Leader Survival, Sources of Political Insecurity, and International Conflict

Published date01 September 2019
Date01 September 2019
DOI10.1177/1065912918798512
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912918798512
Political Research Quarterly
2019, Vol. 72(3) 596 –609
© 2018 University of Utah
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1065912918798512
journals.sagepub.com/home/prq
Article
Political and personal survival incentives are important
determinants of leaders’ international conflict behavior
(e.g., Chiozza and Goemans 2011; Bueno de Mesquita
et al. 2003; Goemans 2000). Recent literature identifies
specific mechanisms through which international conflict
may help leaders retain power (Chiozza and Goemans
2011). When facing a heightened risk of losing office via
“irregular” means (e.g., a coup) or facing post-tenure
punishment (e.g., imprisonment or execution), leaders
may fight or gamble for survival by initiating a war in a
bid to hold on to power (Chiozza and Goemans 2011;
Debs and Goemans 2010; Goemans 2000). Alternatively,
when leaders face a heightened risk of “regular removal”
(i.e., losing an election) but their personal well-being is
not threatened, the peace through insecurity mechanism
restrains leaders from risking conflict (Chiozza and
Goemans 2003). This research agenda has produced pow-
erful insights from a sparse set of explanatory factors—
the risks of regular or irregular removal from office.
This paper argues that not all threats to survival
should matter for international conflict. Political threats
to leaders come from varied sources within countries
(e.g., Smith 2008). I consider the implications of two dif-
ferent sources of domestic threats—institutional and
extra-institutional threats—for the theoretical mecha-
nisms linking leaders’ political survival incentives to
conflict initiation. Institutional threats come from actors
who could potentially exert some control over the ability
of a leader to maintain power within existing institutions.
Extra-institutional threats come from actors that operate
outside the institutions that govern leader survival in a
country. Existing research on leaders and conflict focuses
implicitly on institutional threats. If international con-
flict does not tend to affect or create policy benefits that
accrue to groups challenging a leader from outside an
existing institutional system, then conflict should not be
a useful response to extra-institutional threats. This
implies an important scope condition for theories of
leader survival and international conflict.
Many factors that might affect leader survival
through extra-institutional channels (e.g., revolutionary
movements, terrorist threats) are potentially endogenous
to conflict. To overcome this challenge, I draw on recent
evidence from comparative politics which suggests that
natural disasters threaten leaders’ political survival
through different mechanisms in different institutional
settings (Quiroz Flores and Smith 2013). Leaders of
798512PRQXXX10.1177/1065912918798512Political Research QuarterlyDiLorenzo
research-article2018
1Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Matthew DiLorenzo, Department of Political Science & Geography,
Old Dominion University, 7010 Batten Arts & Letters, Norfolk, VA
23529, USA.
Email: mdiloren@odu.edu
Leader Survival, Sources of Political
Insecurity, and International Conflict
Matthew DiLorenzo1
Abstract
Recent research identifies the risk and consequences of losing office as important factors in leaders’ decisions to
initiate international conflicts. This paper argues that the institutional source of a domestic threat to a leader should
condition the relationship between political insecurity and international conflict. Specifically, existing theoretical
mechanisms linking international conflict to security in office should not apply to threats that come from outside
a leader’s selectorate. Natural disasters provide a convenient opportunity to test this argument since others have
argued that disasters not only affect the risk that all types of leaders lose office but that they do so by creating threats
that operate through different mechanisms in different domestic institutional contexts. I find that deaths from disasters
are positively associated with conflict initiation among large-coalition leaders throughout the period of 1950 to 2007.
I also find that neither disaster deaths nor events are related to conflict behavior for small-coalition leaders. In arguing
that not all threats to leader survival matter for international conflict, the paper offers an important qualification to
theories of leader survival and international conflict.
Keywords
leader survival, international conflict, disasters, selectorate theory

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT