Synopses & Reviews
When the United States invaded Iraq, President Bush made it clear: the U.S. was not fighting the Iraqi people. Rather, all quarrels were solely with Iraq's leadership. This kind of assertion remains frequent in foreign affairs--sanctions or military actions are imposed on a nation not because of its people, but because of its misguided leaders. Although the distinction might seem pedantic since the people suffer regardless, Punishing the Prince reveals how targeting individual leaders for punishment rather than the nations they represent creates incentives for cooperation between nations and leaves room for future relations with pariah states.
Punishing the Prince demonstrates that theories of leader punishment explain a great deal about international behavior and interstate relations. The book examines the impact that domestic political institutions have on whether citizens hold their leaders accountable for international commitments and shows that the degrees to which citizens are able to remove leaders shape the dynamics of interstate relations and leader turnover. Through analyses of sovereign debt, international trade, sanctions, and crisis bargaining, Fiona McGillivray and Alastair Smith also uncover striking differences in patterns of relations between democratic and autocratic states. Bringing together a vast body of information, Punishing the Prince offers new ways of thinking about international relations.
Review
"Punishing the Prince provides both a compelling explanation for observed patterns of democratic cooperation and additional empirical content beyond previous explanations of the same phenomenon, including the effects of leadership change itself on patterns of cooperation. In other words, it provides valuable, and all too rare, predictions that can discriminate among competing explanations."--Scott Wolford, Perspectives on Politics
Review
"Punishing the Prince is an important study that will be influential in a number of key scholarly debates. The theory developed in this book offers a compelling perspective on the causes of change in interstate relations, the success of international cooperation, the causal mechanisms behind 'audience costs,' and the broad influence of domestic political institutions on international relations. I fully expect this book to become assigned reading in many core seminars on international relations and for the arguments developed herein to spawn significant further research."--Brett Ashley Leeds, Cambridge Journals
Review
"This is an important and impressive book, supporting and extending a theoretical view of politics that integrates the analysis of domestic and international processes in a manner that is necessary to the understanding of both."--James Lee Ray, International History Review
Review
Punishing the Prince provides both a compelling explanation for observed patterns of democratic cooperation and additional empirical content beyond previous explanations of the same phenomenon, including the effects of leadership change itself on patterns of cooperation. In other words, it provides valuable, and all too rare, predictions that can discriminate among competing explanations. Scott Wolford
Review
Punishing the Prince provides both a compelling explanation for observed patterns of democratic cooperation and additional empirical content beyond previous explanations of the same phenomenon, including the effects of leadership change itself on patterns of cooperation. In other words, it provides valuable, and all too rare, predictions that can discriminate among competing explanations. Scott Wolford
Review
This is an important and impressive book, supporting and extending a theoretical view of politics that integrates the analysis of domestic and international processes in a manner that is necessary to the understanding of both. Perspectives on Politics
Review
Punishing the Prince is an important study that will be influential in a number of key scholarly debates. The theory developed in this book offers a compelling perspective on the causes of change in interstate relations, the success of international cooperation, the causal mechanisms behind 'audience costs,' and the broad influence of domestic political institutions on international relations. I fully expect this book to become assigned reading in many core seminars on international relations and for the arguments developed herein to spawn significant further research. James Lee Ray - International History Review
Synopsis
When the United States invaded Iraq, President Bush made it clear: the U.S. was not fighting the Iraqi people. Rather, all quarrels were solely with Iraq's leadership. This kind of assertion remains frequent in foreign affairs--sanctions or military actions are imposed on a nation not because of its people, but because of its misguided leaders. Although the distinction might seem pedantic since the people suffer regardless,
Punishing the Prince reveals how targeting individual leaders for punishment rather than the nations they represent creates incentives for cooperation between nations and leaves room for future relations with pariah states.
Punishing the Prince demonstrates that theories of leader punishment explain a great deal about international behavior and interstate relations. The book examines the impact that domestic political institutions have on whether citizens hold their leaders accountable for international commitments and shows that the degrees to which citizens are able to remove leaders shape the dynamics of interstate relations and leader turnover. Through analyses of sovereign debt, international trade, sanctions, and crisis bargaining, Fiona McGillivray and Alastair Smith also uncover striking differences in patterns of relations between democratic and autocratic states. Bringing together a vast body of information, Punishing the Prince offers new ways of thinking about international relations.
Synopsis
"International relations theorists have long understood that treating states as rational, unitary actors is at best a useful first approximation. The challenge has been figuring out how to relax this assumption in fruitful ways that avoid theoretical chaos. Full of interesting insights and ideas,
Punishing the Prince is an important contribution to opening up the black box."
