MichaelGoldfien

MichaelGoldfien

Research

Publications

“The Domestic Sources of International Reputation” (with Michael Joseph and Roseanne McManus). American Political Science Review 117, no. 2 (2023): 609-628. Article, pre-publication version, and appendix.

Abstract Existing research finds that leaders develop international reputations based on their past behavior on the international stage. We argue that leaders' domestic choices can also influence their international reputations, perhaps as much as their past foreign policy decisions do. Using formal theory and intuitive argumentation, we develop an overarching framework to predict how much any domestic choice will affect a leader's international reputation. We theorize that certain domestic choices can inform expectations about future international crisis behavior based on the extent to which (1) the costs at state are similar to those of an international crisis and (2) the domestic issue is salient relative to foreign policy. We use conjoint experiments and other evidence to show that many domestic choices have significant international reputational effects. There is some evidence that the reputational effect of certain domestic choices may equal that of fighting in a previous international crisis.

“Public Opinion and Nuclear Use: Evidence from Factorial Experiments” (with Tyler Bowen and Matt Graham). The Journal of Politics 85, no. 1 (2023): 345-350. Article, pre-publication version, and appendix.

Abstract Does the public oppose nuclear use? Survey experimental research varying either the advantages or disadvantages of nuclear use has produced a wide range of results. Yet no study has examined how the military advantages and strategic and moral disadvantages of nuclear weapons interact. We explore this interaction and uncover a pattern that unifies the literature's seemingly disparate results: the persuasive power of nuclear weapons' military advantages is conditional on their disadvantages. We demonstrate this by independently randomizing both the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear use in (1) a 2x2 factorial version of an influential design and (2) a novel adaptation of conjoint experiments that focuses on the most plausible comparisons between nuclear and conventional strikes. Our results support a new explanation for why the public can appear rigidly opposed to nuclear strikes in some circumstances and highly permissive in others.

“Perceptions of Leadership Importance: Evidence from the CIA’s President’s Daily Brief” (with Michael Joseph). Security Studies 32, no. 2 (2023): 205-238. Article and appendix.

Abstract Are leaders perceived as important actors during conflict, or are they discounted because of domestic institutions and international structure? We exploit the recently declassified CIA President's Daily Briefs to construct a cross-national, weekly measure of how intelligence analysts perceive a foreign leader's importance. We estimate perceptions of leader importance at crisis onset, escalation, war, and war termination in over 16,000 statistical models that overcome selection and endogeneity concerns common in existing studies of leadership and conflict. Leaders are not perceived to matter equally at every stage of conflict. They are seen to matter the most during crisis negotiations when conflicts can either deescalate to peace or escalate to war. But they are not perceived to matter during war. We find leaders of heavily constrained regimes are seen as no more important at any stage of the conflict process than they are in peacetime. But leaders of moderately constrained regimes are perceived to matter for crisis escalation. Our findings suggest that even if leaders are perceived to matter for conflict on average, domestic institutions and structure plausibly constrain leaders more at some stages of the conflict process such that leaders are seen as less important at those stages. We contribute to the quantification of historical documents by illustrating how to combine data selection, historiography, measurement and statistical modeling to draw stronger inferences.

“Just Patronage? Familiarity and the Diplomatic Value of Non-Career Ambassadors.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 68, no. 7-8 (2024): 1417–1442. Article, pre-publication version, and appendix.

Abstract Career diplomats have expertise. Why, then, do U.S. presidents appoint relative novices to key diplomatic posts? Conventional wisdom points to patronage. Yet this explanation overlooks the benefits of a diplomat's familiarity with political superiors. Inherent in delegated diplomacy is uncertainty over diplomats' ability to "deliver" on understandings reached at the negotiating table. Non-career diplomats often speak more credibly for political superiors, creating an incentive for foreign counterparts to engage in diplomacy. I theorize a tradeoff between familiarity and expertise to generate empirically testable prediction. Counterintuitively, I expect that presidents often sacrifice professional expertise to delegate important diplomatic assignments to relative amateurs, even accounting for the patronage value of the post. I find empirical support for the argument using a novel dataset on U.S. ambassadorial appointments from the Reagan through Trump administrations.

“When Do Leader Attributes Matter? Evidence from the President’s Daily Brief” (with Michael Joseph and Dan Krcmaric). Conflict Management and Peace Science 41, no. 4 (2024): 414-437. Article.

