DOMESTIC POLITICAL VULNERABILITY AND INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES

The proposition that domestic political vulnerability provides an ince ntive for leaders to engage in international conflict has been widely accepted because of appealing logic and anecdotal support. Although em pirical studies of U.S. behavior during the cold war era have demonstr ated some support for a relationship between domestic political vulner ability and aggressive international behavior, the generalizability of these tests should not be assumed. In fact, there is little empirical evidence in support of this relationship as a general pattern. This s tudy assesses theories linking domestic political vulnerability to int ernational disputes on a cross-national basis by examining the relatio nships between economic decline, the electoral cycle, and measures of aggressive international action for 18 advanced industrialized democra cies during the period from 1952 to 1988. The authors find no consiste nt support for a relationship between constraining domestic political conditions and international behavior. Instead, fewer international de mands are made on politically vulnerable leaders. Due to strategic int eraction in the international system, just when a state leader might b e most willing to act aggressively, he or she is likely to have the le ast opportunity to do so. Variance in the behavior of international ri vals may explain the lack of an empirical relationship between domesti c political conditions and foreign policy behavior.