American Politics Research http://apr.sagepub.

com/

Cold War Belligerence and U.S. Public Opinion toward Defense Spending
Christopher Witko American Politics Research 2003 31: 379 DOI: 10.1177/1532673X03031004003 The online version of this article can be found at: http://apr.sagepub.com/content/31/4/379

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:
APR at the University of Illinois

Additional services and information for American Politics Research can be found at: Email Alerts: http://apr.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://apr.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://apr.sagepub.com/content/31/4/379.refs.html

>> Version of Record - Jul 1, 2003 What is This?

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

10.1177/1532673X03252529 AMERICAN ARTICLEPOLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION

COLD WAR BELLIGERENCE AND U.S. PUBLIC OPINION TOWARD DEFENSE SPENDING
CHRISTOPHER WITKO University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The relationship between political events and aggregate opinion change is complicated, and the influence of actual events, as opposed to domestic political elites responses to those events, has seldom been analyzed. This article attempts to untangle these relationships with data examining events and statements of the political leaders (belligerence) of both the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war. Considering the salience of the Soviet Union for domestic politics, there is reason to suspect that the public should have responded directly to Soviet actions and statements, while also reacting to U.S. belligerence. The analysis indicates that the public reacted only to changes in U.S., not Soviet, belligerence. The implications of this finding for public preferences on foreign and defense policy, and for opinion more generally, are discussed.

Keywords: defense; military; spending cold war; belligerence; spending preferences; public attitudes; public opinion; Soviet Union

How does the mass public, with limited political interest and expertise, respond to complicated international events? Recent work demonstrates that aggregate responses to a changing political environment are reasonable and sometimes even wise (Mackuen, Erikson, & Stimson, 1992, 2001; Page & Shapiro, 1992). Either implicitly or explicitly, these aggregate opinion theories assume that the news media and domestic political elites play an important role in the preference-formation process through their reactions to and interpretations of complex political events. Although this question is of clear theoretical and practical importance, it has received limited empirical attention. This article examines more precisely how the public
Authors Note: I would like to thank Robert Erikson, Christopher Wlezien, Jim Stimson, Marco Steenbergen, and Dave Lowery for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. This research was partially funded by the American Politics Research Group, Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH, Vol. 31 No. 4, July 2003 379-403 DOI: 10.1177/1532673X03252529 2003 Sage Publications

379

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

380

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003

responded to political events when forming defense-spending preferences during the cold war. Clearly, the relationship between political events and aggregate opinion change is quite complicated, and the influence of eventsas opposed to elite responses to those eventshas seldom been untangled. Using international-event and aggregate-opinion data, I more precisely examine how cold war events influenced U.S. public attitudes toward defense spending from 1969 to 1989. Rather than look at how elite opinion influenced mass opinion, I examine how actual statements and actions of the U.S. and Soviet governments and militaries affected public opinion during the cold war. The World Event Interaction Survey (WEIS) event data set provides information on actual events (e.g., troop movements, summits, etc.) and statements of political leaders (e.g., threats, conciliatory statements, etc.) of both the United States and the Soviet Union during this period. The belligerence measure used here contains not only concrete actions taken by the governments involved but also statements and actions of its political leaders. Because the objective events were constant at any one time, we can gain some leverage on how events, as opposed to elite interpretations of those events, influence aggregateopinion formation by looking at the influence of the two measures together. Given the salience of the Soviet Union as a threat during this time period, we might expect to see public attitudes toward defense spending vary in response to the actions and statements of the Soviet Union. For example, if the Soviet leadership took a more conciliatory stance toward the United States or removed the threat of troop activities from a certain area, the public should have responded with less support for defense spending. However, if the public was reacting through the filter of U.S. elite responses, there should be no direct response to Soviet actions and only a response to U.S. belligerence.

COLD WAR EVENTS AND DEFENSE-SPENDING OPINION

The early examination of the determinants of mass opinion focused on the link between elite opinion structures and mass opinions and

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION

381

beliefs. In his classic study, Converse (1964) concluded that mass opinions and beliefs are not structured in the same systematic, ideological manner that elite opinions and beliefs are. He expected that the public should have opinion structures quite similar to political elites, which was far from the case (Converse, 1964). Other work has looked at how public attitudes evolve in response to complicated changes in partisan politics and to elite opinions and activities (Carmines & Stimson, 1989) but leaves open the question of more short-term opinion change in response to external events. Recent research has looked at public responses to changes in the political environment but largely leaves the mechanism of information transmission unexplored (Mackuen et al., 1992, 2001). For example, Mackuen et al. (1992) examine how the electorate did indeed respond to changing economic circumstances, but they do not address how the economic information was transmitted to the public. Was the public responding to media reports about the newest unemployment statistics, to partisan attacks related to this issue, or to something else? Page and Shapiro (1992) have gone one step further and documented the importance of media coverage of events and of various actors portrayed in the media but have not fully parsed out the influence of those events from the interpretations and reactions to those events. The strategic relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war undoubtedly helped shape public preferences on a number of policy areas. For example, at the individual level, Hurwitz and Peffley (1989, 1990) have found that attitudes toward the Soviet Union were related to a persons policy preferences concerning the general questions of containment and defense. Stable beliefs were clearly important, but individuals probably viewed recent changes in the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States as most relevant when updating defense preferences (Zaller, 1992). Indeed, Peffley and Hurwitz (1992) found that shifting perceptions of the Soviet Union caused changes in related policy preferences, supporting this notion. The link between cold war events and public opinion has also been established at the aggregate level. Mueller (1979) found a relationship between particular cold war events and the fear of war in the American public. Looking at annual data, Wlezien (1995, 1996) found that public perceptions of the Soviet Union influenced public preferences

