According to the diversionary war theory, problematic domestic circumstances motivate a country's leader to divert popular discontent by launching a militarized international crisis. Yet, empirical support for this argument has proved to be ambiguous at best. Relying on extant ethnic conflict research, we argue that the embattled leader can elicit public support by using armed force against ethnic minorities within his/her country. We call this option domestic diversion and argue that it is not only available to a larger number of leaders, but that it also often presents a less risky course of action than external diversion. Empirical tests of the domestic diversionary hypothesis show a connection between domestic problems facing the leader and the use of force against minorities. This finding provides a potentially new interpretation for the causes of some domestic conflicts, and suggests that the diversionary theory may operate on the domestic level of analysis.
Barzilai, Gad, and Bruce Russett.1990. The political economy of Israeli military action. In The elections in Israel-1998, ed. Asher Arian and Michal Shamir, 13-35. Boulder : Westview Press.
2.
Bennett, D. Scott, and Christian Davenport .2003. MARGene software. http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/mar/home.htm (accessed May 1, 2007).
3.
Bennett, D. Scott, and Allan C. Stam III.2000. EUGene: A conceptual manual. International Interactions26 (2): 179-204.
4.
Besancon, Mariel.2005. Relative resources: Inequality in ethnic wars, revolutions, and genocides. Journal of Peace Research42 (4): 393-415.
5.
Blechman, Barry M., and Stephen S. Kaplan .1978. Force without war: U.S. armed forces as a political instrument. Washington: Brookings Institution.
6.
Boulding, Kenneth Ewart.1962. Conflict and defense: A general theory. New York: Harper.
7.
Bowen, John R.1996. The myth of global ethnic conflict. Journal of Democracy7 (1): 3-14.
8.
Brace, Paul, and Barbara Hinckley .1993. George Bush and the costs of high popularity: A general model with a current application. Political Science and Politics26 (3): 501-6.
9.
Brambor, Thomas, William R. Clark, and Matt Golder.2006. Understanding interaction models: Improving empirical analyses. Political Analysis14 (1): 63-82.
10.
Brown, James.1995. The Turkish imbroglio: Its Kurds. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science541:116-29.
11.
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, James D. Morrow, Randolph M. Siverson, and Alastair Smith.2003. The logic of political survival. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
12.
Carment, David, and Patrick James.1995. Internal constraints and interstate ethnic-conflict: Toward a crisis-based assessment of irredentism. Journal of Conflict Resolution39 (1): 82-109.
13.
Chiozza, Giacomo, and H.E. Goemans.2003. Peace through insecurity: Tenure and international conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution47 (4): 443-67.
14.
CIA.2006. The world factbook . https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html (accessed October 20, 2006).
15.
Clark, David H.2003. Can strategic interaction divert diversionary behavior? A model of U.S. conflict propensity. Journal of Politics65 (4): 1013-39.
16.
Coser, Louis A.1956. The functions of social conflict. New York: Free Press.
17.
Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive.2005 . Project Director: Arthur S. Banks. SUNYBinghamton. http://www.databanks.sitehosting.net/ (accessed October 1, 2005).
18.
Davenport, Christian.1995. Multidimensional threat perception and state repression: An inquiry into why states apply negative sanctions. American Journal of Political Science39 (3): 683-713.
19.
Davis, David R., and Will H. Moore .1997. Ethnicity matters: Transnational ethnic alliances and foreign policy behavior. International Studies Quarterly41 (1): 171-84.
20.
DeRouen, Karl R.2000. Presidents and the diversionary use of force: A research note. International Studies Quarterly44 (2): 317-28.
21.
DeVotta, Neil.2005. From ethnic outbidding to ethnic conflict: the institutional bases for Sri Lanka's separatist war. Nations and Nationalism11 (1): 141-59.
22.
Downs, George W., and David M. Rocke .1994. Conflict, agency, and gambling for resurrection: The principal-agent problem goes to war. American Journal of Political Science38 (2): 362-80.
23.
Edles, Laura Desfor.1999. A culturalist approach to ethnic nationalist movements: Symbolization and Basque and Catalan nationalism in Spain. Social Science History23 (3): 311-55.
24.
Fordham, Benjamin.1998. Partisanship, macroeconomic policy, and U.S. uses of force . Journal of Conflict Resolution42 (3): 418-40.
25.
Gagnon, Valere P., Jr.1995. Ethnic nationalism and international conflict: The case of Serbia. International Security19 (3): 130-66.
26.
Gartner, Scott Sigmund, and Gary M. Segura .1998. War, casualties, and public opinion. Journal of Conflict Resolution42 (3): 278-300.
27.
Gaubatz, Kurt T.1999. Elections and war: The electoral incentive in the democratic politics of war. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
28.
Gelpi, Christopher.1997. Democratic diversions: Governmental structure and the externalization of domestic conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution41 (2): 255-82.
29.
Ghosn, Faten, Glenn Palmer, and Stuart Bremer.2004. The MID3 data set, 1993-2001: Procedures, coding rules, and description. Conflict Management and Peace Science21 (2):133-45.
30.
Glaser, Daniel.1958. Dynamics of ethnic identification. American Sociological Review23 (1): 31-40.
31.
Gleditsch, NilsPetter, PeterWallensteen, MikaelEriksson, Margareta Sollenberg , and Håvard Strand.2002. Armed conflict 1946-2001: A new dataset. Journal of Peace Research39 (5): 615-37.
32.
Golder, Matt.2005. Democratic electoral systems around the world, 1946-2000 . Electoral Studies24 (2): 103-21.
33.
Gowa, Joanne.1998. Politics at the water's edge: Parties, voters, and the use of force abroad. International Organization52 (2): 307-24.
34.
Gurr, Ted Robert.2000. Peoples versus states: Minorities at risk in the new century . Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.
35.
Henderson, Errol A., and J. David Singer .2000. Civil war in the post-colonial world, 1946-1992. Journal of Peace Research37 (3): 275-99.
36.
Hibbs, Douglas.1987. The American political economy: Macroeconomics and electoral politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
37.
Hintjens, Helen M.1999. Explaining the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Journal of Modern African Studies37 (2): 241-86.
38.
Horowitz, Donald L.1985. Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley : University of California Press.
39.
Huntington, Samuel P.1996. The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order . New York: Simon and Shuster.
40.
Huth, Paul K.1990. The extended deterrent value of nuclear weapons . Journal of Conflict Resolution34 (2): 270-90.
41.
Huth, Paul K., and Todd L. Allee .2002. The democratic peace and territorial conflict in the twentieth century. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
42.
James, Patrick.1987. Conflict and cohesion: A review of the literature and recommendations for future research. Cooperation and Conflict22 (1): 21-33.
43.
James, Patrick, and J.R. Oneal.1991. The influence of domestic and international politics on the president's use of force. Journal of Conflict Resolution35 (2): 307-32.
44.
Jenne, Erin K.2004. A bargaining theory of minority demands: Explaining the dog that didn't bite in 1990s Yugoslavia. International Studies Quarterly48 (4): 729-54.
45.
Kipp, Jacob W.2003. Putin and Russia's wars in Chechnya. In Putin's Russia: Past imperfect, future uncertain, ed. Dale R. Herspring, 205-36. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
46.
Lake, David A., and Donald Rothchild .1996. Containing fear: The origins and management of ethnic conflict. International Security21 (2): 41-75.
47.
Leeds, Brett A., and David R. Davis .1997. Domestic political vulnerability and international disputes. Journal of Conflict Resolution41 (6): 814-34.
48.
Levy, Jack.1989. The diversionary theory of war: A critique. In Handbook of war studies, ed. M. I. Midlarsky , 259-88. Boston: Unwin Hyman .
49.
---. 1998. The causes of war and the conditions of peace. Annual Review of Political Science1 (1): 139-165.
50.
---. 2000. Loss aversion, framing effects, and international conflict: Perspectives from prospect theory. In Handbook of war studies II, ed. M. I. Midlarsky, 193-221. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
51.
Lichbach, Mark Irving.1987. Deterrence or escalation? The puzzle of aggregate studies of repression and dissent. Journal of Conflict Resolution31 (2): 266-97.
52.
Lipman, Masha, and Michael McFaul .2003. Putin and the media. In Putin's Russia: Past imperfect, future uncertain, ed. Dale R. Herspring, 55-74. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
53.
Long, J. Scott.1997. Regression models for categorical and limited dependent variables. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
MacKuen, Michael, Robert Erikson, and James Stimson.1992. Peasants or bankers? The American electorate and the U.S. economy. American Political Science Review27 (1): 165-92.
56.
Maoz, Zeev, and Bruce Russett.1993. Normative and structural causes of democratic peace, 1946-1986. American Political Science Review87 (3): 624-38.
57.
Marshall, Monty G., and Keith Jaggers.2006. Polity IV data sets. http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/polity/data/ (accessed May 1, 2007).
58.
Martinez-Herrera, Enric.2002. National extremism and outcomes of state policies in the Basque country, 1979-2001. International Journal on Multicultural Studies4 (1): 16-40.
59.
Miller, Ross A.1995. Domestic structures and the diversionary use of force . American Journal of Political Science39 (3): 760-85.
60.
Mitchell, Sara M., and Brandon C. Prins .2004. Rivalry and diversionary uses of force. Journal of Conflict Resolution48 (6): 937-61.
61.
Moore, Will H.2000. The repression of dissent: A substitution model of government coercion. The Journal of Conflict Resolution44 (1): 107-27.
62.
Morgan, T. Clifton, and Christopher J. Anderson.1999. Domestic support and diversionary external conflict in Great Britain, 1950-1992. Journal of Politics61 (3): 799-814.
63.
Morgan, T. Clifton, and Kenneth N. Bickers .1992. Domestic discontent and the external use of force. Journal of Conflict Resolution36 (1): 25-52.
64.
Most, Benjamin A., and Harvey Starr.1989. Inquiry, logic, and international politics . Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
65.
Mousseau, Demet Yalcin.2001. Democratizing with ethnic divisions: A source of conflict?Journal of Peace Research38 (5): 547-67.
66.
Moynihan, Daniel P.1993. Pandemonium: Ethnicity in international politics . New York: Oxford University Press .
67.
Oneal, John, and Jaroslav Tir .2006. Does the diversionary use of force threaten the democratic peace? Assessing the effect of economic growth on interstate conflict, 1921-2001. International Studies Quarterly50 (4): 755-79.
68.
Ostrom, Charles. W., and B.L. Job.1986. The president and the political use of force. American Political Science Review80 (2): 541-66.
69.
Pappe, Ilan.2002. Donning the uniform: The military and the media in Israel . Middle East Report223:46-51.
70.
Pickering, Jeffrey, and Emizet F. Kisangani .2005. Democracy and diversionary military intervention: Reassessing regime type and the diversionary hypothesis . International Studies Quarterly49 (1): 23-43.
71.
Poe, Steven C., C. Neal Tate, and Linda Camp Keith .1999. Repression of the human right to personal integrity revisited: A global cross-national study covering the years 1976-1993. International Studies Quarterly43 (2): 291-313.
72.
Ra'anan, Uri.1991. Nation-state fallacy. In Conflict and peacemaking in multiethnic societies, ed. J. V. Montville , 5-20. Lexington, MA: Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs .
73.
Rabushka, Alvin, and Kenneth A. Shepsle .1972. Politics in plural societies: A theory of democratic instability. Columbus, OH: Merrill.
74.
Roe, Paul.1999. The intrastate security dilemma: Ethnic conflict as a ``tragedy''? Journal of Peace Research36 (2): 183-202.
75.
Richards, Diana, T. Clifton Morgan, Rick K. Wilson, Valerie L. Schwebach, and Garry D. Young .1993. Good times, bad times, and the diversionary use of force: A tale of some not-so-free agents. Journal of Conflict Resolution37 (3): 504-35.
76.
Russett, Bruce.1990. Economic decline, electoral pressure, and the initiation of interstate conflict. In Prisoners of war? Nation-states in the modern era, ed. C. S. Gochman and A. N. Sabrosky, 123-40. Lexington, MA : Lexington Books.
77.
Russett, Bruce M., and John R. Oneal .2001. Triangulating peace: Democracy, interdependence, and international organizations. New York : Norton.
78.
Sarkees, Meredith R.2000. The Correlates of War data on war. Conflict Management and Peace Science18 (2): 123-44.
79.
Smith, Alastair.1996. Diversionary foreign policy in democratic systems . International Studies Quarterly40 (1): 133-53.
80.
Snyder, Jack, and Karen Ballentine .1996. Nationalism and the marketplace of ideas. International Security21 (2): 5-40.
81.
Sprecher, Christopher, and Karl. R.DeRouen Jr.2002. Israeli military actions and internalization-externalization processes. Journal of Conflict Resolution46 (2): 244-59.
82.
Tir, Jaroslav.2005a. Dividing countries to promote peace: Prospects for long-term success of partitions. Journal of Peace Research42 (5): 545-62.
83.
---. 2005b. Keeping the peace after secessions: Territorial conflicts between rump and secessionist states. Journal of Conflict Resolution49 (5): 713-41.
84.
U.S. Department of State.1999. Country Report on Human Rights Practices. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/hr/ (accessed March 23, 2007).
85.
---. 2002. Country Report on Human Rights Practices. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/hr/ (accessed March 23, 2007).
86.
---. 2005. Country Report on Human Rights Practices. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/hr/ (accessed March 23, 2007).
87.
Vanhanen, Tatu.1991. The politics of ethnic nepotism. New Delhi: Sterling.
88.
Weede, Erich.1989. Extended deterrence, superpower control, and militarized interstate disputes, 1962- 1976. Journal of Peace Research26 (1): 7-17.
89.
Zinnes, Dina A.1980. Why war? Evidence on the outbreak of international conflict . In Handbook of political conflict, ed. Ted Robert Gurr, 331-60. New York: Free Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