Abstract A wave of recent scholarship shows that the backgrounds of political leaders shape their behavior once in office. This paper shifts the literature in a new direction by investigating the conditions under which foreign observers think a leader's background is relevant. We argue that pre-tenure biographical attributes are most informative to outsiders during leadership transitions---unique periods where the new ruler does not yet have a track record---because a leader's background provides clues about how that leader might govern. But as time passes, foreign observers quickly discount the leader's biography and instead evaluate the leader's observable behavior. We test our theory by creating a systematic daily measure of attention to foreign leader backgrounds derived from the President's Daily Brief, a novel data source of 4,991 recently declassified reports from the Central Intelligence Agency to the American president.

Book Projects

Political Ornithology and Peace: Hawks, Doves, and the Politics of Rapprochement.

How International Reputation Accrues across Multiple Policy Domains (with Michael Joesph and Roseanne McManus). Supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Work in Progress

“Hawks, Doves, and Regime Type in International Rivalry and Rapprochement.” Available on request.

Abstract Existing scholarship emphasizes hawks' advantages in making peace but is squarely focused on democratic leaders, even though most prominent international rivalries feature at least one autocracy. I argue that regime type mediates the relationship between foreign policy orientation and peace: doves should be more successful peacemakers in autocracies than democracies. In low-accountability autocracies where domestic audiences struggle to punish leaders, the credibility problem doves face in selling peace at home becomes less salient relative to doves' motivation to cooperate internationally. I demonstrate that the predicted patterns holds in a large-N set of post-World War II cases. I conclude by examining two key cases of rapprochement that demonstrate the theorized mechanisms: the U.S.-Soviet and Egypt-Israel rivalries. The theory explains why it could take a hawk like Nixon to go to Beijing, but a dove like Gorbachev to go to Washington.

“The Domestic Sources of International Trust” (with Michael Joseph and Roseanne McManus). Available on request.

Abstract Enduring rivalries are an intractable problem in international relations. Existing research suggests that countries can build trust through costly international signals of reassurance, such as arms reductions. Unfortunately, rivals may be too fearful to make such moves when trust is already very low. We propose domestic choices as a solution to this problem. We claim that international partners can learn about a state’s likelihood of cooperating internationally by observing its domestic choices because there is some correlation between domestic and international preferences. Even more importantly, we argue that domestic choices can play a unique role in overcoming distrust because the outcome of domestic choices is less dependent on reciprocation by another state. This allows states to reveal their preferences through domestic choices without exposing themselves to the risk of exploitation. Thus, domestic choices can kick-start the trust building process even under conditions of low trust, such as enduring rivalry. We illustrate the logic of our argument with a formal model, which produces dramatically different predictions from both the classic trust-building literature and democratic peace theory. We test our argument in a case study of the end of the Cold War.

“Multidimensional Reputation in International Relations” (with Tyler Pratt and Keren Yarhi-Milo). Available on Request.

Abstract International politics is characterized by enduring uncertainty about the intentions of other actors. Audiences scrutinize state behavior to infer a range of underlying traits, including the state’s tendency to stand firm in a crisis (resolve) and abide by international commitments (compliance). Despite this, existing studies of international reputation tend to analyze specific traits in isolation. In this project, we explore how foreign policy choices affect multiple dimensions of an actor’s reputation. We examine the relationship between two reputational attributes, resolve and compliance, that have been of primary interest to scholars of international security and international cooperation. We develop a theoretical framework that explains when state behavior generates multiple, simultaneous reputational effects, as well as how these effects interact with each other. We test the theory in a survey experiment examining the use of military force in the presence of international legal commitments that sanction or prohibit such behavior.

“Nuclear Politics and Conventional War” (with Tyler Bowen, Patrick Hulme, and So Jin Lee). Available on Request.

Abstract Prominent scholars and policy analysts fear that re-emerging great power nuclear rivalry will prove destabilizing to the international security environment, re-opening longstanding debates about the link between nuclear politics and conventional conflict. How does the nuclear balance affect preferences for conventional uses of force? We develop hypotheses drawing on the stability-instability paradox (SIP), which we then test with conjoint experiments focused on potential conflicts between the U.S. and China and the U.S. and North Korea. Fielding these surveys among among elite U.S. military officers and among the public, we vary strategic stability in each scenario and then measure support for U.S. military action. The project advances the survey experimental literature on nuclear politics by connecting it to attitudes toward conventional conflict, and it contributes to ongoing policy debates about the risks presented by the growth of China's nuclear arsenal and a ``tripolar" nuclear world.

“An Expert Survey of Political Leader Beliefs and Worldviews” (with Soyoung Lee). Early stage.

“Burning Reputation” (with Ryan Powers, Tyler Pratt, and Jonathan Renshon). Early stage.