Saber Rattling

As scholars, we observe the world and come across a phenomenon that piques our curiosity. Some of the problems I have worked on in the past are the following:

• How do outputs from public bureaucracies respond to political influence?• How does presidential approval affect presidential success in Congress?• What determines the relative liberalism of Supreme Court opinions?• What determines the relative liberalism of Senator voting?• How do presidential efforts to persuade affect public opinion?• Do presidents respond to the relative liberalism of the mass public?• How does presidential optimism about the economy affect economic behavior

and performance?

Let’s work through one example

Presidential Saber Rattling

Following September 11, 2001 I became curious about why American presidents threaten other nations and external actors.

It seemed that George W. Bush was making numerous threats toward a multiplicity of other nations, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North Korea. And, it seemed like a topic that should be of interest to others.

What is the research concept here?

What are some other examples of research concepts?

Polarization Political representation Democratic or Political Responsiveness Equity Liberalism/Conservatism of …. Voting behavior Political behavior Uses of force War Trade Outcomes The list is endless.

How do we know if a research concept is important to study?

It may simply be something we are curious about. The most important criterion. We have a “burning desire” to know.

Has important implications theoretically. Contributes to a preexisting theory of political behavior.

Has important implications substantively. Holds the potential to influence policy or reveal something interesting about political behavior.

Is likely to be viewed with interest by other scholars in the discipline.

We should have a clear definition of our research concepts before we are prepared to study it.

How might we define our research concept “presidential saber rattling”?

Defined narrowly, saber rattling is “a show or threat of military power, especially as used by a nation to impose its policies on other countries.” (Random House 2007)

The term is used in my research to imply threats of either a general or specific nature directed toward other nations, international actors, or interests.

Specifically, I code saber rattling to include economic threats, political threats, deterrence threats, and overt military threats.

Dependent Variable – the dependent variable is a variable measuring the research concept you want to explain.

Independent Variable – an independent variable is a variable measuring a research concept which will do the explaining.

Commonly, relations are expressed in the form of an equation which consists of a dependent variable, independent variables, coefficients which mathematize the relations, as well as a stochastic error term.

I used a combination of machine and human coding techniques to identify all instances of presidential saber rattling recorded in Public Papers of the Presidents from April 1945 through December 2008. Saber rattling was coded at the sentence level and then aggregated by month to produce time series. Here are some representative examples of presidential saber rattling.

President Truman, April 30, 1951 – “If the Soviet Union chooses to unleash a general war, the free world must be in a position to stop the attack and strike back decisively and at once at the seats of Soviet Power.”

President Kennedy, October 22, 1962 – “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring the full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”

  President Carter, January 8, 1980 – “They know that the consequences to Iran will be

quite severe if our hostages are injured or killed …”  President Reagan, January 7, 1986 – “In light of this latest evidence of Libya's growing

role in international terrorism, it is clear that steps taken so far have not been sufficient…”

  President George W. Bush, September 14, 2001 – “I can hear you, the rest of the world

hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

The Founders did not intend for presidents to be the only national representative in the foreign policy arena. They envisioned shared representation between Congress and the Executive. Why?

Yet, future Supreme Court Justice John Marshall stated in 1800 when he served in the U.S. House of Representatives “The President is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations.” (10 Annals of Congress 613)

Given this now widely-accepted presidential role, how do presidents go about representing the nation?

Are they statesmen? Are they self-interested partisans? Are they driven by emotions, ambition, or self-interest?

Do any of these modes of representation manifest themselves through presidential saber rattling?

Statesman Model - Many of the Founders believed that presidents should always be motivated by the nation’s best interests. They should be virtuous and wise leaders, divorced from their passions and personal considerations, beyond the partisan fray, oblivious to the press and whims of public opinion, with behavior motivated solely by the common good. Using this theoretical model hypothesize about why presidents would threaten other nations?

Rational Choice - The “statesman” ideal of presidential representation endorsed by the Founders runs counter to much modern social science theory and research on what motivates politicians. The dominant theoretical model used today to explain politician behavior is grounded in “rational choice.” Rational choice argues that self-interest, rather than community-interest, drives most political behavior. Using this theoretical model hypothesize about why presidents would threaten other nations?

Pragmatist Model - In fact, it may be “rational” for presidents to pursue both statesmanship and self-interested support-seeking. Statesmanship may actually help build support through recognition of presidential wisdom and virtue. Presidents also need adequate domestic support in order to be able to pursue statesmanship. Therefore, they may be pragmatists in their manner of presidential representation. Under this model, hypothesize about why presidents would threaten other nations?

STATESMANSHIP

Indicator for War (+). An indicator is also called a “dummy variable.” It is like a switch, coded on (i.e., 1) when the process occurs and off (i.e., 0) when the process is not occurring.

Indicator for foreign policy crises and events (+) identified from http://spiritus-temporis.com .

SUPPORT-SEEKING

Indicators for election season (+), scandal (+), and unified government (+/-).

Gallup approval (-/+)

The Economy - Coincident Index of Concurrent Indicators (-/+)

Media frenzy (+), defined as counts of media stories associated with crises and events until a return to equilibrium levels. The counts are aggregated by month.

Following are some research results based on statistical analysis of the dependent variable, saber rattling, and independent variables on the preceding slides.

RESEARCH CONCLUSIONSRESEARCH CONCLUSIONS

As statesmen, presidents respond as expected by making threats toward adversaries during times of war, crisis, and when threatening events occur.

As support-seekers, • The intensity of presidential threats increases during election seasons.• Presidents are also partisans pandering to their base. Republican

presidents threaten more often than Democrats.• Presidents also respond, with increased threats, to the frequent media

frenzies that have characterized American foreign policy since the 1980s.

• Presidents do not respond systematically to the institutional alignment with respect to Congress.

• Presidents do not respond strategically to declining approval ratings, a bad economy, or scandal.

The larger implication of this study is that presidents are not the dispassionate statesmen suggested by Founders’ model of presidential representation.

They are also not the crass support-seekers suggested by pure rational choice explanations emphasizing a relentless presidential thrust toward maximizing domestic support.

Rather, the truth lies somewhere in between these two extremes. Presidents are pragmatists, sometimes responding as statesmen on behalf of the nation to external threats, and at other times seeking to maintain and increase their domestic support.