From Pub Fights to International Conﬂict

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From Pub Fights to International Conflict

How values and mass opinion affect war

Eric G. E. Nilsen Spring - 2021

Master’s Thesis in Political Science Department of Political Science

University of Oslo

Words: 29 629

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Abstract

How do citizens’ normative beliefs affect international conflict? The last decade has shown a new focus on how public opinion can affect a state’s conflict behaviour. Through a selection process for the head of state and the ability to constrain them when in office, citizens’ values may change a state’s willingness to engage in international conflict. This thesis proposes that self-enhancement values, i.e. the want of power and achievements, will increase individual support of international conflict. These values should then present themselves in public opinion, making a state more - or less - prone to conflict.

The thesis performed an empirical analysis at both the individual and state level.

Firstly, several models were used to test whether self-enhancement values increased individuals’ willingness to fight for their own country. In line with earlier literature, these showed a strong positive correlation. However, a second analysis testing the correlation between these values and states probability of participating in a conflict or initiating a military interstate dispute did not return significant findings.

These findings confirm a relationship between values and individual support of conflict, but not that these values affect the state. One reason why this might be lies in the citizens’ access to information. At the onset of a conflict, the media will present the head of state’s framing on conflict unchanged, and this will be created to fit with the citizens’

normative beliefs. Further research should focus on the situations in which competing frames become available and how this can make public opinion relevant to conflict length and intensity.

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Acknowledgements

How can one choose the topic for what will probably (well, at the moment I’m writing, hopefully) be some of the best work one will ever achieve? As funny as it may seem, this thesis came about after a longer period of sustained annoyance. About a year or so ago, in a course on the causes of war, I read R. Stein’s article “War and Revenge”, claiming that the “value” of revenge could create higher support of war in a population, and thereby make the state more prone to conflict. For a student never having been able to decide whether values and mass opinion or the causes of international conflict are the most exciting part of political science, this article seemed like a dream come true. It, however, quickly showed not to be. With decades of literature on what values are and where they come from, claiming that revenge should be one came as a surprise. When then continuing by measuring this with proxies, it managed to create that annoyance necessary for this thesis to be created. The result? A thesis I’m rather happy with, connecting the literature on values and mass opinion with that on public opinion and international conflict.

Sitting as the last student in the reading hall as the clock closes towards midnight does make one feel very alone with this task; however, there is no doubt that several people had I been without, this thesis would never have been completed. I would first like to give my gratitude to my supervisor Professor Tore Wig for always keeping me on track. I have been somewhat uncertain about how to thank him (other than, should anyone read this when attempting to decide their own, I would truly recommend asking him), but maybe a little anecdote can make the point clear: In early March this year, I was rather stuck on this thesis, with an imputation model having no plans of converging. At some point, I considered whether postponing the completion of the thesis to September would be enough time to learn calculus, and maybe try and see whether calculating it by hand would make sense of why it didn’t work. . . It must have been around seven or eight in the evening (sitting in the reading room, trying not to cry) that I heard the familiar sound of my phone receiving an email (yes, I did forget to turn of the sound). It was a single line, Tore asking if I possibly had the time for a quick phone call. About 10 minutes after that,

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it was clear that neither calculus nor the deadline was anything to worry about (well, I did continue to worry about the latter, but that’s primarily due to me being a worrying person, and Tore did his best to make me not to).

I would also like to thank some of my friends, they have all given excellent support in this time, but I feel some of them deserve some extra attention. Throughout the autumn semester, Louisa, Dag, and myself, would meet every Friday to present the last week’s progress on the thesis. I can’t say I had too much to present every Friday, but their feedback most definitely made this thesis a whole lot better than it would have been without them. The same can be said for Trygve, one of the most annoying persons I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter, mostly due to him always having good points in his criticisms. When struggling with R, it has always been nice to be able to help Emilia, feeling like I actually do know what I’m doing, that is, until I realised her data was considerably more complex than my own, and I was even further put down. Not to mention the fact that she has been a wonderful friend, should maybe mention that as well.

Lastly, Jenny has been the most wonderful moral support through all this, even though it seems like every other sentence I speak annoy her. I must say that her friend Torstein has been rather aggressive, leaving me both scratches and some bruises. Even so, he has grown up to be a rather handsome little cat.

Finally, I, of course, must thank my parents and little brother. I don’t think they’ve ever really understood what I’m doing, but they have always listened to my complaints about it. Especially my little brother; I think he started to get a little bit sick of all my complaints, but at least he never stopped listening. -Eric

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List of Figures

3.1 Relationship between values, (Schwartz, 2012) . . . 14

3.2 Causality Chain: Values to Opinion . . . 17

3.3 Link between public opinion and conflict behaviour . . . 21

4.1 Map: Participation . . . 24

4.2 Polity V Democracy Score . . . 25

4.3 Log GDP/cap for all participating countries . . . 26

4.4 Factor Analysis, PVQ . . . 28

4.5 Map: Self-Enhancement scores . . . 29

4.6 Distribution: Self-Enhancement scores . . . 30

4.7 Self-Enhancement scores over time . . . 31

4.8 UCDP/Prio conflicts pr. Decade . . . 33

4.9 Military Interstate Disputes pr. Decade . . . 35

4.10 MID: Fatalities . . . 36

6.1 Missingness Map . . . 54

6.2 Overimputation Value Variables . . . 55

6.3 Overimputation Other Variables . . . 56

6.4 Density: Imputed versus Observed . . . 57

6.5 Over-dispersed EM-chain convergence . . . 58

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List of Tables

4.1 Portrait Value Questionnaire, WVS . . . 27

5.1 Willigness to figh for own country, fixed effects . . . 43

5.2 UCDP: Domestic controlls . . . 45

5.4 UCDP: Military and international controls . . . 46

5.6 MID: Domestic controlls . . . 49

5.7 MID: Military and internationall controls . . . 50

6.1 UCDP: Not Imputed . . . 59

6.3 MID: Domestic controlls . . . 62

6.5 MID: Military and internationall controls . . . 63

6.6 UCDP War: Domestic controlls . . . 64

6.7 UCDP War: Military and international controls . . . 65

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Chapter 1 War and Values

”If the consent of the citizens is required in order to decide that war should be declared [...] nothing is more natural than that they would be very cautious in commencing such a poor game, decreeing for themselves all the calamities of war”

”War itself requires no special motive but appears to be engrafted on human nature; it passes even for something noble, to which the love of glory impels men quite apart from any selfish urges.

