Hawks, Doves, and Peace: An Experimental Approach

Abstract

An old adage holds that "only Nixon could go to China"; that is, hawkish leaders face fewer domestic barriers than doves when it comes to pursuing reconciliation with foreign enemies. However, empirical evidence for this proposition is mixed. In this article, we clarify competing theories, elucidate their implications for public opinion, and describe the results of a series of survey experiments designed to evaluate whether and why there is a hawk's advantage. We find that hawks are indeed better positioned domestically to initiate rapprochement than doves. We also find support for two key causal mechanisms: Voters are more confident in rapprochement when it is pursued by a hawk and are more likely to view hawks who initiate conciliation as moderates. Further, the hawk's advantage persists whether conciliatory efforts end in success or failure. Our microfoundational evidence thus suggests a pronounced domestic advantage for hawks who deliver the olive branch.

“Wait With Falling in Love”: Discursive Evaluation of Amicable Messages Conveyed by Opponents

“…Scholars of political persuasion provide indications of the link between the ideological identity of political leaders and public reactions to conciliatory messages they have conveyed. Examining which type of leader (hawkish or dovish) has an advantage when advancing cooperation with an adversary, they found that conciliatory messages inconsistent with audience expectations from a political leader can affect public approval of the initiatives (Mattes & Weeks, 2019; Sigelman, 1990; Sigelman & Sigelman, 1986)—and most importantly to this study—the opponent’s response to the constructive actions (Schultz, 2005). “Out-of-character” conciliatory steps (Sigelman & Sigelman, 1986) taken by hawkish leaders may be perceived as stimulating long-term cooperation with an adversary compared with the same steps taken by dovish leaders (Schultz, 2005).…”

COVID-19 and American Attitudes toward U.S.-China Disputes

“…Extant literature has found that nationalism and hawkishness have a statistically significant association with political elites’ and citizens’ preferred foreign policy options [ 25 , 28 , 36 ]. In addition, Letendre, Fincher, and Thornhill have found that high intensity of an infectious disease outbreak leads to the emergence of xenophobic and ethnocentric cultural norms and that the emergence of these norms can cause conflicts within and across borders [ 21 ].…”

“…Among 1000 respondents, 855 passed all three concentration tests in the survey, and I drop the other 145 respondents. 25 There might be some potential concerns about the use of Amazon's MTurk. Huber and Lenz suggest that experimenter demand effects (EDEs) may exist if researchers reveal their research intentions in online survey experiments [7].…”

Four Costly Signaling Mechanisms

“…25 See, e.g., Brutger and Kertzer (2018), Kertzer, Rathbun, and Rathbun (2020), Quek (2016), and Renshon, Dafoe, and Huth (2018). Mattes and Weeks's (2019) recent work on hawks and doves also used AMT. Coppock (2019) conducted 15 replication experiments on AMT and found results that were similar to those of the original experiments, corroborating earlier studies that tested the validity of AMT.…”