Do allies actually care about reputation?
[THREAD]
[THREAD]
Of course, I'm referring to the ongoing debate about the broader geopolitical implications of US withdrawing from Afghanistan (and how that withdraw has unfolded over the past few weeks).
https://twitter.com/ProfPaulPoast/status/1426508097711968258
This debate has seen terms such as "credibility", "resolve", & "reputation" being thrown around. As @Don_Casler addresses in this recent @DuckofMinerva piece, it is important not to confuse the three terms.
duckofminerva.com/2021/08/will-a…
duckofminerva.com/2021/08/will-a…
Each of those concepts deserves its own thread. For now, I'll just say that they are related, but not identical concepts.
In this thread, I'm going to focus on just reputation.
In this thread, I'm going to focus on just reputation.
In international politics, REPUTATION typically refers to how others, based on your PAST ACTIONS, perceive the credibility of your promises or threats.
It's not enough to just say "this action will hurt/help the US reputation going forward." Reputation for what? There are a lot of ways to look at reputation. @ProfLupton offers a "tip of the iceberg" accounting in the thread attached to 👇 tweet
https://twitter.com/ProfLupton/status/1428748667754844160
I am going to focus on one particular reputation that seems central to the tweets at the beginning of this thread: a state's reputation for supporting alliance commitments.
This is not a trivial reputation, since the 🇺🇸 has A LOT of alliance commitments.
This is not a trivial reputation, since the 🇺🇸 has A LOT of alliance commitments.
Specifically, does state A's reputation with allies -- i.e. past actions with supporting or abandoning allies -- affect the willingness of other states to be state A's ally?🤔
International relations scholars have studied this question for quite awhile.
What do we know?
What do we know?
As a starting point, one could always go back to Schelling's work in the 1960s, such as his "Strategy of Conflict"...
amazon.com/Strategy-Confl…
amazon.com/Strategy-Confl…
...or his "Arms and Influence", as reputation is brought up in both texts.
amazon.com/Arms-Influence…
amazon.com/Arms-Influence…
But the more direct and relevant is the @PrincetonUPress book by Snyder and Diesing in the 1970s:
press.princeton.edu/books/hardcove…
press.princeton.edu/books/hardcove…
They write of "ally loyalty" and that such loyalty matters.
Related, Dan Reiter published a @CornellPress book in 1996 that showed states do indeed look at past experiences when deciding whether to form a new alliance
amazon.com/Crucible-Belie…
amazon.com/Crucible-Belie…
But a useful critique of this line of thinking comes from Jim Morrow in this 1994 JCR piece.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
In the paper, Morrow points out the following
This led Morrow to instead look at "costly actions" that in the moment can signal your true intentions towards the ally.
Key example is deploying (a sufficient number of) troops on the territory of an ally.
tnsr.org/2021/06/the-tr…
Key example is deploying (a sufficient number of) troops on the territory of an ally.
tnsr.org/2021/06/the-tr…
Because of Morrow's work, along with subsequent papers by Alastair Smith...
academic.oup.com/isq/article-ab…
academic.oup.com/isq/article-ab…
...and Jim Fearon (see more about him in the #KeepRealismReal threads),...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
...scholars for the next decade focused primarily on the "taking actions" aspect of maintaining alliance commitment credibility.
Related Side Note: Thanks to the work of @BAshleyLeeds, @sbmitche, and Andrew Long we know that, by and large, allies are reliable -- at least with respect to the letter of the treaty!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
It really wasn't until the early part of the last decade that scholars came back to directly evaluating reputation and its influence on alliance commitments.
In 2012, three key pieces were published on this very topic.
Gregory Miller's @CornellPress book...
cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/978080146…
Gregory Miller's @CornellPress book...
cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/978080146…
...@mark_crescenzi, @kleinberg_katja, @jacob_kathman, & Reed Wood in @ISQ_Jrnl...
academic.oup.com/isq/article/56…
academic.oup.com/isq/article/56…
Subsequent work included papers by Neil Narang & @bradleveck in @JPR_journal...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…
It's a lot of literature to digest, but the core finding can be seen by taking a moment to unpack the @mark_crescenzi et al @ISQ_Jrnl paper.
The reputation that state B assigns to state A is a function of BOTH state A's actions towards others AND state A's action towards B
...to compute a variable capturing each state's "alliance reputation" (warning SCIENCE!!)...
...and produce the following regression results. What does this tell you? Notice the positive number (and stars) across the entire row for "Alliance Reputation". That means "better reputation = more likely to gain allies"
But look again at the table, specifically Model 6. Notice anything? You should: the number is substantially smaller when only focusing on defense pacts.
What does this mean? When it comes to mutual defense pacts (as opposed to weaker types of treaties, like consultative pacts), reputation still plays a role, but not as great of a role.
That was an insight I fleshed out in my 2019 @CornellBook
amazon.com/Arguing-about-…
amazon.com/Arguing-about-…
So, does reputation matter to allies? Yes, but it's not all important.
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