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Published July 2018 | Submitted + Published + Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

Audience Costs and the Dynamics of War and Peace

Abstract

We estimate audience costs and examine their substantive effects on the evolution of interstate disputes by using an infinitely repeated and dynamic game of crisis escalation. Unlike past efforts, our approach estimates country‐specific audience cost parameters without relying on proxy variables, such as democracy measures. Contrary to intuition, increases in a country's audience costs encourage it to initiate disputes in equilibrium because the costs serve as a commitment device during the subsequent crisis, incentivizing the country to stand firm and coercing its opponent to back down. Nonetheless, the results demonstrate that larger audience costs would result in more peace worldwide, as they also discourage potential opponents from initiating disputes. Beyond regime type, we find that a free press, provisions for executive appointment or removal, and historical rivalries are also important determinants of audience costs.

Additional Information

© 2018 Midwest Political Science Association. Issue Online: 16 July 2018; Version of Record online: 11 June 2018. Replication Materials: The data, code, and any additional materials required to replicate all analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/XBNJD9. Thanks to Scott Abramson, Rob Carroll, Kevin Clarke, Allan Dafoe, Mark Fey, Tasos Kalandrakis, Brenton Kenkel, Bethany Lacina, Sergio Montero, Jack Paine, and Curt Signorino for helpful comments and suggestions. Earlier versions of the article also benefited from audiences at the 2015 SPSA meeting, the 2015 PolMeth conference, the 2015 EPSA meeting, the 2016 APSA meeting, and the University of Rochester.

Attached Files

Published - Crisman-Cox_et_al-2018-American_Journal_of_Political_Science.pdf

Submitted - IRMPEC22.pdf

Supplemental Material - ajps12347-sup-0001-supmat.pdf

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Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023