Professor Kriner Publishes on Congressional Attitudes About War in the American Journal of Political Science
Professor Doug Kriner published an article in the latest issue of the American Journal of Political Science. The article, co-authored with Frances Shen and titled “Responding to War on Capitol Hill: Battlefield Casualties, Congressional Response, and Public Support for the War in Iraq” explores the sources of congressional attitudes about the war. Kriner and Shen analyze 7500 congressional speeches to measure legislator’s support and opposition to the war. They find that while partisanship and total war casualties matter, legislators are also high responsive to casualties among their own constituents. That is, their views about an international issue like the Iraq war are responsive to its effect on their constituents or, as Kriner put it in a recent post about the piece “All politics, and particularly congressional politics, are local.”