DISSERTATION
DECISION BY DESIGN: NATIONAL SECURITY INSTITUTIONS AND INTERSTATE CONFLICT
My dissertation explores the causes and consequences of differences in the design of national security institutions, the sets of rules and procedures designed to assist chief executives in deliberating and executing national security strategy, such as in the U.S. National Security Council. Contrary to existing literature in international relations that tends to either uniformly assume the unitary or non-unitary nature of the state, I treat the cohesiveness of national security decision-making and execution processes as a variable. To describe this variation, I introduce a novel typology and show that institutions differ along two salient dimensions. The first is the level of integration between the chief executive and their senior-most military, diplomatic and intelligence agents. National security institutions can be integrated, when all core bureaucratic agents participate in the policy process, or they can be fragmented, when some or all agents are shut out. The second dimension is the institutional strength. Strong national security institutions possess the capacity to monitor and punish rogue military, diplomatic and intelligence actions, whereas weak variants cannot. I show that national security institutions not only vary dramatically across time and space, but do so in ways orthogonal to regime type and strategic culture.
In the first half of the dissertation, I offer a theory by which chief executives design national security institutions in accordance with the incentives of their environment---particularly the intensity of the international threat, domestic elite opposition and prior experience of the chief executive. I test these hypotheses using two paired comparisons between China and Taiwan, and India and Pakistan. Using archival and interview evidence collected through field work in all four countries, I measure longitudinal evolution of institutional design within each country from the late-1940s to early-2000s and demonstrate that my theory outperforms existing explanations.
In the second half of the dissertation, I show how the institutional designs affect interstate bargaining. My theory suggests that when states possess strong and integrated national security institutions, they are able to “speak with one voice,” sending more effective signals. On the contrary, when states possess weak or fragmented institutions, they are prone to signaling pathologies that increase the probability of interstate bargaining failure and the advent of war. I test my theory using an original cross-national time series data set on national security institutions across the world from 1946 to 2015. These data offer new information on over two dozen quantities of interest that facilitate measurement of national security institutional design and strength for 8,701 country-years. The data set also builds on existing resources that describe the experiential characteristics of national leaders by widening the aperture of relevant individuals to senior members of the national security institution: ministers of foreign affairs, ministers of defense and the senior military adviser. Statistical testing is complemented by illustrative cases on the 1962 Sino-Indian War, 1999 Kargil War and 1995-6 Taiwan Straits Crisis.
In the first half of the dissertation, I offer a theory by which chief executives design national security institutions in accordance with the incentives of their environment---particularly the intensity of the international threat, domestic elite opposition and prior experience of the chief executive. I test these hypotheses using two paired comparisons between China and Taiwan, and India and Pakistan. Using archival and interview evidence collected through field work in all four countries, I measure longitudinal evolution of institutional design within each country from the late-1940s to early-2000s and demonstrate that my theory outperforms existing explanations.
In the second half of the dissertation, I show how the institutional designs affect interstate bargaining. My theory suggests that when states possess strong and integrated national security institutions, they are able to “speak with one voice,” sending more effective signals. On the contrary, when states possess weak or fragmented institutions, they are prone to signaling pathologies that increase the probability of interstate bargaining failure and the advent of war. I test my theory using an original cross-national time series data set on national security institutions across the world from 1946 to 2015. These data offer new information on over two dozen quantities of interest that facilitate measurement of national security institutional design and strength for 8,701 country-years. The data set also builds on existing resources that describe the experiential characteristics of national leaders by widening the aperture of relevant individuals to senior members of the national security institution: ministers of foreign affairs, ministers of defense and the senior military adviser. Statistical testing is complemented by illustrative cases on the 1962 Sino-Indian War, 1999 Kargil War and 1995-6 Taiwan Straits Crisis.
