Diversionary Foreign Policy in Democratic Systems

Smith, Alastair

doi:10.2307/2600934

Cited by 322 publications

(306 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…If leaders perform poorly on other policy issues, low ¹ in the context of the model, then a mediocre negotiated foreign policy is unlikely to be su±cient for domestic survival. This creates an incentive for leaders to bypass negotiations and wage war, staking their domestic survival on the outcome (Downs and Rocke 1993;Levy 1989 ;Smith 1996;Werner 1996 ;Goemans 1995;Richards et. al.…”

Section: Compromise Agreements: Relaxing the Negotiations Reselectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace

et al. 1999

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We examine formally the link between domestic political institutions and policy choices in the context of eight empirical regularities that constitute the democratic peace. We demonstrate that democratic leaders, when faced with war, are more inclined to shift extra resources into the war effort than are autocrats. This follows because the survival of political leaders with larger winning coalitions hinges on successful policy. The extra effort made by democrats provides a military advantage over autocrats. This makes democrats unattractive targets, since their institutional constraints cause them to mobilize resources for the war effort. In addition to trying harder, democrats are more selective in their choice of targets. Because defeat is more likely to lead to domestic replacement for democrats than for autocrats, democrats only initiate wars they expect to win. These two factors lead to the interaction between polities that is often referred to as the democratic peace.

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Section: Compromise Agreements: Relaxing the Negotiations Reselectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace

et al. 1999

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“…Other models of conflict include Richards et.al. (1993), Smith (1993), Leeds (1999) and Orphanides (1995, 2001), all of whom analyse state leaders' incentives for engaging in diversionary international warfare. None of them perform a comparative analysis across regimes.…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democracy, Autocracy and the Likelihood of International Conflict

Tangerås

2008

SSRN Journal

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This is a game-theoretic analysis of the link between regime type and international conflict. The democratic electorate can credibly punish the leader for bad conflict outcomes, whereas the autocratic selectorate cannot. For the fear of being thrown out of office, democratic leaders are (i) more selective about the wars they initiate and (ii) on average win more of the wars they start. Foreign policy behaviour is found to display strategic complementarities. The likelihood of interstate war, therefore, is lowest in the democratic dyad (pair), highest in the autocratic dyad with the mixed dyad in between. The results are consistent with empirical findings.JEL Classification: D72, D74, D82.

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“…In the quantitative empirical work on the issue, however, …ndings are mixed and no consensus has emerged. See Levy (1989) and Levy (1998) 10 See also Smith (1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

War with Outsiders Makes Peace Inside

Münster

Staal²

2011

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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In many situations there is a potential for con ‡ict both within and between groups. Examples include wars and civil wars and distributional con ‡ict in multitiered organizations like federal states or big companies. This paper models such situations with a logistic technology of con ‡ict. If individuals decide simultaneously and independently about the amount of internal con ‡ict, external con ‡ict and production, there is typically either only internal con ‡ict, or only external con ‡ict -but not both. If each group decides collectively how much each member has to put into the external con ‡ict before the members individually decide on the amounts put into the internal con ‡ict and production, groups choose su¢ ciently high external con ‡ict in order to avoid internal con ‡ict. This is a model of the "diversionary use of force". We also study the optimal number of groups.

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Diversionary Foreign Policy in Democratic Systems

Cited by 322 publications

References 20 publications

An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace

An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace

Democracy, Autocracy and the Likelihood of International Conflict

War with Outsiders Makes Peace Inside

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