When war hits home: Taiwanese public support for war of necessity

Abstract

When a war directly intrudes citizens’ living space, it becomes a war of necessity for the public to defend themselves. However, current literature on public support for war has focused exclusively on wars of choice, not of necessity. Thus, we wonder if existing indicators of war support have explanatory power in this context. In this article, we examine existing indicators in a war of necessity—a cross-Strait conflict between Taiwan and China—to study how the public in Taiwan reacts. In addition to finding support for most of our hypotheses, the new context also contributes novel findings to the literature.