to government officials, lobbyists may also be able to persuade policymakers to serve the lobby’s interests by removing a foreign leader. Jack Snyder, for example, contends that the expansionist policies of many great powers were the result of influential interest groups looking to satisfy their own economic and political interests.74
Arguments based on psychological bias and arguments based on bureaucratic and/or interest-group pressure suggest the following hypotheses with respect to FIRC:
H2: FIRC is more likely to occur between two states engaged in a dispute when psychological bias causes policymakers to view the opposing side’s leader as the source of that dispute.
H3: FIRC is more likely to occur between two states engaged in a dispute when bureaucrats or interest groups push for the removal of the opposing side’s leader.
RATIONAL ACTOR ARGUMENTS
In contrast to arguments that stress misperception as a central cause of conflict, rationalist theories focus on the conditions that engender conflict by causing bargaining to fail. Because my argument incorporates the problems of incomplete information and credible commitment, I do not argue that these explanations are wrong. Rather, I argue that they are insufficient. Actors should be able to resolve information and commitment problems by using signals, coercive force, and enforcement mechanisms. What is critical to determine is when policymakers will employ these measures to attain sustainable bargains.
Arguments relying on the logic of a commitment problem are common in the literature on FIRC. These arguments assert that policymakers pursue regime change because they do not trust the target to cooperate. Reiter, for example, contends that states are more likely to pursue total war, aimed at deposing the target state’s regime, when they anticipate that the current regime will renege on the wartime settlement. By replacing the target regime, the victor can ensure that the vanquished uphold the settlement.75 Similarly, Bueno de Mesquita and coauthors argue that leaders who depend on large coalitions for political support (e.g., democratic leaders) are more likely to replace other popularly supported leaders with pliant dictators.76 The authors explain that leaders dependent on public support are obliged to provide their supporters with public goods, such as national security. Such leaders are more likely to depose other popularly elected leaders, because these leaders are equally beholden to their domestic public, and so more likely to renege on settlements that will prove unpopular domestically. Dictators, in contrast, can be bribed into doing a foreign power’s bidding. A commitment problem can also undermine the credibility of the foreign power’s promises. Todd Sechser argues that targeted leaders often resist making concessions because they fear that once they give in, the foreign power will demand more.77
Commitment-problem arguments show that fears of cheating can make sustainable bargains difficult to achieve. However, the question of why states do not use enforcement mechanisms to resolve such fears remains unexplained. Even when targets fear their concessions will be exploited, if the stronger state’s threats are sufficiently credible and punitive, the target should make those concessions to avoid a far worse outcome. My argument holds that states forego enforcement measures because they find them to be more costly than regime change. Another possibility, however, is that under certain conditions, enforcement measures are impossible. Kenneth Schultz, for example, suggests that the possibility of covert action may undermine the credibility of a commitment. He argues that when rebel groups contesting the government of one state reside in a neighboring one, the state harboring the rebels cannot credibly pledge to withdraw its support, because it can assist them covertly.78 Buffer states wedged between two great powers may encounter a similar problem. Although the government of the buffer state could pledge neutrality to avoid antagonizing either power, the ability of each to aid the government (or its opposition) covertly undermines that pledge. As a result, each great power has incentive to intervene in the buffer state before its rival does.79 Thus, states may abandon bargaining in favor of regime change, not because enforcement is costly, but because conditions make it impossible.
Scholars have also used the role of incomplete information to explain conflict between strong and weak states, which often ends in FIRC. Research on asymmetric war, for example, suggests that weak states may doubt the resolve of their stronger adversaries, which prompts them to resist, leading the stronger state to resort to war. Like problems of credible commitment, problems of incomplete information do not explain why the stronger side fails to signal its resolve or increase its coercive pressure to convince the target that resistance is futile. My argument posits that states may give up on using signals and coercive force because of the relatively high costs. However, as with commitment problems, it may be that certain conditions make it impossible for states to signal their resolve. States with a history of backing down in a crisis, for example, may face greater difficulty convincing their targets to back down. Alternatively, certain regime types may be more or less effective at communicating threats. Democracies, for example, may be more likely to encounter resistance because their targets believe they are too casualty sensitive to risk war. Alternatively, dictators’ threats may be less credible because they can back down on them without suffering domestic political punishment. All told, certain conditions could make regime change the only option by undermining states’ abilities to make credible threats and/or promises.
In sum, rationalist explanations for FIRC suggest the following testable hypotheses:
H4: FIRC is more likely to occur when conditions undercut the ability of one or both sides in a dispute to prove their commitment to an agreement.
H5: FIRC is more likely to occur when conditions undercut a foreign power’s ability to credibly threaten a target state in a dispute.
In Chapters 3 through 6, I test the hypotheses associated with the alternative arguments, alongside my own, with both quantitative and qualitative data.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have argued that a targeted leader’s domestic opposition can increase a foreign power’s estimated costs of bargaining while decreasing its estimated costs of regime change. Targeted leaders have a strong incentive to resist or renege on settlement terms that threaten their domestic political power. The stronger the targeted leader’s domestic opposition—whether composed of rivals within the regime or external groups looking to overthrow it—the more resolved the leader will be to resist or renege on the settlement. To convince these targeted leaders to acquiesce, stronger powers can signal their resolve, apply coercive pressure, and use enforcement mechanisms. The foreign power could also offer positive inducements or settle for the status quo. However, all these actions entail costs for the stronger power. Further, the more reluctant the targeted leader is to comply, the greater the costs to the stronger state of attaining a settlement will be. While the target’s domestic opposition causes the foreign power’s estimated costs of bargaining to rise, it can simultaneously cause the foreign power’s estimated costs of regime change to fall. By partnering with the opposition, the foreign power may be able to reduce its military costs of ousting the leader. It may also lower its political and diplomatic costs by using the opposition either to legitimize the operation or to carry out a covert one. For these reasons, the costs of overthrowing domestically weak leaders can appear less than the costs of negotiating with them.
I have also argued that even when targeted leaders can anticipate the foreign power’s attempts to impose regime change, they will not necessarily back down. In fact, when leaders believe the foreign power’s threats are not likely to be pursued in the near future or lack credibility, they are more likely to take defensive measures to safeguard their regimes. In this context, threats to topple a regime can exacerbate the target’s resistance. In the next chapter, I detail the ways in which foreign powers impose regime change. Specifically, I explain when states are likely to transform the target
