Activist Disconnect: Social Movements, Public Opinion, and U.S. Military Bases in East Asia

Abstract

Do activists seeking to challenge the U.S. military presence overseas succeed in persuading the local population? While the comparative literature on base contestation often makes implicit causal claims about public opinion and behavior, these claims have never been tested empirically using individual-level data. Based on an online survey, experiment with residents of communities hosting U.S. military bases in Korea and Japan, we demonstrate a disconnect between anti-base movements and local residents. Local public opinion is most responsive to pragmatic framing of opposition by social movements and tangible information about the consequences of base expansion. Other common activist tactics have little effect and may even backfire. Our findings fill an important gap in the growing literature on the politics of U.S. military bases abroad.