"Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't: The Relationship between Political Leaders and Interstate Targets."
How do security threats and the political leaders we observe influence one another? I argue there is an endogenous relationship between whether a state is targeted in an international crisis and its leader's willingness to use force. In particular, domestic populations prefer hawkish leaders when threatened and hawkish leaders are more likely to deter challenges. Consistent with expectations, analyses using a new measure of leaders' latent willingness to use force and
a structural estimator indicate states likely to be targeted in a crisis have relatively hawkish leaders and that hawkish leaders reduce the probability a state will be targeted. As hawks are more likely to initiate conflicts than doves, my findings suggest that when structural conditions make it likely a country will be challenged in a crisis, a domestic population can in whether its state plays the role of initiator or target but can do little to prevent a crisis.
How do security threats and the political leaders we observe influence one another? I argue there is an endogenous relationship between whether a state is targeted in an international crisis and its leader's willingness to use force. In particular, domestic populations prefer hawkish leaders when threatened and hawkish leaders are more likely to deter challenges. Consistent with expectations, analyses using a new measure of leaders' latent willingness to use force and
a structural estimator indicate states likely to be targeted in a crisis have relatively hawkish leaders and that hawkish leaders reduce the probability a state will be targeted. As hawks are more likely to initiate conflicts than doves, my findings suggest that when structural conditions make it likely a country will be challenged in a crisis, a domestic population can in whether its state plays the role of initiator or target but can do little to prevent a crisis.
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