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

382

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003

toward defense spending. At times of greater public antipathy toward the Soviet Union, higher levels of defense spending were supported. This finding is of obvious interest to the research presented here but leaves open the question of how actual cold war events influenced preferences for defense spending. For example, political leaders might have portrayed the Soviet Union in a negative (positive) light to drum up support for higher (lower) levels of defense spending, which might or might not have reflected actual levels of belligerence. Page and Shapiro (1983, 1992) point out that when formulating policy preferences, the American public is most likely responding not to the events themselves but to the elite reactions to those events as transmitted through the media. Furthermore, even the seemingly objective news coverage of events contains elite interpretations through the amount and tone of coverage of political events (Brody, 1991). Likewise, at times, domestic political leaders are able to control events through their deliberate actions, which are then portrayed as events in the news media (Page & Shapiro, 1992). During the cold war, the American public had to rely on the news media for reports of any changes in Soviet posture toward the United States. Undoubtedly, many Americans had strong predispositions and beliefs regarding the Soviet Union (Hirshberg, 1993), which would have influenced stable attitudes toward defense, containment, and foreign policy more generally (Hurwitz & Peffley, 1989). However, it seems that the public was frequently adjusting its preferences for spending throughout the cold war period and that attitudes toward the Soviet Union also varied across time (Wlezien, 1996). Given the importance of the media to the process of opinion change as discussed by Page and Shapiro (1992), the public should have supported greater defense spending when the cold war became tenser, as long as this information was present in media accounts. Because there was a great deal of media attention to developments between the United States and the Soviet Union throughout the cold war, the public was probably quite aware of the changes in the level of tension throughout this period. Clearly, the more important cold war events (such as the Cuban missile crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) were certainly covered in considerable detail by the U.S. news media. However, these media accounts of cold war events contained a number of pieces of information that the public might have responded

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION

383

to during the opinion-formation process. Which pieces of information they did in fact respond to can tell us a great deal about exactly what drives aggregate opinion change. Looking back at the New York Times coverage of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979 can help to illuminate what drives opinion change. Almost immediately following reports of the invasion, President Carter issued a stern warning to the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops or face serious consequences (Smith, 1979). The next day, the Times featured articles presenting foreign leaders of countries such as Great Britain, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Qatar condemning the Soviet invasion. Also on that day, the president of Afghanistan was quoted praising the revolutionary initiative of forces that had essentially overthrown the government, portraying the events as the product of domestic revolution rather than of foreign invasion. On the very same day, the Soviet leadership expressed its version, stating that they had sent a limited military contingent to repel foreign aggression (Austin, 1979). Around the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, public attitudes toward the Soviets and defense spending did indeed change. But the question of what precisely caused this change is not entirely clear. Was it the mere objective fact of the invasion, or more accurately the belligerent U.S. response? In this example, with a clear act of Soviet aggression and an aggressive U.S. response, it is most likely impossible to determine precisely to what information the public was reacting. But it is interesting to ponder whether a less critical reaction by the U.S. government to the Soviet invasion would have led to the same public reaction. Of course, it is impossible to address this counterfactual, but across the 20-year period of this study, the belligerence of the two countries varied considerably, affording us the opportunity to more clearly determine to what information the public was reacting when formulating defense-spending opinion. Although other incidents would likely have influenced attitudes toward defense spending (i.e., the Iran hostage crisis), the relationship with the Soviet Union was clearly the dominant consideration across the entire period covered in this analysis. Looking at the belligerence of the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war provides an excellent opportunity to examine how the public responded to the changing international context.

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

384

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003

Although it is extremely difficult to untangle public responses to events portrayed in the news media, the WEIS data set allows us to view U.S. belligerence and Soviet belligerence as distinct influences on U.S. attitudes toward defense spending (although they are, of course, related, a topic that will be addressed). Each belligerence measure contains both actual events and statements of political leaders in response to and about those events. Looking at the influence of both measures on U.S. public attitudes toward defense spending allows us to examine how events and their elite interpretations influenced opinion. Although the actual, objective, strategic situation was constant at any one point in time, the levels of belligerence in statements and actions by both governments varied considerably. This provides us with the necessary leverage to examine the question of how elite interpretations influence aggregate opinion formation. The analysis allows us to separate the unique U.S. component of the cold war relationship (statements and actions) and see how American, as opposed to Soviet, activity influenced public opinion. Unlike some other examples throughout history (see Page & Shapiro, 1992), the U.S. government was not able to entirely control the sequence and definition of events in the cold war because of Soviet power and the visibility of the cold war conflict to the American public. Given the high-profile nature of the Soviet threat during this period, we might expect the public to react directly to Soviet behaviors and statements (belligerence), while also reacting to U.S. actions and statements (belligerence). If we find that the public responds directly to only U.S. actions and statements in this context (with a very salient enemy), we can conclude that the importance of domestic elite interpretation is probably even greater than has been previously acknowledged.

ANALYSIS

The analysis presented here utilizes quarterly time-series data for the period of 1969 to 1989.1 This period was chosen primarily for dataavailability purposes, but it is also a very good period to examine for substantive reasons. There is considerable debate concerning the exact date the cold war ended, but it was certainly beginning to wind

