"Chips and democracy: Analysing American support for military interventions" - by CWP alum Ronan Fu
This article investigates how democratic values and strategic interests shape American public support for military interventions abroad. Using two survey experiments conducted in different contexts of global computer chip supply, we evaluate the relative importance of the regime type of a target country and its semiconductor-manufacturing capability in shaping Americans’ willingness to support military intervention. Our findings indicate that, although the strategic importance of semiconductors is acknowledged, democratic values have a more consistent impact on public support for intervention. The influence of advanced chip production on American support for intervention depends on the global chip supply situation. During a severe chip shortage, a country’s advanced chip production significantly boosted support for intervention. However, this effect diminished when chip supply stabilised. While the study offers some support for the ‘silicon shield’ theory, the findings suggest that chip production alone may not consistently enhance a state’s security in the eyes of the American public. In addition, support for defending a country increases when it establishes advanced chip plants in the U.S., suggesting that public opinion may be driven by a blend of strategic considerations and normative expectations of fairness and partnership. By focusing on the relative effects of regime type and strategic resources, this study contributes to our understanding of how public opinion responds to foreign policy trade-offs.
Chips and democracy: Analysing American support for military interventions
Shane Hsuan-Yu Lin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9233-2357 [email protected], Ronan Tse-Min Fu, and Nien-Chung Chang-Liao https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6788-8556View all authors and affiliations - https://doi.org/10.1177/136914812513550
Dr. Ronan Tse-min Fu is an Assistant Research Fellow in the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica (IPSAS). Prior to joining IPSAS, he was a Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of International and Public Affairs, with additional postdoctoral affiliations at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Department of Political Science, Columbia University.
Dr. Fu received a PhD from University of Southern California in Political Science and International Relations (2019). His research interests lie in the intersection of international relations theory and comparative politics, with a specific focus on grand strategy, East Asian security, Chinese politics and foreign policy, and historical roots of contemporary relations in East Asia.
Dr. Fu’s work has appeared in International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Political Geography. My research has been funded by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China, Fulbright Taiwan, China Times Cultural Foundation, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, among others.
Photo Credit: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/13691481251355069
