Diversionary Use Research Articles

Mass Mobilization, Elite Competition, and Diversionary Use of Sanctions

Abstract How does the domestic environment affect a government's incentives to use coercion against another country? Traditional diversionary literature indicates that governments facing internal pressures will initiate military actions overseas to improve popularity. I argue that struggling governments are more inclined to employ economic sanctions over military force because of lower cost and political risk. I further posit that when governments encounter nonviolent protests and strong competition in the legislature, they have more incentives to initiate sanctions. Foreign sanctions are used to project sanctioning leaders’ competence and increase national cohesion. I test the empirical implication of the argument on a sample of 137 countries from 1975 to 2005. The multinomial logit results show that diversionary use of sanctions is more likely when incumbents face maximalist nonviolent mobilization and higher legislative opposition, but these domestic challenges do not prompt military actions. This study presents a domestic explanation for sanctions initiation; it also casts doubt on the conventional predictions that beleaguered governments will resort to the use of force.

Domestic sources of China’s wolf-warrior diplomacy: individual incentive, institutional changes and diversionary strategies

Many China observers have commented that Beijing is harsh and assertive on diplomatic occasions. By publicizing the nationalistic rhetoric and moves in internal propaganda, the PRC aims to please domestic audiences. This article examines China’s practices of ‘wolf-warrior diplomacy’, explicates the rationale behind it, and provides three plausible explanations. Firstly, the individualist explanation highlights the personal motives of ‘wolf-warrior’ diplomats. However, wolf-warrior diplomacy is not the common practice of Chinese diplomats, as most Chinese diplomats, unlike these wolf-warriors, remain conservative, taking an orthodox approach to their duties. Secondly, the institutional explanation presents a potential conflict between propaganda and diplomacy agencies in conducting waixuan (external propaganda, overseas-targeted propaganda: 外宣). I elaborate on how the changing working doctrines of waixuan have encouraged wolf-warrior diplomacy. Finally, the strategic explanation highlights how Beijing diverts the popular attention away from its domestic issues and towards ‘external threats’ and rallies popular support at home by ‘talking tough’ and ‘blaming others’. The diversionary use of assertive diplomacy also allows Beijing to avoid publicizing its policy failures, buy more time and room for manoeuvre, and plan tactical reforms while preserving its fundamental political system. I also argue that the wolf-warrior diplomacy is more of ad hoc response to perceived geopolitical risk in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic than a well-crafted strategy.

WAR AND REGIME SURVIVAL: A CASE STUDY OF THE AFGHAN WAR OF 1980S

In traditional terms when we talk about a link between war and regime survival, we find ourselves in the realm of domestic politics. It is well documented that the leaders use diversionary force to exploit the domestic audience. However, in this study, we argue that, depending on their level of dependence on the external sources of power, leaders may also use force to impress upon the external audience to extract moral and material support for the survival of their regimes. Here, we find strong evidence of a link between domestic and external factors in the context of the superpowers and their clients. In other words, we emphasize the dynamics of in-group/out-group hypothesis of the diversionary use of force to the alliance behavior of the superpowers and their clients. Keywords: Legitimacy, Pattern-Client Relationship, Alliances, Superpower, Cold War, Third World.

