Benjamin O. Fordham

The Politics of Threat Perception and the Use of Force: A Political Economy Model of U.S. Uses of Force, 1949–1994

A growing body of empirical research addresses the influence of domestic political and economic circumstances on the use of force. Most models explain the use of force as a function of various domestic and international demands for military force. This article uses data on U.S. uses of force between 1949 and 1994 to test a model that also considers the influence of these conditions on the supply of this policy instrument. Conditions that have complementary demand and supply effects—making military force both more useful and less costly to employ—are associated with frequent U.S. uses of force in the postwar era. These conditions include high unemployment, strong investor confidence, wartime presidential election years, and the absence of ongoing wars. Some of these same conditions contribute to a motivated bias in international threat perception, leading U.S. decision makers to perceive more opportunities for the use of force when it is most convenient for them to employ it.

Militarized Interstate Disputes and United States Uses of Force

Research on questions such as whether national leaders use force in the international arena to divert attention from problems at home depends on a valid and reliable list of the incidents in which various states have used military force. In the case of the United States, several data sets have been used for this purpose. This research note compares two widely used data sets, the militarized interstate disputes (MID) data, which cover disputes involving all states between 1816 and 1992, and the data originally compiled by Stephen Kaplan and Barry Blechman, which cover only the United States since World War II. This comparison indicates that, in spite of its usefulness for other conflict research, the MID data are not appropriate for analyses of U.S. decisions to use force, including tests of the diversionary hypothesis. The MID data set excludes several categories of incidents relevant to major theoretical arguments about the use of force and includes many irrelevant incidents. These problems are likely to apply to similar analyses of other states as well. The Blechman and Kaplan data set also excludes some relevant events, but its omissions are less consequential. We offer a revised list of United States uses of force between 1870 and 1995.

Trade and Asymmetric Alliances

Alliances are usually understood as a way for states to aggregate military capabilities in the face of a common threat. From this perspective, the willingness of relatively powerful states to form alliances with much weaker partners is puzzling. The weaker ally often adds little to the stronger state’s security and may increase its chance of military entanglement. This article presents evidence that international trade helps explain these alliances. States that have the power to do so have incentives to protect their trading relationships against interference from either third states or internal conflict. Alliances are one means of providing this protection. This argument differs from most other research on trade and alliances, which reverses the causal arrow and suggests instead that alliances increase trade. Empirical analysis indicates that trade increases the probability of alliance formation in major power—minor power dyads and decreases the chance that alliances will dissolve. These results are robust to a variety of changes in the specification of the model and the data used for estimation. They also do not stem from any influence of alliance relationships on trade. An analysis of the effect of alliance formation on change in the level of bilateral trade turns up no evidence that the formation of an alliance increases commerce.

The Evolution of Republican and Democratic Positions on Cold War Military Spending

The domestic politics of American military spending during the Cold War confronts scholars with an important but often overlooked puzzle: the two major parties appear to have switched positions on the issue. During the early Cold War era, Democrats were generally supportive of increased military spending, while Republicans were critical. After the mid-1960s, Democrats increasingly tended to oppose larger military budgets, while Republicans more often favored them. This article presents evidence about the process through which this change took place. It identifies several developments in the domestic and international environments that may have contributed to this party switch and evaluates preliminary evidence about each of them.

Trade and Threat Perception

Liberal theorists have long held that the value of trade lost due to military conflict will lead states to avoid such conflict with their trading partners. Previous research has found support for this line of argument, but has focused on state behavior rather than the attitudes of those actually engaged in trade. At the individual level, however, it is not obvious that trade actually influences attitudes on security issues in the way liberals argue. Economic interests are rarely considered in research on assessments of political-military threats. Moreover, because trade creates domestic losers as well as winners, it might actually increase threat perception among those whom it negatively affects. This paper tests these arguments in the case of American trade with China using data from both a survey of the general public and roll-call voting in the House of Representatives. As liberals expect, we find evidence that trade indeed influences American attitudes toward China. However, there are substantial differences among individual survey respondents based on whether their income can be expected to rise or fall as the trading relationship grows. The winners have more positive attitudes toward China and express less support for aggressive foreign policies toward the country than do the losers. Aggregate differences along these same dimensions among their constituents also influence roll-call voting in the House of Representatives.

What Makes a Major Power

Research in international relations commonly finds that major powers behave differently than do other states. Indeed, the assumption that major powers are potentially active anywhere on the globe is the basis for treating dyads that include them as politically relevant in many studies. In spite of their importance, relatively little attention has been paid to what makes a major power. The possession of substantial material power is obviously an important part of the story, but becoming a major power also entails a policy choice. This paper considers three explanations for this choice, two drawn from the realist tradition, and one from the liberal tradition. Implications of these three explanations are tested against two policies characteristic of major powers: the development of military power and the construction of power projection capability. The results tend to support the liberal argument that economic stakes in the world beyond their borders drives these policy choices, but there is some evidence for the offensive realist claim that potential power also plays an important role in these choices.