The Casualty Gap: The Causes and Consequences of American Wartime Inequalities
Douglas Kriner and Francis Shen
Abstract
Many have long suspected that when America takes up arms it is a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight. Despite these concerns about social inequality in military sacrifice, the hard data to validate such claims has been kept out of public view. The Casualty Gap renews the debate over unequal sacrifice by bringing to light new evidence on the inequality dimensions of American wartime casualties. It demonstrates unequivocally that since the conclusion of World War II, communities at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder have borne a disproportionate share of the human costs of war. Moreove ... More
Many have long suspected that when America takes up arms it is a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight. Despite these concerns about social inequality in military sacrifice, the hard data to validate such claims has been kept out of public view. The Casualty Gap renews the debate over unequal sacrifice by bringing to light new evidence on the inequality dimensions of American wartime casualties. It demonstrates unequivocally that since the conclusion of World War II, communities at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder have borne a disproportionate share of the human costs of war. Moreover, they show for the first time that when Americans are explicitly confronted with evidence of this inequality, they become markedly less supportive of the nation's war efforts. The Casualty Gap also uncovers how wartime deaths affect entire communities. Citizens who see the high price war exacts on friends and neighbors become more likely to oppose war and to vote against the political leaders waging it than residents of low-casualty communities. Moreover, extensive empirical evidence connects higher community casualty rates in Korea and Vietnam to lower levels of trust in government, interest in politics, and electoral and non-electoral participation. In this way, the casualty gap threatens the very vibrancy of American democracy by depressing civic engagement in high-casualty communities for years after the last gun falls silent.
Keywords:
social inequality,
civic engagement,
American wartime casualties,
World War II,
wartime deaths,
political leaders,
community casualty rates,
Korea,
Vietnam,
American democracy
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2010 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780195390964 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2010 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390964.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Douglas Kriner, author
Boston University
Author Webpage
Francis Shen, author
McArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project
Author Webpage
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