Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T10:42:16.079Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Crazy Like a Fox? Are Leaders with Reputations for Madness More Successful at International Coercion?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2019

Roseanne W. McManus Open the ORCID record for Roseanne W. McManus [Opens in a new window]
Roseanne W. McManus*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

According to the ‘Madman Theory’ promoted by Richard Nixon and early rationalist scholars, being viewed as mentally unstable can help a leader coerce foreign adversaries. This article offers the first large-N test of this theory. The author introduces an original perception-based measure of leaders' reputations for madness, coded based on news reports, and analyzes its effect on both general deterrence and crisis bargaining. The study also tests several hypotheses about the conditions under which perceived madness is expected to be more or less helpful. The author finds that perceived madness is harmful to general deterrence and is sometimes also harmful in crisis bargaining, but may be helpful in crisis bargaining under certain conditions. The analysis suggests that the harmful effect of perceived madness results from a commitment problem.

Keywords

conflict bargainingresolvecredibilityreputationmadman theoryleaders in international conflict
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 275 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acharya, A and Grillo, E (2015) War with crazy types. Political Science Research and Methods 3(2), 281–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ausderan, J (2017) Confronting the Crazy Dictator: Ideology, Worldviews, and Public Attitudes toward Irrational World Leaders. Working Paper, Barry University.Google Scholar
Bennett, DS and Stam, A (2000) EUGene: a conceptual manual. International Interactions 26(2), 179–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, J (2016) Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't: Hawks, Doves, and Their Consequences for Interstate Targets. Working Paper. Available from https://jeffcarter.weebly.com/endogenoustargets.html.Google Scholar
Chiozza, G and Goemans, HE (2011) Leaders and International Conflict. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croco, SE (2015) Peace at What Price? Leader Culpability and the Domestic Politics of War Termination. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellsberg, D (1959) The Political Uses of Madness. Lecture given at the Lowell Institute of the Boston Public Library, 26 March. Available from https://ia800102.us.archive.org/20/items/ThePoliticalUsesOfMadness/ELS005-001.pdf (accessed 8 February 2018).Google Scholar
Ellsberg, D (2017) The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Gartzke, E (2006) The Affinity of Nations Index, 1946–2002. Version 4. Available from https://dss.ucsd.edu/~egartzke/datasets.htm (accessed 9 November 2011).Google Scholar
Geddes, B, Wright, J and Frantz, E (2014) Autocratic breakdown and regime transitions: a new dataset. Perspectives on Politics 12(2), 313–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibler, DM, Miller, SV and Little, EK (2016) An analysis of the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) dataset, 1816–2001. International Studies Quarterly 60(4), 719–730.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleditsch, KS (2002) Expanded trade and GDP data. Journal of Conflict Resolution 46, 712–724. Version 6.0 beta GDP data. Available from https://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~ksg/exptradegdp.html (accessed 7 January 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goemans, HE, Gleditsch, KS and Chiozza, G (2009) Introducing Archigos: a data set of political leaders. Journal of Peace Research 46(2), 269–183. Version 4.0.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haldeman, HR and DiMona, J (1978) The Ends of Power. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Horowitz, MC, Stam, AC and Ellis, CM (2015) Why Leaders Fight. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iacus, SM, King, G and Porro, G (2012) Causal inference without balance checking: coarsened exact matching. Political Analysis 20(1), 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jervis, R (1976) Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, DM, Bremer, SA and Singer, JD (1996) Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1816–1992: rationale, coding rules, and empirical patterns. Conflict Management and Peace Science 15(2), 163–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krauthammer, C (2017) Trump and the ‘Madman Theory’. Washington Post, 23 February.Google Scholar
Kydd, AH (2005) Trust and Mistrust in International Relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kydd, AH and McManus, RW (2017) Threats and assurances in crisis bargaining. Journal of Conflict Resolution 61(2), 325–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebow, RN (2010) Why Nations Fight: Past and Future Motives for War. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Little, AT and Zeitzoff, T (2017) A bargaining theory of conflict with evolutionary preferences. International Organization 71(3), 523–557.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, N (1517) Discourses on Livy. Consitution Society. Available from https://www.constitution.org/mac/disclivy3.htm (accessed 20 August 2016).Google Scholar
MacMillan Dictionary (2019) Insane. Available from https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/insane (accessed 20 April 2019).Google Scholar
Maoz, Z et al. (2018) The dyadic Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) dataset version 3.0: logic, characteristics, and comparisons to alternative datasets. Journal of Conflict Resolution 63(3), 811–835.Google Scholar
