Domestic Political Vulnerability and International Disputes

The proposition that domestic political vulnerability provides an incentive for leaders to engage in international conflict has been widely accepted because of appealing logic and anecdotal support. Although empirical studies of U.S. behavior during the cold war era have demonstrated some support for a relationship between domestic political vulnerability and aggressive international behavior, the generalizability of these tests should not be assumed. In fact, there is little empirical evidence in support of this relationship as a general pattern. This study assesses theories linking domestic political vulnerability to international disputes on a cross-national basis by examining the relationships between economic decline, the electroal cycle, and measures of aggressive international action for 18 advanced industrialized democracies during the period from 1952 to 1988. The authors find no consistent support for a relationship between constraining domestic political conditions and international behavior. Instead, fewer international demands are made on politically vulnerable leaders. Due to strategic interaction in the international system, just when a state leader might be most willing to act aggressively, he or she is likely to have the least opportunity to do so. Variance in the behavior of international rivals may explain the lack of an empirical relationship between domestic political conditions and foreign policy behavior.