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION

385

down by 1988, despite the existence of the Soviet Union as a government until 1991 (Blanton, 2002). Of importance to this analysis, during the roughly 20-year span covered here, there was substantial variation in the belligerent activities of both countries. For example, the period covers dtente in the Nixon era, the new cold war of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the period of glasnost of the mid- to late1980s. Undoubtedly, if variation in the belligerence of either country influenced defense-spending opinion, we should be able to see it during this period. Below, I will present the variables and describe the substantive and theoretical reasons for their inclusion as well as their expected influence on the dependent variable. The dependent variable, the defense-spending opinion index, was compiled from various survey houses with only slightly different question wording (see Appendix A for the questions). All three questions asked essentially whether the respondent favored more defense spending, less defense spending, or about the same amount of defense spending. These various questions were combined into a single time series using the Stimson dyadic ratio algorithm method (for a full explanation of the intuition and mathematics underlying this procedure, see Stimson, 1999, Appendix 1). This algorithm extracts an underlying dimension in the questions and creates a single series from the original survey marginals. This series was then converted into a defense-spending support index that was used in the statistical analysis.2 The defense-spending index used here is quite parsimonious compared to other indexes using the percentage of the public favoring either more or less spending, because it takes into account both of these figures as well as the undecided respondents.3 Higher values on the index indicate higher levels of support for defense spending. The public-mood data were created by Stimson and presented in Public Opinion in America: Moods, Cycles and Swings (1999). This measure of domestic-opinion policy liberalism is based on the answers to hundreds of survey questions covering dozens of different topics; it is discussed in great detail in the original text. The measure of public mood used in this analysis has been purged of any defense- or foreign-policy questions to ensure that the independent variable is not contaminated with any of the variance of the dependent variable. Although defense-spending opinion should react to the external threat environment, there is also reason to expect that domestic mood will

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

386

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003

influence defense-spending opinion. Stimson (1999) demonstrates that defense opinion largely moves in the opposite direction of other spending preferences (although with much greater variance). Also, during the period under review, the guns-butter trade-offpitting the needs of the military versus other spending prioritieswas prevalent in political discourse, giving reason to expect that preferences toward defense spending and other types of government spending are inversely related (see Wlezien, 1995). The expectation is that as its mood becomes more liberal, the public will favor lower levels of defense spending. Wlezien (1996) found that public opinion negatively reacts to changes in defense spending. When defense spending rises, the public responds by favoring lower defense spending, and vice versa. Consequently, a measure of U.S. defense expenditures has been included as a control variable. It might seem that U.S. or Soviet belligerence would influence military spending, making estimation problematic. Given the defense-budgeting process, only belligerence from several quarters ago would influence current levels of defense spending however (Hartley & Russett, 1992). This variable represents the annual, congressional, defense authorization (U.S. Department of Defense, 2000) and consists of the same value for each quarter of a given calendar year, creating some cause for concern. From a theoretical standpoint, using differenced values would require a precise approximation of when the increase in defense spending would likely be perceived by the public, which is quite difficult. If one accepts that extremely high (low) defense expenditures would receive attention in the media and political discourse throughout the entire year, using the same values for four quarters is appropriate. Although the Soviet Union was virtually the only international threat that faced the United States across the period reviewed here, other threats of shorter duration might also have influenced public attitudes toward defense spending. One possibility is the Vietnam War, and a dummy variable covering the period of its duration has been included. Generally, we might expect the presence of the war to positively influence public support for defense spending, but the period under review here takes place after the public had largely faltered in its support of the war, making the probable direction of influence unknown.

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION

387

The main independent variables of concern are the U.S. and the Soviet belligerence variables. These variables (taken from the WEIS data set) capture the nature of U.S. and Soviet interactions (troop movements, statements of leaders, and other international activities), measuring them for how much cooperative or conflictual behavior each demonstrated toward the other superpower (for the sake of simplicity, I refer to the data as a measure of belligerence). In this analysis, belligerent behavior has been coded positively, with higher values indicating higher levels of conflict or belligerence. Clearly, the expectation is that as belligerence rises, public support for increases in defense spending should also rise. The WEIS is an international event data set coded daily from events reported in the New York Times. It has been used quite frequently to analyze interactions between different sets of countries. For example, Goldstein and Freeman (1990) used this data to examine strategic reciprocity among the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Peoples Republic of China. Although this data set was not originally intended for use as a measure of explicit U.S.-Soviet conflict, it was converted into one by Vincent (1979, 1983). The data used to create the quarterly time series presented here appeared in Appendix A of Goldstein and Freemans Three-Way Street (1990) as a monthly time series. To generate the quarterly data, I simply added the three corresponding monthly figures into one quarterly value. This could potentially mute the true variation in the belligerence levels of the Soviet Union and the United States. Fortunately, this was not the case.4 There has been considerable criticism of the WEIS data set when compared with the two other major international-event data sets from the cold war period, ASHLEY and COPDAB. For example, looking at the same strategic dyads, Vincent (1983) found that there are significant discrepancies between the numbers and types of events that are covered in the COPDAB data set compared to WEIS. Because the WEIS data set is taken only from the New York Times, it systematically underreports events in certain areas that COPDAB includes (which is taken from multiple sources; e.g., Middle East events are underreported by WEIS compared to COPDAB). Although the single-source basis of the WEIS event data set is problematic for the analyst interested in full coverage of international events, it is almost ideal for the purposes of this research. Most Ameri-

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

388

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003

cans certainly do not read the New York Times, but it is probably fairly representative of the contents (at least the particular events covered, if not the writing style) of many other major newspapers in the country. If an international event or situation is not covered in the New York Times, it is probably even more likely that it will not receive serious attention in other U.S. media. Although most Americans receive their news from television rather than newspapers, Page and Shapiro (1992) report that the public reacted to New York Times stories in much the same manner as it did to the nightly television news (pp. 345-346). Finally, the WEIS data set is an excellent event set to use for the purposes of this study because it contains both the actions (e.g., the invasion of Afghanistan or the basing of nuclear missiles in Turkey) and the statements of political leaders of both countries (e.g., Carters statement after the invasion of Afghanistan). As Brody (1991) notes, news coverage of events themselves undoubtedly contains elite interpretation, which subsequently helps to shape public opinion. This is of particular interest here. Having reviewed the important data and measures, we can now turn to the specifics of the analysis. Below, I will present the findings of whether public opinion on defense spending reacted to the changing levels of belligerence associated with the Soviet Union and the United States. Specifically, I will assess whether the public is responding to Soviet activity (belligerence), to the U.S. government responses to the perceived Soviet belligerence (U.S. belligerence), or both.