Immanuel Kant, the Perpetual Peace Can citizens’ normative beliefs affect

states’ conflict behaviour? The literature on the causes of war has for a long time considered public opinion as a constraint on states’ ability to engage in international conflict; going as far back as the writings of Kant, he states that since the people have always been those most affected by war, in a democracy, they would never choose those horrors for themselves. However, do the people always want peace? From pub brawls to world wars, there are always those ready to support violence as the solution, and for some, it might be easier than for others.

By uniting theories on basic values and mass opinion, this thesis attempt to understand how latent normative beliefs in the population can affect a state’s conflict be-

haviour. If Kant is right and citizens invariably prefer peace, war becomes a risky affair for the head of state. However, a populace caring for honour, power, and dominance may give them free reines to use military power. Such beliefs should quickly be visible in a state’s conflict behaviour. Aware of their popular support, a head of state can be more hawkish in their foreign policy without fearing a domestic backslash. Should the people prefer conflict and the leader not, they might even get removed for their peaceful

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Chapter 1. War and Values 1.1. Research Question

demeanour. Before the constraint, the citizens will as well choose leaders sharing their values. This selection-effect will often bring more aggressive - or peaceful - leaders to power. Knowing the peoples’ wish, a head of state will act accordingly to remain in power. Values, therefore, are essential to understand states’ willingness for conflict.

1.1 Research Question

Literature on the causes of war has for a long time considered public opinion as an explanatory factor for state aggression. As far back as Immanuel Kant, he writes in his text ”The Perpetual Peace” how the solution to war is the republic, as no people would choose to bear the burden of war. More pessimistically, classical realism lays the blame of war on human nature. As Morgenthau (1993, 37) writes ”The tendency to dominate, in particular, is element of all human associations...” By implication, thisanimus dominandi would show itself in international politics as well.

However, the dominance of structural realism has for a long time put focus away from the internal conditions of the state. As Waltz describes, a focus on human nature is useless as it unchanging would have to explain all social phenomena and fruitless as the permissive causes of war lie in the international anarchy. (Waltz, 1959, 27-29,237-238).

The new literature on public opinion has found that variance in individual disposition lacking in the early thoughts on human nature. Through this variance, one can find new causal mechanisms showing how interstate war can be affected by the combined will of the people, i.e., public opinion.

The early 90s brought new studies showing how people had opinions on foreign policy that affected them when voting ¹. Such studies became immediately more important after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. From the 9/11-attacks to the US invasion of Afghanistan, there were only 26 days; the main goal was to punish those responsible for the attacks. New studies, therefore, began to look at whether the ”value” ² of revenge presented in mass opinion could change a head of state’s ability to wage war. A head of state, the argument goes, could create a rhetorical framing in which a need for revenge creates a moral justification for conflict (Stein, 2015, 2019). Before the 2^nd Iraq war, former president George W. Bush focused on the ”evil” of Saddam Hussein and created a (false) link between him and Al-Qaeda. This created support for the war through an effect of ”revenge spillover”, where the war against Iraq was seen as justice for the 9/11

1see, e.g. Hallin (1984); Aldrich, Sullivan, and Borgida (1989); de Mesquita and Siverson (1995)

2this thesis will hold that revenge should be looked upon as an attitude rather than a value. When describing revenge as value, this is in context with earlier research

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Chapter 1. War and Values 1.2. Empirical analysis

attacks (Liberman & Skitka, 2019). Even people aware of there not being any connection still supported the idea of such revenge, perceiving a monolithic Arab-Muslim world in which revenge against one would be revenge against all (Liberman, 2006; Stein, 2019).

This support then lessened the political cost of the war and the public’s constraint on the president.

The recent decades have seen an increased interest in how citizens’ normative beliefs can affect states’ conflict behaviour. However, so far the literature on public opinion as a cause of interstate war has focused on attitudes such as revenge or ideological differences.

Such attitudes can be highly society-specific, creating a lack of validity between cultures.

This thesis will expand the literature by bringing the concept of values closer to what is used in other research fields such as political psychology and comparative politics. Using Schwartz’s theory on basic values (Schwartz, 2012) gives access to a value theory that has already been shown to capture individuals’ values across cultures and time. The effects of these values have been studied in several different fields of research, including whether specific values will increase the support of conflict. Self-Enhancement values, which will be further elaborated on later, has been connected with a tendency to dehumanise ”others,”

moral disengagement, and the support of war (Esses, Veenvliet, Hodson, & Mihic, 2008;

Lindén, Björklund, & Bäckström, 2016; Cohrs, Moschner, Maes, & Kielmann, 2005). This then creates this thesis’ research question: Do self-enhancement values, through their role in shaping public opinion, make a state more prone to conflict?

1.2 Empirical analysis

A theory postulating that values in the population should affect a state’s conflict behaviour must make two vital assumptions:

Firstly, specific relevant values must be related to an individuals inclination to support conflict in general. That is, at least to some degree, the normative evaluation cannot be connected with a specific war, as if it should, the effect would differ between every conflict in which a state may engage.

Secondly, the state must consider these beliefs when deciding to engage (or not) in conflict. That is, while the citizens might have these inclinations, they must alsopresent themselves in a state’s actions. Should they not, they are irrelevant to an explanation of international conflict.

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Chapter 1. War and Values 1.2. Empirical analysis

Thus the theory moves through two different levels of analysis to explain this effect.

Firstly, the opinions must be created within the individuals, i.e., they must somehow judge military power as an appropriate and acceptable way to handle a disagreement between states. If this is the case, a later analysis should thereby be able to show a correlation between the relevant variables and support of conflict. These values should then present themselves in how often a state is in conflict compared to other states

When testing the 2^nd assumption, the typical way of measuring values in IR studies has been through the use of proxies. Commonly, states’ use of the death penalty, assuming that this corresponds to a more vengeful population (Stein, 2019, 2015). The use of such proxies, however, creates several difficulties for the studies validity. Several countries, such as Russia and Algeria, has capital punishment on paper but have a moratorium or not utilized it in over a decade. Further, the use of such proxies assumes that such policies have public support. However, the degree to which people are favourable to such punishment have been seen to be strongly dependent on question-framing. A study from 2018 in Singapore found that people, in general, were highly supportive if asked as a simple yes/no question. Asked about specific situations in which the law stated it should be utilized, however, dramatically decreased the number of people stating the death penalty where suitable (Chan, Tan, Lee, & Mathi, 2018). Several countries, e.g.

