Awards

• Winner of A Foreign Affairs 2014 Best Book of the Year (Poli.

Overview

Why do some autocratic leaders pursue aggressive or expansionist foreign policies, while others are much more cautious in their use of military force? The first book to focus systematically on the foreign policy of different types of authoritarian regimes, Dictators at War and Peace breaks new ground in our understanding of the international behavior of dictators. Jessica L. P. Weeks explains why certain kinds of regimes are less likely to resort to war than others, why some are more likely to win the wars they start, and why some authoritarian leaders face domestic punishment for foreign policy failures whereas others can weather all but the most serious military defeat. Using novel cross-national data, Weeks looks at various nondemocratic regimes, including those of Saddam Hussein and Joseph Stalin; the Argentine junta at the time of the Falklands War, the military government in Japan before and during World War II, and the North Vietnamese communist regime. She finds that the differences in the conflict behavior of distinct kinds of autocracies are as great as those between democracies and dictatorships. Indeed, some types of autocracies are no more belligerent or reckless than democracies, casting doubt on the common view that democracies are more selective about war than autocracies.

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9780801452963

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Reviews

Dictators at War and Peace is an excellent book that makes a significant contribution to empirically tested theory in international relations. Jessica L. P. Weeks has made a state-of-the-art appraisal of dictators' foreign policy behavior. -Bruce Russett, Dean Acheson Research Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Yale University, author of Controlling the Sword: The Democratic Governance of National Security

Dictators at War and Peace is an excellent book that makes a significant contribution to empirically tested theory in international relations. Jessica L. P. Weeks has made a state-of-the-art appraisal of dictators' foreign policy behavior. -Bruce Russett, Dean Acheson Research Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Yale University, author of Controlling the Sword: The Democratic Governance of National Security In this cogent analysis of the important variation among autocratic regimes when it comes to decisions about war and peace, Jessica L. P. Weeks shows that the usual dichotomy between democracies and autocracies is too simplistic. By focusing on not only domestic accountability but also the predilections of leaders and, crucially, the preferences of the domestic audiences they are accountable to, Weeks shows that some autocrats face incentives much like democracies, and therefore behave much like their democratic counterparts when it comes to questions of war and peace. Others are constrained by strong domestic audiences that have relatively hawkish views. Still other leaders face few constraints, and it is their own preferences and predilections that matter. Weeks' theory helps explain not only conflict initiation but also war outcomes and the fates of wartime leaders. This book combines parsimonious yet powerful theorizing with rigorous and thoughtful multimethod analysis, to answer crucial policy questions about war and peace. It is a model of what good IR scholarship should be. -Virginia Page Fortna, Columbia University, author of Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents' Choices after Civil War

Author Information

Jessica L. P. Weeks is Assistant Professor and Trice Faculty Scholar in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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