Revisiting Audience Cost Theory from the Perspectives of Domestic Public Opinion and Election

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15H06684
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: International relations
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: Yasui Kiyotaka 早稲田大学, 地域・地域間研究機構, 研究助手 (60756302)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-08-28 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 国際政治 / 観衆費用 / 国際紛争 / 国内世論 / 選挙 / 安全保障 / 自然実験

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This project uncovers the impact of domestic public opinion and electoral cycle on states’ conflict behavior. The theoretical analysis demonstrates that political leaders select a form of conflict behavior, considering the trade-off between two political costs: audience costs imposed when backing down from military threats, and the loss of public opinion support generated when voters object to hard-line measures. In addition, the project empirically find that leaders are more likely to initiate international conflicts when national elections are approaching, while they tend to withdraw from territorial negotiations in the earlier stage of electoral cycles. This project yields three English papers presented in international conferences, and one of them has been published in an international academic journal.

Free Research Field

国際政治学