Hell No! We Won't Go! Wealth, Conscription, Inequality, and the Expansion of Democracy in America

Doug Atkinson, Brigham Young University

Who bears the burdens of war in a democracy, and what political consequences follow when those burdens are distributed unequally? This book argues that inequality in compelled military service—particularly at the local level—has played a central role in shaping the development of American democracy. While war requires mass mobilization, most individuals prefer to avoid the substantial risks associated with military service. States therefore confront a persistent collective action problem. Although conscription and other coercive mechanisms can overcome this problem, systems of military labor acquisition are rarely neutral. Decisions about who serves and who does not are often made or implemented locally, where political incentives differ from those at the national level. Using extensive quantitative data drawn from local enlistment and tax records information across five major wars, I demonstrate systematic patterns of elite avoidance of compelled military service at the community level. Across multiple American wars, individuals with greater wealth were less likely to bear frontline risks, while politically vulnerable populations disproportionately supplied military labor. These patterns were not accidental; they reflected the discretionary authority exercised by actors embedded in local distributive politics. Unequal service generates a legitimacy dilemma. Democracies rest on norms of equal citizenship and shared obligation. When communities perceive that the burdens of war fall unevenly, compliance becomes politically costly and potentially unstable. I argue that local and national elites respond to this tension by expanding political and economic rights to those who bear the brunt of service. These postwar concessions—ranging from expanded suffrage and educational access to localized policy reforms—function as implicit compensation for unequal sacrifice. Drawing on both quantitative and historical evidence, the (eventual) book shows that democratic expansion in the United States has frequently followed episodes of locally produced wartime inequality. Democratic development, I contend, has often emerged in response to inequality at war.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 185. Labor, Political Economy, and the Expansion of Democracy