Clash of Civilizations
HUNTINGTON’S CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS (1993)
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The fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or
primarily economic
Great divisions among human kind and dominating source of conflict will be cultural
Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs but the principal
conflicts will occur between nations and different groups of civilizations
With the end of the Cold War, international politics moves out of its western phase and
its centerpiece becomes interaction between West and Non-Western civilizations
WHAT IS A CIVILIZATION?
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A civilization is a cultural entity
Highest cultural grouping at people at broadest level of cultural identity people have
short of that which distinguished human from other species
Defined both by common objective elements (language, history, religion) and by
subjective identifications
HUNTINGTON’S CIVILIZATIONS
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Types of civilizations: Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox,
Latin American, African
REASONS FOR CONFLICTS BETWEEN CIVILIZATIONS
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Differences among civilizations are basic
o Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture,
tradition, and most important, religion
o These differences are the product of centuries – they will not soon disappear
o They are more fundamental than differences among political ideologies and
political regimes
The interactions between peoples of different civilizations are increasing
o These increasing interactions intensify civilizations consciousness and
awareness of differences between civilizations and commonalities within
civilizations
o This increases animosities between civilizations
Processes of economic modernization and social change are separating people from
longstanding identities
Nation state weakened as source of identity, while religion has moved in to fill this gap
often in movements labeled as ‘fundamentalist’
Dual role of the West:
o West is at peak of power
o Simultaneously, there is a return to the roots phenomenon occurring among nonWestern civilizations
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West confronts Non-Wests that increasingly have the desire, will, and resources
to shape the world in non-Western ways
 De-westernization of elites and the westernizations of the masses
Cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and less easily compromised
and resolved than political and economic ones
o Communists can become democrats
o Rich can become poor
o But Estonians and Azeris cannot become Russians
o Somebody can be half French and half Tunisian but not half Catholic and half
Muslim
Economic regionalism is increasing  successful economic regionalism will reinforce
civilization-consciousness
End of ideologically defined states in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union permits
traditional ethnic identities and animosities to come to the fore
Efforts of the West to promote its values of democracy and liberalism as universal values
to maintain its military predominance and to advance its economic interests engender
countering responses from other civilizations
Clash of civilizations occur at two levels:
o Micro-level: adjacent groups along fault lines between civilizations struggle for
control of territory
o Macro-level: states from different civilizations compete for relative and economic
power
KIN COUNTRY SYNDROME
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Groups or states belonging to one civilization that become involved in war with
people from a different civilization naturally try to rally support from other members
of their own civilization
This kin-country is replacing political ideology and traditional balance of power
considerations as the principal basis for cooperation and coalitions
It can be seen in the post Cold-War conflicts in Persian Gulf and Bosnia  none were
full-scale war between civilizations but each involved some elements of civilizational
rallying
o Islamic fundamentalist movements universally supported Iraq rather than
Western-backed governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
o Western public manifested sympathy and support for the Bosnian Muslims but
relatively little concern was expressed over Croatian attacks on Muslims and
participation in the dismemberment of Bosnia-Herzegovina
NOT ACCURATE PREDICTION ABOUT UKRAINE
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In 1991 and 1992, many people were alarmed by possibility of violent conflict between
Russia and Ukraine over territory, particularly Crimea
If civilization is what counts, then the likelihood of violence between Ukrainians and
Russians should be low
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Two Slavic, primarily Orthodox people who have had close relationships with
each other for centuries
THE WEST VS. THE REST
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Central axis of world politics in future is likely to be conflict between West and the rest
and composed of responses of non-Western civilizations to Western power and values
Non-Western states can either:
i.
Insulate their societies from penetration by the West and opt out of participation
in Western-dominated global community (e.g. North Korea)
ii.
Join the West and accept its values and institutions
iii.
Balance the West by developing economic and military power and cooperation
with other non-Western societies against the West
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE WEST
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It is in interest of the West to promote greater cooperation and unity within its own
civilizations, particularly between European and North American components
Incorporate into West societies in Eastern Europe and Latin America whose cultures are
close to those of the West
Promote and maintain cooperative relations with Russia
Prevent escalations of local inter-civilization wars
Limit the expansion of Confucian and Islamic states
Support in other civilizations groups sympathetic to Western values and interests
Strengthen international institutions that reflect and legitimate Western interests and
values
CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS & CONSTRUCTIVISM
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Huntington’s thesis that cultural differences produce conflict has deep roots in social
psychology
At its heart is the distinction between the in-group and the outsider, with in-group
cohesion attained by nurturing conflict with those that are different
Social identity theory is a social-psychological effort to interpret the same phenomena
It has been applied to states and national societies by constructivist school of
international relations
The dilemma posed by the politics of identity is relevant only to cultural but not
institutional theories regarding the separate peace among democracies
As long as cultural (normative) interpretation of democracies is true, there is danger that
democracies will see other states as outside their cultural and normative boundaries and
hence potential if not actual enemies
In the normative interpretation of democratic peace, democracies think that they abide
by an ethic of nonviolent conflict resolution, but they must always fear that autocracies
will exploit their inherent peacefulness
Clash of Civilizations & Remaking of World Order therefore is relevant to debate about
merits and implications of constructivist analyses of international politics
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Huntington opens a window onto questions about relation of culture to material and
ideological expressions of civilizations
Perhaps civilizations, rather than directly influencing likelihood of interstate violence,
instead shape patterns of security arrangements, political arrangements, political
institutions, and economic practices that constitute much of international behavior and
condition who fights whom
CRITIQUES TO CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS
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Huntington’s list of civilizations is to some degree arbitrary and to extent to which he
acknowledges intracivilizational differences, the image of civilization as source of
international order begins to dissolve
Criteria for assigning states to civilizations aren’t always clear
Huntington also privileges broad loyalties to civilizations, over more specific cultural or
ethnic identities including those that operate at level of nation-state
He claims in effect that civilizational identities are typically more decisive than
nationalism in accounting for sources of conflict
His discussion of malleability and change within civilizations, along axes of
Westernization and modernization is too simple
Russet et al. (2000)
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SPLIT, indicates whether a dyad is culturally heterogeneous or not:
o 1 if states belong to different civilizations
o 0 if they are from same one
 Civilizational differences have no significant effect on probability that dyad will become
involved in conflict once either realist or liberal theories are taken into account
 There is little evidence that civilizations clash
 Only one of the coefficients for dummy variables is negative and statistically significant:
o There is less conflict within the West than among dyads split across civilizational
lines
o West is by far most internally peaceful civilization, reflecting the regularization of
peaceful relations among the industrialized democracies
 The other four civilizations exhibited greater frequencies of conflict among their
members in period 1950-92, than did dyads split across civilizations, and for the Sinic
and Buddhist groups this effect is statistically significant
 Empirical Evidence
 West versus rest dyads are not significantly more likely to be involved in conflicts against
each other
 Neither west versus Islam dyads are; only Israel vs. Islam dyads are very conflictual
dyads
 There are instead more conflicts between West and Orthodox & Sinic civilizations
 Limitations (Chiozza 2002)
 Coverage of post-Cold War period is limited
 Cold War poses demanding empirical challenge for clash of civilizations thesis
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Didn’t investigate possibility that civilization factor might influence probability of conflict
by altering operation of other causal variables
Chiozza (2002)
 Hypotheses
 Main thrust of Huntington’s argument is that countries belonging to different civilizations
are more likely to find themselves to find themselves involved in internationl
confrontations that might lead to an outburst of violence
 This argument might be interpreted as form of cultural realism: venerable realist tenet
of zero-sum state competition is coupled with new understanding of sources of states
interests
 General values, ethnic identities, and religious beliefs inform goals states pursue, shape
perceptions the decisionmakers hold, and characterize patterns of friendship and enmity
in international arena
 Intercivilizational dyads are more likely to be involved in international conflict
 A second central aspect of Huntington’s argument is that civilization factor is bound to
become a prominent element in the redefinition of pattern of rivalries in post-Cold War
era
 If Huntington’s argument has decisive empirical relevance, it should emerge most clearly
in aftermath of Cold War, as the bipolar rivalries have started to thaw and new
controversies have come to fore
 Probability of conflict involvement for different-civilization dyads has increased
since end of Cold War
 Civilizational factors were trumped in confrontation between liberal democracy and
communism
 The Cold War bipolar confrontation dampened the propensity of conflict
involvement for intercivilization dyads that belonged to same ideological bloc, and
increased it for same-civilization dyads that belonged to different blocs
 Territorial contiguity is usually a strong predictor of conflict
 Closeness of interactions is likely to offer both the opportunity and willingness to engage
in conflict
 Situation exacerbates potential clashes of interests and often leads to fault-line conflicts,
the specific form of conflictual relations between civilizations
 In addition, the presence of minority groups that share civilizational identities with the
population of bordering countries might offer strong incentives for initiation of militarized
disputes
 Sharing a land border is positively associated with conflict involvement
 Effect of sharing a border on likelihood of conflict involvement is magnified for
intercivilization dyads
 Character of democratic peace proposition has approaches that of a time-invariant,
universally valid, empirical generalization
 But while the temporal dimension of this proposition has been subjected to some
criticism, its geographical component has remained virtually unchallenged
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The mere presence of electoral institutions is not sufficient to guarantee the
emergence of peace
 As democracy expands in the world, its liberal basis often lags behind
 Moreover, as free institutions and electoral politics expand in non-Western countries,
anti-Western elites are given a chance to ascend to power
 The greater the democratic character of the regimes in a dyad, the smaller
probability of involvement in international conflict
 Democratic institutions foster conflict involvement among countries that belong
to different civilizations
 In Huntington’s vision, we would be quite misled if we thought that modernization
fostered conditions for peace through process of homogenization of values, norms, and
identities
 Difference, and not similarity, is the consequence of spread of modernization over the
civilizational divide
 At the individual level, modernization disrupts the old social order, causes alienation and
dislocation, and in so doing, creates need for new identities
 There is negative relationship between modernization and probability of conflict
involvement for same-civilization dyads
 Modernization fosters conflict involvement among countries that belong to
different civilizations
 Research Design
 Cases: temporal domain under investigation is period from 1946-1997
 Dataset contains 400,000 observations; only 3,142 engaged in international dispute
 Dependent variable: presence / absence of conflict between pair of countries in a given
year
 Intercivilizational dyad: dummy variable
o Equal to 1 for all dyads that contain states belonging to different civilizations
o Equal to 0 when states are in same civilization
 Main difficulty is that factors Huntington mentions in his own definition, religion, ethnicity,
common history, and institutions, can yield contradictory country-dyad civilizational
codings
o Iran-Iraq war, for example, is intra-civilization war in Huntington’s terms
o However, Iranians and Iraqis belong to different ethnic groups and speak different
languages
 Post-Cold War period: dummy variable equal to 1 for all years after 1989 and 0
otherwise
 Different Cold War bloc: dummy variable equal to 1 for all dyads with countries that were
members of different Cold War blocs and 0 otherwise
 Modernization: factor analysis model estimated using four different indicators: energy
consumption, % living in cities, % of children in primary schools, % of radio recievers
o Minimum equal to 0 and maximum is 1
o Level of modernization in dyad is measured using weak-link assumption
 Results
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Civilizational status of dyad does not increase the likelihood of international conflict but it
even seems to reduce it
 Coefficient on post Cold-War dummy variable is negative and significant
o In the years since Cold War, there has been decrease in likelihood of interstate
conflict
 Interaction between post cold war period and intercivilization dyad is positive but not
significant
o Both for inter and intra civilization dyads, the end of Cold War is associated with
reduction in likelihood of conflict
 Interaction between different Cold War bloc and intercivilization dummy indicators is
positive and significant
o For states of different civilization, being on opposing ideological sides entailed
greater chances of conflict during Cold War
 Coefficient is associated with interaction term between intercivilization dummy and
border contiguity is positive and statistically significant
o Territorial contiguity is associated with an increased propensity for conflictual
interactions among states and different civilizational status in dyad magnifies this
effect
 Democracy dampens the probability of crisis involvement for countries that share the
samr civilizational heritage
o This effect, however, is attenuated when countries in a dyad belong to different
civilizations
 Coefficient on interaction term between modernization and intercivilization dummy is
positive but far from any acceptable level of statistical significance
 Empirical Evidence
 Focus in Table II is on temporal pattern of conflict involvement for same and differentcivilization dyads and on border contiguity, while setting level of regime type at 10 – the
midpoint on regime type scale and level of modernization as its mean value
 Intercivilizational dyads are more conflictual only in case when countries shared a border
 And even in that case, ther. e is only one scenario in which the impact is substantial, that
is, when the countries in the dyad belonged to opposing ideological blocs during Cold
War
 Otherwise, state interactions across civilizations were either more peaceful or as conflict
prone as they were within civilizations
 As Figure I clarifies, the probability of conflict involvement for countries of different
civilization remains practically constant as the democratic character of dyad increases
o For same-civilization dyads, however, regime type makes a large difference: as
democracy scores increase, the probability of conflict drops rather quickly
 Impact of modernization variable emerges from Figure 2:
o The two curves identifying same and different-civilizations dyads are practically
undistinguishable as modernization index moves from 5th to 95th percentile
o Dyads that comprise modern countries are always more likely to experience of
conflict
Limitations of Previous Studies: Gartzke & Gleditsch (2006)
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Need for baseline in assessing conflict proneness
Necessity of avoiding post hoc in distinguishing relevant identities based on actual
conflict
 Slippage between dominant groups and social groups in attributing ethnic affiliation to
states
 Baseline in Assessing Conflict Proneness
 Determine whether clashes across cultural groups are especially numerous or notable,
we must also look at relative frequency of clashes within civilizations
 We need baseline for expected dispute frequencies
o How much interstate conflict would we expect to observe among countries, given
what we know about opportunities for conflict and other factors affecting
likelihood of war
 Similarly, conflicts within civilizations may be over-represented given greater
opportunities for conflict interaction between proximate states
o Conflicts are common within families not because families create conflict, but
because more frequent contact breeds issues over which conflict arises
 Bias in Distinguishing Identities
 A basic problem with existing studies of culture and conflict is that cultural difference and
similarity often seems to be identified based on where conflict occurs
 This is seen clearly in Huntington’s suggested civilization, where ‘Western’ is considered
a distinct civilization from Orthodox
 Positing that Catholics and Orthodox constitute irreconciled groups seems to be based
on recent conflict in Balkans rather than the theological differences between Orthodox
and Catholic churches, which are largely unintelligible to most adherents
 To avoid ex post ergo propter hoc reasoning, difference must be defined on basis of ex
ante characteristics
 Most statistical analyses have simply adopted Huntington’s classifications of the relevant
cultural groups
o Although this is appropriate if main interest is assessing empirical support for
Huntington’s claims, it clearly runs into problem noted here when attempting the
move beyond the particular, even peculiar, Huntington typology
 Dominant & Minority Groups
 Existing work treats identity and culture as attributes of nation states, typically based on
either the numerically or politically dominant ethnic group
 Approach assumes that states are homogenous when in fact almost all nation states are
not, and usually encompass more than one ethnic group, with multiple bases for shared
or different identities
 Hence, for any imputed state identity, there will portions of population with different,
distinct identities
o Iraq: predominantly Muslim but substantial share of population isn’t Arab (20%
Kurd)
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If shared ties and differences between dominant groups can influence disputes between
states, then group relations within countries can also give rise to tension that may
escalate to violent hostilities
 State repression or abuses against ethnic groups are likely to spur reactions from coethnics, and when these carry political clout in other states, disputes among states at the
governmental level are more likely
 Identifying Identities
 We consider independently classified linguistic, ethnic, and religious delimiters as
potential sources of differences and similarity
 Our data on cultural variables come from Ellingsen (2000)- these data indicate the name
and proportional size of largest and second largest linguistic, religious, and ethnic
groups (1945-2000)
 We use these data to define difference and similarity for pairs of states in post-WWII
period
 Independent Variables
 Similarities between dominant groups in two states (one dyad)
o Linguistic similarity
o Religious similarity
o Ethnic similarity
 Differences between dominant groups in two states (one dyad)
o Linguistic majority – minority
o Religious majority – minority
o Ethnic majority – minority
 Results
 Although all 3 cultural variables are statistically significant and appear to influence
conflicts, the coefficients have different signs
o Whereas dyads that have same religion are less likely to experience conflict, the
opposite results is obtained for other elements of culture
 Dyads that share same language or same dominant ethnic group are significantly more
likely to have a dispute
 Moreover, the positive coefficients for language and ethnic group are larger than
negative coefficient for religion
 Results for Model 2 in Table 5 suggest that some religions are less conflict prone than
mixed dyads, but other similar religion dyads appear to be more conflict prone
 Of the two major world religions, a pair of Islamic states are somewhat more likely to
fight than mixed dyads and two Christian states are somewhat less likely to experience
conflict
 Moreover, despite popular conception of Buddhism as a peaceful religion, these results
suggest that dyads of two Buddhist countries have 2.5x greater odds of conflict than
mixed dyads
 Countries with Muslim, Buddhists, and Hindu majorities in both states are actually more
likely to go to conflict against each other
o Countries with Christian majorities are less likely
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Countries with religious and linguistic majority in one state and minority in the other state
are more likely to go to war against each other
Sum of individual coefficients for Islam and Christian Faultline, the Cold War dummy,
and the interaction term is negative, suggesting that Islam/Christian dyads historically
have been less likely to experience conflict
Results also suggest that in the immediate aftermath of Cold War, Islamic states were
about as likely to fight one another as they were to fight Christian states
Highest predicted probabilities of dispute, everything else, being equal, for dyads with
two Buddhist states
Mixed dyads where dominant group in one state is the second largest ones are very
conflictual and they became more conflictual after end of Cold War
Christian and Islamic states are not particularly prone to conflict, save for period 1985-91
For post-1992 period, an Islamic and Christian state are less likely to fight than two
Islamic states, and about as likely to have dispute as two Christian states
SUMMARY
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Clash of civilization is a persuasive and appealing argument, rooted in constructivist
approach to IR
Emphasizes role of identity and culture in international politics
However, it has several flows especially for what concerns identification of cultures
His argument has received very little empirical support
The Left, the Right, & War
QUESTIONS
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Are individual moral values and ideology associated with views of international relations
and use of force?
Does division between hawkish right and dovish left exist?
Does such ideological gap translate in party positions on use of force?
And do such different positions reflect in cabinets’ output?
LEFT VS RIGHT
On Equality
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Left advocates social change in direction of greater equality
o Parties of the left historically push for equal treatment, beginning with struggles
over political equality represented by franchise
o Egalitarian left later made transition from political to economic equality,
advocating government intervention in the economy to create more level playing
field
While the right supports traditional, hierarchical social order
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Alongside resistance to change, hierarchy has been core concept of
psychological studies of conservatism
Conflict between hierarchy and equality at its most fundamental level involves the
exercise of power; the former principle distributes it widely while the latter
concentrates it
On Liberty
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Relationship between equality and liberty and the latter’s proper home on the political
spectrum is understood if it is noted that liberty depends on equality, with the latter being
the fundamental principle of liberal societies
To justify a denial of individual autonomy requires an appeal to inequality  inegalitarian
hierarchies of control restrict liberty and one therefore cannot be free without being equal
It is when the exercise of free choice by individuals becomes threatening to the equal
concern and respect to others that governments must intervene according to the left
For this reason, while remaining laissez-faire on such issues such as speech and
morality, the left endorses limited government intervention to rectify inequalities that
threaten individuals’ abilities to determine their own fates because of such factors as
racial discrimination or economic poverty
THE NEW LEFT VS NEW RIGHT
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This same conceptual distinction applies to new set of issues put forward to the new set
of issues put forward by ‘post materialism’ on “values” issues that differ from the
materialist concerns of distribution of resources among classes
Over time, it became clear that the new left and right didn’t develop independently from
their older counterparts or compete along a fundamentally new dimension of politics
They just added new issues to the hierarchy-equality cleavage, making a political issue
of status of groups whose role in society wasn’t debated until recently
On Liberty
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The left’s embrace of government intervention in economy through imposition of
progressive taxation or redistribution of wealth is part and parcel with opposition to
government sanctioning of religion in schools
In the former area, the left aims at reducing hierarchy by taking material resources from
rich and giving them to the poor; in the latter, at preventing its imposition by sanctioning
either dominant set of religious beliefs or creating hierarchy between secularism and
people of faith
On Community & Hierarchy
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Community doesn’t necessarily require individuals to make tradeoff or decision about
who benefits or is more powerful
It asks instead if the other is in some sense regarded as part of the self
Hierarchy is vertical dimension, while community is horizontal
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Many issues implicate both hierarchy and community, particularly those communitarian
sentiments that when implemented, necessitate a reallocation of social resources and
power
Many of the constitutive principles of community are egalitarian and given its egalitarian
profile, the left is generally more representative of community than the right
There are therefore two primary dimensions of modern democracies: hierarchy and
community and these two dimensions are better markets of the left and right than the
terms liberal and conservative
COOPERATIVE & MILITANT INTERNATIONALISM
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Wittkopf (1990): identifies two dimensions, cooperative international and militant
internationalism
Militant internationalism: composed of two major components, (i) attitudes on use of
force and (ii) threat of communism
Cooperative internationalism: involves attitudes toward détente and international
cooperation
Militant internationalism and cooperative internationalism aren’t separate dimensions,
rather they define the poles of a single continuum
MILITANT INTERNATIONALISM & HIERARCHY
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Militant internationalism might be manifestation of broader belief that the US should beat
the top of the international hierarchy and should jealousy guard its interests
More generally, military power is the key element in establishing and preserving
America’s status in the world, so those emphasizing hierarchy should stress importance
of maintaining superior armed forces as well as the efficacy and even morality of that
strategy even after the end of cold war
Hierarchy is broader concept than just use of force, but military power should be primary
expression of that principle in international politics, given its anarchical nature
COOPERATIVE INTERNATIONALISM & EQUALITY
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Some scholars label CI as ‘multilateralism’ which they describe as an identity continuum
that captures inclusiveness of respondents’ identity
CI is not the opposite of MI but rather a sense of obligation to the broader international
community  this might be foreign policy manifestation of community dimension
mentioned before
Community is a broader concept evident in the belief that others should be helped and
should participate in the management of international affairs  more generic term
applying to both domestic and foreign policy dimensions
ISOLATIONISM
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Isolationism might be by-product of attitudes on other dimensions, an effect rather than a
cause
Support for less hierarchical international order in which force isn’t used to obtain goals
might be confused with isolationism, since it would involve calls to bring American troops
home or conversely, isolationism might be associated with endorsement of hierarchy
Isolationism is genuine ideological tendency.
o Unlike most ethnocentrists, isolationists generally don’t believe that warfare is a
moral means of statecraft
o Given that this works against the normal tendency, it suggests an autonomous
group
Rathbun (2007)
 Research Design
 Domestic battery of the first category of variables captures attitudes towards hierarchy,
whether exercised by church, state, or individuals without implicating broader
considerations of solidarity with common community
 Analogues of these questions in foreign policy battery include numerous questions on
role of force and coercion, the most obvious manifestation of hierarchy in international
politics
 Turning to indicators of community, given that the domestic questions in the survey are
often framed in terms of tradeoffs, there are very few questions that measure general
concern for welfare of community without requiring rebalancing of hierarchical relations
in society
 There are more possibilities for community in the international battery  questions
included regarding support for international aid, fostering human rights, and protecting
weak nations against aggressors which are all sentiments that elicit belief in broader
international community that transcends nation-state
 Dimensions of Political Conflict on Foreign Policy
 Principal component analysis to extract the latent variables from set of answers to
survey questions
 There is great deal of symmetry between domestic and foreign policy variables  they
share very similar if not identical structure suggesting that both emerge from common
core values
 There is also significant indication of existence of independent isolationist continuum
associated with less support for military superiority and cosmopolitan identity
 Military Interventions in US
 Strategic situations challenge both the national interests of the US
 There is reason to expect that as support for community rises, there is less support
for strategic military operations since respondents don’t identify themselves with the
action being undertaken by the US government to secure its own interests
 Hierarchy arises in any case that threatens to pose costs to the US such as instability in
areas close to US geographically or vital to its military and economic prosperity
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Where there is a military challenge or situation that might do so, hierarchy should be
associated with greater support for military action to prevent it
 Support for community should lead to higher levels of endorsement of humanitarian
operations since they are being pursued for purposes other than national interest
 Hierarchy might be negatively associated with humanitarian operations since they divert
resources that threaten America’s preeminent position in areas of more strategic
significance
 Since they are generally fought on behalf of a third party against a strategically
insignificant oppressor, they don’t implicate US global authority or affect US to any great
degree
 Domestic Beliefs & Military Interventions
 Dependent variable: support for use of force
across 3 scenarios
 Independent variable: hierarchy, community
and isolationist attitudes based on results
from previous table
 Support for hierarchy is particularly important
for strategic operations such as invasion of
Saudi Arabia or South Korea  these
coefficients are positive
 Positions on community are particularly
important for humanitarian operations such
as Rwandan genocide or Haitian civil war
 Community is also significant for strategic
operations  more cosmopolitan individuals
are more opposed to intervention against Iraq
than more parochial individuals
 Isolationism has consistently negative and
significant effect on support for intervention
but less so for situations closer to home
 A one-unit of standard deviation increase in
Hierarchy (range of 5 units) makes
respondent 1.5x more likely to support
retaliation against Iraqi retaliation
 A one-unit
increase in Hierarchy is associated with 28% increase in
likelihood of supporting a war in Korea, less than for the more
strategically significant Saudi Arabia but still powerful
 Community is associated with an increase of more than 2.5
increase in chances of supporting intervention to stop a
renewed Rwandan genocide
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For a Haitian civil war, respondents who move up a unit on Community scale are almost
2x as likely to support intervention
WHAT IS A POLITICAL PARTY?
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Political party: group of officials or would-be officials linked to sizeable group of citizens
into an organization; a chief object of this organization is to ensure that its officials attain
power or are maintained in power
One of the primary goals of political parties is to attain power; it is this goal that
differentiates them from interest groups
One thing to note about definition is that political parties aren’t restricted to democracies
or electoral activity
PARTY FUNCTIONS
1. Structure to political world  political parties help overcome some of these problems by
coordinating the actions of individual legislators and simplifying the issue space; thereby
parties provide structure to an otherwise unstable policymaking process
 Just as for elites, political parties also structure political world for voters by providing
‘information shortcuts’ to voters
2. Recruitment and socialization of the political elite
 In many countries, it is extremely difficult to get elected as an independent  therefore
being selected as a party’s candidate is often necessary for a successful run for office
 Parties also socialize the political elite  government ministers spent number of years
as party members, working with other party members, and learning to see political world
from the party’s perspective
3. Mobilization of the masses
 Political parties are also key tools for mobilizing the masses which is especially
important at election time, when ordinary citizens need to be encouraged to turn out to
vote
 Ability of political parties to mobilize masses can be important even when elections
aren’t being held
4. Link between rulers and ruled
 According to most democratic theorists, democratic governments are supposed to reflect
preferences of their citizens
 It is probably the central function of a political party in a democracy to represent,
articulate, and champion the interests and political causes of its membership
 Political parties are also the main means by which democracies can be induced to be
responsive
PARTIES & MILITARY INTERVENTIONS IN EUROPE
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Therefore, we might expect parties to translate preferences of their own electorates (and
electorates they want to pursue) in their own policy agenda when it comes to matters of
foreign policy as well
Military intervention for humanitarian purposes forces leftist parties in Europe to choose
between their interests in antimilitarism and promoting human rights or multilateral
defense cooperation under framework of European institutions
The right is presented with value conflict as well, but not as severe. Even if peace
enforcement is not in the national interest, once national troops are committed a nation’s
credibility and prestige are implicated
In countries where coercive foreign policy means are seen to have in the past helped
realize inclusive goals, leftist parties generally regard military as an instrument that can
serve their version of national interest (e.g. UK)
In countries in which force has negative associations and has only served as vehicle for
narrower, exclusive purposes, leftists by and large consider antimilitarism an end in itself
and inconsistent with other inclusive goals like promoting human rights (e.g. Italy,
Germany)
UK left-wing PM Tony Blair promoted NATO aerial operation in Kosovo, Italian and
German coalitions struggled to join interventions  Green’s reversing pacifist approach
to foreign policy and critiques in Italy from radical left
Haesebrouck & Mello (2020), Strengthening Mainstream Consensus? Effect of Radical Right
Populist Parties on the Defense Policies of Left Parties
 Research Design & Methodology
 Used data from 27 European countries about party ideology and party positions on
peace and security missions
 Uses RDD to analyze causal impact of RRPPs gaining parliamentary representation on
the defense policy positions of left-wing parties, using data during period 1990-2013
 Findings
 Based on a quadratic function, the solid line shows that the
relationship between party ideology and support for military
missions is curvilinear, meaning far-left parties are least supportive
of military missions, whereas center-right are most supportive, and
the support decreases as it moves to the far-right end of the
political spectrum
 Effect of party ideology on support for military missions is stronger
among Western European than Eastern European parties
 The curvilinear relationship where support for peace and security
missions is strong among centrist parties and increases the further
to the right a political party stands, but drops for parties on the ends of the spectrum
(Radical Left, Greens, and Radical Right parties)
 However, the results are not statistically significant for Eastern European parties
 Results confirm that substantive differences exist between political parties and their
positions on security policy
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Conservatives and Christian Democrats are most supportive of military measures in
terms of deployments for peace and security missions, followed by Liberals and
Socialists
Support drops substantially toward the political extreme: Radical Left and Radical Right
are the two party families that are least supportive of military missions
Ostermann & Wagner (2023), Introducing the International Treaty Ratification Votes Database
 Research Design
 Compiled the International Treaty Ratification Votes Database which encompasses over
6,000 parliamentary votes military deployments from 1990-2019, covering legislature
and voting behavior in 8 countries
 Findings
 On average, support for these missions is lowest among radical-left parties (14%) and
increases when moving along the left-right axis to green (61%), social democratic (76%),
and liberal parties (88%)
 Support reaches its peak of 90% among conservative and Christian-democratic parties
and then decreases back to 64% for radical-right parties  parabolic
 Western and post-communist Eastern and Southeastern Europe differ only marginally,
with green parties’ anti-interventionism more pronounced in West compared to East and
Christian-democratic/conservative support slightly lower in post-communist Europe
 Radical-right parties would supported the 2003 Iraq War were on average skeptical
about state-building in Afghanistan and opposed peacekeeping in Mali  opposite case
for Green parties
WHAT DOES A GOVERNMENT DO?
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Accountability: the extent to which it is possible for voters to reward or punish parties
for the policies that they introduce while in office. Accountability requires that citizens
look at how an incumbent party has behaved in the past in order to decide whether to
reward or punish it at the next election
A concept that is closely related to accountability is clarity of responsibility
Clarity of responsibility: ability of citizens to identify exactly who it is that is responsible
for policies that are implemented
o It is a necessary condition for voters to be able to hold their government
accountable
ACCOUNTABILITY
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Accountability: extent to which citizens can hold their governments accountable
through elections varies from country to country
Consensus democracies tend to have relatively low levels typically do not get to directly
choose the government
Reason for this is that voters in these countries typically don’t get to choose government
directly
As with accountability, clarity of responsibility varies from country to country

The more power is concentrated, the greater the clarity of responsibility  depends on
type of government
o Example: clarity of responsibility high in countries in which power concentrated in
hands of of single-party majority government
ACCOUNTABILITY & MANDATES
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Mandates are extremely important in majoritarian vision of democracy but not in the
consensus vision
Mandate: policy or set of policies that the government is both authorized and obligated
to carry out once in office
Prospective voting occurs when voters base how they will vote in current election on
expected performance of incumbents and challengers
In majoritarian vision of democracy, parties that make policy commitments during
electoral campaign are authorized and obligated to carry out those policies once in office
REPRESENTATION
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Representation can usefully be conceptualized in terms of responsiveness and
congruence
Responsiveness or dynamic representation refers to how well-elected representatives
respond to change in the preferences of electorate
Congruence: this is static representation or how well elected representatives match the
preferences
MANDATE & SECURITY POLICY

While foreign and security policy are always thought to be areas in which international
factors (e.g. international alliances and obligations) play prominent role, research has
found strong comparatively high correspondence between party manifestoes and
government decisions across western democracies’
Palmer et al. (2004)
 Research Design
 Quarterly observations of 18 parliamentary democracies for period 1949-1992 with MID
as dependent variable
 Table 1
 Table shows that coefficient on “Coalition Score” is positive and significant, indicating
that right governments are more likely to be involved in militarized disputes than
left governments
 Measures dispute involvement
 Table 2
 Measures escalation, using MIDs with 25-500 fatalities
 Coefficient on “Coalition Score” is negative and significant, meaning that left
governments are more likely to see their disputes escalate than right governments
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This is because left governments generally have higher costs associated with the use of
force and therefore more vulnerable to removal from office
If they are to pursue conflict, they are more likely to compared to their right counterparts
to have to take a risk and see the conflict escalate further
Clare (2010)
 The Argument
 The more durable and internally less vulnerable cabinets have a greater range of policy
options, but this vulnerability is not only dependent on the government’s composition but
also the internal ideological cohesion and diversity within the cabinet
 If governments are less vulnerable to breakdown and therefore less constrained in their
foreign policies, then variation in the cohesion or fractionalization of coalition cabinets
should have significant impacts on conflict behavior
 Leaders in highly fractionalized coalitional majority governments may be quite
constrained politically, making them less prone to risks when facing international
conflict situations
 When leaders are in ideologically cohesive majority coalitions, they don’t face
strong prospects of punishment for foreign policy, as other coalition parties have
less incentive to defect
 Hypotheses
 In figure 1, there are 3 hypothetical types of coalition governments: (1) with right-wing
outlier party, (2) left-wing outlier party, (3) cohesive centrist government
 Threats of defection more credible in first and second examples due to greater
ideological distance of Party B from rest of government
 Coalition governments that include right-wing outlier party more likely to initiate
international disputes
 Coalition government that include left-wing outlier party less likely to initiate international
disputes
 Single-party majority governments and cohesive coalitional cabinets should display
similar patterns in their dispute initiation behavior
 Among governments that are similar in their overall aggregate ideology scores, those
that include right-wing outlier party are more likely to initiate a dispute than are those
without such an outlier party (that is, cohesive coalitions or single-party majorities)
 Among governments similar in overall aggregate ideology, those that include a left-wing
outlier party are less likely to initiate a dispute than those without outlier party
 Results
 Similar to Palmer et al. (2004), the positive and statistically significant coefficient for
Government Ideology in Model 1 reveals that right-wing governments are more likely
than left-wing to initiate disputes
 Coefficient for variable Ideological Distance is positive and significant – left or right-wing
outlier party indicates that likelihood of dispute initiation increases as government moves
from fractionalized coalition with far-left outlier toward one with right-wing outlier party
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Panel (a) in Figure 2 compares an otherwise centrist fractionalized coalition to a centrist
“cohesive” coalition, whereas Panel (b) compares the same centrist fractionalized
coalition to a centrist single-party government
o Fractionalized coalitions with left-wing outlier party are less likely to initiate
disputes than either cohesive coalitions (Panel A) or single-party
governments (Panel B)
o Coalition with far right-wing outlier party are more likely to initiate conflicts than
their cohesive coalitional or single-party counterparts
o As fractionalization decreases and coalition becomes more cohesive, there is
little difference in probability of dispute initiation between coalition and singleparty governments
In Figure 3, fractionalized coalitions are compared with left-wing cohesive coalitions and
single-party majority governments
o This figure shows that left-leaning single party or cohesive coalitional cabinets
are only similar to fractionalized coalitions that include left wing outlier party
o Fractionalized coalitions with right-wing outlier are more likely to initiate disputes
than leftist single-party or cohesive coalitions
o Rhey are also increasingly more likely to do so as the party moves farther right
o Effect of having left-wing outlier party in the government is similar to the effect
produced from cohesive coalition or single-party majority governments that are
positioned on the left
Haesebrouck & Mello (2020)
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Government ideology measured as weighted mean of governing parties’ ideology (with
CMP) by share of seats or portfolios
Eight recent military operations: Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Congo
(2006), Chad (2008), Libya (2011), ISIS (2014)
Analysis of all countries across all operations suggests no significant relation between
CHES indicators and military participation, while there is only a weak and negative3
correlation with the CMP left-right indicator
Negative and significant correlation with missions with inclusive goals and peacekeeping
operations  right-wing government less likely to participate
Box plot doesn’t suggest strong differences between ideological orientation of
govrnments that decided to participate in an operation and governments that decided not
to participate, although the CMP scores of the cases of military participation are
somewhat lower
o This indicates that left-leaning governments are more inclined to actually
participate in operations under investigation
These counterintuitive results might be related to fact that impact of ideology on foreign
policy preferences depends on type of military operation
o Left-leaning governments might be more inclined to support operations with
inclusive goals while right wing governments more supportive of operations
defending narrower national interests
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Figure 6 visualizes relation between government ideology operationalized with CMP
indicator and participation in different types of operations
Box plot shows that countries that participated in operations with inclusive goals were
governed by left-leaning parties
Left-leaning governments more likely to participate in operations with inclusive goals
than right-leaning
o Differences more significant in set of peacekeeping operations than in set of
humanitarian interventions
Rally Around the Flag Effect
THE PUBLIC & FOREIGN POLICY
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Public’s capacity to gather and retain information, and to use to formulate coherent
opinions, is arguably integral to the functioning of democracy
A long liberal tradition manifested for instance in vast literature on the democratic peace
views citizen engagement as crucial to well-considered policy and peaceful international
relations
However, despite the theoretical importance of the public’s engagement with foreign
policy, social scientists have struggled to consistently characterize the public’s actual
role in the foreign policy process
Early works suggested that public opinion was volatile and lacked a coherent structure,
or that the public naively follows elite leadership
Over time, a rebuttal emerged from scholars who, while recognizing that typical
individuals do not know much about politics or foreign policy, argued that the public’s
individual and collective behavior was nonetheless efficient and rational
Still, a widespread perception persisted that, most of the time, the public was
fundamentally incidental to the foreign policy process
More recently, however, some scholars have begun to characterize public opinion as a
relatively stable and consistent counterweight that policymakers must or at least should
take into consideration
Question of the public’s informational capacity is a crucial foundation underlying our
understanding of the foreign policy marketplace
Research suggests a consensus around two key points:
o Citizens are typically at significant informational disadvantage vis-à-vis
leadership elites
o They compensate by employing heuristic cues that allow them to make reasoned
judgments with small amounts of information
Whereas public is typically not closely attuned to the details of international politics,
crises often appear to attract public attention
This has prompted scholars to ask what role if any, public opinion actually plays in
specific American foreign policy crises
WHAT FACTORS DRIVE PUBLIC OPINION ON WAR?
1. Increasing casualties
2. War aims
Gartner & Segura (1998) – The Relevance of Marginal Casualties

