Audience Costs and Interstate Crises: An Empirical Assessment of Fearon's Model of Dispute Outcomes

Abstract

In a recent article, James Fearon advances an innovative approach to the study of interstate crises. He adds to the traditional view (that crisis outcomes are influenced by the balance of capability and the balance of resolve) the notion that domestic political audiences exert a strong influence over which state in a crisis is likely to achieve a successful outcome. His game-theoretic analysis yields a number of interesting hypotheses, which are tested in this study using data on militarized disputes, the structure of polities, and national capability. In general the results strongly support Fearon's model, though we find that relative national capabilities do tend to affect the outcomes of crises. This study highlights the importance of combining formal models of political events with large-N empirical tests.Traditional notions of interstate bargaining suggest that crisis outcomes are a function of the relative military might of the participants and the willingness of each side to use force in order to demonstrate a higher degree of commitment to the issue at stake than the opponent (Snyder and Diesing, 1977;Maoz, 1983;Leng, 1993). The escalation of crises, according to this view, occurs as each side attempts to show its opponent that the costs of further conflict over the issue at stake will be larger than that opponent wants to bear. The outcomes of crises should be that either one side backs down, because it is less resolved than its opponent, or neither side backs down and the two sides go to war. The words often used to summarize this perspective on bargaining is that international crises are "competitions in risk taking" (Schelling, 1960;Kahn, 1965).In a recent article, James Fearon (1994) offers a fresh perspective on interstate crisis bargaining. Drawing on Thomas Schelling's (1960) work on credible commitment, he argues that the escalation and outcomes of interstate disputes are in large International Studies Quarterly (1999) 43, 389-405 for the comments and help on earlier drafts of this article. The article also benefited from the constructive suggestions of the reviewers and editors of this journal. We wish to thank the National Science Foundation, whose financial assistance through grant SBR-9507909 facilitated this research. We alone are responsible for any errors in this work.

Autocratic Audience Costs: Regime Type and Signaling Resolve

“…The audience costs proposition suggests that states can send informative signals about their resolve by making public threats in international crises+ 6 Because leaders could suffer domestic consequences for making a threat and then not carrying it out, they are able to create potential domestic consequences for backing down+ This in turn gives their threats greater credibility+ Since the concept of audience costs was first articulated by Fearon, scholars have assumed that democracies have an advantage in generating audience costs, and hence an advantage in signaling resolve+ 7 Although Fearon does not deny that some autocrats might be able to create audience costs, he proposes a democratic advantage since democratic leaders cannot control ex post punishment for backing down from a threat+ The risk that reneging will be punished domestically, in turn, renders the threat more credible internationally+ In contrast, dictators are assumed to exert greater control over their tenure, implying an inability to credibly jeopardize their political futures+ Thus, "democracy" is often used in this literature as shorthand for accountability+ 8 A recent body of work has found empirical support for the hypothesis that democracies have a signaling advantage attributable to audience costs+ 9 But the possibility that authoritarian regimes exhibit predictable variation in their ability to generate audience costs, and moreover, that democracy is not necessary for generating audience costs, merits further attention+ Elections and democratic institutions are only one way in which domestic groups can coordinate to hold leaders accountable+ In order to reevaluate prevailing arguments about how audience costs vary across political systems, it is helpful to clarify the logic of audience costs+ A leader's ability to generate domestic political costs is influenced by three central factors+ First, audience costs require that a domestic political audience has the means and incentives to coordinate to punish the leader+ Second, domestic actors must view backing down after having made a threat as worse than conceding without having made a threat in the first place+ Third, outsiders must be able to observe the possibility of domestic sanctions for backing down+ Nondemocratic states vary greatly with respect to these three variables+ 6+ See Schelling 1963;and Fearon 1994+ 7+ Fearon 1994+ 8+ See, for example, Guisinger and Smith 2002 Other researchers have taken a more agnostic view, though they still group regimes according to the level of democracy; see Chiozza and Goemans 2004+ 9+ See Eyerman and Hart 1996;Partell and Palmer 1999;Gelpi and Griesdorf 2001;and Prins 2003+ In addition, Schultz's finding that democracies are less likely to be resisted in international crises can be interpreted as evidence in favor of higher democratic audience costs, though Schultz presents a distinct theoretical mechanism where resolve is revealed through public party competition; see Schultz 1999 and 2001a+…”

Audience costs and reputation in crisis bargaining

“…1 For further discussions about the microfoundations of audience costs, see Smith (1998), Guisinger and Smith (2002), Schultz (2001), and Slantchev (2006). For empirical evidence that audience costs exist, see Eyerman and Hart (1996), Gelpi and Griesdorf (2001), Partell and Palmer (1999), Prins (2003), Leventoglu and Tarar (2005), and Tomz (2007 However, despite the sincere efforts that have been made to support the conjectures derived from the audience costs theory, empirical studies could not help but increase the skeptic views about the validity of this theoretically plausible mechanism. The works of Trachtenberg (2012) and Snyder and Borghard (2011), two recent empirical papers, discuss that leaders make use of this mechanism infrequently.…”

Domestic Audience Costs in International Relations: An Experimental Approach

“…In the remainder of this article, I demonstrate that constituents disapprove of leaders who make international threats and then renege+ I further explain why many leaders regard disapproval as a political liability+ Finally, as a step toward deepening our theoretical as well as empirical understanding of audience costs, I investigate why citizens react negatively to empty threats+ 1+ The seminal article is Fearon 1994+ See also, on military crises, Schultz 2001a; and Smith 1998; on alliances, see Gaubatz 1996;and Smith 1996; on economic sanctions, see Dorussen and Mo 2001;and Martin 1993; on trade, see Mansfield, Milner, and Rosendorff 2002; on foreign direct investment, see Jensen 2003; on monetary commitments, see Broz 2002; on interstate bargaining, see Leventoǧlu and Tarar 2005; and on the role of audience costs in international cooperation in general, see Leeds 1999;Lipson 2003;and McGillivray and Smith 2000+ 2+ Fearon 1994+ 3+ See, for example, Eyerman and Hart 1996Gelpi and Griesdorf 2001;Partell and Palmer 1999;andPrins 2003+ 4+ See Baum 2004;and Schultz 2001b+ Do Audience Costs Exist?…”