Conflicting Numbers
Military Experience and the Use of Force: Congressional AUMF Votes Among Combat and Non-Combat Veteran Legislators
Matthew Fiorelli & Heather Jebb
Legislative Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does prior military experience affect the way members of Congress vote when authorizing the use of military force abroad? Some scholars argue that military experience increases hawkishness, while others posit that military service fosters restraint and caution. We intervene in this debate by separating AUMF resolutions from other foreign policy legislation and by examining the disparate effects of prior combat and non-combat service on veterans in Congress. We argue that the socializing effects of combat experience are more narrowly relevant to use of force legislation than non-combat military service. Using original research to determine which members of Congress deployed to combat theaters, we aggregate and analyze six roll call votes authorizing the use of military force abroad in six different Congresses. We find that combat exposure increases the likelihood that a member of Congress will vote to authorize the use of force. Our results challenge conventional wisdom and contribute new insights to the studies of American foreign policy, international relations, and civil-military relations.
How Low Can You Go? The Effects of Low Credibility False Flag Incidents on International and Domestic Approval for Interstate Wars
Dov Levin
International Interactions, forthcoming
Abstract:
What are the international and domestic effects of low credibility false flag incidents? One way in which wars occasionally start (as in the case of the 2022 Ukraine war) is with false flag incidents -- the war-seeking state staging one or more attacks on their own side, blaming the would-be target country for them, and then using the staged attacks as a casus belli for war. Such attacks are meant to reduce the costs of war to the war-seeking state by making the target country seem as the initiator. However, the low credibility of many such false flag incidents puts in question what gains war-seeking states usually make from these incidents. This paper, using a set of survey experiments, begins to examine what benefits, if any, such false flag incidents bring to the war-seeking state. Third party publics are more likely to approve of war-seeking countries after low credibility false flag incidents and are less likely to support the imposition of sanctions on them. However, among many domestic publics (such as the American one) such false flag attacks are ineffective, and even counterproductive, due to the low levels of trust much of the public has in its own government.
Do States Constrain Non-State Hackers? International Telecommunication Union Elections and Non-State Cyber Aggression
Conner Joyce
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do states constrain non-state hackers? This article extends research on the role of transnational cyber aggression in international relations, showing that governments can be incentivized to mitigate non-state hacking. To test this argument, I leverage competitive elections to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which requires states to campaign on their cybersecurity record. By exploiting this variation, I demonstrate that states are responsive to incentives. Candidates reduce non-state cyber aggression to increase their likelihood of election. This finding demonstrates the potential utility of international institutions as a policy solution to transnational hacking, suggesting that structural incentives can induce states to constrain hackers operating in their territory.
Discourse Power: How China Gains Global Influence
Rachel Hulvey
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, March 2025
Abstract:
When China is motivated to build and shape international order, what strategy does it use, and under what conditions does it succeed? This article examines China's efforts to influence the international information order, particularly in the realm of cybersecurity, where it is highly motivated to institutionalize its vision of order. Despite possessing immense economic and technological clout, China struggles to attract support for its vision of international order. Its material power and more assertive behavior create skepticism and hesitation to back a China-led order, raising the question of how a rising power overcomes this challenge. This article introduces a framing theory of international influence, arguing that a rising power's ability to frame its vision is key to building support for institutionalizing its vision. Through elite interviews in China, UN voting and text data, and an elite experiment with diplomats, I demonstrate how China employs 'discourse power' to shift focus from its contested image to shared values, using cyber sovereignty as a frame that attracts support from states eager for an alternative to internet freedom. This article challenges explanations that a rising power needs hard power alone to impact international order. The findings reveal that framing is a fundamental force in shaping international order, enabling China to reshape the status quo.
Decision Making on the World Court: Are International Judges Geopolitically Biased?
