History departments and the search for truth

[John T. Fishel]

Hey Rob--

There has been some significant research on the political attitudes of the military both officers and enlisted over time. Some of the most recent was by Peter Feaver at Duke (or is it UNC?) who is a Reserve officer in the Navy. Feaver found that the bulk of the officer corps self identifies as Republican (overwhelming percentages). This is a change over the last 30 years when the officer corps was less identified with political parties and there was a significant minority of Democrats

IMO it is not a good thing to find the country as politically polarized as it is nor that the military is so one sidedly self-identified. I have never seen anything wrong in officer having and expressing political opinions in private nor registering and voting nor contributing to the party of their choice. But I am somewhat concerned that the "old ethic" apolitical officers have nearly disappeared and that most military offcers are Republicans (I would be equally concerned if most were Democrats). I say this as one who for his entire active and reserve career was a registered Democrat who is now a registered Republican.

On the plus side - as demonstrated by this forum - civil disagreement is alive and well among the active, RC, and retired military, as well as the civilians who post here.

Cheers

JOhnT

[SteveMetz]

Hey Rob--

There has been some significant research on the political attitudes of the military both officers and enlisted over time. Some of the most recent was by Peter Feaver at Duke (or is it UNC?) who is a Reserve officer in the Navy. Feaver found that the bulk of the officer corps self identifies as Republican (overwhelming percentages). This is a change over the last 30 years when the officer corps was less identified with political parties and there was a significant minority of Democrats

IMO it is not a good thing to find the country as politically polarized as it is nor that the military is so one sidedly self-identified. I have never seen anything wrong in officer having and expressing political opinions in private nor registering and voting nor contributing to the party of their choice. But I am somewhat concerned that the "old ethic" apolitical officers have nearly disappeared and that most military offcers are Republicans (I would be equally concerned if most were Democrats). I say this as one who for his entire active and reserve career was a registered Democrat who is now a registered Republican.

On the plus side - as demonstrated by this forum - civil disagreement is alive and well among the active, RC, and retired military, as well as the civilians who post here.

Cheers

JOhnT

Peter is at Duke (he was the lead author of the "Strategy for Victory in Iraq" while serving on the NSC staff). But there has been some recent research that illustrates a pretty profound reversal in that tendency among the military. I forget the exact numbers, but one thing I saw said something like five years ago 80% of the graduating West Point class identified themselves as Republican, and now it's less than 50%.

[John T. Fishel]

Hi Steve--

Thanks for clarifying Peter's affiliation - I'd forgotten.

In an 2006 article published by ISERP at Columbia U, Jason Dempsey, et. al. give the following figures based on 2004 research:

63% of all Army officers self-identify as conservative and Republican self-identification increases as rank goes up. Note that they do not say that conservative = Republican but the implication is there.

61% of West Point cadets identify as Republicans with and additional 14% leaning that direction.

Sounds like the numbers are down some from Peter's studies but not dramatically.

Cheers

John

PS this was the most recent data/article I saw in my cursory Google