The Credibility Paradox: Violence as a Double-Edged Sword in International Politics

Abstract

Implicit in the rationalist literature on bargaining over the last half‐century is the political utility of violence. Given our anarchical international system populated with egoistic actors, violence is thought to promote concessions by lending credibility to their threats. From the vantage of bargaining theory, then, empirical research on terrorism poses a puzzle. For nonstate actors, terrorism signals a credible threat in comparison with less extreme tactical alternatives. In recent years, however, a spate of studies across disciplines and methodologies has nonetheless found that neither escalating to terrorism nor with terrorism encourages government concessions. In fact, perpetrating terrorist acts reportedly lowers the likelihood of government compliance, particularly as the civilian casualties rise. The apparent tendency for this extreme form of violence to impede concessions challenges the external validity of bargaining theory, as traditionally understood. In this study, I propose and test an important psychological refinement to the standard rationalist narrative. Via an experiment on a national sample of adults, I find evidence of a newfound cognitive heuristic undermining the coercive logic of escalation enshrined in bargaining theory. Due to this oversight, mainstream bargaining theory overestimates the political utility of violence, particularly as an instrument of coercion.

Protest, counter-protest and organizational diversification of protest groups

“…This implication comports with the empirical findings by scholars like those of Stephan and Chenoweth (2008), Franklin (2009) and Chenoweth and Stephan (2011), namely that non-violent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. The mechanism by which radical tactics tend to backfire by hardening the stance of the populace is also consistent with recent studies on terrorism that call into question the conventional wisdom that violence allows civil resistance to achieve its policy aims (Abrahms, 2006(Abrahms, , 2013Fortna, 2015;Gould and Klor, 2010).…”

How the Public Defines Terrorism

“…Following the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013, President Barack Obama stated that “any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror” (Landler ). This statement is emblematic of the close mapping in both academic and policy circles between the type of violence used and the likelihood the incident will be classified as terrorism, buttressed by recent work in political science on the role that different types of violent tactics play in structuring perceptions of actors (Abrahms ; Huff and Kruszewska ). The empirical implications of this prior research are twofold.…”

Provoking Ordinary People: The Effects of Terrorism on Civilian Violence

“…In recent years, the effects of terrorism have moved into the focus of scholarly debate. While some researchers argue that terrorism can be effective in achieving its goals (Pape 2003;Kydd and Walter 2006), others dispute this finding and contend that terrorism is either ineffective or even counterproductive (Abrahms 2006(Abrahms , 2013Fortna 2015).…”

“…1 A considerable volume of studies investigated terrorism's potential effectiveness in achieving strategic goals as changing policies or toppling regimes (Abrahms 2006(Abrahms , 2012Fortna 2015;Pape 2003Pape , 2005Thomas 2014). Until now, this research led to mixed results with some finding that terrorism can be effective in achieving substantial policy changes (Pape 2003(Pape , 2005Thomas 2014) while others dispute this (Abrahms 2006(Abrahms , 2013Fortna 2015).…”