 Sizing Up the AdversaryMichael C. Horowitz, Philip Potter, Todd S. Sechser and Allan Stam () Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2018, vol. 62, issue 10, 2180-2204 Abstract: Leaders negotiate, not states. Yet the extensive body of work on coercive diplomacy in international relations pays little attention to variation among leaders. In contrast, we argue that individual-level attributes directly influence leaders’ beliefs about their own military capabilities and, by extension, their selection of disputes. Specifically, leaders with combat experience and careers in national militaries are relatively better judges of their own military power. As a consequence, targets tend to take their threats more seriously. In contrast, leaders who have military careers but lack combat experience tend to be less selective in their demands and correspondingly less successful when they make threats. Similar patterns hold for those with rebel experience. Drawing on new data on leader attributes, we find strong evidence that these leader-level attributes influence both dispute and compellent threat reciprocation. This leader-level approach provides a new explanation for why some countries initiate disputes against determined adversaries who are likely to escalate rather than back down. Keywords: leaders; conflict; militarized disputes; political leadership (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:62:y:2018:i:10:p:2180-2204 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International) |
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