Punishing the Prince: A Theory of Interstate Relations, Political Institutions, and Leader Change

by Fiona McGillivray, Alastair Smith

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691190372
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	06/26/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	2 MB

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 Specific Punishments and Interstate Relations 3

Proper Nouns in International Relations 12

International Cooperation 15

Chapter 2 A Theory of Leader Specific 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 Specific 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 Specification 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 Conflictual 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

What People are Saying About This

Robert Powell

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

From the Publisher

"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

Bruce Russett

Wide-ranging and rigorously argued, this is a powerful and informative book.
— Bruce Russett, Yale University

Kenneth Schultz

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

Hein Goemans

McGillivray and Smith present a powerful, insightful, and intuitively appealing idea with important implications for international relations.
— Hein Goemans, Rochester University

Editorial Reviews

"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

"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

"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

From the Publisher

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.

Cambridge Journals - Brett Ashley Leeds

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.

International History Review - James Lee Ray

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.

Perspectives on Politics - Scott Wolford

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

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

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