American Militarism in US Congress: Another Military Transformation from the 103rd to the 112th Congress

Abstract

The armed forces are maintained in two ways –in both the military way and the militaristic way. In this sense, every nation which has its own military has specific features of militarism, regardless of how dominant these features are over other parts of the society. The U.S. has its own type of militarism in the military and the society. In the United States, there is a belief that the US military should be number one in the world. This American public belief takes various shapes of military imperatives which connect every part of society with military and lead them to cooperate and support the realization of these imperatives. In Part I, the dissertation shows that military transformation in the post-Cold War era is an example that shows how American militarism works in American society. During this period, public opinion showed a positive and significant correlation with defense spending. Within the US military, American Militarism has led the Department of Defense and military services to the endless preparation for a future adversary in the situation of strategic uncertainty after the Cold War era. Defense related industries have strongly supported the military’s effort to be number one in military affairs. In the political arena, the congressional committee which is responsible for national defense seems inclined to be conservative in the matter of ideology – more conservative than the median in the House of Representatives. In Part II, the dissertation explores how American Militarism has influenced on the decisions of each legislator in the roll call votes on amendments regarding defense authorizations and appropriations bills. The result reveals that authorization process is more predictable than appropriation process. Furthermore, the result shows that the amount of PAC contributions to each legislator is a significant factors to determine legislators’ choices in roll call votes in authorization process even though ideological aspect of individual legislators ideology is still influential in decision making of each legislator.