Factors and Actors Contributing to the Willingness to Defend One’s Own Country: the Case of Latvia, Lithuania and Taiwan

Project idea

The issue of willingness to defend one’s own country stretches far beyond the military sector. The level of (un)willingness is both a symptom of and factor in a range of societal-level and individual-level attitudes. These include issues as external threats, historical experience, national pride, trust in armed forces and institutions, religiousness, conscription, along with such individual-level factors as age, education, financial situation, marital status, religious and ideological beliefs. Despite multiple attempts, most notably by Inglehart, Puranen and Welzel, no research provides the toolkit to universally and accurately explain reasons for high or low willingness to defend one’s own country.

The project aims to uncover, analyse and compare factors and actors contributing to willingness to defend one’s own country in Latvia, Lithuania and Taiwan, and thereby to extend the current universal toolkits and hypotheses in assessing the willingness. Based on a review of theoretical literature, previous research, dedicated nationally representative public surveys, interviews, an experiment and comparison to other cases, the project will provide policy-oriented proposals for increasing the willingness level, and will contribute to the scientific literature in the field by extending the current toolkits and hypotheses in assessing the willingness. In practical terms, the project will deliver three scientific peer-review articles, a book and two public discussions, altogether reinforced by proactive public outreach. No less importantly, the project will advance the scientific cooperation and exchange between the Baltic states and Taiwan in social sciences. Given the surrounding geopolitical grievances in both regions, the project has a fair potential to raise the public recognition of the issue and also Baltic-Taiwanese cooperation.

Participating institutions

Rīga Stradiņš University (Latvia); Vilnius University (Lithuania); Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica (Taiwan); Institute of Political Science, National Sun Yat-sen University (Taiwan); University of St. Thomas (USA).