| Summary/Abstract |
What explains state responses to militarized compellent threats? We propose it is not only the power distribution between target and challenger but the interaction between power distribution and regime type. Leaders of democratic and nondemocratic regimes adhere to different strategies of political survival. As democratic leaders have larger winning coalitions and provide public goods, we anticipate that as power distribution shifts in their favor, democratic targets will have a higher likelihood of complying with compellent threats. However, as democratic states become weaker, they cannot protect the members of their winning coalition from bearing the costs of a reputation for weak resolve and therefore have incentives to resist compellent threats. Nondemocratic leaders have smaller winning coalitions and provide private goods, so the power disparity should have little effect on the responses of nondemocratic states. An analysis of militarized compellent threats from 1918 to 2001 provides support for our argument.
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