The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
JACK SNYDER ◽  
ERICA D. BORGHARD
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
The Cost

A large literature in political science takes for granted that democratic leaders would pay substantial domestic political costs for failing to carry out the public threats they make in international crises, and consequently that making threats substantially enhances their leverage in crisis bargaining. And yet proponents of this audience costs theory have presented very little evidence that this causal mechanism actually operates in real—as opposed to simulated—crises. We look for such evidence in post-1945 crises and find hardly any. Audience cost mechanisms are rare because (1) leaders see unambiguously committing threats as imprudent, (2) domestic audiences care more about policy substance than about consistency between the leader's words and deeds, (3) domestic audiences care about their country's reputation for resolve and national honor independent of whether the leader has issued an explicit threat, and (4) authoritarian targets of democratic threats do not perceive audience costs dynamics in the same way that audience costs theorists do. We found domestic audience costs as secondary mechanisms in a few cases where the public already had hawkish preferences before any threats were made.

scholarly journals The cost of democracy: The determinants of spending on the public administration of elections

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 354-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Clark
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Administrative Data ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Multivariate Model ◽  
Electoral Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Electoral Democracy ◽  
The Cost

Managing the electoral process requires considerable administrative and organizational capacity. Poor performance can lead to voters being disenfranchised and the integrity and legitimacy of elections undermined. Providing sufficient capacity to manage a national electoral process is expensive. Little research assesses how much electoral democracy costs, and what drives those costs. These are crucial questions for democracies, political science and public administration. Using rare comprehensive data from Britain, this article’s major contribution is to begin identifying some of the drivers impacting on the cost of electoral administration in advanced democracies. It presents an overview of influences on spending on electoral administration, before developing a multivariate model utilizing socio-economic, organizational and administrative data on election spending. It finds that costs in an important advanced democracy have been driven in a major national election by the need to provide capacity, notably on the ground close to electors.

Detecting Audience Costs in International Disputes

2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 949-980 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuhei Kurizaki ◽  
Taehee Whang
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Model ◽  
Selection Bias ◽  
Selection Effects ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
Target State ◽  
Regime Types

AbstractSelection effects in crisis bargaining make it difficult to directly measure audience costs because state leaders have an incentive to avoid incurring audience costs. We overcome this inferential problem of selection bias by using a structural statistical model. This approach allows us to estimate the size of audience costs, both incurred and not incurred, in international crises. We show that although audience costs exist for state leaders of various regime types, democratic leaders face larger audience costs than nondemocratic leaders do. Audience costs can be so large that war might be preferable to concessions, especially for leaders of highly democratic states. Audience costs also increase a state's bargaining leverage in crises because the target state is more likely to acquiesce if the challenge carries larger audience costs. We also find evidence that audience costs generate selection effects.

Do Women Make More Credible Threats? Gender Stereotypes, Audience Costs, and Crisis Bargaining

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 872-895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua A. Schwartz ◽  
Christopher W. Blair
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Female Leaders ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Efficient Mechanism ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Political Incentives ◽  
Survey Experiments

AbstractAs more women attain executive office, it is important to understand how gender dynamics affect international politics. Toward this end, we present the first evidence that gender stereotypes affect leaders’ abilities to generate audience costs. Using survey experiments, we show that female leaders have political incentives to combat gender stereotypes that women are weak by acting “tough” during international military crises. Most prominently, we find evidence that female leaders, and male leaders facing female opponents, pay greater inconsistency costs for backing down from threats than male leaders do against fellow men. These findings point to particular advantages and disadvantages women have in international crises. Namely, female leaders are better able to tie hands—an efficient mechanism for establishing credibility in crises. However, this bargaining advantage means female leaders will also have a harder time backing down from threats. Our findings have critical implications for debates over the effects of greater gender equality in executive offices worldwide.

Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes

1994 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 577-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
James D. Fearon
Keyword(s):  
Direct Effect ◽  
Comparative Statics ◽  
Equilibrium Analysis ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
The Public ◽  
War Of Attrition ◽  
True Preferences

International crises are modeled as a political “war of attrition” in which state leaders choose at each moment whether to attack, back down, or escalate. A leader who backs down suffers audience costs that increase as the public confrontation proceeds. Equilibrium analysis shows how audience costs enable leaders to learn an adversary's true preferences concerning settlement versus war and thus whether and when attack is rational. The model also generates strong comparative statics results, mainly on the question of which side is most likely to back down. Publicly observable measures of relative military capabilities and relative interests prove to have no direct effect once a crisis begins. Instead, relative audience costs matter: the side with a stronger domestic audience (e.g., a democracy) is always less likely to back down than the side less able to generate audience costs (a nondemocracy). More broadly, the analysis suggests that democracies should be able to signal their intentions to other states more credibly and clearly than authoritarian states can, perhaps ameliorating the security dilemma between democratic states.

A comparison of the cost of research in South Africa's public research and higher education institutions

2008 ◽  
Vol 104 (11/12) ◽  
Author(s):  
D.R. Walwyn
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Public Research ◽  
Pricing Policy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Annual Salary ◽  
Research Sector ◽  
Salary Survey ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Comparative Information

Despite the importance of labour and overhead costs to both funders and performers of research in South Africa, there is little published information on the remuneration structures for researchers, technician and research support staff. Moreover, there are widely different pricing practices and perceptions within the public research and higher education institutions, which in some cases do not reflect the underlying costs to the institution or the inherent value of the research. In this article, data from the 2004/5 Research and Development Survey have been used to generate comparative information on the cost of research in various performance sectors. It is shown that this cost is lowest in the higher education institutions, and highest in the business sector, although the differences in direct labour and overheads are not as large as may have been expected. The calculated cost of research is then compared with the gazetted rates for engineers, scientists and auditors performing work on behalf of the public sector, which in all cases are higher than the research sector. This analysis emphasizes the need within the public research and higher education institutions for the development of a common pricing policy and for an annual salary survey, in order to dispel some of the myths around the relative costs of research, the relative levels of overhead ratios and the apparent disparity in remuneration levels.

The Internet Trap

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Hindman
Keyword(s):  
The Internet ◽  
Net Neutrality ◽  
The Public ◽  
Attention Economy ◽  
Digital News ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Over Time

The Internet was supposed to fragment audiences and make media monopolies impossible. Instead, behemoths like Google and Facebook now dominate the time we spend online—and grab all the profits from the attention economy. This book explains how this happened. It sheds light on the stunning rise of the digital giants and the online struggles of nearly everyone else—and reveals what small players can do to survive in a game that is rigged against them. The book shows how seemingly tiny advantages in attracting users can snowball over time. The Internet has not reduced the cost of reaching audiences—it has merely shifted who pays and how. Challenging some of the most enduring myths of digital life, the book explains why the Internet is not the postindustrial technology that has been sold to the public, how it has become mathematically impossible for grad students in a garage to beat Google, and why net neutrality alone is no guarantee of an open Internet. It also explains why the challenges for local digital news outlets and other small players are worse than they appear and demonstrates what it really takes to grow a digital audience and stay alive in today's online economy. The book shows why, even on the Internet, there is still no such thing as a free audience.

Strategy for Protecting the North Sea: A Chemical Industry Perspective

1991 ◽  
Vol 24 (10) ◽  
pp. 269-276
Author(s):  
J. R. Lawrence ◽  
N. C. D. Craig
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Chemical Industry ◽  
Important Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
The North ◽  
Anthropogenic Inputs ◽  
Seven Principles ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Cost

The public has ever-rising expectations for the environmental quality of the North Sea and hence of everreducing anthropogenic inputs; by implication society must be willing to accept the cost of reduced contamination. The chemical industry accepts that it has an important part to play in meeting these expectations, but it is essential that proper scientific consideration is given to the potential transfer of contamination from one medium to another before changes are made. A strategy for North Sea protection is put forward as a set of seven principles that must govern the management decisions that are made. Some areas of uncertainty are identified as important research targets. It is concluded that although there have been many improvements over the last two decades, there is more to be done. A systematic and less emotive approach is required to continue the improvement process.

