Ain’t No Fortunate Son: The Political Calculus of Conscription

Do the electoral incentives of political leaders influence who is compelled to serve in the military? We argue that conscription policy is designed by political actors who care about winning elections. In wartime, politicians face the twin threats of military and electoral defeat. Therefore, they will shield swing communities, who hold considerable sway over the outcome of elections, from some costs of military service. We leverage a novel database of 9.2 million U.S. service-members during World War II. We find that counties that narrowly voted for President Roosevelt and Democratic members of Congress had substantially fewer conscripts in the Army during 1942, 1943, and 1945. Substantively, 139,000 fewer soldiers—six times the number of soldiers who landed at Normandy—were enlisted from swing counties than expected. Our findings imply that democratic leaders do not want to lose re-election during wartime, and in doing so sacrifice democratic norms of fairness.