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.

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.

Backing up, not backing down: Mitigating audience costs through policy substitution

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 559-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Lin-Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
The Future ◽  
Original Survey

Can a leader reduce the audience costs imposed for backing down completely on a threat by opting instead to ‘back up’ to a less hawkish policy? Current research examines the political repercussions of making a threat and then taking no action at all. Real world leaders, however, often ‘back up’ and implement policies that involve some action – for instance, imposing sanctions after threatening military force, rather than backing down entirely. This article argues that audience costs can be mitigated through policy substitution: backing up to less hawkish policies – that reduce inconsistency between a leader’s words and deeds – may reduce audience costs. A series of original survey experiments finds support for the argument and demonstrates that the population treats inconsistency as a continuum. The findings have implications for domestic politics and crisis bargaining. Domestically, a leader who backs up faces lower audience costs and is seen as more competent than one who backs down. Yet those on the receiving end of threats are less likely to believe the future threats of a foreign leader who has previously backed up or backed down. Backing up therefore degrades the credibility of crisis signals by making it difficult for rivals to distinguish between credible threats and those that will be backed up.

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.

Authoritarian Audiences, Rhetoric, and Propaganda in International Crises: Evidence from China

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 963-973 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Chen Weiss ◽  
Allan Dafoe
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
Shared History ◽  
Future Success ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Maritime Disputes ◽  
Government Rhetoric

Abstract How do government rhetoric and propaganda affect mass reactions in international crises? Using two scenario-based survey experiments in China, one hypothetical and one that selectively reminds respondents of recent events, we assess how government statements and propaganda impact Chinese citizens’ approval of their government's performance in its territorial and maritime disputes. We find evidence that citizens disapprove more of inaction after explicit threats to use force, suggesting that leaders can face public opinion costs akin to audience costs in an authoritarian setting. However, we also find evidence that citizens approve of bluster—vague and ultimately empty threats—suggesting that talking tough can provide benefits, even in the absence of tough action. In addition, narratives that invoke future success to justify present restraint increase approval, along with frames that emphasize a shared history of injustice at the hands of foreign powers.

The Innovators

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara J. Risman
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Gender Expectations ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Gendered Expectations ◽  
Level Of Analysis

This chapter introduces the innovators and provides a portrait of them. The chapter analyzes these innovators at the individual, interactional, and macro level of the gender structure. The chapter begins at the individual level of analysis because these young people emphasize how they challenge gender by rejecting requirements to restrict their personal activities, goals, and personalities to femininity or masculinity. They refuse to live within gender stereotypes. These Millennials do not seem driven by their feminist ideological beliefs, although they do have them. Their worldviews are more taken for granted than central to their stories. Nor are they consistently challenging gender expectations for others, although they often ignore the gender expectations they face themselves. They innovate primarily in their personal lives, although they do reject gendered expectations at the interactional level and hold feminist ideological beliefs about gender equality.

Audience Costs and the Credibility of Commitments

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
The Political ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
Qualitative Case Studies ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Large N ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Methodological Approaches

Threats and promises are prevalent in international relations (IR). However, deception is also a possibility in diplomacy. Why should one state believe that another state is not merely bluffing? How can a state credibly communicate its threats and promises to others? The IR scholarship suggests that one way by which a state may make its commitments credible is by generating audience costs—the political costs a leader suffers from publicly issuing a threat or promise and then failing to follow through. There is a broad and methodologically diverse literature on the existence, mechanisms, and effectiveness of audience costs. The concept of audience costs has also been applied to explain many phenomena in IR. This article examines the IR scholarship on audience costs across different methodological approaches, including qualitative case studies, large-N statistical tests, and survey experiments.

When All Parties Nominate Women: The Role of Political Gender Stereotypes in Voters’ Choices

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 746-772
Author(s):  
Zoe Lefkofridi ◽  
Nathalie Giger ◽  
Anne Maria Holli
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Related Research ◽  
Actual Impact ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
The U.S

AbstractDo political gender stereotypes exist in egalitarian settings in which all parties nominate women? Do they matter for candidate selection in systems of proportional representation with multiparty competition and preferential voting? To date, these questions remain unanswered because related research is limited to the U.S. case. Our pioneering study examines political stereotypes in one of the “least likely” cases, Finland—a global forerunner in gender equality. We find, first, that stereotypes persist even in egalitarian paradises. Second, when testing across settings of candidate choice, we find that the effect varies greatly: political gender stereotypes are powerful in hypothetical choices, but they work neither in favor of nor against female candidates when many “real,” viable, experienced, and incumbent female candidates are competing. Although in open-list systems with preferential voting, gender stereotypes can directly affect female candidates’ electoral success, in Finland, their actual impact in real legislative elections appears marginal.

scholarly journals Gender Advantages and Gender Normality in the Views of Estonian Secondary School Students

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiiu Kuurme ◽  
Gertrud Kasemaa
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
School Life ◽  
School Students ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Central Condition

Abstract The aim of the study on Estonian secondary school students was to obtain an overview of the gender-related views and experiences of the everyday school life by students, and to analyse the school-related factors in the development of gender roles and gender-related expectations. We view gender equality as a central condition for social sustainability. In the article, we focus on the perceptions and interpretations of the so-called normal boy and girl and the advantages of both genders at school. We analyse the experiences and the views of young people regarding their gender positioning in everyday school life vis-à-vis their views on gender equality. The survey used in the study consisted of 50 questions, mainly open-ended. It was conducted in 10 basic and secondary schools in grades 7, 9, 10 and 12, with a total number of 649 respondents. The open answers were analysed by applying the method of thematic qualitative content analysis. The findings reveal that the perceived advantages of both genders at school and the behaviour considered as normal at school are strongly related to traditional gender stereotypes. At the same time, students claim that they are primarily people with equal opportunities. We conclude that the belief in the ideology of gender equality outweighs personal gender-related experiences.

scholarly journals Gender Discourses as a ‘Technology of Power’ in Nepalese Primary Level Textbooks

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
Pragya Paneru
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Gender Representations ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Primary Level ◽  
Gender Binary ◽  
Nutritional Health ◽  
And Gender

 The Gender gap is one of the most prominent problems in the context of Nepal. Even if Nepal constitution promotes gender equality and equity, there is still a huge gap between male and female. Women lag in literary percentage, nutritional health conditions, ownership, and employment opportunities. One of the obstacles in the path of gender equality is our systemic education materials especially our textbooks which reinforce the stereotypical concept of male and female through textbook representations. Researchers have shown that gender stereotypes have been seen in the textbooks of highly developed countries like America, Australia, and Hongkong. In this context, all the compulsory textbooks of grade four and five prescribed by the Curriculum Development Centre in the context of Nepal were observed. In all the books, stereotypical representations of male and female characters were found. Most of the men and women were presented doing conventional gender roles, and male-centered themes are found in the narratives. This research claims that when conventional attitude regarding gender is transferred to young children, it ultimately reproduces similar gendered personalities and helps to maintain the gender gap. This research uses the concept of ‘technology of power’ by Foucault to interpret gender representations in textbooks. A Ccritical Discourse Analysis has been used to analyze the data from textbooks. The findings suggest that there are biased gender representations suggesting stereotypes and gender binary which could potentially affect the learners both male and female as it fosters false knowledge regarding gender and overburdens the male whereas humiliates the females.

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