U.S. presidents often consider public opinion when deciding whether or not to go to war or to strike bargains in foreign affairs. But the public does not necessarily employ the same standards for all presidents, and Democratic and Republican presidents may prompt different responses for the same actions, researchers note.

A 2011 study from UCLA published in the American Journal of Political Science, “The Political Costs of Crisis Bargaining: Presidential Rhetoric and the Role of Party,” tests and measures public opinion about various leadership choices. The surveys used in the study presented hypothetical crises, in which possible outcomes included “stay out,” “concession” or “back down,” to “successful war” or “unsuccessful war”; test groups were asked to express approval/disapproval.

The study’s findings include:

• The partisan affiliation of citizens has a strong correlation with their patterns of approval/disapproval: “Independent voters view Democratic presidents who stay out of conflicts harshly, penalizing them with a 65% disapproval rating (and a 29% approval rating). Republican presidents, on the other hand, receive a 23% disapproval rating and a 43% approval rating.”
• Further, independent voters also “penalize Republican presidents who choose to fight unsuccessful wars: 63% of independents disapprove of Republican presidents in this situation, while only 37% disapprove of the Democratic presidents, a 26-point difference.”
• There were no statistically significant differences between staying out of war scenarios and unsuccessful war scenarios in presidential approval ratings: “when significant foreign policy interests are at stake, presidents may be better off in terms of approval if they fight unsuccessful wars than if they stay out of military conflicts.”
• Keeping promises plays a strong role in approval ratings: “Presidents who say the ‘U.S. military will protect the smaller country’ and then decline to involve the United States when the smaller country is invaded get approval ratings of 16%, a 24-point drop from the ratings of presidents who say they will stay out.”
• Following through on a commitment is the best way to ensure higher presidential approval ratings: “when a president has made a specific commitment to use the U.S. military, backing down is by far his or her worst option. Even if the United States is certain not to achieve its objective and to lose 4,000 U.S.troops in the process, the better option from the point of view of public approval is for the president to fight the war rather than back down.” Indeed, a president “who goes to war and loses American lives without achieving the objective actually has a much higher approval rating in the end—40%.”

The researchers conclude that “executives of the two parties face different incentives in international crises. Incredibly, particularly when the opposition in Congress is critical of the president’s policies, Democratic presidents have incentives to fight losing wars that achieve nothing rather than remain out of crises. Republican presidents, by contrast, have strong incentives to stay out of losing wars.”

Tags: security, presidency

By Rozanne Larsen | October 24, 2011