For my second journal article memorandum, I chose “Caught in the Draft: The Effects of Vietnam Draft Lottery Status on Political Attitudes” by Robert Erikson and Laura Stoker, which featured in The American Political Science Review in May of 2011. I chose this article for two reasons with the first being my passion for military history. However, the second and more important reason I chose this article was because of its uniqueness. I felt that this article offered a different look at one of the most controversial aspects of the Vietnam War, the draft. This article discusses the impacts of the randomization of the draft through a lottery system and how it affected the political opinions of the men affected by it. This is something that I have …show more content…
Firstly, the authors sought to demonstrate the effect of the lottery system on a person’s opinion on the Vietnam war, the authors looked at data from a 1973 survey. This survey was designed to determine if people were supported of the war (hawks) or an opponent of the war (dove). This was determined through a series of questions and was subsequently quantified into a scale that measured 0 to 1 with a 1 being a hawk and a 0 being a dove. Based on this survey information, the authors used birthdates to determine which participants were of the class of 1965 and were assigned a number for the lottery system. Based on this, the authors then compares answers between people and noticed a change of “20% to 25% along the Hawk-Dove continuum” between people with the lowest lottery number and the highest number (2011, 225-226). This meant that men who were the least likely to be drafted were 20% higher on the scale and thus were thus more likely to be hawks. This demonstrates that even four years after the lottery was introduced, the number still had a major impact on a person’s personal opinion on the war. After establishing this first connection, the authors sought to demonstrate a connection between lottery numbers and overall political beliefs of people. This was accomplished by looking at the the projected percent voting in the 1972 election. The authors observed that of men with the lottery …show more content…
Even more so the evidence on the whole was relevant and appropriate to the claims that were made. Since the authors were only looking at that one class of students, their evidence was Although, the evidence only looks at one class of students and how they were influenced, it was in full support of the claim staked by the authors. The numbers and figures provided by the authors did in fact support the claim and were entirely relevant to the