War president
Testing the Hillary Doctrine: Women's Rights and Anti-American Terrorism
Nilay Saiya, Tasneem Zaihra & Joshua Fidler
Political Research Quarterly, June 2017, Pages 421-432
Abstract:
In her various roles as First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State, and Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton has long maintained that the subjugation of women poses a national security threat to the United States. Clinton's proposition has come to be termed the "Hillary Doctrine." Yet does this principle receive support from the empirical record? In this paper, we offer a test of the Hillary Doctrine by analyzing if more anti-American terrorism emanates from countries that restrict women's rights than from countries that are not gender restrictive. Using a time series, cross-national analysis of 156 countries from the period 1981 to 2005, our negative binomial models offer strong support for the Hillary Doctrine and suggest that the promotion of women's rights may well enhance the national security of the United States with respect to terrorism. These results are robust to a wide range of changes to the empirical research design.
More Bang for the Buck: Media Coverage of Suicide Attacks
Michael Jetter
Terrorism and Political Violence, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper provides empirical evidence that suicide attacks systematically draw more media attention than non-suicide terrorist attacks. Analyzing 60,341 terrorist attack days in 189 countries from 1970 to 2012, I introduce a methodology to proxy for the media coverage each one of these attack days receives in the New York Times. Suicide attacks are associated with significantly more coverage. In the most complete regression, one suicide attack produces an additional 0.6 articles - a magnitude equivalent to the effect of 95 terrorism casualties. This link remains robust to including a comprehensive list of potentially confounding factors, fixed effects, and country-specific time trends. The effect is reproduced for alternative print and television outlets (BBC, Reuters, CNN, NBC, CBS), but remains weak for Google Trends (worldwide and in the U.S.), a more direct proxy for people's interests, and is non-existent for C-SPAN, a television station dedicated to broadcasting political discussions directly. Thus, the media appears to cover suicide missions in an extraordinary fashion, which may in turn explain their prominence among terrorist organizations.
Market anticipations of conflict onsets
Thomas Chadefaux
Journal of Peace Research, March 2017, Pages 313-327
Abstract:
Does the recurrence of wars suggest that we fail to recognize dangerous situations for what they are, and are doomed to repeat the errors of the past? Or rather that policymakers correctly anticipate the consequences of their actions but knowingly choose conflict? Unfortunately, little is known about how well wars are anticipated. Do conflicts tend to come as a surprise? I estimated the risk of war as perceived by contemporaries of all interstate and intrastate conflicts between 1816 and 2007. Using historical financial data of government bond yields, I find that market participants tend to underestimate the risk of war prior to its onset, and to react with surprise immediately thereafter. This result illustrates how conflict forecasts can be self-fulfilling or self-defeating. Present predictions may affect future behavior, such that wars may be less likely to occur when they are predicted, but more likely when they are not. I also show that the forecasting record has not improved over the past 200 years, and that wars involving democracies lead to greater market shocks. These findings also have implications for the way decisionmakers respond to new information, and how audiences perceive the risk of war and hence their leaders' actions.
A Manifesto, in 140 Characters or Fewer: Social Media as a Tool of Rebel Diplomacy
Benjamin Jones & Eleonora Mattiacci
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Can rebel organizations in a civil conflict use social media to garner international support? This article argues that the use of social media is a unique form of public diplomacy through which rebels project a favorable image to gain that support. It analyzes the Libyan civil war, during which rebels invested considerable resources in diplomatic efforts to gain US support. The study entails collecting original data, and finds that rebel public diplomacy via Twitter increases co-operation with the rebels when their message (1) clarifies the type of regime they intend to create and (2) emphasizes the atrocities perpetrated by the government. Providing rebels with an important tool of image projection, social media can affect dynamics in an ever more connected international arena.
