TY - JOUR
AU - Eichenberger,, Reiner
AB - Abstract How do politicians with past military service decide on societal issues? We explore the voting behavior of parliamentarians in the informative institutional setting of Switzerland with a conscription army. Our setting allows controlling for voter preferences and party ideology. Results show that politicians who have served in the military do not differ from those who have not served when comparing their voting behavior on issues related to female welfare and welfare of the weak and disabled. However, politicians who have served in the military tend to have a higher probability to accept proposals on neutrality and a lower probability to accept proposals linked to international human rights and the environment. We explore differences with respect to military ranks and ideological positions within parties and find that having chosen to serve in higher military ranks is associated with a differential voting pattern. This suggests that motivation for the military affects voting in parliament. (JEL codes: D72, F52, H56) 1. Introduction Numerous political representatives around the world have served in the armed forces because of the widespread prevalence of conscript armies, past conflict situations, and military disputes. This is not only the case for non-democratic countries but also for democratic ones.1 In electoral campaigns, politicians sometimes advertise their experience or service in the military2 as an asset for their political career, and elected politicians are not completely neutral toward, and independent of, the military. Past personal experiences of different kinds, including military service, have been shown to shape a broad range of personal, educational, managerial, and societal decisions (see Washington 2008; Keller et al. 2010; Hayo and Neumeier 2012; Benmelech and Frydman 2015; Grönqvist and Lindqvist 2016). The political science and political economy literature has suggested that military service of political representatives may affect their opinions as well as voting on military issues (see Huntington 1957 and Nordlinger 1977 for seminal contributions or Stadelmann et al. 2015 for a recent analysis). However, the literature has been mostly mute with respect to effects of politicians’ past military service on other policy fields apart from national security. We aim to address this gap and provide an explorative analysis of how military service is linked to policy decisions on societal issues at large. Such societal issues include policy proposals related to gender, neutrality, international human rights, or the environment. Currently, there is little information on how military service influences actual voting behavior of politicians. We complement the literature by a new and relevant aspect using the informative setting of the Swiss conscription army. It is important to explore whether political decisions in numerous societal fields might be shaped by past military service (see, Holsti 2001; Geddes 2003; Feaver and Gelpi 2004; Horowitz and Stam 2014). Numerous countries use conscription or have reintroduced it (e.g. Sweden). Conscript armies bring together people from different parts of the society and regions of a country, and thus, are sometimes argued to promote the understanding of people with different socioeconomic background.3 Service regulations of the Swiss conscript army even state that the aim of military education is to ‘affect conduct and values’ (see Federal Chancellery of Switzerland 1995). On the other hand, it is well documented that most wars between 1800 and 1945 were fought with conscript armies, and the potential civilizing effects of conscription are far from certain (see Poutvaara and Wagener 2007). In different countries, conscripts have even been used as illicit forced labor by corrupt superiors (see Sandel 2000). Thus, the actual link between military service and decisions on societal issues is unclear and requires investigation. Politicians having served in the army may decide differently on societal questions than those who did not serve. A main advantage of our analysis consists in the fact that we can control for voter preferences as well as ideological preferences of parties when analyzing politicians’ voting behavior. While our research is explorative, it is of interest, as numerous politicians who are active in parliaments around the world, have previously served in the armed forces. Thus, it is relevant to understand whether and under which circumstances their military service is related to voting decision. Moreover, our analysis can be seen as instructive for future theoretical and empirical studies on the behavior of politicians. There are at least four challenges when empirically analyzing the association between the military service of politicians and their policy choices: (i) politicians are elected by their constituency and are supposed to represent them. Moreover, constituents may (may not) elect politicians who served in the military because they see military service as a positive (negative) signal of quality. This implies that voter preferences for specific societal issues need to be controlled for.4 (ii) Ideological preferences reflected by parties on specific societal issues are likely to affect individual voting decisions in parliament. At the same time, an individual's ideology regarding societal issues may affect whether it advanced in the armed forces. (iii) It is not straightforward to classify political decisions into different societal areas such as issues affecting women, the weak and disabled, neutrality, international human rights, or the environment. It is even more difficult to classify decisions as either pro- or against women, pro- or against the weak and disabled, or pro- or against other societal groups and interests because decisions in parliament often represent compromises. Ideally, we want to base the assessment of policy ramifications for different groups on an external classification which should be independent of politicians’ choices. (iv) While serving in the military has been compulsory in many countries due to conscription requirements, advancing in the ranks is related to personal motivation (see Stadelmann et al. 2015). We need to distinguish between politicians who served as soldiers due to conscription and those who have advanced to higher ranks. This allows to determine whether the voting behavior of politicians who served in the military is mostly due to personal motivation. Our empirical setting tackles all four of these challenges. We look at the case of Switzerland. Swiss constituents regularly reveal their preferences for policies in popular referenda (see Schneider et al. 1981; Hessami 2016). Referenda allow us to account for voter preferences. Politicians vote on the identical policy proposals in parliament as voters in referenda (see Portmann et al. 2012). We control for party ideology with respect to different societal issues based on parties’ official voting recommendations to ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ a policy proposal. Moreover, we measure the ideological position of individual politicians on a left–right dimension within their respective party blocks. Legislative proposals affecting women, the weak and disabled, neutrality, international rights, and the environment are identified employing voting recommendations of five independent societal organizations. These organizations give ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ recommendations which can be used as indicators whether the proposals are pro- or against women, pro- or against the weak and disabled, etc. For all politicians of the Swiss National Council, we have data on personal characteristics, and in particular, whether they were conscripted to serve in the military. We also have information whether they advanced in the military and achieved higher military ranks which allow us to investigate whether motivation for the military plays a role for later voting decisions. Altogether, our setting allows us to analyze how the military service and differences in military ranks are related to the voting behavior of politicians on diverse issues while controlling for voter preferences and ideological preferences of parties with respect to the identical policy issues, while still holding constant other personal characteristics. We know of no other setting on voting with a similar precision regarding observational data on politicians and their voters. Our results reveal new insights into how military service is associated with voting behavior: We find that politicians who have served in the military do not vote any differently from those who did not serve with respect to female issues and issues affecting the weak and disabled. However, having served in the military is associated with a higher probability of voting pro-neutrality and a lower probability of voting pro-international rights and pro-environment. All these results are independent of voter preferences and ideological preferences of parties as well as other personal characteristics or party affiliations. Refinements show that a politician’s personal ideological position relative to their party peers only affects the influence of their military service for environmental policies. When exploring differences in military ranks as well as gender, we find that different military careers are differentially associated to voting behavior: The evidence suggests that simply serving in the military in the soldier ranks due to conscription does not systematically affect voting on societal issues. However, having chosen to serve in higher military ranks tends to be associated with a differential voting pattern. This is consistent with the view that motivation for the military affects voting. The remainder of this article is structured as follows: Section II relates our contribution to the existing literature. Section III discusses our data and the empirical strategy. We present our empirical findings, robustness tests, and refinements in Section IV, and conclude with Section V. 2. Related Literature This article is related to two broad strands of literature. First, it contributes to the growing economic literature that extends the classical spatial competition framework (see Downs 1957) by investigating the relevance of politicians’ individual characteristics for policy outcomes. Personal attributes have been found to influence electoral success, redistribution, popularity, rent-seeking, etc. (see Armstrong and Graefe 2011; Gagliarducci and Paserman 2012; Kauder and Potrafke 2016). Hayo and Neumeier (2012) show that prime ministers tend to support more the class in which they were socialized. Other contributions analyze, among other personal attributes, the influence of gender (Svaleryd 2009; Stadelmann et al. 2014), education (Ruske 2015), and parenthood (Washington 2008) on the behavior of politicians. Braendle and Stutzer (2010, 2016) find evidence that experience in public service affects the number of submitted interpellations. Ågren et al. (2007) draw on a survey of Swedish voters who indicated their preferences on public spending and show that politicians with similar socioeconomic characteristics as voters exhibit similar spending attitudes. Regarding the military, a number of articles analyze the effect of conscription (see Vasquez 2005; Teigen 2006; Sasson-Levy 2007) on labor market outcomes (see Angrist 1990; Angrist and Krueger 1994), education levels (see Card and Lemieux 2001; Lau et al. 2004; Keller et al. 2010), and managerial outcomes (see the recent publications by Benmelech and Frydman 2015 or Grönqvist and Lindqvist 2016). We contribute to the literature by explicitly addressing the role of individual past military service on politician behavior. We explore voting differences for conscripted men. Due to personal motivation, some of them advanced in the military ranks and became officers. Personal motivation is likely to be a substantial factor in explaining their behavior (see Bachman et al. 2000). Second, our