The Political Costs of Crisis Bargaining: Presidential Rhetoric and the Role of Party

Trager, Robert F.; Vavreck, Lynn

doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00521.x

Cited by 141 publications

(123 citation statements)

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“…See also Lacina and Lee (2012), who examine how regime type affects perceptions of threat, and Geva and Hanson (1999), who focus on sociocultural similarity. 2 For other recent examples of experiments about international security, see Herrmann, Tetlock, and Visser (1999); Herrmann and Shannon (2001); Berinsky (2007; ;Gartner (2008); Baum and Groeling (2009) ;Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler (2009) ;Grieco et al (2011); Horowitz and Levendusky (2011);McDermott (2011); Tingley (2011); Tingley and Walter (2011);Tomz (2007); Trager and Vavreck (2011); Levendusky and Horowitz (2012), and Press, Sagan, and Valentino (2013). hypothesis that the preferences of ordinary voters contribute to peace among democracies.…”

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confidence: 99%

Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace

2013

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ew findings in political science have received as much attention as the "democratic peace," the discovery that democracies almost never fight other democracies (Doyle 1986;Russett 1993). To some, the absence of military conflict among democracies is so consistent that it approaches the status of an "empirical law" (Levy 1988).Some authors have attempted to explain the democratic peace by highlighting the role of public opinion. They observe that democratic leaders are beholden to voters and claim that voters oppose war because of its human and financial costs. This argument, which dates to Immanuel Kant, predicts that democracies will behave peacefully in general-avoiding war not only against democracies but also against autocracies. History shows, however, that democracies frequently fight autocracies.A different possibility is that democratic publics are primarily averse to war against other democracies. If leaders are responsive to voters and voters are more reluctant to fight democracies than otherwise equivalent autocracies, then public opinion could play an important role in the dyadic democratic peace. To date, however, surprisingly few studies have investi- gated whether democratic publics are more reluctant to attack democracies than autocracies.1 Moreover, the small body of existing work has not accounted for variables that could confound the relationship between shared democracy and public support for war, nor has it investigated the mechanisms by which the regime type of the adversary affects the public mood. Despite decades of research on the democratic peace, we still lack convincing evidence about whether and how public opinion contributes to the absence of war among democracies.We used experiments to shed new light on these important questions.2 Our experiments, embedded in public opinion polls that were administered to nationally representative samples of British and American citizens, involved a situation in which a country was developing nuclear weapons. When describing the situation, we randomly and independently varied four potential sources of peace: the political regime, alliance status, economic ties, and military power of the adversary. We then asked individuals whether they would support or oppose a preventive military strike against the country's nuclear facilities.Participants in our experiments were substantially less supportive of military strikes against democracies than against otherwise identical autocracies. Moreover, because we randomly and independently manipulated the regime type of the adversary, the observed preference for peace with other democracies was almost certainly causal, rather than spurious. Our findings therefore provide empirical microfoundations for the 1 For exceptions, see Geva, DeRouen, and Mintz (1993); Johns and Davies (2012);Rousseau (2005). See also Lacina and Lee (2012), who examine how regime type affects perceptions of threat, and Geva and Hanson (1999), who focus on sociocultural similarity. 2 For other recent examples of experiments about internatio...

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confidence: 99%

Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace

2013

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“…For example, Arena and Palmer (2009: 959) find that right-wing governments in developed democracies have a higher propensity to initiate international disputes than left-wing governments, a pattern they attribute to the fact that ''left parties are generally more dovish and therefore face higher costs for the use of force than do right parties. '' In this vein, leaders that are supported by accommodationist constituents should be less able to generate audience costs (Trager and Vavreck, 2011). Therefore, they will have to rely upon sunk-cost commitments more extensively.…”

Section: Control Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, they will have to rely upon sunk-cost commitments more extensively. Insofar as this is the way Democrats are perceived in the US political context (Zaller, 1994b;Trager and Vavreck, 2011), tying-hand commitment strategies should be more impractical for Democratic presidents. This argument, thus, leads to the hypothesis that Democratic presidents are more likely to signal their resolve through costly actions, such as troop mobilization or gunboat diplomacy, than Republican presidents.…”

