Dovish Reputation Theory: When Fighting to Demonstrate Resolve Backfires

• In Event: Foreign Policy & Comparative Politics in Advanced Industrial Societies & Ideas, Knowledge and Politics Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual Poster Session: Foreign Policy: Competition and Rivalry in International Politics Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

According to traditional, hawkish reputation theory, states inevitably harm their reputation for resolve by backing down and enhance or maintain it by choosing to stand firm. This logic has been used, at least in part, to justify consequential interventions like the Vietnam War. Famously, John McNaughton, assistant secretary of defense under Lyndon Johnson, calculated that the principal rationale, by far, for the Vietnam War was to maintain the United States’ reputation. However, is it always true that states maximize their reputation for resolve by refusing to back down? I advance a new theory of reputation—dovish reputation theory—that argues the answer is no. When fighting leads to backlash and war-weariness among a country’s public and leaders, states pay reputation costs that they would not have if they backed down. For example, foreign states could observe the backlash to the Vietnam War and interpret it as a negative signal of America’s resolve. Consequently, fighting primarily for extrinsic, reputational interests in conflicts that are likely to lead to backlash may not bring the expected benefits suggested by hawkish reputation theorists. I provide evidence for this theory with original survey experiments and a historical case study using internal government documents.

Author

• Joshua Schwartz, Harvard Kennedy School