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Audience costs enable leaders to make credible commitments and to communicate their intentions to their adversaries during a crisis. I explain audience costs by simultaneously modeling crisis behavior and the domestic reelection process. I assume that a leader's ability influences the outcome of a crisis. As such, voters use outcomes as a signal of their leaders' quality. Leaders have incentives to make statements that deter their enemies abroad, since these statements also enhance their standing at home. Yet, such "cheap talk" foreign policy declarations are only credible when leaders suffer domestically if they fail to fulfill their commitments. In equilibrium, false promises are only made by the least competent types of leaders. Leaders that break their promises suffer electorally. Because initial domestic conditions and institutional arrangements affect the vulnerability of leaders to these domestic costs, such factors influence the credibility of policy declarations and, therefore, the crisis outcome.

The author models warfare as a random-walk stochastic process. Rather than model war as a single-shot lottery, as is common in the literature, nations fight a series of battles. Nations do not defeat their foe in a single battle; rather, victory results from aggregate success over a series of interactions. Only by gradually reducing an opponent's capacity to resist can a nation force victory. Yet, under many circumstances, nations preempt defeat by surrendering once the tide of war moves against them. The author characterizes the distribution of resources that results in conflict. Against this background, the author examines how the preferences of leaders affect the conditions under which war occurs. Because the preferences of leaders affect the pattern of conflict, citizens' electoral choices are made contingent on the international environment. Hence, the author provides a link between conflict behavior and domestic electoral processes.

Audience costs enable leaders to make credible commitments and to communicate their intentions to their adversaries during a crisis. I explain audience costs by simultaneously modeling crisis behavior and the domestic relection process. I assume that a leader's ability influences the outcome of a crisis. As such, voters use outcomes as a signal of their leader's quality. Leaders have incentives to make statements that deter their enemies abroad, since these statements also enhance their standing at home. Yet, such "cheap talk" foreign policy declarations are only credible when leaders suffer domestically if they fail to fulfill their commitments. In equilibrium, false promises are only made by the least competent types of leaders. Leaders that break their promises suffer electorally. Because initial domestic conditions and institutional arrangements affect the vulnerability of leaders to these domestic costs, such factors influence the credibility of policy declarations and, therefore, the crisis outcome. (American Political Science Review / FUB)

Examines how domestic politics shapes foreign policy and how international crisis outcomes affect domestic political survival; uses a potential war scenario.

The election date is an endogenous choice in many parliamentary systems. This paper explores when governments call elections and how the timing of an election influences the electoral result. Governments have an incentive to behave opportunistically, calling elections at a time when they are performing well. However, the choice of election date reveals information about the government. Specifically, early elections indicate that a government has little faith in its ability to perform well in the future. The analysis is expanded to consider changes in government composition, political business cycles, informational asymmetries and the role of opposition campaigning.

Alliances are related to the occurrence of conflict. A theoretical model predicts how alliance reliability affects the occurrence of conflict in the international system. Suppose that two nations are at war. The intervention of a third nation into this war affects the likely outcome. Nations prefer to fight wars that they expect to win. Nations are more likely to involve themselves in wars in which they anticipate allied support. Estimates of alliance reliability are obtained and used to demonstrate that nations consider alliance reliability when deciding whether to become involved in conflict. For example, nations with unreliable allies are more likely to surrender if attacked than are nations with reliable allies. Alliance reliability affects the occurrence of war. Unfortunately, whether an alliance is honored is only observable when a war actually occurs. The author discusses the sampling bias that this creates.

Shows how governments are biased in favor of violent, adventurous foreign policy projects when the voters' evaluation of foreign policy outcomes could have an effect on election results.