Armies and Influence: Elite Experience and Public Opinion on Foreign Policy

When is the public more likely to defer to elites on foreign policy? Existing research suggests the public takes its cues from co-partisans, but what happens when co-partisans disagree? We argue that the public defers to elites whose prior experiences signal expertise and favorable intentions. Elites with backgrounds in socially esteemed institutions are thus especially powerful cue-givers, even when the core competencies of those institutions are not directly related to the issue at hand. Using two conjoint experiments, we find that the American public defers to more experienced elites generally, but is especially deferential toward elites with experience in trusted institutions: the public defers more to elites with military backgrounds, even when considering non-military issues. The theory and findings suggest that where elites sat in the past shapes how much power they wield once standing in office.