Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Recently, scholars in IR have returned to the subject of interstate communication, specifically the notion of signaling. States use signals to convey specific information about themselves to other states. These signals are typically intended to convince the target (or receiver) that the state is the type of actor that it claims to be (e.g. the type that is capable and willing to launch a preemptive war, committed to free-trade, a dependable ally, etc.). Conversely, states try to determine what type of actors others are. This is typically done by interpreting the actions of other states and determining whether they reveal something dispositional about that state (i.e. an attribute that is difficult to manipulate) or whether it is merely a ploy by the state to bluff its way through. Despite the recent renaissance in the study of signaling in the literature a number of theoretical gaps and omissions remain. More specifically, the literature often ignores the fact then when states send signals: a) their message is heard by multiple audiences; b) interaction with signals sent from other states may generate feedback loops; and c) they create signaling legacies that lock states into specific policies, complicating diplomacy and bargaining. This paper will evaluate the existing literature about signaling and offer a new signaling framework that utilizes a two-level game approach informed by insights from both realism and constructivism. To illustrate the utility of the framework the paper presents two empirical case studies. First, it examines the extent to which the interaction between Israel's doctrine of nuclear opacity and Syria's doctrine of strategic parity prevented a political settlement of the territorial dispute over the Golan Heights. Second, it evaluates the German state's need to send seemingly conflicting signals of antimilitarism and multilateralism-to its domestic and international audiences, respectively-and how that shaped Germany's role in the 1999 NATO-led bombing campaign against Serbia.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: A wide range of literature on international conflict has considered the role of signaling, particularly with respect to bargaining between agents in crisis situations. Recent research has begun to explore the role that signaling plays in conflict within states. Given imperfect information, both states and competing insurgent groups have incentives to signal their abilities and loyalties not only to each other as adversaries but also to their citizen audiences. Although this costly signaling is often studied by looking at the insurgent group’s willingness to engage in violence and/or terrorism, this need not be the case. This paper argues that the provision of goods and services can serve as a powerful signal that an insurgent group—particularly a separatist group—has a functional ability to govern. This type of signaling is particularly effective when it is directed toward vulnerable populations, for example, in the context of a natural disaster. The logic and effectiveness of this particular type of signaling is explored in the context of the conflicts in Indonesia and Sri Lanka in the wake of the 2004 tsunami.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Background and Aims: Signal detection methodology is applied to the study of mother-infant interaction in order to separate maternal sensory sensitivity to infant affective signals from response bias. For the infant, affective signals are the primary means of communication by which he or she engages the caregiver. The mother relies on changes in her infant’s facial and vocal expression to provide her with feedback as she attempts to regulate the infant’s affect. Gender related patterns in mother’s response to the infant’s affective displays have been reported. Using signal detection methodology, this study examined differences in mothers’ sensory sensitivity and response bias to infants’ positive and negative expressions as influenced by labeling the stimulus ‘male’ or ‘female.’

Methods: Sixty-nine mothers, each with a 6-month-old infant, participated in the signal detection task. This methodology measures sensory sensitivity independent of response bias which affects the decision-making process. The task assessed mothers' ability to differentiate between the standard of a given facial expression and one of six variants which differed slightly along a continuum of morphed pictures varying in affect intensity. Mothers were randomly assigned to receive either the male or female label. For each of the two stimulus sets (positive and negative expression), two measures were calculated: 1) sensory sensitivity–the ability to differentiate between the standard and a given variant and 2) response bias – a same/different response preference.

Key Results: A MANOVA yielded a gender manipulation effect on sensory sensitivity to the positive expression, p < .02, and a marginal effect on the negative expression, p < .09. Lower scores reflect greater sensitivity. Mothers who received the female manipulation were 1) more sensitive to the positive expression (M = 2.43) compared to mothers receiving the male manipulation (M = 3.10), and 2) more sensitivity to negative expression (M = 2.74) compared to those receiving the male manipulation (M = 3.04). Also, mothers who received the female manipulation had a response bias reflecting a tendency toward pressing the different response choice compared with the same response choice (M = .57) compared with those who received the male manipulation (M = .74) which indicated no response bias, p < .02.

Conclusions: These results demonstrate advantages of signal detection methodology in examining the unique contribution of signal processing and responses bias in mothers’ response to infants’ affective signaling. The study has identified early differences in maternal response as a function of gender which has implications for the gendered socialization of emotion.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: In April 2005, tens of thousands of anti-Japanese protesters took to the streets of China’s largest cities, condemning Japan’s textbook revisions, its U.N. Security Council bid, and its claim to resources in the waters between China and Japan. The anti-Japanese protests demonstrated the capacity for mass collective action among China’s urban elite and potentially laid the groundwork for future challenges to the government itself. Given the risk to regime stability that these demonstrations posed, why did China’s authoritarian leaders permit the anti-Japanese protests to go on for weeks before reining them in? The 2005 Chinese protests are just one illustration of a larger puzzle: when will authoritarian leaders allow and even encourage anti-foreign protests, and when will they seek to prevent or crack down upon anti-foreign demonstrations? In this paper, which presents the preliminary results of my dissertation fieldwork, I suggest that the government’s decision to allow anti-foreign protests in April 2005 was a strategic choice--to use the specter of domestic instability and the escalating costs of domestic repression to gain leverage over Japan on the UN Security Council negotiations. Contrary to the standard literature on audience costs, I suggest that authoritarian governments can indeed generate credible signals vis-à-vis the decision to allow nationalistic protests.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Two broad globalization trends are widely seen as affecting democratic governance in the advanced democracies: open-economies and liberalization (or privatization). Both trends are seen by some as reducing the role of elected officials in shaping domestic economic outcomes. The implication is that the ability of voters to hold decision makers accountable for economic outcomes is undermined. In this essay we explain how these two dimensions of globalization condition the economic vote. We show how both of these trends affect the voter’s assessment of the incumbent’s “competency” for macro-economic outcomes.
Voters in our theory are instrumentally rational and are motivated by selection: They want to elect competent managers of the macro-economy and hence use historical fluctuations in the macro-economy to establish the extent to which economic outcomes are the result of incumbent competency as opposed to exogenous factors. We argue that the extent to which a country’s economy is open to international trade and the degree to which the state sector is limited (as opposed to expansive in scope) has important implications for the quality of this competency signal.
Globalization is hypothesized to decrease the incumbent’s competency signal and hence depress economic voting. On the other hand, a more limited state sector (our measure of the extent of privatization or liberalization in a country) is hypothesized to increase the incumbent’s competency signal which tends to increase the economic vote. We provide evidence to this effect based on 163 national surveys conducted in 19 countries over a 22 year period (1979-2001).
First, we describe our competency theory of the economic vote, a theory explicitly designed to explain, in a general fashion, how context affects economic voting. We then derive hypotheses from this theory regarding the impact of open-economies and liberalization (two key features of globalization) on economic voting (our indicator of democratic accountability). This is followed by a brief description of the data and measurements. With hypotheses and data in hand we then proceed to empirical tests of the propositions.