Research
Research
The Interplay of Military Intervention and Peacemaking
Status: under review
Abstract: This article addresses the question of when a powerful third party has incentives to combine military intervention with peacemaking measures. Developing a formal model in which a foreign actor decides (1) whether to provide military support to its protégé and (2) whether to facilitate a peace settlement through security guarantees, I show that the two instruments can be either complementary or contradictory to each other, depending on the relative strength of the. If the protégé is relatively weak, the two instruments are complementary: security guarantees lock the protégé's gains from military support into a settlement, and military support improves the protégé's welfare in the settlement. A foreign actor who sufficiently values its protégé will combine these two instruments. Conversely, if the protégé is strong, the two instruments are contradictory: a settlement wastes the benefits of military support, while military support renders peacemaking efforts ineffective. The foreign actor will use at most one of the two instruments. The theory identifies conditions under which it is in the interest of a biased foreign actor to act as a neutral peacemaker. It also highlights the importance of introducing a second source of leverage beyond the mere manipulation of battlefield power in achieving meaningful peacemaking.
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 Public Intelligence
Status: working paper
Abstract: States sometimes publicize intelligence activities that are often assumed to require secrecy. This article develops a game-theoretic model to identify novel mechanisms by which a state can benefit from public intelligence during crisis bargaining. The analysis shows that a state's public intelligence can either deter or provoke an adversary, depending on prior beliefs about the state of the world. Under optimism, public intelligence enables a state to extract concessions by demonstrating its capacity to gather intelligence confirming its advantage and reject inconsistent demands. The state has incentives to publicize intelligence activities because their deterrent effect depends critically on the visibility of the costs incurred. Under pessimism, public intelligence will make the adversary more aggressive by signaling that the state has likely acquired information confirming its disadvantage. In this case, the state benefits from revealing restraint in intelligence gathering, which conveys that it is likely ignorant of its disadvantage and therefore willing to take risky actions consistent with its self-assessment. The theory shows that a state can strategically manipulate its adversary's perceptions of what it knows or does not know by disclosing intelligence activities or signaling their absence. It also shows that allocating intelligence resources in line with prior beliefs may reflect deliberate strategic calculation rather than merely cognitive bias.
Deterrence through Ambiguity (with Liqun Liu)
Status: work in progress
Abstract: We identify two strategic obstacles a defender faces when trying to deter an aggressor. The resolve problem arises when the defender lacks sufficient willingness to retaliate against aggression today, while the commitment problem arises when the defender cannot credibly commit to retaliate in the future. We develop a dynamic model of war to show that, counterintuitively, deterrence is strongest under the combination of strong resolve today and ambiguous commitment tomorrow. A defender who is both resolved and committed cannot stop aggression today if the aggressor is sufficiently dissatisfied with the status quo. A resolved defender can improve deterrence by creating ambiguity about its commitment to future retaliation. The commitment problem prevents aggression today by reassuring the aggressor that his prospects may improve over time. The theory sheds light on why patrons sometimes publicly distance themselves from protégés, why alliance treaties often embed flexibility and term limits, and why military support alternates between fungible aid transfers and the deployment of immobile assets.
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.