Research

Why are some threats more credible than others? I argue that leaders’ anger expressions are a previously underappreciated source of coercive credibility. Specifically, leaders who express anger appear more credible because targets believe they are less sensitive to the costs of conflict. I test this argument through quantitative analysis of a novel dataset of world leaders’ public statement in crises from 1946-1996 and a U.S.-based survey experiment designed to test the mechanism. The observational evidence reveals that anger expressions increase the likelihood a threat will succeed. The experiment shows that anger expressions cause targets to infer greater resolve and that non-angry threats carry little credibility—and might even backfire. These findings not only shed light on a unique source of threat credibility but also highlight the crucial role of emotions in international relations with new data measuring political leaders’ emotional expressions over time and space.

Prevailing accounts of alliance formation emphasize either external threats or domestic politics, without an explicit consideration of how the two factors might interact. Instead, this paper theorizes about a specific type of interaction: coup-prevention strategies in nondemocratic regimes and external threats. Through quantitative analyses using the Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions (ATOP) and the State Security Forces (SSF) data, we find that “coup-proofing” reduces the probability of alliance formation when potential allies are under high external threat and that this effect is driven by the coup-proofing regime’s reduced capability to defend their allies, rather than the regime’s increased vulnerability to aggression. Furthermore, we find evidence for the interactive relationship at the negotiation stage of alliance formation. Upon entering an alliance, a coup-proofing regime facing a higher level of external threat offers more policy concessions to the ally, whereas an ally under higher threat could make fewer concessions to the coup-proofing regime. Our study highlights the way nondemocratic domestic political institutions can interact with external threat to shape states’ alliance behavior.

Conventional wisdom suggests that proposing peace talks during wartime risks signaling weakness, emboldening opponents, and undermining domestic morale. Yet states often propose negotiations, particularly since World War II. In this manuscript, we explore the possibility that belligerents receive international benefits from offering to negotiate a peaceful ending to war. We first theorize how third-party observers—here, Americans—might respond to wartime peace proposals. We then test our conjectures using a survey experiment based on the Ukraine War. We find that offering to negotiate improves favorability toward the belligerent but does not produce tangible rewards such as greater support for economic cooperation or pressure on the opponent. Moreover, patently insincere peace proposals trigger significant international penalties. Our findings thus indicate that simply “being the side that wants peace” yields only modest international gains. At the same time, insincere proposals are potentially quite costly. Together, these dynamics imply that belligerents have limited international incentives to try to fool international observers by bogging down opponents with insincere peace talks, even in today’s pro-peace international system. Our findings also raise important new questions about the incentives behind wartime diplomacy.

How does growing influence of authoritarian states affect public support for international organizations (IOs)? We argue that influential member states’ regime type provides citizens with a cue for evaluating IO legitimacy in democracies. As democratic publics generally associate nondemocracies with opaque governance practices and illiberal interests, information that nondemocracies are gaining greater institutional influence in an IO may reduce public support for the affected IO. Across four survey experiments in two democracies--the United States and South Korea---focusing on two major IOs---the UN Security Council and the IMF---we find that democratic publics are generally less willing to comply with or remain in IOs when governance reforms are described as empowering authoritarian rather than democratic states. These findings have important implications for the future of institutionalized multilateralism amid the rise of authoritarian states.