Reputations between Enemies: Examining Threat Credibility in the U.S.-North Korea Rivalry
How do the past actions of rival states have consequences in present crises, if in fact they do? Central to this question is the concept of reputation; the idea that states take into account the past words and deeds of other states when assessing the credibility of those states' future words and deeds. That scholars disagree about how to answer the above question, on theoretical and empirical grounds, is a problem because the answer may hold the key to explaining two puzzles in international rivalries: (1) Why do some rivalries manage not to go to war despite experiencing repeated crises, and (2) why would a weaker state in an asymmetric rivalry repeatedly challenge its stronger rival? This dissertation seeks to offer an explanation for these puzzles at the same time that it advances the academic debate about reputations in international politics. Two hypotheses reflecting the logic of reputation are tested against four episodes in U.S.-North Korea relations, an ideal-type asymmetric rivalry. The first hypothesis posits that backing down from a confrontation initiated by a rival challenger: (1) strengthens the future threat credibility of the state that backed down; (2) increases the likelihood of future rival challenges; and (3) de-escalates the crisis in which backing down occurred. The second hypothesis posits that initiating challenges against a rival--as opposed to reacting to the challenges of a rival--does not increase the future threat credibility of the challenger. In the U.S.-North Korea rivalry, I find strong but imperfect support for both hypotheses. Despite a U.S. history of backing down from North Korean challenges, North Korea found U.S. threats credible in the rare instances when the United States made them. Each time the United States backed down from North Korea, crisis conditions also abated, but additional North Korean challenges followed each instance of backing down. I also find that North Korea's history of initiating challenges did not strengthen its reputation for resolve; U.S. officials instead attributed a reputation for bluffing to North Korea because the frequency and intensity of its threatening rhetoric surpassed its actual behavior.
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