Doves into Hawks: Talking about Saving Strangers to Build Public Support for War

Going to war is dangerous, costly, and questionable in its effectiveness. Yet majorities of the US public consistently support military interventions--a phenomenon that has generally been attributed to the mobilizing power of threats to US security. In fact, to justify every US military intervention in the post-Cold War era, presidents have cited not just national security, but also protecting foreign civilians. Doves into Hawks shows that protecting US interests is not enough to make war popular. Military interventions must also appear to have a humanitarian dimension. By emphasizing this dimension, presidents give traditional "doves" a reason to become temporary "hawks," creating a broad domestic coalition of support for military action. In turn, this coalition holds leaders accountable for achieving both humanitarian and security outcomes. Combining analysis of original data on presidential justifications for military force with survey experiments and archival research of the Gulf War and US action in Bosnia, Sarah Maxey reshapes our understanding of how, with the right words, leaders persuade skeptics to approve of military action and the unexpected ways this tactic can be good for democracy.