NATIONAL SECURITY ACTORS & INSTITUTIONS DATA SET, 1946-2015
This project builds an original, cross-national time series dataset on the domestic institutions responsible for managing national security policy, such as the U.S. National Security Council or the PRC National Security Leading Small Group. The scope of the project is from 1946 to 2015. The data set is divided into two parts. The first portion includes over two dozen quantities of interest that facilitate measurement of national security institutional design and strength for 8,586 country-years. The second portion compiles prior experiential characteristics of individual members of national security institutions, including the minister of foreign affairs, minister of defense and senior military adviser. The project builds on and expands existing work on the effects of domestic institutions on foreign policy, as well as the relationship between individual actor experience and state militarized behavior. Research assistance has been funded through grants from the Smith Richardson Foundation and Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
INTERSTATE SIGNALING DATA SET, 1946-2015
The purpose of this dataset is to characterize the actions that states take prior to the initiation of violent military conflict. Such actions include public and private diplomatic messaging, military mobilizations and shows of force, as well as covert intelligence actions (coups, assassinations, support for rebel groups). Building on Interstate Crisis Behavior (ICB) database, this dataset provides state-level behavioral characteristics for 362 international crises from 1946 to 2015.
ARCHIVAL & INTERVIEW RESEARCH
- Center for International Security Studies, Islamabad | Fall 2017
- Hoover Institution Archives, Palo Alto | Fall 2017
- Academia Historica - 國史館, Taipei | Summer 2017
- Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica - 中研院近史所, Taipei | Summer 2017
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives - 外交部档案馆, Beijing | Spring 2017
- Peking University Library - 北京大学图书馆, Beijing | Spring 2017
- Nehru Memorial Library and Museum, Delhi | Winter 2017
- National Archives of India, Delhi | Winter 2017
- National Archives and Records Administration, College Park | Fall 2016
- National Security Archive, Washington DC | Fall 2016
- Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence | Fall 2016
- Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene | Fall 2016
- William J. Clinton Presidential Library, Little Rock | Fall 2016
- National Archives Administration - 國家發展委員會檔案管理局, Taipei | Summer 2016
CHINESE FOREIGN POLICY
DELEGATED DIPLOMACY: WHY CHINA USES THE MILITARY FOR FACE-TO-FACE EXCHANGES (Under Review)
with Austin Strange
International Studies Association Annual Conference | 2017
Why do states engage in face-to-face diplomacy? Existing research finds that diplomatic meetings allow statesmen to assess intentions and maintain interstate relationships. We instead argue and empirically demonstrate that states can use face-to-face diplomacy to improve material capabilities. Specifically, heads of state can acquire and distribute defense information and technology by delegating face-to-face diplomacy to military actors, leveraging the latter's expertise during the meeting. Introducing original, individual-level data on China's diplomatic exchanges, we provide the first systematic evidence on why states opt into military diplomacy. Our data further show that China's military was responsible for nearly half of all its high-level public diplomacy in recent years, illustrating the importance of examining the Chinese case. We extend our statistical analysis by examining recently declassified government materials and meeting transcripts from the United States and China.
CHINA DIPLOMATIC EXCHANGE DATA SET, 1949-Present (In Progress)
Data Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China
CIVILIAN CONTROL, CIVILIAN NATIONALISM:
THE DIFFERENCE IN CHINESE MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC PRESS STATEMENTS (Working Paper)
with Rachel Esplin Odell
In this paper, we show how the public statements of Chinese civilian and military elites systematically differ. Using web-scraping techniques and automated text analysis, we compile and explore press conference statements issued by the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of National Defense between 2011 and 2016. These data address ongoing debates concerning Chinese civil-military relations in two ways. First, we show that Chinese civilian elites are more likely to discuss political topics, but that military elites are often more likely to discuss topics relevant to military operations. This finding supports the argument that Chinese civilian leaders exert firm control over the military, but nonetheless grant military elites autonomy in operational matters. Second, we show that Chinese civilian elites are more likely than military officials to use nationalist rhetoric, calling to question conventional wisdom regarding Chinese military's predisposition for more militarized foreign policy. These findings have broader implications for estimating attitudes and preferences in authoritarian militaries, which are often assumed to feature higher support for use of force relative to civilian counterparts.
LEADERS, ADVISERS & ELITE DECISION-MAKING
SOCIALIZED HAWKS? HOW SELECTION EXPLAINS MILITARY ATTITUDES ON THE USE OF FORCE (Working Paper)
with Kaine Meshkin and Robert Schub
American Political Science Association Annual Conference | 2017
Research Grant, Institute for Quantitive Social Science (IQSS)
Do military and civilian attitudes on the use of force differ and, if so, why? Past scholarship is divided on whether military officials are more hawkish but is relatively unified in attributing differences to military socialization. This study offers new evidence on the direction of the civil-military attitudinal gap and challenges the consensus on its source, theorizing that differences stem from career selection, not socialization. To adjudicate between contentions, we survey incoming officer candidates at the US Military Academy before and after basic training and pair the results with synchronous surveys of a nationally representative sample. We find that military individuals are consistently more hawkish than civilians, the gap is evident upon arrival, and socialization during basic training has minimal effect on the gap. An embedded experiment further reveals that while military individuals display elevated sensitivity to war's cost, this is more than offset by preexisting hawkish dispositions. The results challenge and solidify assumptions underpinning canonical theories of civil-military relations and clarify the behavioral origins of attitudes on the use of force.
