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 because ideas are difficult to operationalize and measure. To solve this puzzle, the authors combine extensive information from World War II about German soldiers’ combat performance with data about conditionally exogenous potential exposure to Nazi radio propaganda. They find evidence that soldiers with higher potential exposure to propaganda were more likely to be decorated for valor even after controlling for individual socioeconomic factors, home district characteristics like urbanization, and proxies for combat exposure.

中文翻译：

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宣传和战斗动机：无线电广播和德国士兵在二战中的表现

什么解释了战争中的战斗动机？学者们认为，仅靠监督、物质奖励和惩罚是不够的解释。此外，对动机的相互竞争的意识形态描述也存在问题，因为想法难以实施和衡量。为了解决这个难题，作者将二战中关于德国士兵作战表现的大量信息与关于有条件地外生潜在地暴露于纳粹无线电宣传的数据相结合。他们发现证据表明，即使在控制了个人社会经济因素、城市化等家乡地区特征和战斗暴露代理因素之后，具有较高潜在宣传曝光率的士兵也更有可能因英勇而被装饰。