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Six Attributes of Credibility

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Great Power Conduct and Credibility in World Politics
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Abstract

Smolnikov posits that power credibility incorporates six major attributes: abilities to attract, educate, reward, punish, protect, and patronize. He considers these qualities in terms of their utility to the ends of maximizing the credibility of social power. In the Hobbesian perspective, he argues, the most important among them is an ability to punish, for a demonstrable capability and resolve for retribution is seen here as the primary factor to contain violence. In the Lockean perspective, it is an ability to protect that derives from Locke’s vision of the natural law that determines the self’s obligation to preserve life, peace, freedoms, and property, and necessitates a convincing aptitude to be up to this obligation. In the Kantian perspective, the most salient component of credibility is an ability to educate insofar as it enables to promote reliable conditions for an association of states.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    States usually do not expect deviations in one’s established pattern of behavior in contingencies. See Jonathan Mercer , Reputation and International Politics (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1996), 43.

  2. 2.

    Sheila G. Zipf, “Resistance and Conformity under Reward and Punishment,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 61, no.1 (July 1960):108–109.

  3. 3.

    See Richard Rosecrance, “Reward, Punishment, and Interdependence,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 25, no.1 (March 1981):31–46.

  4. 4.

    See Zakary L. Tormala, Pablo Briñol, and Richard E. Petty, “When Credibility Attacks: The Reverse Impact of Source Credibility on Persuasion,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 42, no.5 (September 2006):684–691.

  5. 5.

    See, for instance, Ben D. Mor, “Credibility Talk in Public Diplomacy,” Review of International Studies 38, no.2 (April 2012):393–422.

  6. 6.

    Pew Research Center 2016.

  7. 7.

    Data for 2014.

  8. 8.

    2016.

  9. 9.

    See Pew Research Center, “Global Opinion of Obama Slips, International Policies Faulted,” Pew Global Attitudes Project, June 13, 2012.

  10. 10.

    Pew Research Center 2015.

  11. 11.

    Author calculations based on data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), available at: http://uis.unesco.org/indicator/edu-mobility-in-total#slideoutmenu

  12. 12.

    Ibid

  13. 13.

    See “QS World University Rankings 2018,” available at:https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2018

  14. 14.

    See World Economic Forum, “The Global Competitiveness Index dataset 2007–2017.”

  15. 15.

    See, for example, “Survey of Adult Skills,” conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) within the framework of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), available at: http://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/

  16. 16.

    See Forbes, “The World’s Most Valuable Brands,” available at:https://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/#tab:rank%EF%BB%BF

  17. 17.

    Pew Research Center 2015.

  18. 18.

    See Albert O. Hirschman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA; London, England: University of California Press, 1980).

  19. 19.

    According to different estimates, in 1974–1984, Soviet oil subsidies for six European COMECON countries—Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania—amounted to $40–72 billion, with East Germany and Czechoslovakia being the major beneficiaries. (See Marie Lavigne, International Political Economy and Socialism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 245–247.)

  20. 20.

    By the end of 1980s, the Soviets, reportedly, cited aggravation of their economic conditions as the cause of their inability to maintain previous commercial favors to their CEE partners. (See Randall W. Stone, Satellites and Commissars: Strategy and Conflict in the Politics of Soviet-bloc Trade [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002], 231.)

  21. 21.

    On the peak oil’s impact on the Soviet and CEE economic and political collapse, see Douglas B. Reynolds, “Peak Oil and the Fall of the Soviet Union: Lessons on the 20th Anniversary of the Collapse,” The Oil Drum, May 27, 2011. Available at: www.theoildrum.com/node/7878

  22. 22.

    The agreements, for instance, freed from quotas and tariffs 99 percent of industrial goods exported to the EU by 39 poorest nations of the ACP. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/acp/overview/lome-convention/lomeitoiv_en.htm

  23. 23.

