Abstract
While a growing body of work provides empirical support for the notion
that political leaders ``substitute'' foreign policies depending on a
variety of domestic political and economic conditions, little work
examines the underlying strategic causes of substitution. This article
argues that foreign states behave strategically in order to (a) avoid
becoming the targets of domestically troubled executives or (b) to take
advantage of the domestic trouble another state endures. Such
``strategic interaction'' delimits the set of foreign policies
reasonably available to leaders in trouble at home, thus producing the
impetus for policy substitution. This article develops a theoretical
model of strategic behavior and policy substitution and reports
empirical results of a multivariate probit model.
Users
Please
log in to take part in the discussion (add own reviews or comments).