Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-8p85h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-12T00:54:39.182Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Dispositional Theory of Reputation Costs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2018

Get access

Abstract

Politicians frequently turn to reputational arguments to bolster support for their proposed foreign policies. Yet despite the prevailing belief that domestic audiences care about reputation, there is very little direct evidence that publics care about reputation costs, and very little understanding of how. We propose a dispositional theory of reputation costs in which citizens facing ill-defined strategic situations turn to their core predispositions about foreign affairs in order to weigh competing reputational dimensions. Employing a diverse array of methodological tools—from vignette-based survey experiments to automated text analysis—we show that the mass public has a “taste” for reputation, but understands it in fundamentally different ways, with hawks concerned about the negative reputational consequences of inconsistency, and doves equally concerned with the negative reputational consequences of belligerence and interventionism. In illustrating how reputation costs are in our heads, our findings offer both good and bad news for theories of reputation in IR.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Supplementary material: File

Brutger and Kertzer supplementary material

Brutger and Kertzer supplementary material 1

Download Brutger and Kertzer supplementary material(File)
File 724.5 KB