.This article examines what strategic narratives might be expected to achieve and identifies when and how they lose traction during protracted military interventions of the kind deployed by France over the last eight years in the Sahel. Understandably, strategic narrative scholars have underscored the strengths of narratives and contended that they offer policymakers 'a crucial form of strategic agency' (Antoniades et al, 2010, p.6). In the military field, they have pointed to the ways in which 'policymakers can shape public opinion during times of war' and are 'not just windsocks reacting to the will of a volatile electorate' (Graaf et al, 2015, p. 4). pg. 2They have equally shown how strong narratives 'about the why-what-and-how of overseas military missions' affect the 'public's willingness to tolerate the cost of deploying military power' (Ringsmose and Børgesen, 2011, p. 505), thereby helping to sustain support for NATO's Afghanistan mission from troop contributors such as the United States (Groeling and Baum, 2015) and Denmark (Jakobsen and Ringmose, 2015).Scholars have nonetheless acknowledged that narratives have limitations and can lose purchase with public audiences, as they did...

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Validating Threat: IO Approval and Public Support for Joining Military Counterterrorism Coalitions

Cited by 9 publications

References 46 publications

Multilateralism and public support for drone strikes

Multilateralism and public support for drone strikes

Elite Cues and Public Attitudes Towards Military Alliances

Understanding the public response: a strategic narrative perspective on France’s Sahelian operations

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