HEN ARE AERIAL bombing strategies effective instruments for coercing states to change their polic... more HEN ARE AERIAL bombing strategies effective instruments for coercing states to change their policies? Recent military confrontations including the U.S. campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the 1999 conflict between Serbia and NATO, and the 1991 Gulf War suggest that aerial bombing may be one of the most frequently used military strategies in post-cold war disputes. Yet questions remain about its operation and effectiveness. According to most participants in a recent debate on this subject, air power may be effective for coercion when attackers destroy a rival's military capacity. This strategy, known as denial, entails the use of air power to convince an opponent to capitulate by denying its military capacity to wage war. 1 Both ardent and partial advocates of denial strategies, however, agree that their use does not achieve coercion all of the time. Focusing on large-scale aerial campaigns, this study attempts to add to the recent debate by specifying conditions that can explain when denial strategies are likely to be effective and when they are likely to fail. We focus on aerial denial because, given the near-consensus as to its effectiveness, it is likely to be a commonly used strategy in the post-cold war world. In brief, our argument is that the effectiveness of denial strategies may depend in part on the domestic legitimacy of target states' regimes. Aerial denial is more likely to lead to coercion when political leaders of target states lack domestic legitimacy than when they are seen as legitimate. In low legitimacy regimes, civilian leaders often undermine the effectiveness and professionalism
In recent studies, scholars have highlighted factors that influence citizen satisfaction with demo... more In recent studies, scholars have highlighted factors that influence citizen satisfaction with democracy, with particular emphasis on the role played by the institutional features of political systems, and ideology. This article presents the first empirical study of whether changes in important party characteristics can affect individuals’ satisfaction with democracy. Using a measure of parties’ character-valence derived from content analysis of news reports, evidence is presented that when governing parties’ images decline with respect to important valence-related attributes such as competence, unity and integrity, then citizen satisfaction with democracy similarly declines. However, this relationship is conditional on the performance of opposition parties. These findings are relevant to studies of regime support, political representation, democratic accountability and voter behaviour.
Several recent empirical studies have analysed how party elites' character-based attributes such ... more Several recent empirical studies have analysed how party elites' character-based attributes such as competence, integrity and party unity attributes that we label character-based valence (Stone and Simas, 2010) affect parties' electoral support. These studies document the electoral effects of character-based valence both for candidate-centred elections in the United States (e.g. and for party-centred elections in Europe (Clark, 2009). We extend this line of research to ask the following questions: When do media reports that reflect on governing party elites' character-based valence attributes influence public support for these parties? And, how large are these effects? We report pooled, time-series analyses of media reports and governing party support from six European polities which bear on these questions.
Do events such as scandals, intra-party squabbling, and acts of perceived incompetence affect pol... more Do events such as scandals, intra-party squabbling, and acts of perceived incompetence affect political parties' valence images, and thus, their electoral fortunes? If so, how great is their effect? Building upon a growing body of literature that explores the concept of valence, we develop a valid measure of valence based upon content analysis of Keesing's Record of World Events that scores parties along three valence dimensions -competence, integrity, and unity/division. The results of regression analyses designed to test this relationship for parties in nine Western European democracies are reported, and suggest that the answer to the first question posed above is yes. Specifically, evidence is found that events such as political scandals and party divisions cause parties to lose vote share, and that these effects are both statistically and substantively significant. These findings have important implications for understanding the dynamics of electoral competition, for parties' election strategies, and for political representation.
Do parties’ valence characteristics affect their policy strategies? The verdict of the spatial mo... more Do parties’ valence characteristics affect their policy strategies? The verdict of the spatial modeling literature on the positioning effects of valence is mixed on this point. Some spatial studies argue that valence-advantaged parties/candidates should moderate their policies, while others argue that they should radicalize their policies. Empirical cross-national work on this issue has been lacking. Using an original measure of valence and party positioning data compiled by the Comparative Manifesto Project, the period 1976–2003 is analyzed in this article for nine West European countries. The findings suggest that as parties’ character-based valence attributes worsen they tend to moderate their Left–Right positions, and there is a notable time lag in parties’ responses to changes in their character-based valence attributes.
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Papers by Michael Clark