Japan, have high support for capital punishment but little military activity. The use of proxies makes it challenging to assess whether this should be seen as going against the hypothesis or be regarded as something else.

Instead, this thesis will use cross-national survey data from the World Value Survey (WVS) to measure which values are shared among a state’s citizens. This data makes it possible to test the theory at both levels of analysis: firstly, whether self-enhancement values make people more prone to support conflict, and then whether this is reflected in states’ tendency to engage in conflict. While survey data limits the period and number of states that can be analysed, this is made up for by its strengthened validity compared to the use of proxies. Survey data gives a direct way of measuring a person’s attitudes and, through them, values. As such, we get a clear understanding of how mass opinion differs between the states measured. Utilising more direct measures can considerably strengthen the theory. State policy, especially in more authoritarian regimes, can differ considerably from public opinion. Therefore, utilising proxies based on state policy may make it difficult to be certain of what one is measuring. Survey data can make us more confident that our theoretical concept and empirical operationalisation are logically connected. It also strengthens the possibility of falsifying the hypothesises. Should this thesis or another

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Chapter 1. War and Values 1.3. Key Concepts

study find there not to be a relationship or an unexpected relationship, an argument that the hypothesises are wrong will stand on considerably stronger ground than if measured by proxy.

The WVS gives access to data on more than a hundred countries from 1980 until today.

In total, this covers more than 90% of the world’s population on all continents. The survey, not surprisingly, does not contain data for every country-year for those countries participating. Should one here have used the standard list-wise deletion method on the missing data, the small amount of remaining data would render the analysis useless.

Therefore, this thesis will perform multiple imputation on the available data to replace the missing data with substituted values. Using this method has been shown to reduce bias and increase efficiency compared to list-wise deletion (Honaker, King, & Blackwell, 2011, 3). Since multiple imputation requires the data to be missing at random (in difference from list-wise deletion, which would requiremissing completely at random to give unbiased results), other sources such as the afro- arab- and latinobarometer have been added to make this the case. Earlier studies in other fields of research have as well used multiple imputation on the WVS data (Dahlum & Knutsen, 2017), and been able to give credible results on the expanded data.

1.3 Key Concepts

Values and opinions are inherently abstract, and with several fields of research studying various aspects and understanding of these concepts. This section will therefore present three key concepts at the core of this thesis; values, self-enhancement values, and opinions.

This thesis will define values in accordance with Schwartz’s Theory of Basic Values.

This theory is highly recognised within political science as well as political psychology.

Values, therefore, should be understood as normative beliefs linked to describable goals transcending specific actions and situations (Schwartz, 2012, 3-4). A substantial advantage in using this definition lies in its cross-cultural validity, measuring values independent of culture and time. Several studies have tested the validity of this value-scheme in Sub- Saharan Africa (Schwartz et al., 2001), Europa (Datler, Jagodzinski, & Schmidt, 2013), as well as large global studies (Schwartz, 2012). All of these studies have been able to show the presence of the ten basic values that will be presented in chapter three.

Secondly, this theory will propose that the self-enhancement values will be those increasing support for international conflict. The self-enhancement values consist of the

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Chapter 1. War and Values 1.4. Outline of the Thesis

values power, achievement, and hedonism. These values put focus on social superiority, and esteem, as well as self-centred satisfaction (Schwartz, 2012, 8-9). Research on social dominance theory, further elaborated on in the 3^rd chapter, has shown how these values increase the support of war, ease moral disengagement, and a stronger focus on dominant relationships in it- vs out-group relations (Eckstein Jackson ˜A & Gaertner, 2010; McKee

& Feather, 2008).

Finally, the connection between these values and opinions will be explained through Zaller’s RAS-model from his theory on mass opinion (Zaller, 1992). This model is built on four fundamental axioms: The first two, the reception and acceptance axiom, regard how individuals will receive and accept - or not accept - information. People will be more exposed to those issues with which they have a higher degree of engagement and then, if they have the necessary information, accept or resists these arguments based on their predispositions (Zaller, 1992, 42-48). These predispositions are ”stable, individual-level traits that regulate the acceptance or non-acceptance of political communication” (Zaller, 1992, 22) For the remainder of this thesis, these values will be looked upon as individuals basic values. The third and fourth is the accessibility and response axiom. A recently given opinion will be easier to use when asked again. When people then state their opinion on a given issue, individuals will ”sample” from their most salient considerations by averaging across them (Zaller, 1992, 48-51). The results of these four axioms are the

”Receive-Accept-Sample” model showing how people receive information, decide whether to accept this information and then sample from these considerations when questioned on a specific issue. Opinion, according to Zaller, can therefore be thought of as a;

”Marriage of information and predisposition: information to form a mental picture of the given issue, and predisposition to motivate some conclusion about it.”

Zaller (1992, 22)

1.4 Outline of the Thesis

The next chapter will begin by presenting the recent literature on the connection between public opinion and international conflict. The chapter consists of three parts, starting with explaining audience costs focusing on the head of state. Then the chapter will go through literature on the relationship between international conflict and the media, focusing on the citizens’ available information. This will then be connected with individuals’ values

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Chapter 1. War and Values 1.4. Outline of the Thesis

and how these relate to opinions on international conflict. Chapter three will then present the theory connecting these values with states conflict behaviour. The chapter starts with an elaboration on values before presenting how a selection- and constraint-effect can make these affect international conflict.

Chapter 4-6 contains the empirical analysis of the hypotheses presented in the third chapter. Chapter 4 contains the research design, with the results of this shown in chapter 5. Chapter 6 will then present several robustness-tests on these model and a deeper presentation of the imputation model. Chapter 7 will then connect these results with the theory, before concluding in chapter eight.

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Chapter 2 Literature Review

Can public opinion affect international conflict? This question became important with research in the early 90s finding that voters considered foreign policy when voting and often punished those who initiated international conflict (Aldrich et al., 1989; de Mesquita

& Siverson, 1995). These studies then showed a new type of domestic cost of war introduced as ”Audience Costs” by Fearon (1994). In a democratic society, a head of state will be dependent on the populace’s support. If the people should turn against them due to them not acting on a public threat, they can punish them for doing so. Should they be able to show this to an adversary, this is a valuable tool to legitimize threats that otherwise would not be deemed credible. However, do all states have the same domestic cost of war? Moreover, do all leaders want it? The next part of this text will look at how audience costs and other relevant literature have developed since Fearons pioneering article and how this can be connected to individuals and culture.

