Scholars have also used the role of incomplete information to explain conflict between strong and weak states, which often ends in FIRC. Research on asymmetric war, for example, suggests that weak states may doubt the resolve of their stronger adversaries, which prompts them to resist, leading the stronger state to resort to war. Like problems of credible commitment, problems of incomplete information do not explain why the stronger side fails to signal its resolve or increase its coercive pressure to convince the target that resistance is futile. My argument posits that states may give up on using signals and coercive force because of the relatively high costs. However, as with commitment problems, it may be that certain conditions make it impossible for states to signal their resolve. States with a history of backing down in a crisis, for example, may face greater difficulty convincing their targets to back down. Alternatively, certain regime types may be more or less effective at communicating threats. Democracies, for example, may be more likely to encounter resistance because their targets believe they are too casualty sensitive to risk war. Alternatively, dictators’ threats may be less credible because they can back down on them without suffering domestic political punishment. All told, certain conditions could make regime change the only option by undermining states’ abilities to make credible threats and/or promises.
In sum, rationalist explanations for FIRC suggest the following testable hypotheses:
H4: FIRC is more likely to occur when conditions undercut the ability of one or both sides in a dispute to prove their commitment to an agreement.
H5: FIRC is more likely to occur when conditions undercut a foreign power’s ability to credibly threaten a target state in a dispute.
In Chapters 3 through 6, I test the hypotheses associated with the alternative arguments, alongside my own, with both quantitative and qualitative data.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have argued that a targeted leader’s domestic opposition can increase a foreign power’s estimated costs of bargaining while decreasing its estimated costs of regime change. Targeted leaders have a strong incentive to resist or renege on settlement terms that threaten their domestic political power. The stronger the targeted leader’s domestic opposition—whether composed of rivals within the regime or external groups looking to overthrow it—the more resolved the leader will be to resist or renege on the settlement. To convince these targeted leaders to acquiesce, stronger powers can signal their resolve, apply coercive pressure, and use enforcement mechanisms. The foreign power could also offer positive inducements or settle for the status quo. However, all these actions entail costs for the stronger power. Further, the more reluctant the targeted leader is to comply, the greater the costs to the stronger state of attaining a settlement will be. While the target’s domestic opposition causes the foreign power’s estimated costs of bargaining to rise, it can simultaneously cause the foreign power’s estimated costs of regime change to fall. By partnering with the opposition, the foreign power may be able to reduce its military costs of ousting the leader. It may also lower its political and diplomatic costs by using the opposition either to legitimize the operation or to carry out a covert one. For these reasons, the costs of overthrowing domestically weak leaders can appear less than the costs of negotiating with them.
I have also argued that even when targeted leaders can anticipate the foreign power’s attempts to impose regime change, they will not necessarily back down. In fact, when leaders believe the foreign power’s threats are not likely to be pursued in the near future or lack credibility, they are more likely to take defensive measures to safeguard their regimes. In this context, threats to topple a regime can exacerbate the target’s resistance. In the next chapter, I detail the ways in which foreign powers impose regime change. Specifically, I explain when states are likely to transform the target state’s political institutions and when they will settle for merely deposing its top leaders. I also explain the consequences of these approaches and why the costs of regime change are sometimes greater than what policymakers expect.
CHAPTER 2
How States Impose Regime Change
States can pursue regime change in a variety of ways, each with its own set of costs and risks. Some strategies, aimed at remaking the target state’s institutions, require considerable investment up front but may give the foreign power greater control over the long term. Other strategies, aimed at replacing the leadership, can be cheaper to effect in the short term but can leave former regime members with the power to influence policy in the target state. As a result, the foreign power might spend more to ensure the new regime’s cooperation over the long term.
Understanding the various ways in which foreign powers impose regime change is important, because the strategy chosen can affect whether—and in what way—regime change succeeds. Yet almost no research addresses how states pursue regime change. Some studies focus on certain types of regime-change operations, such as covert missions or wartime campaigns.1 These may explain why policymakers adopt particular methods, but they cannot explain the full range of methods. Others adopt a narrow definition of regime change, limiting it only to cases in which the target’s political institutions, rather than just its leaders, change.2 This approach mistakenly presumes that only institutional transformation produces policy change. Many attempts at policy change, however, rest on changing only the leader. In fact, the leader’s ouster can lead to institutional change if the newly installed leader dismantles the state’s political institutions. The United States, for example, helped to transform political institutions in Guatemala (1954) and Chile (1973) by facilitating coups that brought to power new heads of state willing to undo each country’s democratic institutions. Rather than limit the definition of regime change, a more useful approach is to explain the conditions under which states either oust leaders or transform political institutions to obtain their policy objectives.
In this chapter, I explain how strong states choose between what I refer to as full regime change—the transformation of the target state’s political institutions—and partial regime change—the removal of the target state’s leader and/or top policymakers. I use the terms partial regime change and full regime change rather than more commonly used terms, such as leader FIRC and institutional FIRC, to avoid conflating how regime change is carried out with the end results. Partial regime change may lead to institutional change, either immediately or over time, or it could preserve the state’s institutional structure altogether.
I argue that the choice between full and partial regime change depends on the relative strength of the external and internal opposition in the target state. When the external opposition is strong, foreign powers prefer to partner with it to effect full regime change, which tends to produce more reliable allies. When such opposition is lacking, however, the foreign power may pursue partial regime change, either by conspiring with the internal opposition to oust the leader in a coup or by directly pressuring the leader to relinquish power. I also explain why foreign powers generally prefer orchestrating coups to forcing leaders to resign and under what conditions they will seek a leader’s resignation as an option of last resort.
The only instance in which a foreign power might attempt full regime change, despite the absence of a strong external opposition group, is