T. Clifton Morgan

Domestic Discontent and the External Use of Force

Although the diversionary theory of international conflict is intuitively plausible and is supported by much anecdotal evidence, quantitative tests generally have failed to establish a systemic link between domestic political troubles and foreign policy adventurism. In this article we revise the diversionary theory. We argue that a state leader will treat an erosion of domestic support more seriously when it comes from within segments of society that are critical in the maintenance of the leaders ruling coalition than when it comes from other domestic groups. We also argue that diversionary behavior typically should involve actions short of war. The revised theory is tested for the United States over the period from 1953 to 1976. Multiple empirical techniques are used to analyze the relationship between the uses of external force by the United States and the level of support for the president among members of the presidents party. The results provide strong support for the revised diversionary theory.

Good Times, Bad Times, and the Diversionary Use of Force

It is commonly asserted that state leaders, when faced with poor domestic political conditions, have an incentive to engage in diversionary foreign policy behavior. The standard view is that an aggressive foreign policy benefits the executive by leading the public to ignore domestic problems and to “rally around the flag” to meet the foreign threat. In this article, the authors formalize the diversionary argument as a principal-agent problem in which the state executive is an agent under contract to a public whose choice to retain or dismiss the executive is based on whether the agent is judged to be competent. The authors assume that the competence of the executive is private information and that the public makes Bayesian updates of the probability of executive competence based on domestic and foreign policy outcomes. Several implications are derived from the model. First, the competence of executives and their attitudes toward risk are central in the decision to engage in diversionary foreign policy. Second, an executive often can improve her or his chances of being retained only by altering the publics perception of the difficulty of the foreign operation. Third, the model points to the need to distinguish between short-term rally-around-the-flag effects of diversion and the publics long-term assessment of executive competence.

Take two democracies and call me in the morning: A prescription for peace?

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The Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions, 1971—2000*:

Economic sanctions, increasingly used as instruments of foreign policy in recent decades, have been the focus of numerous academic studies. Recent theoretical advances in our understanding of sanctions cannot be tested adequately with existing data. This article presents a newly developed dataset that contains information on 888 cases in which sanctions were threatened and/or implemented in the 1971—2000 period. We describe the dataset, present descriptive statistics for some of the key variables included, and offer comparisons with the Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot dataset on sanctions that has been frequently used in previous research. We also present simple statistical relationships between sanctions outcomes and some of the variables commonly believed to affect sanctions success.

A Model of Foreign Policy Substitutability

The authors present a model of substitutability that seeks to generalize beyond the restricted conditions and special case of realism. The derivations from the model lead to several hypotheses. First, if a states relative capabilities increase, resources given to all foreign policies should increase. Second, when the efficiency of one policy increases, resources given to other policies should decline. Third, when the relative salience for one good increases, resources devoted to policies that produce that good should increase, while resources devoted to policies that produce other goods should diminish. The authors use the model to guide an investigation of the effects of increased resources, new alliances, and more efficient existing alliances on the policies of conflict initiation and increases in military spending. The findings are inconsistent with realisms version of substitutability but can be explained by an n-good approach.

Domestic Support and Diversionary External Conflict in Great Britain, 1950- 1992

Recent studies have analyzed the diversionary theory of international conflict. The theory, which holds that state leaders occasionally turn to external conflict as a means of dealing with domestic political problems, has been widely accepted for centuries. Despite its intuitive appeal, quantitative studies have failed to document the phenomenon. Recent work has significantly refined the argument and empirical evidence supporting the revised theory has been presented. Because these empirical analyses have focused almost exclusively on the United States, it is not clear whether the theory is generalizable. Our purpose here is to test the revised diversionary theory in Great Britain for the 1950-92 period. The findings show that the level of public support for the British government is in fact associated with the probability that Britain threatens, displays, or uses force abroad. These findings are consistent with the theoretical argument, suggesting that it is applicable outside the United States.

Economic sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy: The role of domestic politics

Most studies of economic sanctions have concluded that they are ineffective as instruments of foreign policy. In a previous effort, we applied the spatial model of bargaining to the question of sanctions effectiveness to identify the‐conditions under which sanctions can be expected to “work.” In this paper, we refine that analysis by examining the impact of domestic politics in the state that is the target of the sanctions. Sanction episodes may be examples of two‐level games in which the domestic game within both parties affects the international game and vice‐versa. Here, we take a first cut of applying this approach to the analysis of sanctions effectiveness. We extend the spatial model to focus on how sanctions affect the internal political bargaining within the target state. From this, we determine how state policy should change (or not) as a result of the sanctions. We use the basic model to identify general hypotheses regarding the nature of sanctions and their effectiveness and we evaluate some of...

To Protect and to Serve

The consequences of alliance formation for other foreign policies of a state, including defense spending and the initiation of militarized disputes, are examined using a theory of foreign policy that is based on several assumptions. First, states pursue two goods-change (defending those aspects of the status quo that one likes) and maintenance (altering those aspects of the status quo that one dislikes)-through their foreign policies. Second, states select a portfolio of policies designed to produce the most preferred mix of the two goods. Third, all foreign policy behavior, including alliance involvement, requires resources. Fourth, states are rational in their allocation of resources. Together, these imply that an observed alliance must have been the most efficient mechanism available for acquiring the most desired and achievable foreign policy portfolio and have implications for the observation of foreign policy substitutability. The empirical implications of this implication are tested, and results support the model: states are more active in their foreign policies after adding to their alliance portfolios-they increase their rate of conflict initiation, the capital intensiveness of their military establishments, and their defense spending.

Issue Linkages in International Crisis Bargaining

Students of international relations have long been concerned with questions regarding the impact of issue linkages on bargaining outcomes; unfortunately, the body of theory attempting to provide a systematic and rigorous analysis of issue linkages is woefully underdeveloped. In this study I contribute to the development of this theory with a particular emphasis on accounting for cases in which issue linkage fails in international crisis bargaining. The spatial model of crisis bargaining (which is a formal model constituting a synthesis of the spatial theory of voting and traditional, utility-based bargaining theory) is used to develop a theory of issue linkages and to address a number of points regarding linkage strategy that are found in the literature. After demonstrating how linking issues can affect the outcome of an international crisis, I argue that existing explanations for linkage failure are inadequate. The majority of the paper is devoted to determining what characteristics of the issues involved and of the disputants determine the likelihood that a linkage attempt will be successful. I conclude with a brief discussion relating these results to the literature on crisis management.

A Spatial Model of Crisis Bargaining

This study deals with the problem of determining whether states engaged in an international crisis will arrive at a negotiated settlement or go to war. A formal model of crisis bargaining that is based on a spatial representation of the theory of games is proposed as an analytical tool. The paper shows how the model can be used to derive probabilistic predictions regarding crisis outcomes and that these predictions are identical to the Nash bargaining solution when restrictive assumptions similar to Nashs are imposed on the model. A case study of the Fashoda crisis of 1898 is used to demonstrate the utility of the model as a conceptual framework.