contribution relates to the broader literature on the interaction of the military, conflict attitudes, security policy issues, and political institutions (see, among others, Collier and Hoeffler 2004; Dunne et al. 2008; Dunning 2011; Gebremedhin and Mavisakalyan 2013; Oto-Peralias 2015; Schüller 2016). While a few contributions in political science and political sociology turned their attention relatively early to the question of whether an individual’s personal military service history affects the willingness to support military action, the political economy literature has been astonishingly mute with respect to the political role of military service. Nevertheless, certain articles focus on the role of military service for decisions to engage in conflict (see Weeks 2012; Horowitz and Stam 2014). Other contributions suggest that military conservatism may contribute to a more cautious behavior with respect to the use of force (see Betts 1991; Gelpi and Feaver 2002). Moreover, hawkish behavior in legislative decisions may be driven by self-selection into the military (see Bachman et al. 2000; Stadelmann et al. 2015). For voting in general, party ideology is regarded as a major driving factor (Poole and Rosenthal 1997; Hix et al. 2003). Ideology has been suggested as relevant for military issues (see Lindsay 1990; Carsey and Rundquist 1999). However, independent of ideology, economic interests play a role, too (see Fordham 2008). We contribute to this literature by analyzing the link between military service and voting on societal issues instead of limiting ourselves to military issues. Our setting overcomes a general difficulty in the literature regarding the measurement of voter preferences (see Lott and Davis 1992; Kau and Rubin 1993; Gerber and Lewis 2004; Lee et al. 2004; Bafumi and Herron 2010). Scholars often rely on demographic variables and past election results as proxies for district preferences (Ardoin and Garand 2003; Blais and Bodet 2006; Golder and Stramski 2010). We use referenda to measure revealed voter preferences on the identical societal policy proposals that politicians decide on in parliament.5 At the same time, we measure party ideology on the same policy proposals too. 3. Data and Empirical Strategy Switzerland provides an informative institutional setting to compare what politicians do with what their voters want (see Frey 1994; Portmann et al. 2012 or Hessami 2016). In particular, our setting has a number of distinctive features which allow us to analyze how past military service is linked to voting behavior of politicians on specific policy issues, controlling for their task of political representation, party ideology, and other factors which shape political decisions. 3.1 Measuring voter preferences and political decisions A first distinctive feature of our setting is related to the prevalence of referenda on identical policy proposals as politicians decide on in parliament. We focus on individual voting behavior of 516 politicians of the Swiss National Council (Lower House of Parliament) from the 45th to the 49th legislature. We examine final votes (roll calls) of politicians during their time in parliament from 1999 to 2013. The parliamentary services record all votes and make them publicly available. For all members of parliament, we collected information on whether they served in the military, their military ranks, and other personal characteristics. As in other democratic countries, parliamentary representatives in Switzerland craft legislative proposals. However, Swiss citizens may challenge all proposed laws and demand a referendum by collecting 50,000 signatures (approximately 1% of registered voters). For all constitutional changes, a referendum is mandatory. Initiatives allow citizens to demand a constitutional amendment themselves by collecting 100,000 signatures. Politicians are required to state their preferences on the text of every initiative in a vote, but they cannot amend it. Thus, we observe how politicians decide in parliament and how their constituency decides in the respective referenda.6Portmann (2014) provides an in-depth discussion on Swiss referenda, the parliamentary system, and presents a number of analyses. In general, referenda reflect revealed preferences of constituents, as they allow them to compare legislative proposals against the status quo (see Schneider et al. 1981; Portmann et al. 2012; Stadelmann et al. 2013; Carey and Hix 2013). A direct comparison between final votes and referendum decision has also been performed for the USA (see Brunner et al. 2013) and is gaining interest in the political science literature (see Giger and Klüver 2016; Barceló 2017; Stadelmann et al. 2017) We have information on all Swiss parliamentary decisions and referenda from 2000 to 2014 and analyze the results at the subnational (cantonal) level. All referendum decisions are implemented and, thus, entail real policy outcomes and consequences. 3.2 Measuring party ideology and intra-party position A further distinctive feature of our setting is related to the fact that we account for parties’ ideological preferences with respect to specific policies. In Switzerland, parties proclaim voting recommendations for referenda. Thus, for all parliamentary decisions with subsequent referenda, we directly measure the ideological position of parties by their voting recommendations, that is, our data allow us to take account of the ideological positions for individual policy proposals. Moreover, our data permit us to measure the ideology of individual politicians relative to their party peers. This intra-party ideology measure is based on a NOMINATE score of each politician compared to the average NOMINATE score of her/his party, and we construct a variable which indicates whether a politician is relatively right-leaning within the party.7 Note that this measure is not referendum-specific, but it is specific for every politician in our sample. Even though, our measure is superior to including a proposal-invariant ideology score for politicians, we follow the received literature and account for the latter measure. We will also use this measure to analyze interactions with the recommendations of societal groups. 3.3 Identifying preferences for policy proposals of societal organizations and the army system Parliamentary proposals often present compromises that conflate different demands by parties and societal interest groups to appeal to a majority. As such, they affect different groups, and it is not straightforward to classify them into specific fields. Moreover, it is rare to observe policies which are clear-cut in the sense that they are clearly against or clearly in favor of a specific issue, for instance, with respect to women or environment protection. We resort to external judgments based on referendum voting recommendations by respected organizations which are considered as experts in their policy fields. More precisely, we collected the ‘accept’ and ‘reject’ voting recommendations of the following five associations: Alliance F for policy proposals pro- and against-females,8 AVIVO for policy proposals pro- and against-weak and disabled,9 AUNS for policy proposals pro-neutrality,10 Amnesty International11 for policy proposals pro- and against international human rights, and the WWF for policy proposals pro- and against-environment.12 Our strategy relies on these organizations having vested interests with respect to their policy fields and detailed knowledge in their fields. The organizations are representative for their respective policy fields and have issued the largest number of recommendations in their domains. Their voting recommendations usually do not fully overlap such that we can analyze disjoint policy areas. Since these organizations are not the only ones within their respective policy fields which issue recommendations, we checked the voting recommendation of alternative organizations such as smaller female associations, the organization for handicapped people (AGILE), the association for democratic solicitors, or Greenpeace. These recommendations greatly overlap with those from the organizations that we have chosen.13 We note that some high-ranking representatives of the respective groups may act as advisers to parliament and political parties. Nevertheless, the recommendations of these groups are disseminated as voting recommendations for the referenda only after the parliamentary decisions, that is, they do not targeted at parliamentarians. The recommendations refer to real policy projects. They contrast with measures employed in the USA which rely on a set of strategically chosen, polarized issues such as ADA (Americans for Democratic Action) Scores for liberal and conservative classifications or similar scores (see Snyder 1992). As the voting recommendations are given by external organizations after politicians have voted in parliament and as they do not rank politicians, we treat them as exogenous in our empirical setting. Moreover, they are not related to the fact that politicians have served in the military or not. We recognize that ultimately any use of interest organizations to classify specific policies represents, to some extent, a subjective choice. However, this novel approach to classify issues offers more flexibility and richness than using, for instance, procedures such as NOMINATE. Those procedures capture only one (or few) dimension, while a vote-by-vote analysis treats every referendum as an independent dimension. We measure military experience as having served in the Swiss Army. Switzerland’s army is organized as a militia army of all able-bodied male conscripts between the ages of 19 up to 50 years for specific military duties.14 While in the late 1950s almost all young men without physical disability served in the armed forces, approximately two-thirds of young Swiss men today are judged to be able-bodied.15 For those considered incapable of military service, alternative services, such as civil protection, exist. All men not serving in the army (or those with a reduced service) are required to pay a (partial) military exemption tax as compensation. Men not serving at all, due to either physical or mental reasons, are required to pay the full military exemption tax on their incomes. The exemption tax ensures that the incentives to feign incapacity for service are low.16 In comparison to other democratic countries such as the USA or Israel, Swiss politicians who have served in the military have not actively fought in combat. Neutrality prohibits any Swiss military personnel to participate in other countries’ conflicts. Having served in the Swiss Army is associated with a basic military training (currently between 18 and 21 weeks) and numerous repetition courses in the militia. Swiss soldiers are required to keep their own military equipment including assault rifles at their private homes. Militia soldiers in Switzerland help to protect public buildings, embassies, and events. 