Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T15:52:58.383Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Hawkish Partisans: How Political Parties Shape Nationalist Conflicts in China and Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2020

Trevor Incerti
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
Daniel Mattingly
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
Frances Rosenbluth*
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
Seiki Tanaka
Affiliation:
University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
Jiahua Yue
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: frances.rosenbluth@yale.edu

Abstract

It is well known that regime types affect international conflicts. This article explores political parties as a mechanism through which they do so. Political parties operate in fundamentally different ways in democracies vs. non-democracies, which has consequences for foreign policy. Core supporters of a party in a democracy, if they are hawkish, may be more successful at demanding hawkish behavior from their party representatives than would be their counterparts in an autocracy. The study draws on evidence from paired experiments in democratic Japan and non-democratic China to show that supporters of the ruling party in Japan punish their leaders for discouraging nationalist protests, while ruling party insiders in China are less likely to do so. Under some circumstances, then, non-democratic regimes may be better able to rein in peace-threatening displays of nationalism.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aldrich, JH (1995) Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertoli, A, Dafoe, A and Trager, RF (2017) Is there a war party? Party change, the left–right divide, and international conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution 63(4), 950975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bian, Y, Shu, X and Logan, JR (2001) Communist party membership and regime dynamics in China. Social Forces 79(3), 805841.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caillaud, B and Tirole, J (2002) Parties as political intermediaries. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(4), 14531489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cantoni, D et al. (2017) Curriculum and ideology. Journal of Political Economy 125(2), 338392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, SC (2006) The dynamic relationship between protest and repression. Political Research Quarterly 59(1), 111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caverley, JD and Krupnikov, Y (2017) Aiming at doves: experimental evidence of military images’ political effects. Journal of Conflict Resolution 61(7), 14821509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, J, Pan, J and Xu, Y (2016) Sources of authoritarian responsiveness: a field experiment in China. American Journal of Political Science 60(2), 383400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, GW and McCubbins, MD (1993) Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cukierman, A and Tommasi, M (1988) When does it take a Nixon to go to China? American Economic Review 88(1), 180197.Google Scholar
Dafoe, A (2011) Statistical critiques of the democratic peace: caveat emptor. American Journal of Political Science 55(2), 247262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dafoe, A, Oneal, JR and Russett, B (2013) The democratic peace: weighing the evidence and cautious inference. International Studies Quarterly 57(1), 201214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davenport, C (2007) State repression and political order. Annual Review of Political Science 10, 123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Heus, P, Hoogervorst, N and van Dijk, E (2010) Framing prisoners and chickens: valence effects in the prisoner's dilemma and the chicken game. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46(5), 736742.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Distelhorst, G and Hou, Y (2017) Constituency service under nondemocratic rule: evidence from China. The Journal of Politics 79(3), 10241040.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doyle, MW (1986) Liberalism and world politics. American Political Science Review 80(4), 11511169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duch, RM and Stevenson, RT (2008) The Economic Vote: How Political and Economic Institutions Condition Election Results. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edin, M (2003) State capacity and local agent control in China: CCP cadre management from a township perspective. The China Quarterly 173, 3552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearon, JD (1994) Domestic political audiences and the escalation of international disputes. American Political Science Review 88(3), 577592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferejohn, J (1986) Incumbent performance and electoral control. Public Choice 50(1–3), 525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flores-Macías, GA and Kreps, SE (2017) Borrowing support for war: the effect of war finance on public attitudes toward conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution 61(5), 9971020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gartner, SS (2008) The multiple effects of casualties on public support for war: an experimental approach. American Political Science Review 102(1), 95106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gehlbach, S and Keefer, P (2011) Investment without democracy: ruling-party institutionalization and credible commitment in autocracies. Journal of Comparative Economics 39(2), 123139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelpi, C, Feaver, PD and Reifler, J (1993) Paying the Human Costs of war: American Public Opinion and Casualties in Military Conflicts, vol. 24. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gibler, DM (2007) Bordering on peace: democracy, territorial issues, and conflict. International Studies Quarterly 51(3), 509532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibler, DM (2012) The Territorial Peace: Borders, State Development, and International Conflict. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gleditsch, KS, Tago, A and Tanaka, S (2019) Spurred by threats or afraid of war? A survey experiment on costs of conflict in support for military action. Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 25(2), 113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, CF (2017) The Rule of law in Japan: A Comparative Analysis. Kluwer Law International BV.Google Scholar
