Missile launches from North Korea and rising chorus of the constitutional revision:

Evidence from a combined priming and list experiments

Abstract

  North Korea has launched a series of missiles toward Japan in recent years. The present study used surveys to clarify how such an increase in military threats affects Japanese individuals’ attitudes about potential revisions of the country’s constitution. Earlier research identified the existence of a rally ’round the flag effect in which support for a country’s leader suddenly increases when the military threat against the country increases; however, the target of that rallying effect is (essentially) political actors, and its effect on specific issue attitudes has been unclear. In this study, the “J-Alert” nationwide emergency broadcast system was used to test the extent to which citizens become more positive toward the revision of Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution when a military crisis looms. A priming experiment and a list experiment were performed. The survey results revealed that the respondents who showed a slightly favorable attitude toward maintaining the constitution as it is now written were more likely to be positive about a constitutional revision when they saw the J-Alert screen. This suggests that as threats from countries such as North Korea and Russia increase, the opinion among Japan’s public may become more favorable to the revision of the constitution.