2.1 Heads of State and Political Flexibility

How do leaders respond to public opinion on international conflict? One theoretical framework to understand this comes from the Audience Costs theory. A head of state’s actions towards international conflict may turn public opinion against them. If it should, they would quickly risk losing office (de Mesquita & Siverson, 1995). With such a risk, audience cost is as much a constrain on a leader’s foreign policy as it is a help in conflict signalling. Instead of going public with clear and powerful threats, therefore, they more often attempt at keeping international conflict out of the public eye (Baum, 2004a, 2004b).

Heads of state often want to keep some flexibility in their actions towards international conflict. Severe threats to a large degree remove this possibility creating a locked position challenging to change with changing circumstances. As such, the proposed signalling possibility of audience cost is of less importance (Snyder & Borghard, 2011).

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Chapter 2. Literature Review 2.2. The Informed Public and the Media

As much as the audience, leaders themselves will also affect policy through their values and culture. Democracies often choose leaders due to their values and cultural heritage, and how the leader understands and responds to the public will depend on said culture.

A study by Dafoe and Caughey (2016) shows how presidents from the Southern United States were more prone to war and more successful when doing so than their Northern counterparts. This could also imply that the audience costs are not something coming from the public as such, but more importantly, from the crucial constituencies for the head of state. Public opinion, thereby, matters due to the audience cost. The electorate may punish a head of state going against their preferred policy.

2.2 The Informed Public and the Media

Does an average person have enough information about foreign policy to have an opinion on it? If not, it would quickly become difficult to assume that the public could punish their leaders for their policy. However, several studies show that people have clear and accessible opinions on both foreign policy in general and international conflict specifically (Aldrich et al., 1989; Aldrich, Gelpi, Feaver, Reifler, & Sharp, 2006; Berinsky, 2007).

However, how they acquire and frame this information can significantly affect what these opinions are.

Political leaders will always attempt to present their choices in such a way as to create public support. This also holds for foreign policy, where framing can be especially powerful as the people have no way of directly observing the events. A clear case is how G. W.

Bush presented Saddam Hussein before the 2^nd Iraq war as a part of ”coalition of evil”, and how he must be punished for his actions (Stein, 2019). The effect is, however, not always the one intended. More often, the head of state can affect what the public things about through cues more than they can affect how they do so through framing (Meernik

& Ault, 2001; Cohen, 1995).

Elite control over media-framing increase when the media rely on them for information.

At the beginning of a conflict, mass media tends to transmit elite information with their frames mostly unchanged (Baum & Potter, 2008; Hallin, 1984; Carruthers, 2011). In the early stages of a conflict, this information privilege can create culturally congruent frames, difficult to challenge in the later stages. (Baum & Potter, 2008, 51). As more information becomes available, however, the media will tend to give more challenge to the given elite-framing, especially when said elite framing is contested among them (Baum &

Potter, 2008; Hallin, 1984). The arrival of new technology making it possible for citizens

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Chapter 2. Literature Review 2.3. Individual Opinion

to share their experience with more ease have also made the media less reliant on the elite for information (Livingston & Bennett, 2003). Elite domination of framing, therefore, could be less attainable even at the onset of conflict.

Through experiments and survey research, several studies have shown a clear effect of framing on individual opinion. Mentioning casualties or unclear descriptions of the enemy make people more averse to conflict, while strong ”good vs evil” rhetoric, multilateral support, and personifying the enemy increase support (Stephen & Brad, 2008; Johns &

Davies, 2017; Liberman, 2006; Boettcher, 2004). How significant an effect this has on conflict out of the experiments is, however, somewhat unsure. The media seldom reports on casualties, and when doing so, frame it in a way that downplays the cost of war (Althaus et al., 2014).

2.3 Individual Opinion

From the head of state attempting to regulate their audience cost to the media framing information of conflict, the end goal is always to influence public opinion. How, then, does individual values and predispositions affect international conflict?

People do not automatically accept the information and opinions they acquire from the elite and the media. Instead, individuals bring with them a plethora of values and predispositions that affect how they interpret these cues and frames (Zaller, 1992, 22).

Vital to understand why the public would support, or not, a given conflict is to understand how these predispositions affect an individual’s inclination to do so.

For voters to punish heads of state for their foreign policy, they must have clear considerations on such policy and use them when regarding whether to support a candidate.

Several studies show that these requisites are present. However, rather than opinion being based on some form of cost/benefit analysis, they come from cues and heuristics used to give judgement (Meernik & Ault, 2001; Sowmya & Jon, 2003; Falomir-Pichastor, Pereira, Staerkl´e, & Butera, 2012). When deciding upon a question, they utilize their existing and salient predispositions to judge whether a conflict can be supported or not.

In an attempt at capturing the relevant predispositions, several studies have looked at how revenge as a value can increase dispositions to support conflict (Stein, 2015, 2019;

Liberman & Skitka, 2019, 2017). People who to a larger degree support revenge also seem to show greater support of international conflict. Even when the conflict cannot be

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Chapter 2. Literature Review 2.4. Summary

said to be a response to some attack (as could be argued for 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan), people still state that revenge is a core part of their support (Liberman &

Skitka, 2019). Utilizing capital punishment¹ as a proxy for measuring revenge shows that countries that could be said to have higher support of revenge also more often initiate military disputes.

Focusing more on the individual directly has shown that traits such as high a degree of

”social dominance orientation (SDO)” and self-enhancement values correlate with higher support of violence and conflict. Individuals, and especially soldiers, with a higher SDO and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), show both higher support for war, and also larger support for the use of torture against enemies (Cohrs et al., 2005; Lind´en et al., 2016).

Asked about the ”War on Terror”, individuals with high SDO and RWA also show higher support for the recent wars in the Middle-East, and domestic restrictions on human rights and civil liberties (Crowson, 2009).

Audience costs require that the public be willing and able to understand and act on their understanding of international conflict. Several studies have shown this to be the case, yet individuals’ opinions are highly influenced by their values and attitudes, predisposing them to judge conflict in particular manners. To a higher degree, those who show values such as the Self-Enhancement values and have a higher orientation towards social dominance are more likely to support conflict than the reverse. The different degree to which these values are congruent in cultures should therefore present themselves as differences in conflict behaviour.

2.4 Summary

A states capability to wage war depends on its people. With the concept of audience costs introduced by Fearon (1994), it became clear how a head of states’ audience would affect their decisions on international politics. Later research focusing on domestic costs of war has shown that political leaders often try to avoid rather than make use of these penalties. If they do not give such explicit threats as the theory would stipulate, they can keep some flexibility in their foreign policy and hope to avoid the public backslash should they fail.

