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From State Foreign Policy to Strategic Interaction Jeffrey R Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2010 From State Foreign Policy to Strategic Interaction Jeffrey R. Weber Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND PUBLIC POLICY FROM STATE FOREIGN POLICY TO STRATEGIC INTERACTION By JEFFREY R. WEBER A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2010 The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Jeffrey R. Weber defended on June 30, 2010. Will H. Moore Professor Directing Thesis Michael Creswell University Representative Sean D. Ehrlich Committee Member Mark A. Souva Committee Member Approved: Dale L. Smith, Chair, Department of Political Science David W. Rasmussen, Dean, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii To put one brick upon another, Add a third and then a forth, Leaves no time to wonder whether What you do has any worth. But to sit with bricks around you While the winds of heaven bawl Weighing what you should or can do Leaves no doubt of it at all. -Philip Larkin, Collected Poems 1988 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my parents, Robert and Teresa Weber. What they have taught me over my life has been guided me throughout this intellectual journey. They provided me with a strong foundation and the tools I needed to persevere. I would also like to give a special thanks to my advisor Will Moore for providing innumerable forms of support and encouragement throughout this process. Also, I would like to thank my entire committee and especially the contributions of Michael Creswell, Sean Ehrlich and Mark Souva whose guidance has vastly improved the dissertation. I thank Dale Smith, Charles Barrilleaux and the Department of Political Science at Florida State University for their generous support of my graduate education. Finally, I would like to thank Tom Carsey, Ozge Kemahlioglu, and Matt Golder who provided me with direction in the earliest stages of this project. Without the intellectual and emotional support of all of these individuals this dissertation could not have come about. This dissertation was funded in part by a research grant from the Graduate School at Florida State University. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables . vii List of Figures . viii Abstract . ix 1 The Politics of Opposites 1 1.1 Introduction . 1 1.2 Reciprocity and Foreign Policy Preferences . 5 1.3 The Politics of Opposites . 10 1.3.1 Politics of Opposites, International ................... 14 1.3.2 Politics of Opposites, Domestic ..................... 15 2 When Rivals Avoid Doves and Exploit Hawks 20 2.1 Introduction . 20 2.2 The Politics of Opposites, International ..................... 22 2.2.1 How Rivals Respond to the Politics of Opposites . 24 2.3 Empirical Analysis . 27 2.3.1 Size of the Rally Effect . 28 2.3.2 How Rival States Respond . 34 2.4 Conclusion . 38 3 An Ineffective Congress or Strategic Avoidance? 41 3.1 Introduction . 41 3.2 The Politics of Opposites, Domestic ....................... 43 3.2.1 The Opposition Party’s Decision to Oppose . 44 3.2.2 The President’s Decision to take a Position . 45 3.3 Empirical Analysis . 46 3.3.1 Dependent Variables . 47 3.3.2 Independent Variables . 48 3.3.3 The Presence and Absence of Congressional Opposition . 49 3.3.4 The Infrequency of Congressional Opposition . 52 3.4 Conclusion . 56 v 4 Do Hawks Negotiate Better? 58 4.1 Introduction . 58 4.2 Bird’s Eye View of Rapprochement . 61 4.3 Early Development of Nixon’s China Policy . 63 4.4 First Contact . 66 4.5 Backchannel Invitation . 69 4.6 Initial Kissinger Visit . 71 4.7 Kissinger-Zhou Direct Talks . 72 4.8 The Announcement . 74 4.9 Conclusion . 76 5 Taking Stock and Going Forward 78 5.1 Taking Stock of the Politics of Opposites . 78 5.2 Going Forward with the Politics of Opposites . 80 Appendix A 83 Biographical Sketch . 95 vi LIST OF TABLES 1.1 U.S. Reciprocation of Non-Rival Behavior . 9 1.2 Expected Rival State Response . 15 1.3 Expected Opposition Party Response . 16 2.1 Rally Size in International Crises . 32 2.2 Predicted Size of the President’s Rally . 33 2.3 Soviet Union’s Cold War Behavior Towards the U.S. 40 3.1 Opposition Party Support for the President on High Politics . 42 3.2 Opposition Party Vote Opposing the President on High Politics . 50 3.3 Out of Sample Predictions of the Opposition Party’s Vote . 51 3.4 Hypothetical Outcomes of President and Opposition Party Interactions . 53 3.5 Presidential Avoidance of the Opposition Party on High Politics . 54 1 Crises Involving the United States, 1966-1991 . 84 2 Weights for WEIS Events . 85 3 Soviet Union’s Cold War Behavior Towards the U.S. 86 vii LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Marginal Effect of U.S. Dovishness on the Soviet Union’s Behavior . 