Peer-Reviewed Publications
Governmental Responses to Terrorism in Autocracies: Evidence from China
(with Philip Potter)
British Journal of Political Science 52, no. 1 (2022): 358-380. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123420000514.
Autocracies are widely assumed to have a counterterrorism advantage because they can censor media and are insulated from public opinion, thereby depriving terrorists of both their audience and political leverage. However, institutionalized autocracies such as China draw legitimacy from public approval and feature partially free media environments, meaning that their information strategies must be much more sophisticated than simple censorship. To better understand the strategic considerations that govern decisions about transparency in this context, we explore the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) treatment of domestic terrorist incidents in the official party mouthpiece—the People’s Daily. Drawing on original, comprehensive datasets of all known Uyghur terrorist violence in China and the official coverage of that violence, we demonstrate that the CCP promptly acknowledges terrorist violence only when both domestic and international conditions are favorable. We attribute this pattern to the entrenched prioritization of short-term social stability over longer-term legitimacy.
Governmental Responses to Terrorism in Autocracies: Evidence from China
(with Philip Potter)
British Journal of Political Science 52, no. 1 (2022): 358-380. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123420000514.
Autocracies are widely assumed to have a counterterrorism advantage because they can censor media and are insulated from public opinion, thereby depriving terrorists of both their audience and political leverage. However, institutionalized autocracies such as China draw legitimacy from public approval and feature partially free media environments, meaning that their information strategies must be much more sophisticated than simple censorship. To better understand the strategic considerations that govern decisions about transparency in this context, we explore the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) treatment of domestic terrorist incidents in the official party mouthpiece—the People’s Daily. Drawing on original, comprehensive datasets of all known Uyghur terrorist violence in China and the official coverage of that violence, we demonstrate that the CCP promptly acknowledges terrorist violence only when both domestic and international conditions are favorable. We attribute this pattern to the entrenched prioritization of short-term social stability over longer-term legitimacy.
Domestic Polarization and Great Power Competition: How Adversaries Respond to America’s Partisan Politics
(with Rachel Myrick)
Journal of Politics, Forthcoming
How do foreign rivals perceive and respond to heightened domestic polarization in the United States? The conventional thinking is that polarization weakens and distracts the U.S., emboldening its adversaries. However, untested assumptions underlie this claim. We use two strategies to explore mechanisms linking domestic polarization and international rivalry. First, we field a sur- vey experiment in China to examine how heightening perceptions of U.S. polarization affects public attitudes towards Chinese foreign policy. Second, we investigate how U.S. rival governments responded to an episode of extreme partisanship: the U.S. Capitol attacks on January 6, 2021. Drawing on ICEWS event data, we explore whether foreign rivals increased hostility towards the U.S. following the Capitol riots. Both studies fail to show robust evidence for the emboldening hypothesis. Extreme polarization has other negative consequences for American foreign policy, but we find no evidence that it makes adversaries materially more assertive towards the United States.
(with Rachel Myrick)
Journal of Politics, Forthcoming
How do foreign rivals perceive and respond to heightened domestic polarization in the United States? The conventional thinking is that polarization weakens and distracts the U.S., emboldening its adversaries. However, untested assumptions underlie this claim. We use two strategies to explore mechanisms linking domestic polarization and international rivalry. First, we field a sur- vey experiment in China to examine how heightening perceptions of U.S. polarization affects public attitudes towards Chinese foreign policy. Second, we investigate how U.S. rival governments responded to an episode of extreme partisanship: the U.S. Capitol attacks on January 6, 2021. Drawing on ICEWS event data, we explore whether foreign rivals increased hostility towards the U.S. following the Capitol riots. Both studies fail to show robust evidence for the emboldening hypothesis. Extreme polarization has other negative consequences for American foreign policy, but we find no evidence that it makes adversaries materially more assertive towards the United States.
Move First to Avoid the Worst: Leadership Turnover and the Targeting of New Leaders
International Studies Quarterly, Accepted
Are leaders more likely to face militarized challenges earlier in their tenure? Existing studies posit contradictory hypotheses: new leaders can both invite challengers to take advantage of their inexperience, and deter challengers by their strong incentive to establish a reputation for resolve. This paper seeks to reconcile these competing propositions by developing an argument that centers on the direction of foreign policy preference change associated with leadership turnover. I argue that foreign adversaries are likely to challenge a new leader in their rival state only when the newcomer is perceived to be more hawkish than the predecessor. The perception of a heightened risk of conflict accompanied with the emergence of a more hawkish leader in the rival state gives foreign adversaries stronger incentive to seek for an early confrontation in which they can (re)demonstrate their own position to the new hawk. In contrast, when the newcomer is perceived to be more dovish than the predecessor, optimistic expectations of future interactions tend to restrain foreign adversaries from provoking the new dove whose reputation concern is high. A series of statistical analyses on post-WWII dyadic-rivalries with democratically elected leaders on the target side yield strong evidence that supports this conditional hypothesis.
International Studies Quarterly, Accepted
Are leaders more likely to face militarized challenges earlier in their tenure? Existing studies posit contradictory hypotheses: new leaders can both invite challengers to take advantage of their inexperience, and deter challengers by their strong incentive to establish a reputation for resolve. This paper seeks to reconcile these competing propositions by developing an argument that centers on the direction of foreign policy preference change associated with leadership turnover. I argue that foreign adversaries are likely to challenge a new leader in their rival state only when the newcomer is perceived to be more hawkish than the predecessor. The perception of a heightened risk of conflict accompanied with the emergence of a more hawkish leader in the rival state gives foreign adversaries stronger incentive to seek for an early confrontation in which they can (re)demonstrate their own position to the new hawk. In contrast, when the newcomer is perceived to be more dovish than the predecessor, optimistic expectations of future interactions tend to restrain foreign adversaries from provoking the new dove whose reputation concern is high. A series of statistical analyses on post-WWII dyadic-rivalries with democratically elected leaders on the target side yield strong evidence that supports this conditional hypothesis.
Working Paper/Work in Progress
The Strategic Logic of China’s Counter-Terrorism Foreign Policy
(with Philip Potter)
(Under Review, R & R)
Counter-terrorism joint military exercises (CT-JMEs) with foreign forces provide a unique window into China’s capabilities and policies. Drawing on an original dataset of China's CT-JMEs from 2002-2016, we argue that a series of competing priorities drive the Chinese approach to CT-JMEs. China relies on CT-JMEs as a dual-use tool for burnishing relationships with strategic partners and enhancing the combat readiness of the PLA. At the same time, concerns about the potential for blowback from militant organizations conditions Beijing’s impulse to engage in these exercises. These countervailing incentives and constraints lead China to invest in CT-JMEs as a form of military diplomacy, but selectively. Two patterns emerge from the data that lend support to this argument. First, China has cautiously targeted CT-JME engagement only toward countries where the threat of militancy is high, and China has significant economic interests. Second, countries that spend more time on CT-JMEs with China are more aligned with China’s diplomatic preferences at the United Nations, suggesting that Beijing’s approach has been effective.
(with Philip Potter)
(Under Review, R & R)
Counter-terrorism joint military exercises (CT-JMEs) with foreign forces provide a unique window into China’s capabilities and policies. Drawing on an original dataset of China's CT-JMEs from 2002-2016, we argue that a series of competing priorities drive the Chinese approach to CT-JMEs. China relies on CT-JMEs as a dual-use tool for burnishing relationships with strategic partners and enhancing the combat readiness of the PLA. At the same time, concerns about the potential for blowback from militant organizations conditions Beijing’s impulse to engage in these exercises. These countervailing incentives and constraints lead China to invest in CT-JMEs as a form of military diplomacy, but selectively. Two patterns emerge from the data that lend support to this argument. First, China has cautiously targeted CT-JME engagement only toward countries where the threat of militancy is high, and China has significant economic interests. Second, countries that spend more time on CT-JMEs with China are more aligned with China’s diplomatic preferences at the United Nations, suggesting that Beijing’s approach has been effective.
Today Ukraine Tomorrow Taiwan? A Survey Experiment on Chinese Perceptions of U.S. Reputation for Resolve
(With Rachel Myrick)
(Under Review)
When does a state’s reputation for resolve transfer across international crises? We propose three assumptions underlying ``Transferability of Reputation.” First, a defender’s response to a crisis leads a new challenger to reassess the defender's reputation (\textit{reputation formation}). Second, the new challenger sees the crisis as comparable to a future crisis (\textit{situational comparability}). Third, anticipating the defender's response, the challenger changes its preferences (\textit{adversary-oriented decision-making}). We test the theory by examining whether the initial U.S. response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine impacted Chinese assertiveness towards Taiwan. A framing experiment in China in March 2022 finds that a weak U.S. response to Russian aggression decreases the U.S.’s general reputation for resolve. However, it neither substantially shapes expectations about how the U.S. would respond to a Taiwan crisis nor changes Chinese attitudes towards Taiwan. Our results demonstrate limitations of transferability of reputation arguments, which have been invoked to justify force in foreign affairs.
