The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound
@article{Snyder2011TheCO, title={The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound}, author={Jack Snyder and Erica D. Borghard}, journal={American Political Science Review}, year={2011}, volume={105}, pages={437 - 456} }
A large literature in political science takes for granted that democratic leaders would pay substantial domestic political costs for failing to carry out the public threats they make in international crises, and consequently that making threats substantially enhances their leverage in crisis bargaining. And yet proponents of this audience costs theory have presented very little evidence that this causal mechanism actually operates in real—as opposed to simulated—crises. We look for such…
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