Political Protests and the Diversionary Use of Media: Evidence from China

This research examines whether and to what extent political protests affect media coverage on external conflict in China for the purpose of diversion. Though there has been little evidence suggesting a diversionary use of force in contemporary China, we argue that, as the number of political protests increases, state-owned media are likely to expose the populace to media reports of external conflict as a way to divert public attention from domestic troubles/issues and instigate their nationalist sentiments. Our time-series analyses of China's weekly data from Global Times, one of the most influential Chinese tabloids, from February 2011 through December 2018 confirm this expectation. By weighting news reports based on the number of reposts of each report, which is significantly influenced by the 50c's activities, this study also accounts for the extent to which political protests affect the government's diversionary efforts. Esta investigación analiza si, y en qué medida, las protestas políticas impactan en la cobertura sobre conflictos externos por parte de los medios de comunicación en China como estrategia de distracción. Si bien la evidencia que sugiere un uso de la fuerza diversionaria es escasa en la región de China contemporánea, sostenemos que, dado que la cantidad de protestas políticas está en aumento, los medios de comunicación propiedad del Estado tienden a exponer a la población a noticias que refieren a conflictos externos, como un medio para distraer la atención pública sobre los problemas y conflictos internos, a la vez que instigan sentimientos nacionalistas. Nuestros análisis cronológicos sobre datos semanales de China provenientes del Global Times, uno de los periódicos sensacionalistas más influyentes de China, desde febrero de 2011 hasta diciembre de 2018, confirman nuestras expectativas. Asimismo, este estudio, través de la ponderación de noticias realizada según la cantidad de republicaciones de cada noticia, que sufre una gran influencia de las actividades del partido de los 50 centavos, da cuenta de la medida en la cual las protestas políticas impactan en las iniciativas diversivas del gobierno. Dans cet article, nous analysons les effets de la contestation politique sur la couverture médiatique des conflits internationaux en Chine à des fins de diversion. S’il existe peu d’éléments attestant d’un recours à la force à cet effet dans la Chine d’aujourd’hui, nous pensons que plus le nombre de manifestations politiques augmente, plus les médias d’État sont susceptibles d’exposer la population à des informations sur les conflits internationaux afin de détourner son attention des problèmes et troubles nationaux et de susciter un sentiment nationaliste. Notre analyse chronologique des parutions hebdomadaires entre février 2011 et décembre 2018 du Global Times, l’un des tabloïdes chinois les plus influents, confirme cette théorie. En pondérant les articles en fonction de leur nombre de partages, lequel dépend grandement de l’activité de l’Armée des 50 centimes, cette étude met également en évidence les effets de la contestation politique sur les manoeuvres de diversion du gouvernement chinois.

Comparing the Effects of Chinese and Traditional Official Finance on State Repression in Africa

Redressing biases in extant literature linking Chinese official finance and state repression, this article employs standard multiple regression analysis to comparatively assess the effects of different attributes of Chinese and traditional official finance on variations in rates of repression across Africa over the period of 2001-2018. Statistical outputs reveal more similarities than differences in the effects of Chinese and traditional official finance on repression. To prevent diversionary use of foreign official finance on repression, reforms towards specification of purposes of inflows in recipient African states are recommended.

Why Talk Tough? Explaining Japanese Prime Ministers’ Proactiveness in National Defense Rhetoric

Abstract What explains variations in the proactiveness of Japanese Prime Ministers (PMs) toward national defense? Although the Japanese Constitution renounces the use of force, leaders sometimes speak assertively over national security. Drawing on competing international relations and Japanese foreign policy theories, this study seeks to quantitatively model and analyze predictors of political rhetoric in PMs’ speeches and statements from 2009 to 2019. Each statement is coded into four sets of binary dependent variables through content analysis and tested against five competing hypotheses. The main finding reveals that leaders become more likely to advocate for specifically assertive national security policy when Chinese vessel intrusion increases, but not when North Korea missile tests and aircraft scrambles increase. Instead of a diversionary use of words, an emboldening effect is evident in rhetoric that evokes responsibility in international defense, moderated by ruling government strength. The findings advance academic understandings of Japanese national security policy messaging and highlight the effect of external threat perception on political rhetoric.

Single-party government, Prime Minister psychology, and the diversionary use of force: theory and evidence from the British case

ABSTRACTThis paper develops expectations about the likelihood of diversionary conflict initiation by parliamentary democracies with single-party majoritarian (SPM) governments. While most of the literature on diversion and governmental arrangement claims that SPMs have little incentive and/or limited capacity to execute diversionary gambits, we contend that the structural and environmental impetuses for diversion in such states are in fact largely indeterminate. We posit that the psychological attributes of prime ministers under SPM – in particular, their level of distrust – is the most important predictor of how they view structural and environmental constraints, and thus of whether they will militarily divert from poor economic conditions. Distrustful prime ministers are predisposed to the use of force, will dwell on the costs of economic problems, and fear that co-partisan MPs (especially in the cabinet) have designs on their office. Thus, despite having a legislative majority, these leaders will choose diversionary conflict over economic policy fixes. We conduct a partial test of this hypothesis in the British case from 1945 to 2007, and our analyses provide robust support.

