Entangled
Wargame of Drones: Remotely Piloted Aircraft and Crisis Escalation
Erik Lin-Greenberg
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do drones affect escalation dynamics? The emerging consensus from scholarship on drones highlights increased conflict initiation when drones allow decisionmakers to avoid the risks of deploying inhabited platforms, but far less attention has been paid to understanding how drones affect conflict escalation. Limited theorization and empirical testing have left debates unresolved. I unpack the underlying mechanisms influencing escalation decisions involving drones by proposing a logic of remote-controlled restraint: drones limit escalation in ways not possible when inhabited assets are used. To test this logic and explore its instrumental and emotional microfoundations, I field "comparative wargames." I immerse national security professionals in crisis scenarios that vary whether a drone or inhabited aircraft is shot down. I validate wargame findings using a survey experiment. The wargames shed light on the microfoundations of escalation, highlight limits of existing theories, and demonstrate the utility of comparative wargaming as an IR research tool.
Securing guarantees: How nuclear proliferation can strengthen great power commitments
Julianne Phillips
Conflict Management and Peace Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does expanding the nuclear club alter the structure of the international system? The structure of alignments in the international system clearly shapes nuclear proliferation, as great powers often pressure subordinates into eschewing nuclear pursuit. What remains unclear, however, is how nuclear acquisition by subordinate states can, in turn, affect these alignments. I use a formal model to show that including great powers’ preferences after their allies have acquired nuclear weapons reveals a new mechanism behind proliferation: nuclear possession can allow states to change their patrons’ incentives and draw them closer, even against their wishes, thereby tightening hierarchies.
Solid support or secret dissent? A list experiment on preference falsification during the Russian war against Ukraine
Philipp Chapkovski & Max Schaub
Research & Politics, June 2022
Abstract:
Do individuals reveal their true preferences when asked for their support for an ongoing war? This research note presents the results of a list experiment implemented in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Our experiment allows us to estimate the extent of preference falsification with regard to support for the war by comparing the experimental results with a direct question. Our data comes from an online sample of 3000 Russians. Results show high levels of support for the war and significant levels of preference falsification: when asked directly, 71% of respondents support the war, while this share drops to 61% when using the list experiment. Preference falsification is particularly pronounced among individuals using TV as a main source of news. Our results imply that war leaders can pursue peace without fearing a large popular backlash, but also show that high levels of support for war can be sustained even once the brutality of the war has become clear.
Losing Hearts & Minds: Aid and Ideology
Travers Child
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
“Hearts and minds” theory contends development aid strengthens community support for counterinsurgents by providing jobs and public goods. Based on field interviews in Kabul, we develop an alternative theoretical framework emphasizing instead the ideological preferences of civilians. In our model, some aid projects are ideologically contentious while others are benign. Given a mix of foreign aid, each civilian supports either the counterinsurgents or rebels, depending on his/her idiosyncratic preferences. In this setting, greater provisions of aid can actually erode community support. Donors therefore calibrate the mix of foreign aid to appease population groups with relatively strong ideological sensibilities. Individual-level analysis based on unique Afghan data substantiates key features of our theory. Benign projects lead to favorable opinions of development, while contentious aid has the opposite effect. Moreover, favorable opinions of development are associated with stronger support for government and counterinsurgents, and weaker support for rebels.
Why “Cheap” Threats Are Meaningful: Threat Perception and Resolve in North Korean Propaganda
Lauren Sukin
International Interactions, forthcoming
Abstract:
Threatening propaganda — particularly when extreme and frequent — is often considered “cheap talk.” However, this article argues systematic and comprehensive analysis of such threats can still lend valuable insights. In particular, the aggregate content of threats reveals information about the threat perceptions of the messenger, while the frequency of threats provides information about the messenger’s resolve. To test this theory, I analyze a comprehensive dataset of North Korean propaganda between 1996 and 2018, showing that North Korea systematically issues threats to its adversaries when they engage in joint military exercises or when they take steps, such as the development of missile defenses, that challenge the survivability or deterrent capability of the North Korean nuclear arsenal. Additionally, North Korea’s rhetoric signals its resolve. As the volume of North Korean threats increases, so too does the likelihood that North Korea will engage in military provocations, including nuclear and missile tests.
