Research
Research
The Interplay of Military Intervention and Peacemaking
Status: R&R at World Politics
Abstract: This article analyzes the strategic interaction between third-party military intervention and peacemaking in militarized conflicts. I develop a formal model in which a foreign actor decides whether to provide military support to its protégé and whether to engage in peacemaking to facilitate a negotiated settlement. The analysis shows that the two instruments can be either complementary or contradictory. When military support is only moderately effective, the two instruments are complementary: peacemaking secures the protégé’s gains from military support within a settlement, and military support improves settlement terms. A foreign actor that sufficiently values its protégé will employ both. When military support can make the protégé sufficiently strong, the two instruments are contradictory: military support may render peacemaking ineffective, and peacemaking reduces the benefits of military support. The foreign actor will employ at most one instrument. The theory identifies conditions under which a biased foreign actor can benefit from neutral peacemaking, and highlights the importance of leverage beyond manipulating relative power in conflict resolution.
Leader-Contingent Sanctions as a Cause of Violent Political Conflict. 2025. Political Science Research and Methods, 13(1): 36-55. link
Abstract: Economic sanctions are a policy tool that great powers frequently use to interfere with domestic politics of another state. Regime change has been a primary goal of economic sanctions over the past decades. This article studies the relationship between leader-contingent sanctions---sanctions that are designed to impede the flow of revenue to a specific leader---and violent political conflict in target countries. I build a theoretical model to illuminate two mechanisms by which leader-contingent sanctions destabilize a regime---the Depletion Mechanism and the Instigation Mechanism. The Depletion Mechanism works when sanctions mechanically deplete the government's resources so that it becomes unable to buy off domestic opposition even by making the largest possible offer. The Instigation Mechanism implies that as sanctions decrease the benefit of negotiated settlement relative to war, the government may strategically choose to repress rather than buy off the opposition even when it is able to do so. Leader-contingent sanctions lead to bargaining failure by rewarding the opposition for revolt while reducing the government's ability and willingness to appease the opposition.
Intervention in the Shadow of Leadership Turnover (with Liqun Liu)
Status: under review
Abstract: We develop a dynamic model of war to examine how leadership turnover in a patron state shapes alliance behavior and the credibility of extended deterrence. When an incumbent anticipates being replaced by a less committed successor, she can increase support for her protégé not for immediate gains but to shape future engagement. By altering battlefield outcomes, such preemptive support may raise the future costs of disengagement and compel a reluctant successor to remain involved. In this way, the incumbent retains credit for success while shifting the burden of sustaining the conflict onto her successor. Leadership turnover can therefore make seemingly inefficient conflicts attractive. The model provides a rationalist explanation for how domestic leadership turnover can fuel costly international interventions.
The Presidential and Congressional Politics of US Foreign Aid
Status: work in progress
Abstract: This project explores how US presidents might use foreign aid budget proposals as a tool to pursue their foreign policy objectives. Empirical evidence shows that the amount of foreign aid requested by US presidents is significantly higher in presidential election years than in non-election years, while the amount of aid appropriated by Congress is not affected by election years. The effect of election years on presidential budget requests exists across different types of aid, such as security assistance, economic development assistance, and democracy and human rights assistance. In addition, the effect of election years on presidential budget requests is greater for states without formal alliance treaties with the US than for states with formal alliance treaties. Moreover, there is sometimes a gap between presidential budget proposals and congressional commitments, and this gap is significantly larger in presidential election years. This project seeks plausible explanations for these empirical patterns and provides insights into the nuanced relationship between presidential budget proposals and congressional commitments.
Misaligned Interests and the Credibility of Alleged Support. 2025. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 37(3): 232-257. link
Abstract: When can a third party manipulate the bargaining dynamics between its protégé and its adversary through diplomacy? I develop a formal model in which (1) the third party and its protégé have misaligned interests, and (2) the disputants bargain simultaneously over two issue dimensions---one capturing common interests, the other capturing misaligned interests between the allies. The results show that when the protégé and its patron have heterogeneous preferences for the disputed issues, the protégé will not necessarily use the patron's support in the way the patron wants. Patron's support increases the protégé's bargaining leverage, and how the protégé will use this increased leverage at the negotiating table directly affects the way the patron communicates. The existence of misaligned interests will increase the credibility of the patron's alleged support for its protégé and thus benefit the allies if the signal can potentially improve the protégé's gains over both shared and misaligned interests with its patron.
The Strategic Value of Intelligence Disclosure
Status: under review
Abstract: States sometimes disclose intelligence activities that are assumed to require secrecy. This article develops a game-theoretic model to identify the conditions under which a state benefits from intelligence disclosure during crisis bargaining. Learning can either deter or provoke an adversary, depending on prior beliefs about the state of the world. Under favorable priors, active learning is likely to yield favorable information, and revealing this effort enables a state to extract concessions by reinforcing its perceived advantage and justifying rejection of inconsistent demands. Under unfavorable priors, the state instead benefits from revealing restraint in intelligence gathering, conveying likely ignorance of its disadvantage and a willingness to take risks that a better-informed state would avoid. These findings suggest that states can strategically manipulate bargaining dynamics by disclosing intelligence activities or revealing their limitations, and that intelligence decisions made in line with prior beliefs may reflect strategic calculation rather than merely cognitive bias.
Deterrence through Ambiguity (with Liqun Liu)
Status: working paper
Abstract: We identify two strategic obstacles a defender faces in deterring an aggressor. The resolve problem arises when the defender lacks the capacity to retaliate against immediate aggression, whereas the commitment problem arises when the defender cannot credibly commit to retaliate against future aggression. We develop a dynamic model of deterrence showing that, counterintuitively, deterrence is strongest under a combination of strong present resolve and ambiguous future commitment. A defender that is both resolved and fully committed cannot prevent aggression when the aggressor is sufficiently determined to revise the status quo. Intertemporal flexibility helps deter by leaving open the possibility that the aggressor’s prospects may improve over time while keeping this possibility limited. The theory thus explains why strong commitment to retaliate may trigger deterrence failure and why defenders may benefit from preserving ambiguity in their deterrence commitments.
Status: working paper
Abstract: This article argues that the United States' influence over the United Nations' Peacekeeping Operations (UN PKOs) manifests through two closely related effects---Substitution Effect and Dominance Effect. The Substitution Effect implies that the US only delegates to the UN in crises in which the US has a lower stake, as the benefits associated with delegation outweigh the costs. The Dominance Effect implies that conditional on delegation, the UN will respond to US interests by allocating more resources in crises in which the US has a higher stake. The empirical results provide evidence in support of both effects in UN PKOs.
Democracy, Development, and Multilateralism: A Strategic Model of Vote Buying in the UN Security Council (with Jacque Gao)
Status: working paper
Abstract: This article examines the United States vote buying strategy in the UN Security Council by estimating a strategic statistical model. The results demonstrate that the United States is more willing to both punish democracies by withholding foreign aid for their opposition and reward democracies by increasing foreign aid for their support in the Security Council. However, the United States is much less willing to punish less developed countries for their opposition in the Security Council, even though coercion is a more effective strategy against poorer countries due to their vulnerabilities. Our results reveal the dualism in the United States aid’s purposes, and offer a mix of blessings and disappointments for the United States moral leadership.