Arthur Dyevre
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do international adjudicators align with the foreign policy interests of their home country? This article contributes new evidence that judges on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) diverge along similar lines as their home states in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Ideal points for judges and countries are estimated from nonunanimous judicial votes up to January 2023 using Item Response Modelling and then related to country ideal points estimated from UNGA votes in earlier research. The analysis reveals that, as with countries in the UNGA, a pro-anti-Western divide order constitutes the main dimension of disagreement on the Court. Moreover, ideal points derived from UNGA voting patterns are themselves robust predictors of voting affinity among judges as well as between judges and the parties involved in litigation. Judges originating from nations exhibiting greater geopolitical divergence are more likely to disagree. Just as judges from more pro-Western states are less likely to favour anti-Western litigant states.
U.S. Combat Medicine and Military Morale
Tanisha Fazal et al.
Armed Forces & Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
While a number of studies have argued for a relationship between military morale and military effectiveness, analyses of the sources of morale have overlooked the possible role of military medicine. We suggest that military medicine may be an important predictor of morale. We assess this claim via an observational survey of U.S. military veterans and a survey experiment of active-duty U.S. military personnel. We find a statistically significant relationship between confidence in military medicine on one hand and morale on the other, especially for respondents who have seen combat.
Capturing the Fourth Estate: Government Influence on US Newspaper Coverage of Foreign Leaders
Ruilin Lai
British Journal of Political Science, April 2025
Abstract:
Governments worldwide seek to influence the stories reporters write. This article examines whether and how the US government shapes the variations in domestic news outlets' coverage of foreign leaders across time and space. Leveraging data collected from five major US newspapers on more than 1,500 foreign leaders, I find that US news outlets, acting in line with the government's interests, tend to limit their coverage of human rights violators who are politically aligned with the USA while providing more extensive reportage on those who are not. Further evidence suggests that such biased coverage is at least partly driven by the US government's selective information provision during press briefings and through press releases. The findings have important implications for how we understand media bias and media capture in democratic societies.
Democratic Solidarity: Does the Democratic Public Support Fellow Democracies in Conflicts?
Rikio Inouye & Yusaku Horiuchi
Dartmouth College Working Paper, April 2025
Abstract:
This article examines the theory of "democratic solidarity" in international relations, the idea that citizens of democracies are more likely to support fellow democracies in conflicts against non-democratic regimes. Given concerns about multi-front wars and the need for multinational coalitions, understanding the democratic public's willingness to support other democracies is crucial for assessing and predicting international outcomes. Using a choice-level conjoint analysis fielded in the U.S., we find that democracies receive significantly stronger support. However, this tendency diminishes among white respondents when conflicts involve white nondemocracies and non-white democracies. Furthermore, across all respondents, support for democracies disappears in conflicts between Christian nondemocracies and non-Christian democracies. These findings suggest that democratic solidarity is far from universal; instead, it is contingent on shared identities, posing a challenge to building stable democratic coalitions in an era of rising authoritarian threats.
The effects of Vietnam-era military service on the long-term health of veterans: A bounds analysis
Xintong Wang, Carlos Flores & Alfonso Flores-Lagunes
Journal of Health Economics, May 2025
Abstract:
We analyze the short- and long-term effects of the U.S. Vietnam-era military service on veterans' health outcomes using a restricted version of the National Health Interview Survey 1974-2013 and employing the draft lotteries as an instrumental variable. We conduct inference on the health effects of military service for individuals who comply with the draft-lotteries assignment (the "compliers"), as well as for those who volunteer for enlistment (the "always takers"). The causal analysis for volunteers, who represent over 70% of veterans, is novel in this literature that typically focuses on the compliers. Since the effect for volunteers is not point-identified, we employ sharp nonparametric bounds that rely on a mild mean weak monotonicity assumption. We examine a large array of health outcomes and behaviors, including mortality, up to 38 years after the end of the Vietnam War. We do not find consistent statistical evidence of detrimental health effects on compliers, in line with prior literature. For volunteers, however, we document that their estimated bounds show statistically significant detrimental health effects that appear around 10 years after the end of the conflict. As a group, veterans experience similar statistically significant detrimental health effects from military service. These findings have implications for policies regarding compensation and health care of veterans after service.