1Whether capital punishment can be said to measure the vengefulness of a nation is quite unclear.

Several countries, such as Algeria and Russia, have capital punishment but either have a moratorium or not utilized it in over a decade. At the same time countries such as Japan have a strong support of the punishment, with little military activity. The degree to which people support such punishment is also very dependent on the questions asked (Chan et al., 2018).

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Chapter 2. Literature Review 2.4. Summary

The media’s framing heavily shapes individuals information on conflict. People respond heavily to how a conflict is presented. A focus on casualties and civilian costs will often weaken support. However, the media seldom focuses on these aspects and relies on the elite for information, thereby transmitting their framing to the public. While new technology increases the ”people on the ground’s” capability to send their own information to the media, they still need the elite for information on strategy and planning. As such, how much influence the media have in themselves is at least not obvious.

Lastly, while the political elite and the mass media attempt to influence the public, individual opinion is still a result of their convictions. An individual who values power, self-enhancement, and hierarchy will easier support war than one who values equality and pacifism. At a national level, the degree to which some of these values are more common and dominant than others has a clear effect on said nation’s audience cost.

The last note should be given to more critical studies finding little evidence for audience cost at all. In their article ”The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny Not a Pound” Snyder and Borghard (2011) finds audience costs to be of relativity little concern in leaders crisis behaviour. Their argument consists of four parts leading to this lack of audience cost:

Leaders at the brink of war prefer less clear threats to keep some flexibility towards their adversaries and reduce the domestic cost at home should they back down. At the same time, the domestic audience is more interested in policy substance than consistency between words and deeds, and should punishment come, it would be for the former. They genuinely care for national honour and reputation, but this is independent of a leader’s explicit threats. Lastly, even if the democratic leader should be able to signal such a cost, authoritarian leaders would probably not understand it as such (Snyder & Borghard, 2011, 455). However, these studies point out that the leader chooses to reduce their audience costs as to have less constraint in their foreign policy. As Hyde and Saunders (2020) argues, this form of ”malleable constraint” lies within an agency-space in which the head of state is able to either increase or reduce their audience costs. In situations where a more credible form of signalling may be preferable, they can ”tie themselves to the mast”, as to say. While they also may attempt to reduce it, nevertheless, there will be some minimum form of constraint that will create at least some degree of audience costs that will affect them.

The next chapter will look at the findings from studies on social dominance theory and individual’s support of violence. Utilizing this together with audience cost theory can give new insights into how individual values can affect international conflict and a deeper understanding of which, if any, values are relevant.

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Chapter 3 Theory: Values & International Conflict

How can citizens’ normative beliefs affect public opinion, and in turn, states conflict behaviour? This chapter will describe the causal chain between the creation of opinion in citizens to a head’s of state actions in international conflict. The chapter will begin by presenting theories on how individuals form opinions to see the creation of public opinion.

Beginning with Schwartz’s theory on basic values, these will be connected with Zaller’s concept of ”predispositions” and its connection with information. After that, the chapter will look at social dominance theory and how this can be used to understand which values should be regarded as relevant to international conflict. Together, this will lay the foun- dation of the first part of the analysis in chapter 5, looking at whether self-enhancement values will increase the probability that individuals will support international conflict.

After that, the chapter will look at the literature connecting public opinion with international conflict, focusing on how public opinion can shape the selection of the head of state and constrain them when in office. This final part of the causality line from citizens normative beliefs to international conflict will then be the final analysis looking at whether there is an effect of values on a states inclination to engage in international conflict.

3.1 Values, Attitudes, and Opinion

3.1.1 Basic Human Values

Values, according to Schwartz (2012) theory on basic human values, are normative beliefs transcending situations and actions. As such, they act as standard or goals defining whether something should be regarded as a positive or negative experience, and creates an ideal for how to evaluate actions, policy, people etc. These traits are common for all

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Chapter 3. Theory: Values & International Conflict 3.1. Values, Attitudes, and Opinion

values, acting as the most fundamental ideas of what a person will regard as the ”human ideal.” The goal of the basic human values theory has been to identify those values which are common to all people throughout time and culture. These ten values are presented in figure 3.1. The different values are separated based on the different goals they represent and their position in regards to their relationship with each other. Hedonism (a want of pleasure and sensual gratification), for example, will be closely related to a want of stimulation (wanting excitement & novelty). At the same time, hedonism would conflict with a need for conformity, not wanting to go against social norms and expectations (Schwartz, 2012, 6). Any person will to a differing degree evaluate (often unconsciously) the importance of these values. These considerations are then what will influence a person’s actions.

Figure 3.1: Relationship between values, (Schwartz, 2012)

Two dimensions separate the values into a level of higher-order values: Openness to Change, Self-Enhancement, Conservation, and Self-Transcendence. The first dimension,

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between self-transcendence and self-enhancement, shows the opposition between those values focusing on the welfare of others (universalism, benevolence) and those which focus on the pursuit of own interests and dominance over others (achievement and power) (Schwartz, 2012, 8). As will be shown in the section on social dominance theory, the Self-Enhancement values will likely create a supportive position on international conflict.

The other dimension, between openness to change and conservation, captures the conflict between values that focus on independence of thought and a readiness to change, and those which values order, tradition, and protecting the past (Schwartz, 2012, 8).

Schwartz’s definition of values has been shown to have a sizeable cross-cultural validity, with the same values found to be present independent of nations or cultures. To a large degree, different cultures are relatively equal in their value priorities, mostly differencing on the degree to which they prioritise conservation values (Fischer & Schwartz, 2011).

As will be elaborated on in the next chapter on the research design, the portrait value questionnaire used to measure these values has shown to be able to distinguish these values accurately independent of peoples access to education, age, and more. This strengthens the claim that these values should be regarded as typical for all people (Schwartz et al., 2001). The next part of the chapter will introduce social dominance theory to understand which values can increase the support of international conflict. After that, the process of how values are transformed into opinion will be explained through Zallers ”Receive- Accept-Sample”-model.

Social Dominance Theory

Which values are then relevant to the support of international conflict? This thesis will use social dominance theory to understand which values are relevant to international conflict. From this theory the concept of social dominance orientation (SDO) can show how self-enhancement values are related to the support of war. Social dominance theory is a way to explain how different forms of social hierarchies, e.g. those of gender or ethnicity, proliferate and affect society (Pratto, Sidanius, & Levin, 2006). A core part of the theory lies in in- and out-groups and how these relate to each other. This is highly relevant for international conflict. For a conflict to be legitimised, it is necessary to understand the ”enemy” as some ”other” to create a moral disengagement, allowing for the use of violence to achieve a political goal. In some way, the state’s interest must be regarded as more important than the life of the enemy. Understanding how such group relations can be found in individuals would make it possible to see how these can shape public opinion, and thereby the agency-space of the head of state.

