A Re-examination of the Link Between Domestic and International Conflict

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This project develops and empirically tests a theoretical model of the conditions under which domestic political unrest causes political leaders to adopt confrontational foreign policies towards other states. Hypotheses are derived from game-theoretic models which identify the set of domestic and international conditions which lead to a systematic relationship between internal and external conflict. The theoretical premise of this project is that there is a tight connection between state leader's domestic and foreign policy choices. Compelling explanations of foreign policy choices require that the domestic policy choices of foreign policy leaders be modeled explicitly and carefully. A critical weakness of prior work is that international relations research often does not analyze in sufficient detail the domestic political environment, and therefore does not pay attention to the domestic policy response leaders choose to deal with the political opposition they face. By ignoring this domestic policy choice, it is very difficult to explain what impact domestic unrest has on international conflict. It is hypothesized that the decision of state leaders to either repress or accommodate the demands of political opposition has significant implications for whether state leaders pursue and aggressive foreign policy. When state leaders repress domestic opposition, the incentives to initiate militarized confrontations are much stronger compared to situations in which leaders accommodate the demands of political opposition. Empirical tests are conducted on a random sample of states for the years 1946-1992. Using statistical and supporting case study analysis will produce strong empirical findings that only when domestic repression of unrest is coupled with a favorable international political-military position for states, will there be a positive relationship between domestic unrest and international conflict. This project will develop a dataset on domestic unrest and international conflict which will be utilized by numerous other scholars interested in the topic.