It is commonly asserted that state leaders, when faced with poor domestic political conditions, have an incentive to engage in diversionary foreign policy behavior. The standard view is that an aggressive foreign policy benefits the executive by leading the public to ignore domestic problems and...

An abstract public goods setting is considered in which individually rational strategies lead to collectively irrational outcomes. Theorists argue that individual reputations can provide an important means for solving repeated versions of that public goods game. Numerous experimental findings...

It is often assumed that leaders serve as focal points around which followers rally when confronted with a coordination problem. This research begins with one component of leadership—its coordinating role—and disentangles how leadership matters for followers. This analysis proceeds...

This research explores two approaches to modeling decisions about when to resort to conflict. The authors begin from a model of a single actor making unilateral decisions for her or his nation-state. That model is expanded to incorporate advisors who make recommendations to the unitary actor....