38 3.1 Marginal Effect of Dovishness on Opposition Party Vote . 51 3.2 Selection Stage: Marginal Effect of Dovishness on Presidential Position Taking 55 3.3 Outcome Stage: Marginal Effect of Dovishness on Opposition Party Vote . 56 4.1 When does Nixon go to China? . 62 1 Reciprocation of Cooperation and Hostility from Non-Rivals . 83 viii ABSTRACT For more than two generations, studies linking domestic political unrest with foreign policy behavior have been beset by inconsistent findings and consistent revision. In this project, I ask the following questions: Is there a politics of opposites, where hawks are better at selling cooperation to their publics, and doves are better at selling conflict? If so, do domestic opposition parties and/or rival states respond to the domestic political environment that confronts a leader at home? To address these questions I develop a theory in which foreign policy is the product of strategic interactions between competing states and political parties. To do this, I draw on a nascent but related body of work that suggests leaders have either hawkish or dovish preferences which shape their interactions with competitors at home and abroad. First, I argue that a hardline foreign policy helps doves obtain the electoral benefit of a politics of opposites because it proves their moderate credentials in foreign policy. As a result, I expect doves will be more likely than hawks to pursue a hardline in foreign policy as their electoral support diminishes. I then consider the counter-intuitive proposition that domestic opposition parties and rival states avoid more dovish leaders who are experiencing domestic political unrest. Specifically, I argue rival states are more likely to avoid doves and exploit hawks in periods where their counterpart is experiencing electoral distress. At the same time, domestic opposition parties are more likely to throw their support behind more dovish leaders and oppose more hawkish ones. Empirical analyses support these propositions in the context of U.S. foreign policy for the final 25 years of the Cold War from 1966 to 1991. This proposition is further supported in a detailed analysis of U.S.-China rapprochement under Richard M. Nixon. ix CHAPTER 1 THE POLITICS OF OPPOSITES The relationship between internal and external factors in the explanation of in- ternational politics and foreign policy may be seen as the academic equivalent to the quest for the Holy Grail – many have searched for it; the search has taken place over long periods of time and in diverse research areas; its location has been the subject of many theories; and its existence has been the source of continual debate. Many signs point to the reality of such internal-external linkages, but a systematic, empirical connection has been hard to demonstrate consistently – Siverson and Starr (1992)1 1.1 Introduction For more than two generations the field of international relations has trended toward studying the potential linkages between domestic and international politics. This movement has given birth to literatures like the Democratic Peace research program, which has helped to clarify the role of domestic institutions, audience costs, and democratic norms in account- ing for variation in the conflict propensities of across pairs of states. Prominent debates therein focus on whether democracies are more peaceful in general or purely in their rela- tions toward other democracies. Although debate continues over the full extent to which there is a democratic peace, there has been a broad acceptance on one point: the “absence of war between democracies comes as close as anything we have to empirical law in the study of international relations” (Levy, 1988, 662). 1Quoted in Starr (1994, 481). 1 This movement is joined by a second branch in the literature that draws attention to the role of partisan politics in accounting for fluctuations overtime in the interactions of states. The dissertation explores this temporal variation in the interactions between countries by highlighting two related currents within this second branch. One current argues that leaders confronting domestic political unrest have incentives to instigate hostilities abroad as a way to gamble for a policy success or benefit from a “rally ‘round-the-flag effect.” The second current debates the influence of partisanship in executive-legislative relations on matters of “high politics” in foreign policy. Despite the myriad of studies that comprise this second branch, it has struggled to generate accumulated knowledge and stylized facts about international relations. As the epigraph which begins this chapter suggests, the most remarkable feature about this second branch has been the lack of consistent empirical support for many of its propositions.
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