Domestic Interests, Democracy, and Foreign Policy Change

Abstract

When new leaders come to office, there is often speculation about whether they will take their countries' foreign policies in different directions or stick to their predecessors' policies. We argue that when new leaders come to power who represent different societal interests and preferences than their predecessors, leaders may pursue new foreign policies. At the same time, in democracies, leadership selection processes and policymaking rules blunt leaders' incentives and opportunities for change. Democracies thus tend to pursue more consistent foreign policies than nondemocracies even when new leaders with different supporting coalitions assume office. Statistical analyses of three distinct foreign policy areas – military alliances, UNGA voting, and economic sanctions – provide support for our argument. In a fourth area – trade – we find that both democracies and nondemocracies are more likely to experience foreign policy change when a new leader with a different supporting coalition comes to power. We thus conclude that foreign policy responds to domestic political interests, and that, even as the interests supporting leaders change, democracies' foreign policies are no less stable than those of nondemocracies and often exhibit greater consistency.

From Developing Country Leader to Flexible Negotiator: New Directions in Brazilian Trade Strategy

“…In line with the literature on the graduation dilemma, a third potential driver is an identity shift on the part of emerging economies as their economic rise complicates their developing country status (compare Bishop and Zhang, 2020 on China; Doctor, 2017 on Brazil). Finally, domestic political change, such as a change of administration could yield a re-orienting of an emerging economy's trade strategy reflecting different domestic constituencies and lobby group influences (compare Leeds and Mattes, 2022).…”

Connecting international and domestic dots: how conflict entanglement informs resolution and escalation

“…Defensive Alliance is a dummy variable that accounts for the presence of a formal defensive alliance between the claimants in a given year, measured according to the Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions data (Leeds and Mattes, 2022). These data define alliances as formal agreements "among independent states to cooperate militarily in the face of potential or realized military conflict" (Leeds, 2005).…”

Introduction to special issue: New research on leaders and peace science

“…Incorporating insights from "role theory" (Thies and Breuning, 2012) would probably result in a greater understanding of why some leaders will often pursue very different foreign policies vis-à-vis different countries. Building on Leeds and Mattes's (2022) work, analyzing whether and how the influence of leaders' personal attributes on patterns of conflict is conditioned by the societal interests they represent could provide insight into how leaders' and their supporters' preferences interact to shape policy. Turning to the international level, hierarchical relationships and the international order have long been recognized to influence states' policies and international relations (Lemke, 2002;Organski and Kugler, 1980), but have largely been minimized in contemporary leader research.…”

“…Early work by McGillivray and Smith (2000, 2008 demonstrates how scholars can extend existing arguments about political institutions to focus more explicitly on how they shape leaders' political prospects and incentives for cooperation. More recently, Leeds and Mattes (2022) have shown that the consequences of leader turnover for patterns of cooperation depend on whether or not the successor relies on the same societal base of support as the outgoing leader and regime type. One way to build on this work would be to identify the collective preferences of these winning coalitions with respect to various policy areas and assess the nature of the policy changes that follow from leader transitions that also involve changes in the incumbent's support coalition.…”