Leadership Preferences in International Conflict: Experimental Results from the People's Republic of China and Taiwan

In the conflict bargaining literature, three variables have a primary explanatory role: relative power, status quo conditions, and leadership preferences. While leadership preferences loom large in case study research, they are virtually absent from large-N statistical studies. We argue that a fully-specified theory of conflict bargaining must include the preferences of the leaders who actually make the decisions about whether and how to apply pressure for political change — including decisions to use force. Using a series of three experiments, we test for the effects of relative power, initial conditions, and leadership preferences on decisions to apply various levels of non-violent and violent pressure in international territorial disputes. The experimental designs presented in this study offer the opportunity to isolate the impact of leadership preferences on political strategy choices in international territorial disputes. The results demonstrate that leadership preferences are, in fact, significant predictors of political strategy choices, even when relative power and initial conditions variables are factored in.