Scott Wolford

Alliances, Then Democracy

Previous studies have not established a consistent link between regime type and alliance formation, despite the relevance of the decision to ally in a number of arguments about regime type and alliance behavior. The inconsistency in these findings turns largely on choice of research design and variable definition; when the dependent variable is alliance formation, democratic dyads are unlikely to ally, but when the dependent variable is the presence of an alliance tie, democratic dyads are likely to be allied. Under a standard research design, the authors find both claims to be true and propose a test of an explanation for this tendency of autocratic states to democratize in alliances. They show that the presence of a defense pact with all neighboring states reduces the likelihood that a state will be targeted with a territorial militarized dispute, reduces the level of state militarization, and increases the likelihood of democratic transitions.

Information, Commitment, and War

The authors analyze a bargaining model of war that incorporates both commitment problems due to shifting power and asymmetric information. Four results emerge when both bargaining problems are present. First, in contrast to asymmetric information models, the resolution of uncertainty through fighting can lead to the continuation of war rather than its termination. Second, wars can be less—not more—likely to end in settlement the longer they last. Third, war aims increase over time as a belligerent becomes more confident that its opponent will grow unacceptably strong in the future. Finally, the dynamics that characterize wars in purely asymmetric information or commitment models should exist only when the other factor is absent.

International Organizations, Strategy, and Crisis Bargaining

We analyze a game-theoretic model of crisis bargaining in which a challenger state can consult an international organization whose decisions can affect its costs for war. We demonstrate that, first, while multilateral opposition lowers the probability of war by coordinating international opposition and increasing the costs of fighting multilateral support can increase the probability of war by coordinating support and lowering those costs. Second, the aggregate effect of IO involvement on the probability of war is conditional on the strategic decisions of challengers to initially consult the organization, implying that any empirical analysis of the pacific effects of IOs should take this selection process seriously. Finally, we provide a more nuanced explanation for why states seek multilateral support and fail; rather than a lack of material power to influence IO decisions, it is a strategic incentive to take greater risks of opposition in order to garner the benefits multilateral support. This allows us to address broader debates about the role of international institutions by showing that IOs are neither ineffectual nor universally a force for peace.

Bargaining and the effectiveness of international criminal regimes

International institutions lack the independent ability to punish non-compliance, but states sustain cooperation because they can target one another for punishment. In contrast, international criminal courts and tribunals (ICTs) can enforce rulings once suspects are in custody, but they lack the independent power of capture, leaving them unable to punish alleged criminals and therefore deter crime. We analyze a game between an ICT and a suspect to assess the potential of pre-arrest bargaining as a solution to the problem of capture. We show that ICTs that bargain with fugitives will be able to secure their surrender and administer justice, although this comes at the cost of incentivizing some crime. Further, those courts least able to secure their suspects’ capture will, surprisingly, be the most willing to issue warrants. International institutions may thus be able to achieve compliance even when faced with uncooperative member states.

International bargaining, endogenous domestic constraints, and democratic accountability

How do domestic constraints affect international negotiations? Most existing research takes these constraints as given, owing to the presence of certain types of domestic institutions. We analyze a two-sided international bargaining model with endogenous domestic constraints. Our model includes a principal–agent tension between domestic audiences and leaders, and it shows how constraints may arise endogenously and be tailored to the strategic situation at hand by domestic audiences. We show that domestic actors can often use accountability mechanisms to garner bargaining leverage and control special interests, even when leaders hold private information about their distributive preferences. We also show that the relative strength of accountability across countries is important for understanding the emergence of endogenous constraints. We discuss the implications of these theoretical findings for the influence of domestic constraints in several prominent examples of international negotiations

The Problem of Shared Victory: War-Winning Coalitions and Postwar Peace

War-winning coalitions face a unique problem of ensuring multilaterally credible commitments to the distribution and defense of a new postwar status quo. Some sustain cooperation for years or decades, yet others collapse into intramural violence. Why do some victorious coalitions collapse into war, while others do not? I analyze data on war-winning coalitions from 1816 to 2007, using an event history framework to model the duration of postwar peace between their members. Increasing coalition size is associated with less durable postwar peace, while more extensive prewar alliance commitments are associated with less durable peace and great power participation is associated with more durable peace. These results have implications for the survival of postwar settlements, for the role of alliances and great powers in preserving world order, and for assessing the implications of modern theories of war.

The Rebels’ Credibility Dilemma

This article examines why rebel groups make large demands of governments that are inconsistent with their fighting capacity, especially when such demands are almost always rejected. We show that making large demands, even if ultimately rejected by the government, makes sense for rebels who face a credibility dilemma. Such a dilemma is most likely to arise when militarily weak rebel groups face governments of uncertain strength and can commit to fight credibly only when they believe the government is also weak. This results in a counterintuitive set of strategic incentives for weak rebels, who choose their demands to ensure that they are rejected even when the government is weak. Thus, to make their threat to fight credible, weak rebels make large demands that, when rejected, result in inefficient fighting. Since most civil wars are characterized by weak rebels bargaining with much stronger governments, it is important to understand how this particular feature of civil war shapes intrawar negotiations between the rebels and the government. We develop a model of bargaining between a government and rebel group and evaluate its implications using historical data on civil conflict in Africa from 1989 to 2010. The results suggest that the tendency for the government to be significantly stronger than rebels induces rebel groups to make unrealistically large demands.

Leaders, States, and Reputations

Reputational incentives are ubiquitous explanations for war, yet consistent evidence of their effects is elusive for two reasons. First, most work searches for the payment of reputational costs, yet strategic censoring systematically biases observational data against revealing them. Second, the locus of reputation is often ambiguous, yet the choice of leader or state as unit of observation has inferential consequences. Our research design (a) focuses on observable implications of reputational theories in appropriate samples and (b) considers two competing sources of reputational incentives: changes in national leaders and in political institutions. Consistent with our expectations, leadership turnover and regime change are each associated with initially high probabilities that militarized disputes escalate to the use of force before declining over time in the presence of a reasonable expectation of future disputes. Reputations are in evidence, but analysts must look for them in the right place.

Wars of Succession

ABSTRACT I analyze a model of bargaining, war, and endogenous leadership turnover in which (1) leader attributes affect war outcomes and (2) war can insulate settlements from renegotiation. Shifts in bargaining power caused by leadership turnover are endogenous and discontinuous, but sufficiently decisive war outcomes can solve the associated commitment problem. In contrast to other models where the shadow cast by a hawkish successor encourages moderation toward a dovish incumbent, the foreign state attacks instead—despite a dovish incumbent’s known preference for peace—using war to lock in a settlement that would otherwise be lost to future leadership turnover. I discuss the theory’s implications for widening the empirical scope of the commitment problem explanation for war to limited wars over relatively lower stakes and for integrating the politics of leadership turnover with the study of strategic rivalries.

Threats at Home, Threats Abroad: Bargaining and War in the Shadow of Coups and Revolutions

I analyze a two-level game in which a leader bargains over the spoils of international bargaining with a domestic opposition that can threaten her with a coup or revolution. While fighting an international war shrinks the domestic pie, it also alters the distribution of domestic power. This has three main implications. First, if war will undermine the opposition, fighting may be so attractive that leaders demand more for peace than foreign states are willing to give, leading to war. Second, if war will bolster the opposition, leaders accept harsh terms to avoid fighting—strategic selection that has implications for the observed relationship between war and political survival. Finally, prospective shifts in the distribution of domestic power caused by war can reduce the effects of international asymmetric information, though the result may be to increase or decrease the chances of war.