Do Diversionary Incentives Affect Korea-Japan Historical Disputes?

Do diversionary incentives affect Korea-Japan historical disputes? We argue that Japanese political leaders use diversionary foreign policy, when public approval ratings are low and the government at the legislative level is weak. However, when the government is strong, approval ratings do not necessarily drive such diversionary behavior. We support our claims by testing the hypothesis using the data on Korea-Japan historical disputes and hostile actions between 1998 and 2016. The findings improve our understanding of the diversionary use of foreign policy in general and the effects of Japanese domestic politics on the historical disputes, specifically.

Diversionary Theory of War and the Case Study Design

This article examines President Clinton’s decisions to launch military actions against Iraq in June 1993 and Kosovo in 1999. This study represents an attempt to test the descriptive accuracy and further developing the diversionary theory of war. Using a qualitative framework for diversionary use of force developed by another researcher, Ryan C. Hendrickson, this research examines and compares the two cases in order to determine whether or not these strikes appear to be diversionary in nature. This article generally suggests that empirical support for the diversionary argument in these cases is “mixed” but has more validity in the actions against Iraq. Two proposals to further develop qualitative tests for diversionary use of force are advanced.

Use of insecticide-treated nets by pregnant and childbearing-age women: Action research in Southern Nigeria

Background/Aims Malaria in pregnancy is a major public health problem in Nigeria, along with high maternal morbidity, and fetal and neonatal mortality rates. Strategies for the control of malaria include the use of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs). Although some agencies distribute ITNs free of charge, some nets are not being used appropriately by pregnant women and other women of childbearing age. This study sought to empower pregnant women and women of childbearing age to take action to prevent malaria through the proper use of ITNs. Methods An action research design was used, which comprises cycles of fact-finding, planning and action, and reflection and evaluation. In collaboration with the action research group, 26 pregnant women or women of childbearing age were interviewed to gain an understanding of their perception of malaria and their use of ITNs. Seven community health extension workers and two primary health care coordinators were also interviewed. Observation sessions were held with eight women in their vegetable farms. Two focus group discussions were held with eight midwives and seven husbands. A total of 71 general participants and 13 action research group members were involved in the study. Data were thematically analysed and emphasis was laid on data that would promote learning and change. Conclusions The study revealed poor knowledge of the cause of malaria, non-compliance with the proper use of ITNs, diversionary use of ITNs and poor health intervention monitoring. Actions undertaken to empower the women towards the effective use of ITNs included community education, prenatal education, and advocacy discussions with government and relevant non-governmental agencies. Experiences gained from the study were reviewed and consolidated, and sustainability of actions planned.

President Clinton's Decision to Launch Operation Bushwacker Against Iraq in 1993: National Security Considerations or Diversionary Tactics?

An examination of President Clinton's decision to launch military actions against Iraq in June 1993 is largely absent in professional defense literature. This article represents an attempt to test the descriptive accuracy and further develop the diversionary theory of war. The analysis employs a qualitative framework for diversionary use of force developed by another researcher, Ryan C. Hendrickson. This article finds that empirical support for the diversionary argument in this case is mixed. Two proposals to further develop qualitative tests for diversionary use of force are advanced.

Kitchen chemistry: A scoping review of the diversionary use of pharmaceuticals for non‐medicinal use and home production of drug solutions