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SDO is a personality trait connected with self-enhancement values describing a person’s support of group-dominance and a hierarchical society. These forms of support can be found in what is known as Hierarchy Legitimising Myths(HML) which represent a set of cultural norms and ideologies which provide a moral and intellectual justification for group-based dominance (Pratto et al., 2006; Pratto, Stallworth, & Conway-Lanz, 1998;

Crowson, 2009). In several societies, such myths are clearly recognised. While the South- ern US still had slavery, e.g., the Southern Baptist church proclaimed that black people were descending from Noah’s sinful son Ham, who carried the curse of Cain (Braude, 1997). As they were shunned by God, the ”good” people should do so as well. In more recent times, however, they are more likely to be less outspoken to fit with more modern ideals. The rhetoric, therefore, changes to more abstract terms, such as the talk of ”states rights” to argue for continued segregation in the 1960s. While less overt, the underlying goal is still to uphold some form of societal oppression of a lesser group. As will be shown in the last part of this chapter, these ideas are vital to understanding why people would support war.

SDO has been shown to predict soldiers support of torture (Lind´en et al., 2016), dehumanisation of refugees (Esses et al., 2008), and support of war (Cohrs et al., 2005).

Several studies have connected this with the self-enhancement and conservation values, showing how these can lead to a want of power at others expense (Cohrs et al., 2005;

Duriez & Van Hiel, 2002). When these values can be related to attitudes and ideologies such as nationalism together with a form of moral disengagement and dehumanisation, this can lead to strong support of international conflict (Eckstein Jackson ˜A & Gaertner, 2010; McKee & Feather, 2008). As will be elaborated in the next part of this chapter, this does not mean that self-enhancement values create support of international conflict.

Instead, given these values, a person will be more likely to support it when confronted with the proper information. Therefore, the next part of this chapter will go through Zallers RAS-model, looking at how opinion is created and turned into public opinion.

From this, we will be able to see how these values can affect a states conflict behaviour.

3.1.2 Attitudes and Opinions

Values are inherently abstract. As such, they do not transform unmediated into specific opinion on some subject. From values to proper opinions, we can therefore divide individuals predispositions into three levels of abstraction which can be seen in figure 3.2

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Figure 3.2: Causality Chain: Values to Opinion

Attitudes are a set of emotions, beliefs, and actions connected with some specific object. Revenge, for example, are generally concerned with the response to some act of injustice or break of moral. It does not, however, relate to some specific acts of injustice, but injustice in general. As such, it can both be connected with a personal experience as well as a response to some action done towards others. In his theory on mass opinion, Zaller (1992) states that opinion is created when these predispositions are met with some form of information. Opinions, thereby, are specific judgements and conclusion about some specific issue.

Zaller presents four axioms describing the fundamental aspects of how opinions are formed, and to a substantial degree, shaped by society. Firstly, people comprehend and respond to those issues to which they have a significant degree of cognitive engagement (Zaller, 1992, 42). People, logically, have stronger opinions on that which they have they have given more attention. This can easily be seen in opinions on international conflict. Norway’s participation in NATO’s intervention in Libya received a large degree of media attention, and as such, the population had clear attention to the conflict. This form of media attention led to a strong political debate, in which regular people could easily attain the information necessary to form some opinion on the subject. However, Norway’s smaller participation in the UN forces in Mali has received nowhere close to the same attention. As such, people will to a considerably lesser degree have strong opinions on this engagement.

The second axiom states that people tend to resist those arguments which are incon- sistent with their political predispositions, given they have the information to connect

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Chapter 3. Theory: Values & International Conflict 3.2. From Values on War to Policy on Conflict

the specific issue to these predispositions (Zaller, 1992, 44-47). The latter part is crucial to understanding why people should form a normative evaluation of a specific conflict.

The same conflict could be given several different forms of framing and play on different values in the population. Going back to the war in Libya, it could both be explained as having the intention of strengthening Norway’s position within NATO, as well as an attempt at protecting civilians. The latter would presumably create higher public support, as it aligns with the population’s values. Given the elites capability to connect the same issue with several different values, this creates a form of flexibility as to how they can create public support. Zaller thereby states that these two axioms show how a person’s likelihood of resisting persuasive political communication to which they would resist due to their predisposition is dependent on their political awareness (Zaller, 1992, 44).

The following two axioms explain how individuals access considerations and ideas and turn these into responses when questioned. A consideration thought about recently will be easier to retrieve than those which have remained dormant for some time. When then stating an opinion, one will ”average” across those considerations most salient to them (Zaller, 1992, 48-50). Together, these axioms create the proposedReceive-Accept-Sample- model, stating how people firstly receive some new information, decides whether or not to accept it, and thereafter sample from these considerations when answering a given question. As will be discussed later, this model gives a clear insight into how the elite can attempt at changing peoples understanding of an conflict, as well as being restricted by the common values of the populace.

3.2 From Values on War to Policy on Conflict

Given that specific values can lead to higher support of war in individuals, a further question is how this can be presented in policy. The next part of the chapter will look at how foreign policy can be affected by public opinion and how leaders themselves are affected by their cultural upbringing. Creating a link between public opinion and international conflict creates a causal model between common values (as presented in public opinion) and states’ willingness and capability to wage war.

3.2.1 Public Opinion

Finding the relevant values gives a strong understanding ofpredispositions affecting opinions on conflict, but just as vital is an understanding of theinformation making it possible to have an opinion on such subjects. Public opinion is created as a synthesis of culture, the media, elite actions, etc. In this process, the head of states ability to frame a conflict

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Chapter 3. Theory: Values & International Conflict 3.2. From Values on War to Policy on Conflict

as to get in line with the public will (and remain in office) will shape the way and form of values effects.

Several studies have shown that people do have opinions on foreign policy and utilize these when voting (Aldrich et al., 1989, 2006; Hegre, Bernhard, & Teorell, 2020). Such findings are vital to understanding the democratic constraint on a head of state’s foreign policy. It should be noted that these effects are not limited to democratic regimes. Most authoritarian states will have some form of ”selectorate” (e.g. the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party) capable of at least to some degree limit the heads of states agency-space. One can argue that more personalist authoritarian states, in reality, are more dependent on the public will, as rather than some form of peaceful transfer of power.

