What's Worth the Fight? Examining the Public Salience of International Conflicts

• In Event: Order and Violence in the International System

Abstract

When does an international issue become perceived as national interest worth using military force over, and why? Existing literature has assumed an inherent hierarchy in the importance of international issues, ranking security or territorial issues above economic or welfare issues. I propose a different explanation: how an issue’s benefits are distributed among nation members affects its likelihood of being perceived as national interest. I argue that issues providing diffuse benefits to nation members are more likely to be regarded as national interest than issues providing concentrated benefits to specific domestic groups. In addition, non-economic issues such as security or territorial issues will be more easily perceived as providing diffuse benefits than economic issues, because non-economic consequences are less rivalrous and less excludable in nature. I demonstrate support for my hypotheses using survey experiments, showing that the lack of specific beneficiaries is precisely what makes people more willing to fight for non-economic issues than economic ones. By providing a novel explanation for why some international issues are more easily perceived as national interest worth fighting over, this study contributes to our understanding of issue salience, nationalism, and use of military force in international politics.

Author

• Soyoung Lee, Stanford University