3.4 Empirical strategy Our analysis explores whether politicians who have served in the military decide differently in parliament on societal issues than politicians who have not served. The following lines are intended to structure the thoughts regarding the empirical setting: suppose we observe the parliamentary decisions of two MPs. One of them has served in the military, the other has not served; otherwise they are identical in terms of the voters they represent, their ideology, the parties they associate with, their personal characteristics, etc. A societal organization either recommends to accept or reject a specific referendum which is word-to-word identical to the respective legislative proposal that was voted on in parliament. For each of the two types of politicians, we estimate the probability of accepting instead of rejecting a proposal if either the societal organization suggests (i) to accept or (ii) to reject the policy proposal. We then calculate the difference between (i) and (ii) for both politicians. These differences in the probability to vote yes are compared for the two politicians, that is, we compute the difference of the differences. An influence of the military service is observed, if the probability to adhere to the organization’s recommendation differs between these two politicians. Our institutional setting allows us to observe what politicians do, which parties they belong to, what their voters want, and what their party ideology on specific issues is. Moreover, we observe voting recommendations of societal organization which allow us to classify policy proposals as pro- or against a certain legislative proposal. We are interested in analyzing whether politicians who served in the military have a higher or a lower probability to accept policy proposals compared to their counterparts who did not serve in the military while controlling for other factors, in particular, voter preferences and party ideology. Thus, baseline empirical specification is as follows: MPYesir= α+β1(Served in military)i+β2(Served in military)i *(Proposal pro−female/weak and disabled/neutrality/etc.)r +β3(Proposal pro−female/weak and disabled/neutrality/etc.)r +β4(Voter preferences yes)ir+β5(Party ideology yes)ir+ Xirγ+ɛir. (1) MPYesir is an identifier for whether a politician i accepts (identifier equals 1) or rejects the final vote corresponding to referendum r. (Served in military)i indicates whether a politician served in the military and, thus, β1 captures the baseline probability of a politician who has served in the military to vote yes.17 (Proposal pro-female/weak and disabled/neutrality/etc.)r indicates whether a specific organization recommended to ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ the policy proposal to voters in referendum r, for example, if Alliance F recommends to vote yes, we denote the proposal as pro-female (identified takes the value of 1). If they recommend to vote no, the indicator takes the value of 0. The association between voting recommendation and the probability of an individual politician to vote yes is, thus, captured by β3 ⁠. As the analyzed policy fields where organizations give voting recommendation tend to be disjoint, we analyze one field (the recommendation of one organization) after the other. We are particularly interested in the coefficient of the interaction term β2 between having served in the military and the voting recommendation of a specific organization reflected by (Proposal pro-female/weak and disabled/neutrality/etc.)r. As both constitutive terms of the interaction are dichotomous, β2 reflects the influence of past military service on parliamentary voting for a change from an anti- to a pro-proposal compared to politicians who did not serve. Thereby, it corresponds to the cross-difference of the observed voting outcome minus the cross-difference of the potential voting outcome which permits a direct interpretation of β2. The fact that the constituency variables of the interaction term are exogenous is not sufficient in itself to isolate the influence of past military service on voting behavior. Politicians are elected by voters, and they should represent voter preferences. It might be speculated that voters elect politicians with military experience to represent their preferences, that is, controlling for voter preferences is relevant to account for a potential selection of politicians who have served in the military (or not) and who try to fulfill their task as representatives. Thus, neglecting voter preferences can misattribute their policy preferences to a potential influence of military service of politicians, for example, if MPs decide according to their voters’ preferences and if voters elected MPs with a military service of politicians because they view it a signal that MPs will support (or reject) certain policies, then β2 could be positively (negatively) biased. Thus, it is necessary, but was practically impossible for past studies,18 to condition on observed voter preferences to disentangle the military service from the task of politicians to represent preferences. Our setting allows us to directly control for voter preferences (Voter preferences yes)ir for specific policy proposals. Moreover, we can control directly for ideological preferences of parties (Party ideology yes)ir. Controlling for party ideology is relevant when analyzing individual characteristics and, in particular, when investigating the link between past military experience on voting for different societal issues. Ideological preferences reflected by party positions are likely to affect individual voting decisions of politicians in parliament. At the same time, ideology may affect how parties choose their candidates and whether politicians served in the armed forces. Thus, controlling for party ideology with respect to different policies is relevant when exploring potential links of serving in the military on voting behavior. Most likely, politicians with military experience will rather select into right parties. Thus, we account for party fixed effects. Party ideology is a party referendum-specific measure, while party fixed effects are not. We take account of district fixed effects to account for differences between electoral districts, regarding voter heterogeneity to avoid any selection issues as good as possible. For the rest of the variables in Equation (1), we follow the previous literature and include other personal characteristics which may be associated with the voting behavior of politicians. We take account of intra-party positions of MPs by employing NOMINATE scores along a left–right dimension. Even though we account for party ideology, we want to ensure that results are not driven by politicians with a military service being always to the right or the left within their respective parties. Descriptive statistics for all variables are presented in an Supplementary Appendix (Supplementary Table A1). The influence of these additional factors is reflected by the vector γ ⁠. εir stands for the error term. While we formulated Equation (1) in terms of a linear probability model, we will estimate a logit model, as the dependent variable is binary.19 We take account of numerous factors and only interpret the cross-difference of the observed voting outcome minus the cross-difference of the potential voting outcome (⁠ β2) ⁠. Nevertheless, there are three potential caveats that we would like to discuss: (i) even though compulsory conscription exists, it is possible to avoid being conscripted. Moreover, some conscripted soldiers may advance in the military to higher ranks due to personal motivation. Thus, the coefficient should not directly be interpreted as an effect of conscription which persists far over 30 years (average age is over 52 years in our sample, and conscription is at 18). Rather, it shows that politicians who served in the military decide differently in parliament on societal issues. We exploit differences in military ranks in a refinement. The evidence suggests that it is motivation for the military (rather than only conscription) which affects serving in the military and voting for the military later on. (ii) While we take account for a large array of potential factors influencing political decisions and factors linked to military service, we cannot take account of cultural dimensions which individual politicians or their voters might consider as relevant. Having spoken to active politicians, we are relatively confident that individual cultural understandings are likely to play a minor role. (iii) Although, we employ data on party ideology and take account of the intra-party positions of MPs, there may still be unobserved dimensions of party ideology that our data do not directly capture and which may correlate with decisions of individual MPs. It is worthwhile to discuss the external validity of our setting and whether our results may generalize. Importantly, politicians in our setting cannot simply follow the revealed voter preferences. As in countries without referenda, Swiss politicians do not have an exact knowledge of their constituents’ preferences when making decisions in parliament (see Garrett 1999; Brunner et al. 2013). On the other hand, they are most likely aware of their party’s ideology on specific issues, and they may be aware of interests of different societal organization. However, this will also be the case in other countries without direct democratic instruments such that the results are likely to have a relevant degree of external validity. Moreover, the Swiss parliament is in no way an exception in having politicians who have served in the military. In numerous countries members of parliament have served in the past or are serving in the military today, and they decide on different policies. We acknowledge that similar to today’s politicians in numerous democratic countries (Austria, Germany, Japan, etc.), active Swiss politicians who have served in the military were not in active combat. If comradeship, being part of the nation public service, getting in touch with people of different socioeconomic backgrounds and exploring other national regions is considered a relevant part of the military service (see Swiss Confederation 2013; Swiss Federal Department of Defense 2013), active combat duty is not crucial for our analysis. We think that our setting is informative due to its high degree of detail. 4. Results 4.1 Baseline results Table 1 provides our main results for five different policy areas. We always control for voter preferences (Voter preferences yes) and the ideological preferences of a politician’s party (Party preferences yes). Even numbered specifications control for other personal characteristics, party group, canton, and legislature fixed effects (denoted FE in the tables). Table 1. Baseline results—military service and voting of politicians when controlling for voter and party preferences Pro-female Pro-weak and disabled Pro-neutrality Pro-international rights Pro-environment (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Served in military −0.418* −0.334 −0.231 −0.376 0.048 −0.290 0.577** 0.636 0.662*** 0.395 (0.216) (0.229) (0.190) (0.330) (0.392) (0.288) (0.238) (0.389) (0.222) (0.262) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.156 0.311 (0.306) (0.300) Proposal pro-female 0.912*** 1.431*** (0.276) (0.283) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.134 0.100 (0.296) (0.341) Proposal pro-weak and disabled −0.558*** −1.626*** (0.180) (0.343) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.834* 1.310*** (0.447) (0.396) Proposal pro-neutrality −0.869** −1.029** (0.399) (0.439) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −1.301** −1.279* (0.570) (0.694) Proposal pro-international rights 0.446 0.256 (0.405) (0.522) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-environment) −1.182*** −1.142*** (0.254) (0.267) Proposal pro-environment 0.286* −0.661*** (0.155) (0.232) Constituency preferences yes 1.789*** 1.313** 0.943 6.605*** 5.655*** 6.119*** 0.942 1.628 2.409*** 6.381*** (0.536) (0.593) (0.673) (1.658) (0.645) (0.713) (0.601) (1.022) (0.497) (0.990) Party preferences yes 4.879*** 5.005*** 4.441*** 5.646*** 5.211*** 5.669*** 5.455*** 6.441*** 3.772*** 4.224*** (0.115) (0.138) (0.194) (0.453) (0.249) (0.258) (0.339) (0.372) (0.101) (0.190) Is female 0.075 −0.180 −0.121 −0.355 −0.182 (0.138) (0.239) (0.155) (0.283) (0.119) Age −1.2e-03 (0.055) −0.019 (0.083) 0.070 (0.075) 0.024 (0.079) 0.033 (0.063) Age squared −2.1e-05 5.8e-05 −6.4e-04 −1.1e-04 −4.2e-04 (5.7e-04) (8.3e-04) (6.9e-04) (7.7e-04) (6.3e-04) Time in parliament 0.020 −0.040 −0.046 −0.154* 0.063* (0.028) (0.037) (0.046) (0.091) (0.033) Time in parliament squared −9.5e-04 3.4e-03 2.1e-03 5.9e-03 −3.8e-03*** (1.3e-03) (2.3e-03) (2.4e-03) (4.2e-03) (1.3e-03) Has children −0.131 −0.016 −0.293 −0.137 0.105 (0.132) (0.242) (0.261) (0.224) (0.134) Is married −1.1e-03 0.066 0.018 0.295 0.105 (0.097) (0.162) (0.130) (0.251) (0.105) Has master or doctoral degree 0.220 −0.259 0.033 −0.035 0.031 (0.136) (0.210) (0.229) (0.160) (0.143) Party group FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Constituency FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Time/legislature FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes (Pseudo) R2 0.780 0.794 0.668 0.813 0.804 0.821 0.804 0.829 0.613 0.643 Brier score 0.067 0.063 0.099 0.058 0.062 0.057 0.060 0.056 0.116 0.110 Number of observations 5822 5753 1816 1760 3307 3228 1601 1586 2904 2868 Discrete effect of interaction term 0.024 0.021 −0.016 −5.4e-03 0.045** 0.050* −0.110** −0.013 −0.197*** −0.254*** (0.017) (0.014) (0.018) (8.6e-03) (0.022) (0.030) (0.054) (9.5e-03) (0.043) (0.063) Pro-female Pro-weak and disabled Pro-neutrality Pro-international rights Pro-environment (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Served in military −0.418* −0.334 −0.231 −0.376 0.048 −0.290 0.577** 0.636 0.662*** 0.395 (0.216) (0.229) (0.190) (0.330) (0.392) (0.288) (0.238) (0.389) (0.222) (0.262) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.156 0.311 (0.306) (0.300) Proposal pro-female 0.912*** 1.431*** (0.276) (0.283) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.134 0.100 (0.296) (0.341) Proposal pro-weak and disabled −0.558*** −1.626*** (0.180) (0.343) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.834* 1.310*** (0.447) (0.396) Proposal pro-neutrality −0.869** −1.029** (0.399) (0.439) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −1.301** −1.279* (0.570) (0.694) Proposal pro-international rights 0.446 0.256 (0.405) (0.522) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-environment) −1.182*** −1.142*** (0.254) (0.267) Proposal pro-environment 0.286* −0.661*** (0.155) (0.232) Constituency preferences yes 1.789*** 1.313** 0.943 6.605*** 5.655*** 6.119*** 0.942 1.628 2.409*** 6.381*** (0.536) (0.593) (0.673) (1.658) (0.645) (0.713) (0.601) (1.022) (0.497) (0.990) Party preferences yes 4.879*** 5.005*** 4.441*** 5.646*** 5.211*** 5.669*** 5.455*** 6.441*** 3.772*** 4.224*** (0.115) (0.138) (0.194) (0.453) (0.249) (0.258) (0.339) (0.372) (0.101) (0.190) Is female 0.075 −0.180 −0.121 −0.355 −0.182 (0.138) (0.239) (0.155) (0.283) (0.119) Age −1.2e-03 (0.055) −0.019 (0.083) 0.070 (0.075) 0.024 (0.079) 0.033 (0.063) Age squared −2.1e-05 5.8e-05 −6.4e-04 −1.1e-04 −4.2e-04 (5.7e-04) (8.3e-04) (6.9e-04) (7.7e-04) (6.3e-04) Time in parliament 0.020 −0.040 −0.046 −0.154* 0.063* (0.028) (0.037) (0.046) (0.091) (0.033) Time in parliament squared −9.5e-04 3.4e-03 2.1e-03 5.9e-03 −3.8e-03*** (1.3e-03) (2.3e-03) (2.4e-03) (4.2e-03) (1.3e-03) Has children −0.131 −0.016 −0.293 −0.137 0.105 (0.132) (0.242) (0.261) (0.224) (0.134) Is married −1.1e-03 0.066 0.018 0.295 0.105 (0.097) (0.162) (0.130) (0.251) (0.105) Has master or doctoral degree 0.220 −0.259 0.033 −0.035 0.031 (0.136) (0.210) (0.229) (0.160) (0.143) Party group FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Constituency FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Time/legislature FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes (Pseudo) R2 0.780 0.794 0.668 0.813 0.804 0.821 0.804 0.829 0.613 0.643 Brier score 0.067 0.063 0.099 0.058 0.062 0.057 0.060 0.056 0.116 0.110 Number of observations 5822 5753 1816 1760 3307 3228 1601 1586 2904 2868 Discrete effect of interaction term 0.024 0.021 −0.016 −5.4e-03 0.045** 0.050* −0.110** −0.013 −0.197*** −0.254*** (0.017) (0.014) (0.018) (8.6e-03) (0.022) (0.030) (0.054) (9.5e-03) (0.043) (0.063) Notes: The dependent variable for all estimations is MPYesir. Logit estimations are reported throughout the table. Robust standard error estimates for constituencies are reported throughout the table. The discrete effect (DE) of the interaction term represents the difference between cross-differences when all other control variables are evaluated at their median value (see Ai and Norton 2003; Puhani 2012). ***, **, and * indicate a mean significance level of <1%, 1–5%, and 5–10%, respectively. Table 1. Baseline results—military service and voting of politicians when controlling for voter and party preferences Pro-female Pro-weak and disabled Pro-neutrality Pro-international rights Pro-environment (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Served in military −0.418* −0.334 −0.231 −0.376 0.048 −0.290 0.577** 0.636 0.662*** 0.395 (0.216) (0.229) (0.190) (0.330) (0.392) (0.288) (0.238) (0.389) (0.222) (0.262) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.156 0.311 (0.306) (0.300) Proposal pro-female 0.912*** 1.431*** (0.276) (0.283) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.134 0.100 (0.296) (0.341) Proposal pro-weak and disabled −0.558*** −1.626*** (0.180) (0.343) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.834* 1.310*** (0.447) (0.396) Proposal pro-neutrality −0.869** −1.029** (0.399) (0.439) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −1.301** −1.279* (0.570) (0.694) Proposal pro-international rights 0.446 0.256 (0.405) (0.522) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-environment) −1.182*** −1.142*** (0.254) (0.267) Proposal pro-environment 0.286* −0.661*** (0.155) (0.232) Constituency preferences yes 1.789*** 1.313** 0.943 6.605*** 5.655*** 6.119*** 0.942 1.628 2.409*** 6.381*** (0.536) (0.593) (0.673) (1.658) (0.645) (0.713) (0.601) (1.022) (0.497) (0.990) Party preferences yes 4.879*** 5.005*** 4.441*** 5.646*** 5.211*** 5.669*** 5.455*** 6.441*** 3.772*** 4.224*** (0.115) (0.138) (0.194) (0.453) (0.249) (0.258) (0.339) (0.372) (0.101) (0.190) Is female 0.075 −0.180 −0.121 −0.355 −0.182 (0.138) (0.239) (0.155) (0.283) (0.119) Age −1.2e-03 (0.055) −0.019 (0.083) 0.070 (0.075) 0.024 (0.079) 0.033 (0.063) Age squared −2.1e-05 5.8e-05 −6.4e-04 −1.1e-04 −4.2e-04 (5.7e-04) (8.3e-04) (6.9e-04) (7.7e-04) (6.3e-04) Time in parliament 0.020 −0.040 −0.046 −0.154* 0.063* (0.028) (0.037) (0.046) (0.091) (0.033) Time in parliament squared −9.5e-04 3.4e-03 2.1e-03 5.9e-03 −3.8e-03*** (1.3e-03) (2.3e-03) (2.4e-03) (4.2e-03) (1.3e-03) Has children −0.131 −0.016 −0.293 −0.137 0.105 (0.132) (0.242) (0.261) (0.224) (0.134) Is married −1.1e-03 0.066 0.018 0.295 0.105 (0.097) (0.162) (0.130) (0.251) (0.105) Has master or doctoral degree 0.220 −0.259 0.033 −0.035 0.031 (0.136) (0.210) (0.229) (0.160) (0.143) Party group FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Constituency FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Time/legislature FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes (Pseudo) R2 0.780 0.794 0.668 0.813 0.804 0.821 0.804 0.829 0.613 0.643 Brier score 0.067 0.063 0.099 0.058 0.062 0.057 0.060 0.056 0.116 0.110 Number of observations 5822 5753 1816 1760 3307 3228 1601 1586 2904 2868 Discrete effect of interaction term 0.024 0.021 −0.016 −5.4e-03 0.045** 0.050* −0.110** −0.013 −0.197*** −0.254*** (0.017) (0.014) (0.018) (8.6e-03) (0.022) (0.030) (0.054) (9.5e-03) (0.043) (0.063) Pro-female Pro-weak and disabled Pro-neutrality Pro-international rights Pro-environment (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Served in military −0.418* −0.334 −0.231 −0.376 0.048 −0.290 0.577** 0.636 0.662*** 0.395 (0.216) (0.229) (0.190) (0.330) (0.392) (0.288) (0.238) (0.389) (0.222) (0.262) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.156 0.311 (0.306) (0.300) Proposal pro-female 0.912*** 1.431*** (0.276) (0.283) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.134 0.100 (0.296) (0.341) Proposal pro-weak and disabled −0.558*** −1.626*** (0.180) (0.343) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.834* 1.310*** (0.447) (0.396) Proposal pro-neutrality −0.869** −1.029** (0.399) (0.439) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −1.301** −1.279* (0.570) (0.694) Proposal pro-international rights 0.446 0.256 (0.405) (0.522) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-environment) −1.182*** −1.142*** (0.254) (0.267) Proposal pro-environment 0.286* −0.661*** (0.155) (0.232) Constituency preferences yes 1.789*** 1.313** 0.943 6.605*** 5.655*** 6.119*** 0.942 1.628 2.409*** 6.381*** (0.536) (0.593) (0.673) (1.658) (0.645) (0.713) (0.601) (1.022) (0.497) (0.990) Party preferences yes 4.879*** 5.005*** 4.441*** 5.646*** 5.211*** 5.669*** 5.455*** 6.441*** 3.772*** 4.224*** (0.115) (0.138) (0.194) (0.453) (0.249) (0.258) (0.339) (0.372) (0.101) (0.190) Is female 0.075 −0.180 −0.121 −0.355 −0.182 (0.138) (0.239) (0.155) (0.283) (0.119) Age −1.2e-03 (0.055) −0.019 (0.083) 0.070 (0.075) 0.024 (0.079) 0.033 (0.063) Age squared −2.1e-05 5.8e-05 −6.4e-04 −1.1e-04 −4.2e-04 (5.7e-04) (8.3e-04) (6.9e-04) (7.7e-04) (6.3e-04) Time in parliament 0.020 −0.040 −0.046 −0.154* 0.063* (0.028) (0.037) (0.046) (0.091) (0.033) Time in parliament squared −9.5e-04 3.4e-03 2.1e-03 5.9e-03 −3.8e-03*** (1.3e-03) (2.3e-03) (2.4e-03) (4.2e-03) (1.3e-03) Has children −0.131 −0.016 −0.293 −0.137 0.105 (0.132) (0.242) (0.261) (0.224) (0.134) Is married −1.1e-03 0.066 0.018 0.295 0.105 (0.097) (0.162) (0.130) (0.251) (0.105) Has master or doctoral degree 0.220 −0.259 0.033 −0.035 0.031 (0.136) (0.210) (0.229) (0.160) (0.143) Party group FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Constituency FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Time/legislature FE No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes (Pseudo) R2 0.780 0.794 0.668 0.813 0.804 0.821 0.804 0.829 0.613 0.643 Brier score 0.067 0.063 0.099 0.058 0.062 0.057 0.060 0.056 0.116 0.110 Number of observations 5822 5753 1816 1760 3307 3228 1601 1586 2904 2868 Discrete effect of interaction term 0.024 0.021 −0.016 −5.4e-03 0.045** 0.050* −0.110** −0.013 −0.197*** −0.254*** (0.017) (0.014) (0.018) (8.6e-03) (0.022) (0.030) (0.054) (9.5e-03) (0.043) (0.063) Notes: The dependent variable for all estimations is MPYesir. Logit estimations are reported throughout the table. Robust standard error estimates for constituencies are reported throughout the table. The discrete effect (DE) of the interaction term represents the difference between cross-differences when all other control variables are evaluated at their median value (see Ai and Norton 2003; Puhani 2012). ***, **, and * indicate a mean significance level of <1%, 1–5%, and 5–10%, respectively. Specifications (1) and (2) analyze voting patterns of politicians who served in the military in comparison to those who did not serve in the military with respect to female issues as identified by the voting recommendation by Alliance F. We do not observe any significant interaction term. This suggests that politicians who served in the military are neither more pro nor more against female issues once controlling for constituents’ preferences and party ideological preferences.20 Thus, serving in the military is not associated with any differential voting pattern on female issues. In particular, the sometimes-stated potential chauvinistic tendencies associated with the army are not relevant for parliamentary voting for the sample analyzed. A similar pattern is observed when looking at the interaction between military service and pro-weak and disabled policies as identified by the voting recommendations of the Association of weak and disabled citizens (AVIVO) in Specifications (3) and (4). Having served in the military does not change the values of politicians regarding disadvantaged groups, at least not when voting patterns on actual issues affecting these groups are analyzed. We observe a statistically significant interaction term for politicians who served in the military and proposals which are pro-neutrality as identified by the Association for an independent and neutral Switzerland (AUNS) in Specifications (5) and (6). This suggests that serving in the military is associated with voting more pro-neutrality. There is a common understanding among numerous citizens who served in the military that the army is a protector of neutrality. Therefore, we suspect the close link between Swiss neutrality and having a strong army to be a potential explanation for this result. We calculate discrete effects for the interaction terms (following Ai and Norton 2003 and Puhani 2012) which can be interpreted as percentage changes in the likelihood to vote ‘yes’ of a politician. Politicians who have served in the military are between 4.5 and 5.0 percentage