First, recent information by its very nature is more salient, and a number of scholars
have investigated the importance of the recency effects in other contexts
 Recent information by its very nature is more salient. In war, individuals try to both
assess the long-term prospects for victory and perform a cost-benefit analysis of the
likely outcome
 Those making these evaluations in the context of high recent battlefield costs are likely
to lower both their estimates of the eventual payoff for victory and their estimates of the
probability of said victory
 In contrast to cumulative casualties, marginal casualties aren’t correlated with timethere are therefore two advantages:
o We can estimate the effects of war losses without fear of contamination by other
causal factors correlated with time. By using a marginal casualty measure, we
can estimate the direct effect of battlefield losses on opinion
o Opinion change isn’t necessarily monotonic  it can shift in either direction and
is likely to do so in fits rather can at a steady, constant rate
o Therefore, the monotonicity of cumulative casualties is problematic, as they
always increase and therefore account for the decline in opposition. Although
such decline is unlikely, it is still possible
 Marginal causalities capture the importance of crucial, highly salient events in a war and
thus are better able to account for subsequent response in opinion
o An example of the Vietnam War is shown  Tet Offensive occurs immediately
before the fifth poll and the spike in marginal casualties is paralleled by similar
response in opinion
o After the Tet, events such as Johnson’s withdrawal and election of Republican
President suggest that the manner in which casualties and opinion are linked
might have changed
o Combined with declining marginal casualties, these events led to a decline in
opposition although the trend thereafter moved again toward disapproval
 Hypotheses
 Variation in marginal casualties plays greater role than cumulative causalities in
explaining opinion in wars, or periods within a war, with generally increasing marginal
casualty figures
 Variation in cumulative casualties performs better than marginal casualties in explaining
opinion on wars, or periods within a war, with generally decreasing marginal casualty
figures
 Research Design
 We predict that the power of these two casualty variables will vary with the log of
cumulative casualties explaining disapproval where marginal casualties decline (e.g.
Korean War) and marginal casualties explaining opposition when marginal casualties
increase (e.g. Vietnam War)
 Marginal casualties are operationalized by looking at period 120 days prior to the date
the poll was conducted – we choose 120 days for several reasons
 Dependent variable represents the percentage of Americans signifying that they oppose
the war and its handling
 Changes in Casualties Trends
 In WWII after initial attack of Pearl Harbor, US combat casualties accumulated slowly
and the marginal casualty figures didn’t grow dramatically until mid-1944 when invasions
of Italy and France took place
 In Korea, by contrast, the Chinese intervention meant that casualties accumulated very
quickly in early stages but once fighting stabilized, casualties accumulated at a slower
pace
 Vietnam War escalated until occurrence of Tet in 1968 and mini-Tet and then began to
de-escalate once Nixon imposed policy of Vietnamization
 With respect to cumulative casualties, marginal casualties are (i) reflective of
environment in which the opinion is formed, (ii) not monotonic, and (iii) therefore
fluctuate meaningfully with opinion and account for important events and shocks that
shape opinion
 Results
 Model 1 - As predicted, the Vietnam War marginal casualties are significantly and
positively correlated with opposition but in the Korean War, the log of cumulative
casualties is also positive and significant
 Model 2 – Shows results on Korean War alone and cumulative casualties is a significant,
positive predictor of opposition
 Results of central model’s performance in the Vietnam War is shown in model 4 – in
model 4 like model 1, cumulative casualties is not a significant predictor of opposition to
Vietnam, while marginal casualties is
 We separate the 51 observations into two categories:
o When the number of KIA accumulated in the 120 days prior to survey on which
observation is based exceeds number accumulated in 120 days prior to pre-poll
period, then we code the observation as has occurred during time of increasing
casualties
o When the casualties in the earlier (120-day) period exceed those in most recent
120-day period, we code this as occurring in period of decreasing casualties
 We then create two new casualty measures:
o CAS120 UP  equal to CAS 120 (marginal casualties) for all observations
occurring in periods of increasing casualties
o LOGCAS DOWN  LOGCAS for all observations in periods of declining
casualties
 Both perform as expected:
o Marginal casualties significantly associated with disapproval when casualties are
increasing
o
Logged cumulative casualties are also associated with disapproval when
casualties are decreasing
Johns & Davies (2019), Experimental Evidence About Civilian Casualties
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Public isn’t just sensitive to casualties of its own armed troops but also civilian casualties
in military interventions
Results from survey experiments in US and UK
Experiment 1: respondents asked whether they supported air strikes against weapon
facilities in hypothetical state that (according to govt) was planning aggression against
neighboring states
o Figure 1: while US and UK public differ in general willingness to support military
action, they react similarly to civilian casualties
Experiment 2: based on possibility of the US/UK governments acting on long-standing
concerns about Iran’s nuclear program
Appreciable changes in support come with move from 50 to 500 casualties and from
5,000 to 50,000 with curve flattening out in between
Jentleson & Britton (1992), Two Types of Principal Policy Objectives
1. Foreign policy restraint
 Involves efforts to affect the external behavior of another state that aggressively
threatens the US, its citizens, or allies
 By aggressively threatens it means more than just a deterrence situation in which an
adversary poses an ongoing threat and standing military posture is maintained, but
rather a more active one involving actual not potential aggression directed against US,
allies, interests, or citizens
2. Political change
 Internal political change objective involves intervention as efforts to influence the
domestic political authority structure of another state either by supporting an existing
government considered an ally (counterinsurgency) or in support of group considered an
ally against government considered an adversary (insurgency)
 May be direct through US aid, advisers, and even troops or indirect through covert
activities or surrogates
 There is more support for policy restraint because…
 Foreign policy restraint objectives tend to lend themselves more readily to strategies that
are primarily military and secondarily political
 There is comparable difference in claims to international legitimacy  foreign policy
restraint consistent with collective security and national self-determination
 Foreign policy objective also carries a greater degree of domestic political legitimacy and
more likely to be treated as a valence issue because the threat is clear and present
 Use of Force in the 80s
 Table 1: compares support for use of military force in 8 cases as measured by responses
to basic support or opposition and approval and disapproval questions
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When principal objective was to restrain an adversary, when that adversary had gone
beyond simply posing a standing threat and initiated aggressive actions against
American interests or citizens, the public was prepared to support military action
 But when the principal objective was to remake government of another country,
American public didn’t support use of force
Desert Storm Operation
 Main reason for high levels of support despite fears of risks involved was nature of the
objectives in this case as virtually an ideal-type of foreign policy restraint
 Where the data does vary though, is in the increased support for using military force to
overthrow Saddam Hussein
 Public support for using military force for such internal political change objectives was
quite limited prior to outbreak of war but shift of this issue was immediate with the
launching of Desert Storm
A Third Policy? Humanitarian Intervention
 Humanitarian intervention: provision of emergency relief through military and other
means to people suffering from famine or other gross and widespread humanitarian
disasters
 Analytically it is distinct from the political change objective, but operationally it is not
easily kept distinct (e.g. Bosnia, Somalia)
 Based on same criteria of legitimacy and efficacy, humanitarian intervention objectives
should foster greater support than political change, but less clear-cut for foreign policy
restraint
Post Cold War Cases
 US used or threatened force in six cases in period 1992-1996 in Somalia, Rwanda,
North Korea, Haiti, Bosnia, and Iraq
 Table 1: compares support for each case, ranking Iraq the highest followed by Rwanda,
Somalia, North Korea, Bosnia, and Haiti
 Categorized Iraq and North Korea as foreign policy restraint, Somalia and Rwanda as
humanitarian intervention., Bosnia as mixed, and Haiti as internal political change
Regression Analysis
 Dependent variable: public support for military force, measured as continuous variable
0—100 based on % of polled who support
 Independent variable: principal policy objective (HI, FPR, IPC)
Results
 Used IPC as baseline support of 35.47%
 Both HI and FPR showed independent and highly significant positive effects 
increased public support an additional 28.81 pp and 19.41 pp
 PPO variables are statistically significant
 HI and FPR objectives are likely to have larger impact on public support over the IPC
baseline
 Every model including PPOs outperforms other models
 Full model (Model 1) suggests that a cue from president will increase public support by
15.2 pp but opposition from Congress makes for a net 2.71 pp loss in support
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Conducted logistic analysis with elite cues as our dependent variables
President less likely to advocate IPC objectives than HI
Congress more likely to oppose president when PPO is IPC rather than HI
FPR doesn’t have statistically significant effects on likelihood of presidential cue or
congressional opposition above HI baseline
Kiratli (2023), Survey Experiment in US and Turkey
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Survey experiments in US and Turkey revealing that objective of military operation
causes substantial variance in respondents’ attitudes
Humanitarian operations evoke highest degree of support in both and IPC the lowest
FPR preferred strongly over IPC among Americans, but only weakly preferred over IPC
among Turkish
In both countries, peace operations garner relatively high levels of support, ranking just
behind humanitarian missions (contrary to previous findings)
o Probability of supporting peace operation is 55.8% for Americans and 53.8% for
Turkish
RALLY AROUND THE FLAG
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In the short-term, the public tends to rally behind presidential foreign policy initiatives,
giving presidents considerable influence over public opinion
In long-term, public opinion can constrain foreign policy
Most empirics test short-term
Muller (1975) was first to operationalize this concept in his model of presidential
popularity, proposing than an international incident must satisfy 3 things to qualify as a
“rally event:”
o International in nature
o Involve US and President directly
o Be specific, dramatic, and sharply focused
REASONS FOR RALLY AROUND THE FLAG EFFECT
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Sociological  emphasize conflict with out-groups tends to increase cohesion within ingroups
Theorists of public opinion  crises tend to mute dissent by opposition elites, allowing
the leader to monopolize political discourse
Rational choice theorists  use of force permits leaders to reveal their foreign policy or
war-fighting competence
ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE: 9/11 & PEARL HARBOUR
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Pearl Harbor: FDR’s approval rating rose by 12 pp
9/11: Bush’s approval increased by 35 pp
Baker & O’Neal (2001)
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Examines rally effect in all MIDs from 1930s to 1990s
Rally for each event was calculated by subtracting the incumbent president’s approval
rating in the Gallup poll immediately preceding the beginning of the MID from approval
following the MID
 On average, the average is 0.1 percent
 Public approval increased in 65 of 167 rally points for which public approval data exists
 Every president except Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford experienced positive
rallies
 In cases where President leads nation to full scale war, they consistently result in
sizeable rallies
 Effect of Media Reporting
 More than half of the MID disputes were reported in front page of NYT and there is only
small difference in rally effect between those reported on front page and those not
 Headline stories generated greater rallies on average than those that appeared
elsewhere on front page and this difference is statistically significant
 Effect of Crisis at International Level
 0 = noncrisis period
 1 = moderately severe crisis period  associated with minor rallies
 2 = highly severe crisis period  associated with rallies of almost four percentage points
 American public more likely to rally behind President when US becomes involved in MID
during period of international crisis
 Results
 Positive expectations regarding economy impacts president’s popularity positively
 Higher hostility has moderate positive impact on president popularity
 Higher severity of crisis and cases in which US is both originator and revisionist state
leads to increase in president popularity
 Use fo force during major wars leads to decrease popularity  costs of war more
evident
 Prior popularity has strong significance on president popularity
Experimental Evidence, Berinsky (2007)
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Survey experiment in US where they told half of respondents that 901 soldiers were
killed in Iraq and there was no reliable significant different between the respondents
Respondents told number of war deaths is larger than they believed were more
supportive of the war
Not even exaggerated information had an impact
Baum (2002)
 Argument
 Challenges assumption of homogenous rally
effect by disaggregating public opinion along
two dimensions: partisanship and political
sophistication
 Political and economic circumstances will
weigh heavily in influencing whether and to
what extent different groups rally
 Partisan Threshold Model
 President’s support will be drawn from members mostly from his own party and maybe
to lesser extent from Opposition
 Opposition will tend to approve more weakly than president’s partisans  closer to
threshold of approval
 Constituencies most likely to alter evaluation of President in response to economic
circumstances (e.g. higher unemployment or inflation)
 Strategic president will therefore treat fellow partisans as ‘locked-in’ and focus efforts on
marginal constituencies
 BUT the more approvers, the fewer available to upgrade evaluation of the President
 The larger the pool of marginal disapprovers, the larger the potential rally if President
employs military force
 Since president’s approval ratings trend to rise/fall with economy, presidents are more
likely to enjoy their largest rallies during poor economic circumstances
 Interaction between inflation and rally should be strongest during Democratic
administrations since public scrutinizes Dems more for inflation management than a
Republican
 Informational Model
 Individuals at different levels of political awareness tend to react differently to information
and have varying propensities to encounter political information available in environment
 Lowly aware individuals tend to be relatively oblivious to political information and
their opinions tend to be stable even in a relatively information-intensive environment
such as one surrounding use of American force
 Highly aware individuals are immune to new information as they have well-formed belief
system through which they are able to filter information
 Moderately aware individuals most susceptible to having opinions swayed since
they pay enough attention to receive information but lack sufficiently well-formed belief
systems to screen out dissonant messages
 We may anticipate reduction in discrepancy of rallies between least politically aware and
moderately aware due to increased attentiveness to some political issues
 Data
 Includes 834 Gallup polls of which 66 take place following initiation of potential rally
event
 Has variables capturing elite criticism (Divided Government), state of economy (Inflation
& Unemployment), and election years
 Transforms approval ratings into difference of natural logarithms of presidential approval
rating between current (t) and immediately preceding the poll (t-1) to account for
extreme differences in levels of approval across different partisan groups
 Results
 When Republican President, the magnitudes of rally effects for different groups lines up
precisely as partisan threshold model predicts
o Effect is non-significant during Democratic administrations
o Average rally among Dems is 7.9% compared to 4.1% among Independents and
2.5% among Republicans
 During Democratic administrations, among Republicans, each additional % increase in
inflation is associated with a 31% post-use-of-force rally in approval
 During non-rally periods, each 1% increase in inflation is associated with 9.4% decline in
approval
 With Republican administrations, the effects of inflation are much weaker
 Among respondents with grade school education, presidents receive 4% rally effect in
immediate aftermath of using force abroad
o 4.3% among respondents with high school education
o 2.9% for college-educated respondents
 For average magnitude of post-use-of-force rallies, it increased by about 6.4% for those
with grade school education


o High school – 2.3%
o College – 1.6%
Among respondents with grade school education, average magnitude of rallies during
Republican administration increased by 22%, compared to 15.3% for those with high
school education and 14.5% for those with college degrees
During Democratic administrations, the relationship is weaker and insignificant for all
education groups
o Fewer low-education individuals willing to upgrade evaluation of President’s job
performance
SUMMARY



People tend to have coherent opinions about foreign policies and use of force but are
fundamentally driven by partisanship
Support use of force depending on such opinions and number of casualties and aims of
mission
Rally around the flag effect does exist but should not be overestimated  subject to
dynamics of partisanship and elite framing
Diversionary War Theory
FALKLAND WAR
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Argentina sparked war with UK in 1982 by invading set of nearby disputed islands and
was a surprising war for several reasons:
1. Islands weren’t valuable  in 1981, UK was ready to withdraw last of its navy there
and passed an act, stripping islanders of full British citizenship
2. Imbalance of military power between the two states  Britain had far superior naval
force
Argentina invaded and occupied Falklands on April 2, 1982, and it took 74 days for UK to
retake the islands resuling in 255 British causalities and 635 Argentinian
Why did Argentina pick a fight with UK? Why did UK react so strongly?
At the time, leaders in both countries had pressing domestic problems to which military
conflict may have seemed like the perfect solution
Argentinian Side: government, a military junta, seized power in 1976 and its rule became
increasingly repressive and unpopular
o 1980s: Argentina suffered severe economic downturn which led to civil unrests
and splits within ruling group
o Facing dire threat to its rule, General Galtieri attacked Falklands to solve its
problem
British side: PM Thatcher worried about political survival and UK was in midst of severe
recession in 1982
o In Feb 1982, only 29% of British approved of Thatcher
o Thatcher’s response to Falkland Islands caused her poll numbers to soar
o
By end of war, her approval was 51% and won the election the next year
DIVERSIONARY WAR THEORY
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Studies confirmed presence of rally around the flag effect
Leaders recognize their informational advantage with respect to public early in conflicts
which produces an incentive, especially in democracies, to use conflict to manipulate
public opinion (diversionary incentive)
Diversionary war: distracts attention from domestic problems or bolstering electoral
prospects  only works if leader anticipates a rally response from electorate
WHO IS GOING TO DIVERT?
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Incentive is tempting to leaders who are insecure domestically due to discontent with
policies or bad economic performance
These leaders decide that doing nothing means losing office so they wage war and
invoke rally to take a risky
Gamble for resurrection: taking risky action (e.g. starting war) when alternative is
certain to be very bad
Derouen (1995), Indirect Link Between Economy & Use of Force
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Presidential approval is important component of decision to use force  President
regards this as barometer of political standing especially in terms of congressional
support and reelection prospects
Although economy may not have direct impact of force, it is well-known that the
economy directly impacts approval
Economy have direct effect on use of force or economy can have indirect effect via
impact on president’s approval ratings
Deleterious impact a weak economy has on presidential approval may produce powerful
incentive for force
Time-span covered: 1949-1984
As economy worsens, presidential approval declines and as presidential approval
declines, the level of force applied in crisis increases
Link between economy and presidential approval in significant  weak economy led to
drops in approval of about 1.65%
As approval increased, level of force applied in international crisis decreased
o Use of force resulted in rally effect of about 2.8% as indicated by FORCE
coefficients in approval equations
NO EVIDENCE FOR DIVERSIONARY WAR THEORY

Scholars have found little consistent support for hypothesis that leaders systematically
resort to force when they are in trouble domestically, especially outside of the US


Neither strong nor robust results about relationship between leader’s popularity, inflation
or unemployment, or closeness to elections and likelihood that a state initiates a conflict
Some research even suggests the opposite: international conflict more likely to be
initiated by leaders whose hold on office is relatively strong
WHY LITTLE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR DIVERSIONARY WAR THEORY?
1. Domestic political benefits of war relative to peace have to be large (unrealistic) to
eliminate possibility of peaceful bargain
2. War can impose domestic political costs in addition to promising benefits
o Evident from Falklands case  Thatcher rode postwar wave of support to
electoral victory in following year, while in Argentina, the defeat resulted in
protests and people stripped of their posts
WHY LITTLE EVIDENCE OUTSIDE OF US?


