Elisa DARRIET, Researcher at the Chair in Defence Economics, published in the Revue Défense Nationale (RDN) an article entitled « Defence representation and budget support among young people« .
Summary of the article:
Defence means a budget ad hoc. It is therefore useful to study the perception approach to measuring public supporte. This study analyses the social representation of defence and its relationship with budget allocations for defence activities (e.g. external operations) among students.
The author uses a questionnaire (consisting of an «association task», a sub-questionnaire on the distribution of the defence budget and a socio-demographic questionnaire) in order to collect data.
The results show that the social representation of defence is structured around the notions: «defence", "defence" and "defence".« army »and« protection »and« security ». These notions refer directly to the purpose of the armed forces (cf. Order no. 59-147, Jan. 1959). Furthermore, in the event of a possible increase in the defence budget, students would give priority to the budget item for the’defence innovation (with civilian repercussions) rather than external operations and nuclear deterrence (which are, however, central to France's defence strategy according to the White paper in 2013 and the Strategic review of 2017).
This study provides new elements on the analysis of relations between citizens' opinions (representations) of the defence and sudgetary support. The opinions of citizens could prove to be a significant support force in the construction of a European defence.
