'Yes Men' and the Likelihood of Foreign Policy Mistakes Across Dictatorships
Year: 2009
Type: preprint
Abstract: In this paper, we look at how institutional differences across dictatorships affect the quality of the military intelligence that dictators receive from their subordinates. We argue that when dictators have a say in the selection of their elite advisory group, this lessens the caliber of intelligence and increases the likelihood that dictators will make foreign policy errors. We analyze this dynamic in personalist, military, and single-party dictatorships. We show that personalist dictators have a greater say in the selection of their advisory group than military or single-party dictators do and, as a result, are more likely to commit foreign policy blunders. We detail our argument using the case of Iraq under Saddam Hussein. We then test it quantitatively by looking at the likelihood that dictatorships will misread threats sent to them during inter-state disputes. We find positive support: personalist dictatorships exhibit more uncertainty in their responses to threats than do military or single-party dictatorships. When states provoke personalist dictatorships, they should not assume that they are dealing with a predictable and well-informed adversary.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Authors: Erica Frantz, Natasha Ezrow
Institution: Bridgewater State University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1512244861