Discrepancy between US and cross-national studies due to short-term nature of rally
effect and uneven distribution of capacity in international system
Few countries can use force in ways visible enough to engender rally without serious
risk of war or prohibitively costly retaliation
ELEMENTS THAT COMPLICATE DIVERSIONARY WAR THEORY
1. Partisanship
2. Strategic Conflict Avoidance
3. Rivalries & Regimes
PARTISANSHIP – Morgan & Bickers (1992)
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MID disputes (short of war) of US between 1953 -1976
Results of estimations indicate that lower levels of partisan approval are associated with
higher probabilities of aggressive action by the US BUT change in partisan approval
doesn’t have significant impact
Increase in aggregate support actually increases the probability of an aggressive action
THE EFFECT OF PARTISANSHIP – Fordham (1998)


In a democracy, national leaders have at least two analytically distinguishable
constituencies:
o An elite audience consistent of party activists, policy activists, political
contributors, and other allied politicians  in US, this elite group is likely to be
organized through the President’s party or perhaps his political coalition within it
o Opinion of wider public  Presidents who neglect public opinion entirely are
unlikely to be re-elected
In some cases, the demands of elite and mass consistencies may conflict, creating
dilemma for national leader

Elite audience (which has more consistent policy agenda and greater capacity to monitor
actual programs) may demand course of action that creates hardship for wider audience
of voters
 Under these circumstances, a diversionary use of force maybe attractive  offers way to
deal with short-term popular discontent without reversing policies demanded by leader’s
elite constituency
 Economic policy can create conflict between President’s elite and mass constituencies
that makes diversionary use of force attractive
 Party affiliation influences President’s willingness to employ various macroeconomic
policy instruments to deal with poor economic performance
o Republican presidents have generally preferred to control inflation
o Democrats have been willing to risk inflation to keep unemployment low
 Two parties’ different economic policy preferences imply two empirically testable
hypotheses about the differences in the impact of economic conditions on relative
attractiveness of using force
 When demands of their elite and mass constituencies conflict, presidents should find use
of force more attractive as a way to appeal to their mass audience without abandoning
policies favored by elite constituency
 Hypotheses
 Under conditions of high unemployment, Republican presidents should use force more
often than should Democratic presidents
 Under conditions of high inflation, Democratic presidents use force more often then
should Republican presidents
 Research Design
 Dependent variable: number of political uses of force observed in each quarter from
1949-1994
 Uses of force that are part of an ongoing war aren’t among incidents included in
dependent variable used here
 Results
 High unemployment and war-time presidential re-election years is associated with more
frequent uses of force
 Inflation is more weakly related to the dependent variable and in the opposite direction:
more inflation, less use of force
 Neither Republican nor democratic presidents were significantly more likely to use force
than presidents from the other party
 Positive coefficient on unemployment in Model 3 indicates that Republican presidents
used force more often when unemployment was high
 Negative coefficient on party interaction term indicates that this effect was smaller for
Democratic presidents
 Although results concerning partisan differences in effects of unemployment on use of
force are quite strong, inflation appears to produce little difference between presidents
from different parties

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Coefficient on main effect on inflation is negative and significant indicating that high
inflation generally makes presidents less likely to use force
BUT coefficient on party interaction term narrowly misses statistical significance
High inflation appears to inhibit both Democrats and Republicans from using force 
greater among Republicans than Democrats although relationships are not large enough
to be statistically significant
When inflation Is set at its postwar mean, 4.1%, and there is no ongoing war or election
cycle, the expected number of uses of force increases more rapidly with rising
unemployment for Republican presidents than it does for democrats
When unemployment is set at its postwar mean, 5.8%, and there is no ongoing war or
election cycle democratic presidents are more likely to use force as inflation increases
while Republican presidents actually become less likely
Strategic Conflict Avoidance, Leeds & Davis (1997)

When a democratic executive is politically vulnerable, they are more willing to meet an
international challenge and respond aggressively to pursue international goals
belligerently
 If rival states believe that vulnerable executives are more resolute, they are less likely to
challenge vulnerable executives and are more likely to accede to the demands made by
these executives at an earlier state
 For democratic states, these calculations by foreign rivals may be particularly important
 Because democratic political institutions foster norms that favor compromise over
conflict, and because these same institutions prevent quick and decisive action except in
emergency situations, democracies will tend to act violently only when a threat is
present
 As a result, even at times of political vulnerability, democratic leaders are unlikely to
manufacture militarized international crises
 Hypotheses
 Advanced industrial democracies are more likely to initiate interstate disputes and
to show or use military force in the three months before an election
 Advanced industrial democracies are more likely to initiate interstate disputes and
to show or use of military force during years in which the domestic economic
growth is comparatively low
 An advanced industrial democracy is less likely to be target of MID in 3 months before
election
 An advanced industrial democracy is less likely to be target of MID during years in which
the domestic economic growth is comparatively low
 Results
 Pooled time series models of behavior in MID for 18 industrialized democracies from
1952-1988 on annual and quarterly basis
 There is no evidence that electoral concerns or changes in economic growth have an
effect of dispute initiation or show of force  outside of US no evidence




But it seems that when the economy grows, democracies are more targeted (and vice
versa)
Strategic conflict avoidance makes sense only when diversionary military action is likely
Logic of diversionary theory suggests that this condition is not universal
o The fact that most states cannot use force without risking a serious and
costly international military conflict underscores an important limitation on the
scope of diversionary hypothesis
US’s position as the preeminent world military power in the postwar era has placed it in
an unusual situation
o American leaders have often been able to use or threaten military force
without risking war or even serious military retaliation
o Consistent diversionary behavior probably only makes sense under these
unusual conditions
Strategic Conflict Avoidance – Fordham (2005)

Only states with some reason to believe that they may be targets of a diversionary use
of force should be expected to engage in strategic conflict avoidance
 Enduring rivals are ideal targets for diversionary use of force
o Because of the preexisting pattern of conflict, the American public already has
strong negative image of these states and their leaders
 A use of force against these states is more likely to be met with broad support
than would a similar use of force against a less notorious opponent
 Elements of Strategic Conflict Avoidance
 Importance of behavior short of militarized conflict
o Militarized conflicts generally arise from actions and expressions of hostility short
of force
o Even if a state were unwilling to attack or threaten another international
actor without provocation, many actions short of a militarized challenge
could provide it with an occasion to use or threaten force
 Not taking the bait: tempering the response to American hostility
o Conflict and cooperation depend heavily on both previous behavior by actor and
on behavior of other states toward it
o Strategic conflict avoidance suggests that poor American economic
performance should make rival state responses to US behavior relatively
more cooperative
 Avoiding conflict with 3rd states:
o Conflict between rivals and third states might prompt a potential diverter to act
o Example: in spite of evidence that Saddam Hussein sought tacit American
permissions prior to invading Kuwait in 1990, the US used force in response to
invasion
 Strategic conflict avoidance is only one possible influence on behavior of American rivals
o First, the necessities of waging war will greatly reduce a state’s ability to
limit its conflict behavior making conflict avoidance difficult
o
o
o
Rival’s military power should influence both its behavior toward the US and
American decisions about it
Another influence on rival state’s behavior is its own domestic economic and
political condition
Rival’s regime type should influence its interactions with the US
 Results
 Measured conflict and cooperation by aggregating events over specified periods of time
 Earler data (1948-78) suggests that rival states were more cooperative when
American unemployment increased
o Unemployment didn’t influence their response to American behavior
 Later data (1966-92) suggests rivals responded as expected to American unemployment
and econ9omic growth but NOT to inflation
o High inflation associated with slightly increased hostility to the US but magnitude
of this relationship is very small
 Conflict between rivals and third states might prompt potential diverter to act (US
reaction to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait)
 American unemployment influenced rival state behavior in both datasets and same with
inflation
Rivalries & Regimes – Mitchell & Prins (2004)
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Must look at historical context when looking at foreign policy decision-making
Rivalry emerges in part due to divergent foreign policy behavior of states with extended
adversarial relationships
Diversionary theories more accurately assessed in context of adversaries  deep
mistrust between states allow elites to more easily manipulate foreign affairs to satisfy
their own personal or political objectives
o They use military force for domestic political purposes due to opportunity-rich
environment in presence of rivalry
Mutual anticipation of violent coercion provides pretext and justification for military
actions that may have little strategic value
Political leaders in rivalry situations can effectively blame domestic turmoil on
foreign enemies, further concealing and diverting attention away from domestic political
problems
However, influence of rivalry environments may have differential impacts on probability
of force initiation depending on state’s regime type
Transparency of democratic regimes makes it more difficult for democratic
leaders to seize opportunities to divert public attention away from domestic
turmoil and rivalry for democratic states
Strategic model of diversion implies that we would not find a strong relationship between
domestic turmoil and rivalry for democratic states
Nondemocratic states would avoid tangling with their democratic rivals when their
economies are weak, elections are approaching, and so forth

On the other hand, nondemocratic states may have ability to initiate force against
rivals when domestic turmoil is high
 Hypotheses
 Domestic turmoil will be more likely to result in initiation of militarized force by
states in opportunity-rich environments of rivalry
 Increasing domestic turmoil will have little or no effect on initiation of militarized force by
democratic states in opportunity-rich environments of rivalry
 Increasing domestic turmoil will be more likely to result in initiation of militarized
force by nondemocratic states in opportunity-rich environments of rivalry
 Research Design
 91,665 cases from 1960-2001
 Enduring rivalry as pair of states that have fought minimum of 6 MIDs over time period of
20 or more years
 Consumer price index as measure of domestic turmoil
 MID participant as the initiator of new MID if it is on side A and originated the dispute
 Results
 Rivalry variable is in predicted positive direction and highly significant
o State involved in enduring rivalry (with no domestic turmoil) is more likely to
initiate militarized dispute in any given year
 Domestic turmoil negatively and significantly related to conflict initiation in nonrival
environments
 Positive sign for interaction coefficient indicates that there is an added effect of domestic
turmoil on conflict propensity of rival states
 One standard deviation decrease in inflation in nonrivalry environments drops probability
of MID initiation from 0.0062-0.0047
o Absolute change is small but relative decrease is around 25%
 Initiation drops by 75% in nonrival dyads
 In rival dyads, domestic economic weakness increases probability of conflict initiation
from 0.034-0.044
o Absolute change may not appear all that large but relatively speaking, this
increase does reflect a 30% increase in probability of MID initiation
 Democratic initiators don’t seize on domestic turmoil to divert attention to foreign affairs
 even democratic states in rivalries fail to initiate during periods of domestic weakness
o This indicates strategic behavior on part of opponents
 Nondemocratic initiators fail to signal efficiently domestic conditions that heighten the
probability of dispute initiation
 In opportunity-rich environments, nondemocratic states initiate MIDs are economic
conditions deteriorate
o As measure of inflation increases by 1 standard deviation, the probability of MID
initiation increases by nearly 25%
 Probability of MID initiation drops by 75% in nonrival dyads as we move from minimum
to maximum value of inflation


Across the entire range of inflation measure, the probability of MID initiation increases by
250% in rival dyads moving from min to max values
Likelihood of conflict initiation increases as domestic turmoil increases, but only for
nondemocratic initiators
TO SUM UP
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

Leaders should initiate conflicts to divert public attention from domestic problems BUT
this rarely has happened outside of the US
Rally around the flag is short term and if conflict continues, the reputational costs
outweigh benefits
We should take the following factors into account:
o Partisanship  leaders have more incentives to please constituents than public
and diversion is useful when the public isn’t pleased with government
performance
o Strategic conflict avoidance  fellow leaders know about potential
diversionary behavior and anticipate it by not provoking diverter as well as
keeping cooperative foreign policy towards third states
o Rivalries and regimes  diversionary wars are more likely to happen in context
of enduring rivalries initiated by non-democratic states that are more able to
manipulate public opinion rather than by democratic states whose rival will be
careful not to provoke
Two Level Games Theory
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How domestic politics affect international negotiations? The two-level game theory helps
us to address this question
Politics of many international negotiations can be usefully conceived as two-level game
At international level, national governments seek to maximize their own ability to satisfy
domestic pressures, while minimizing adverse consequences of foreign developments
(Level 1)
At national level, domestic groups pursue their interests by pressuring government to
adopt favorable polices and politicians seek power by constructing coalitions among
those groups (Level 2)
Neither of two games can be ignored by central decisionmakers so as long as their
countries remain interdependent yet sovereign
Each national political leader appears at both gameboards
Across international table sit his foreign counterparts and next to him are diplomats and
other international advisors
Around the domestic table behind him sit party and parliamentary figures,
spokespersons for domestic agencies, representatives of key interest groups, and the
leader’s own political advisors



Unusual complexity of this two-level game is that moves that are rational for a player at
one board may be impolitic for same player at other board
Nevertheless, there are powerful incentives for consistency between the two games
Any key player at international table who is dissatisfied with outcome may upset the
game board and any leader who fails to satisfy fellow players at domestic table risks
being evicted from his seat
RULES OF THE GAME
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Negotiators representing two organizations meet to reach an agreement between them,
subject to a constraint that any tentative agreement must be ratified by respective
organizations
Each side represented by single leader who has no independent policy
preferences but seeks to simply achieve agreement attractive to constituents
Process of two-levels:
1. Bargaining between negotiators leading to tentative agreement
2. Separate discussions within each group of constituents about whether to ratify
agreement
Expectational effects important  prior consultation and bargaining at level 2 to hammer
out initial position for level 1 negotiations
Need for level 2 ratification affects level 1 bargaining  expectation of rejection at level 2
aborts negotiations at level 1 without any formal action at level 2
Two-level process might be iterative as negotiators try out possible agreements and
probe their constituents’ views
In complicated cases, the constituents’ views may themselves evolve in course of
negotiations
Ratification might seem peculiar of democracies but should be conceived in broadest
sense of political actors needed to approve agreement
Only formal constraint on ratification process is that since identical agreement must be
ratified by both sides, preliminary agreement cannot be amended at level 2 without
reopening level 1 negotiations
IMPORTANCE OF WINSET SIZE

Win-set for given level 2 constituency is the set of all possible level 1 agreements that
would win (gain majority among constituents)
 For two quite different reasons, level 2 winsets are important for understanding level 1
agreements:
1. Larger winsets make level 1 agreement more likely
 Agreement only possible if those winsets overlap and larger each winset, the more likely
they are to overlap
 Conversely, the smaller the winset, the greater the risk that negotiations will break down
 Possibility of failed ratification suggests that we should distinguish between voluntary
and involuntary defection
o
Voluntary defection: breaking down by rational egoist in absence of enforceable
contract
o Involuntary defection: behavior of agent who is unable to deliver on promise
due to failed ratification
2. Relative size of respective level 2 affects distribution of joint gains from
international bargain
 The larger the perceived winset of negotiator, the more they can be pushed around by
other Level 1 negotiators
 Small domestic winset can be a bargaining advantage  shows domestic constraint
SIZE OF WINSET


Winset at level 2 (domestic) of state Y restricts from 𝑌1 to 𝑌2  bargaining space at
level 1 reduces but still exists
Winset at level 2 of state Y shrinks further to 𝑌3 and there is no room for bargaining
CIRCUMSTANCES AFFECTING WINSET SIZE
1. Preferences & Coalitions at Level 2
 Ratification pits proposed agreement against no agreement (no other alternatives)
 Some constituents may face low costs from no-agreement and others high costs and the
low-cost constituents will be more skeptical of level 1 agreements than the latter
 Size of winset depends on relative size of isolationist and internationalist forces
o All support for negotiations is larger in smaller, more dependent countries than
larger more self-sufficient ones
 In some cases, evaluation of no agreement may be the only significant disagreement
among level 2 constituents because interests are relatively homogenous
 Negotiators’ problem is to manage discrepancy between constituent expectations and
negotiable outcome  the more he can win at level 1, the higher the chances of
ratification
 On other cases, constituents’ preferences are heterogeneous  agreement that is too
much for some groups and too little for other groups, which may create space for more
possible agreements and increase possibility to find agreement
 Participation varies across issue and politicization and negotiations can involve multiple
issues
o Groups at level 2 are likely to have different preferences on several issues in
multi-issue negotiation
 Possibility of package deals open up many strategic alternatives (issue linkage)
2. Political Institutions at Level 2
 Ratification procedures affect winset size

The greater the autonomy of central decisionmakers from level 2 constituents, the
larger their winset and thus greater likelihood of achieving international
agreement
 BUT two-level analysis also implies that a stronger a state is in terms of autonomy from
domestic pressures, the weaker its relative bargaining position internationally
3. Strategies at Level 1
 Each level 1 negotiator has interest in maximizing other side’s winset but with respect to
his own winset (mixed motives)
 The larger the winset, the more easily he can conclude agreement but the weaker the
bargaining position
 To demonstrate commitment to a given position in level 1 bargaining, they can rally
support from constituents BUT this may have irreversible effects on attitude of
consistency, hampering subsequent ratification of compromise agreement
 If negotiator wants to expand winset, they can exploit both conventional side payments
and general good will
 Value of an international side-payment is calculated in terms of marginal contribution to
likelihood of ratification rather than overall value to recipient nation
o Experienced negotiator should be able to maximize concessions to ensure
ratification abroad and cost effectiveness of his own demands and threats
 Negotiator whose political standing at home is high can more easily win ratification of his
foreign initiatives
o Each international part has interest in popularity of opposite part since that
makes deal more likely
UNCERTAINTY & BARGAINING TACTICS



Uncertainty about size of the winset can be both bargaining device and stumbling block
in two-level negotiation
Negotiators have incentive to understate their own winsets BUT on other hand,
uncertainty about opponent’s winset increases concern about involuntary defection
o Uncertainty about ratification of party A lowers expected value for party B too and
therefore the party B will demand more generous side payments from party A
than condition of certainty
Utility negotiator must convince his opposite number that his own winset is kinky
o Proposed deal will be ratified but that a slightly more favorable deal to opponents
unlikely to be ratified
ROLE OF NEGOTIATOR
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
Assumption that negotiation is honest broker between two levels is unrealistic 
preferences of chief negotiator may diverge from those of his constituents
Motives of chief negotiator include:
o Enhancing standing in level 2 game by increasing political resources or
minimizing potential losses
o Shifting balance of power at level 2 in favor of domestic politics that he prefers for
exogenous reasons
o Pursue own conception of national interest in international context
Leader more likely to present international agreement for ratification, the less of his ow
political capital he expects to have to invest to win approval, and the greater the likely
the political returns for agreement
APPLICATION TO US WITHDRAWAL FROM KYOTO PROTOCAL (Lisowski 2002)

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US withdrawl from Kyoto Protocol represents major shift in US foreign policy
US previously played active role in international climate change regime by promoting
GHG emissions reductions regime in 1996  Kyoto resembles these proposals
Clinton signed Protocol in 1998, indicating executive intent to place it before Senate for
ratification
March 13 2001: Bush wrote letter to 4 senators abandoning campaign plesge to regulate
emissions and stating opposition to KP
EPA head announced US would withdraw from KP
Accounting for this shift in policy is not as straightforward as it might appear
o Although Prisoner’s Dilemma suggests the US withdrew because of the benefits
it could receive from free-riding  this is implausible
o EU obviously would ratify without US but not the same case for Japan & Russia
o Couldn’t have expected same from Japan and Russia
INTERNATIONAL GAME