FINDINGS

Before getting into the heart of the analysis, it is useful to briefly discuss the basic time-series data under consideration here. The possibility exists that the aggregation procedure used on the WEIS data (which was collected daily) could mute the true variation in the belligerence measures. The quarterly time series presented below indicates that this does not seem to be the case (see Figure 1). We can clearly see how the contours of the belligerence series follow what most observers would consider the major changes in tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. For example, some of the highest belligerence levels are during the time that the Soviet

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION

389

5 4 3 2 1 0 -1 -2 -3
ar 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 Ye 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19

U.S.S.R

U.S.

Figure 1: U.S. and Soviet Belligerence (standardized values)

Union invaded Afghanistan and the United States invaded Grenada (with the concurrent events in Nicaragua and the rest of Central America). Conversely, some of the lowest levels of net belligerence can be seen during the period of dtente in the early 1970s and during the era of Gorbachev-Reagan summits of the mid- and late-1980s. In Figure 2, we can see that the defense-spending opinion index also appears to move roughly with the contours of the U.S. and Soviet belligerence variables, although less so in the beginning and ending of the time series presented here. The index has its lowest levels during 1969, after it became clear to many that the Vietnam War was something of a lost cause. The index reaches its highest levels during 1980, just after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and when Reagans campaign rhetoric had considerably ramped up the aggression and helped to fuel the new cold war. Although the graphs confirm expectations, to assess any causal impact, we must turn to the regression analysis. Before discussing the regression results, the model specification deserves more attention. The autocorrelation of residuals is a potentially serious problem in time-series analysis. The solution to this problem in the current analysis is to include the lagged dependent variable on the right-hand side of the equation (Greene, 2000).5 Furthermore, because I am concerned with modeling a dynamic process, including the lagged dependent variable makes theoretical sense because it captures the memory in the system.6 Finally, this specifica-

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

390

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003

5 4 3 2 1 0 U.S. -1 INDEX -2 -3 U.S.S.R

Figure 2: Defense Opinion and U.S.-Soviet Belligerence (standardized values)

tion provides a more conservative statistical test because the lagged variable always accounts for a large portion of the variance at time t. Turning to other independent variables, the Vietnam dummy is coded as 1 until 1974 and 0 thereafter. The mood variable is differenced for both theoretical and methodological reasons.7 Finally, the belligerence variables are differenced figures for two reasons. First, the undifferenced variables are integrated, which can cause serious problems for ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation.8 Second, and more important, we are theoretically concerned with how changes in the levels of belligerence influenced public opinion. Using the differenced belligerence variables with the lagged dependent variable captures the dynamic nature of public reaction in addition to the desirable statistical properties. The first equation to be estimated will examine only the belligerence of the Soviet Union with the other independent variables. Defense opinion can be represented as:
O = a0 + B1Ot1 + B2Mt + B3Et + B4V + B5St + et,

where O refers to public opinion, M to the change in public mood, E to U.S. expenditures, V to the Vietnam dummy, and S to the change in Soviet belligerence.

Ye ar 19 70 19 71 19 72 19 73 19 74 19 75 19 76 19 77 19 78 19 79 19 80 19 81 19 82 19 83 19 84 19 85 19 86 19 87 19 88
Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION

391

For now, looking at only the influence of changes in Soviet belligerence on the defense-spending support index (see Table 1), we can see some relatively surprising results. The Durbin H statistic, with a nonsignificant p value, indicates that we can fail to reject the null hypothesis of zero autocorrelation in the residuals.9 The high R2 simply indicates that the lagged dependent variable has a great deal of predictive power, as expected. Somewhat surprisingly, changes in public mood (although correctly signed) do not have a statistically significant influence on public opinion toward defense spending. Although public mood and defense-spending opinion do appear to have negative covariance across time at the annual level (Stimson, 1999), purging the mood measure of any defense or foreign-policy-related questions might have substantively changed what this variable is measuring. Wlezien (1995) did find that preferences for domestic and defense spending are inversely related, but that the public adjusts preferences for domestic spending in response to preferences for defense spending, rather than the reverse. Also, the possibility exists that public mood cannot explain more short-term changes in attitudes toward defense spending. Consequently, we might expect that measures of belligerence should do a better job of explaining quarterly variation. The Vietnam dummy variable was not a statistically significant predictor in the time series under review. As stated above, this is not necessarily a surprising result. During the Vietnam War era, the public generally favored lower defense spending, no doubt partly in response to the failure of the war (see Figure 2). Confirming previous research, levels of defense spending had a significant influence on defense-spending opinion. The sign of the coefficient indicates that the public is reacting negatively to levels of defense spending. At times of greater spending, the public expresses preferences for lower defense expenditures. This confirms the work of Wlezien (1996), even though he used annual data to look at how changes in defense expenditures influence opinion toward defense spending. Turning to the main independent variable of concern, Soviet belligerence, it appears that the U.S. public was not directly reacting to Soviet belligerence when formulating defense-spending preferences. Even using a unidirectional t test (which is theoretically appropriate),

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

392

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003 TABLE 1

The Influence of Soviet Belligerence on U.S. Defense Spending Opinion

Independent Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 0.855** (0.051) 0.484 (0.469) 0.034** (0.012) 2.152 (1.616) 0.028 (0.040) 0.042 (0.040) 0.585 (0.039) .92 .35 75

