Hawks, Doves, and Crisis Behavior

• In Event: Innovations in the Study of Militaries and International Conflict

Abstract

While there is strong evidence leaders’ personal attributes affect crisis onset, there is little systematic research on their influence on how crises unfold. I argue leaders’ hawkishness, or their underlying willingness to use force, influences crisis signaling and escalation.

Their respective beliefs about the efficacy of military force leads doves to view tying hands signals as more credible than hawks and hawks to view sunk cost signals as more credible than doves. This should make hawks more likely to use sunk cost signals and less likely to use tying hands signals than doves and result in more mobilization signals being sent than canonical signaling models suggest.

Whether a crisis ends peacefully or escalates depends on leaders’ ability to reach a mutually acceptable agreement. Hawks' willingness to fight leads them to require more generous terms to settle than doves. This implies hawkish leaders should be more likely to see their crises escalate to war than dovish leaders.

Preliminary analyses are consistent with expectations. I find that hawks are more likely to see the crises they are involved in escalate to war than are doves. I plan to analyze patterns of signaling in interstate crises using data from the ICB project.

Author

• Jeff Carter, Appalachian State University