Managing the Costs of Backing Down: A “Mirror Experiment” on Reputations and Audience Costs in a Real-World Conflict

Abstract

<p>What are the consequences of backing down in a foreign crisis? Empirical research on this question has mostly focused on domestic audience costs in hypothetical crisis settings. Using experiments in Japan based on an ongoing real-world dispute between China and Japan, we investigate how domestic and international reputations as well as domestic support are affected by the leader backing down and the strategies used for backing down. We also test whether and how the strategies used by one leader to de-escalate a crisis might affect the rival state’s leader. We find that strategies that mitigated the domestic costs of backing down also reduced the reputational damage assessed by the domestic public. However, they generally did not change the international reputational damage imposed from outside. Leaders can reduce their domestic costs of backing down but are less able to do the same for their international audience costs.</p>