0.867** (0.050) 0.861** (0.052) 0.860** (0.050) Indext1 Mood 0.329 (0.416) 0.379 (0.479) 3.58 (0.419) U.S. Defense spending 0.032** (0.011) 0.032** (0.012) 0.033** (0.011) Vietnam 1.665 (1.465) 1.891 (1.631) 1.880 (1.483) Soviet 0.014 (0.011) 0.011 (0.013) Soviett1 0.003 (0.013) Soviett2 0.007 (0.013) Soviett3 Soviet-China 0.017 (0.032) Soviet-Chinat1 Soviet-Chinat2 Soviet-Chinat3 R Durbins H (p value) n
2

.92 .38 78

.92 .65 75

.92 .44 78

NOTE: Coefficients are ordinary least squares (OLS) regression values; standard errors are in parentheses. Soviet = the change in Soviet belligerence toward the United States. U.S. defense spending is the congressional authorization (FY 2000 $). **p < .01.

the belligerence variable is not a statistically significant predictor of U.S. defense-spending opinion.10 The possibility exists that it takes longer for the public to update its opinions about Soviet belligerence when formulating defensespending preferences. Perhaps because Americans had some fairly strong, preconceived ideas about the Soviet Union (Hirshberg, 1993), the public might have been unwilling to update its views (in either direction) when new information about Soviet activity presented itself. Inserting several different lag lengths of the Soviet belligerence variable into the equation above indicates that this was not the case (see Table 1). The Granger test presented in Appendix B, examining the influence of the Soviet belligerence variable, also confirms this finding.

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION

393

Before moving on to the influence of U.S. belligerence on defensespending opinion, it is worth considering the possibility that the U.S. public was responding not to Soviet belligerence toward the United States but to Soviet belligerence more generally. Although a full examination is beyond the scope of this study, available WEIS data allow us to test whether Soviet aggression toward China influenced U.S. attitudes toward defense spending. There is no reason to believe that Americans would be particularly sensitive to aggression toward China, but if this belligerence is evidence of a general increase in Soviet aggression, it might influence support for defense spending. Looking at Models 3 and 4 in Table 1, we can see that there is no support for this assertion (a combined measure of aggression toward the United States and China yielded similar results and has therefore not been included). Undoubtedly, Soviet acts against countries other than the United States (and other sporadic exogenous events) would have influenced American perceptions of the need for increased defense spending. Across the time period covered in this article, however, the relationship with the Soviet Union should have been the largest international influence on these considerations. The next step is to examine the influence of U.S. belligerence on defense-spending opinion. It now appears that if the U.S. public were reacting to changes in the cold war context at all, it would have been through responses to U.S. belligerence. In the following analysis, the Soviet belligerence variable has been dropped.11 There is reason to believe that the U.S. and Soviet belligerences are responding to each other and are therefore simultaneously determined (Goldstein & Freeman, 1990), in which case including both measures could lead to inconsistent parameter estimates.12 Restricting the following model to include only U.S. belligerence obviates a number of potentially serious estimation problems. In the model presented below, U.S. public opinion toward defense spending is represented as
O = a0 + B1Ot1 + B2Mt + B3Et + B4V + B5Ut + et,

where O refers to public opinion, M to the change in public mood, E to U.S. expenditures, V to the Vietnam dummy, and U to the change in U.S. belligerence.

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

394

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003

Looking at Table 2, we can see that the belligerent actions of the U.S. government did have a significant influence on public opinion toward defense spending. As the U.S. government behaved more belligerently toward the Soviet Union, the public demonstrated greater support for defense spending. Several diagnostics indicate that the estimation was free of problems often associated with time-series analysis.13 The model specified above only assesses how current changes in belligerence influenced current changes in support for defense spending. Although the specification of belligerence influencing defense opinion makes more theoretical sense, it is also possible that defensespending opinion influenced U.S. belligerence. A Granger test examining both possible directions of causality indicates that defensespending opinion did not Granger cause U.S. belligerence toward the Soviet Union (see Appendix B).14 The full model, including the Vietnam dummy variable and a measure of public mood, indicates that these variables are not statistically significant even in the more accurately specified model. The substantive results of the analysis will be discussed in reference only to Model 1, although, as can be seen in Table 2, the coefficients of the significant variables in the prior equation are almost identical. Substantively, we can see that previous levels of opinion account for much of the variance in current levels of opinion, as should be the case with most political time series. Essentially, current opinion is the best predictor of future opinion. Looking at the influence of actual defense spending on public opinion toward that spending, we can see the significant negative relationship. When levels of defense spending are higher, the public is less favorable to further increases in defense spending. We can also note that the belligerent statements and actions of U.S. leaders did have a statistically significant influence on public support for defense spending. In substantive terms, each unit increase in belligerence toward the Soviet Union led to approximately two hundredths of a point increase in the defense-spending support index. This does not seem like a dramatic influence, but given some of the major swings in belligerence toward the Soviet Union, we can conclude that the U.S. governments actions caused important changes in

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION TABLE 2

395

The Influence of U.S. Belligerence on U.S. Defense Spending Opinion

Independent Variable Index t1 Mood U.S. defense spending Vietnam U.S. R Durbins H (p value) n
2

Model 1 0.867** (0.050) 0.329 (0.416) 0.032** (0.012) 1.665 (1.469) 0.022** (0.009) .93 .28 78

Model 2 0.91** (0.04) 0.03** (0.01) 0.02** (0.01) .93 .28 78

NOTE: Coefficients are ordinary least squares (OLS) regression values; standard errors are in parentheses. U.S. = the change in U.S. belligerence. U.S. defense spending is the congressional authorization (FY 2000 $). **p < .01.

