Jonathan W. Keller

Rallies and the “First Image” Leadership Psychology, Scapegoating Proclivity, and the Diversionary Use of Force

Despite considerable scholarship regarding the degree to which the international use of force generates popular rallies, no work has addressed the possibility that leaders’ managerial philosophies and psychological predispositions systematically influence their assessments of whether or not diversion “works”. In this article, we test hypotheses—conceived through direct reference to work in political psychology—which suggest that the degree to which presidents are innately concerned with the maintenance of the American “in-group” is an important predictor of whether they scapegoat international “out-groups” and, by extension, whether they choose strategies of diversionary foreign conflict or more cordial foreign engagement when facing domestic problems. Several analyses of American foreign policy behavior for the period 1953—2000 produce findings that clearly are at odds with these hypotheses, in that in-group biased presidents are actually less likely to use force and more likely to attend superpower summits when faced with a poor economy. We believe that these unexpected findings have serious implications for both the psychological study of international conflict and the plausibility of the “traditional” diversionary hypothesis.

American Power and Security during the Bosnian War (1993–1995): National Identity, Credibility, and the ‘Stalemate Machine’

Abstract This manuscript uses recently declassified documents to examine the factors shaping US policy toward Bosnia from 1993 to 1995. Drawing upon IR theoretical insights from constructivism and realism, these documents reveal that the halting and inconsistent nature of US actions during this period can be explained by a mismatch between US identity-driven goals and the constraints of the post-Cold War world. Having committed themselves to bold yet largely unattainable objectives in the region, US officials feared a loss of credibility and, for much of the period under investigation, did just enough not to ‘lose’ Bosnia without taking the kinds of decisive actions that would have made a difference on the ground. Eventually, atrocities in Sarajevo and Srebrenica convinced the US that more forceful action was necessary to preserve US and NATO credibility.