(With Rachel Myrick)
(Under Review)
When does a state’s reputation for resolve transfer across international crises? We propose three assumptions underlying ``Transferability of Reputation.” First, a defender’s response to a crisis leads a new challenger to reassess the defender's reputation (\textit{reputation formation}). Second, the new challenger sees the crisis as comparable to a future crisis (\textit{situational comparability}). Third, anticipating the defender's response, the challenger changes its preferences (\textit{adversary-oriented decision-making}). We test the theory by examining whether the initial U.S. response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine impacted Chinese assertiveness towards Taiwan. A framing experiment in China in March 2022 finds that a weak U.S. response to Russian aggression decreases the U.S.’s general reputation for resolve. However, it neither substantially shapes expectations about how the U.S. would respond to a Taiwan crisis nor changes Chinese attitudes towards Taiwan. Our results demonstrate limitations of transferability of reputation arguments, which have been invoked to justify force in foreign affairs.
The U.S. Allies Under Fire: Terrorist Target Selection among Democracies
(with Ruixing Cao)
Working Paper
The majority of research on why democracies tend to be more vulnerable to transnational terrorism is focused exclusively on domestic institutional factors. Although institutional constraints and democratic accountability make the perpetration of attacks and message delivery cheaper and easier, not all democratic states are able to effectively meet terrorists' end goals by changing their policies. In other words, an ideal target should provide perpetrators with both ideal theaters where their actions could be carried out and ideal audience who can afford their causes. This paper argues that close democratic allies of the U.S. constitute such an ideal type of target, for they tend to be perceived as relatively easier targets than authoritarian states, being more able to effectively influence the course of terrorists' struggle than other peripheral democracies, and being less resolute in the global war on terror than the U.S. itself. To test this argument, this paper develops a novel measure of a country's coreness in the U.S.-centric network that takes into consideration of military deployment, UN voting, and economic interdependence. Using this measure, empirical analyses demonstrate that the widely proved positive relationship between being a democracy and the probability of being targeted by transnational terrorists is largely conditional on a country's affinity to the U.S. as peripheral democracies do not experience significantly more attacks than do autocracies. These findings confirm that violence is only the tool not the end; terrorists attack those who are able to meet their needs
(with Ruixing Cao)
Working Paper
The majority of research on why democracies tend to be more vulnerable to transnational terrorism is focused exclusively on domestic institutional factors. Although institutional constraints and democratic accountability make the perpetration of attacks and message delivery cheaper and easier, not all democratic states are able to effectively meet terrorists' end goals by changing their policies. In other words, an ideal target should provide perpetrators with both ideal theaters where their actions could be carried out and ideal audience who can afford their causes. This paper argues that close democratic allies of the U.S. constitute such an ideal type of target, for they tend to be perceived as relatively easier targets than authoritarian states, being more able to effectively influence the course of terrorists' struggle than other peripheral democracies, and being less resolute in the global war on terror than the U.S. itself. To test this argument, this paper develops a novel measure of a country's coreness in the U.S.-centric network that takes into consideration of military deployment, UN voting, and economic interdependence. Using this measure, empirical analyses demonstrate that the widely proved positive relationship between being a democracy and the probability of being targeted by transnational terrorists is largely conditional on a country's affinity to the U.S. as peripheral democracies do not experience significantly more attacks than do autocracies. These findings confirm that violence is only the tool not the end; terrorists attack those who are able to meet their needs
Wait for the Right Time: Leader's Tenure and International Cooperation
Work in Progress
What types of leaders are better positioned to promote international cooperation? On one hand, “only Nixon could go to China” is often used as a shorthand label to describe the domestic advantage enjoyed by hawkish leaders in pursuing reconciliation with foreign enemies. On the other hand, scholars have argued that incentive to avoid tougher opponent in the future tends to cause foreign adversaries to be more willing to reciprocate cooperation from a dovish leader in the rival state. This paper demonstrates that these two seemingly contradictory propositions are both correct, but are insufficient as they stand. Particularly lacking is a dynamic perspective that takes into consideration leaders’ changing ability to clear domestic barriers for cooperating with foreign adversaries across their tenure. Specifically, this paper argues that foreign adversaries should have a clear preference to work with dovish leaders in their rival states, but are also aware of the domestic disadvantage facing doves in reciprocating cooperation. As a result, foreign adversaries are only willing to initiate substantive cooperation when a dovish leader has accumulated enough experience and political capital at home. This pattern is most likely to arise when the new dovish leader in the rival state replaces a hawkish predecessor. Under this scenario, the bilateral relationship between two states is likely to be still locked-in tension and hostility, which gives foreign adversaries more incentive to wait for the right time to seek cooperation. Observational studies that drawn on event data shows that foreign adversaries tend to initiate more cooperation attempts toward leaders who are more Left-leaning than their predecessor, but only as the recipient leaders' time in office increases. A survey experiment demonstrates that US public's approval of the US president's cooperation with foreign adversaries is highly conditional on their perception of the president's competence to make right decisions.