    Calculated on the basis of data from “Annual Report 2013 to the European Council on EU Development Aid Targets: Council Conclusions 3241st Foreign Affairs Council meeting,” Council of the European Union, Brussels, May 28, 2013.

  24. 24.

    See “Congressional Budget Justification,” v. 2, Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2013, 496.

  25. 25.

    For details, see Susan B. Epstein, Alan K. Kronstadt, “Pakistan: U.S. Foreign Assistance,” Congressional Research Service, June 7, 2011.

  26. 26.

    See Robert Keohane , Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World (New York: Routledge, 2002), 125.

  27. 27.

    On the salience of belligerent reputation in sustaining deterrence credibility, also see Thomas C. Schelling , The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960).

  28. 28.

    See Scott D. Sagan and Jeremi Suri, “The Madman Nuclear Alert: Secrecy, Signaling, and Safety in October 1969,” International Security 27, no.4 (Spring 2003):150–183.

  29. 29.

    Attachment A: “Conceptual Plan of Military Operations,” 1. Available at: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB195/

  30. 30.

    “Memorandum for the President from Henry A. Kissinger, Subject: Contingency Military Operations Against North Vietnam, 2 October 1969, Top Secret-Sensitive Eyes Only,” 2. Available at: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB195/

  31. 31.

    For details see, for instance, Jeffrey P. Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998).

  32. 32.

    Harry R. Haldeman and Joseph DiMona, The Ends of Power (New York: Times Books, 1978), 83.

  33. 33.

    See Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).

  34. 34.

    Ibid.

  35. 35.

    See, for instance, Mark Crescenzi, “Reputation and International Conflict,” American Journal of Political Science 51, no.2 (April 2007):382–396.

  36. 36.

    Margaret Thatcher , “Margaret Thatcher HC S: [Falkland Islands] Public Statement,” House of Commons Speech, House of Commons, Hansard HC [21/1146-50] April 14, 1982.

  37. 37.

    Anthony F. Lang, Jr., Punishment, Justice and International Relations: Ethics and Order After the Cold War (New York: Routledge, 2008), 19.

  38. 38.

    Louis N. Gray, Alfred C. Miranne, III, David A. Ward, and Ben Menke, “A Game Theoretic Analysis of the Components of Punishment,” Social Psychology Quarterly 45, no.4 (December 1982):206.

  39. 39.

    See Ibid., 209–211.

  40. 40.

    “We deliberately maintain ambiguity about precisely when, how and at what scale we would contemplate use of our nuclear deterrent,” states UK nuclear doctrine. “The Future of the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Deterrent,” December 2006, 18.

  41. 41.

    Thomas Hobbes , Leviathan—Hobbes’ Leviathan: reprinted from the edition of 1651; with an essay by the late W.G. Pogson Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929), 66.

  42. 42.

    See Mark J.C. Crescenzi, Jacob D. Kathman, Katja B. Kleinberg, and Reed M. Wood, “Reliability, Reputation, and Alliance Formation,” International Studies Quarterly 56, no.2 (June 2012):259–274.

  43. 43.

    See Charles F. Doran, The Politics of Assimilation: Hegemony and its Aftermath (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971); Charles Doran, “Systemic Disequilibrium, Foreign Policy Role, and the Power Cycle: Challenges for Research Design,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 33, no.3 (September 1989):371–401.

  44. 44.

    Detailed supportive arguments in favor of a similar thesis can be found in Daniel Chiu, “International Alliances in the Power Cycle Theory of State Behavior,” International Political Science Review 24, no.1 (January 2003):123–136. Also, see William Lahneman, “Changing Power Cycles and Foreign Policy Role-power Realignments: Asia, Europe, and North America,” International Political Science Review 24, no.1 (January 2003):97–111.

  45. 45.

    Angus Francis, Vesselin Popovski, and Charles Sampford, eds., Norms of Protection: Responsibility to Protect, Protection of Civilians and their Interaction (Tokyo; New York: United Nations University Press, 2012).

