Hostname: page-component-76c49bb84f-zv2rg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-12T03:47:00.866Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rising Power on the Mind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2017

Dustin Tingley
Get access

Abstract

A prominent explanation of war claims that international conflict can result when shifts in bargaining power induce the declining power to behave aggressively today because the rising power cannot credibly commit to not behave aggressively tomorrow. This paper asks whether individuals respond to shifting power in ways assumed by these models. Rather than use abstract laboratory-based bargaining games as in other work, I use vignettes describing the United States in an international bargaining situation to explore the microfoundations of power transitions models empirically. The vignettes vary whether the individual is a member of a declining or a rising power and whether there are previous public commitments to the status quo division of territory. Subjects propose a response the United States should make and then explain their decision in their own words. I apply new methods for analyzing these open-ended responses. Consistent with predictions from the behavioral literature, I find important asymmetries in behavior across these conditions as well as substantial heterogeneities in individuals' motivations for their decisions. The results of the experiments suggest potential ways that power-transition models should be refined to have a firmer behavioral basis.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 71 , Supplement S1 , April 2017 , pp. S165 - S188
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aldrich, John, Sullivan, John, and Borgida, Eugene. 1989. Foreign Affairs and Issue Voting: Do Presidential Candidates “Waltz Before a Blind Audience?” American Political Science Review 83 (1):123–41.Google Scholar
Baum, Matthew A., and Potter, Philip. 2008. The Relationships Between Mass Media, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis. Annual Review of Political Science 11:39–65.Google Scholar
Bayram, A. Burcu. 2017. Due Deference: Cosmopolitan Social Identity and the Psychology of Legal Obligation. In The Behavioral Revolution and International Relations, supplement, International Organization 71 (S1):S137–S163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J. 2007. Assuming the Costs of War: Events, Elites, and American Public Support for Military Conflict. Journal of Politics 69 (4):975–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J., Huber, Greg, and Lenz, Gabriel. 2010. Using Mechanical Turk as a Subject Recruitment Tool for Experimental Research. Political Analysis 20:351–86.Google Scholar
Bischof, Jonathan, and Edoardo, Airoldi. 2012. Summarizing Topical Content with Word Frequency and Exclusivity. arXiv preprint arXiv:1206.4631.Google Scholar
Blattman, Christopher, and Miguel, Edward. 2010. Civil War. Journal of Economic Literature 48 (1):3–57.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, and Smith, Alastair. 2012. Domestic Explanations of International Relations. Annual Review of Political Science 15:161–81.Google Scholar
Chapman, Terrence L. 2012. Securing Approval: Domestic Politics and Multilateral Authorization for War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chaudoin, Stephen. 2014. Promises or Policies? An Experimental Analysis of International Agreements and Audience Reactions. International Organization 68 (1):235–56.Google Scholar
Dickson, Paul. 2001. Sputnik: The Shock of the Century. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Eichenberg, Richard C. 2005. Victory Has Many Friends: US Public Opinion and the Use of Military Force, 1981–2005. International Security 30 (1):140–77.Google Scholar
Evans, Peter B., Jacobson, Harold Karan, and Putnam, Robert D.. 1993. Double-edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D. 1994. Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes. American Political Science Review 88 (3):577–92.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D. 1995. Rationalist Explanations for War. International Organization 49 (3):379–414.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D. 1998. Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict. In The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, edited by Lake, David and Rothchild, Donald, 107–126. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gelpi, Christopher, Feaver, Peter D., and Reifler, Jason. 2009. Paying the Human Costs of War: American Public Opinion and Casualties in Military Conflicts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Goldgeier, James M., and Tetlock, Philip E.. 2001. Psychology and International Relations Theory. Annual Review of Political Science 4 (1):67–92.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Judith, and Keohane, Robert. 1993. Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groeling, Tim, and Baum, Matthew A.. 2008. Crossing the Water's Edge: Elite Rhetoric, Media Coverage, and the Rally-Round-the-Flag Phenomenon. Journal of Politics 70 (4):1065–85.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., Haggard, Stephan, Lake, David, and Victor, David. 2017. The Behavioral Revolution in International Relations. In The Behavioral Revolution and International Relations, supplement, International Organization 71 (S1):S1–S31.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., Hughes, D. Alex, and Victor, David G.. 2013. The Cognitive Revolution and the Political Psychology of Elite Decision Making. Perspectives on Politics 11 (2):368–86.Google Scholar