ARMIES AND INFLUENCE: WHEN MILITARY ELITES CHANGE NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-MAKING (In Progress)
with Josh Kertzer
When are military elites more likely to affect decision-making on national security issues? Existing research overlooks the microfoundations of how military elites gain credibility advantages over other adviser types---such as other diplomatic, intelligence or political appointees. To address this gap, we develop a theory that specifies the conditions under which three categories of military influence are likely to obtain: (a) appointment of actors with military experience to decision-making positions within the bureaucracy; (b) deference to the recommendations of military advisers on national security strategy; and (c) delegation of decision-making authority to military advisers. Applying insights from the literature on political trust, we argue that individuals---both elites and the mass public---possess unique credibility estimates toward military institutions that affect attitudes toward all three categories of military advisory influence. We use paired surveys implemented on U.S. elites and the general public to test our hypotheses. The results have implications for the study of interstate conflict, political psychology and bureaucratic politics.
TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
EXPLAINING CYBERSPACE SECURITY STRATEGY: CHINA AND THE WORLD (In Progress)
Do state military strategies in cyberspace differ systematically from their conventional or nuclear variants? If so, what explains cross-national and temporal variation in investment in cyber defense, centralization of control over cyber operations and peacetime employment of cyber forces to achieve foreign policy objectives? This project theorizes that attributes unique to the cyber domain create heterogenous incentives for cyber investment, control and employment. In contrast to theories on the origin of military and nuclear postures, state security strategies in cyberspace stem instead from perceived vulnerabilities in limited conflict scenarios, conditional on two domestic political institutions: civilian control of the military and social norms regarding citizen privacy. As a result, authoritarian and democratic states design cyber postures in fundamentally different ways. As a result, unlike in the conventional domain, authoritarian countries possess organizational advantages conducive to cyber battlefield effectiveness. This project tests these theoretical predictions first through cross-sectional analysis of an original dataset of over 100 cyber strategy strategies originating from 69 different countries since 2000. The characteristics of state cyber strategy are then compared with a set of nearly 300 general national security strategies collected from across the world over the same time period. Cross-national insights are paired with a case study on the evolution of China's cyber security forces since the mid-1990s. The China case draws on newly-available Chinese government materials.
NUCLEAR SECURITY ENVIRONMENTS: EXPLAINING RESTRAINT IN CHINA'S NUCLEAR POSTURE (Working Paper)
At their peak levels during the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union possessed 31,255 and 40,723 nuclear weapons respectively. Even with recently expanding defense budgets, China’s nuclear arsenal has never possessed more than 400 weapons. I offer a theory of nuclear security environments that addresses the puzzle of why the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a quantitative expansion of their nuclear arsenals, while China has not. I argue that state beliefs regarding the utility of nuclear weapons in future conflict scenarios help explain nuclear arsenal size developed by the state. I argue that these beliefs stem from three variables related to a state’s nuclear security environment: (1) assessments of the nature of future conflict; (2) the propensity of adversaries to use nuclear weapons in these conflicts; and (3) the availability of conventional alternatives to nuclear weapons. In order to test the empirical validity of this theory, I consider six historical case studies across the United States, Soviet Union, and China using archival documents and Chinese government publications. In three of these cases (U.S. 1950-2, U.S. 1957-61, USSR 1955-62), the state adopted a nuclear policy goal of quantitative superiority. In the other three of these cases, (USSR 1949-52, PRC 1964-78, PRC 1999 to present), the state at least temporarily accepted a position of quantitative inferiority. The findings help explain the origins of China's beliefs regarding nuclear weapons, which have thus far been attributed primarily to particularities in individual leaders or strategic culture. The theory and cases also suggest the conditions under which China might and might not engage in more aggressive nuclear competition in the future.
Image: Photo of Watercolor by Tanconville, 1911