U.S. public opinion during the period under review. For example, from the fourth quarter of 1979 to the first quarter of 1980, net U.S. belligerence toward the Soviet Union increased by about 160 points, according to the quarterly WEIS data. This increase in U.S. belligerence toward the Soviet Union resulted in an increase of more than 3 points in net support for defense spending in just one quarter. Although this was the most dramatic short-term increase in belligerence toward the Soviet Union during the period under review, less dramatic and more sustained changes in posture toward the Soviet Union also influenced public support for defense spending. For example, public support for increases in defense spending had lessened considerably by the mid- to late-1980s, when the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union had improved from the early days of the Reagan administration. The analysis above indicates that the public, when thinking about defense spending, responds to belligerent statements and actions made by U.S. political leaders. The public did not have any direct reaction to Soviet belligerence, even when a number of lags were examined. The reaction to complex, international political events, then, appears to be filtered through the reaction of the U.S. governments leaders. The implications of this finding are discussed below.

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

396

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003

CONCLUSION

The analysis here extends to only the first quarter of 1989 and therefore does not reflect the major changes in the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States just after this period. Although attitudes toward the Soviet Union have changed dramatically, preferences for defense spending have remained fairly stable for most of the public (Bartels, 1994). Clearly, if the public was reacting directly to the objective, external threat environment, we should have seen a major, sustained change in these public preferences toward military spending. Elite mediation of the external threat environment probably helps explain why the public has not consistently expressed preferences for lower levels of defense spending in the postcold war era. Initially, there was elite support for lower defense spending in hope of some peace dividend, but very early in the 1990s, this sentiment largely evaporated. After the cold war, new enemies replaced the Soviet Union. Examining U.S. elite actions toward these nations would undoubtedly shed light on public support for relatively high levels of defense spending, although given the variety of nations, the task would be more difficult than when the Soviet threat was the obvious focal point of U.S. foreign policy. During the cold war, the public was not reacting directly to the activities of the Soviet Union, but rather it was responding to changes in the international context by reacting to the belligerent statements and actions of U.S. political leaders. To a large degree, then, the public appears reliant on U.S. political leaders to make sense of complicated, international political events. Considering the lack of specific political knowledge about even domestic politics for most of the public, this cannot be surprising. It makes sense that largely unsophisticated citizens without a great deal of interest in or knowledge of politics would rely on domestic political elites to make sense of the political world. This public reliance on elites might be inevitable in a large and complicated society such as the Unites States. However, for fairly obvious reasons, this can also be viewed as quite troubling, particularly in the realm of international events and foreign affairs, which are

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION

397

directly experienced by very few Americans. If, at some point in time, there is substantial divergence between the interests of the governments political leaders and the interests of the public vis--vis international affairs, the consequences for public opinion could be dire. In this situation, rather than acting as a guiding force for the actions of political leaders, opinion would most likely serve as a rubber stamp for elite decisions that might or might not be in line with the public interest. Although potentially dire, public reliance on domestic political elites for information from the international realm must be viewed within the context of the American political system and institutions. The two-party system clearly creates incentives for disagreement among political elites, which is beneficial in light of the fact that the public appears to be so reliant on political elites. If there is at least partisan disagreement, the public often has two choices of what to believe about complicated political events. Although many think that politics should stop at the waters edge, this would be a terrible development for the U.S. publics ability to deliberate and to think sensibly about international events and foreign policy. The potential for agreement among political elites resulting from the breakdown of these institutional incentives and the possible repercussions for public opinion are deserving of more serious attention. It is also worth thinking in more detail about the possible determinants of defense-spending opinion in the postcold war era. During the cold war, the public was generally very supportive of relatively high levels of military spending, which could be easily justified by pointing to the Soviet threat. It appears that a new and serious threat to American security in the form of global terrorism has emerged. Whether this threat looms large in the minds of Americans remains to be seen but will likely depend on the actions and statements of national political leaders. As the nation embarks on a new military buildup in support of the war on terror, the relationship between international events, elite actions, and domestic public opinion again becomes critically important.

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

398

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003

APPENDIX A Survey Questions American National Election Studies (If you had a say in making up the federal budget this year, for which of the following programs would you like to see spending increased and for which would you like to see spending decreased.) Should federal spending on defense be increased, decreased, or kept about the same? Gallup (I am going to read a list of present federal government programs. For each Id like you to tell me whether you feel it should be expanded, cut back, or kept about the same.) . . . defense spending. National Opinion Research Center (We are faced with many problems in this country, none of which can be solved easily or inexpensively. Im going to name some of these problems, and for each one Id like you to tell me whether you think were spending too much, too little, or about the right amount.) Are we spending too much, too little, or about the right amount on . . . the military, armaments and defense? Gallup/National Opinion Research Center Here is an interesting experiment. You will notice that the boxes on this card go from the highest position of plus 5 for a country you like very much to the lowest position of minus 5 for a country you dislike very much. How far up the scale or how far down the scale would you rate the following countries? (NORC omits first sentence.)

APPENDIX B Supplementary Analysis

TABLE B1

The Influence of U.S. and Soviet Belligerence on Attitudes Toward the Soviet Union
Model 1 Soviet disliket1 U.S. belligerence Soviet belligerence .89 (.07)** .02 (.04) Model 2 .90 (.06)** .06 (.03)* Model 3 .90 (.06)** .08 (.04)* .04 (.05)

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION TABLE B1 (continued) Model 1 R Durbins H (p value) n
2

399

Model 2 .75 .57 68

Model 3 .76 .50 68

.74 .65 68

NOTE: Coefficients are ordinary least squares (OLS) regression values; standard errors are in parentheses. Analysis is quarterly data, 1972-1989. Net Soviet dislike is the dependent variable. See Appendix A for survey question on attitudes toward the Soviet Union. *p < .05. **p < .01. TABLE B2

Granger Causality Tests: Influence of Lagged Belligerence on Defense-Spending Opinion

Variable Soviett1 Soviett2 Soviett3 Soviett4 Soviett5 Block F test p Value .32 .27 .45 .44 .13 .80 Variable U.S.t1 U.S.t2 U.S.t3 U.S.t4 U.S.t5 Block F test p Value .09 .04 .35 .20 .17 .08

NOTE: Ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates. Both equations include lagged values of public opinion (at t 1, t 2, t 3, t 4, t 5) to control for the influence of past values of the variable upon itself. TABLE B3

Granger Causality Test: Influence of Belligerence on Defense Opinion and Defense Opinion on Belligerence
Belligerence on Opinion U.S.t1 U.S.t2 U.S.t3 U.S.t4 U.S.t5 Block F test p Value .25 .22 .05 .21 .02 .07 Opinion on Belligerence Opiniont1 Opiniont2 Opiniont3 Opiniont4 Opiniont5 Block F test p Value .24 .15 .13 .14 .13 .33

NOTE: Ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates. Both equations include lagged values of the dependent variable (at t 1, t 2, t 3, t 4, t 5) to control for the influence of past values of the variable upon itself.

