Conflict, Agency, and Gambling for Resurrection: The Principal-Agent Problem Goes to War

Downs, George W.; Rocke, David M.

doi:10.2307/2111408

Cited by 330 publications

(223 citation statements)

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“…On the one hand, voters and members of the (s)electorate (Bueno de Mesquita et al 2003) may punish their leaders for the costs of war in order to deter future leaders from risky and costly adventures, or simply because leaders failed to prove their mettle during the hardship of conflict (Downs and Rocke 1994;Hess and Orphanides 1995). On the other hand, war may actually provide opportunities to leaders not available during peace time.…”

Section: The Costliness Of Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

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International Conflict and the Tenure of Leaders: Is War Still "Ex Post" Inefficient?

Chiozza¹,

Goemans²

2004

American Journal of Political Science

152

242

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Recent work in comparative politics and international relations has shown a marked shift toward leaders as the theoretical unit of analysis. In most of the new theoretical models a core assumption is that leadersW hen testing theories, researchers would like the theoretical and empirical units of analysis to match. In international relations, however, this is often not the case. On the one hand, neo-realists and others who focus on the system as their unit of analysis as well as scholars who base their theories on the unitary rational actor assumption usually rely on the statements and memoirs of leaders in their empirical research (Copeland 2000). Whereas their theoretical unit of analysis is the system or the state as a unitary rational actor, their empirical unit of analysis is the leader. On the other hand, scholars of diversionary war and, recently, the democratic peace employ leaders as their theoretical unit of analysis. In their statistical research, however, these scholars tend to rely on the country or country-year as the empirical unit of analysis (Gelpi 1997;Leeds and Davis 1997;Reiter and Stam 2002). Such mismatches between the theoretical and empirical unit of analysis can significantly weaken empirical tests and produce faulty inferences. A fundamental hurdle for scholars who focus on leaders as their theoretical unit of analysis has been the lack of appropriate data on leaders. Earlier drafts of this article were presented at the PIPES seminar at the University of Chicago, the University of Virginia, and the Annual Convention of the American Political Science Association, Washington D.C. We thank the commentators at those presentations; in particular we thank Thomas Blackwell, Chris Gelpi, Jessica Hardesty, Bob Keohane, Craig Koerner, Jeff Legro, Thomas Lumley, Kevin Morrison, Davide Raggi, Dan Reiter, Sebastian Rosato, Angelo Secchi, Randolph Siverson, Alastair Smith, David Soskice, Allan Stam, and Terry Therneau. Mistakes, omissions, and other assorted infelicities are our own responsibility. Authors' names are in alphabetical order. theories on the appropriate empirical unit of analysis and to promote further theoretical work on the role of leaders in international and comparative politics, we introduce a new data set of all leaders between 1919 and 1999.Recent work in international relations and comparative politics attempts to build powerful new theories on a solid methodologically individualist basis by focusing on the incentives and constraints of leaders (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003;Cheibub and Przeworksi 1999). A central assumption in much of this new research is that leaders act to stay in power (Downs 1957). Very little is empirically known, however, about the factors that affect the tenure of leaders (Bienen and van de Walle 1991;Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2001). To provide some baseline, this article analyzes the new data to assess how a broad range of domestic and international factors affect the tenure of leaders.To promote further theoretical and empirical research on the role of ...

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Section: The Costliness Of Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mao was then able to remove the four most important generals from their positions of personal power. (1987,29) Second, leaders might gain time in office as a result of war because they engaged in a "gamble for resurrection" (Downs and Rocke 1994). Third, war can allow leaders to reveal their competence (Smith 1998).…”

Section: The Costliness Of Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

International Conflict and the Tenure of Leaders: Is War Still "Ex Post" Inefficient?

Chiozza¹,

Goemans²

2004

American Journal of Political Science

152

242

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“…So, they push for high public guarantees to forestall insolvency, i.e. they gamble for resurrection (Downs and Rocke, 1994). Politicians with cronyistic ties to bankers are more likely to use bailouts at the expense of di↵use public interests such as taxpayers (Rosas, 2006).…”

Section: Previous Explanations Of Banking Crisis Containmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information and financial crisis policy-making

Gandrud

O'Keeffe

2016

Journal of European Public Policy

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link AbstractThe degree to which governments intervene to contain financial crises varies considerably. We aim to understand why policymakers choose the level of intervention they do to contain financial shocks.In particular, we want to understand why policymakers may choose policies that create outcomes they do not want. We focus on a defining feature of financial crisis policymaking that has been largely unaddressed in the literature on policy responses to crises: policymakers lack good information about the health of their banking systems. So, they rely on their bureaucrats and other actors for necessary information. However, information providers may have di↵erent policy preferences. To understand the interactions between these actors and the implications for policy choice, we advance a signalling game of financial crisis containment. We use comparative statics and a case study of the recent Irish crisis to demonstrate how information asymmetries can have a significant impact on bailout choices.

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“…The present game is an agency problem in which the uninformed principal (the selectorate) delegates to an informed agent (the leader) the decision to engage in conflict (Downs and Rocke, 1994). The principal is constrained by incomplete contracting; the only available instrument is the set of reselection probabilities.…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result, conflict is more likely the more limited democracies are involved in a dispute. Downs and Rocke (1994) are the first to view conflict as an agency-theoretic problem between the public (the principal) and the leadership (the agent). The study is partial in the sense that the strategic interplay between belligerent states is ignored.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democracy, autocracy and the likelihood of international conflict

Tangerås

2008

Econ Gov

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This is a game-theoretic analysis of the link between regime type and international conflict. The democratic electorate can credibly punish the leader for bad conflict outcomes, whereas the autocratic selectorate cannot. For the fear of being thrown out of office, democratic leaders are (i) more selective about the wars they initiate and (ii) on average win more of the wars they start. Foreign policy behaviour is found to display strategic complementarities. The likelihood of interstate war, therefore, is lowest in the democratic dyad (pair), highest in the autocratic dyad with the mixed dyad in between. The results are consistent with empirical findings.JEL Classification: D72, D74, D82.

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Conflict, Agency, and Gambling for Resurrection: The Principal-Agent Problem Goes to War

Cited by 330 publications

References 12 publications

International Conflict and the Tenure of Leaders: Is War Still "Ex Post" Inefficient?

International Conflict and the Tenure of Leaders: Is War Still "Ex Post" Inefficient?

Information and financial crisis policy-making

Democracy, autocracy and the likelihood of international conflict

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