Wrestlemania! Summit Diplomacy and Foreign Policy Performance after Trump
Benjamin Day & Alister Wedderburn
International Studies Quarterly, June 2022
Abstract:
In this article, we propose the category of “foreign policy performance” in order to argue that a recognition of foreign policy's theatricality can illuminate its contribution to generative processes of social construction and world-making. We focus on the practice of summit diplomacy, which operates according to a “theatrical rationality” that blurs the boundary between substantive and symbolic politics. Noting that Donald Trump's presidency called into question many of international relations’ prevailing assumptions regarding foreign policy's formulation and execution, we suggest that a performance-oriented analytic can facilitate a critical reckoning both with Trump himself and with the “statesmanlike” norms he eschewed. We read Trump's performances at international summits with reference to professional wrestling, which for all its melodramatic absurdity is a venerable and complex theatrical tradition with a highly developed critical language. Guided by four pieces of wrestling argot (“heat,” “heel,” “kayfabe,” and “cutting a promo”), we use process-tracing techniques to develop a wrestling-oriented reading of Trump's 2018 summit with Kim Jong-Un in Singapore. We argue that using wrestling in order to read Trump and Kim's deviation from the conventional norms and repertoires of foreign policy performance enables a critical assessment of the stakes at play in their reconstruction and re-establishment.
Weaponizing Facts: How Revisionist States Polarize Foreign Audiences with Factual Content
Noel Foster & Zenobia Chan
University of California Working Paper, April 2022
Abstract:
How do revisionist states leverage new technologies to disrupt foreign politics? Drawing on extensive elite interviews and insights from behavioral economics and social psychology, we argue that revisionist powers can use strategic narratives — factual accounts of issues controversial across pre-existing societal cleavages — to polarize voters through a combination of confirmation bias and reactance. Contrary to recent literature on fake news, we present evidence on the political economy of social media platforms that renders fake news impracticable and counter-productive in most markets. We test the effects of Russian strategic narratives using original survey experiments in Estonia. We show that exposure to factual content on migration and the Soviet legacy polarized Estonian voters along ethnolinguistic cleavages by making ethnic Estonians more likely to support right-leaning nationalist parties, while pushing the Russian-speaking minority to back left-leaning ethnic interest parties. A polarized population serves the revisionist state sender’s objective of paralyzing policy-making in the target state.
Unworthy victims and threatening adversaries: Islam, Muslims, and U.S. foreign policy
Evan Sandlin & Daniel Simmons
Social Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Methods: Using a survey experiment with two vignettes, we test how Americans’ foreign policy preferences are affected by Islamic identity. In the first vignette, a minority group is facing ethnic cleansing. Second, a country is developing chemical weapons.
Results: We find that Americans are less likely to see Muslim minorities abroad as under threat or to support costly foreign policy actions to assist them. We also find that Americans are more likely to see Muslim countries as threatening and to support the use of military force against Muslim states.
Distract and Divert: How World Leaders Use Social Media During Contentious Politics
Pablo Barberá et al.
International Journal of Press/Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do leaders communicate during domestic crises? We provide the first global analysis of world leader communication on social media during social unrest. We develop a theory of leaders’ digital communication strategies, building on the diversionary theory of foreign policy, as well as research on the role of democratic institutions in explaining elite responsiveness. To test our theory, we construct a new dataset that characterizes leader communication through social media posts published by any head of state or government on Twitter or Facebook, employing a combination of automated translation and supervised machine learning methods. Our findings show that leaders increase their social media activity and shift the topic from domestic to foreign policy issues during moments of social unrest, which is consistent with a conscious strategy to divert public attention when their position could be at risk. These effects are larger in democracies and in particular in the run-up to elections, which we attribute to incentives created by democratic institutions. Our results demonstrate how social media provide meaningful comparative insight into leaders’ political behavior in the digital age.