More Valuable than Blood and Treasure? Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Status on Domestic Preferences for Military Intervention

Abstract Does status have an independent effect on how countries relate to each other? While scholars long argued that status is a salient foreign policy driver, it has been challenging to establish a causal link between status and foreign policy outcomes. In this project, I use original survey data to evaluate the effect of status on foreign policy decision-making, in particular popular support for military intervention. In an online survey experiment, 3658 United States citizens were confronted with a hypothetical foreign policy scenario in which their country’s status was threatened. The results show that the presence of a status threat increases support for military intervention, even in situations where national security interests are at stake and casualties are likely. I also find that government’s unwillingness to use force to protect the country’s status leads to decreased government approval. Overall, the results provide strong evidence that status is an important foreign policy driver and a source of domestic audience costs.