Much has been written about theory and practice in the law, and the tension between practitioners and theorists. Judges do not cite theoretical articles often; they rarely "apply" theories to particular cases. These arguments are not revisited. Instead the Essay explores the working and interaction of theory and practice, practitioners and theorists. The Essay starts with a story about solving a legal issue using our intellectual tools - theory, practice, and their progenies: experience and "gut." Next the Essay elaborates on the nature of theory, practice, experience and "gut." The third part of the Essay discusses theories that are helpful to practitioners and those that are less helpful. The Essay concludes that practitioners theorize, and theorists practice. They use these intellectual tools differently because the goals and orientations of theorists and practitioners, and the constraints under which they act, differ. Theory, practice, experience and "gut" help us think, remember, decide and create. They complement each other like the two sides of the same coin: distinct but inseparable.

Of Theory and Practice

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Since Beck, Katz, and Tucker (1998), the standard method for modeling time dependence in binary data has been to incorporate time dummies or splined time in logistic regressions. Although we agree with the need for modeling time dependence, we demonstrate that time dummies can induce estimation problems due to separation. Splines do not suffer from these problems. However, the complexity of splines has led substantive researchers (1) to use knot values that may be inappropriate for their data and (2) to ignore any substantive discussion concerning temporal dependence. We propose a relatively simple alternative: including t, t 2 , and t 3 in the regression. This cubic polynomial approximation is trivial to implement—and, therefore, interpret—and it avoids problems such as quasi-complete separation. Monte Carlo analysis demonstrates that, for the types of hazards one often sees in substantive research, the polynomial approximation always outperforms time dummies and generally performs as well as splines or even more flexible autosmoothing procedures. Due to its simplicity, this method also accommodates nonproportional hazards in a straightforward way. We reanalyze Crowley and Skocpol (2001) using nonproportional hazards and find new empirical support for the historical-institutionalist perspective.

/pdf/back-to-the-future-modeling-time-dependence-in-binary-data-51zbd54rc2.pdf

Back to the Future: Modeling Time Dependence in Binary Data

The American political science review

Perception and Misperception in International Politics

States typically issue compellent threats against considerably weaker adversaries, yet their threats often fail. Why? Expanding on a standard model of international crisis bargaining, I argue that a theory of reputation-building can help shed light on this puzzle. The model casts reputation as a strategic problem, showing that challengers issuing compellent threats have incentives to anticipate the reputation costs that target states incur when appeasing aggressors. If challengers can recognize these costs and offset them with side payments or smaller demands, then even reputation-conscious targets will acquiesce. I argue, however, that military strength contributes to information problems that make challengers more likely to underestimate their targets' reputation costs and insufficiently compensate them. In this way, military power can undermine the effectiveness of compellent threats. The logic is illustrated by the 1939 Russo-Finnish crisis, and the argument's implications for the study of coercive diplomacy are explored.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0020818310000214

Goliath's Curse: Coercive Threats and Asymmetric Power

Do democracies make more effective coercive threats? An influential literature in international relations argues that democratic institutions allow leaders to credibly signal their resolve in crises, thereby making their threats more likely to work than threats by nondemocracies+ This article revisits the quantitative evidence for this proposition, which we call the "democratic credibility hypothesis," and finds that it is surprisingly weak+ Close examination of the data sets most commonly used to test this hypothesis reveals that they contain few successful democratic threats, or indeed threats of any kind+ Moreover, these data sets'outcome variables do not prop- erly measure the effectiveness of threats, and therefore yield misleading results+ The article then reassesses the democratic credibility hypothesis using the Militarized Com- pellent Threats data set, a new data set designed specifically to test hypotheses about the effectiveness of coercive threats+ The analysis indicates that threats from democ- racies are no more successful than threats from other states+

https://home.gwu.edu/~downes/Downes-Sechser-IO66-3-Summer2012.pdf

The Illusion of Democratic Credibility

How can states signal their alliance commitments? Although scholars have developed sophisticated theoretical models of costly signaling in international relations, we know little about which specific policies leaders can implement to signal their commitments. This article addresses this question with respect to the extended deterrent effects of nuclear weapons. Can nuclear states deter attacks against their friends by simply announcing their defense commitments? Or must they deploy nuclear weapons on a protege’s territory before an alliance is seen as credible? Using a new dataset on foreign nuclear deployments from 1950 to 2000, our analysis reveals two main findings. First, formal alliances with nuclear states appear to carry significant deterrence benefits. Second, however, stationing nuclear weapons on a protege’s territory does not bolster these effects. The analysis yields new insights about the dynamics of “hand-tying” and “sunk cost” signals in international politics.

Signaling Alliance Commitments: Hand-Tying and Sunk Costs in Extended Nuclear Deterrence

The dominant (though contested) wisdom among international relations scholars is that military officers tend to be more cautious than their civilian counterparts about initiating the use of force. Sobered by the experience of combat, the theory holds, soldiers are hesitant to recommend military action except under the most favorable of circumstances. It might be the case, however, that military conservatism is simply a product of strong civilian oversight. Indeed, scholars have suggested that military officers actually have powerful incentives to promote the use of force, but these predilections may be muted when civilian leaders can punish officers for botched military adventures. In this article, the author details a quantitative, competitive test of these propositions, showing that states with strong civilian control are on average less prone to initiate military action than states without it. The results suggest that civilian control should play a central role in future models of conflict initiation.

Are Soldiers Less War-Prone than Statesmen?

How can states signal their alliance commitments? Although scholars have developed sophisticated theoretical models of costly signaling in international relations, we know little about which specific policies leaders can implement to signal their commitments. This article addresses this question with respect to the extended deterrent effects of nuclear weapons. Can nuclear states deter attacks against their friends by simply announcing their defense commitments? Or must they deploy nuclear weapons on a protege's territory before an alliance is seen as credible? Using a new dataset on foreign nuclear deployments from 1950 to 2000, our analysis reveals two main findings. First, formal alliances with nuclear states appear to carry significant deterrence benefits. Second, however, stationing nuclear weapons on a protege's territory does not bolster these effects. The analysis yields new insights about the dynamics of �hand-tying� and �sunk cost� signals in international politics.

Todd S. Sechser

Papers

Goliath's Curse: Coercive Threats and Asymmetric Power

The Illusion of Democratic Credibility

Signaling Alliance Commitments: Hand-Tying and Sunk Costs in Extended Nuclear Deterrence

Are Soldiers Less War-Prone than Statesmen?

Signaling Alliance Commitments: Hand-Tying and Sunk Costs in Extended Nuclear Deterrence