Small footprint, small payoff: The military effectiveness of security force assistance
Stephen Biddle, Julia Macdonald & Ryan Baker
Journal of Strategic Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
After 15 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, many now see 'small-footprint' security force assistance (SFA) - training, advising and equipping allied militaries - as an alternative to large US ground-force commitments. Yet, its actual military efficacy has been little studied. This paper seeks to fill this gap. We find important limitations on SFA's military utility, stemming from agency problems arising from systematic interest misalignment between the US and its typical partners. SFA's achievable upper bound is modest and attainable only if US policy is intrusive and conditional, which it rarely is. For SFA, small footprints will usually mean small payoffs.
The New Era of Counterforce: Technological Change and the Future of Nuclear Deterrence
Keir Lieber & Daryl Press
International Security, Spring 2017, Pages 9-49
Abstract:
Nuclear deterrence rests on the survivability of nuclear arsenals. For much of the nuclear age, "counterforce" disarming attacks - those aimed at eliminating an opponent's nuclear forces - were nearly impossible because of the ability of potential victims to hide and protect their weapons. Technological developments, however, are eroding this foundation of nuclear deterrence. Advances rooted in the computer revolution have made nuclear forces around the world considerably more vulnerable. Specifically, two key approaches that countries have relied on to ensure arsenal survivability since the dawn of the nuclear age - hardening and concealment - have been undercut by leaps in weapons accuracy and a revolution in remote sensing. Various methods, evidence, and models demonstrate the emergence of new possibilities for counterforce disarming strikes. In short, the task of securing nuclear arsenals against attack is far more difficult than it was in the past. The new era of counterforce challenges the basis for confidence in contemporary deterrence stability, raises critical issues for national and international security policy, and sheds light on one of the enduring theoretical puzzles of the nuclear era: why international security competition has endured in the shadow of the nuclear revolution.
The (In)compatibility of Peace and Justice? The International Criminal Court and Civil Conflict Termination
Alyssa Prorok
International Organization, April 2017, Pages 213-243
Abstract:
Does the International Criminal Court's (ICC) pursuit of justice facilitate peace or prolong conflict? This paper addresses the "peace versus justice" debate by examining the ICC's impact on civil conflict termination. Active ICC involvement in a conflict increases the threat of punishment for rebel and state leaders, which, under certain conditions, generates incentives for these leaders to continue the conflict as a way to avoid capture, transfer to the Hague, and prosecution. The impact of ICC involvement is conditional upon the threat of domestic punishment that leaders face; as the risk of domestic punishment increases, the conflict-prolonging effects of ICC involvement diminish. I test these theoretical expectations on a data set of all civil conflict dyads from 2002 to 2013. Findings support the hypothesized relationship. Even after addressing potential selection and endogeneity concerns, I find that active involvement by the ICC significantly decreases the likelihood of conflict termination when the threat of domestic punishment is relatively low.
Settling on Violence: Expansion of Israeli Outposts in the West Bank in Response to Terrorism
Anna Getmansky & Tolga Sinmazdemir
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does terrorism affect land control in intrastate conflicts? This article explores this question in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the Second Intifada (2000-2005), and shows that Palestinian attacks led to an expansion of Israeli outposts in the disputed territories of the West Bank. Following suicide attacks, there is an increase in outposts in home districts of the perpetrators. The number of outposts also increases following deadly attacks against Israelis in West Bank districts where these attacks take place. These results suggest that Israeli settlers use outpost expansion as retaliation against Palestinian communities they perceive to be involved in violence, and this shifts territorial control against Palestinians.
Revisiting the Effects of Societal Threat Perceptions on Conflict-related Positions: A Three-wave Study
Julia Elad-Strenger & Golan Shahar
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
Past research has produced convincing evidence for the association between perceived societal threat and political conservatism. Based on the view of political worldviews and threat perceptions as multifaceted constructs, the present study suggests that certain types of perceived threat are actually associated with the endorsement of more politically liberal positions. Employing a three-wave naturalistic design, we examined the unique longitudinal effects of perceived threats from real-life political events that challenge either liberal or conservative values, on conflict-related attitudes, using a nationally representative sample of Jewish-Israelis (N = 437). Consistent with our hypotheses, perceived threat from events that challenge conservative values was associated with increased militaristic attitudes and decreased willingness to compromise for peace over time, whereas perceived threat from events that challenge liberal values was related to decreased militaristic attitudes and increased willingness to compromise for peace over time. Theoretical and practical implications of these longitudinal effects are discussed.