--Robert Powell, University of California, Berkeley"McGillivray and Smith develop a novel theory of international cooperation that places the incentives of state leaders front and center. They skillfully combine formal methods with experimental and quantitative evidence to show that the fate of leaders and the prospects for interstate cooperation are inextricably linked. Given its important insights into issues of credible commitment, reputation, signaling, and domestic political influences on foreign policy, this book should have wide-ranging influence."--Kenneth Schultz, Stanford University
"McGillivray and Smith present a powerful, insightful, and intuitively appealing idea with important implications for international relations."--Hein Goemans, Rochester University
"Wide-ranging and rigorously argued, this is a powerful and informative book."--Bruce Russett, Yale University
Synopsis
"International relations theorists have long understood that treating states as rational, unitary actors is at best a useful first approximation. The challenge has been figuring out how to relax this assumption in fruitful ways that avoid theoretical chaos. Full of interesting insights and ideas, Punishing the Prince is an important contribution to opening up the black box."--Robert Powell, University of California, Berkeley
"McGillivray and Smith develop a novel theory of international cooperation that places the incentives of state leaders front and center. They skillfully combine formal methods with experimental and quantitative evidence to show that the fate of leaders and the prospects for interstate cooperation are inextricably linked. Given its important insights into issues of credible commitment, reputation, signaling, and domestic political influences on foreign policy, this book should have wide-ranging influence."--Kenneth Schultz, Stanford University
"McGillivray and Smith present a powerful, insightful, and intuitively appealing idea with important implications for international relations."--Hein Goemans, Rochester University
"Wide-ranging and rigorously argued, this is a powerful and informative book."--Bruce Russett, Yale University
Synopsis
When the United States invaded Iraq, President Bush made it clear: the U.S. was not fighting the Iraqi people. Rather, all quarrels were solely with Iraq's leadership. This kind of assertion remains frequent in foreign affairs--sanctions or military actions are imposed on a nation not because of its people, but because of its misguided leaders. Although the distinction might seem pedantic since the people suffer regardless,
Punishing the Prince reveals how targeting individual leaders for punishment rather than the nations they represent creates incentives for cooperation between nations and leaves room for future relations with pariah states.
Punishing the Prince demonstrates that theories of leader punishment explain a great deal about international behavior and interstate relations. The book examines the impact that domestic political institutions have on whether citizens hold their leaders accountable for international commitments and shows that the degrees to which citizens are able to remove leaders shape the dynamics of interstate relations and leader turnover. Through analyses of sovereign debt, international trade, sanctions, and crisis bargaining, Fiona McGillivray and Alastair Smith also uncover striking differences in patterns of relations between democratic and autocratic states. Bringing together a vast body of information, Punishing the Prince offers new ways of thinking about international relations.
Synopsis
"International relations theorists have long understood that treating states as rational, unitary actors is at best a useful first approximation. The challenge has been figuring out how to relax this assumption in fruitful ways that avoid theoretical chaos. Full of interesting insights and ideas,
Punishing the Prince is an important contribution to opening up the black box."--Robert Powell, University of California, Berkeley
"McGillivray and Smith develop a novel theory of international cooperation that places the incentives of state leaders front and center. They skillfully combine formal methods with experimental and quantitative evidence to show that the fate of leaders and the prospects for interstate cooperation are inextricably linked. Given its important insights into issues of credible commitment, reputation, signaling, and domestic political influences on foreign policy, this book should have wide-ranging influence."--Kenneth Schultz, Stanford University
"McGillivray and Smith present a powerful, insightful, and intuitively appealing idea with important implications for international relations."--Hein Goemans, Rochester University
"Wide-ranging and rigorously argued, this is a powerful and informative book."--Bruce Russett, Yale University
About the Author
Fiona McGillivray is associate professor of politics at New York University and the author of "Privileging Industry" (Princeton). Alastair Smith is professor of politics at New York University and the author of "Election Timing".
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations ix
List of Tables xi
Preface xiii
Chapter 1: We Have No Quarrel with the People 1
Leader Specifi c Punishments and Interstate Relations 3
Proper Nouns in International Relations 12
International Cooperation 15
Chapter 2: A Theory of Leader Specifi c Punishments 31
A Stochastic Prisoners' Dilemma with Leader Mortality 33
A Continuous Choice Prisoners' Dilemma 50
Appendix 65
Chapter 3: Political Institutions, Policy Variability, and the Survival of Leaders 77
Leader Survival 77
Selectorate Politics 79
Selectorate Institutions, Policy Choice, and Leader Survival 80
Policy Variability and the Turnover of Leaders 83
Chapter 4: Leader Specifi c Strategies in Human Subject Experiments 89
Human Subject Experiments 90
Results 93
Conclusions 101
Chapter 5: International Trade, Institutions, and Leader Change 109
Data 111
Setup of Econometric Tests and Model Specifi cation 115
Results 119
Conclusions 140
Chapter 6: Putting the Sovereign Back into Sovereign Debt 142
Institutions, Credibility, and Explanations of Debt 143
Modeling the Debt Repayment 145
Data 154
Debt, Repayment, and Leader Replacement 157
Conclusions 172
Chapter 7: Confl ictual Interactions 173
International Crises 173
Economic Sanctions 182
Chapter 8: Positive Political Theory and Policy 190
Building Trust and Cooperation 190
Positive Political Theory or Policy Advice? 192
Conclusions 199
Bibliography 201
Index 217