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Insistence on emissions trading is one reason developing countries refused to accept
draft article on voluntary emissions targets virtually guaranteeing the Protocol would not
be ratified by US Senate
Emissions trading with targets based on historical emissions devour developed countries
with large historical emissions rates by giving them large quotas to sell and
disadvantages developing countries with small historical emissions rates by giving them
small quotas to sell
Developing countries like India would only accept draft article on voluntary commitments
and article on emissions trading if quotas traded were based on per capita emissions
rights
Under this, the bulk of emissions permits would accrue to developing countries since
their large populations and high demographic growth rates  would be in position to sell
excess permits to developed countries
Intrasigence of developing countries with respect to voluntary commitments may have
been in part to overestimation of US winset
DOMESTIC GAME




President Bush set up energy task force in Jan 2001, charged with creating national
energy policy based on increasing fossil fuel supply
Bush and his Republican colleagues announced clear preference for policy that would
be inconsistent with KP and to gain support, they made theoretical link between need for
energy policy review, the repudiation, and CA energy crisis which was caused by
capping the rates CA’s investor-owned utilities could charge consumers but forcing them
to privatize their power plants and buy electricity on open market
Because of the resultant top-level power alerts and rolling blackouts in CA, Bush claimed
that the national energy crisis exists and that expanding oil and gas production is correct
response
Although Bush aligned himself with Senate by repudiating KP two factors indicate
President Bush is more of hawk than agent:
o Public opinion favors ratifying KP
o Congress disapproves of Bush’s lack of action on climate change  called Bush
on to take alternative actions on climate change
TO SUM UP – Lisowski (2002)
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President Bush repudiated KP and used CA’s energy crisis and Byrd-Hagel Senate
Resolution to legitimize his hawkish approach for 3 related reasons:
1. Bush was personally dissatisfied with KP
2. Failure of negotiations seemed to prove that further negotiations wouldn’t lead to KP US
Senate would ratify
3. Bush couldn’t credibly engage in further negotiations on KP while pursuing his preferred
domestic energy policy of expanding oil and gas production
AN APPLICATION TO IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL – Hurst (2016)
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In July 2015, after more than a decade of negotiations, the international community and
Iran finally reached agreement over Iran’s nuclear program
All of the work produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action but the US Congress
came close to killing it
Emphasizes two-leveledness of the game  policymakers must take their own
objectives but also interests of domestic constituencies if they are to secure ratification
Iran revived nuclear program in mid-1980s placing under International Atomic Energy
Agency safeguards in accordance with Nuclear Non-Proliferaton Treaty
2003: IAEA found evidence of Iranian violations and then Iran gailed to comply with UN
Security Council Resolutions requiring cooperation with IAEA  imposed sanctions
Negotiations between EU and Iran in 2003-05 with P5 + 1 from 2006  negotiations
failed and intl community insisted Iran must halt all enrichment-related activities and
implement the IAEA
Obama offered to break this deadlock and resulted in Geneva Agreement (2009) but Iran
demanded more and P5 + 1 refused to accept
While Iran is authoritarian state, it has some democratic aspects with political factions
and competition
Nuclear program became symbol of Iranian national pride and when Geneva Agreement
conditions were published, opposition in Iran attacked  leader then signed the Tehran
Declaration (2010) which was same as Geneva Agreement but after silencing opposition
o Negotiations for Declaration done in Brazil and Turkey rather than with US
Obama no longer interested in deal and rejected the Tehran Declaration  hostility
towards Iran and American public held negative view identifying it as US’s #1 enemy
o Lots of repression in Iran after 2009 election made US Congress even more
unwilling  breakdown of negotiations
Iran continued to advance nuclear program and Obama and allies imposed sanctions 
did not halt Iran’s nuclear progress but had significant impact on Iranian economy
Economic problems contributed to election of new guy which led to new negotiations and
the announcement of Joint Plan of Action  negotiations and both sides making
concessions
o P5 + 1 accepted continuation of Iran’s enrichment program and Iran accepted
restricts on nuclear activities
o Made domestic ratification easier since Iran just wanted to keep enriching 
concession on enrichment expanded Iranian winset
Election of new guy marked end of conservatives’ hold on state institutions and shifted
factional balance of power (restored some legitimacy) AND agreement was supported by
Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei
Obama’s willingness to sign JCPOA was shaped by fact that he couldn’t be re-elected
but Reps had majority in both houses of Congress (but 2/3 needed to not ratify)
Key US policymakers and advisors like SoS were committed to deal and there was
significant support from public (not as much as in Iran though)
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Therefore domestic politics played big role on both sides and Obama’s decision to opt
for further sanctions in 2010 shows how leader act strategically to expand their winset
and that of their negotiating partner
Democratization & International Organizations
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Countries like Turkey and Hungary have been transitioning towards autocracy
Relationship between democratization and international organizations
o Example of international organizations: NATO, UN, WTO, IMF, World Bank
o There are different IOs that cover different fields (economic like IMF, security like
NATO)
o Regional vs. universal organizations
 Regional  EU started as economic integration organization; developed and
became more political
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
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Does membership in IOs affect the political regimes of the states?
Does the political regime of the states affect likelihood of being member of IOs?
DEFINITION OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION
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According to Correlates of War, we can use 3 criteria to define intergovernmental
organization:
1. Must consist of at least 3 members of state system (distinguishes IOs from
bilateral pacts)
2. Must hold regular plenary sessions at least once every 10 years
3. Must possess a permanent secretariat and corresponding headquarters
Doesn’t just work for certain function and then is disbanded  meets regularly
NUMBER OF IGOs
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Massive increase in IGOs during the Cold War, which obviously was even larger than the
number of states
Then there is plateau and decrease in post Cold War period
NATO is example of why expansion occurred  very specialized alliance formed among
Western states against Soviet Union
o Other forms of agreements in other bloc became very institutionalized
o In other parts of world, regional organizations were formed
Birth and death of IOs  once perceived as useless, many are dismantled
The decrease after Cold War is explained by deaths > births
o Many IGOs were formed in context of Cold War and didn’t have purpose after end of
Cold War  lost their raison d’etre
o This could have been case of NATO, but it survived since it was so institutionalized
and established
IGOs BY REGION
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Region with most IGOs is Africa
Many regional organizations in Africa that we’ve never heard about
Massive increase since the 60s (when many became independent)
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Small decrease in post-Cold War period
Sharp increase in Asia in the last few years; contrasting trend with other regions
o Associated with growing role of China in regional context, expanding their hegemony
in Southeast Asia
o Similar to US with NAFTA
IOs used by major powers to expand their influence in their respective region
WHY DO GOVERNMENTS CONSTRAIN THEMSELVES? (MORAVCSIK 2000)
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The reasoning behind relationship between democratization and membership in IOs was
extremely influential for following literature
Other literature comes back to this original reasoning
Many IOs born as treaties  there is often a treaty to establish
In this case, it looked at negotiation and position of the European Convention for
Protection of Human Rights (ECHR) signed by European states in post WWII period
(1953)
o Widely accepted as advanced and effective international regime formally enforcing
human rights in the world
o Sought to define and protect explicit set of civil and political rights for all people
within jurisdiction of its member states whether individuals regardless of citizen
status
o Initially established Commission on Human Rights to review petitions  investigated
cases or forward it to court of human rights
o Many European governments incorporated convention into domestic law
Why do you want to become member of organization that will constrain you as a state wrt
human rights?  Must give up some sovereignty of the state to join
o Far-right movements against IOs for this reason
When it comes to human rights, they are about the way the state behaves towards its
citizens and what is can do with its citizens
o So-called monopoly of violence of the state  a vital ‘right’ of state
REALIST & IDEATIONAL EXPLANATIONS
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Realist scholar may think reason state may join HR regime is because a more powerful
state coerced that state to
o Hypothetical: The Netherlands pressured by France, a more powerful state, to join
ECHR
Realism is all about power and coercion in international system  establishment of binding
human rights regime requires hegemonic group of powers willing to coerce states to comply
with human rights norms
o Greater concentration of relative power capabilities, the greater pressure on other
governments and more likely international regime will prosper
Prediction of realist conception: after all, the more democratic states in system, the more
likely that other states will join the regime
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Ideational explanation (constructivist): difference between realist and ideational is that the
means through which democratic states convince other states to join an IO is NOT coercion,
but rather persuasion of principled ideas and altruism
o All get socialized to same norms, solving conflict through peaceful means  more
likely to join HR regime and be member since it is externalization of their norms
o Also more likely to convince other democracies to do the same
o Logic of appropriateness: other non-democratic states pushed to this norm
o Socialization mechanism
o Swayed by the overpowering ideological and normative appeal of values that
underlie them
Predictions are same but instead of coercion, there is socialization and spreading of norms
LIBERAL REPUBLICAN EXPLANATION
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Argument points to domestic politics within the state
Suggests that domestic political elites use membership in IOs to lock in the norms and
democratization process they are bringing about in their own country in the fact of future
political uncertainty
Fully rational dynamic and idea  see this foreign policy decision as a tool to maintain
status quo they brought about in the country
Example: CEECs  first elites responsible of democratization were aware of forces in
country that pushed against this process; for this reason, they try to lock in the norms and
become member of IOs and ratify treaties to have more commitment and external actor that
makes more likely the country will stay on track of the democratization process
o Prevents future elites from turning against this process and becoming more
autocratic  prevents democratic backsliding
From this perspective, in order to predict which states are likely to join, we have to
look at 2 factors:
o Restricting government discretion: there are some restrictions by joining IO
 Sovereignty cost of joining IO and in this case of HR, there is strong cost in
that you are giving external judge right to say something about how you treat
your citizens  more costly than delegating to a domestic judge
 Cross-national variation in precise nature, scope, application, and
enforcement are human rights practices greater than domestic variation
 For this reason, states more or less likely to give away some of its
sovereignty
 Example: Great Britain had to introduce Bill of Rights for the first time due to
these HR regimes
o Reducing domestic political uncertainty:
 On top of sovereignty cost, there is calculation about decrease in future
political uncertainty  delegate power to HR regimes to constrain behavior of
future national governments
 Transitioning states may value this decrease in uncertainty;
democratizing elites might want to ‘lock in’ norms and ensure no future
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changes in democratization of the country  these countries therefore
tolerate the sovereignty cost
 There might be some states not interested in reducing uncertainty like
stable democracies themselves
 They pay sovereignty cost of being tied to these IOs but don’t have
corresponding increase in stability since there already is stability
 Opposition to HR regimes come from dictatorships since they lack
interest in democratization and suffer from fact that there are
challenges to autocratic order and face noncompliance costs
Expectation: strongest support doesn’t come from established democracies, but rather
transitioning, new democracies since internal threats can bring reversal to democratization
process
Democracy & ECHR, Moravcsik (2000)
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Measure willingness of governments to accept binding obligations by examining
position on two elements of institutional design of ECHR:
o Compulsory jurisdiction: member states recognize jurisdiction of international
independent court as opposed to a body of foreign ministers
o Individual petition: member states grant private individuals and groups standing to
file cases
 We observe inverse U-shaped relationship between stability of democracy and support for
binding human rights commitments
o Supports enforcements: all 6 new democracies (Austria, France, Italy, Iceland,
Ireland, Germany)
o Opposes enforcement: non-democracies (Greece, Turkey, Spain) and established
democracies (Denmark, Sweden, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, UK)
o Belgium is an established democracy which supports enforcement but originally
disagreed with the binding guarantees
 Decision-making Process
 No evidence of attempts of coercion by powerful states or idealist view  no great
power made threats or offered inducements to secure stronger commitments
 Argument that was more compelling in negotiation process was not about importance of
norms or following other states, rather it was protection against internal threats of
factions and potential return of autocracy (republican liberal prediction)
 Idea of convention as a stepping stone in these countries for guaranteeing full
democratization process became strong narrative of these states for justifying their own
position for ECHR
o Combat domestic threats from totalitarian right and left thereby stabilizing
domestic democracy and preventing international aggression
o Domestic self-interest dominated  ECHR would protect newly established
democracies from future tyranny
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On the other, skepticism from UK wasn’t about vulnerability of the system towards
human rights: established democracies didn’t oppose it because they were
concerned about human rights in their countries; respect for HR was already high
o Judicial review would undermine parliamentary sovereignty
Giving away sovereignty was the main problem for established democracies and lack of
countervailing self-interested argument in favor of membership
Speaks more to idea of balancing and calculation of sovereignty cost and benefits in
terms of political instability (something not appealing to established democracies that
were already stable)
In top 20 countries of number of countries ratified treaties, most came from CEECs 
give IO signal they were apart of it and no longer constrained by Warsaw Pact and to
lock in political elites in their country to continue process of democratization
Democratization & IO Membership (Mansfield & Pevehouse 2006)
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Used data from all IOs
Central argument is that democratization is driving force to IO membership
o Key problem in democratizing countries is difficulty of leaders to credibly commit
to sustain domestic reforms
Argument is very much same  democratizing countries want to consolidate political
power at the expense of reform BUT it is also possible that the lack of perceived
commitment to liberalization itself hampers reform
Therefore entering IOs can help leaders in transitional states to make credible
commitment to sustain democratic reforms
Uncertainty that derives from multiple sources  might want to change their own
preferences and this inability of democratizing states to make credible commitments
creates problems
o Transitional governments initiate reforms that they have no intention of
completing especially if incomplete reforms yield rents for key constituencies or
create institutions that solidify the leader’s hold on power
o Transitional regimes may have time-inconsistent preferences  optimal policy ex
ante and ex post differ
Transitioning states want to be perceived as reliable for FDI so in order to increase
credibility abroad, they must show they are committed and responsible members of IOs
 therefore lack of commitment creates economic harm
Another issue that arises from inability to make credible commitments is that elites often
distrust one another and fear that the new regime won’t serve their interests
Membership in IOs help leader credibly commit to reform efforts by establishing
mechanism that increases cost of deviating and backsliding
o Stems from information provided by IO about members’ actions, conditions
imposed by organization for new members, and reputational impact of violating
IO’s rules
o Accepting conditionality heightens credibility of democratizing regime’s
commitment to reform because monitoring and enforcement are handled by a
third party with the ability to publicly sound an alarm in event that reform efforts
falter
 Idea of remerging to previous commitments; all about audience costs and these states
want to give idea and portray themselves as reliable by giving away some sovereignty in
favor of some cost associated with form of checks from external institution  shows
world they aren’t doing ‘cheap talk’ and to increase cost associated with changing
behavior and ideas and reversing process of democratization
o Raises cost of limiting reform because any reversal can jeopardize benefits
stemming from membership in IO
o Membership can create expectations about behavior of democratizing regime
regardless of whether institution sets conditions for membership, generating
audience costs for government if these expectations aren’t met
 Many IOs require participants to adhere to practices likely to ease tensions among
competing groups within democratizing country
o Example: To join EU, state must respect rule of law and rights  incentive for
transitioning states for joining an organization
 In some cases, democratizing states can send credible signals to international audience
by doing some reforms and be accepted to IO
o Example: Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republic formed Central European FTA in
1991 to demonstrate to EU they were committed to political and economic
liberalization
 Other than looking at ‘locking in’ argument, it also explores signaling mechanism and
how it can be associated with audience costs (bad for countries themselves to go
against their own commitments) and reputational costs
o Leaders who want to consolidate democracy tie their own hands while sending
costly signal to intl and domestic observers that they’re serious about political
reform by entering an IO
 Data
 Cases: State membership between 1965-2000
 Dependent: Change in number of IOs to which each state i is party from year t to year
t+1
 Independent: 1 if state changes from autocracy to democracy or autocracy to anocracy
in 5 years, 0 otherwise
 Results
 Democratizing states join more IOs than stable states (baseline)
 Instead, states that experienced democratic transition in last 5 years increase
number of IO memberships by 20% relative to states that didn’t go through regime
change
 Effects of democratization don’t reflect general tendency for regime change to promote
IO membership
o Democratizing countries join nearly 40% more IOs per year than autocratizing
states
 Autocratizing states less likely to enter IOs than stable regimes
Coefficient estimate is negative and significant  with autocratizing states less
likely to enter IOs
 More democratic states more likely to join compared to baseline, stable regimes
 More significance associated to democratization than autocratization
 Additional dependent variables:
o Number of IOs state joined from year t to t+1
o Number of IOs state left during this interval
 Coutnries undergoing democratic transition join IOs significantly more rapidly
than either stable regimes or autocratizing states  no marked difference between
stable and autocratizing countries in this regard
o Democratizing states enter over 20% more IOs than stable regimes and 25%
more than autocratizing states
 In contrast, democratization usually doesn’t prompt states to leave IOs
o Coefficient estimate of democratization is negative but not significant
 Regime type is associated with joining  more democratic, more organizations
more
 Democracies leave IOs less than baseline and autocratic regimes
 Other Model
 Restrict sample to countries that join at least one IO between t and t+1
 Dependent variable: average regime type within IOs joined by state from year t to t+1
 Coefficient estimate of democratization is positive, statistically significant, and large
o Democratizing states therefore seem to pay close attention to regime
characteristics of IO members, acceding to organizations with democracy
scores that are, on average, about 60% higher than those joined by stable
regimes and nearly 30% higher than those joined by autocratizing countries
 Established democracies wouldn’t want to join really any IO since all have to pay same
cost
 Authoritarian states more likely to join IOs with states with lower democratic
scores
o Pretty much the case during the Cold War, with the bloc division
 Stable democracies vs. stable autocracies  dems join IOs with higher dem score
and auts with higher autocratic score
o
Democratization & Varieties of IOs (Mansifeld & Pevehouse, 2008)
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Furthered idea that not all IOs produce same incentives for democratizing states to join and
enhancing credibility of its commitments to follow through on democratic
 There are 3 types of IOs:
1) Standard-based: associated with standard of behavior (human rights, environmental)
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Entail substantial sovereignty cost, requiring a lot of commitment
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Produces stronger incentives for democratizing states to join since it ties hands of future
political elites more  publicizes commitment to political reform and generates audience
costs
 We expect democratizing states to be quite likely to join this type of organization 
increase audience costs if future political elites decide to violate norms established by this
organization
2) Economic: IO that monitors and regulates the economy
 Example: Foreign investors are needed by democratizing states since they emerge from
tough macroeconomic situation and want to liberalize, looking for potential foreign
investors and aid
 Joining economic organization is important since they are based on rule of law, property
rights, sound and transparent balance of payments, deficit  makes country reliable
place to invest and aid in process of economic growth
 For democratizing countries, they can help ease domestic tensions by committing the
government and successors to economic policies that are neither predatory nor
capricious and by publicizing this commitment through society
o E.g. EU stipulates that members must respect property rights which was
especially important in Spain and Portugal where elites were openly opposed to
democracy
 Entering economic IO helps democratizing government convey to investors that they will
behave predictably and won’t enact policies that threaten their interests
 Joining helps signal commitment to consolidate political reform
o Example: Establishment of CEFTA
 These are all signals to international community since there is predictable environment
with no changes in property or assets
 Autocracies concentrate assets in hands of very few
 Process of liberalization + joining IMF/WB  signals to international community that you
are reliable commercial and financial partner
3) Political:
 Don’t require many sovereignty costs since they don’t have specific focus or intend to
meddle in domestic politics of the state  less incentives for democratizing states to join
 For membership, there is general signal and it tends to be a universal organization  all
countries can join and therefore few conditions
 These organizations include UN, Nordic Council, and African Union
 No specific focus which means not related to reform or regulation
 Democratizing state less likely to join political IO as it doesn’t boost credibility of
commitments
 Economic IOs most prevalent over time, then standard and finally political IOs
 Results
 Democratization makes states more likely to join standard or economic IO, rather
than political (much lower coefficient)
o Join more of these institutions than autocratizing and stable democracies
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Autocratization makes states less likely to join most of these organizations, but more
likely to join political IO (since no obstacles and low level of commitment required)
Stable democracies more likely to join standard or political IOs
IO Membership & Democratization (Pevehouse 2002)
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Do IOs influence regime change?
There are three potential causal mechanisms that can explain influence of IOs on regime
change:
1) Pressures (diplomatic and economic) generated from IOs in combination with internal
forces, compel autocratic regimes to liberalize
 Regional organizations especially offer space in which democracies can speak and
compel autocracies to change their own political regimes and reforms (also IOs
have these dimensions)
 Not seen as part of attempt to coerce states to become more democratic  diplomatic
places in which you can convince states to start process of political reform
 This pressure can undermine authoritarian rule in two ways:
o Create economic difficulties for regime if part of pressure by organization is
suspension of trade and financial benefits  exacerbates economic crises that
can undermine regime
o Diplomatic pressures and international isolation can delegitimize regime at home
since during times of crisis, a regime’s international posture may be important 
public and elite perceptions of regime within the state change
 Member states pressure other members to democratize because…
o It would boost their own international status
o Democracies have rational desire to have more democracies in the world
 Why are regional IOs a potent source of pressure against authoritarian regimes?
o Regional IOs provide highly visible forum to air complaints against member
states
o Multilateral efforts will often be a favored mechanism of democracies because
they minimize perception of overt ‘meddling’
 On one side, we see how democracies tend to agree and be more likely to work with
other democracies and therefore have incentive to speak against and pressure
autocracies to democratize through different means
 IOs offer instruments to put pressure on states including threat of expulsion and also
delegitimatize leadership itself which during times of international crisis to push liberal
elites in autocracies to push process of reforms
2) IO membership can lead to acceptance of liberalization by certain elite groups,
lowering risks these groups face during democratization process
 Being member of IO offer to some elites guarantees benefits that will come from
democratization and protect them from possible drawbacks from democratization
 Usually democratization is difficult since there it is closed selectorate and usually see
economic reform or political reform as threatening  think of populism and radicalism
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When confronting situation where liberalization is option for authoritarian regime,
economic elites will calculate their interests in deciding whether to support liberalization
or remain backers of hard-liner authoritarian guard
 Economic agreements might serve as credible external guarantee from elites
since they raised cost of domestic policy change and increased level of
commitment; ties elite to respect certain standards and promises
 Literature has long argued that these institutions function as domestic commitment
device  help lock in economic policies and rights enacted by domestic elites
 Having forms of membership in IOs might guarantee to elites that some norms might be
protected such as commitment to free trade
3) Military Elites & Acquiescence to Liberalization
 Even stronger impact of regional military organizations on military and atittudes toward
democracy can come in form of socialization
o View democratization with reluctance
 Regional alliances especially those who conduct joint training operations or maintain
permanent insitutions (e.g. NATO) help socialize military leaders in member states as to
the role of military in domestic society  important asf in Spain when Spain was
excluded from NATO even after Franco’s death
 Offers some incentives, however: NATO established Partnership for Peace (PFP) where
Hungary received technical military assistance in modernization process
 International interventions and peacekeeping missions  military elites should be in
favor of democratization since there are guarantees that they will maintain power and
prominence and have more opportunities to develop themselves
 Data
 Cases: all states between 1950-1992
 Dependent variable: transitions as movements above threshold democracy score of 6
and equals 1 if state completes transition to democracy and 0 otherwise
 Independent variable: score of most democratic regional IO of which state is member in
year t-1
 Results
 Reversal of dependent and independent variables
 One year difference in previous variable
 Membership in democratic IOs is positively correlated with likelihood of transition
to democracy
o Membership in democratic IOs while controlling for domestic economic trends,
internal and external violence, past experience with democracy, is significantly
correlated with transition to democracy
 Probability of transition: very low at baseline and increases by 60% if there is increase in
avg. democratic score of IO  when a country is a member of more democratic IOs, it is
more likely to transition to democracies
TO SUM UP
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Democratizing countries more likely to be involved in IOs than autocratic countries and also
more than established democracies  more willing to pay sovereignty cost in return for
benefit of decreased future political instability
More likely to join particular IOs; those more democratic where level of commitment is higher
 stronger mechanism of locking in reforms and audience costs
IOs associated with standard-based and economic objectives more likely to be joined by
democratizing countries
Membership in regional IOs promote democratization by providing platform for democracies
to pressure autocracies to join and provide guarantees to economic and military elites
Democracy, Autocracy, & International Trade
WHY COUNTRIES ENGAGE IN TRADE BETWEEN EACH OTHER?
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Actors engage in foreign trade to realize benefits of specialization  division of labor
made societies wealthier
Specialization requires access to large markets to export goods and division of labor
allows gains from trade
COMPARATIVE & ABSOLUTE ADVANTAGES
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Comparative advantage: ability of country to produce particular good or service
more efficiently than other goods that it can produce, such that its resources are
most efficiently employed in this activity
o Comparison to efficiency of other economic activities that the actor may
undertake given all products it can produce
Absolute advantage: ability of country or firm to produce more of particular good or
service than other countries or firms do with the same amount of effort and
resources
Since a country gains from following its comparative advantage and engaging in
exchange with other nations for goods in which it doesn’t have comparative
advantage , and since barriers to trade impede its ability to do so, trade protection is
harmful to economy as a whole
HECKSCHER-OHLIN TRADE THEORY
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Principle of comparative advantage suggests countries should produce and export
what they do best
Country will export goods that make intensive use of factors of production in
which it is well endowed
o Countries with lots of lands where land is cheap, specialize in producing farm
goods
o Regions with abundant labor produce labor-intensive goods
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H-O Theory helps explain broad outlines of international trade
o Industrial countries are capital and labor rich and export manufactured goods that
make intensive use of these resources
o Most developing countries are rich in land, raw materials, and unskilled labor,
exporting agricultural products
Helps explain changes over time in country’s trade relations
o Poor country with abundant land and labor but little capital  export arm goods
and simple labor-intensive manufactures
o Country develops  more capital  more skilled workers  endowments
change  export patterns change
RESTRICTION TO TRADE
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Despite powerful economic arguments for free trade, every country has at least
some restrictions on trade with the rest of the world
Protectionism: use of specific measures to shield domestic producers from
importns
Governments imposed wide variety of trade barriers for centuries
o Tariff: tax imposed on imports
o Quota: limit placed on amount of particular good that is allowed to be imported
o Regulations that favor domestic over imported products
RESTRICTIONS & DOMESTIC POLITICS
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Economists’ confidence in benefits of trade is not shared by people
In many developed countries, hostility to international trade has grown over recent
years to the point that some analysts anticipate a substantial return to protectionism
worldwide
Trade barriers usually reflect domestic concerns despite fact that they implicate
foreign relations
o Some producers are concerned because imported goods cut into their profits or
cost them their jobs
o Other producers may complain that foreign barriers to keep their goods keep
them out of markets abroad
Producers gain and consumers lose from protection but there is another cost as
well: efficiency or welfare loss
STOPLER-SAMUELSON MODEL
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One explanation of who will support/oppose protection  predicts trade protection
benefits scarce factor of production
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o Counterpart of argument that more trade helps abundant factor  in labor-rich
country, labor benefits most from trade and therefore reducing trade would harm
labor
Owners of scarce factors of production are protectionist and owners of abundant
factors favor free trade
In rich societies, which typically have abundant capital and skilled labor but are
scarce in unskilled labor, capitalists and skilled workers should be free traders, while
unskilled workers should be protectionists
In countries with abundant land, farmers should support trade; in countries where
land in scarce, farmers should support protection
In poor societies, which typically have abundant unskilled labor and scarce capital,
workers should support trade while capitalists should be protectionists
RESTRICTION & POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