Hermann, Richard K. 2017. How Attachments to the Nation Shape Perceptions of the World: A Theory of Motivated Reasoning. In The Behavioral Revolution and International Relations, supplement,International Organization 71 (S1):S61–S84.Google Scholar
Hopf, Ted. 2010. The Logic of Habit in International Relations. European Journal of International Relations 16 (4):539–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horowitz, Michael C., and Stam, Allan C.. 2014. How Prior Military Experience Influences the Future Militarized Behavior of Leaders. International Organization 68 (3):527–59.Google Scholar
Huff, Connor, and Tingley, Dustin. 2015. “Who Are These People?” Evaluating the Demographic Characteristics and Political Preferences of MTurk Survey Respondents. Research and Politics 2 (3):1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto. 1996. Framing Responsibility for Political Issues. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 546:59–70.Google Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1968. Hypotheses on Misperception. World Politics 20 (3):454–79.Google Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1976. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kane, Michael J., and Engle, Randall W.. 2002. The Role of Prefrontal Cortex in Working-Memory Capacity, Executive Attention, and General Fluid Intelligence: An Individual-Differences Perspective. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 9 (4):637–71.Google Scholar
Kaufman, Stuart J. 2006. Escaping the Symbolic Politics Trap: Reconciliation Initiatives and Conflict Resolution in Ethnic Wars. Journal of Peace Research 43 (2):201–18.Google Scholar
Kertzer, Joshua. 2017. Resolve, Time, and Risk. In The Behavioral Revolution and International Relations, supplement, International Organization 71 (S1):S109–S136.Google Scholar
Kertzer, Joshua D., and McGraw, Kathleen M.. 2012. Folk Realism: Testing the Microfoundations of Realism in Ordinary Citizens. International Studies Quarterly 56 (2):245–58.Google Scholar
Khong, Yuen F. 1992. Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kriner, Douglass. 2010. After the Rubicon: Congress, Presidents, and the Politics of Waging War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew S., and Horowitz, Michael C.. 2012. When Backing Down Is the Right Decision: Partisanship, New Information, and Audience Costs. The Journal of Politics 74 (2):323–38.Google Scholar
Levy, Jack S., McKoy, Michael K., Poast, Paul, and Wallace, Geoffrey P.R.. 2015. Backing Out or Backing In? Commitment and Consistency in Audience Costs Theory. American Journal of Political Science 59 (4):988–1001.Google Scholar
McDermott, Rose. 2004a. The Feeling of Rationality: The Meaning of Neuroscientific Advances for Political Science. Perspectives on Politics 2 (4):691–706.Google Scholar
McDermott, Rose. 2004b. Political Psychology in International Relations. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
McDermott, Rose. 2007. Presidential Leadership, Illness, and Decision Making. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McDermott, Rose, Johnson, Dominic, Cowden, Jonathan, and Stephen, Rosen. 2007. Testosterone and Aggression in a Simulated Crisis Game. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 614:15–33.Google Scholar
Mercer, Jonathan. 1995. Anarchy and Identity. International Organization 49 (2):229–52.Google Scholar
Milner, Helen V., and Tingley, Dustin. 2013. The Choice for Multilateralism: Foreign Aid and American Foreign Policy. The Review of International Organizations 8 (3):313–341.Google Scholar
Milner, Helen V., and Tingley, Dustin. 2015. Sailing the Water's Edge: Where Domestic Politics Meets US Foreign Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Neustadt, Richard E. 2011. Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Oxley, Douglas R., Smith, Kevin B., Alford, John R., Hibbing, Matthew V., Miller, Jennifer L., Scalora, Mario, Hatemi, Peter K., and Hibbing, John R.. 2008. Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits. Science 321 (5896):1667–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peffley, Mark, and Hurwitz, Jon. 1992. International Events and Foreign Policy Beliefs: Public Response to Changing Soviet–US Relations. American Journal of Political Science 36:431–61.Google Scholar
Powell, Robert. 2006. War As a Commitment Problem. International Organization 60 (1):129–203.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 1988. Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games. International Organization 42 (3):427–60.Google Scholar
Quek, Kai. 2017. Rationalist Experiments on War. Political Science Research and Methods 5 (1):123–42.Google Scholar
Rathbun, Brian, Kertzer, Joshua D., and Paradis, Mark. 2017. Homo Diplomaticus: Mixed-Method Evidence of Variation in Strategic Rationality. In The Behavioral Revolution and International Relations, supplement, International Organization 71 (S1):S33–S59.Google Scholar
Reiter, Dan. 1996. Crucible of Beliefs: Learning, Alliances, and World Wars. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Renshon, Jonathan, J. Lee, Julia, and Tingley, Dustin. 2017. Emotions and the Micro-Foundations of Commitment Problems. In The Behavioral Revolution and International Relations, supplement, International Organization 71 (S1):S189–S217.Google Scholar
Rho, Sungmin, and Tomz, Michael. 2017. Why Don't Trade Preferences Reflect Economic Self-Interest? In The Behavioral Revolution and International Relations, supplement, International Organization 71 (S1):S85–S108.Google Scholar
Roberts, Margaret E., Stewart, Brandon M., and Airoldi, Edoardo M.. 2016. A Model of Text for Experimentation in the Social Sciences. Journal of the American Statistical Association 111 (515):988–1003.Google Scholar
Roberts, Margaret E., Stewart, Brandon M., and Tingley, Dustin. 2014. stm: R Package for Structural Topic Models. Available at: <http://www.structuraltopicmodel.com>..>Google Scholar
Roberts, Margaret E., Stewart, Brandon M., Tingley, Dustin, Lucas, Christopher, Leder-Luis, Jetson, Gadarian, Shana, Albertson, Bethany, and Rand, David. 2014. Structural Topic Models for Open-Ended Survey Responses. American Journal of Political Science 58 (4):1064–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saunders, Elizabeth N. 2017. No Substitute for Experience: Presidents, Advisers, and Information in Group Decision Making. In The Behavioral Revolution and International Relations, supplement, International Organization 71 (S1):S219–S247.Google Scholar
Stanovich, Keith E. 1999. Who Is Rational? Studies of Individual Differences in Reasoning. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Stasavage, David. 2004. Open-Door or Closed-Door? Transparency in Domestic and International Bargaining. International Organization 58 (4):667–703.Google Scholar
Tingley, Dustin. 2011. The Dark Side of the Future: An Experimental Test of Commitment Problems in Bargaining. International Studies Quarterly 55 (2):521–44.Google Scholar
Tingley, Dustin. 2014. Face-Off: Facial Features and Strategic Choice. Political Psychology 35 (1):35–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tingley, Dustin, and Tomz, Michael. 2014. Conditional Cooperation and Climate Change. Comparative Political Studies 47 (3):344–68.Google Scholar
Tingley, Dustin, and Walter, Barbara. 2011a. Can Cheap Talk Deter? An Experimental Analysis. Journal of Conflict Resolution 55 (6):994–1018.Google Scholar
Tingley, Dustin, and Walter, Barbara. 2011b. The Effect of Repeated Play on Reputation Building: An Experimental Approach. International Organization 65 (2):343–65.Google Scholar
Tingley, Dustin, Yamamoto, Teppei, Hirose, Kentaro, Keele, Luke, and Imai, Kosuke. 2014. mediation: R Package for Causal Mediation Analysis. Journal of Statistical Software 59:1–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tingley, Dustin H., and Wang, Stephanie W.. 2010. Belief Updating in Sequential Games of Two-Sided Incomplete Information: An Experimental Study of a Crisis Bargaining Model. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 5 (3):243–55.Google Scholar
Tomz, Michael. 2007. Domestic Audience Costs in International Relations: An Experimental Approach. International Organization 61 (4):821–40.Google Scholar
Tomz, Michael, and Van Houweling, Robert P.. 2008. Candidate Positioning and Voter Choice. American Political Science Review 102 (3):303–18.Google Scholar
Tomz, Michael, and Weeks, Jessica. 2010. Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace. American Political Science Review 107 (4):849–65.Google Scholar
Trumbore, Peter F. 1998. Public Opinion As a Domestic Constraint in International Negotiations: Two-Level Games in the Anglo-Irish Peace Process. International Studies Quarterly 42 (3):545–65.Google Scholar
Walter, Barbara F. 1999. Designing Transitions from Civil War: Demobilization, Democratization, and Commitments to Peace. International Security 24 (1):127–55.Google Scholar
Walter, Barbara F. 2002. Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Walter, Barbara F. 2009. Reputation and Civil War: Why Separatist Conflicts are So Violent. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Winter, David G. 2003. Asymmetrical Perceptions of Power in Crises: A Comparison of 1914 and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Journal of Peace Research 40 (3):251–70.Google Scholar
Winter, David G., and Sweet, Brooke E.. 2009. Measuring Implicit British Perceptions of German Intentions in 1938–1939. Political Psychology 30 (6):839–61.Google Scholar
Witkin, H.A. 1949. The Nature and Importance of Individual Differences in Perception. Journal of Personality 18 (2):145–70.Google Scholar