points more likely to support a pro-neutrality proposition compared to non-serving politicians. We look at policy proposals affecting international human rights as identified by Amnesty International in Specifications (7) and (8) and observe a negative interaction term. Accordingly, politicians who served in the military are less likely to vote pro-international rights. Similarly to the support of neutrality, we suspect that particularly men who served in the military are skeptical regarding an inclusion of international jurisdiction and might try to preserve national self-rule. The discrete effects are large and point to approximately −11.0 percentage points.21 Finally, politicians who have served in the military service do not tend to support environmental policies as identified by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to the same extent as politicians who did not serve as evidenced in Specifications (9) and (10). The interaction term between (Served in the military) and (Proposal pro-environment) is negative and significant. The discrete effects suggest that politicians who have served in the military are between 19.7 to 25.4 percentage points less likely to accept a proposal which is pro-environment than politicians who did not serve. This is a surprising association, given that this effect is independent of party ideology. We will later show that it is mainly due to officers and noncommissioned officers (NCO) and speculate that motivation for the military correlates with a more skeptical stance on the environment independent of other ideological believes. In summary, we do not have any indication that having served in the military systematically affects voting on female issues and issues related to the weak and disabled in society. At the same time, there is some evidence that politicians who served in the military tend to vote for neutrality, and against an extension of international rights policies as well as against policies that are classified as pro-environment. All results are independent of constituent preferences, the party’s ideological position on the specific issue as well as party fixed effects and other control variables. We note that all results remain qualitatively the same and quantitatively similar when estimating a linear probability model (see Supplementary Table A2). Moreover, when estimating separate samples of older (above or equal median age of sample) and younger (below median age of sample) politicians, we find similar results, too. Thus, our overall interpretations do not change (see Supplementary Table A3).22 4.2 Robustness—controlling for within-party position and right-wing politicians In Specifications (1)–(5) in Table 2, we take account of a measure for intra-party positions of politicians. Exploiting differences in the ideology of politicians of the same parties to explain their individual voting behavior is seldom performed in the literature: commonly, authors only control for party affiliation. We use the variable right-leaning within party and interact it with the voting recommendation of our respective organization which issues voting recommendations, and analyze the influence of within-party ideology on voting. The estimates indicate that our baseline results remain broadly robust even when taking account of the intra-party ideological position of politicians. Right-leaning within party has an insignificant interaction term with pro-female and pro-weak and disabled issues, a positive interaction term with pro-neutrality and a negative interaction term with pro-international rights and pro-environment proposals. Politicians who have served in the military are neither more nor less likely to vote against pro-female and pro-weak and disabled policies compared to politicians who did not serve in the military. We observe that politicians who served in the army are more likely to support pro-neutral policies, and they tend to be against pro-environmental policies, holding all other factors and in particular voter preferences and party ideology constant. Only for proposals which are pro-international rights the earlier negative interaction term turns statistically insignificant. Table 2. Military service and voting when controlling for within party positions Taking account of position within party Without MPs from right parties (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Served in military −0.303 −0.411 −0.068 0.574 0.148 −0.636* −0.051 0.070 0.331 0.322 (0.233) (0.339) (0.277) (0.434) (0.274) (0.366) (0.368) (0.334) (0.513) (0.307) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.421 0.511* (0.285) (0.305) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-female) −0.150 (0.137) Proposal pro-female 1.379*** 1.603*** (0.246) (0.313) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.200 −0.533 (0.357) (0.618) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.249 (0.190) Proposal pro-weak and disabled −1.741*** −1.763*** (0.317) (0.448) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.631** 0.483 (0.301) (0.453) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.874*** (0.132) Proposal pro-neutrality −0.528*** −0.816*** (0.204) (0.230) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.467 −1.201* (0.727) (0.655) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.939*** (0.175) Proposal pro-international rights −0.229 −0.259 (0.601) (0.731) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.725*** −1.084*** (0.269) (0.322) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.642*** (0.140) Proposal pro-environment −0.986*** −0.263 (0.278) (0.283) Right-leaning within party −0.185** −0.034 −0.275*** 0.180** 0.495*** (0.085) (0.131) (0.078) (0.090) (0.105) Constituency preferences yes 1.315** 6.311*** 6.448*** 1.260 6.559*** −0.714 6.583*** 5.377*** −0.240 9.195*** (0.622) (1.753) (0.849) (1.086) (1.046) (1.007) (2.065) (0.880) (1.085) (1.076) Party preferences yes 5.107*** 5.732*** 6.234*** 6.939*** 4.282*** 5.797*** 6.606*** 6.164*** 6.128*** 3.749*** (0.119) (0.489) (0.293) (0.398) (0.207) (0.191) (0.776) (0.476) (0.723) (0.141) Other characteristics and Party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (Pseudo) R2 0.062 0.056 0.052 0.055 0.105 0.046 0.051 0.041 0.066 0.107 Brier score 0.062 0.056 0.052 0.055 0.105 0.046 0.051 0.041 0.066 0.107 Number of observations 5669 1746 3193 1568 2831 4228 1242 2354 1096 2100 Taking account of position within party Without MPs from right parties (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Served in military −0.303 −0.411 −0.068 0.574 0.148 −0.636* −0.051 0.070 0.331 0.322 (0.233) (0.339) (0.277) (0.434) (0.274) (0.366) (0.368) (0.334) (0.513) (0.307) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.421 0.511* (0.285) (0.305) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-female) −0.150 (0.137) Proposal pro-female 1.379*** 1.603*** (0.246) (0.313) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.200 −0.533 (0.357) (0.618) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.249 (0.190) Proposal pro-weak and disabled −1.741*** −1.763*** (0.317) (0.448) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.631** 0.483 (0.301) (0.453) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.874*** (0.132) Proposal pro-neutrality −0.528*** −0.816*** (0.204) (0.230) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.467 −1.201* (0.727) (0.655) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.939*** (0.175) Proposal pro-international rights −0.229 −0.259 (0.601) (0.731) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.725*** −1.084*** (0.269) (0.322) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.642*** (0.140) Proposal pro-environment −0.986*** −0.263 (0.278) (0.283) Right-leaning within party −0.185** −0.034 −0.275*** 0.180** 0.495*** (0.085) (0.131) (0.078) (0.090) (0.105) Constituency preferences yes 1.315** 6.311*** 6.448*** 1.260 6.559*** −0.714 6.583*** 5.377*** −0.240 9.195*** (0.622) (1.753) (0.849) (1.086) (1.046) (1.007) (2.065) (0.880) (1.085) (1.076) Party preferences yes 5.107*** 5.732*** 6.234*** 6.939*** 4.282*** 5.797*** 6.606*** 6.164*** 6.128*** 3.749*** (0.119) (0.489) (0.293) (0.398) (0.207) (0.191) (0.776) (0.476) (0.723) (0.141) Other characteristics and Party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (Pseudo) R2 0.062 0.056 0.052 0.055 0.105 0.046 0.051 0.041 0.066 0.107 Brier score 0.062 0.056 0.052 0.055 0.105 0.046 0.051 0.041 0.066 0.107 Number of observations 5669 1746 3193 1568 2831 4228 1242 2354 1096 2100 Notes: The dependent variable for all estimations is MPYesir. Logit estimations are reported throughout the table. Robust standard error estimates for constituencies are reported throughout the table. Other characteristics include all control variables employed in Table 1. ***, **, and * indicate a mean significance level of <1%, 1–5%, and 5–10%, respectively. Table 2. Military service and voting when controlling for within party positions Taking account of position within party Without MPs from right parties (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Served in military −0.303 −0.411 −0.068 0.574 0.148 −0.636* −0.051 0.070 0.331 0.322 (0.233) (0.339) (0.277) (0.434) (0.274) (0.366) (0.368) (0.334) (0.513) (0.307) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.421 0.511* (0.285) (0.305) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-female) −0.150 (0.137) Proposal pro-female 1.379*** 1.603*** (0.246) (0.313) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.200 −0.533 (0.357) (0.618) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.249 (0.190) Proposal pro-weak and disabled −1.741*** −1.763*** (0.317) (0.448) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.631** 0.483 (0.301) (0.453) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.874*** (0.132) Proposal pro-neutrality −0.528*** −0.816*** (0.204) (0.230) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.467 −1.201* (0.727) (0.655) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.939*** (0.175) Proposal pro-international rights −0.229 −0.259 (0.601) (0.731) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.725*** −1.084*** (0.269) (0.322) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.642*** (0.140) Proposal pro-environment −0.986*** −0.263 (0.278) (0.283) Right-leaning within party −0.185** −0.034 −0.275*** 0.180** 0.495*** (0.085) (0.131) (0.078) (0.090) (0.105) Constituency preferences yes 1.315** 6.311*** 6.448*** 1.260 6.559*** −0.714 6.583*** 5.377*** −0.240 9.195*** (0.622) (1.753) (0.849) (1.086) (1.046) (1.007) (2.065) (0.880) (1.085) (1.076) Party preferences yes 5.107*** 5.732*** 6.234*** 6.939*** 4.282*** 5.797*** 6.606*** 6.164*** 6.128*** 3.749*** (0.119) (0.489) (0.293) (0.398) (0.207) (0.191) (0.776) (0.476) (0.723) (0.141) Other characteristics and Party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (Pseudo) R2 0.062 0.056 0.052 0.055 0.105 0.046 0.051 0.041 0.066 0.107 Brier score 0.062 0.056 0.052 0.055 0.105 0.046 0.051 0.041 0.066 0.107 Number of observations 5669 1746 3193 1568 2831 4228 1242 2354 1096 2100 Taking account of position within party Without MPs from right parties (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Served in military −0.303 −0.411 −0.068 0.574 0.148 −0.636* −0.051 0.070 0.331 0.322 (0.233) (0.339) (0.277) (0.434) (0.274) (0.366) (0.368) (0.334) (0.513) (0.307) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.421 0.511* (0.285) (0.305) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-female) −0.150 (0.137) Proposal pro-female 1.379*** 1.603*** (0.246) (0.313) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.200 −0.533 (0.357) (0.618) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.249 (0.190) Proposal pro-weak and disabled −1.741*** −1.763*** (0.317) (0.448) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.631** 0.483 (0.301) (0.453) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.874*** (0.132) Proposal pro-neutrality −0.528*** −0.816*** (0.204) (0.230) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.467 −1.201* (0.727) (0.655) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.939*** (0.175) Proposal pro-international rights −0.229 −0.259 (0.601) (0.731) (Served in military)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.725*** −1.084*** (0.269) (0.322) (Right-leaning within party)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.642*** (0.140) Proposal pro-environment −0.986*** −0.263 (0.278) (0.283) Right-leaning within party −0.185** −0.034 −0.275*** 0.180** 0.495*** (0.085) (0.131) (0.078) (0.090) (0.105) Constituency preferences yes 1.315** 6.311*** 6.448*** 1.260 6.559*** −0.714 6.583*** 5.377*** −0.240 9.195*** (0.622) (1.753) (0.849) (1.086) (1.046) (1.007) (2.065) (0.880) (1.085) (1.076) Party preferences yes 5.107*** 5.732*** 6.234*** 6.939*** 4.282*** 5.797*** 6.606*** 6.164*** 6.128*** 3.749*** (0.119) (0.489) (0.293) (0.398) (0.207) (0.191) (0.776) (0.476) (0.723) (0.141) Other characteristics and Party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (Pseudo) R2 0.062 0.056 0.052 0.055 0.105 0.046 0.051 0.041 0.066 0.107 Brier score 0.062 0.056 0.052 0.055 0.105 0.046 0.051 0.041 0.066 0.107 Number of observations 5669 1746 3193 1568 2831 4228 1242 2354 1096 2100 Notes: The dependent variable for all estimations is MPYesir. Logit estimations are reported throughout the table. Robust standard error estimates for constituencies are reported throughout the table. Other characteristics include all control variables employed in Table 1. ***, **, and * indicate a mean significance level of <1%, 1–5%, and 5–10%, respectively. Going one step further to rule out the influence of right-wing ideology, we only look at politicians from left and center parties in Specifications (6)–(10), as politicians who served in the military might rather affiliate with right-wing parties. Again, our baseline results remain relatively robust for this subsample. We do not observe any change in the sign of the coefficients. Interestingly, the interaction term between (Served in the military) and (Proposal pro-female) turns marginally significant (i.e. politicians who served tend to support pro-female propositions), while the interaction term between (Served in the military) and (Proposal pro-neutrality) loses significance. 4.3 Refinements—military ranks and voting with party or government We provide refinements of our analyses in Tables 3 and 4 with a linear probability model.23 We always include all constituent terms of the interaction. Table 3. Refinements—exploiting military ranks Taking account of rank in military Taking account of rank and gender (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.037* 0.058*** (0.020) (0.020) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.024 0.045 (0.031) (0.034) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-female) 6.4e-04 0.022 (0.031) (0.028) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.047** (0.021) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −9.6e-03 0.016 (0.034) (0.039) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.055 −0.030 (0.058) (0.062) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.013 0.039 (0.038) (0.051) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.048 (0.038) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.025 −4.0e-03 (0.036) (0.031) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.123*** 0.094** (0.041) (0.042) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.069* 0.040 (0.038) (0.034) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) −0.066*** (0.023) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.081* −0.058 (0.046) (0.054) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.079 −0.057 (0.106) (0.108) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.061* −0.038 (0.032) (0.035) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-international rights) 0.047 (0.052) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.174*** −0.127*** (0.048) (0.037) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.218*** −0.170*** (0.050) (0.050) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.086** −0.037 (0.042) (0.049) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-environment) 0.102** (0.044) Constituent terms of interaction Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency preferences yes 0.083** 0.481*** 0.418*** 0.094* 0.634*** 0.084** 0.490*** 0.421*** 0.098* 0.632*** (0.034) (0.106) (0.042) (0.049) (0.103) (0.034) (0.103) (0.042) (0.050) (0.102) Party preferences yes 0.774*** 0.714*** 0.796*** 0.870*** 0.710*** 0.774*** 0.712*** 0.793*** 0.867*** 0.705*** (0.013) (0.019) (0.021) (0.016) (0.015) (0.013) (0.019) (0.022) (0.016) (0.016) Other characteristics and party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Adjusted R2 0.729 0.669 0.751 0.771 0.555 0.730 0.669 0.752 0.771 0.556 Number of observations 5753 1760 3228 1586 2868 5753 1760 3228 1586 2868 Taking account of rank in military Taking account of rank and gender (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.037* 0.058*** (0.020) (0.020) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.024 0.045 (0.031) (0.034) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-female) 6.4e-04 0.022 (0.031) (0.028) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.047** (0.021) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −9.6e-03 0.016 (0.034) (0.039) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.055 −0.030 (0.058) (0.062) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.013 0.039 (0.038) (0.051) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.048 (0.038) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.025 −4.0e-03 (0.036) (0.031) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.123*** 0.094** (0.041) (0.042) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.069* 0.040 (0.038) (0.034) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) −0.066*** (0.023) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.081* −0.058 (0.046) (0.054) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.079 −0.057 (0.106) (0.108) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.061* −0.038 (0.032) (0.035) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-international rights) 0.047 (0.052) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.174*** −0.127*** (0.048) (0.037) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.218*** −0.170*** (0.050) (0.050) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.086** −0.037 (0.042) (0.049) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-environment) 0.102** (0.044) Constituent terms of interaction Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency preferences yes 0.083** 0.481*** 0.418*** 0.094* 0.634*** 0.084** 0.490*** 0.421*** 0.098* 0.632*** (0.034) (0.106) (0.042) (0.049) (0.103) (0.034) (0.103) (0.042) (0.050) (0.102) Party preferences yes 0.774*** 0.714*** 0.796*** 0.870*** 0.710*** 0.774*** 0.712*** 0.793*** 0.867*** 0.705*** (0.013) (0.019) (0.021) (0.016) (0.015) (0.013) (0.019) (0.022) (0.016) (0.016) Other characteristics and party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Adjusted R2 0.729 0.669 0.751 0.771 0.555 0.730 0.669 0.752 0.771 0.556 Number of observations 5753 1760 3228 1586 2868 5753 1760 3228 1586 2868 Notes: The dependent variable for all estimations is MPYesir. Linear probability models are reported throughout the table. Robust standard error estimates for constituencies are reported throughout the table. Other characteristics include all control variables employed in Table 1. ***, **, and * indicate a mean significance level of <1%, 1–5%, and 5–10%, respectively. Table 3. Refinements—exploiting military ranks Taking account of rank in military Taking account of rank and gender (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.037* 0.058*** (0.020) (0.020) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.024 0.045 (0.031) (0.034) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-female) 6.4e-04 0.022 (0.031) (0.028) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.047** (0.021) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −9.6e-03 0.016 (0.034) (0.039) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.055 −0.030 (0.058) (0.062) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.013 0.039 (0.038) (0.051) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.048 (0.038) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.025 −4.0e-03 (0.036) (0.031) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.123*** 0.094** (0.041) (0.042) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.069* 0.040 (0.038) (0.034) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) −0.066*** (0.023) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.081* −0.058 (0.046) (0.054) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.079 −0.057 (0.106) (0.108) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.061* −0.038 (0.032) (0.035) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-international rights) 0.047 (0.052) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.174*** −0.127*** (0.048) (0.037) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.218*** −0.170*** (0.050) (0.050) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.086** −0.037 (0.042) (0.049) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-environment) 0.102** (0.044) Constituent terms of interaction Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency preferences yes 0.083** 0.481*** 0.418*** 0.094* 0.634*** 0.084** 0.490*** 0.421*** 0.098* 0.632*** (0.034) (0.106) (0.042) (0.049) (0.103) (0.034) (0.103) (0.042) (0.050) (0.102) Party preferences yes 0.774*** 0.714*** 0.796*** 0.870*** 0.710*** 0.774*** 0.712*** 0.793*** 0.867*** 0.705*** (0.013) (0.019) (0.021) (0.016) (0.015) (0.013) (0.019) (0.022) (0.016) (0.016) Other characteristics and party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Adjusted R2 0.729 0.669 0.751 0.771 0.555 0.730 0.669 0.752 0.771 0.556 Number of observations 5753 1760 3228 1586 2868 5753 1760 3228 1586 2868 Taking account of rank in military Taking account of rank and gender (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.037* 0.058*** (0.020) (0.020) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.024 0.045 (0.031) (0.034) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-female) 6.4e-04 0.022 (0.031) (0.028) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-female) 0.047** (0.021) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −9.6e-03 0.016 (0.034) (0.039) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) −0.055 −0.030 (0.058) (0.062) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.013 0.039 (0.038) (0.051) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-weak and disabled) 0.048 (0.038) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.025 −4.0e-03 (0.036) (0.031) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.123*** 0.094** (0.041) (0.042) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) 0.069* 0.040 (0.038) (0.034) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-neutrality) −0.066*** (0.023) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.081* −0.058 (0.046) (0.054) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.079 −0.057 (0.106) (0.108) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-international rights) −0.061* −0.038 (0.032) (0.035) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-international rights) 0.047 (0.052) (Served as officer)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.174*** −0.127*** (0.048) (0.037) (Serves as NCO)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.218*** −0.170*** (0.050) (0.050) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Proposal pro-environment) −0.086** −0.037 (0.042) (0.049) (Is female)* (Proposal pro-environment) 0.102** (0.044) Constituent terms of interaction Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency preferences yes 0.083** 0.481*** 0.418*** 0.094* 0.634*** 0.084** 0.490*** 0.421*** 0.098* 0.632*** (0.034) (0.106) (0.042) (0.049) (0.103) (0.034) (0.103) (0.042) (0.050) (0.102) Party preferences yes 0.774*** 0.714*** 