Marshall, MG, Jaggers, K and Gurr, TR (2010) Polity IV project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2010. Available from https://www.systemicpeace.org/inscr/inscr.htm (accessed 6 September 2011).Google Scholar
McDermott, R (2007) Presidential Leadership, Illness, and Decision Making. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McManus, RW (2019) Revisiting the Madman Theory: evaluating the impact of different forms of perceived madness in coercive bargaining. Security Studies 28(5).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McManus, R (2019) “Replication Data for: Crazy like a Fox? Are Leaders with Reputations for Madness More Successful at International coercion?”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/T3CGGV, Harvard Dataverse, V1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nedal, D and Nexon, D (2017) Trump's ‘Madman Theory’ isn't strategic unpredictability, it's just crazy. ForeignPolicy.com, 18 April. Available from https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/18/trumps-madman-theory-isnt-strategic-unpredictability-its-just-crazy/ (accessed 28 June 2017).Google Scholar
OxfordDictionaries.com (2019) “Crazy” and “insane” entries. Available from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/ (accessed 20 April 2019).Google Scholar
Palmer, G et al. (2019) Updating the Militarized Interstate Dispute data: a response to Gibler, Miller, and Little. International Studies Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqz045.Google Scholar
Ramey, AJ, Klingler, JD and Hollibaugh, GE (2019) Measuring elite personality using speech. Political Science Research and Methods 7(1), 163–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rathbun, BC (2018) Reasoning of State: Rationality, Realists and Romantics in International Relations. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Renshon, J (2008) Stability and change in belief systems: the operational code of George W. Bush. Journal of Conflict Resolution 52(6), 820–849.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renshon, SA (2011) Barack Obama and the Politics of Redemption. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sartori, AE (2005) Deterrence by Diplomacy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schelling, TC (1960) The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1980 edition.Google Scholar
Schelling, TC (1966) Arms and Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2008 edition.Google Scholar
Schultz, KA (1999) Do democratic institutions constrain or inform? Contrasting two institutional perspectives on democracy and war. International Organization 53(2), 233–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sechser, TS (2010) Goliath's curse: coercive threats and asymmetric power. International Organization 64(4), 627–660.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sechser, TS (2011) Militarized compellent threats, 1918–2001. Conflict Management and Peace Science 28(4), 377–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sechser, TS and Fuhrmann, M (2017) Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sinaceur, M et al. (2013) The advantages of being unpredictable: how emotional inconsistency extracts concessions in negotiation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49, 498–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, JD, Bremer, S and Stuckey, J (1972) Capability distribution, uncertainty, and major power war, 1820–1965. In Russett, B (ed.), Peace, War, and Numbers, Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 19–48.Google Scholar
Stinnett, DM et al. (2002) The Correlates of War project direct contiguity data, version 3. Conflict Management and Peace Science 19(2), 58–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Kleef, GA and Côté, S (2007) Expressing anger in conflict: when it helps and when it hurts. Journal of Applied Psychology 92(6), 1557–1569.Google ScholarPubMed
Voeten, E and Merdzanovic, A (2009) United Nations General Assembly Voting Data. Available from https://thedata.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/Voeten/faces/study/StudyPage.xhtml?studyId=38311&versionNumber=1 (accessed 9 November 2011).Google Scholar
Walt, S (2017) Things don't end well for madmen. Foreign Policy, 16 August. Available from https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/16/things-dont-end-well-for-madmen-trump-north-korea/ (accessed 13 September 2017).Google Scholar
Weeks, JL (2008) Autocratic audience costs: regime type and signaling resolve. International Organization 62, 35–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisiger, A (2013) Logics of War: Explanations for Limited and Unlimited Conflicts. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisiger, A and Yarhi-Milo, K (2015) Revisiting reputation: how past actions matter in international politics. International Organization 69(2), 473–495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, SS (2019) Stoics and hotheads: leaders’ temperament, anger, and the expression of resolve in face-to-face diplomacy. Journal of Global Security Studies 4(2), 190–208.Google Scholar
Yarhi-Milo, K (2018) Who Fights for Reputation: The Psychology of Leaders in International Conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Yarhi-Milo, K, Kertzer, JD and Renshon, J (2018) Tying hands, sinking costs, and leader attributes. Journal of Conflict Resolution 62(10), 2150–2179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

McManus supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download McManus supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 425.1 KB
Supplementary material: Link

McManus Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/T3CGGV
Link