These are often overthrown in some form of violent uprising. Making this argument, Telhami (1993) show how heads of state in the Arabian nations use considerable time catering to public opinion. In the lead-up to the 1^st Gulf War, Saddam Hussein used the approval of the public as an argument to go to war and a form of pressure on other Arab heads of states. Such finding may seem less surprising given the knowledge that both democratic and authoritarian leaders are prone to lose office after engaging in warfare (de Mesquita & Siverson, 1995).

The public’s ability to respond to foreign policy creates a limitation to the heads of state’s possible actions. Should they end up in a conflict with the ”public will”, they will quickly lose office and, as such, the policy not be followed through. Introducing their argument on ”malleable constraints” Hyde and Saunders (2020) writes how differing heads of state change their domestic costs of war within some institutionally defined agency- space. Together with most other literature on domestic audience costs, this article focuses on how this constraint can be a valuable tool in signalling. Through explicit threats that their population will be aware of, they set their position at risk should they not follow through. However, as much as a helpful tool, this cost is as well a hindrance to a states ability to use force. The theory supposes by assumption that the populace would punish a leader pulling back on their threats. At the same time, it might be just as likely that the population would prefer the leader to pull out, or even not to give such as threat in the first place. In these situations, domestic audience costs will negate a state’s power rather than enchanting it. Given this risk, heads of state will often remain silent on conflicts rather than utilize this type of signalling (Baum, 2004b). Should a conflict reach a certain level of intensity, such ”hidden” conflict will no longer be possible. Managing to keep the public supportive, or at least not opposing, a conflict will at that point be vital to remain able to succeed.

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Chapter 3. Theory: Values & International Conflict 3.3. Summary

Given a need to shape the public will to their advantage, heads of state can utilise framing and cues to present information in their favour. Framing the conflict as a fight as being ”good vs evil”, for example, can create higher support as it gives a form of moral justification to the conflict (Liberman, 2006). This is especially relevant as in- and out-groups are not something given from nature but a social construct. Earlier studies have shown how increased contact between groups will lead to a higher degree of altruism towards the ”other” (Mironova & Whitt, 2014). The existence of an enemy is mainly through the political elite’s capability to create one. Comparing the war in Serbia and the 2^ndIraq war, Stein (2019) finds that Bush’s more aggressive rhetoric gave him a ”rally- around-the-flag” effect that Bill Clinton’s more cautious form did not achieve. However, for a ”good-vs-evil”-framing to have the desired effect, the population must already be predisposed to accept such a frame. In other words, the argument given by the heads of state must be in line with existing values and attitudes in the population.

The need for a conflict to be argued in line with the population creates a two-fold problem for the head of state in arguing for their policy. The framing of a conflict cannot be completely separated from the conflict itself. With the increasing access to information not presented by the elite (Baum & Potter, 2008), the population will be able to recognise a conflict differing dramatically in its actions from its argument. Further, the war must be of a kind that credibly can be framed in a way fitting with the public will. Should the war be on aggression against a state that is at least not worse than the attacker in upholding its population’s human rights, framing it as a humanitarian intervention will be quickly recognised as false propaganda. However, could one create a picture of the enemy in some way suppressing their population the idea of a war to ”save” some people from their state might create support in people generally against the use of military force. Less aggressive people generally will show higher support for war should they be presented with an enemy known for breaching the population’s human rights, and the conflict is presented as a way to better their situation (M. R. Tomz & Weeks, 2020; Boettcher, 2004; Kreps & Maxey, 2018).

3.3 Summary

This chapter has shown a connection between values effect on the creation of opinion and public opinions effect on international conflict. Through uniting theories on mass opinions creations with theory on how public opinion constrains heads of state, we can see a clear line of causality between citizens normative beliefs and the decision to use military force against some opponent. A summary of these effects presented by M. Tomz, Weeks, and

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Yarhi-Milo (2020) shows how public opinion’s effect on a states conflict behaviour can be described in two parts:

Figure 3.3: Link between public opinion and conflict behaviour

Firstly, the head of state, either through a selectorate or an electorate, goes through some form of selection. This is quite clear in democracies, where the citizens themselves decide the head of state. If the population should prefer a more hawkish candidate rather than a more peaceful one, the results will be a more aggressive foreign policy. The head of state is, of course, also from the same culture themselves. This is possibly more important in regimes with a smaller selectorate, as the first effect to a lesser degree will be present.

However, a culture with more aggressive forms of conflict resolution will create leaders with such a predisposition. This effect is shown clearly in the article ”Honor and War” by Dafoe and Caughey (2016). A large part of why certain US presidents are more aggressive than others is simply due to their upbringing.

Secondly, through actions such as voting, the public can constrain the possible actions of the head of state when in office. Any head of state would prefer to remain in office and are to a differing degree dependent on the people to do so. While they may be able to affect these constraints in some way, trying to not create attention around some conflict or framing it in a specific way, they are not omnipotent in their shaping of the public will. People take their own predispositions when meeting information creating opinions that may go against the head of states preferred policy, thereby creating an audience cost for doing so. This audience cost will thereby manifest itself in the way a state behaves in conflict.

3.3.1 Hypotheses

The theory proposes a causal line operating at both a sub-national and country level.

Therefore, the analysis will be in two parts, the first testing whether the values proposed by theory actually increase support of war in individuals, and thereafter whether this increase (if present) present itself in a states conflict behaviour. By testing the theory

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showing how values both affect individuals’ opinions and how public opinion shapes state behaviour.

1. People with a larger degree of Self-Enhancement values will be more supportive of international conflict

2. States with a populace more inclined to Self-Enhancement values will more often be in conflict

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Chapter 4 Methodology

This thesis will utilise cross-national survey data to perform an empirical analysis on whether the citizens’ normative beliefs affect a state’s conflict behaviour. Since 1980 over a hundred countries have participated in the World Value Survey, covering more than 90

% of the world’s population. While this limits the available years and countries analysed, this creates a much more valid measure of values than the often used proxy-measures.

Further, through the use of multiple imputation, this thesis will give an estimate of the missing values, thereby increasing the amount of data available. The data cover both democratic as well as more authoritarian states, thereby making it possible to if there is an effect across different types of regimes.