0.796*** 0.870*** 0.710*** 0.774*** 0.712*** 0.793*** 0.867*** 0.705*** (0.013) (0.019) (0.021) (0.016) (0.015) (0.013) (0.019) (0.022) (0.016) (0.016) Other characteristics and party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Adjusted R2 0.729 0.669 0.751 0.771 0.555 0.730 0.669 0.752 0.771 0.556 Number of observations 5753 1760 3228 1586 2868 5753 1760 3228 1586 2868 Notes: The dependent variable for all estimations is MPYesir. Linear probability models are reported throughout the table. Robust standard error estimates for constituencies are reported throughout the table. Other characteristics include all control variables employed in Table 1. ***, **, and * indicate a mean significance level of <1%, 1–5%, and 5–10%, respectively. Table 4. Refinements—exploring party preferences and government recommendations Party preferences Government/parliament recommendatoin (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (Served in military)* (Party preferences yes) 0.025* −3.6e-03 (0.015) (0.013) (Served as officer)* (Party preferences yes) 9.6e-03 (0.018) (Serves as NCO)* (Party preferences yes) −0.012 (0.034) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Party preferences yes) 0.027 (0.020) (Is female)* (Party preferences yes) 0.040** (0.019) (Served in military)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 1.2e-04 0.015 (0.016) (0.015) (Served as officer)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.057** (0.023) (Serves as NCO)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.011 (0.027) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.027 (0.029) (Is female)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.049*** (0.018) (Right-leaning within party)* (Party preferences yes) 0.039*** 0.040*** (6.9e-03) (6.6e-03) (Right-leaning within party)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) −0.023** −0.023** (0.011) (0.011) Constituent terms of interaction Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency preferences yes 0.203*** 0.200*** 0.201*** 0.054** 0.053** 0.053** (0.018) (0.019) (0.019) (0.022) (0.023) (0.023) Party preferences yes 0.767*** 0.781*** 0.763*** 0.756*** 0.758*** 0.758*** (0.013) (9.0e-03) (0.014) (0.012) (0.011) (0.011) Other characteristics and party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Adjusted R2 0.649 0.654 0.655 0.658 0.659 0.660 Number of observations 11,954 11,813 11,813 11,954 11,813 11,813 Party preferences Government/parliament recommendatoin (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (Served in military)* (Party preferences yes) 0.025* −3.6e-03 (0.015) (0.013) (Served as officer)* (Party preferences yes) 9.6e-03 (0.018) (Serves as NCO)* (Party preferences yes) −0.012 (0.034) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Party preferences yes) 0.027 (0.020) (Is female)* (Party preferences yes) 0.040** (0.019) (Served in military)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 1.2e-04 0.015 (0.016) (0.015) (Served as officer)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.057** (0.023) (Serves as NCO)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.011 (0.027) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.027 (0.029) (Is female)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.049*** (0.018) (Right-leaning within party)* (Party preferences yes) 0.039*** 0.040*** (6.9e-03) (6.6e-03) (Right-leaning within party)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) −0.023** −0.023** (0.011) (0.011) Constituent terms of interaction Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency preferences yes 0.203*** 0.200*** 0.201*** 0.054** 0.053** 0.053** (0.018) (0.019) (0.019) (0.022) (0.023) (0.023) Party preferences yes 0.767*** 0.781*** 0.763*** 0.756*** 0.758*** 0.758*** (0.013) (9.0e-03) (0.014) (0.012) (0.011) (0.011) Other characteristics and party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Adjusted R2 0.649 0.654 0.655 0.658 0.659 0.660 Number of observations 11,954 11,813 11,813 11,954 11,813 11,813 Notes: The dependent variable for all estimations is MPYesir. Linear probability models are reported throughout the table. Robust standard error estimates for constituencies are reported throughout the table. Other characteristics include all control variables employed in Table 1. ***, **, and * indicate a mean significance level of <1%, 1–5%, and 5–10%, respectively. Table 4. Refinements—exploring party preferences and government recommendations Party preferences Government/parliament recommendatoin (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (Served in military)* (Party preferences yes) 0.025* −3.6e-03 (0.015) (0.013) (Served as officer)* (Party preferences yes) 9.6e-03 (0.018) (Serves as NCO)* (Party preferences yes) −0.012 (0.034) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Party preferences yes) 0.027 (0.020) (Is female)* (Party preferences yes) 0.040** (0.019) (Served in military)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 1.2e-04 0.015 (0.016) (0.015) (Served as officer)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.057** (0.023) (Serves as NCO)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.011 (0.027) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.027 (0.029) (Is female)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.049*** (0.018) (Right-leaning within party)* (Party preferences yes) 0.039*** 0.040*** (6.9e-03) (6.6e-03) (Right-leaning within party)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) −0.023** −0.023** (0.011) (0.011) Constituent terms of interaction Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency preferences yes 0.203*** 0.200*** 0.201*** 0.054** 0.053** 0.053** (0.018) (0.019) (0.019) (0.022) (0.023) (0.023) Party preferences yes 0.767*** 0.781*** 0.763*** 0.756*** 0.758*** 0.758*** (0.013) (9.0e-03) (0.014) (0.012) (0.011) (0.011) Other characteristics and party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Adjusted R2 0.649 0.654 0.655 0.658 0.659 0.660 Number of observations 11,954 11,813 11,813 11,954 11,813 11,813 Party preferences Government/parliament recommendatoin (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (Served in military)* (Party preferences yes) 0.025* −3.6e-03 (0.015) (0.013) (Served as officer)* (Party preferences yes) 9.6e-03 (0.018) (Serves as NCO)* (Party preferences yes) −0.012 (0.034) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Party preferences yes) 0.027 (0.020) (Is female)* (Party preferences yes) 0.040** (0.019) (Served in military)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 1.2e-04 0.015 (0.016) (0.015) (Served as officer)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.057** (0.023) (Serves as NCO)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.011 (0.027) (Serves in soldier ranks)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.027 (0.029) (Is female)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) 0.049*** (0.018) (Right-leaning within party)* (Party preferences yes) 0.039*** 0.040*** (6.9e-03) (6.6e-03) (Right-leaning within party)* (Government/parliament suggests yes) −0.023** −0.023** (0.011) (0.011) Constituent terms of interaction Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency preferences yes 0.203*** 0.200*** 0.201*** 0.054** 0.053** 0.053** (0.018) (0.019) (0.019) (0.022) (0.023) (0.023) Party preferences yes 0.767*** 0.781*** 0.763*** 0.756*** 0.758*** 0.758*** (0.013) (9.0e-03) (0.014) (0.012) (0.011) (0.011) Other characteristics and party group FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Constituency FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Time/legislature FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Adjusted R2 0.649 0.654 0.655 0.658 0.659 0.660 Number of observations 11,954 11,813 11,813 11,954 11,813 11,813 Notes: The dependent variable for all estimations is MPYesir. Linear probability models are reported throughout the table. Robust standard error estimates for constituencies are reported throughout the table. Other characteristics include all control variables employed in Table 1. ***, **, and * indicate a mean significance level of <1%, 1–5%, and 5–10%, respectively. Table 3 starts by analyzing military ranks in Specifications (1)–(5). Conscription is compulsory in Switzerland such that all able-bodied man have to serve in theory. However, advancing to higher military ranks depends on selection and personal motivation (see Bachman et al. 2000; Stadelmann et al. 2015).24 Moreover, it should be noted that conscription may be avoided by trying to be classified as incapable for military service. Thus, even in the case of conscription, motivation for the military could play a substantial role. This implies that our results so far results should not be interpreted as the effect of conscription which prevails for over 30 years with respect to societal decisions. But they show that politicians who have served in the military act differently in parliament regarding some societal policies. Our setting allows us to explore whether the observed differences in behavior of politicians were also driven by motivation for the military. To do so, we explore differences in military ranks. Supposing that all able-bodied men are conscripted, serving as a soldier can be seen as a potential effect of conscription. However, advancing to higher military ranks is rather due to personal motivation.25 Numerous politicians in our sample have served in higher ranks than the soldier ranks. To analyze differences between compulsory military service and selection due to motivation to higher military ranks, we distinguish politicians who chose to advance in the military, namely, officers and noncommissioned officers (NCO) from those who only served as soldiers due to conscription.26 Our results show that both compulsory service and motivation are likely to play some role when politicians who served in the military vote in parliament on societal issues. We find the following four interesting patterns: (i) officers are statistically significantly more supportive of pro-female issues than politicians who did not serve in the military. (ii) Military ranks and military service in general are almost certainly not related with differential voting patterns on proposal pro-weak and disabled. (iii) Noncommissioned officers and soldiers are more pro-neutrality than officers and politicians who did not serve in the military. (iv) Officers and noncommissioned officers are less likely to support pro-environment proposals than politicians who have served in the soldier ranks and politicians who have not served at all. We further explore the heterogeneity of the findings regarding personal characteristics in Specifications (6)–(10). We interact the policy proposals with another factor, namely, a politician’s sex. We do this to analyze differences between men and women, as women do not have to serve in the military and no women in our sample has military experience. Again, our overall results do not change systematically, but four interesting findings emerge: (i) female politicians seem to be no different to officers when voting on female issues. In fact, officers and female politicians have a higher probability to support pro-female policies than all other politicians. (ii) Female politicians are less likely to support pro-neutrality proposals. (iii) Officers and noncommissioned officers oppose pro-environment policies, while females support pro-environment policies more than men who did not serve. (iv) Politicians who served in the soldier ranks are not different to men who did not serve, but both groups are different to female politicians on proposals regarding females, neutrality, and the environment. Note that when estimating a sample of only male politicians, that is, excluding women from the sample entirely, we find similar results again (see Supplementary Table A4). The fact that politicians who only served as soldiers are comparable to men who did not serve at all points to the role of motivation to achieve higher military ranks instead of an effect of conscription: having