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

400

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003 TABLE B4

Error-Correction Models of the Relationship Between U.S. and Soviet Belligerence

U.S. Belligerence U.S.t1 U.S.t1 Soviett1 Soviett1 R2 n .96 (.11)** .59 (.11)** .76 (.08)** .71 78 Soviet Belligerence .65 (.13)** .70 (.08)** .58 (.10)** .62 78

NOTE: Coefficients are ordinary least squares (OLS) regression values; standard errors are in parentheses. *p < .05. **p < .01.

NOTES
1. The series begins in the third quarter of 1969 and ends in the second quarter of 1989. 2. The three separate questions used to create the time series are correlated at approximately .90, indicating a strong underlying dimension even before input into the algorithm. The questions were asked a total of 74 times across the 79 quarters, meaning that some observations are interpolated from the data. 3. The index was computed using the following formula: (percentage favoring increase)/ (percentage favoring increase + percentage favoring decrease). Higher values represent greater net public support for spending. 4. Previous research has addressed the relationship between perceptions of the Soviet Union (on a like/dislike scale) and defense-spending opinion, whereas I am examining the influence of actual events that should have influenced defense-spending opinion. Ideally, we might want to combine both of these approaches in the work reported here. Unfortunately, the like/dislike question was not used until 1972 and was asked too infrequently for the creation of a reliable quarterly time series. Aggregating the WEIS data set to the annual level removes any intelligible trends from the data, limiting its usefulness as a measure of the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union (for limitations of the data, see Goldstein & Freeman, 1990). Supplementary analysis presented in Appendix B indicates that Soviet belligerence did not significantly influence attitudes toward the Soviet Union, whereas U.S. belligerence did, supporting the main conclusions of this article. For more on the link between attitudes toward the Soviet Union and defense spending, the reader should see Wlezien (1996). 5. Including the lagged dependent variable in the analysis eliminates most potential problems with autocorrelation, even if there would likely have been correlated disturbances in the absence of the lagged dependent variable. However, this procedure also introduces a small amount of bias into the parameter estimates, the amount of which is unknown. Monte Carlo simulation indicates that this bias is normally trivial, even under extreme circumstances (Greene, 2000). For applications of this approach in the political science literature, see Anderson and

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION

401

Newmark (2002); Mackuen, Erikson, and Stimson (2001); and Durr, Gilmour, and Wolbrecht (1997). 6. Another possible specification would have been to model change in defense-spending opinion as the dependent variable. From both a theoretical and a statistical standpoint, the lagged dependent variable approach is superior. The lagged dependent variable allows us to model the memory of the system because the lagged value represents not only the last value of spending opinion, but also all prior influences on spending opinion. Undoubtedly, opinion at time t 1 influences opinion at time t, and this is captured in the specification used here. 7. Theoretically, I am interested in the influence of changes in (rather than levels of) domestic policy liberalism, making differenced data appropriate. Furthermore, although not strictly integrated, using a Dickey-Fuller test, the mood variable is nearly integrated, and differencing might eliminate potential problems in the estimation stage. 8. Dickey-Fuller test statistics and the corresponding MacKinnon approximate p values indicated the presence of a unit root in both belligerence series. Integrated data can lead to false findings of significance using ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation. 9. The Durbin-Watson test, which is normally used to assess the presence of autocorrelation in the residuals, is invalid for models including a lagged dependent variable, with the results biased toward 2 and away from a rejection of the null of noncorrelated errors. Consequently, in this case the Durbins H (a special case of the Breusch-Godfrey Lagrange multiplier test) is the appropriate test procedure to use. 10. Taking a somewhat different approach, a Granger causality test (presented in Appendix B) also indicated that the Soviet belligerence variable did not significantly influence public opinion on defense spending in the time period under review (for applications of Granger testing in political science, see Freeman, 1983). 11. Although initially it might have made sense to include both the Soviet and U.S. belligerence variables in the analysis, this would have resulted in potential estimation problems due to multicollinearity and the endogeneity of the belligerence variables. These two variables are highly correlated (simple bivariate correlation = .75) and are also causally related (Goldstein & Freeman, 1990). Given the results of the Granger test assessing the influence of the two belligerence series, we can be reasonably confident that Soviet belligerence had no direct causal impact on defense-spending opinion (see Appendix B, Table B1). 12. Although the U.S. public did not have a direct reaction to Soviet belligerence toward the United States, it seems that levels of U.S. belligerence should have been determined to some extent by Soviet levels. Using vector autoregression (VAR), Goldstein and Freeman (1990) found that the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a direct relationship of reciprocity. Granger tests of the influence of Soviet and U.S. belligerence on each other indicated that there is no direct, causal relationship between the two levels of belligerence. The difference in the finding of no direct relationship here probably stems from the aggregation mechanism used, which introduced some integration into the data. However, the possibility exists that two variables are engaged in an equilibrium relationship, where one or both series respond to changes in the other (see Ostrom & Smith, 1992). For example, if an exogenous shock occurs to the independent series, the dependent series will correct itself and adjust back to the equilibrium state. We can assess this type of relationship with single-equation, error-correction models. The results of these single-equation, error-correction models indicate that Soviet and U.S. belligerences were engaged in this equilibrium-type relationship (see Appendix B). Both errorcorrection terms (the lags of the dependent variables) are highly significant, indicating that both series are engaged in a long-term equilibrium relationship. Therefore, although no direct rela-

