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

本项目开发并实证检验了国内政治动荡导致政治领导人对其他国家采取对抗性外交政策的理论模型。假设来源于博弈论模型，该模型确定了导致内部和外部冲突之间系统关系的一系列国内和国际条件。本课题的理论前提是国家领导人的内外政策选择之间存在着紧密的联系。对外交政策选择的令人信服的解释，要求对外交政策领导人的国内政策选择进行明确而仔细的建模。先前工作的一个关键弱点是，国际关系研究往往没有充分详细地分析国内政治环境，因此没有关注领导人选择应对其面临的政治反对的国内政策反应。如果忽视这种国内政策选择，就很难解释国内动荡对国际冲突的影响。据推测，国家领导人的决定是压制还是容纳政治反对派的要求，对国家领导人是否追求激进的外交政策具有重要意义。当国家领导人镇压国内反对派时，与领导人满足政治反对派要求的情况相比，发动军事对抗的动机要强烈得多。在1946-1992年期间，对各州随机抽样进行了实证检验。使用统计和支持性案例研究分析将产生强有力的实证发现，即只有当国内动乱的镇压与国家有利的国际政治-军事地位相结合时，国内动乱与国际冲突之间才会存在正相关关系。该项目将开发一个国内动乱和国际冲突的数据集，供许多对该主题感兴趣的其他学者使用。

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.