"Term Limits, Leader Preferences, and Interstate Conflict," with Timothy Nordstrom. Forthcoming at International Studies Quarterly.
Drawing on the idea that electoral accountability is a source for peace, recent research claims term limits result in democratic leaders who are systematically more likely to initiate conflicts. This conclusion rests upon analyses that suffer from two issues. First, scholars have not considered how leaders' preferences or the strategic environment might condition the relationship between term limits and interstate conflict. Second, existing analyses rely on state-level data that cannot accurately identify whether a conflict is initiated by a term-limited or an electorally accountable incumbent in those years where both types of leaders served. Using a new, leader-year measure of term limits, we find that lame ducks are less likely to initiate conflicts than their electorally accountable counterparts, on average, and that this result holds among democratic leaders with dovish preferences but not democratic leaders with hawkish preferences.
Drawing on the idea that electoral accountability is a source for peace, recent research claims term limits result in democratic leaders who are systematically more likely to initiate conflicts. This conclusion rests upon analyses that suffer from two issues. First, scholars have not considered how leaders' preferences or the strategic environment might condition the relationship between term limits and interstate conflict. Second, existing analyses rely on state-level data that cannot accurately identify whether a conflict is initiated by a term-limited or an electorally accountable incumbent in those years where both types of leaders served. Using a new, leader-year measure of term limits, we find that lame ducks are less likely to initiate conflicts than their electorally accountable counterparts, on average, and that this result holds among democratic leaders with dovish preferences but not democratic leaders with hawkish preferences.
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