Richard J. Stoll

The Guns of November Presidential Reelections and the Use of Force, 1947-1982

A number of recent studies have investigated relationships between the presidential election cycle and the implementation of various policies. This article falls in this tradition, and asks whether a link exists between the reelection efforts of presidents, and the visible use of military force by the United States. After outlining why, and under what conditions, such a connection can be expected, a multivariate statistical model is tested for the time period 1947-1982. Despite the presence of several control variables, the results indicate that there is a connection, with fewer visible uses of force associated with presidential reelections in peacetime, and a slight increase in uses of force associated with presidential reelections during wartime.

War President The Approval Ratings of George W. Bush

The authors estimate a model of the job approval ratings of President George W. Bush that includes five sets of variables: a “honeymoon” effect, an autoregressive function that tracks a decline in approval, measures of economic performance, measures of important “rally events,” and a measure of the costs of war—in this case, the U.S. death toll in the Iraq War. Several significant effects are found, including the rally that followed the attacks of September 11, 2001; the commencement of the war in Iraq; and the capture of Baghdad in April 2003. Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, however, the casualties of war have had a significant negative impact on Bush’s approval ratings. Although the effects of additional battle deaths in Iraq will decrease approval only marginally, results suggest that there is also little prospect for sustained improvement so long as casualties continue to accumulate.

Representing Defense Democratic Control of the Defense Budget in the United States and Western Europe

There is nowsubstantial evidence that defense spending decisions in the United States are influenced by citizen preferences. However, there is little time-series evidence for countries other than the United States. Regression models of citizen responsiveness and opinion representation in the politics of defense spending in five democracies are estimated. Results showthat public opinion in all five countries is systematically responsive to recent changes in defense spending, and the form of the responses across countries uniformly resembles the “thermostat” metaphor developed by Wlezien and the more general theory of opinion dynamics developed by Stimson. Findings showalso that defense budgeting is representative: public support for defense spending is the most consistently significant influence on defense budgeting change in four countries; thus, a parsimonious theory of comparative policy representation is potentially within reach. The implications of the results for defense spending in the NATO alliance and the European Union are discussed.

The evolution of war

This paper examines the systematic literature on the evolution of war. This literature breaks into the following broad categories: studies of war joining, studies of the summary characteristics of war, studies of winning and losing, and models of combat. With regards to war joining, most of the literature supports the notion that joining occurs when it is sensible for a state to do so. There has been far less success predicting the summary characteristics of war; those studies using an expected utility approach have been the most successful. Although there is no consensus on how to measure power, there has been considerable success predicting the outcome of war. But models of combat have not successfully tracked the dynamics of war.

THE SOUND OF THE GUNS: Is There a Congressional Rally Effect after U.S. Military Action?

This article examines whether, during the 1946-1982 time period, presidents achieve more success in Congress on important international issues in the wake of dramatic military operations. The analysis shows that, at least for a short period of time after visible uses of U.S. military force, a president will generally have a greater chance of congressional support on key international issues.

Negotiating Strategic Arms Control, 1969-1979 : Modeling the Bargaining Process

Using data collected by Jensen (1984), we investigate whether cooperative and inverse reciprocity can successfully predict U.S. and Soviet actions during the 23 rounds of strategic arms negotiation during the 1969-1979 period. Each type of reciprocity gives rise to three models of bargaining behavior, which we implement as computer routines. In our analysis, we find that the cooperative reciprocity models fit more often than inverse reciprocity models.

Let the Researcher Beware: The Use of the Richardson Equations to Estimate the Parameters of a Dyadic Arms Acquisition Process

Most attempts to untangle the factors accounting for arms acquisition by nation states rely implicitly or explicitly on the work of Lewis Richardson. However, very few findings from these investigations are durable; one study finds a particular nation state dyad to be involved in an arms race, while the next concludes that this same pair of nations is driven by factors internal to each. The question asked in this paper is: how likely is the true model of a dyadic arms acquisition process to emerge when the Richardson equations are used? This question is investigated by constructing two data sets representing the military capability of a pair of nations-one when an arms race is present, and the other when each nations acquisition of capability is driven by internal factors. These data are then used to estimate the Richardson equations. The conclusion is that in many situations, estimation of the Richardson equations may not uncover the true parameters of the process and may well lead to different conclusions about the same dyadic arms acquisition process.

Gender Difference or Parallel Publics? The Dynamics of Defense Spending Opinions in the United States, 1965–2007

Gender is now recognized as an important dividing line in American political life, and scholars have accumulated evidence that national security issues are an important reason for gender differences in policy preferences. We therefore expect that the dynamics of support for defense spending among men and women will differ. In contrast, several scholars have shown that population subgroups exhibit a “parallel” dynamic in which the evolution of their preferences over time is very similar, despite differences in the average level of support. Unfortunately, there is little time series evidence on gendered reactions to policy, including defense spending, that would allow one to arbitrate between these competing perspectives. In this research note, we assemble a time series of support for defense spending among men and women and model the determinants of that support for the period 1967–2007. We find that women are on average less supportive of defense spending than are men. However, we also find that the over time variation of support for defense spending among men and women is very similar—each is conditioned principally by the past year’s change in defense spending and occasionally by war casualties and a trade-off between defense and civilian spending.

Collective Security and State Survival in the Interstate System

For hundreds of years realists have debated idealists about the nature of the interstate system and the most effective means to promote the endurance of the system and the survival of individual states. This paper uses a computer simulation called EARTH ( E xploring A lternative R ealpolitik T heses) to explore the viability of collective security in a realist world. The results of our experiments indicate that the practice of collective security promotes the endurance of the entire system. Our results also show that states that practice collective security principles are more likely to survive in a realist world than states that operate according to realist principles.

The Arms Acquisition Process : The Effect of Internal and External Constraints on Arms Race Dynamics

A new approach to address oversights in the traditional arms race literature is presented. It involves five factors that have not been previously applied to arms races. The focus of military capability is not expenditures but weapons counts. The entire set of major powers is modeled as a system. A factor controlling for the level of environmental threat faced by each state is included. Domestic factors are included in the decision-making calculus of the state. It is assumed that states use simple decision rules rather than a complex set of calculations to make their decisions. The authors use this approach to test a system of equations that model the number of capital ships of the major powers from 1860 to 1986 in different time periods. Results indicate that the overall approach has a good deal of validity.