Limited Audience Costs in International Crises

2012 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 1065-1089 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmer Tarar ◽  
Bahar Leventoğlu
Keyword(s):  
International Crises ◽  
Audience Costs

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.

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

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giacomo Chiozza
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Rational Expectations ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Coercive Diplomacy ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
Out Of Sample ◽  
Electoral Calendar

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.

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.

Winners or Losers? Democracies in International Crisis, 1918–94

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 633-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher F. Gelpi ◽  
Michael Griesdorf
Keyword(s):  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
International Crises ◽  
International Crisis ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
The Many ◽  
Spurious Result

We attempt to explain when and why democratic states will prevail in international crises. We review several of the prominent theories about democratic political structures and derive hypotheses from each framework about crisis outcomes. These hypotheses are tested against the population of 422 international crises between 1918 and 1994. Our findings provide further evidence that the democratic peace is not a spurious result of common interests. Moreover, we also begin the difficult task of differentiating among the many theories of the democratic peace. In particular, we find strong evidence that democratic political structures are important because of their ability to generate domestic audience costs. Our findings also support the argument that democratic political structures encourage leaders to select international conflicts that they will win.

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.

International Crises and Domestic Politics

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (3) ◽  
pp. 623-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair Smith
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Cheap Talk ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Credible Commitments ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
Crisis Behavior ◽  
At Home

Audience costs enable leaders to make credible commitments and to communicate their intentions to their adversaries during a crisis. I explain audience costs by simultaneously modeling crisis behavior and the domestic reelection process. I assume that a leader's ability influences the outcome of a crisis. As such, voters use outcomes as a signal of their leaders' quality. Leaders have incentives to make statements that deter their enemies abroad, since these statements also enhance their standing at home. Yet, such “cheap talk” foreign policy declarations are only credible when leaders suffer domestically if they fail to fulfill their commitments. In equilibrium, false promises are only made by the least competent types of leaders. Leaders that break their promises suffer electorally. Because initial domestic conditions and institutional arrangements affect the vulnerability of leaders to these domestic costs, such factors influence the credibility of policy declarations and, therefore, the crisis outcome.

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.

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.

Espionage and Exile

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phyllis Lassner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Popular Entertainment ◽  
John Le Carre ◽  
The Cold War

Espionage and Exile demonstrates that from the 1930s through the Cold War, British Writers Eric Ambler, Helen MacInnes, Ann Bridge, Pamela Frankau, John le Carré and filmmaker Leslie Howard combined propaganda and popular entertainment to call for resistance to political oppression. Instead of constituting context, the political engagement of these spy fictions bring the historical crises of Fascist and Communist domination to the forefront of twentieth century literary history. They deploy themes of deception and betrayal to warn audiences of the consequences of Nazi Germany's conquests and later, the fusion of Fascist and Communist oppression. Featuring protagonists who are stateless and threatened refugees, abandoned and betrayed secret agents, and politically engaged or entrapped amateurs, all in states of precarious exile, these fictions engage their historical subjects to complicate extant literary meanings of transnational, diaspora and performativity. Unsettling distinctions between villain and victim as well as exile and belonging dramatizes relationships between the ethics of espionage and responses to international crises. With politically charged suspense and narrative experiments, these writers also challenge distinctions between literary, middlebrow, and popular culture.

The development of trade relations between the Republic of Cyprus and the Soviet Union (1960-1963)

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10-3) ◽  
pp. 258-263
Author(s):  
Argyrios Tasoulas
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Bilateral Trade ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Republic Of Cyprus

This article studies the development of Soviet-Cypriot trade relations in 1960-63, based on research at the Archives of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (AVP RF). Concurrently, a historical analysis follows the events after the creation of the new Cypriot state and the two major Cold War crises (the building of the Berlin wall and the Cuban missile crisis). The efforts made by both governments to develop bilateral trade, the aftermath of the two major international crises and the results of the two governments’ policies have been identified and analyzed.

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