Disentangling Democratic Credibility: The Power of Beliefs, Signaling, and Words

• In Event: Conversations about the International Order

Abstract

Do democracies convey their foreign policy preferences better than non-democracies? Why is it so challenging to observe the so-called ‘democratic advantage’ in practice, contrary to the expectations of early signaling theorists such as Fearon? This paper extends the concept of democratic credibility, which has primarily been discussed in the context of hostile signals, to include benign signals, thus proposing a more comprehensive theory of democratic credibility called the democratic perception model. The new theory posits that the enhanced ability of democracies to signal their foreign policy preferences, referred to as the democratic advantage, primarily depends on two factors: a receiver’s assessment of a signaler’s pure signaling capability and the receiver’s pre-existing beliefs about the signaler’s inherent aggression. In addition, this paper provides empirical evidence at the micro level suggesting that democracies may convey their intentions more effectively through diplomatic statements rather than through military policies, compared to non-democracies. This study tests the theory presented here through survey experiments using samples from the United States and China.

Author

• Seok Joon Kim, Kyungpook National University