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Statements of resolve - in which leaders indicate that their country is committed to a position and will not back down - are a fixture of international conflict. However, scholars have not agreed on how much these statements affect conflict outcomes or which conditions give them coercive credibility. Statements of Resolve argues that an important and underappreciated factor influencing the impact of resolved statements is the ability to follow through. Roseanne W. McManus explains how adversaries analyze a leader's ability to follow through on statements and shows that perceptions of the ability to follow through are influenced not only by military capabilities but also by less obvious domestic political conditions. Through rigorous statistical tests based on quantitative coding of US presidential statements and case studies of three Cold War conflicts, this book shows that resolved statements can effectively coerce adversaries, but only when a sufficient physical and political ability is present.

Statements of resolve - in which leaders indicate that their country is committed to a position and will not back down - are a fixture of international conflict. However, scholars have not agreed on how much these statements affect conflict outcomes or which conditions give them coercive credibility. Statements of Resolve argues that an important and underappreciated factor influencing the impact of resolved statements is the ability to follow through. Roseanne W. McManus explains how adversaries analyze a leader's ability to follow through on statements and shows that perceptions of the ability to follow through are influenced not only by military capabilities but also by less obvious domestic political conditions. Through rigorous statistical tests based on quantitative coding of US presidential statements and case studies of three Cold War conflicts, this book shows that resolved statements can effectively coerce adversaries, but only when a sufficient physical and political ability is present

AbstractAccording to the 'Madman Theory' promoted by Richard Nixon and early rationalist scholars, being viewed as mentally unstable can help a leader coerce foreign adversaries. This article offers the first large-N test of this theory. The author introduces an original perception-based measure of leaders' reputations for madness, coded based on news reports, and analyzes its effect on both general deterrence and crisis bargaining. The study also tests several hypotheses about the conditions under which perceived madness is expected to be more or less helpful. The author finds that perceived madness is harmful to general deterrence and is sometimes also harmful in crisis bargaining, but may be helpful in crisis bargaining under certain conditions. The analysis suggests that the harmful effect of perceived madness results from a commitment problem.

This article examines the effectiveness of public statements of resolve in international conflict. Several prominent theories, including domestic audience cost theory and theories regarding international reputation, suggest that issuing resolved statements can help a leader achieve a more favorable outcome in conflict bargaining. Because they entail costs for backing down, these statements are believed to credibly convey resolve to an adversary. This can help to alleviate the uncertainty created by private information about resolve and persuade the adversary to back down. Despite the prevalence of this theoretical logic, the effectiveness of statements of resolve at influencing conflict outcomes has rarely been subjected to direct tests, and some recent empirical work has raised doubts about statements' effectiveness. This article is the first to directly examine the effect of resolved statements on conflict outcomes using large-N analysis. It introduces original data, created using content analysis, which directly measure the level of resolved statements made by US presidents during militarized interstate disputes (MIDs). Analysis of these data demonstrates that a higher level of resolved statements is indeed associated with a greater chance of prevailing in disputes. This finding is substantively significant and robust, providing support for the argument that public statements play an important role in international conflict.

When signaling resolve, is it necessary to go 'all-in' and send the strongest possible signal or can sending a lesser signal be effective? Prior research suggests that sending a lesser signal is an admission of irresolution, akin to sending no signal. We make the novel claim that lesser signals of resolve can actually be worse for credibility than sending no signal, particularly in general deterrence situations. We theorize that while the absence of a signal may go unnoticed, a lesser signal puts a spotlight on irresolution. Building on prior findings that high-level visits can function as signals of extended deterrence commitment, we test our theory using new data on visits abroad by the US president, vice president, secretary of state, and secretary of defense. We find that only presidential visits are effective at deterring military challenges against the country visited. Visits by lesser officials, whom we dub the 'B Team', actually increase the risk of deterrence failure.

Major powers signal support for protégés in order to reassure them and deter harm against them. Yet, it is not always clear how to identify who a major power's protégés are or the degree of support signaled. Major powers have a variety of complementary signals to choose among, including alliances, arms transfers, joint military exercises, and others. It can be difficult to weigh the importance of individual signals, especially since different major powers do not deploy each signal in the same way. We address this challenge using a Bayesian latent measurement model, which provides a theoretically coherent means of identifying the overall level of support signaled by a major power for a protégé. Our approach yields a cross-sectional time-series dataset, providing a continuous measure of the degree of support signaled by major powers for all minor powers from 1950 to 2012. Our model also provides insights regarding which signals of support are most informative when sent by each major power. We find considerable variation among major powers regarding which of their signals are most meaningful, but in general alliances and military exercises tend to be among the most important signals. In further applications using our latent measure, we also assess under which conditions major powers are likely to increase their signals of support for protégés, as well as predict whether a major power will intervene in conflicts involving its protégés.

AbstractThis paper explores the question of how major powers signal support for their protégés. We develop a theory that explains why major powers show support for some protégés using highly visible "frontstage" signals of support, while supporting other protégés through less visible, but nonetheless costly, "offstage" signals. From an international strategic perspective, it is puzzling that major powers do not always send the most visible signal possible. We argue that this can be explained by considering the domestic environments in which the leaders of major powers and protégés operate. Focusing particularly on the United States as we develop our theory, we argue that the US will prefer to send offstage signals of support for more autocratic protégés for several reasons. First, sending frontstage support signals for autocracies would expose US leaders to charges of hypocrisy. Second, frontstage signals of support for autocracies face an impediment to credibility because of the public backlash in the United States that overt support for dictators could generate. Third, many autocratic protégés would be reluctant to accept a frontstage signal of support from the US because it could undermine their regime stability. We test our theory in a data set that records various support signals sent by the United States for other countries between 1950 and 2008, finding strong support for our expectations. We also find evidence of the causal mechanisms posited by our theory in a case study of relations between the US and the Shah's Iran.