Atomic Accountability: Policy Framing and Public Opinion Concerning Sole Authority

Abstract

The president is the only person who can authorize launch of a nuclear weapon. This policy, known as sole authority, emphasizes speed and decisiveness over deliberation. Many Americans have expressed discomfort over the policy and legislation has been proposed to curtail unilateral action by the president in this realm. With this in mind, the dissertation applies a mixed-methods approach integrating qualitative and quantitative data to investigate media framing and public opinion on sole authority. A novel theory regarding support for the current policy is also developed and tested. The dissertation comprises three interconnected projects. The content analysis chapter characterizes the information environment surrounding sole authority by identifying prevalent frames used by the media to report on the policy. While news coverage of the policy is variant, frame prevalence is relatively consistent across administration, policy stance, and partisan leaning of news sources. Frames emphasizing aspects of the decision-making process, a lack of trust in the president, and a lack of checks and balances are frequently employed by news media. Additionally, sole authority presents as a partisan issue in the news. The next chapter provides insights from twelve interviews with a non-random sample of American citizens. The interviews revealed that values tied to democratic norms tend to influence sole authority opinions and identified the main source of discomfort as the concern over a single decision-maker bearing responsibility for a decision of nuclear proportions. Public support for sole authority coincided with high trust in government procedures and/or the nuclear launch process. Nonpartisan opinions were also expressed in the majority of interviews suggesting that active open-minded thinking may attenuate the influence of partisanship on public opinion. Insights from the interviews were used to construct a theory concerning public support for sole authority. The survey experiment chapter tested this original theory as well as the viability of an alternative policy that incorporates a group decision-making process. This dissertation attends to a critical yet understudied issue area requiring prompt attention of both scholars and policymakers. Findings hold implications for potential policy changes, government responsiveness to public discomfort, and increased accountability for nuclear first-use situations.