Misuse of pharmaceuticals is of increasing drug policy and public health concern. A scoping review was conducted on the diversionary use of pharmaceuticals for non-medicinal use and home production of drug solutions. The research question was broad: What is known from the existing literature about the diversion of pharmaceuticals for non-medicinal use and for home production of drug solutions? The scoping process centred on the systematic selection, collection, and summarization of extant knowledge within this broad thematic remit. One hundred and thirty-four records were grouped into discrete thematic categories namely: non medicinal use and tampering with pharmaceuticals, oral misuse of codeine cough syrups, homemade drug solutions, and home-produced drug-related harms in the narrative review design. Forms of abuse of codeine cough syrup include mixtures with alcohol or soft drinks ('Purple Drank'), with kratom leaves ('Kratom cocktails'), or chemically altered to extract dextromorphan ('Lemon Drop'). Production of homemade opiates ('Cheornaya', 'Kolyosa', Himiya', 'Braun', 'Krokodil'), methamphetamine ('Vint', 'Pervitin'), methcathinone ('Jeff'), and cathinone ('Boltushka') are described. Displacement patterns between the non-medical use of pharmaceuticals, commercial, and homemade drugs appear dependent on availability of opiates, prescribing practices, supervision of substitution drug dosing, availability of cheap ingredients, policing, and awareness of harms. Adverse health and social consequences relate to the use of unknown and contaminated (end) substances, injecting practices, redosing, medical complications, and death. The review highlights a public health imperative requiring a multidisciplinary approach to quantify potential impact and required integrated policy responses incorporating international regulation, enforcement, health surveillance and service delivery.

Leaders' Cognitive Complexity, Distrust, and the Diversionary Use of Force

Some scholars have suggested that when faced with domestic political problems, leaders employ simplified decision processes, preferring action to deliberation and highly visible diversionary uses of force to alternative policies. Others contend that domestically embattled leaders will pursue a more rational examination of the costs and benefits of various options—the sort of deliberation that will lead them to reject diversionary force in favor of less risky measures. Drawing on research in political psychology, we argue that leaders' cognitive processes are not constants but variables, and that both models are correct under certain circumstances. Leaders low in conceptual complexity (CC), and especially those with hawkish leanings, will pursue simplified decision-making procedures and embrace diversionary strategies, while leaders who are high in complexity will pursue a more thorough consideration of risks and alternatives and generally avoid diversionary actions. We examine these expectations by testing the interactive effect of economic misery and leaders' CC on American force usage for the period 1953–2000. The findings indicate that more conceptually simple leaders—particularly when high in distrust, a trait linked to more hawkish policy inclinations—are significantly more likely to engage in diversion.

Presidential Leadership Style and the Political Use of Force

A growing body of work seeks to explain the lack of clear evidence for the diversionary use of force by casting doubt on such strategies' attractiveness for policy makers: while domestic political and economic problems may provide incentives for diversion, such strategies involve political and military risks that frequently outweigh these incentives. Such theories correctly identify the objective risks involved in diversion but do not account for variation in leaders' risk‐taking propensities. We develop a “first image” theory of diversion that suggests a key psychological variable (locus of control) shapes leaders' willingness to engage in risky diversionary strategies. A statistical analysis of the American use of force, 1953–2000, finds strong support for this model. We conclude that the lack of clear evidence for diversion in general is a reflection of the contingent nature of the phenomenon and call for greater attention to how agents and structures interact to produce policy behavior.

Responsibility and the Diversionary Use of Force

Do state leaders use force abroad to divert supporters’ attention from domestic economic problems? Many studies in international relations attempt to provide an answer to this question but the empirical findings are inconsistent. In this article we argue that it is necessary to consider variations in supporters’ perceptions of leaders’ control of the economy to understand leaders’ incentives to engage in the diversionary use of force. Leaders that are perceived to have high levels of responsibility for the economy will be more likely to use force abroad in the presence of domestic economic problems than leaders that are perceived to have lower levels of responsibility. When leaders are not perceived to have high levels of responsibility they do not have an incentive to use force abroad in the presence of domestic economic problems because the economic problems will not affect the probability that they will retain power. A directed dyad analysis of conflict initiation from 1950 to 1998 supports this hypothesis. This study improves our understanding of patterns of international conflict and, more specifically, the diversionary use of force, by demonstrating the contexts in which diversionary incentives will be strongest.

War with Outsiders Makes Peace Inside

This article presents a new theoretical perspective on the diversionary use of force. Players are partitioned into groups and choose how to allocate their resources to production, fighting against other groups, and fighting internally. The model gives a rationalist explanation of the group cohesion effect: when there is a lot of fighting between groups, there is less internal fighting. In equilibrium, players choose sufficiently high external conflict in order to avoid internal conflict. In contrast with the existing literature, this diversionary use of force takes place even though there is no asymmetric or incomplete information.