Giving the Underdog a Leg Up: A Counternarrative of Nonviolent Resistance Improves Sustained Third-Party Support of a Disempowered Group
Emile Bruneau, Daniel Lane & Muniba Saleem
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the current work, we experimentally examined the effect of exposure to a narrative of nonviolent resistance on third-party attitudes toward and support for a disempowered group involved in asymmetric conflict. Across three experiments, we found that Americans exposed to a brief video about Palestinian nonviolent resistance consistently registered more favorable attitudes toward Palestinians than people who watched a film trailer either unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or a trailer to a Palestinian-made film about sympathetic Palestinians violently opposing Israelis. Americans' attitudes toward Palestinians and behavior supporting Palestinian collective action persisted weeks after exposure to nonviolent resistance and were mediated by decreased perceptions that Palestinians are inherently violent. Importantly, positive attitudes toward Palestinians did not result in increased negativity toward Israelis. These data show that exposure to nonviolent resistance can have lasting effects on third-party attitudes and behavior toward an underdog/disempowered group, without driving partisanship.
Signaling Resolve: Leaders, Reputations, and the Importance of Early Interactions
Danielle Lupton
International Interactions, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do leaders develop reputations for resolve across repeated interactions? While scholars find that leaders can acquire individual reputations for resolve, we know relatively little about how these leader-specific reputations form to begin with. This article examines how leaders develop reputations for resolve from the very beginning of their tenures and present three key hypotheses regarding these leader-specific reputations. First, statements are more influential to reputational assessments during initial interactions. Second, statements create expectations of future behavior, which interact with a leader's subsequent actions to influence reputation development. Third, initial perceptions of resolve significantly condition later assessments. Through a process tracing survey experiment, I find evidence that resolute statements are more substantively influential during early interactions. I also find early perceptions of resolve do significantly influence later perceptions. Furthermore, statements create expectations of future behavior, and it is by meeting or defying these expectations that a leader's reputation for resolve is improved or injured within the experiment. These results remain robust even when controlling for contextual factors, including state characteristics. The implications of these findings for both scholars and policy makers are discussed, and this study illustrates how individual leaders develop these reputations for resolve across interactions.
Allies with Benefits: US Effect on European Demand for Military Expenditures
Ethan Spangler
Defence and Peace Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the security relationship between the US and Europe, focusing on potential spill-in effects of US military expenditures on European demand for military expenditures during the early twenty-first century. The goal is to test whether or not European states view US expenditures as a complement or as a substitute to their own military expenditures. Past work in this area has found mixed results concerning the effect of US military expenditures, but focus strictly on the spill-ins within a formal alliance, specifically NATO, and use a time series dominated by Cold War dynamics. This study differentiates itself by accounting for both US total military expenditures and its regional expenditures through incorporation of US military base and personnel deployments across Europe. Additionally, this paper uses government revenue in its estimation to mitigate potential endogeneity. Findings using Arellano-Bond dynamic panel analysis suggest that there is a strong probability of substitution among European states.
Supplying protection: The United Nations and public support for humanitarian intervention
Geoffrey Wallace
Conflict Management and Peace Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the role of the constellation of interveners, along with the approval of international institutions like the United Nations, on public support for military interventions to protect civilians during war. Concerns over burden sharing and free riding have figured prominently in recent debates over the provision, or lack thereof, of humanitarian interventions. An experiment embedded in a survey of a representative sample of the US public shows that citizens are influenced less by the extent of material contributions from other countries than by whether the United Nations sanctions the mission. Further analysis indicates that the United Nations functions as a legitimating device that can help overcome collective action problems, rather than through alternative approaches emphasizing the signaling of information or ensuring greater military resources. The findings have implications for research on the role of international institutions and the domestic politics of support for the use of force.