Winning over foreign domestic support for use of force: power of diplomatic and operational multilateralism

The United States uses two forms of multilateralism to increase levels of foreign public support for military action: diplomatic multilateralism and operational multilateralism. Diplomatic multilateralism is typically done by obtaining a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing military action. The use of multinational forces, the so-called coalition of the willing and many flags program, is an example of operational multilateralism. While scholars have empirical evidence that diplomatic multilateralism generates foreign domestic support for the use of force, there is no equivalent study for operational multilateralism. We do not know if or how much the two types of multilateralism would differ in inducing foreign domestic support for military action. This article, by using Japan as a field of survey experiment, answers these questions.