Partisan Bickering Lowers Soldiers' Will to Fight in South Korea

Why This Question Matters

Do partisan disputes at the political level change how effectively militaries fight? Michael F. Joseph, Joon Hyuk Chung, and Hui Seong Park test whether visible disagreement between political parties over initiating war reduces soldiers' willingness to perform core battlefield tasks—a potential pathway from domestic politics to battlefield outcomes. The question speaks directly to debates about civil–military relations, political polarization, and whether party politics can erode military cohesion in democracies.

How the Study Was Designed

The authors preregistered two survey experiments with samples drawn from South Korean military cadets and soldiers in ranks relevant to warfighting. The experimental treatments presented scenarios in which political parties either agreed or disagreed about whether to start a conflict. The design then measured soldiers' reported willingness to perform six essential land-battle tasks, chosen to reflect modern doctrine, unit structures, and force employment.

Key design features:

• Two preregistered survey experiments targeting active military personnel and cadets.
• Outcome measures focused on willingness to perform six battlefield tasks tied to land combat doctrine.
• Additional calibration of a behavioral outcome: rifle shooting performance introduced and calibrated for experimental use.

What the Experiments Found

• Broad support for the main prediction: exposure to partisan disagreement about initiating war reduced soldiers' stated willingness to carry out key battlefield tasks.
• The reduction in willingness was larger for respondents who were politically affiliated with a dissenting opposition party—consistent with an interaction between elite conflict and individual partisan identity.
• Thirteen exploratory tests produced results aligned with the argument that military institutions offer nonpartisan socialization, even as some findings were surprising compared to literatures on nationalism, interpersonal trust among soldiers, and psychological determinants of combat effectiveness.

Implications for Scholars and Policy

The findings suggest a concrete mechanism by which domestic partisan conflict can spill over into military effectiveness: visible elite disagreement appears to weaken soldiers' willingness to perform essential tasks, especially among those who identify with the losing or dissenting side. This has implications for civil–military relations, political leadership during crises, and how democracies manage partisan signaling when force is on the table.

Replication and data resources are available: see README.txt for replication notes and Codebook.txt for the primary dataset codebook.