This thesis will use two different levels of analysis. Firstly, to see a countries conflict behaviour, the first results presented will be on the country-year level. The use of panel- data makes it possible to see how values affect a states’ inclination for conflict between states and states’ behaviour through time should their values change. As the thesis describes how states act based on internal variables and not how they may act between each other, the data will be monadic. Still, as will be presented in section 4.3, several variables are added to the different models to consider the international system.

The next part of this chapter will begin with a presentation of the units of analysis.

Then, the chapter will present the different variables that will be present in the different statistical models. As the independent variable is equal for both analysis levels (individual and country-year), this will be presented first, thereafter a short introduction to the multiple imputation model, which will be expanded in chapter 6. Lastly, the different statistical models will be presented before the results in chapter 5.

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Chapter 4. Methodology 4.1. WVS: Participating Countries

4.1 WVS: Participating Countries

The analysis contains in total 3734 country-years¹ and over 537 500 respondents from 92 countries over 41 years. Figure 4.1 shows the countries present in each WVS-round, all countries have participated at least twice. It is immediately apparent that the Western countries have participated the most, being present in almost all rounds of the survey.

Oppositely, several Sub-Saharan countries have never participated, thereby not being a part of the analysis. It is also clear that the survey has expanded over time, the later rounds having considerably more participants than the two first. In total, each of the three last rounds covers more than 90% of the world’s population and all continents. The imputation model and more data from the years between surveys mean that we get data for each country for all years between 1980 and 2020.

Figure 4.1: Map: Participation

1A table of all country-years can be found in the Appendix

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Chapter 4. Methodology 4.1. WVS: Participating Countries

The data has a slight selection-bias towards wealthier and more democratic states.

Figure 4.2 shows the distribution of policy scores in the data compared to all states in the polity data for the same period. Approximately 60 % of the country-years in the data is regarded as democratic (polity>5), compared to half of the country-years in the complete polity data. Conversely, 15% of the data is authoritarian (polity < -5) compared to a quarter of the total data. One possible issue with this under-representation is that those authoritarian states which are not included, in addition to repression of such interviews, may be so due to the fact that they arein conflict. As such, the data is unsuitable to look at the data for the most extremely authoritarian regimes. However, the data should be able to give an accurate presentation of democratic and semi-democratic regimes. This form of selection-bias should therefore not be of too great a concern.

Figure 4.2: Polity V Democracy Score

The survey also has a slight over-representation of wealthier countries, if not to the same degree as with the democracy-scores. Fig 4.3 shows the log-distribution of GDP/cap for the countries participating in the world value survey, as well as for all countries present in the World Bank data from the same period. As would be expected, the survey has a

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Chapter 4. Methodology 4.2. Independent Variable: PVQ

bias against those country-years with the lowest GDP/cap but otherwise seems to give an accurate representation of the complete population.

Figure 4.3: Log GDP/cap for all participating countries

In summary, the data has a slight bias against poorer and extreme authoritarian states, but not to the degree that should doubt the validity of the data. However, there are some caveats to the ability to generalize the following findings. The most obvious being geography, given the small number of states from Sub-Saharan Africa present in the data.

Further, there are relatively few of the most authoritarian states participating. Otherwise, the data should give an accurate presentation of the population.

4.2 Independent Variable: PVQ

The World Value Survey contains 11, out of the original 29, questions from the Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ), presented in table 4.1. The PVQ is used to measure the Schwartz value-scheme with a focus on cross-cultural reliability (Schwartz et al., 2001).

While the limited number of questions would make it difficult to measure the individual

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Variable Question Value Label

A189 It is important to this person to think up new ideas and be creative Self-Direction ValueCreat

A190 It is important to this person to be rich Power ValueRich

A191 It is important to this person living in secure surroundings Security ValueSecur A192 It is important to this person to have a good time Hedonism ValueGodTim A193 It is important to this person to help the people nearby Benevolence ValueHelp A194 It is important to this person being very successful Achievement ValueSucses A195 It is important to this person adventure and taking risks Stimulation ValueRisk A196 It is important to this person to always behave properly Conformity ValueBehav A197 It is important to this person looking after the environment Universalism ValueEnvoir

A198 It is important to this person tradition Tradition ValueTradi

A199 It is important to this person to do something for the good of society Benevolence ValueGoodSoci

Table 4.1: Portrait Value Questionnaire, WVS

fundamental values, these questions will create an accurate understanding of the higher- order values relevant to this thesis, i.e. Self-Enhancement values. The PVQ presents 29 (11) short verbal statements describing an individual in terms of what is important for this individual. The respondent is then asked ”How much like you is this person?” answering on a 6-point likert scale from ”very much like me” to ”not like me at all” without a neutral option (Schwartz et al., 2001, 523). As can be seen in table 4.1 each statement is connected with one or more values, from which individual values can be inferred. Should a respondent, e.g. state that a statement saying ”it is important for this person to live in secure surroundings” (A191) is very much like themselves, it is natural to infer that the respondent would value security. The statements are created with a focus on simplicity so that the answers should not be dependent on the respondent’s access to or type of education. This came as a response to the more commonly used ”Schwartz Value Survey (SVS)” having been shown to not give accurate results from respondents in non-Western countries, creating doubt regarding whether the theory or measurement was inaccurate.

The PVQ has been shown to mitigate this issue, giving reliable results throughout nations.

(Schwartz et al., 2001). Given this thesis’s global scope, cross-cultural reliability is vital to acquire an accurate and comparable estimate of the population’s values.

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Figure 4.4: Factor Analysis, PVQ

To create a self-enhancement score, a factor analysis was performed on the eleven variables, shown in figure 4.4. The figure ² shows a clear separation between the Self- Enhancement, such as power & achievement, and Self-Transcendence, e.g. benevolence &

universalism, values. However, the values belonging to Self-Transcendence and Conserva- tion are somewhat closer than what we should expect from the value-scheme. Especially security, which as shown in figure 3.1, should be close to the Self-Enhancement values, are indistinguishable from benevolence even though these should have a clear separation.

These were therefore removed from further analysis to ensure the scales validity. The remaining variables were then aggregated to a final Self-Enhancement score based on their factor-score. This finished scale gives a 1 through 25 score, higher values being more in tune with the Self-Enhancement values. Individuals with a higher score corresponding to those who value power, achievement, and hedonism, and are expected to have higher support of international conflict.

Every individual was given a Self-Enhancement score based on their answers to the selected PVQ questions—these were then aggregated through a weighted average, creating a final score for the country-year. Figure 4.5 shows each country’s score for the four decades covered by the analysis. Figure 4.6 shows the variance in Self-Enhancement score

2The different variables are labelled in accordance with table 4.1