Informed Doves: Nonpartisans and Attitudes on Military Intervention

• In Event: How Do Americans View Taiwan?

Abstract

How do nonpartisans make foreign policy decisions in terms of the use of force overseas? While studies often suggest that partisans, like Democrats and Republicans, are influenced by partisan cues, the same could not be said for nonpartisans. In this article, we propose two competing hypotheses. The first argues that nonpartisans are “realists” and would not support any foreign intervention. Additional political information will not change their stance. The second maintains that their attitudes could be altered after receiving more information. To find evidence, we fielded two survey experiments on Amazon’s MTurk in 2022 and 2023 with treatments on Taiwan’s democratic systems, progressive policies and culinary culture. The results supported the views that nonpartisans could change their opinions about intervention after learning more about Taiwan, although their support for military intervention was not the lowest among all the partisans. To buttress our claims on the influence of political knowledge on nonpartisans, we conducted additional analyses using ANES 2022 and found identical patterns. We conclude with theoretical and policy implications.

Authors

• Austin Horng-En Wang, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Charles K.S. Wu, University of South Alabama

• Fang-Yu Chen, Soochow University

• Yao-Yuan Yeh, University of St. Thomas