War and Democratic Constraint

Why do some democracies reflect their citizens' foreign policy preferences better than others? What roles do the media, political parties, and the electoral system play in a democracy's decision to join or avoid a war? War and Democratic Constraint shows that the key to how a government determines foreign policy rests on the transmission and availability of information. Citizens successfully hold their democratic governments accountable and a distinctive foreign policy emerges when two vital institutions-a diverse and independent political opposition and a robust media-are present to make timely information accessible.

Matthew Baum and Philip Potter demonstrate that there must first be a politically potent opposition that can blow the whistle when a leader missteps. This counteracts leaders' incentives to obscure and misrepresent. Second, healthy media institutions must be in place and widely accessible in order to relay information from whistle-blowers to the public. Baum and Potter explore this communication mechanism during three different phases of international conflicts: when states initiate wars, when they respond to challenges from other states, or when they join preexisting groups of actors engaged in conflicts.

Examining recent wars, including those in Afghanistan and Iraq, War and Democratic Constraint links domestic politics and mass media to international relations in a brand-new way.

Autorentext
Matthew A. Baum is the Marvin Kalb Professor of Global Communications and professor of public policy at Harvard University. He is the author of Soft News Goes to War and the coauthor of War Stories (both Princeton). Philip B. K. Potter is assistant professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

Inhalt

List of Figures and Tables ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Chapter 1 Introduction: Looking for Democratic Constraint 1
Why Democratic Institutions Matter 3
The Role of Political Information within Democracies 4
The Recipe for Democratic Constraint 7
Effects on What? 9
Moving Forward 11
Chapter 2 Democracies Are Not Created Equal: A Theory of Democratic Constraint 14
Information, Accountability, and Principal-Agent Problems 15
An Uninformed, Inattentive Electorate 19
Political Opposition as Whistleblowers 21
Media Institutions and the Transmission of Information 28
Hearing the Whistleblowers-The Importance of the Press 32
Bringing Together Information Generation and Transmission 37
Foreign Policy Responsiveness and International Conflict Behavior 41
Initiation and the Democratic Peace 43
Reciprocation and Audience Costs 47
Coalition Formation 49
Conclusion and Next Steps 52
Chapter 3 Democratic Constraint, the Democratic Peace, and Conflict Initiation 53
Period and Structure of Analysis 56
Measuring Conflict Initiation 58
Measuring the Extent of Opposition with Political Parties 59
Measuring Media Access 60
Measuring Press Freedom 61
Additional Controls 64
Results 67
Democratic Constraint among Democracies 71
Alternative Measures of Conflict 73
The Independent Effects of Opposition and Access 74
Conclusion 75
Appendix 1: Statistical Tables and Robustness Tests 77
Appendix 2: The Role of the Internet 81
Chapter 4 Looking for Audience Costs in All the Wrong Places: Constraint and Reciprocation 86
Research Design 88
Results 90
Unpacking Militarized Disputes 92
Compellent Threats 94
The Problem of Perception 96
Conclusion 98
Appendix: Statistical Tables and Robustness Tests 99
Chapter 5 Willing and Politically Able: Democratic Constraint and Coalition Joining 103
Iraq (2003): Operation Iraqi Freedom 104
Afghanistan (2001): Operation Enduring Freedom 121
Conclusion 129
Appendix: Statistical Tables and Robustness Tests 130
Chapter 6 Downs Meets the Press: How Party Systems Shape the News 151
Mapping News Content onto the Downsian Premise 153
Cases and Data 156
Results 159
2004 and 2009 European Election Studies (EES) 161
Conclusion 163
Appendix: Statistical Tables, Robustness Tests, and Content Analysis Codebook 164
Chapter 7 Coalition Stories: Cases from the Iraq Coalition 193
Case Selection 194
The United Kingdom 198
Spain 205
Poland 210
Germany 213
Conclusion 220
Chapter 8 Conclusion: Information, Constraint, and Democratic Foreign Policy 222
Policy Implications 223
Recipe for a Watchdog Press: Some Prescriptions for Media Ownership 226
Technological Change, the Internet, and Satellite Television 229
Moving Forward 232
References 237
Index 251