IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ginixx/v28y2002i1p5-29.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Selection Effects and Deterrence

Author

Listed:
  • James Fearon

Abstract

The empirical question of how often deterrent threats issued during international disputes succeed has been hotly debated for years, with some researchers arguing that virtually no robust cases of success can be identified. I argue that what appears to be an empirical and methodological debate actually arises from the inadequacy of classical rational deterrence theory, which fails to comprehend the implications of states' strategic self-selection into international disputes. Rational self-selection is shown to imply that in a sample of crises, deterrent threats issued after an initial challenge will tend to fail in precisely those cases where they are relatively most credible signals of an intent to resist with force. The product of a selection effect, this paradoxical implication allows a resolution of the debate on the efficacy of deterrence in crises. And because selection effects can arise whenever a historical "case" is the product of choices by actors who also influence the outcome in question, this example from the study of deterrence has broad relevance for empirical research.

Suggested Citation

  • James Fearon, 2002. "Selection Effects and Deterrence," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 5-29, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ginixx:v:28:y:2002:i:1:p:5-29
    DOI: 10.1080/03050620210390
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03050620210390
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/03050620210390?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Christian Fahrholz, 2007. "A Nash Threat Game of Passing Through Exchange Rate Mechanism II," Jena Economics Research Papers 2007-050, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    2. Muhammet A Bas & Curtis S Signorino & Taehee Whang, 2014. "Knowing one’s future preferences: A correlated agent model with Bayesian updating," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 26(1), pages 3-34, January.
    3. Renato Corbetta & Keith A. Grant, 2012. "Intervention in Conflicts from a Network Perspective," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 29(3), pages 314-340, July.
    4. Kyungwon Suh, 2023. "Nuclear balance and the initiation of nuclear crises: Does superiority matter?," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 60(2), pages 337-351, March.
    5. Brandon Valeriano & Ryan C. Maness, 2018. "How We Stopped Worrying about Cyber Doom and Started Collecting Data," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(2), pages 49-60.
    6. Renato Corbetta, 2015. "Between indifference and coercion: Third-party intervention techniques in ongoing disputes," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(1), pages 3-27, February.
    7. Raymond Dacey, 2005. "The Status of Likelihood Claims in International Relations and Peace Science," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 22(3), pages 189-200, July.
    8. Todd S. Sechser, 2011. "Militarized Compellent Threats, 1918–2001," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 28(4), pages 377-401, September.
    9. Brock F. Tessman & Steve Chan, 2004. "Power Cycles, Risk Propensity, and Great-Power Deterrence," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 48(2), pages 131-153, April.
    10. Molly M. Melin, 2015. "Escalation in international conflict management: A foreign policy perspective," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(1), pages 28-49, February.

    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:taf:ginixx:v:28:y:2002:i:1:p:5-29. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/GINI20 .

    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.