"Elections, Signals, and Interstate Crises," with Scott Wolford.
We argue elections can influence interstate conflict by revealing information about a public's willingness to bear the costs of war. How informative an election is depends on the relative difference in the hawkishness of the candidates and the margin of victory. Close elections between a very hawkish candidate and a very dovish candidate should reveal the least amount of information to foreign states and, consequently, are more likely to be followed by a state being targeted in a crisis. We assess this claim with a novel data set that identifies the relative hawkishness of the winner and first-runner up of presidential elections in the Americas between 1945 and 2004. Consistent with expectations, we find that a country is more likely to be targeted in an interstate crisis when the previous election was a toss-up between candidates who are clearly differentiated with respect to their willingness to use force.
We argue elections can influence interstate conflict by revealing information about a public's willingness to bear the costs of war. How informative an election is depends on the relative difference in the hawkishness of the candidates and the margin of victory. Close elections between a very hawkish candidate and a very dovish candidate should reveal the least amount of information to foreign states and, consequently, are more likely to be followed by a state being targeted in a crisis. We assess this claim with a novel data set that identifies the relative hawkishness of the winner and first-runner up of presidential elections in the Americas between 1945 and 2004. Consistent with expectations, we find that a country is more likely to be targeted in an interstate crisis when the previous election was a toss-up between candidates who are clearly differentiated with respect to their willingness to use force.
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