IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v35y1991i2p307-332.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Influence of Domestic and International Politics on the President's Use of Force

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick James

    (McGill University)

  • John R. Oneal

    (University of Alabama)

Abstract

Ostrom and Job (1986) found that domestic, political factors are more influential on the president's decision to use military force than characteristics of the international environment. These results pose a serious challenge to realists' assumptions regarding the motives of states and the separability of domestic and foreign policy. This article reexamines Ostrom and Job's arguments and introduces a new indicator, a measure of the severity of ongoing international crises, to provide a better assessment of the relative effect of the international environment on presidential decision making. This severity index is significantly associated with the use of force by the United States from 1949 through 1976, and proves to be more influential than the international indicators used by Ostrom and Job. Nevertheless, domestic political factors remain most consequential in the president's decision to use force short of war.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick James & John R. Oneal, 1991. "The Influence of Domestic and International Politics on the President's Use of Force," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(2), pages 307-332, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:35:y:1991:i:2:p:307-332
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002791035002008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002791035002008
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002791035002008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allison, Graham T., 1969. "Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 689-718, November.
    2. Silver, Brian D. & Anderson, Barbara A. & Abramson, Paul R., 1986. "Who Overreports Voting?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(2), pages 613-624, June.
    3. de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno, 1985. "The War Trap Revisited: A Revised Expected Utility Model," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(1), pages 156-177, March.
    4. Putnam, Robert D., 1988. "Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 427-460, July.
    5. McKeown, Timothy J., 1986. "The limitations of “structural†theories of commercial policy," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 43-64, January.
    6. Allison, Graham T., 1969. "Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 689-718, September.
    7. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aaronson Susan Ariel & Abouharb M. Rodwan & Daniel Wang K., 2015. "The Liberal Illusion Is Not a Complete Delusion: The WTO Helps Member States Keep the Peace Only When It Increases Trade," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 15(4), pages 455-484, December.
    2. Matthew Wilson & Carla Martinez Machain, 2018. "Militarism and Dual-Conflict Capacity," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(1), pages 156-172, January.
    3. Albalate, Daniel & Bel, Germà & Elias, Ferran, 2012. "Institutional determinants of military spending," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 279-290.
    4. Randall J. Blimes, 2011. "International Conflict and Leadership Tenure," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Coyne & Rachel L. Mathers (ed.), The Handbook on the Political Economy of War, chapter 16, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miriam Hartlapp & Julia Metz & Christian Rauh, 2010. "The agenda set by the EU Commission: the result of balanced or biased aggregation of positions?," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 21, European Institute, LSE.
    2. Trofimov, Ivan D., 2017. "Political economy of trade protection and liberalization: in search of agency-based and holistic framework of policy change," MPRA Paper 79504, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Gaurav Sinha, 2015. "Responding to Complexity: Microfinance MIS Service Providers as Complex Adaptive Systems," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 1(2), pages 163-180, July.
    4. Edward H. Kaplan, 2012. "OR Forum---Intelligence Operations Research: The 2010 Philip McCord Morse Lecture," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1297-1309, December.
    5. Ade Muhammad & Utomo S. Putro & Manahan Siallagan & Kyoichi Kijima & Meditya Wasesa, 2021. "System of Diagnostic Systems framework and its application to the disharmony in Indonesian national security," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 31-49, January.
    6. Nutt, Paul C, 1998. "Evaluating Alternatives to Make Strategic Choices," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 333-354, June.
    7. Eben J. Christensen & Steven B. Redd, 2004. "Bureaucrats Versus the Ballot Box in Foreign Policy Decision Making," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 48(1), pages 69-90, February.
    8. Michael Brecher & Patrick James, 1988. "Patterns of Crisis Management," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(3), pages 426-456, September.
    9. Paul A. Raschky & Liang Choon Wang, 2017. "Reproductive behaviour at the end of the world: the effect of the Cuban Missile Crisis on U.S. fertility," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(56), pages 5722-5727, December.
    10. Gunton, Cameron & Markey, Sean, 2021. "The role of community benefit agreements in natural resource governance and community development: Issues and prospects," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    11. Michal Parízek, 2017. "Control, soft information, and the politics of international organizations staffing," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 559-583, December.
    12. Paul DiMaggio, 2017. "Layers of endogeneity—How porous boundaries between state and society complicate institutional change," Rationality and Society, , vol. 29(1), pages 80-90, February.
    13. Arkadiy V. Sakhartov & Timothy B. Folta, 2013. "Rationalizing Organizational Change: A Need for Comparative Testing," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(4), pages 1140-1156, August.
    14. Heugens, P.P.M.A.R. & Zyglidopoulos, S.C., 2007. "Unfit to Learn? How Long View Organizations Adapt to Environmental Jolts," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2007-014-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    15. Kendall Moll, 1974. "International Conflict as a Decision System," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 18(4), pages 555-577, December.
    16. Thomas J. Volgy & Jon E. Quistgaard, 1975. "Learning About the Value of Global Cooperation," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 19(2), pages 349-376, June.
    17. Niittymies, Aleksi & Pajunen, Kalle & Lamberg, Juha-Antti, 2022. "Temporality and firm de-internationalization: Three historical approaches," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 57(6).
    18. Nutt, Paul C., 2000. "Context, tactics, and the examination of alternatives during strategic decision making," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 159-186, July.
    19. David Davis, 1972. "Consensus or conflict: Alternative strategies for the bureaucratic bargainer," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 21-29, September.
    20. Davis B. Bobrow & Robert T. Kudrle, 1976. "Theory, Policy, and Resource Cartels," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 20(1), pages 3-56, March.

    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:sae:jocore:v:35:y:1991:i:2:p:307-332. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    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.