Flexibility and Firmness in Crisis Bargaining

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200272199417
Author(s):  
Vesna Danilovic ◽  
Joe Clare
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Mixed Strategies ◽  
Bargaining Process ◽  
Theoretical Rationale ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Peaceful Resolution ◽  
Tit For Tat

Our study compares the efficacy of mixed bargaining strategies to strict coercion or accommodation. While mixed strategies can be approached from different conceptual angles, we focus on flexible and/or firm postures as signaling properties of bargaining. In our theory and empirical analysis, we show that the combination of firmness with flexibility on both sides, without necessarily scripted rules as in tit-for-tat, leads to peaceful resolution without unilateral concessions. Its opposite, resolute firmness is unlikely to make the opponent yield, as assumed in influential literature of the traditional canon. If anything, war is most likely when both sides opt for it. We provide the theoretical rationale for these expectations, which are validated in our empirical analysis of the ICB crisis dataset for the 1918 to 2015 period. Our study also points to the bargaining process as a potential causal mechanism between democracy and peace, and therefore has relevant implications for several research strands.

scholarly journals Punishment Strategies across Societies: Conventional Wisdoms Reconsidered

Games ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Ramzi Suleiman ◽  
Yuval Samid
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
The Public ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
The World ◽  
Emergence Of Cooperation ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Cost

Experiments using the public goods game have repeatedly shown that in cooperative social environments, punishment makes cooperation flourish, and withholding punishment makes cooperation collapse. In less cooperative social environments, where antisocial punishment has been detected, punishment was detrimental to cooperation. The success of punishment in enhancing cooperation was explained as deterrence of free riders by cooperative strong reciprocators, who were willing to pay the cost of punishing them, whereas in environments in which punishment diminished cooperation, antisocial punishment was explained as revenge by low cooperators against high cooperators suspected of punishing them in previous rounds. The present paper reconsiders the generality of both explanations. Using data from a public goods experiment with punishment, conducted by the authors on Israeli subjects (Study 1), and from a study published in Science using sixteen participant pools from cities around the world (Study 2), we found that: 1. The effect of punishment on the emergence of cooperation was mainly due to contributors increasing their cooperation, rather than from free riders being deterred. 2. Participants adhered to different contribution and punishment strategies. Some cooperated and did not punish (‘cooperators’); others cooperated and punished free riders (‘strong reciprocators’); a third subgroup punished upward and downward relative to their own contribution (‘norm-keepers’); and a small sub-group punished only cooperators (‘antisocial punishers’). 3. Clear societal differences emerged in the mix of the four participant types, with high-contributing pools characterized by higher ratios of ‘strong reciprocators’, and ‘cooperators’, and low-contributing pools characterized by a higher ratio of ‘norm keepers’. 4. The fraction of ‘strong reciprocators’ out of the total punishers emerged as a strong predictor of the groups’ level of cooperation and success in providing the public goods.

scholarly journals A New Breeding Strategy towards Introgression and Characterization of Stay-Green QTL for Drought Tolerance in Sorghum

Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 598
Author(s):  
Nasrein Mohamed Kamal ◽  
Yasir Serag Alnor Gorafi ◽  
Hanan Abdeltwab ◽  
Ishtiag Abdalla ◽  
Hisashi Tsujimoto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Phenotypic Expression ◽  
Phenotypic Selection ◽  
Breeding Strategy ◽  
Stay Green ◽  
Breeding Programs ◽  
The Public ◽  
Drought Tolerant ◽  
Selection Step ◽  
The Cost

Several marker-assisted selection (MAS) or backcrossing (MAB) approaches exist for polygenic trait improvement. However, the implementation of MAB remains a challenge in many breeding programs, especially in the public sector. In MAB introgression programs, which usually do not include phenotypic selection, undesired donor traits may unexpectedly turn up regardless of how expensive and theoretically powerful a backcross scheme may be. Therefore, combining genotyping and phenotyping during selection will improve understanding of QTL interactions with the environment, especially for minor alleles that maximize the phenotypic expression of the traits. Here, we describe the introgression of stay-green QTL (Stg1–Stg4) from B35 into two sorghum backgrounds through an MAB that combines genotypic and phenotypic (C-MAB) selection during early backcross cycles. The background selection step is excluded. Since it is necessary to decrease further the cost associated with molecular marker assays, the costs of C-MAB were estimated. Lines with stay-green trait and good performance were identified at an early backcross generation, backcross two (BC2). Developed BC2F4 lines were evaluated under irrigated and drought as well as three rainfed environments varied in drought timing and severity. Under drought conditions, the mean grain yield of the most C-MAB-introgression lines was consistently higher than that of the recurrent parents. This study is one of the real applications of the successful use of C-MAB for the development of drought-tolerant sorghum lines for drought-prone areas.

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