Replication Data for: PROPAGANDA AND COMBAT MOTIVATION Radio Broadcasts and German Soldiers' Performance in World War II

What explains combat motivation in warfare? Scholars argue that monitoring, material rewards, and punishment alone are insufficient explanations. Further, competing ideological accounts of motivation are also problematic, since ideas are difficult to operationalize and measure. To solve the problem, the authors combine extensive information about German soldiers' combat performance from World War II with data about conditionally exogenous potential exposure to Nazi radio propaganda. They find evidence that soldiers with higher potential exposure to propaganda are more likely to be decorated for valor even after controlling for individual socioeconomic factors, home district characteristics such as urbanization, and proxies for combat exposure.战场上的作战动机究竟由何驱动？学术界普遍认为，仅依靠监督、物质奖惩无法充分解释作战动机。此外，与之竞争的意识形态类动机解释同样存在缺陷，因为意识形态概念本身难以实现操作化（operationalization）与量化。为解决这一研究难题，研究者将二战时期德国士兵作战表现的海量数据，与符合条件外生性（conditionally exogenous）的纳粹广播宣传潜在接触量数据相结合。研究结果显示，即便在控制了个体社会经济因素、家乡行政区的城市化水平等区域特征，以及作战接触量代理变量（proxy）后，潜在接触纳粹宣传程度更高的士兵，获得作战英勇嘉奖的概率依然显著更高。