When Is Domestic Political Unrest Related to International Conflict? Diversionary Theory and Japanese Foreign Policy, 1890-19411

In this article, we seek to advance the theoretic and empirical literature on the diversionary use of force. We argue that state leaders are more likely to engage in diversionary foreign policy behavior when opposition groups from within the winning coalition press for policy changes, but the government rejects those policy demands. Only when domestic unrest threatens a loss of political support from groups that are politically important to the leadership do we expect leaders to try and rally their support through heightened international conflict. We test this argument in an analysis of Japanese foreign policy behavior from 1890 to 1941 regarding (i) the initiation of military threats, (ii) concessions in negotiations, and (iii) the escalation of military confrontations. Drawing upon new data sets collected on Japanese domestic politics and foreign relations, we find strong support for our argument in a series of statistical tests.

War Voting

This article explores the interactive effects of the economy and the use of force on incumbent parties’ electoral performance. Research on the diversionary use of force assumes that leaders (especially democratic leaders) use force abroad to bolster their domestic political fortunes during hard economic times. But other research suggests that crises either lead to removal from office or have no effect on incumbents’ political fortunes. Although a good deal of scholarship assesses the role of the economy on electoral outcomes, no research has explicitly examined the interactive effects between dispute involvement and the economy on leaders’ share of the vote. We argue that the salience of the economy conditions voters’ sensitivity to the costs of conflict, which reduces electoral support for incumbent parties engaging in dramatic foreign policy events. Moreover, we expect executives’ efforts to emphasize foreign policy during economic downturns to be met with electoral punishment as voters prefer to see leaders working on a remedial economic policy. To evaluate this argument, we examine incumbent parties’ vote shares in elections among nine advanced democracies from 1960 to 2000. Our results support the hypothesis that during economic downturns voters care more about domestic politics than foreign policy. Furthermore, our results have implications for the diversionary hypothesis, gambling for resurrection argument, the democratic peace, and economic voting research agendas.

Diverting the Legislature: Executive-Legislative Relations, the Economy, and US Uses of Force1

Given distinct partisan macroeconomic preferences, the partisanship of the president or majority in Congress should influence presidential decisions to use force in the face of poor economic conditions—the diversionary use of force. But previous research posits contradictory accounts of the influence of partisanship. We seek to resolve this debate by developing a game theory model, which predicts that leaders divert when government is divided and economic conditions hurt the opposition party's constituency. Leaders seek to divert the legislature from the economy in order to prevent the legislature from passing a remedial economic bill. Analyzing US conflict behavior since World War II, we examine the conditional influence of presidential partisanship and the president's cohesive partisan support in Congress on the effects of inflation and unemployment. Consistent with the model's predictions, we find that as their cohesive partisan support in Congress declines, Democratic presidents tend to use force in response to inflation and Republican presidents tend to use force in response to unemployment.

Democracy and Diversion: Government Arrangements, the Economy, and Dispute Initiation

Do legislative constraints constrain or compel democratic executives’ conflict behavior during periods of economic decline? Although institutional constraints are thought to reduce democratic executives’ propensity to engage in interstate conflict, other research suggests that such constraints may provide incentives to engage in diversionary uses of force. Incorporating work from the comparative study of economic voting and cross-national research on the diversionary use of force, this article contends that government arrangements — coalition, minority, weak party cohesion — influence democratic conflict behavior by (1) shaping the extent to which the executive is held accountable for the economy and (2) determining the executive’s capacity to address the economy with legislation. Specifically, the argument presented here suggests that governing parties in coalition governments share the blame for a poor economy, reducing the likelihood that the executive initiates disputes in response to the economy. Compared to single-party majority governments with high party discipline, executives presiding over minority governments, or whose parties are plagued by a lack of cohesion, are more likely to initiate disputes when faced with poor economic conditions, because these executives are likely to face resistance to remedial economic policy. Probit analyses of the interactive effects of government arrangements and economic performance on dispute initiation among industrialized democracies, 1950—97, support the argument. The article concludes with implications for research in comparative politics and international relations, including, for example, executive—legislative relations and strategic conflict avoidance.