| This dissertation examines the use and effectiveness of compellent threats in international disputes. It investigates why weak states often refuse demands from disproportionately stronger powers, sometimes fighting hopeless wars instead of complying peacefully. For scholars, such wars are especially puzzling because they contravene standard rationalist accounts of conflict. When the balance of power is highly lopsided, neither blind optimism nor preventive war are plausible explanations for the defiance of weak states. Moreover, miscalculated resolve cannot explain why outmatched states often keep fighting long after a powerful aggressor has attacked.; Drawing on literature in economics, I resolve this puzzle by developing a theory of reputation in military crises. I argue that the way states respond to threats transmits crucial information about their willingness to endure military punishment. Irresolute states naturally prefer to hide their vulnerability and may feign toughness by refusing seemingly reasonable demands. At the same time, however, challengers try to expose irresolute states so they can be exploited. The price for obtaining this information takes the form of risky threats that necessarily incur a chance of failure. When formalized in a game-theoretic model, the theory shows that powerful states profit more from information about others' resolve and are willing to make riskier threats to obtain it. Moreover, powerful challengers cannot credibly commit to future self-restraint, so their adversaries may resist in hopes of deterring additional aggression. Reputation theory therefore implies that military strength actually undermines the effectiveness of compellent threats by emboldening challengers to take greater risks while motivating targets to stand firm. I call this phenomenon the "hegemon's curse."; This hypothesis is evaluated using a new cross-national dataset of 139 compellent threats issued between 1918 and 2001. Statistical analysis demonstrates that threats from powerful states are less successful, on average, than threats from other states. The theory's logic is then illustrated by a study of Finland's costly decision to fight the Soviet Union in 1939. These findings offer a new interpretation of the compellence record of the United States, suggesting that its high rate of failure in recent decades may be the predictable consequence of its extraordinary power. |
