Better Feared than Loved: Reputations and the Motives for Conflict

Iain Long

No E2014/19, Cardiff Economics Working Papers from Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section

Abstract: Throughout history, victory in conflict has created fearsome reputations. With it, the victor ensures greater allegiance of the wider population, increasing their rents at the expense of their enemy. Such reputational concerns generate two motives for conflict. When only victory or defeat is informative, the less scary party may attack to show that they are tougher than expected. If the occurrence of conflict also conveys information, the scarier party is more likely to attack. By failing to do so, the population would perceive them as weak and switch loyalties anyway. In this case, conflict arises to save face.

Keywords: Conflict; Reputations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 D74 D83 F51 H56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2014-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-mic and nep-pol
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Related works:
Journal Article: Better feared than loved: Reputations and the motives for conflict (2015)
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