Andrew W. Bausch

Warnings, terrorist threats and resilience: A laboratory experiment:

One of the main goals of terrorism is to instill fear in a targeted populace. We investigate how information precision about rare, but highly devastating terrorist attacks influences psychological resilience, which we operationalize as the ability to continue to take optimum risks. First, we develop a mathematical model of a citizen’s resilience in the face of a terrorist threat. We then test the model in a laboratory experiment in which individuals face a choice between lotteries that offer higher payoffs but have a small probability of a large negative loss and a safe option. In the experiment, we vary the nature of warnings about the lotteries to see how vague warnings vs precise information influence optimal risk-taking (resilience). We find that precise information increases subjects’ willingness to take risks. Warnings containing no information do not influence subjects’ willingness to accept risk, but can influence resilience through affecting which risks subjects take.

Democracy, war effort, and the systemic democratic peace

This article uses an agent-based model and Selectorate Theory to explore the micro-foundations of the systemic democratic peace. Leaders engage in an international bargaining game that can escalate to conflict. Upon resolving the dispute, leaders distribute winnings to domestic constituencies and stand for reselection. The model’s assumptions about selectorate size in a democracy versus an autocracy make democratic leaders more accountable than autocrats and endogenously generates the dyadic democratic peace. The model shows no evidence of an autocratic peace, as mixed dyads are less likely to go to war than autocratic dyads. I further show that democratic leaders invest more resources in wars than predicted by the Nash equilibrium and also more than autocrats. This overinvestment by democratic leaders results in democracies winning more wars than autocrats. This model thus reinforces previous findings that democratic leaders respond to domestic reselection incentives by using more resources in conflict to gain a war-fighting advantage and help ensure victory. Finally, consistent with empirical results, I show that increasing the percentage of democracies in the system does not have a linear effect on the amount of conflict in the system. Below a certain threshold, increasing democracy has no effect on conflict, while after this threshold conflict decreases.

The Geography of Ethnocentrism

Hammond and Axelrod use an evolutionary agent-based model to explore the development of ethnocentrism. They argue that local interactions permit groups, relying on in-group favoritism, to overcome the Nash equilibrium of the prisoner’s dilemma and sustain in-group cooperation. This article shows that higher levels of cooperation evolve when groups are dropped from the model, breaking the link between ethnocentrism and cooperation. This article then generalizes Hammond and Axelrod’s model by parameterizing the underlying geographical assumptions they make about the evolutionary environment. This more general model shows that their findings are sensitive to these assumptions and that small changes to the assumed geography of reproduction significantly affect the probabilities of finding “ethnocentric” behaviors. The model presented here indicates that it is not local interactions, per se, but settings where interactions are highly likely to be with close relatives that lead to “ethnocentrism” as modeled by Hammond and Axelrod.

An Experimental Test of Selectorate Theory

This article uses a laboratory experiment to test one of the main predictions of selectorate theory, that is, that democratic leaders invest more resources in public goods than autocratic leaders. The results of the experiment confirm this prediction and further show citizens are better off on average under democratic institutions than autocratic institutions. Meanwhile, autocratic leaders receive higher payoffs than democratic leaders. Additionally, this article attempts to bring domestic politics into international relations experimentation with a focus on how communication may allow democracies to organize more efficiently for war than autocracies. A game theoretical model shows democracies have the potential to organize optimally and use their citizens’ skills to their full advantage while autocracies do not. The results of the experiment reveal some evidence that democracies organize more efficiently than autocracies, but that this increased efficiency did not produce a higher percentage of conflict wins.

Coup-Proofing and Military Inefficiencies: An Experiment

ABSTRACT Coup-proofing occurs when a leader arranges his military to prevent military leaders from overthrowing him. However, coup-proofing often has the additional effect of lowering the military’s effectiveness in conflict. This article discusses coup-proofing in the context of the Nouri al-Maliki’s regime in Iraq before presenting two formal models. The first model shows when coups are possible, leaders select military commanders with lower ability but higher loyalty. The second model shows that when coups are possible, leaders rotate their military commanders to prevent any one commander from becoming too powerful. The article then presents experimental tests of the models. The results of these laboratory experiments show that leaders are more likely to select loyal commanders or rotate their commanders under the coup treatment relative to groups with no leadership turnover or with leadership turnover according to elections. Thus, when faced with the possibility of a coup, leaders intentionally lower their military effectiveness. This article captures the dynamics behind a fundamental inefficiency introduced into groups when leadership is valuable, delegation is necessary, and powerful subordinates can remove the leader from office.

Stochastic interactions increase cooperation in a spatial Prisoner's Dilemma

This article implements the spatial Prisoners Dilemma PD as an agent-based model. Many previous models have assumed that agents in a spatial PD interaction exclusively and deterministically within their von Neumann neighborhood. The model presented here introduces stochastic interactions within a subset of the von Neumann neighborhood. This implementation allows a direct comparison of the effect of stochastic interactions relative to deterministic interactions on the level of cooperation that emerges in the system. The results show that when holding the total number of interactions agents participate in each round constant, allowing agents to interact stochastically increases cooperation in the system relative to deterministic interactions.

The Pitfalls of List Experiments in Conflict Zones

ABSTRACT Scholars of conflict often rely on fieldwork to study behaviours of civilians and combatants on the ground. A list experiment is a potentially useful tool for conflict scholars, as this survey methodology is designed to indirectly obtain truthful self-reports of behaviours while preserving the respondents’ anonymity. Acknowledging its advantages, this article also reviews the often overlooked shortcomings of list experiments as a survey method in conflict zones, including those limitations that cannot be corrected with better design or implementation. As an illustration, we discuss the list experiment employed to measure civilian assistance to the insurgents in the Donbas War.

Democracy and War Effort

This article uses a laboratory experiment to explore how groups’ internal rules for leader selection affect how leaders select into and fight conflicts. The findings reveal that, counter to expectations, leaders of democratic groups were more likely than leaders of autocratic groups to select into a conflict rather than accept a negotiated settlement. Conditional on conflict occurring, democratic leaders did not mobilize more resources for war than autocratic leaders. However, democratic leaders were less likely to accept a settlement once a war was underway and they expended more effort in the last round of conflict, suggesting once they entered a war they fought for a decisive victory. Domestically, democratic leaders were punished for losing wars more often than autocratic leaders, while winning wars did not benefit democratic leaders significantly.