Since there are always supporters/opponents of protection, national political
institutions can be of stunning variety and complexity but a general rule of thumb can
help orient our understand of their implications for trade policy
o Common view starts with observation that trade protection tends to help relatively
narrow and concentrated groups but tends to harm the economy and consumers
as a whole
o Political institutional forms that are responsive to interests of concentrated groups
a particular class, a particular industry will be more favorable to protection while
those that respond especially to broad national pressures will be less favorable
DEMOCRATIZATION & FREE TRADE (Milner & Kubota 2005)



Since 1970s, globalization has advanced broadly
A decade before the move to free trade, there was the global movement toward
democracy
Are the trends in economic and political reform related?
DEMOCRATIZATION & FREE TRADE

Democratization: movement toward majority rule with universal suffrage in
contested elections  expansion of selectorate and winning coalition
o Implies change in composition of selectorate and therefore preferred policies
o Leaders must adjust policies to be responsive to preferences of expanded
selectorate
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Democracies choose political leaders through popular elections, while autocrats
maintain their position with backing of small groups
Heckscher-Ohlin and Stopler-Samuelson show how individuals benefit or lose from
changes in trade policy given endowments of capital and labor
o Developing countries possess less capital than labor
Liberalizing trade in developing countries results in gain in income for and reduction
in prices of imported goods bought by those well endowed with relatively abundant
factor in these economies (labor)
In developing countries, workers and poor tend o gain from trade liberalization
through increases in income and price reduction in import-competing goods
In nondemocratic countries, the restricted selectorate consists of richest individuals
(those who own most capital) and therefore benefit the most from high levels of
protection
Democratization changes which groups political leaders must garner support from
and induces leaders to appeal to new coalitions of voters through their new policies
As democracy advances to include those with less capital, median voter’s capital
ownership declines and their preferred tariff rate decreases
EVIDENCE FROM PHILLIPINES

In Philippines, first parliamentary elections occurred in 1984 and followed by
presidential election in 1986  new leaders began changing economic policy by
restricting and reducing tariffs
Data – Milner & Kubota (2005)

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
Cases: 179 developing countries, territories, and dependencies (1970-99)
Independent variables: political regime, DICTATOR indicator from 1-8 (8 most
democratic), dichotomous categorization
Dependent variables: average statutory tariff rate, dichotomous classification of
trade regimes (open, closed)
Results – Milner & Kubota (2005)
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More democratic regimes tend to have lower tariff rates
o One SD increase in democracy from mean leads to 12.2% decrease in tariff rates
Tariffs rates drop from 19% to 16.5%
Moving from absolute autocracy to perfect democracy induces 31% decline in tariffs
o Rates fall from 22% to 15%
Results robust to wide variety of controls
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

Even when we use other measures of regime type, results are still significant 
system with large selectorates still have lower trade barriers
o Increase in DICTATOR variable by one SD from mean leads to 17% reduction in
tariffs
When we inclue regime variable with different types of autocracies, the type of
autocracy matters even when controlling for overall regime type
o More democratic countries tend to have lower barriers
o BUT compared to personalistic regimes (which is excluded category) single-party
are much less prone to protectionism
o This finding also supports our argument because selectorates are larger in
single-party autocracies than in personalistic
Increasing democracy also increases the likelihood of country opening its trade
regime
o A one-unit increase in democracy raises probability of change to openness by
0.521
Henisz & Mansfield (2006)
 Argument
 While interest group demands and institutions have independent and competing
effects, it is more fruitful to view influence of each type of factor as conditional on the
other
 As explanations emphasizing societal interests contend, deteriorating
macroeconomic conditions are potent source of protectionist sentiment
 Extent to which such conditions reduce commercial openness depends on domestic
political institutions through which interest group pressures must filter to influence
policy
 Unemployment & Trade Policy
 Among macroeconomic determinants of trade policy, unemployment is crucial 
high unemployment generate calls for protectionism making it more difficult for
workers to adjust to increases in imports
 Workers lose jobs due to rising import competition  harder to find employment
elsewhere and then likely to have lower wages when reemployed
 High levels of unemployment stimulate worker, investors, and other interest groups
adversely affected by open trade to overcome collective action problems and
mobilize to press for policies to reduce openness
 Positive association between political strength of groups that benefit from free trade
and increases in commercial openness
 Veto Points & Trade Policy
 Domestic political institutions filter demands made by interest groups and set policy
 therefore extent of fragmentation and regime type is important

Fragmentation of power: depends on number of independent partisan and
institutional actors whose agreement is necessary to make policy
o Includes competing branches of government and coalitions within given branch
o As number of independent actors with such veto power increases, groups in
society have greater difficultly pressing for change in policy
 Unemployment, Veto Points, & Trade Policy
 Governments are less responsive to societal pressures as number of veto players
rises in policymaking structures
 More fragmented policymaking structures reduces sensitivity of government actors
to such societal pressures
o Large number of veto players  more hostile to raising trade barriers  frustrate
societal demands for protections
o Number of veto players decrease  easier to change trade regime  more
homogenous interests
 Adverse macroeconomic conditions will stimulate larger decline in external trade
linkages as countries become more institutionally centralized
 Need for leaders to respond to pressures differs on basis if constituents are able to
monitor behavior and penalize for being unresponsive
o In democracies this is possible
o But in non-democratic governments are susceptible to broad-based societal
demands  less incentive for leaders to respond to demands for protection from
high unemployment
 Evidence from Chile
 Democratically elected government came to power in 1989  tariffs cut to 11% on
1991
 Based on data, the number of veto players in Chile rose substantially during 1990s
 Chilean government succeeded in warding off demands for protection despite
adverse economic conditions
 Evidence from Peru
 In Peru’s emerging democracy, unemployment rose dramatically during early 1980s
reaching rate of about 60% by 1984
 Number of veto players declined during first half of 1980s
 Peru abandoned export-led growth strategy and increased trade barriers
 Data
 Dependent variable: annual percentage change in import penetration (value of
imports in domestic currency divided by GDP)
 Independent: unemployment rate, level of veto points (structure of formal political
institutions and degree of partisan heterogeneity within and among)
 Results
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Negative relationship between unemployment rate and change in import penetration
that is moderated by extent of veto points
Effects of these variables are stronger when we focus on stable democracies
Figure 1: predicted marginal effect of given level of unemployment on change in
import penetration for stable democracy having given level of veto points
Higher unemployment is associated with reduction in import penetration and hence
increased protectionism
Consistent with our argument, this effect becomes stronger as number of veto
players declines
Li & Reuveny (2003)


Does economic globalization affect level of democracy?
Is deepening integration in world economy associated with decline or rise of
democratic governance?
 Globalization Promotes Democracy
 Globalization promotes democracy by encouraging economic development,
increasing demand of international business for democracy
 Globalization reduces information costs, increasing contacts with other democracies,
and making pro-democracy INGOs more effective
 Pushes authoritarian state to decentralize power and strengthens domestic
institutions that support democracy
 Intensifies diffusion of democratic ideas across borders
 Globalization Obstructs Democracy
 Reduces state policy autonomy and brings about public policies that please foreign
investors instead of public
 Produces more domestic losers than winners in short run and diminishes ability of
state to compensate losers financially
 Enables fast movement of money between countries  balance of payment crises
and unstable domestic economic performance
 Deepens ethnic and class cleavages, diminishing national cultural basis of
democracy
 Enables state and MNCs to control and manipulate information supplied to the public
 Degrades concept of citizenship which is important prerequisite for functioning and
stable democracy
 Widens economic gap between North and South
 Globalization Doesn’t Affect Democracy
 World economy isn’t that integrated  international trade occurs within regions,
MNCs have home bias, FDI concentrated in few countries

Globalization doesn’t render welfare state powerless  increased economic
openness originates from state choices; governments have control over their
economies
 Effects vary across countries depending on policy, position in international order,
domestic political institutions, who the winners/losers are, sector privatization,
current level of democracy
 Data
 Cases: 127 countries from 1970-1996
 Independent variables: integration of states into world economy measured with
multiple indicators (intl trade, FDI, portfolio investments, spread of democratic ideas)
 Dependent variables: level of democracy for country
 Results
 Estimate pooled time-series cross-sectional models for each decade for all countries
and LDCs
 Effect of trade on democracy is always negative and significant
o Effect of DIFFUSION is significant and positive in most cases
 Effect of PRIOR DEMOCRACY is positive and significant
 Effect of ECONOMIC GROWTH is positive but insignificant
 Increases in trade openness makes states more autocratic on average
 All countries in first column and non-OECD countries in second column shown
 TRADE has negative significant effect on level of democracy
o Result consistent with well-known tendency of trade to generate economic
winners and losers in short-run
o Trade changes distribution of income in short-run  obstructing effect of
globalization on democracy
 Main effect of FDI on democracy is positive and significant; coefficient of interaction
term YEAR-FDI is negative and significant  negative effect grows over time even
thogh FDI exerts positive and negative effects
o Positive: promotes economic growth and technological progress
o Negative: FDI can raise domestic income inequality
 Main effect of PORTFOLIO is positive and significant but interaction term
YEAR*PORTFOLIO is negative and significant
o Total effect is negative and grows over time
o Positive: portfolio investments reflect economic discipline financial markets
impose on governments which contributes to better transparency and
management
 Effect of DIFFUSION is positive and significant  increase in number of
democracies in region around some country raises its level of democracy
o Proxy for information flows  region with more democracies is likely to diffuse
democratic ideas more effectively
TO SUM UP


Strong evidence that democracies are more open to trade and impose less
restrictions to trade than non-democracies
o In context of economic downturn, the structure of these political institutions
makes differences in resist to pressure for more restrictions
It doesn’t seem that increasing trade openness makes countries more democratic 
increasing trade creates winners and losers which exacerbates tensions within
domestic societies
Democracy, Autocracy, & Sanctions
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Sanction: actions one or more countries take to limit or end their economic relations
with target country in effort to persuade country to change policy. It must:
o Involve sender state and target state
o Be implemented by sender to change behavior of target state
Actions taken that restrict economic relations with other countries for solely domestic
economic policy reasons don’t qualify as sanctions
Some types of sanctions include tariffs, export controls, embargoes, import bans,
travel bans, freezing assets, cutting aid, and blockades
States, ad hoc coalitions of states, and multilateral institutions can impose sanctions
Conventional sanctions target country as a whole, while targeted sanctions are
directed at particular interests within certain contry
o Targeted sanctions: asset freezes, financial restrictions on intl banking, denial
of luxury good sales, sectoral sanctions, travel restrictions
Conventional sanctions were preferred measures in 20th century
Shifted to targeted sanctions de to expectation that they would be more successful
as they put more direct pressure on key actors and coalitions
o Less humanitarian effects on civilians
ARE SANCTIONS EFFECTIVE?


