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

Abstract

ABSTRACTMuch 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.