Awareness of US Empire and Militarist Ideology: A Survey of College Students from a Southwestern University in the United States

ABSTRACT

Much scholarship on militarism examines the phenomenon itself rather than determinants of militaristic ideology. We designed and administered a survey to college students and created a Militaristic Ideology Index based on student perceptions of the “need” for increasing military spending, foreign interventions, economic sanctions and anticommunist interventionism. We then created an Imperialism Awareness Index that provides a measure of respondent knowledge of military spending levels, US interference in other countries’ political systems and international response to US interventions. Using regression analysis, we examined the relationships between imperialism awareness and militarist ideology. We also investigated the relationship between the perception that mainstream media inform about the genuine motives behind US interventions and respondents’ militarist ideology. We found that greater awareness of imperialism is inversely associated with militarism. Similarly, we found that greater trust in mainstream media outlets reporting on US foreign policy is positively associated with militarist ideology.

KEYWORDS:

• Militarism
• ideology
• imperialism

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

Isaac Christiansen is an assistant professor at Midwestern State University in the Department of Sociology in Wichita Falls, Texas. His research interests include global health inequalities, Marxist political economy and social change and development. Significant prior publications include “Commodification of Health Care and Its Consequences” published in World Review of Political Economy and “Health and Development Challenges: A Nested Typology of 123 Developing Countries” published in International Critical Thought.

Suheyl Gurbuz received his PhD in sociology from University of North Texas. He teaches courses on criminology, research methods, applied sociology, and technology at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. His current research interests include mental health problems, deviance, suicide, substance use, immigration, and politics.

Beverly L. Stiles has a PhD in sociology from Texas A&M University, College Station. She teaches courses on deviant behavior, gender, disability, medical sociology, consumerism, and social psychology at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. Her current major research interests include cheating in college, sexual minorities, social psychology of deviance, physician-assisted suicide, and disability.