Title: How democracies exit small wars: the role of opposition parties in war termination
Abstract: Abstract This article argues that opposition political parties can play an important role in determining when and how a democracy exits a small war. Recent theoretical and empirical research on small wars has further uncovered the restrictions and constraints that democratic societies place on their government's war strategies. However, the mechanisms through which public opinion constrains and pressures government strategies have received relatively less academic attention. This article examines the role that opposition political parties play in providing an avenue through which society can shape foreign policy—namely, the exiting from small wars. It argues that opposition political parties can be instrumental in determining democracies' war termination in three ways: through 'elite cuing', applying electoral pressure, or winning an election and assuming government. Keywords: electoral pressureelite cuingopposition partieswar termination Notes 1. Berenice A. Carroll (1969 Carroll, Berenice A. 1969. How wars end: an analysis of some current hypotheses. Journal of Peace Research, 6(4): 295–321. [Google Scholar]), for instance, points to nine different variables that supposedly influence war termination. 2. Other research has shown that support for the governmental leadership, however, exhibits a more complicated relationship, with opinion polls strengthening regardless of what the government does—escalate war or seek negotiations—as long as it is seen as doing something (see, for example, Verba et al. 1967 Verba, Sidney, Brody, Richard A., Parker, Edwin B., Nie, Norman H., Polsby, Nelson W., Ekman, Paul and Black, Gordon S. 1967. Public opinion and the war in Vietnam. American Political Studies Review, 61(2): 317–33. [Google Scholar]: 333). 3. More recent research has pointed to a more complicated dynamic. Christopher F. Gelphi, Peter D. Feaver and Jason Reifler (2005–6) have found that casualties alone do not cause a corresponding decline in public support in war. Indeed, when progress is being made and citizens believe that success is likely, the public can be extremely tolerant of high casualty rates (see also Eichenberg 2005 Eichenberg, Richard. 2005. Victory has many friends: US public opinion and the use of military force. International Security, 30(1): 140–77. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 4. Indeed, there are a number of empirical irregularities relating to democracies at war, including that they seem to fight shorter wars, conduct them more brutally and win more often (see Reiter 2009 Reiter, Dan. 2009. How wars end, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]; Stam 1996 Stam, Allan C. 1996. Win, lose or draw: domestic politics and the crucible of war, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 5. Patrick Dunleavy and Christopher Husbands (1985 Dunleavy, Patrick and Husbands, Christopher. 1985. British democracy at the crossroads: voting and party competition in the 1980s, London: Allen & Unwin. [Google Scholar]: 154) present evidence that the 1982 Falklands War increased support for the Thatcher government by 16 percent and, like many, consider the war to have contributed significantly to the Conservatives' win in the 1983 election. 6. The government, for its part, knows that the public will often adopt similar views as the elites and, as a consequence, will try to silence them and limit the intrusion of domestic politics on foreign policy (Rothstein 1970 Rothstein, Robert. 1970. Domestic politics and peacemaking: reconciling incompatible imperatives. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 392(1): 62–75. [Google Scholar]). 7. Others have noted that there have been occasions when the disapproval of the public on foreign policy has registered in national elections (see, for example, Chan and Safran 2006 Chan, Steve and Safran, William. 2006. Public opinion as a constraint against war: democracies' response to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Foreign Policy Analysis, 2(2): 137–56. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Verba et al. 1967 Verba, Sidney, Brody, Richard A., Parker, Edwin B., Nie, Norman H., Polsby, Nelson W., Ekman, Paul and Black, Gordon S. 1967. Public opinion and the war in Vietnam. American Political Studies Review, 61(2): 317–33. [Google Scholar]; Voeten and Brewer 2006 Voeten, Erik and Brewer, Paul R. 2006. Public opinion, the war in Iraq, and presidential accountability. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50(5): 809–30. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 8. Suzanne Werner (1998 Werner, Suzanne. 1998. Negotiating the terms of settlement: war aims and bargaining leverage. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 42(3): 321–43. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) has made a similar argument. Werner posited that belligerents' original aims affect their respective bargaining positions in negotiations by increasing the costs of and political risks beyond continuing the war past a certain point. Additional informationNotes on contributorsAdam LockyerAdam Lockyer is Lecturer in US Politics and Foreign Policy at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 13
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