Domestic Drivers of Conflict

The principal-agent problem

• Principal (us) have less information than the agent (president)

• President has different incentives and can manipulate that to their benefit, hard to know what agent is doing

  • Leads to rally effect and diversionary war

    • We only see result of war, not what goes behind it

Diversionary war

• involvement in war/international conflict distracts the population 

• Not super common → losing wars have bad consequences for leaders

• Bargaining model → take in costs of war and benefits 

• Rally effect must take over entire bargaining range for when war is costly which is unlikely

• The benefit from the rally effect must be beneficial on both sides

Rally Effect

• leader approval goes up during war 

• A conflict to generate a rally effect is called a diversionary war 

  • Ex: Falklands war with Argentina and Britain - both started wars which generated a rally effect

  • Ex: war in Iran

Democratic peace

1. Democracies are less likely to fight each other

2. Democracies are no less likely to fight than other states

Theories to explain democratic peace

• 1. Norms of non-violent conflict resolution

  • Democracies usually don’t settle conflicts with violence

• 2. Selectorate theory

  • Select leaders, leaders must take selectorate’s interests into account and keep them there to get re-elected/stay in power

• 3. Democratic transparency 

  • Open, observable 

    • ^ explains why democracies are less likely to go to war in general not exactly a good explanation for why democracies don’t go to war with each other

Correlation vs. Causation (democracy)

• Democracy (x) and peace (y) are correlated but doesn’t mean democracy causes peace

• It could be that x causes y

  • Democracy causes peace

• It could be that y causes x

  • Peace causes democracy

• It could that z causes both x and y

  • Something else causes democracy and peace

Gambling for Resurrection

• Reckless, near failure decision to go to war because you’re trying to save yourself and there’s seemingly little to lose

• Ex: you get into a war (risky, near failure decision) but the war goes poorly, you worry about your job, you know you should negotiate peace for the good of the country but maybe it could save your job 

• if you negotiate: 

  • You’ll lose your job

• If you keep fighting

  • You’ll be very likely to lose your job

  • But there's a small chance you win and are seen as a hero 

• Ex: Putin doesn’t want to settle now even though it is in the best interests of the country because he needs to win (or else he’d be punished)

• People are risk-acceptant in the loss domain

Face to face diplomacy

• Scholars are skeptical - talk is cheap

  • Does not constrain future behavior

  • State interests are from security/power/ideology, can have personal rapport between leaders

  • Even if it clarifies intentions, it doesn’t necessarily lead to peaceful outcomes 

    • Better understanding of the adversary may lead to conflict (you could find out they have bad intentions)

    • Opposing interests don’t magically disappear

• But diplomats will still have face to face meetings 

Signals vs. indices

• Signals -  easy to fake, explicitly chosen, strategic

  • speeches, press statements

• Indices - hard to control, outside the speaker’s control

  • Expressions, tones, hesitations, eye movement, body language

Security dilemma sensibility (Booth, Wheeler)

• Ability to see how one’s own actions might be seen as threatening

• LACK of SDS Example: Weinberger “[the Soviets] know perfectly well that we will never launch a first strike on the Soviet Union”

  • Failed b/c he had the perspective the U.S. is peaceful

  • False conviction about the motivations of others 

Selection problems

• Face to face meetings between leaders don’t happen randomly

  • things have to be bad but not to bad in order to meet

• The best emissary isn’t always the leader

  • You don’t want to go if the meeting is bound to fail/no deal happens

• “Evidence” in successful negotiations due to face-to-face interaction are a tiny fraction of evidence