Recent success of financial sanctions against Iran over nuclear proliferation under
Obama  now considered powerful policy instruments
Trump has imposed sanctions against major adversaries like North Korea, Iran,
Venezuela, and Russia BUT aren’t very effective for North Korea
o Sanctions since Cold War didn’t destabilize the North Korean regime and failed
to induce any notable change in objectionable policies such as repression and
nuclear weapons program
SANCTIONS AREN’T EFFECTIVE



Hufbauer et al.  success rate of sanctions is 34% (1900-1990) and 24% after 1973
Papei  only 5% effective
Morgan et al. (2014)  51% of multilateral sanctions and 31% of unilateral sanctions
o Use of multilateral and institutional sanctions increased following end of Cold War
and these types of sanctions are more likely to be effective  effectiveness
depends on extent of great power cooperation
Drezner 2003
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
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
Actors have incentive to reach agreement before imposition
o If sender prefers status quo to imposing sanctions, then there should be no
coercion attempt
o If target prefer conceding to incurring cost of sanctions, it has incentive to
acquiesce before imposition of sanctions
Provokes selection bias as we can only observe cases in which policy disagreement
is sufficiently high to impede any agreement
Under conditions of full information, there are two outcomes: sender doesn’t threaten
coercion or target acquiesces to sender’s threat of coercion
Sanctions impositions can be equilibrium outcome, provided two conditions are met:
o Demand is indisible
o Expectations of future conflict are high
Under conditions of high conflict expectations, both sender and target fear that any
concession made in present will leave them in weakened bargaining positions
In 80% of observations, the US threatened but didn’t impose sanctions
o Success higher for sanctions that ended at threat stage than those actually
imposed  conceded at threat but not at imposition
WHAT IS A SUCCESSFUL SANCTION?


Some define success as total acquiescence in direct response to external pressure
but others say that in absence of total capitulation by targets, sanctions could still be
considered effective when they extract partial concessions or even render
negotiated settlements between senders and targets
There are 3 different definitions of sanctions success:
1) Restrictive: considers only instances where target partially or fully acquiesces
as successful cases
2) Relaxed: also considers negotiated settlements as successful otucomes
3) Proportion of sender’s goals met and proportion of target’s goals met 
successful if sender’s value > target’s value
Political Regime Sanctions & Effectiveness – Lektzian & Souva (2007)

In nondemocratic states, leader’s key constituency is small group of elites 
encourages reliance on private goods to key small WC content
o Causing economic harm to nondemocracy doesn’t make them suffer significant
political costs
o Autocratic leaders lack incentive to manipulate economy to counter sanctions
 Sanctions increase target government’s ability to extract rents from population
o Easier for autocrats since the exercise greater control over domestic economy
o Sanctions restricting imports to target will raise prices of previously imported
goods, generating excess profits for domestic producers and smugglers of those
goods
o Governments with great control over economy are well positioned to encourage
this smuggling and grant domestic contracts in return to political loyalty
 Hypotheses
 On sanction initiation:
o H2: Democratic dyads less likely to experience sanctions than any other type
o H3: As economic interdependence increases, sanctions on less likely to occur
 On sanction success:
o H4: Marginal effect of economic cost is conditional on target’s regime type 
increasing economic costs more effective against democratic targets
 Increasing economic costs doesn’t increase likelihood of success against
nondemocratic regimes
 Increasing economic costs increases likelihood of success against democratic
regimes
o H5: greater demand made of target, less likely target is to comply
 Results
 As expected by H2, democracies less likely to use trade sanctions against other
democracy
 Democratic senders increase likelihood of success
 Coefficient for interaction between target and costs is significant  the more
democratic the target is, the more impactful the costs are
o But upon closer inspection, cumulative costs have destabilizing effect on targeted
leaders but is only significant when targeted government isn’t a strong autocracy
 Implications
 If cost of sanctions is high, impact is broad and inefficiently applied  autocrats can
collect rents from sanctions and stay in office
 Autocrats therefore able to offset costs directed towards regime
o Example: US sanctions against autocratic Brail (1977) were successful because
they were targeted
o US sanctions in Argentina were narrowly applied to military aid and weapon
imports  small effect on overall economy but hurt ruling elite
Peksen (2017), Types of Autocracies & Sanctions Effectiveness

Leaders may supply range of material incentives to shield supporters from effects of
sanctions
o With small ruling coalitions, leaders selectively distribute rewards (targeted tax
breaks, access to scarce goods)
o As size of support base increases, regime more included to provide public goods
 Political repression is second strategy pursued to maintain status quo
o Poverty, unemployment, etc. caused by sanctions are sources of dissatisfaction
against government
o Sanctions might mobilize opposition  indication of international disapproval of
regime
o Growing economic dissatisfaction and mobilization of opposition  raise level of
public criticism and protests against government
 Leaders might use this to resist sanctions but differs across different political
regimes
o Leaders in democracies more attentive or overall welfare and therefore more
likely to acquiesce to foreign pressure
 Size of support base restricts ability to offer positive inducements to minimize
defections from WC  inability to redistribute and recover from economic
damage making them more conciliatory towards demands of sender countries
 Democratic leaders unlikely to eliminate opposition through repression 
choose to deter to demands to cease economic suffering and thus public
support
 Single-Party Autocracies
 Single-party regimes show great degree of cohesion  party members share same
ideology and prefer party’s monopoly over power
o Helps party elites facing sanctions to redistribute scarce resources to support
base
 High degree of institutionalization and control over state apparatus  allows for
monitoring and repression
 Example: Ba’athist regime in Syria wasn’t really affected by several rounds of
sanctions due to transfers to loyalists during tough economic times in exchange for
allegiance
 Personalist Regimes
 Sanctions might induce compliance similar to democracies
 Small size of ruling coalition may increase ability of leadership to maintain loyalty of
supporters through selective benefits  helps them remain defiant against foreign
pressure

Personalist regimes more dependent on foreign aid and natural resource rents than
other authoritarian regimes  this is because they lack efficient institutions for tax
collection and government revenue
o Therefore susceptible to foreign economic coercion  benefits not provided to
ruling coalition and business groups, undermining extent of regime support
 Example: US sanctions against Malawi regime were successful in improving political
conditions
 Military Regimes
 Military regimes display coherent, hierarchical organization  supported by
disciplined officers helps military regime distribute rewards to ensure lpyalty
 More inclined to use repression to eliminate opposition compared to democracies 
less inclined to give in to external demands
 Example: UN sanctions against Haiti  failed to induce military regime to restore
democratic rule and responded to sanctions by using repression
 Data
 Data on sanctions (1945-2005)
 Outcome variable: Sanctions Outcome coded 1 if target acquiesces to all demands
or 0
 Results
 Military and single-party significant and negative  sanctions aimed at countries
under these regimes are less effective relative to democratic regimes
 Personalist regimes insignificant  no difference between success of personalist
and democratic regimes
 Results demonstrate probability of sanctions varies across different autocratic
regimes
 Predicted probability of democracy target is 0.132, while it is 0.031 for single party
(baseline democracy), 0.011 for military regime, and 0.11 for personalist regime
Escriba, Folch, & Wright (2010), Sanctions & Autocrats Survival

Democratic governments tried to influence institutional development in foreign
countries through sanctions
 Most sanctions literature makes assumption that dictators are able to capture rents
associated with sanctions and therefore this increase in resources available to
payoff political supporters stabilizes their rule (BUT this differs depending on regime)
 Some dictators are unable to capture rents from sanctions or this increase cannot
compensate for losses in other revenue streams
 Personalist Regimes Leader Surivial
 Dependence on external rents and trade taxes makes personalist regimes
vulnerable

Reduction in rents used to payoff supporters causes elite division since they are
sensitive to loss of external revenues and lack strong institutions to help them rule
(weak military and legislative institutions)
 Single Party & Military Regimes Leader Survival
 SPR make promises to distribute patronage and supporters believe these promises
due to long history of state patronage and expect party to stay in power
 Single party and military regimes depend on patronage but aren’t as sensitive to loss
of external revenue to fund it
 In single party regimes, loyalty is mobilized through limited access to decisionmaking process, policy concessions, and public goods
 Sanctions & Autocrat Survival
 Single-party and military regimes not as sensitive to reduction in coalition and
external rents as personalist ones
 Once under sanctions, these two regimes are better able to shift fiscal pressure from
one stream to another since they have greater control of territory and population
 Sanctions in personalist regimes  sharp reductions of aid and revenues (main
sources)
 Single-party and military regimes both increase tax and non-tax revenues when
sanctioned  non-tax revenue increases despite loss of aid
 Largest increase in repression in response found in personalist regimes  reaches
similar level to repression in military regimes
 Military regimes are most repressive-intensive of all regime types
o If sanctions exacerbate protest, then military may renew its resolve to retain
power with aim of preserving public order
 Single-party regimes increase degree of repression but less so than personalist
regimes
o Given increase in redistributive spending, single party regimes are less likely to
rely on repression
 Data
 Variable Sanction: 1 if country targeted by sanctions, 0 if no
 Classification of authoritarian regimes
 Binary dependent variable, Ruler Exit, if dictator loses power
 Results (Marinov, 2005)
 Economic sanctions are significant  leader subject to economic sanctions more
likely to lose office in following year
 Democracy and interaction between democracy and years in office are significant 
democratic leaders more likely to be replaced and risk grows overtime
o Process of political accountability  replacing leaders if discontent
 Results (EFW 2010)
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Coefficient of Sanctions is small, negative, and insignificant  unlikely to be
effective when targeting nondemocratic regimes
If we include interaction between Sanctions, coefficient is positive  sanctions
damage personalist autocrats
Effect on single-party regimes is insignificant
Effect on military regimes leader duration is positive and significant is positive and
significant
In all models, likelihood personalist ruler will lose power doubles when sanctions are
imposed
In SPR, sanctions decrease likelihood of leader exit by <1%
Sanctions decrease likelihood of leadership turnover in military regimes by 7% and
13%
o Sanctions help stabilize military leaders because these leaders have greater
repressive capacity than other regimes are able to generate rally around the flag
effect
Peksen & Drury (2010), Economic Sanctions & Democracy
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Panama dictator Noriega rose to power in 1980s and was friendly with USSR
Reagan imposed sanctions because of Cold War and drug trafficking
Within months, Noriega solidified hold on power and remained in power until 1989
Sanctions caused damage to Panamanian economy, they also created an
externality: erosion of democratic freedoms and governance
 Economic Sanctions Harms Democracy in Target Countries
 States apply sanctions thinking it would cause hardship and harm legitimacy of
leader BUT they usually harm civilians and elites remain insulated from the
hardships
 Leaders use economic disruption from sanctions as strategic tool to manipulate
access to and redistribute scarce resources to enhance authority and weaken
opposition
 Sanctions generate new incentives for state to restrict democratic freedoms by:
o Creating audience costs if leadership concedes to sender’s demands
o Providing encouraging signals to domestic opposition groups to be more active
 Consolidation of Power
 Regime seeks to mitigate impact of economic costs caused by sanctions by taking
control of economy and flow of wealth towards ruling coalition and away from
opposition
 Two consequences of market redirection:
o Supporters become more dependent on leaders for goods they enjoyed before
sanctions
o Limit resources flowing to opposition groups
 Incentives to Coerce
 Cause significant political costs if they concede to demands
 Anticipated audience costs caused by conceding to external economic pressure
creates incentive to not concede and gives another reason to repress opposition
 Sanctions also perceived as signal from international actors to domestic pro-reform
groups  opposition will mobilize
 Prevalence of economic grievances and frustration + perception of support form
international community will increase level of political violence
 Data
 Cases: 102 countries from 1972-2000
 Dependent: maximalist definition of democracy
 Independent variables:
o Dummy variable that takes value 1 if under economic coercion or 0
o Dummy variable that takes value 1 if country is under comprehensive sanctions
and 0
o Dummy variable taking value 1 if country is partially under sanctions
o Counter variable accounting for how long sanction has been imposed
 Results
 Economic sanctions worsen level of democratic freedoms in sanctioned countries
o Economic coercion has negative and significant effect on democracy
 States with more extensive sanctions have greater impact on democracy due to
greater economic cost and destabilizing impact on domestic politics
o 3-4x greater than limited sanctions
 7% reduction in average political liberties the year after sanction imposition
 Limited sanctions only caused 6% decline in democracy while democracy score
drops 16% when extensive sanctions are employed
 Estimated effect of sanctions on 15-year period:
o Imposition and maintenance of sanctions (esp. extensive) erodes democratic
governance quickly at first and then more gradually over time
o Given average sanction lasts 7 years, the predicted impact of economic coercion
is lasting and negative
TO SUM UP


Less likely to be initiated when sender and target are democratic states
More likely to succeed when sender is democracy but less likely to when target is
autocracy
o Less likely when SPR or military  better able to extract resources from
economy and use repression and therefore have higher survival

Sanctions don’t improve democratic record of countries  worsens and creates
incentives for leaders to further concentrate resources and enact repression against
opposition
Bureaucracies & Foreign Policy




Leader of modern state sits atop large bureaucratic apparatus  collection of
organizations that manage many details of governance
Wars are planned and implemented by military and negotiations with other countries
conducted by diplomats and overseen by ministry of foreign affairs
Decisions about war are made not only by leaders but by bureaucratic organizations
involved in decision-making process
o These organizations care about resources they control and influence they wield,
seeking bigger budgets, more input in policymaking, and opportunities for
personal promotion
May press for policies that boost their own status or fit their own worldview
o Example: Prior to 2003 Iraq War, there were serious disagreements between
Defense and State Department. Civilian leaders at DoD thought war was going to
be easy, while State Department were more cautious and emphasized need for
international diplomacy
ROLE OF DIPLOMACY

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Military is most influential bureaucratic actor in matters of war and peace
There is compelling argument that the more influence military has over foreign
policy, the more aggressive the state will be  assumption that military has
organizational, ideological, and professional interests in policies that make war more
likely
o Example: In the 1930s, Japan pursued expansion relentlessly, coinciding with
military takeover
It is important not to equate military with militarism:
o Military advisers were no more likely than civilians to advocate use of force in
crisis in US  main difference between two groups was level of force that should
be used was higher for advisers
o US military officials were much more reluctant to go to war against Iraq in 2003
than the civilian leadership in Defense Department  thought that the war in Iraq
would be costly and require commitments
Influence of military on foreign policy comes from fact that it controls weapons and
people trained to use them
When militaries are generally created in order to defend state from foreign threats,
their capabilities inevitably makes them key players domestically

Military plays direct role in ensuring continuation of government  either very explicit
(military dictatorships) or more subtle
IMPORTANCE OF EXPERTISE

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
When government doesn’t depend on military to stay in power, military can have
strong influence over foreign policy
All political leaders rely on information and expertise of bureaucratic actors within
state
Bureaucratic agencies are the ones making policy proposals and analyzing impact of
different decisions
When making decisions about war, a leader must rely on experts in military and
other agencies to provide key pieces of information and deal with contingencies
Political leader’s dependence on military for this kind of information gives military
leaders ability to shape decisions to their liking
o Military would therefore shape outcome by manipulating information that leader
uses to calculate expected value of war and its alternatives
ALLISON’S 3 MODELS
1. Rational Actor Model (RAM)
o Basic unit of analysis: actions chosen by nation after calculations concerning
value
o Focal concepts:
 Nations, conceived as rational, unitary decisionmakers, is agent
 Action chosen in response to strategic problems which faces the nation
 Results from rational choice among alternatives of means
 National security and national interests are the principal categories in which
strategic goals are conceived
 Application to US Response During Cuban Missile Crisis
 US response to USSR’s emplacement of missiles in Cuba must be understood in
strategic terms as simple value-maximizing escalation
 American nuclear superiority could be counted on to immobilize Soviet nuclear
power  Soviet transgression of nuclear threshold in response to American use of
lower level of violence would be wildly irrational
 American local superiority was so overwhelming that the dispute could be initiated at
low level while threatening with high credibility an ascending sequence of steps short
of the nuclear threshold
 Issues with Rational Actor Model

Rational Actor Model reduces the organization and political complications of
government to the simplification of single actor (the state)  neglects presence and
impact of bureaucracy
 Conglomerate of organizations and actors are the ones who calculate decisions and
compete in attempting to affect government decisions
 Government action consists of acts of these organizations
2. Organizational Process Model
 Basic unit of analysis: decisions and actions which constitute the happenings of
international politics are outputs of organizational processes in 3 critical senses:
o Actual happening the organizational process (previously established repertoires)
o Administrative routine for employing physical capabilities
o Situation within the narrow constraints of which
 Focal concepts: actor isn’t monolithic but a constellation of loosely aggregated allied
organizations
 Problems factored as broad areas of responsibility to various organizations
 Responsibility encourages organizational outputs which are characterized by
standard operation procedures, programs and repertoires, uncertainty avoidance,
and organizational learning
 Application to US Response During Cuban Missile Crisis
 10-day delay between decision and flight was due to conflict between CIA and Air
Force
 In face of suspicions concerning offensive Soviet missiles in Cuba squabbling btwn
organizations whose job it is to produce this information seems inappropriate
 But for each organization, the question was “Whose job was it to be?”
 Choice of blockade instead of air strike turned on two points:
o Morality and tradition that US couldn’t perpetrate Pearl Harbor in reverse
o Belief that surgical air strike with little collateral damages and no risks of
backfiring was impossible as it was excluded by air force
3. Bureaucratic Politics Model
 What a government does in any particular instance can be understood largely as a
result of bargaining among players positioned hierarchically in government
 Bargaining and results affected by number of constraints like organizational process
and shared values
 Bureaucratic politics model doesn’t have a unitary actor but rather many actors as
players who focus on many diverse issues
 Basic unit of analysis: actions of a government  various acts of government
officials exercising governmental authority that can be perceived outside the
government
o Must identify the action channels, or the regularized procedures for producing
particular class of actions
 Players include senior players such as major political figures, heads of security and
military, and junior players such as congress, press, interest groups
 A player’s stance is determined by individual characteristics and position
 Interests include national security interest, organizational interests, domestic
interests, and personal interests  players choose on basis of these conceptions
o No single rational choice
 To understand why a formal governmental decision was made, we must identify
games and players, display coalitions, bargaining, and compromises, and to convey
some feel for confusion to foul-ups
 Application to US Response During Missile Crisis
 Bargaining among players who shared power but saw separate problems yielded
discovery of missiles on certain date in special context  without these facts about
players, the outcome would’ve been different
 If missile crisis (Cuba II) occurred at time of Bay of Pigs (Cuba I), different players
would have been members of the critical national security game  military chiefs
would’ve been more influential and air strike would have occurred
 Application to Obama in Afghanistan
 On December 1, 2009, Obama announced he was sending 30k more troops to
Afghanistan
 War started in 2001, deteriorated in insurgency and paralyzing sectarian violence
with Taliban reclaiming control over significant sections of the country
 Bush administration de-emphasized Afghanistan in favor of Iraq
 Commanders in 2008 asked for more troops
 Advocates of surge included Commander of US forces who though he needed more
resources for nationwide COIN strategy, Joint Chief of Staff, Commander of central
command, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State
 Opponents of the surge include, Vice President Biden who though that Al Qaeda
was real threat and wanted to limit number of troops, US ambassador in
Afghanistan, National Security Council, and Chief of Staff who was worried about
repercussions on Obama’s popularity
 Final decision: 30k troops, withdrawal timetable, ordered militaries to declare
strategy wasn’t COIN but to prevent Al Qaeda
 Surge advocates and opponents each formed coalitions in effort to convince
President to select their preferred options and engaged in bureaucratic combat with
one another
 Logrolling: quid pro quo where actors exchange promises to secure policies

o President insisted on imposition of withdrawal timeline in effort to maintain
support from Congressional democrats
Final decision was compromise
Schub (2022), Informational Approach To Bureaucratic Politics

