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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Theory, Data, And Deterrence: A Response To Kenwick, Vasquez, And Powers, Brett Ashley Leeds, Jesse C. Johnson
Theory, Data, And Deterrence: A Response To Kenwick, Vasquez, And Powers, Brett Ashley Leeds, Jesse C. Johnson
Political Science Faculty Publications
Kenwick, Vasquez, and Powers question whether empirical evidence supports the claim that defense pacts deter conflict as our prior research has concluded. We review the theoretical argument for why defense pacts should deter conflict and consider the challenges inherent in evaluating deterrence using observational data. We then consider whether the research design choices of Kenwick et al. improve upon our research design. We demonstrate that claims that defense pacts deter conflict are robust to many of these changes in research design, and we argue that the consequential difference, while perhaps appropriate for testing the Steps-to-War argument, is not appropriate for …
Careful Commitments: Democratic States And Alliance Design, Daina Chiba, Jesse C. Johnson, Brett Ashley Leeds
Careful Commitments: Democratic States And Alliance Design, Daina Chiba, Jesse C. Johnson, Brett Ashley Leeds
Political Science Faculty Publications
Evidence suggests that leaders of democratic states experience high costs from violating past commitments. We argue that because democratic leaders foresee the costs of violation, they are careful to design agreements they expect to have a high probability of fulfilling. This may cause democratic leaders to prefer flexible or limited commitments. We evaluate our argument by analyzing the design of alliance treaties signed by countries of the world between 1815 and 2003. We find that alliances formed among democratic states are more likely to include obligations for future consultation rather than precommitting leaders to active conflict, and defense pacts formed …