to perform compulsory service and not advancing in the military due to personal motivation does not systematically affect later voting behavior on different societal issues. Thus the results do not suggest any systematic socialization of men serving due to conscription in comparison to men who did not serve. On the other hand, men who advanced in the military were motivated to do so, and this motivation may be related to their later voting behavior. Thus, the results are driven rather by motivation for the military than by compulsory military service, which is consistent with Bachman et al. (2000) and Stadelmann et al. (2015). In Table 4 we further extend our explorative analysis by two potential differences between politicians who served and those who did not serve in the military. In Specifications (1)–(3) we analyze, whether politicians who served in the military tend to follow more closely their respective party ideology, that is, we interact the identifier for (Served in military) with (Party preferences yes). Once accounting for right-leaning within party (Specifications 2 and 3), we do not find any differential effect of party ideology on politicians who served in the military in comparison to politicians who did not serve in the military. Interestingly, our results suggest that women have a higher probability of voting along party ideology lines than men. Results are similar when we analyze whether politicians who served in the military have a higher probability to follow the voting recommendation of government and parliament (Specifications 4–6).27 We have no clear evidence of any differential voting behavior with respect to the recommendation of government and parliament for politicians who served in comparison to those who did not serve. There is some indication that women and officers tend to have a higher probability of following these recommendations, however. Altogether, we only find minor differences between politicians who served and those who did not serve with respect to following party ideology and the recommendations of government and parliament. 5. Concluding Remarks How do politicians who have served in the military decide on societal issues? Service in a conscript army is often said to shape the serviceperson’s attitudes toward public affairs, civil society, social skills, and individuals from other socioeconomic backgrounds (see Swiss Federal Department of Defense 2013 for arguments made in Switzerland).28 Therefore, we investigate whether politicians who have served in the military in the past vote differently than their counterparts without such a background on issues affecting females, the weak and disabled, neutrality, international human rights, and the environment. We gain leverage for our analysis by exploiting the Swiss institutional setting of direct democracy: societal organizations give voting recommendations to citizens which allow us to classify different policy proposals decided on by individual representatives into pro- or against the aims of these organizations. At the same time, we observe the preferences of voters who decide in referenda on precisely the same issues. Moreover, we observe official party voting recommendations which we employ as a measure for issue-specific ideological preferences. Our results show that politicians who have served in the military do not systematically vote differently on female issues and issues related to the weak and disabled in society, that is, they are neither more pro- nor more against women and the weak and disabled when controlling for voter preferences and party ideology. We find some evidence that politicians with a past military service vote rather for neutrality, and they tend to vote against the extension of international rights as well as against policies that are classified as pro-environment. Moreover, our results are supportive of the view that prior motivation to advance in the military and the underlying attitudes play a role for later voting behavior on societal issues rather than only conscription per se. As numerous politicians in parliaments around the world have served in the military, either due to conscription or personal motivation, our results highlight that their behavior regarding voting decisions on societal issues tends to be different to politicians who have not served. Thus, military service is a potential indicator for different societal voting behavior of politicians. However, while military service is an indicator, our results suggest that serving in the military due to conscription does not necessarily change future politicians. Rather, those politicians who are pro-military and advance in the military tend to vote differently in some policy fields. Hence, military reforms changing the size or even the existence of a conscript army, and thereby changing the likelihood of having politicians who have served in the military do not necessarily change political outcomes. Footnotes 1 Names like Dwight D. Eisenhower, Charles de Gaulle, or Ariel Sharon come to mind when thinking of political leaders with military experience from democratic states. 2 Take the race between John Kerry and George W. Bush as an example: both served in the armed forces and highlighted that fact during their campaigns, leading to the so-called ‘John Kerry military service controversy’. 3 Such claims are frequently raised in countries with conscript armies (see also Poutvaara and Wagener 2007). A case in point for Switzerland is the arguments made by the Swiss Federal Department of Defense (2013) regarding a referendum on the ‘Abolishment of the conscription’. Similar arguments have been presented to voters in official referendum booklets (see Swiss Confederation 2013). 4 Not controlling for what constituents want regarding specific societal issues might confound the task of politicians to represent their voters with their characteristics that they served in the military. 5 Many authors discuss the effects of referenda on the political process and representation (see Matsusaka 2005; Osborne and Turner 2010; Michel and Cofone 2017). So far, only few scholars use roll call votes or referenda outcomes as measures for constituents’ representation (see Hersch and McDougall 1988; Matsusaka 2010). 6 We do not impute any values neither regarding the decisions of politicians nor regarding voter preferences. We stress this point because in the literature certain values (in particular regarding preferences) are usually approximated or imputed. 7 We draw on the NOMINATE scores computed by Michael Hermann from the institute Sotomo. We then calculated the average NOMINATE scores for all members from the same party block and then subtract this average score from the individual score. 8 Alliance F is the largest Swiss female association and regroups over 140 institutional members, thereby representing over 400,000 women. The association is active in domains such as equality between men and women, family issues, and the like. For further information, see: http://www.alliancef.ch 9 AVIVO is the Swiss association for widows, invalids, the elderly, and orphans. It has been established in 1948. The association has made its name by taking positions in favor of solidarity. Its positions figure in newspaper articles. For further information, see: http://www.avivo-suisse.ch 10 AUNS is the German abbreviation for ‘Association for an independent and neutral Switzerland’. It has been established in 1986. It is often regarded as a relatively right-wing organization. However, there is no doubt that it strongly defends Switzerland’s independence and neutrality. For further information, see: https://auns.ch/ 11 For information on the Swiss section of Amnesty International, see: https://www.amnesty.ch/ 12 For information on the Swiss section of the WWF, see: https://www.wwf.ch/ 13 Our ultimate choice of organizations is linked to the number of voting recommendations they give. 14 Military service is voluntary for women. In our empirical refinements, we take account of women specifically. 15 We show that our main conclusions do not change when restricting the sample to either younger or older politicians such that the different fraction of men conscripted over time is of no substantial relevance for our interpretations. 16 Detailed information on the Swiss military system is provided by Stadelmann et al. (2015) and the Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection, and Sports. 17 In further analyses, we will also analyze different military ranks. 18 Although the literature recognizes the need to control for constituency preferences when analyzing any type of voting on legislative issues, no previous study has used such a direct measure for revealed preferences on the identical policy proposals voted on by politicians when analyzing voting on societal issues of politicians who served in the military. 19 We shift for easier interpretation to a linear probability model when analyzing more interaction terms. In any case, both models provide qualitatively identical and quantitatively similar results (see Table A2). 20 If we did not control for constituents' preferences and party ideology, we would also find an insignificant interaction term. 21 The number of referenda with a voting recommendation by Amnesty International is relatively small, but this corresponds to the actual parliamentary process, i.e. not many proposals are linked to international rights. 22 As today, a lower fraction of men are considered able-bodied and are required to serve in the military than in the past. Splitting the sample insures that our results are not driven by such differences. 23 We employ a linear probability model here to make the coefficients of diverse interaction terms more easily comparable. Our qualitative and quantitative findings do not change systematically when employing a logit model instead. 24 Of course, not every soldier can advance to become a noncommissioned officer or an officer, but it also depends on the army’s willingness to advance the person. Nevertheless, those who advance can be seen as persons who are more motivated for the military, and there tends to be an undersupply of soldiers willing to advance to higher ranks. 25 It might be argued that conscription and later service generates motivation for the military and some soldiers, thus, advance in the military ranks. While this cannot be excluded, such a mechanism may rather be seen as a motivation for the military channel. 26 Of course, all politicians whether having served or not face the same electoral rules. 27 The voting recommendation of government is in principle independent of the voting recommendation of parliament. The latter is identical to how the majority in both houses of parliament decided. But for the sample analyzed, all voting recommendations of the parliament coincide with that of government, as it has mostly been the case since the first national referenda in 1848. 28 Interestingly, when Sweden decided to reintroduce conscription due to national security threats and a lack of voluntary service men, parts of the international press speculated on socially relevant effects of conscription. Acknowledgements The authors thank Leandro Elia, Bruno Frey, Vesa Kanniainen, Kai Konrad, Panu Poutvaara, and all the participants of the CESifo Venice Summer Institute 2016 for inspiring discussions. This article is a companion paper to our paper entitled ‘Military careers of politicians matter for national security policy, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 116, 142-156, 2015’, and it improves the approach employed therein and extends it to other policy areas beyond security policy only. 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TI - Military Service of Politicians, Public Policy, and Parliamentary Decisions
JF - CESifo Economic Studies
DO - 10.1093/cesifo/ify006
DA - 2018-12-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/military-service-of-politicians-public-policy-and-parliamentary-8pBiV07PQG
SP - 639
VL - 64
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -