An audience cost is a term in international relations theory that describes the penalty a leader incurs from his or her constituency if they escalate a foreign policy crisis and are then seen as backing down.[1]
Democratic peace theory
The term was popularized in a 1994 academic article by James Fearon where he argued that democracies carry greater audience costs than authoritarian states, which makes them better at signaling their intentions in interstate disputes.[2][3] It is one of the mechanisms for democratic peace theory.
Fearon's argument regarding the credibility of democratic states in disputes has been subject to debate among international relations scholars. Two studies 2001, using the MID and ICB datasets, provided empirical support for the notion that democracies were more likely to issue effective threats.[4][5] However, a 2012 study by Alexander B. Downes and Todd S. Sechser found that existing datasets were not suitable to draw any conclusions as to whether democratic states issued more effective threats.[6] They constructed their own dataset specifically for interstate military threats and outcomes, which found no relationship between regime type and effective threats.[6] A 2017 study which recoded flaws in the MID dataset ultimately conclude, " that there are no regime-based differences in dispute reciprocation, and prior findings may be based largely on poorly coded data."[7] Other scholars have disputed the democratic credibility argument, questioning its causal logic and empirical validity.[8] Research by Jessica Weeks argued that some authoritarian regime types have similar audience costs as in democratic states.[9][10]
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