| A gap exists in understanding and modeling the Vietnam War era for lack of quantitative studies that examine the political effect of the military draft. Using presidential approval ratings as a proxy for political support, this study seeks to fill the void by evaluating the effects of the Vietnam-era draft on presidential approval between 1954 and 1975. With a basis in rational theory, it uses Autoregressive Moving Average time series analysis, both bivariate and multivariate, in a quasi-experimental design to detect significant impacts of the draft as operationalized by induction rates. This work also provides a synopsis of the U.S. presence in Vietnam as well as a short history of the modern, military draft in America.; It finds significant direct effects of the draft upon presidential approval that vary by period. The draft shifts from having no impact on aggregated approval ratings to a negative impact as the conflict mounts, suggesting public resistance grew as conflict costs increased. In the post-test period, the draft showed some tertiary effects, but yielded nothing indisputable for the final multivariate model. In modeling the entire conflict period, only economic and presidential series proved significant suggesting the difficulty of sustaining long-term attention by the public. Granger Causality Testing helped further confirm the importance of the draft by returning evidence of causal relationships in three of the four periods evaluated. Overall, inductions outperformed casualties as a direct influence upon presidential approval. Tests for interactive effects of the draft and casualties did not prove significant.; These results pertain to historical studies as well as subsequent examinations of involuntary conscription, either directly in a military draft or indirectly through executive policy directing the use of active or reserve military forces. There may also be some relevance for other federal service programs. |