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

402

AMERICAN POLITICS RESEARCH / JULY 2003

tionship existed between Soviet belligerence and U.S. public opinion toward defense spending, this variable was reflected to some degree in changes in U.S. belligerence. For some purposes, we might wish to estimate the indirect impact of Soviet belligerence on U.S. attitudes toward defense spending using a simultaneous-equations approach. This would require additional data that is probably unavailable (i.e., exogenous determinants of Soviet belligerence) and is not necessary in light of the theoretical question underlying this study. 13. Durbins H test statistic indicates that there was not either positive or negative first-order serial autocorrelation in the residuals. Because neither the U.S. belligerence nor the defense spending index was integrated, we can conclude that cointegration is not responsible for the findings of significance (see Granger & Newbold, 1974). Furthermore, Dickey-Fuller tests on all of the final variables indicated against the presence of a unit root. Also, inspection of the variance inflation factors indicated that the model did not suffer from collinearity problems. 14. The block F test indicates that past values of defense-spending opinion did not influence current values of belligerence (see Appendix B, Table B2). On the other hand, past belligerence was a significant influence on defense-spending opinion at the .10 level (p = .07). Given these results and prior expectations, we can be quite confident that the direction of causality examined in the model above is correct.

REFERENCES
Anderson, J. L., & Newmark, A. J. (2002). A dynamic model of U.S. senator approval, 19812000. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 3(2), 298-316. Austin, A. (1979, December 31). USSR says it has sent limited military contingent to Afghanistan to help repel aggression from abroad. New York Times, p. A1. Bartels, L. M. (1994). The American publics defense spending preferences in the post-cold war era. Public Opinion Quarterly, 58, 479-508. Blanton, T. (2002). When did the cold war end? Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, Washington, DC. Brody, R. A. (1991). Assessing the president: The media, elite opinion and public support. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Carmines, E., & Stimson, J. (1989). Issue evolution: Race and the transformation of American politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Converse, P. (1964). The nature of belief systems in mass publics. In D. Apter (Ed.), Ideology and discontent (pp. 206-261). New York: Free Press. Durr, R. H., Gilmour, J. B., & Wolbrecht, C. (1997). Explaining congressional approval. American Journal of Political Science, 41, 175-207. Freeman, J. R. (1983). Granger causality and the time series analysis of political relationships. American Journal of Political Science, 27, 325-355. Goldstein, J. S., & Freeman, J. R. (1990). Three way street. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Granger, C. W. J., & Newbold, P. (1974). Spurious regression in econometrics. Journal of Econometrics, 2, 111-120. Greene, W. (2000). Econometric analysis. New York: Praeger. Hartley, T., & Russett, B. (1992). Public opinion and the common defense: Who governs military spending in the United States? American Political Science Review, 86(4), 905-915.

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012

Witko / THE COLD WAR AND DEFENSE SPENDING OPINION

403

Hirshberg, M. (1993). Perpetuating patriotic perceptions: The cognitive function of the cold war. Westport, CT: Praeger. Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (1989). How are foreign policy attitudes structured? A hierarchical model. American Political Science Review, 81, 1099-1120. Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (1990). Public images of the Soviet Union: The impact of foreign policy attitudes. Journal of Politics, 52, 3-28. Mackuen, M. B., Erikson, R. S., & Stimson, J. A. (2001). The macro polity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Mackuen, M. B., Erikson, R. S., & Stimson, J. A. (1992). Peasants or bankers: The American electorate and the U.S. economy. American Political Science Review, 89, 597-611. Mueller, J. E. (1979). Public expectations of war during the cold war. American Journal of Political Science, 23, 301-328. Ostrom, C. W., Jr., & Smith, R. (1992). Error correction, attitude persistence and rewards and punishments. Political Analysis, 4, 127-181. Page, B. I., & Shapiro, R. Y. (1983). Effects of public opinion on policy. American Political Science Review, 77, 175-190. Page, B. I. & Shapiro, R. Y. (1992). The rational public: Fifty years of trends in Americanspolicy preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Peffley, M., & Hurwitz, J. (1992). International events and foreign policy beliefs: Public response to changing Soviet-U.S. relations. American Journal of Political Science, 36, 431461. Smith, T. (1979, December 30). President Carter, in toughest diplomatic exchange of his presidency, warns Soviet Union to withdraw its forces or face serious consequences in its relations with U.S. New York Times, p. A1. Stimson, J. A. (1999). Public opinion in America: Moods, cycles and swings. Boulder, CO: Westview. U.S. Department of Defense. (2000). National defense budget estimates for fiscal year 2000 (Green Book). Washington, DC: Department of Defense. Vincent, J. E. (1979). Project theory: Interpretations and policy relevance. Washington, DC: University Press of America. Vincent, J. E. (1983). WEIS vs. COPDAB: Correspondence problems. International Studies Quarterly, 27, 161-168. Wlezien, C. (1996). Dynamics of representation: The case of U.S. spending on defence. British Journal of Political Science, 26, 81-103. Wlezien, C. (1995). The public as thermostat: Dynamics of preferences for spending. American Journal of Political Science, 39, 981-1000. Zaller, J. R. (1992). The nature and origins of mass opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Christopher Witko received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and will be joining the Department of Government at California State University, Sacramento.

Downloaded from apr.sagepub.com by Bianca-Iulia Simion on October 30, 2012