Are U.S. Drone Strikes Racist? Evidence of Public Attitude Formation in the United States

32 Pages Posted: 10 Mar 2023

See all articles by Paul Lushenko

Paul Lushenko

Cornell University - Department of Government; US Army War College (DEP)

Keith Carter

United States Military Academy, West Point

Srinjoy Bose

University of New South Wales

Date Written: March 10, 2023

Abstract

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. officials have used armed unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, to kill terrorists abroad. Despite or because of strong support among Americans, critics claim that U.S. drone strikes are racist. Yet, there is no systematic evidence that these operations are racialized. We field two original and image-based survey experiments on U.S. citizens and members of the military to empirically assess the relationship between race and attitudes of support for U.S. drone strikes. Our study isolates the causal effect of two mechanisms that scholars argue shape racial preferences for strikes, including the skin color and geographic setting of a target. We find little evidence that U.S. citizens calibrate their support for strikes along these lines, and this is consistent but more pronounced among the military. Rather, our results show that respondents with racist worldviews are more likely to support drone strikes invariant of a target’s skin color and location, and that providing more contextual detail on the target can decrease support for these operations. Our findings suggest that the way officials frame U.S. drone strikes, often de-emphasizing targets as humans, has potentially more important implications for public support than do implicit racist attitudes.

Keywords: Counterterrorism, Drones, Public Opinion, Race

Suggested Citation

Lushenko, Paul and Carter, Keith and Bose, Srinjoy, Are U.S. Drone Strikes Racist? Evidence of Public Attitude Formation in the United States (March 10, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4384257 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4384257

Paul Lushenko (Contact Author)

Cornell University - Department of Government ( email )

Ithaca, NY 14853
United States

US Army War College (DEP) ( email )

122 Forbes Avenue
Carlisle, PA 17013
United States

Keith Carter

United States Military Academy, West Point

Srinjoy Bose

University of New South Wales

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
129
Abstract Views
562
Rank
375,506
PlumX Metrics