Hainmueller, J, Hopkins, DJ and Yamamoto, T (2014) Causal inference in conjoint analysis: understanding multidimensional choices via stated preference experiments. Political Analysis 22(1), 130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Incerti, T, Mattingly, D, Rosenbluth, F, Tanaka, S and Yue, J (2020) “Replication Data for: ‘Hawkish Partisans: How Political Parties Shape Nationalist Conflicts in China and Japan’”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/S4YXQB, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:buDbYseMies6ECMXeHCmqA== [fileUNF]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, I (1975) Perpetual peace: A philosophical essay. Available from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50922/50922-h/50922-h.htm.Google Scholar
Kertzer, JD and Brutger, R (2016) Decomposing audience costs: bringing the audience back into audience cost theory. American Journal of Political Science 60(1), 234249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuran, T (1991) Now out of never: the element of surprise in the East European revolution of 1989. World politics 44(1), 748.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lai, B and Slater, D (2005) Institutions of the offensive: domestic sources of dispute initiation in authoritarian regimes, 1950–1992. American Journal of Political Science 50(1), 113126.Google Scholar
Leeper, TJ, Hobolt, SB and Tilley, J (2020) Measuring subgroup preferences in conjoint experiments. Political Analysis. doi:10.1017/pan.2019.30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, JS (1992) An introduction to prospect theory. Political Psychology 13(2), 171186.Google Scholar
Levy, JS (1997) Prospect theory, rational choice, and international relations. International Studies Quarterly 41(1), 87112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liang, ZT, Nathan, A and Link, E (2002) The Tiananmen Papers. Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Lipscy, PY (2013) DPJ election strategy: the dilemma of landslide victory. In Funabashi, Y and Nakano, K (eds), The Democratic Party of Japan in Power: Challenges and Failures, chap. 17, 138157. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Liu, H (2018) The logic of authoritarian political selection: evidence from a conjoint experiment in China. Political Science Research and Methods 7(4), 853–870.Google Scholar
Malesky, E, Abrami, R and Zheng, Y (2011) Institutions and inequality in single-party regimes: a comparative analysis of Vietnam and China. Comparative Politics 43(4), 409427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matsui, S (2018) Fundamental human rights and ‘traditional Japanese values’: constitutional amendment and vision of the Japanese society. Asian Journal of Comparative Law 13(1), 5986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattingly, DC (2019) The Art of Political Control in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, A (2012) The Bo Xilai affair in central leadership politics. China Leadership Monitor 38, 111.Google Scholar
Mueller, J (2005) The Iraq syndrome. Foreign Affairs 84(6), 4454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nomikos, WG and Sambanis, N (2019) What is the mechanism underlying audience costs? Incompetence, belligerence, and inconsistency. Journal of Peace Research 56(4), 575588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peceny, M and Beer, CC (2003) Peaceful parties and puzzling personalists. American Political Science Review 97(2), 339342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peceny, M, Beer, CC and Sanchez-Terry, S (2002) Dictatorial peace? American Political Science Review 96(1), 1526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reiter, D and Stam, A (2002) Democracies at War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Reiter, D and Stam, AC (2003) Identifying the culprit: democracy, dictatorship, and dispute initiation. American Political Science Review 97(2), 333337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rohde, DW (1991) Parties and Leaders in the Post-Reform House. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russett, B and Oneal, J (2001) Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E (1942) Political Parties. New York: Riehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Schultz, KA (1999) Do democratic institutions constrain or inform? Contrasting two institutional perspectives on democracy and war. International Organization 53(2), 233266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schultz, KA (2001) Looking for audience costs. Journal of Conflict Resolution 45(1), 3260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schultz, KA (2005) The politics of risking peace: do hawks or doves deliver the olive branch? International Organization 59(1), 138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shih, V, Adolph, C and Liu, M (2012) Getting ahead in the Communist Party: explaining the advancement of central committee members in China. American Political Science Review 106(1), 166187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shirk, SL (1993) The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China, vol. 24. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Tanaka, S (2016) The microfoundations of territorial disputes: evidence from a survey experiment in Japan. Conflict Management and Peace Science 33(5), 516538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanaka, S, Tago, A and Gleditsch, KS (2017) Seeing the Lexus for the olive trees? Public opinion, economic interdependence, and interstate conflict. International Interactions 43(3), 375–339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tir, J (2010) Territorial diversion: diversionary theory of war and territorial conflict. Journal of Politics 72(2), 413425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomz, MR and Weeks, JL (2013) Public opinion and the democratic peace. American Political Science Review 107(4), 849865.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vasquez, JA (2009) The War Puzzle Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weeks, JL (2008) Autocratic audience costs: regime type and signaling resolve. International Organization 62(1), 3564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, JC (2013) Authoritarian signaling, mass audiences, and nationalist protest in China. International Organization 67(1), 135.Google Scholar
Weiss, JC (2019) How hawkish is the Chinese public? Another look at ‘rising nationalism’ and Chinese foreign policy. Journal of Contemporary China 28(119), 117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Incerti et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Incerti et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 2.3 MB
Supplementary material: Link

Incerti et al. Dataset

Link