Of these weeks readings, I would like to focus on the study conducted by Gelpi, Feaver and Reifler about the

factors in influencing public opinion about the Iraq war, specifically during the first 20 months of the war. This work seeks to contend the conventional wisdom that public opinion is largely shaped by the number of casualties; that public opinion is casualty phobic. That is to say, the higher the body count, the lower public support will be. This work also highlights the arguments brought up by XYZ and seek to produce their own hypothesis about the factors that alter public opinion. The study looks at public opinion over three major time periods. The first, referred to as the major combat phase includes the initial invasion of Iraq, the fall of the Baath regime and the movement of coalition forces into a position of occupation in Iraq. The second phase, or occupation phase includes the US-led occupation in May of 2003. The final phase or sovereign Iraq phase is when sovereignty was transferred to Iraqi authority. During this first phase, there was a sharp increase in public support; however upon entering the occupation phase, approval decrease as death tolls decreased. This initial increase then decline can be attributed first a rally round the flag effect which later faded and high death tolls lowered public opinion. These two initial phases seem to follow the conventional wisdom about the casualty phobia. Interestingly, once sovereignty had been transferred during the third time period, public opinion fluctuated around 50%, even though body count increased. This third phase is not consistent with Muellers hypothesis and shows that his model does not fit the Iraq war data. Challenging the understood correlation between death count and approval, the authors add an additional dimension to the study, specifically the idea of confidence of success. The study finds that belief in the success of the military operation has a significant impact on public opinion. This concept was tested by comparing the impact of a belief in success and the rightness of war on tolerance for casualties. They found that expected success was one of the most important indicators of tolerance for casualties. In the somewhat likely and very likely expected success categories, tolerance for casualties increased as approval of the rightness of the war increase. The highest tolerance was by far the group that strongly approved the war and believed success was very likely. Interestingly, those that believed success was not at all likely had essential the same (very low) tolerance for casualties, regardless of approval of the rightness of the war. This indicates that even if the public thinks the war is right, nearly any death toll is not tolerated if success is not likely. This is to say, deaths are not worthwhile if the war will not be successful. These conclusions challenge the understood correlation between death count and approval and shed light on the fact that public opinion is much more complex than just a straightforward cost-benefit analysis. The authors conclusions makes sense, why would any casualties be justified if the war would result in failure? However, the study does raise some questions about its replicability and whether or not these results only hold true for the Iraq war context. The most significant indicator of this issues is highlighted by the fact that the authors are challenging conclusions drawn from mostly studies about the Vietnam and Korean wars. The fact that they find that Muellers model does not fit their data raises the question of whether or not their model and additional complexity would fit Muellers data.

I believe this points to the fact that there are numerous factors influencing public opinion and although these studies are able to draw succinct conclusions about the variables that shape public opinion, context and the implications and uniqueness of each war have an immense impact on public opinion, something that cannot be quantified. The Vietnam, Korean and Iraq wars are all substantially different and it is not entirely logical to compare them, particularly when discussing something as intangible as public opinion. Although the studies use large samples from numerous polls, the sample size in terms of the number of wars studied is very limited. This is not a fault of the authors; there are not too many modern wars to study. However, the fact that there doesnt seem to be a model that is proved to fit for even 3 cases doesnt point to the fact that public opinion is something that can be entirely quantified. One of the most important points is that the Iraq war was a result of a large-scale terrorist attack on United States soil. The other two wars were not. This is an incredibly significant fact and one that should not be overlooked. In this context, the assumption that public opinion is based on cost-benefit analysis does not hold entirely true. Is we apply the concept of correspondence inference theory, we can see that public opinion could easily be shaped by the fact that the public is interpreting these attacks as a maximalist objective, the elimination of America. In that context, people could be more drawn to believing that America would succeed in the war because the alternative was unimaginable. Berinsky and Druckman bring up some of these issues by highlighting the fact that the FGR study only has one dependent variable: individual casualty tolerance, arguing that tolerance for death is not necessarily the best indicator of support for the war, especially given the fact that FGR contended that death tolls were not comprehensive indicators. I argue that while the study is limited in scope, they do reference casualty tolerance with war support, meaning there is an additional element. Media: where info comes from