Audience Costs and the Credibility of Public versus Private Threats in International Crises

Abstract The credibility of public versus private threats in international crisis bargaining has received scholarly attention. While public threats are often believed to be more credible than private ones because of audience costs, others contend that private threats should be equally credible or even more. Also, the effect of public threats can be conditioned by other domestic factors such as domestic hawkishness and a leader’s unpopularity. To test these competing expectations, I conducted a conjoint survey experiment that examines how observers assess resolve to fight in an international crisis with a sample of US citizens (N = 1,203). Three major findings stand out. First, evidence suggests that both types of threats increase the perceived likelihood that a country will stand firm. Second, though their effect size is small, public threats are more effective than private ones. Lastly, I find support for the conditional effect of public threats, indicating that the underlying mechanism of the credibility of public threats is domestic audience costs.