Work in Progress
What types of leaders are better positioned to promote international cooperation? On one hand, “only Nixon could go to China” is often used as a shorthand label to describe the domestic advantage enjoyed by hawkish leaders in pursuing reconciliation with foreign enemies. On the other hand, scholars have argued that incentive to avoid tougher opponent in the future tends to cause foreign adversaries to be more willing to reciprocate cooperation from a dovish leader in the rival state. This paper demonstrates that these two seemingly contradictory propositions are both correct, but are insufficient as they stand. Particularly lacking is a dynamic perspective that takes into consideration leaders’ changing ability to clear domestic barriers for cooperating with foreign adversaries across their tenure. Specifically, this paper argues that foreign adversaries should have a clear preference to work with dovish leaders in their rival states, but are also aware of the domestic disadvantage facing doves in reciprocating cooperation. As a result, foreign adversaries are only willing to initiate substantive cooperation when a dovish leader has accumulated enough experience and political capital at home. This pattern is most likely to arise when the new dovish leader in the rival state replaces a hawkish predecessor. Under this scenario, the bilateral relationship between two states is likely to be still locked-in tension and hostility, which gives foreign adversaries more incentive to wait for the right time to seek cooperation. Observational studies that drawn on event data shows that foreign adversaries tend to initiate more cooperation attempts toward leaders who are more Left-leaning than their predecessor, but only as the recipient leaders' time in office increases. A survey experiment demonstrates that US public's approval of the US president's cooperation with foreign adversaries is highly conditional on their perception of the president's competence to make right decisions.
A Survey Experiment on Discriminate Targeting Strategy in Diplomatic Communication
Work in Progress
The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by an increasingly escalatory “war of words” between China and the US. A clear targeting pattern has emerged on both sides. US officials have consistently targeted “the CCP (Chinese Communist Party)” instead of “China” in their public statements and condemnations. In response, the Chinese side also moved away from “the US” to “Republican politicians” and then to specific persons like “Pompeo” and “Navarro” in their official statements. The rationale behind the discriminate targeting strategy is straightforward: delegitimize the ruler without alienating the ruled (or at least part of the ruled). However, despite the intuition, relatively little is known about the real effect of discriminate targeting on the public opinion of the target state. Not only might the effect of the discriminate targeting be too weak to make any substantive difference, but also the strategy could backfire, fueling animosity and promoting unity in the target state if the strategy is perceived as a deliberate attempt to sow dissension. Preliminary results from a survey experiment that uses a 2020 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey (CCES) module indicate that this strategy is partially working. Respondents who voted for Clinton in 2016 tend to view China as significantly less threatening when the Chinese official condemnation targets Republican politicians as opposed to the United States as a nation.
Work in Progress
The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by an increasingly escalatory “war of words” between China and the US. A clear targeting pattern has emerged on both sides. US officials have consistently targeted “the CCP (Chinese Communist Party)” instead of “China” in their public statements and condemnations. In response, the Chinese side also moved away from “the US” to “Republican politicians” and then to specific persons like “Pompeo” and “Navarro” in their official statements. The rationale behind the discriminate targeting strategy is straightforward: delegitimize the ruler without alienating the ruled (or at least part of the ruled). However, despite the intuition, relatively little is known about the real effect of discriminate targeting on the public opinion of the target state. Not only might the effect of the discriminate targeting be too weak to make any substantive difference, but also the strategy could backfire, fueling animosity and promoting unity in the target state if the strategy is perceived as a deliberate attempt to sow dissension. Preliminary results from a survey experiment that uses a 2020 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey (CCES) module indicate that this strategy is partially working. Respondents who voted for Clinton in 2016 tend to view China as significantly less threatening when the Chinese official condemnation targets Republican politicians as opposed to the United States as a nation.