Section: Control Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Events that occurred far away in time are discounted, while events that took place closer to election day are given greater leverage in the voting calculus. 1 Insofar as voters punish leaders that are unsuccessful at foreign policy (Trager and Vavreck, 2011), audience costs vary along the electoral cycle: they are lower after an election and higher before an election. The variability in audience costs induces a variability in democracies' ability to credibly convey to other states that they have vital interests at stake, and that they are ready to fight if those interests are challenged.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Presidents on the cycle: Elections, audience costs, and coercive diplomacy

Chiozza

2016

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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This study investigates an observable implication of audience cost theory. Building upon rational expectations theories of voters' choice and foreign policy substitutability theory, it posits that audience costs vary over the electoral calendar. It then assesses whether US presidents' major responses in international crises reflect the variability in audience costs in an analysis of 66 international crises between 1937 and 2006. Using out-of-sample tests, this study finds that tying-hand commitment strategies were more frequent closer to presidential elections, as expected from audience cost theory. It also finds that the fluctuation of audience costs over the electoral calendar is non-linear.

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“…According to this set of arguments, leaders can, under some circumstances, mitigate or largely avoid costs associated with backing down during a crisis. Trager and Vavreck (2011) focus specifically on the President of the United States and find that factors such as how the president's party acts, the type of rhetoric being employed, and whether the opposition party supports backing down can help signal to voters whether they should punish the President. Relatedly, Levendusky and Horowitz (2012) find that factors connected to partisanship, how other elites react, and whether the President frames backing down in the context of new information can help lessen punishment.…”

Section: Theorizing Responses To Coercionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democracies Under Fire: How Democratic Targets and Allies Respond to Coercive Threats

Scroggs

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When do states concede to coercive threats? While the majority of research has focused on the states initiating these challenges, comparatively little attention has been given to the targets, the states that actually face the choice of whether to stand firm or back down. My project examines the role that a target's regime-type, broadly construed as democratic versus non-democratic states, plays in the decision-making process, arguing that democracies are more likely to concede when threatened due to the higher costs they pay for foreign policy failure and the relative ease that challengers have in identifying whether democracies are vulnerable to coercion. Further, my argument also extends to the role of democratic allies, who are less reliable when threats of violence are employed against their protégés. I employ statistical evidence with data from the Militarized Compellent Threat (MCT) and Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions (TIES) datasets to show the broad validity of my claims, as well as in-depth case studies, namely the Munich and Suez Crises, to demonstrate how my theory works in practice. AcknowledgementsI owe a great deal of thanks to many people who have helped shape this dissertation.My first and greatest debt belongs to Todd Sechser, the chair of my dissertation committee.Todd has been an excellent advisor, helping me along when I had only the faintest ideas of what my project would be about. I had always been fascinated with coercion since the first time I read Thomas Schelling's Arms and Influence, so to find that Todd similarly loved Schelling's work was when I knew he would be a superb chair for my committee. His insights and advice throughout my time at the University of Virginia played a critical role shaping me into the scholar I am today, and I am only better for it.The first class I took in international relations at UVA was with John Owen, who I quickly learned was not only a brilliant advisor but also one of the kindest people that I have been fortunate enough to meet in academia. I came to John early on in my third year with vague ideas of how I wanted to approach my dissertation, and he played a critical role in helping me piece together what eventually became the main thesis. Always able to make time for a meeting with me, no matter when I happened to be in town or for how long, Iwill always appreciate the impact that he had on shaping not my research but my view of international relations theory; I came in as a pretty hardcore realist, and I like to think that John played a large role in tempering that inclination (for better or for worse).When I first arrived at the University of Virginia, I was luck enough to have Dale Copeland as my advisor. I rapidly came to appreciate Dale's deep respect and love for history, which became invaluable as I thought through the case studies for my dissertation.His emphasis on how politics change over time helped a great deal as I considered the potential for learning in my own argument. And his joy at just sitting back and talking ...

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The Political Costs of Crisis Bargaining: Presidential Rhetoric and the Role of Party

Cited by 141 publications

References 62 publications

Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace

Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace

Presidents on the cycle: Elections, audience costs, and coercive diplomacy

Democracies Under Fire: How Democratic Targets and Allies Respond to Coercive Threats

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