Dovish Reputation Theory: When Fighting to Demonstrate Resolve Backfires
According to traditional, Hawkish Reputation Theory, states inevitably harm their reputation for resolve by backing down and enhance or maintain it by choosing to stand firm and engage in military conflict. This logic has been used, at least in part, to justify consequential interventions like the Vietnam War, which resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars spent. For example, John McNaughton, assistant secretary of defense under Lyndon Johnson and a close advisor to Robert McNamara, famously calculated that the principal rationale, by far, for the Vietnam War was to maintain the United States’ reputation. Presidents ranging from Harry Truman to Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton have made similar arguments, and Thomas Schelling even asserted that reputation for resolve is "one of the few things worth fighting over." However, is it always true that states maximize their reputation for resolve by refusing to back down? In other words, is fighting to demonstrate resolve always a logical reason to go to war? I advance a new theory of reputation—Dovish Reputation Theory—that argues the answer is no. While previous academic research has questioned whether fighting or backing down actually has any effect on a country’s reputation for resolve, no major study has systematically examined the possible negative consequences to a state’s reputation for resolve of engaging in military conflict.
My theory can be summarized in two steps. In the first step, choosing to fight rather than back down in the past can lead to war-weariness that reduces a country’s future level of resolve. In the second step, foreign actors can observe the signs of war-weariness and therefore downgrade their estimates of a country’s reputation for resolve. For example, states could observe war-weariness in the United States following the Vietnam War and thus reduce their assessment of future American resolve.
I test my theory using a multi-method research design that includes survey experiments conducted on the general public and members of the United Kingdom Parliament; large-N statistical analyses of political parties’ election manifestos and militarized interstate disputes; and historical case studies of World War I and the First Iraq War. My analysis yields four key findings. First, the experience of a previous conflict can harm a state’s future resolve. Second, backing down, all else equal, does undermine a state’s reputation for resolve. Third, choosing to fight can also erode a state’s reputation for resolve if signs of war-weariness develop. Fourth, the reputation for resolve costs associated with war-weariness can equal or outweigh the reputation for resolve benefits of not backing down. This means states do not always enhance or maintain their reputations for resolve by engaging in military conflict rather than backing down. The most important implication of this project is that the benefits of using military force are lower than the common wisdom suggests.
According to traditional, Hawkish Reputation Theory, states inevitably harm their reputation for resolve by backing down and enhance or maintain it by choosing to stand firm and engage in military conflict. This logic has been used, at least in part, to justify consequential interventions like the Vietnam War, which resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars spent. For example, John McNaughton, assistant secretary of defense under Lyndon Johnson and a close advisor to Robert McNamara, famously calculated that the principal rationale, by far, for the Vietnam War was to maintain the United States’ reputation. Presidents ranging from Harry Truman to Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton have made similar arguments, and Thomas Schelling even asserted that reputation for resolve is "one of the few things worth fighting over." However, is it always true that states maximize their reputation for resolve by refusing to back down? In other words, is fighting to demonstrate resolve always a logical reason to go to war? I advance a new theory of reputation—Dovish Reputation Theory—that argues the answer is no. While previous academic research has questioned whether fighting or backing down actually has any effect on a country’s reputation for resolve, no major study has systematically examined the possible negative consequences to a state’s reputation for resolve of engaging in military conflict.
My theory can be summarized in two steps. In the first step, choosing to fight rather than back down in the past can lead to war-weariness that reduces a country’s future level of resolve. In the second step, foreign actors can observe the signs of war-weariness and therefore downgrade their estimates of a country’s reputation for resolve. For example, states could observe war-weariness in the United States following the Vietnam War and thus reduce their assessment of future American resolve.
I test my theory using a multi-method research design that includes survey experiments conducted on the general public and members of the United Kingdom Parliament; large-N statistical analyses of political parties’ election manifestos and militarized interstate disputes; and historical case studies of World War I and the First Iraq War. My analysis yields four key findings. First, the experience of a previous conflict can harm a state’s future resolve. Second, backing down, all else equal, does undermine a state’s reputation for resolve. Third, choosing to fight can also erode a state’s reputation for resolve if signs of war-weariness develop. Fourth, the reputation for resolve costs associated with war-weariness can equal or outweigh the reputation for resolve benefits of not backing down. This means states do not always enhance or maintain their reputations for resolve by engaging in military conflict rather than backing down. The most important implication of this project is that the benefits of using military force are lower than the common wisdom suggests.