TY - JOUR
T1 - Diversionary incentives, rally effects, and crisis bargaining
AU - Arena, Philip
AU - Bak, Daehee
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2013 International Studies Association.
PY - 2015/4/1
Y1 - 2015/4/1
N2 - We do not yet have strong evidence that the rally effect motivates domestically vulnerable leaders to become engaged in international conflict. We draw upon mechanism design to argue that, if anything, diversionary incentives should be associated with a greater likelihood of being the target of disputes, though the conditions under which the result obtains are restrictive. Our analysis of all dyad-months involving the United States and its rivals for the period from 1956-1996 yields suggestive evidence of the unconventional behavior anticipated by our model, while failing to find evidence of patterns anticipated by either traditional diversionary accounts or strategic conflict avoidance. These results suggest that if we are to better understand international conflict by focusing on diversionary incentives, which may not be very useful, we should focus on the behavior described by our formal model rather than that anticipated by either traditional diversionary accounts or strategic conflict avoidance.
AB - We do not yet have strong evidence that the rally effect motivates domestically vulnerable leaders to become engaged in international conflict. We draw upon mechanism design to argue that, if anything, diversionary incentives should be associated with a greater likelihood of being the target of disputes, though the conditions under which the result obtains are restrictive. Our analysis of all dyad-months involving the United States and its rivals for the period from 1956-1996 yields suggestive evidence of the unconventional behavior anticipated by our model, while failing to find evidence of patterns anticipated by either traditional diversionary accounts or strategic conflict avoidance. These results suggest that if we are to better understand international conflict by focusing on diversionary incentives, which may not be very useful, we should focus on the behavior described by our formal model rather than that anticipated by either traditional diversionary accounts or strategic conflict avoidance.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84926419829&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/fpa.12025
DO - 10.1111/fpa.12025
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84926419829
VL - 11
SP - 233
EP - 250
JO - Foreign Policy Analysis
JF - Foreign Policy Analysis
SN - 1743-8586
IS - 2
ER -