IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v80y1986i02p541-566_18.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The President and the Political Use of Force

Author

Listed:
  • Ostrom, Charles W.
  • Job, Brian L.

Abstract

Throughout the post–World War II period the president has been called upon to make decisions concerning the use of force as a political instrument. The explanation that is offered is based upon a characterization of the president as a cybernetic human decision maker facing limitations. These limitations, in conjunction with the complexity of the environment, lead presidents to develop and use a relatively simple decision rule. The dependent variable, which is the probability of the use of force at any point in time, is explained in terms of enduring and essential concerns, which are operationalized as coming from the international, domestic, and personal environments. Data are taken from Blechman and Kaplan's Force Without War. On the basis of our estimation and evaluation, presidential decisions to use force are based on factors in all three arenas.

Suggested Citation

  • Ostrom, Charles W. & Job, Brian L., 1986. "The President and the Political Use of Force," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(2), pages 541-566, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:80:y:1986:i:02:p:541-566_18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400183236/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:80:y:1986:i:02:p:541-566_18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.