Implication of bureaucratic politics is link between bureaucratic position and official’s
input during crisis
 Advisers endorse policies that advance their bureaucratic interests
o Example: civilian foreign policy advisers endorse less aggressive policies than
civilian advisers within military bureaucracies
 Leaders select, monitor, and sanction advisers
o Selecting advisers with aligned preferences can reduce importance of
bureaucratic affinities
 Probability of victory and war depend on military and politics  this distinction
makes the information leaders must collect to guide choices during crises clear
 Advisers are differentially informed  military advisers study opponents’ doctrines
and arms development, while foreign policy advisers specialize in adversaries’
political characteristics
 Adviser’s informational expertise and emphasis follow from substantive mission of
her bureaucracy
 The more a bureaucracy specializes in issues of foreign policy rather than military
policy, the more these officials talk about political attributes when advising leaders
and express more uncertainty
o Advisers who discuss high-uncertainty topics will convey more uncertainty
o Advisers specializing in foreign policy have expertise in recognizing informational
gaps on adversary’s political traits and conveys uncertainty
 Data
 US crises during Cold War from Eisenhower to Carter
 61 opportunities to use force
 382 documents from Foreign Relations of US
 Measures
 Machine learning based estimates of content: political (positive) and military conflict
(negative)
 Sentiment based estimates of certainty
 Measure of aggressiveness: defense more hawkish, no difference, or State is more
hawkish
 Results
 State Department officials emphasize political attributes more than other
bureaucracies (positive coefficient  political content)

Average bureaucracy input concerns neutral content, while State department stress
more political content
 Defense and JCS had average Political Content Score of 0.35, and State had higher
 Foreign policy advisers express greater uncertainty than counterparts during crises
o 12% higher in State than other agencies (most uncertain at 5.6%)
o Defense was only 4.9% uncertain
 State Department expresses greater uncertainty when discussing political matters
 For military content, Defense officials recognize relative informational abundance
and there convey certainty
 State and Defense advantage indistinguishable positions in nearly half of the cases
 When diverging, Defense calls more aggressive actions in 30% of cases, and State
does so for 25%
 State Department therefore not especially dovish
 Jost et al. (2024), Advisers & Aggregation in Foreign Decision-making
 Division between hawks and doves is central to understand why states choose
conflict over cooperation
 Debate over how individual dispositions like hawkishness shape state behavior
o Decisions occur in group settings in which leaders and advisers interaction
 Like leaders, advisers possess stable dispositions like hawkishness  how do these
traits aggregate to shape foreign policy outcomes
 Emergence Model
 Assume that dispositions of group members shouldn’t aggregate in systematic or
predictable ways
 Leader Model
 Some leaders are more hawkish than others, and states led by hawkish leaders are
more likely to engage in conflictual behavior
 Group decisions reflect leaders traits because:
o Foreign policy decision-making groups tend to be hierarchical  leaders enjoy
more substantive and procedural authority than other group members
o Leader model argues that leader beliefs tend to supersede input advisers provide
 Adviser Model
 Model of aggregation emphasizing advisers’ dispositions
 Based on 3 simple intuitions:
o Challenges of foreign policy decision making cause leaders to turn to advisers for
counsel
o Advisers have stable predispositions about foreign policy
o These predispositions affect nature of counsel advisers provide and thus
decisions leaders are likely to make

Advisers engage in information provision, giving leaders information they need about
the state of the world
o Advisers don’t just provide information to leaders, they screen it and choose what
to relay and hold back
 Advisers engage in problem representation, helping leaders develop definition of
situation
 Advisers provide policy recommendations, helping leaders select optimal strategy
given situation they face
o In Cuban Missile Crisis, advisers deliberated about whether the US should
respond diplomatically with air strikes or blockade
 Advisers have stable and well-defined predispositions that shape the way they view
foreign policy  some are hawkish and others are dovish
o Advisers are forced by early experiences that continue to shape how they
behave when in office decades later
 Advisers’ predispositions shape counsel they provide during deliberations and thus
the decisions leaders make
o Advisers in Bush administration were convinced Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction, so they tasked intelligence officers with looking for signs of them
 Data
 Collected and analyzed large set of archival records of high-level foreign policy
meetings in US from 1947-1988
 Used these records to identify participants in foreign policy decision-making and
then participant hawkishness (explanatory variable) by matching data with existing
foreign policy elite survey
 Data
 Predicted hawkishness measures for 6 senior members in US foreign policy decision
making (President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of CIA, Joint
Chiefs of Staff (president’s senior military adviser), and National Security
 Chairman of JCS more hawkish than Secretary of State in general but some SoS
were more hawkish than others
 US foreign policy deliberations exhibited high level of seeking counsel, particularly
by leaders
o Even the least inquisitive Presidents still quickly sought counsel in their
deliberations
o Leaders and advisers use deliberations to offer conflicting views
 Hawks and doves discuss systematically different considerations that are consistent
with their underlying predispositions
 Hawks are more likely to address issues related to violence and threat, while doves
place greater stress on diplomatic possibilities and adversary interests

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There were 950 decisions towards adversaries where 702 were conflictual and 248
were cooperative
Used this data to produce two measures:
o Meeting’s raw number of conflictual decisions toward adversaries
o Both conflict and cooperative subtracting one from the other  positive value
means meeting produces more conflictual and cooperative decisions
Conflictual policy choices toward adversaries rise with group hawkishness 
inconsistent with emergence model
Presidential hawkishness doesn’t have systematic relationship with conflictual
decisions toward adversaries
Adviser hawkishness, on the other hand, does affect decision outcomes
o More hawkish advisers speaking in meeting  more conflictual polices adopted
Dramatic effect of measures of group hawkishness  inconsistent with emergence
model and consistent with adviser model
In leader vs. adviser model, it is important to note that even though leaders and
advisers have cross-cutting effects on decision-making, the more conflictual nature
of hawkish advisers outweighs effect of the President
TO SUM UP


Bureaucracies are able to influence foreign policy through their resources and
expertise that leaders are in demand of
Have preferences that differ and sway foreign policymaking accordingly
Interest Groups & Foreign Policy
ECONOMIC INTERESTS IN CASE OF IRAQ



Dick Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, was awarded contracts worth billions of
dollars to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure and supply American troops
By end of 2006, the company was worth 4x its value when the war started
Bush used to be oil industry executive and people speculated that the war was
fought at the behest of companies interested in Iraq’s oil and of military contractors
ETHNIC-BASED INTEREST GROUPS

Economic interest groups are not only ones who influence foreign policy  ethnicbased interest groups also
 Governments may respond to pressure from politically powerful ethnic groups to
intervene in neighbors’ civil wars on behalf of ethnic kin who live across the border
 Anti-Castro Lobby in US
 Large number of Cubans fled after Castro took power and seized their property in
1959


Cuban-Americans lobbied US government to take strong action to contain and
undermine Castro’s regime, including imposing strict economic embargo
Obama’s decision to restore diplomatic and economic ties faced resistance from
Cuban Americans
WHY DO INTEREST GROUPS CARE ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY?


In case of ethnic-based interest groups, group members are motivated by ethnic
attachment or ideological interests to support or oppose country or regime
In case of economic actors, preferences over foreign policy arise whenever actor’s
income depends on events in other countries or relationship between countries
o A MNC has production facilities in several countries and if there is political
instability or unfriendly regimes who disrupt the company’s business, then the
company might lobby for intervention to protect its interests
o Same case for investors who lobby government to ensure return on its
investment or repayment of loan
 Imperialism was result of this lobbying
o Economic actors who make and sell military armaments have interest in foreign
policy since belligerent foreign policy keeps them in business
ARE ECONOMIC GROUPS MORE LIKELY TO SUPPORT WAR?


Interest of economic actors need not always lead to preference for aggressive
policies
Economic actors who depend on peaceful relations with other countries to do
business could press government to pursue friendly relations or alliances
o American banks and companies lobbied US to maintain friendly relations with
Europe during the Cold War
o US firms have been lobbying government for more peaceful relations with China
Brooks (2013), Economic Actors & War

Whether economic actors enhance or decrease likelihood of conflict depends on
domestic political balance between economic actors who have strong interest in
peace vs. not
 There are two contrary arguments:
o Among advanced states, there are no longer any economic actors who will be
favorable toward war and who will lobby government with this preference
o It is unnecessary for actors to lobby for peace because economic globalization
creates economic incentives for leaders
 Mechanisms Pushing Economic Actors Towards War
 Uncompetitive industries will favor using military force in circumstances to annex
territories to create colonial monopolies

International competitive industries will favor use or threat of military force in some
circumstances to prevent other countries from setting up exclusive economic zones
that are potential export markets
 Uncompetitive industries support military conflict to slowdown imports
 Raw material industries sometimes favor use of force to allow them to secure
supplies of minerals and raw materials
 Industries with FDI overseas will sometimes favor use of military force to protect
their business from instability in host country
 Does Pushing For War In Globalized World Still Make Sense?
 First three mechanisms are outdated  less politically costly means to slow imports
down such as tariffs, quotas, and sanctions
 In an open world, you can trade for natural resources rather than conquer territories
o Increased ease and greatly lowered cost of both transportation and
communications
 Increased opportunity cost of closure to FDI
o States that close themselves from MNCs have difficulty remaining technologically
competitive and securing adequate access to capital
 Is FDI a Substitute for Conquest?
 As response by state:
o Rushed to change their policies to make themselves more attractive investments
sites for MNCs
o Sought to ensure that no internal threats will emerge that might threaten interests
of MNC
 As response by MNCs
o Great increase in geographic dispersion of FDI holding compared to previous
eras
o In the past, MNCs often clustered holdings near their home state
 In today’s world, the likelihood that a threat will emerge to FDI holdings from
governments or nonstate actors is much lower
 Significance of such threat is reduced compared to previously
o Not a single case since 1975 in which threats to FDI acts as trigger for use of
military force
Biglaiser & De Rouen (2007)


Foreign direct investment: private capital flows that provide parent firm with control
over enterprise outside the home country
o fell in early 1990s only to take off in mid-1950s with US MNEs taking over
FDI determinants are divided in four categories:
o Macroeconomic and host-country conditions
o Economic reforms
o Level of democratization
o Follow the flag / security considerations
 Determinants of US FDI
 US government provides incentives to US firms that invest in countries important to
US security interests
 Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC): government agency created in
1969 is example of US government shaping investment decisions
o Offers political risk insurance to US MNEs, needed inducement based on threat
of host contract renegotiation, abrogation, or outright expropriation
o Because investments in developing countries carry risk, loans on such
investments receive higher interest rates than would investments in more stable
developed countries
o However, OPIC offers guaranteed bank loans, bonds, and other incentives that
lower the risk premium on interest rates
 Countries with US troops attract FDI, as troops provide security against
expropriation
o Troops also provide credible signal for US MNEs when stationed in host
countries  hospitality spills over into cooperation and stability for US MNEs
prompting greater US investor interest
 Countries with US troops draw in short-term portfolio investments, but long-term US
troop deployments signal unrest and discourage US FDI
o Few traditional MNEs are likely to be very interested in investing anywhere so
politically unstable as to require involvement of US combat troops
o Clear and obvious exception to this argument would be cases such as Vietnam,
Iraq, and Afghanistan where US forces are actually engaged in extensive and
long-term combat
o Since end of draft in 1973 and advent of all-volunteer military, military
outsourcing to private firms provided jobs ranging from cooking/cleaning to
maintaining and repairing weapons systems
 Non-competitive bidding, a controversial contracting process used in Iraq also
supplements US FDI in host countries with US troops deployed
 However, assessments of follow the flag factors on US FDI may involve selection
bias:
o US investors might selectively invest in certain class of countries based on
security considerations
o If these considerations selectively exclude countries from being potential
recipients of US FDI, traditional one-stage modeling would be biased and true
effect of certain variables could be confounded

In first stage, US investors need to decide whether a country reaches some level of
acceptance based on several signaling factors such as troop deployment, foreign
policy similarity, conflict, regime type, and capital controls
 Once decision has been made that a country reaches a threshold of acceptability,
the second decision is how much to invest and whether they escalate  depends on
different factors than initial investment decision
 Data
 Cases: 126 developing countries between 1966-2002
 Dependent: measure US FDI
 Independent variables: effect of troops on FDI flows, similarity between two states
foreign policy outlooks based on similarity of alliances in their portfolio, investment
before and after cold war, and macroeconomic controls
 Results
 Countries with previous experience with FDI are catalysts for future FDI
 Macroeconomic variables are positive
o Bilateral trade is positively associated with US FDI
o Economic growth has positive impact on both forms of FDI but developm3nt is
opposite (loses significance in selection effects model)
 Post-cold war era must higher US and global FDI
 Conflict has negative impact on FDI but it’s only significant in non-country dummy
model and global FDI model
 Foreign policy similarity and troops have positive impact in US FDI
 Economic growth causes US FDI to increase over $400 million when it is moved
from minimum to maximum
 Manipulating bilateral trade yields increase of $270 million  conflict reduces US
FDI by about $252 million while in post-Cold War era U.S. FDI is $151 million higher
 Moving troops from minimum to maximum increases by $496 million
 Foreign policy similarity increases $388 million
 Increasing troops and foreign policy similarity to maximum raises probability of
selection by 24% and 32%
 More trade-oriented, high growth countries in post-Cold War era enhances US FDI
 Troops and foreign policy similarity present less ambiguous picture
o US MNEs are likely to invest more in countries with US troop deployments and
foreign policy similarity while non-US MNEs appear less likely to invest under
such conditions are largely the reduced political risk and lower capital costs as a
result of OPIC as well as benefits of military outsourcing and contracts that flow
mainly to US firms
PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY IN THE US

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
argue that Israel is of little strategic value to American interests and that the moral
case for supporting Israel is weak at best
 This distortion in American foreign policy is due to the extraordinary influence of proIsrael groups and individuals, a collection of actors they dub the “Israel lobby” in
American domestic politics
o Trace the lobby’s multiple pathways of influence on American policymaking
process like through Congress, President, media, think tanks, and issue
networks of professional policy analysis, universities, and broader public
discourse
 Lobby is bound through common interest of supporting Israel and strong shared
norms against public criticism of Israeli policy
 They don’t claim that the lobby is an organized entity, but they emphasize a single
organization, AIPAC, whose reputation for lobbying influence and effectiveness
o Individuals in this lobby engage in number of activities intended to influence
American foreign policy in direction of support for Israel through voting for proIsrael candidates and engaging in other activities intended to convey policy
preferences to elected representatives
 Hypotheses
 Lobby & Congress: presence of members of Congress who are Christian Zionists or
Jews increase likelihood of pro-Israel policy outcomes
o Greater levels of campaign activity measured through contributions should be
associated with higher levels of support for pro-Israel policies
 Lobby & Executive: Presidential candidates who receive more financing from Jewish
donors ought to be more likely to espouse pro-Israel policies and more likely to win
elections
o Jewish voters are decisive in presidential elections
 Pro-Israel actors manage to stifle open debate about American policy on Israel in
order to maintain favorable public opinion toward Israel and American support for
Israel
 This influence operates through number of mechanisms:
o Media: susceptible to pressure through letter-writing campaigns, protests,
boycotts of outlets whose content is anti-Israel
o Professional policy analysis: think tanks dominated by pro-Israel analysts
o Regulating discussion of Middle East policy in university campuses
Lieberman (2009), General Critique


Very little variation on dependent and independent variables
Level of lobbying always seem to be high and outcomes always pro-Israel
o Bush administration was super pro-Israel  around same time that AIPAC was
recognized as highly skilled actor in politics
o Israel recognized by Truman before AIPAC was institutionalized
 A Critique About Congressional & Executive Influence
 Relatively small proportion of Jewish policymakers but they wield such influence
over policymaking
 Pro-Israel individuals and organizations contributed $7.3 million to congressional
candidates and presidential candidates in each two-year election cycle between
1990-2006
 Amount of pro-Israel donations remained flat but overall campaign contributions
have increased  pro-Israel contributions constitute even-smaller share of total
campaign spending (12th highest in 1990 and decreased ranking overtime)
 These contributions aren’t decisive enough and oftentimes candidates still lose their
elections regardless of AIPAC backing
 These contributions haven’t always gone to winning candidates
 American Jewish voting behavior has been predictable  always vote Democrat
 In 4 out of 9 states, the result would’ve been reversed if every single Jewish voter in
the state voted for losing candidate (NJ, NV, PA, WI), but other states like NY, FL,
OH, wouldn’t have been affected
 A Critique About Public Discourse Influence
 Evidence presented foesn’t demonstrate that these activities have observable effect
on content or valence of Middle East reporting or teaching in universities
 There is lack of clarity on ultimate impact of these activities on policymaking process
 Antisemitism
 Final causal mechanism by Walt & Mearsheimer: they equate anti-Israeli sentiments
with anti-Semitism
 Decline in anti-Semitic violence in France in 2004-2005, but 2004 had highest
number of incidents and this reduction still meant that anti-Semitic actions and
threats were still high
HOW CAN INTEREST GROUPS HAVE SUCH A LARGE INFLUENCE ON FOREIGN
POLICY?


Taxpayers are numerous and costs of intervention to any individual are low, so no
individual citizen has much of an incentive to become informed about the situation,
while a company has a very large stake in the outcome and therefore become
informed, lobby, and exploit contacts within the government
In the interaction between many who pay costs and the few who benefit, those who
benefit have a significant advantage
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
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Organized interest groups can prevail because they can provide political leaders
with things they need and want in exchange for favored policies
What interest groups provide is money which leaders can use for personal or
political gain
Concerns about military-industrial complex center around the flow of money 
industries give money to politicians who then allocate taxpayer money to military,
which spends money in ways that benefit the industries (e.g. purchasing arms or
intervening to protect foreign assets)
Interest groups also gain influence by promising support of motivated voters
o Example: Cuban-American lobby didn’t give large sums of money, rather they
gave voters especially in Florida (swing state)
HOW MUCH DO THEY REALLY INFLUENCE FOREIGN POLICY?





Just because Halliburton benefitted from invasion of Iraq, we cannot infer that the
company actively lobbied for invasion or Bush invaded to benefit the company
There are always alternative justifications based on national interests:
o US interventions in Latin America coincided with preventing spread of
communism, sometimes in countries in which US investors had no significant
assets
o Exerting influence over oil-producing regions services a variety of interest, not
just to oil companies
There are multiple groups pushing in different directions
Arms manufactuers spend great deal of political effort competing with each other for
government contracts rathe rthan banding together to promote general policy
objectives
o Example: US policy toward Middle East  pro-Israel vs. oil interests with closer
relations with oil-rich Arab states
Existence of opposing groups and demands make it harder for any one group to
capture state’s foreign policy
TO SUM UP


Economic and ethnic-based interest groups may have strong impact on foreign
policymaking (through money and votes)
Influence shouldn’t be overestimated  hard to track empirically and it is unlikely
that their pressure is the only factor in foreign policy decision