Israeli Public Opinion on the Use of Nuclear Weapons: Lessons From Terror Management Theory

When do people become more willing to endorse a nuclear strike against a foreign country? Utilizing interdisciplinary theoretical insights from international relations and social psychology as well as original experimental survey data from Israel, this work aims to answer this question. Influential strands of scholarship argue that both the public and the political elites have internalized antinuclear norms. Critics, however, assert that the moral nuclear taboo lacks robustness. The work joins this debate by offering a novel theoretical framework informed by terror management theory (TMT) and suggests that people are more likely to support extreme forms of warfare (e.g., nuclear strikes) when reminded of their own mortality. Thus, consequentialist factors, such as perceived utility, and psychological factors, such as moral foundations theory and TMT, can be causal mechanisms in the support for nuclear weapons. In an age of populism characterized by the rise of nationalist leaders with authoritarian tendencies, the main finding is a source of significant concern.