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Black and white photo of Hanna Bäck. Photo.

Hanna Bäck

Professor

Black and white photo of Hanna Bäck. Photo.

Solving the Decider’s Dilemma: Scapegoats, Foreign Affairs, and the Duration of Interstate War

Author

  • Alejandro Quiroz Flores
  • Hanna Bäck
  • Alexander von Hagen-Jamar
  • Jan Teorell

Summary, in English

The prospects of domestic punishment might compel leaders responsible for the initiation of the war to continue fighting until they achieve favorable war outcomes (Croco 2011, 2015). As applied to war duration, this logic implies that ‘culpable’ leaders do not have incentives to end a war that will bring defeat. This paper argues that leaders can escape this dilemma by blaming and replacing their cabinet ministers for poor war results. Under a framework of war as a bargaining process, and using a database of the tenure of thousands of ministers of foreign affairs, this paper shows that the replacement of these cabinet ministers reduces the duration of interstate wars that end in defeat. These findings suggest that leaders do not necessarily need to continue fighting wars in order to avoid domestic punishment.

Department/s

  • Department of Political Science

Publishing year

2017-12

Language

English

Pages

1-26

Publication/Series

STANCE Working Papers Series

Volume

2017

Issue

11

Document type

Working paper

Topic

  • Political Science

Keywords

  • Ministers of foreign affaires
  • interstate war
  • Cabinet ministers
  • war duration

Status

Published

Project

  • State-Making and the Origins of Global Order in the Long Nineteenth Century and Beyond