Another, as Goemans points out, is to integrate time-varying factors into the model, allowing for within-regime variation rather than the across-regime variation on which I focus.

She similarly argues that Japanese aggression in the 1930s and 40s and the Argentine Junta’s decision to invade the Falkland Islands in 1982 reflect the mindset of military leaders but also the constraints imposed by the existence of an audience. Wilhelmine Germany thus appears to be another example of a civilian-led regime that shared power with and—in important ways—could not control its military, which led to the adoption of a military strategy poorly suited to the country’s political needs, with ultimately devastating consequences in the First World War. Weeks assumes that civilians exert strong control over the military in Machines, but the quality of civil-military relations is a variable, not a constant. There were elections and universal manhood suffrage, but the Chancellor served at the pleasure of the Kaiser and did not require the support of a majority of the Reichstag. For anyone interested in a work which concentrates on not just structures but also individual characteristics, respones, and actions in international relations this would be a good read.I focus here on these case studies, but it deserves note that Weeks adds a slew of new findings on the factors that affect war outcome and post-conflict punishment of leaders in Chapter 3. Likely the most important argument and finding in the book is that Machines are functionally equivalent to democracies.

third, in addition to generic views about force, audiences and leaders have perceptions of the costs of defeat in a military challenge. Downes correctly points out that my argument assumes that machines feature strong civilian control of the military. In the second, the hybrid type I have been describing, the military is outside civilian control and has the ability to remove the leader. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. First, actors form views about the benefits of winning compared to continuing on a nonmilitary pathway.Weeks also performs illuminating case studies of two Bosses—Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin—two Juntas—Argentina in the early 1980s and interwar Japan—and two Machines—North Vietnam and the Soviet Union under Khrushchev. With such numbers in recent history, it seems eminently plausible that Galtieri feared an irregular removal from office and subsequent severe punishment. Civilians, who, unlike military officers, might not have been preoccupied with the operational advantages of first strikes, would also have been less eager to attack first.

The Goemans, Downes, and Weisiger essays that follow are constructive discussions of an important piece of international relations scholarship. As he notes, I differentiate regimes around two dimensions: first, whether or not the leader faces a powerful domestic audience, and second, whether the key decisionmakers in the regime are civilians or military officers. These regimes are likely to be more aggressive, since civilian leaders may be removed for opposing the use of force rather than for going to war unsuccessfully, and civilian elites cannot prevent the military from taking action. In addition to Dictators at War and Peace (Cornell University Press, 2014), she has published in journals including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and International Organization.

This suggests that the presence of an audience might prod leaders into wars they would not have selected if they had not had such an audience. This, he points out, is different from the more common diversionary interpretation, in which the junta went to war because it feared a domestic revolt. International relations scholars have traditionally characterized regime type as dichotomous: democracy versus nondemocracy. Otherwise, the fear of a military coup or insurrection would cause leaders of machines to act more like the leaders of military juntas, in which a leader faces a domestic audience composed primarily of military officers.