DescriptionThis dissertation project proposes a novel theoretical framework for understanding the
constraining role that opinionated audiences play in international bargaining. The well-known
audience cost paradigm assumes that domestic audiences have a strong general
preference for their leader making good on the threats they issue, which has led to a number
of serious empirical challenges for that paradigm. I argue on psychological grounds that
audiences' reactionary tendencies to policy shifts of all kinds effectively generate a similar
but distinct expectation cost; these patterns of reaction, when fully understood, can explain
a wide range of empirical phenomena in international security, including but not limited to
those with which audience cost theory is concerned.
The theory indicates that: the median voter theorem generally does not hold over time;
positive reactions to popular shifts are always weaker than they would otherwise be; and,
ultimately, acting in an inconsistent manner leads inevitably and unconditionally to a loss
of domestic approval which can be used for signaling purposes in international bargaining.
Most importantly, this theory can provide a unique and more proper explanation for
the democratic peace phenomenon: the generally dovish attitudes that democracies' audiences
have toward other democracies interact with their deviations from classical utility maximization
to produce a virtuous cycle of non-conflict.
Most chapters constitute empirical tests of the theory, focusing on the quantifiable existence of expectation costs as well as their qualitative nuance. Nonlinear regression models on ANES panel data exhibit the fact that voters' reactions to policy shifts as they perceive them are subject to loss aversion, as predicted by prospect theory. Qualitative studies of the four cases in which a U.S. president violated a major campaign promise relating to foreign policy provide more comprehensive evidence of the expectation cost mechanism at work in real and substantively important cases of international bargaining.