If national politicians want to rally women and blacks to support a war in Iraq, they're going to have to battle history, deeply rooted roles and a massive sense of powerlessness, conclude political scientists from UC Davis and the California Maritime Academy.

In the September issue of the Journal of Peace Research, Miroslav Nincic of UC Davis and Donna Nincic of the California Maritime Academy say extensive public opinion research over the last half century shows that in almost all realms of foreign and domestic policy women are less favorable than men to U.S. military intervention abroad. Other studies show that blacks have been less anticommunist than whites during the Cold War, less supportive of high levels of defense spending and less enthusiastic than whites about armed intervention abroad.

The Nincics say the reason is that women and blacks differ from white men in their perceptions and values regarding the national agenda.

Female attitudes may be shaped by their roles as mothers and nurturers or from increasingly being the major victims of modern war (sexual violation, widowhood and accompanying poverty, and loss of sons).

For blacks, the issue is political alienation triggered during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement as well as the growing belief, begun in the Vietnam War, that the black community carries a disproportionately heavy war burden.

Although their study shows how position in society affects support for military intervention, the Nincics say no evidence exists that other ethnic groups are less supportive of armed intervention abroad than white Americans.