  46. 46.

    For a critical examination of the clientelism concept as applied to the study of political systems at different levels of analysis, see Robert R. Kaufman, “The Patron-Client Concept and Macro-Politics: Prospects and Problems,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 16, no.3 (June 1974):284–308.

  47. 47.

    Ronald Weissman, “Taking Patronage Seriously: Mediterranean Values and Renaissance Society” in Patronage, Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy, eds. F. W. Kent and Patricia Simons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 25–26.

  48. 48.

    On an analysis of distinctions between patronage and dependency, see Christopher P. Carney, “International Patron-Client Relationships: A Conceptual Framework,” Studies in Comparative International Development 24, no.2 (June 1989):42–55.

  49. 49.

    This is why the classic patron-client relations were defining French-Israeli interactions during the Fourth Republic rather than in its aftermath. An opposite opinion is outlined in: Gadi Heimann, “From Friendship to Patronage: France–Israel Relations, 1958–1967,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 21, no.2 (June 2010):240–258.

  50. 50.

    On the extraction of technological gains by the United States from patronage over Europe through collaboration on the SDI program, see Mario Pianta, New Technologies Across the Atlantic: US Leadership or European Autonomy? (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester-Wheatsheaf, 1988).

  51. 51.

    For insightful accounts of European defense identity-building, see Frédéric Mérand, European Defence Policy: Beyond the Nation State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Michael Merlingen and Rasa Ostrauskaitė, European Security and Defence Policy: An Implementation Perspective (New York: Routledge, 2008). Per M. Norheim-Martinsen, The European Union and Military Force: Governance and Strategy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Xymena Kurowska and Fabian Breuer, eds., Explaining the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy: Theory in Action (Houndmills, Basingstoke Hampshire; New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Andras Istvan Türke, La Politique Européenne de Sécurité et de Défense: Quel Bilan après 10 Ans? Quelles Nouvelles Orientations? (Paris: Harmattan, 2012); Jean-Barthélémy Maris, La Structuration du Marché Européen de L’armement, préface de Marc Blanquet (Paris: Harmattan, 2012); Catherine Grandperrier, Le Nouveau Concept de l’OTAN et la Défense de l’Europe (Paris: Harmattan, 2011). For investigation of causes and processes underlying transformation of U.S.-Europe relations, see Stephen J. Flanagan et al., A Diminishing Transatlantic Partnership?: The Impact of the Financial Crisis on European Defense and Foreign Assistance Capabilities, A report of the CSIS Kissinger Chair, Europe Program, and Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2011); Caroline Fehl, Living with a Reluctant Hegemon: Explaining European Responses to US Unilateralism (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Finn Laursen, ed., The EU, Security and Transatlantic Relations (Brussels; New York: Lang, 2012).

  52. 52.

    On the role of beliefs in trust formation see, for instance, Rino Falcone, Giovanni Pezzulo, and Cristiano Castelfranchi, “A Fuzzy Approach to a Belief-Based Trust Computation,” in Trust, Reputation, and Security: Theories and Practice, eds. Rino Falcone, K. Suzanne Barber, Larry Korba, Munindar P. Singh (AAMAS 2002 International Workshop, Bologna, Italy, July 15, 2002, Selected and Invited Papers: Springer, 2003), 73–86.

  53. 53.

    Nesler et al., “The Effect of Credibility on Perceived Power,” 1409.

  54. 54.

    Mitchell S. Nesler, Herman Aguinis, Brian M. Quigley, and James T. Tedeschi, “The Effect of Credibility on Perceived Power,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 23, no.17 (September 1993):1407–1425.

  55. 55.

    See Max Frankel, “Administration’s Credibility: Doubts Inside and Out,” The New York Times, May 26, 1970, 2.

  56. 56.

    Daryl G. Press, “The Credibility of Power: Assessing Threats during the “Appeasement” Crises of the 1930s,” International Security 29, no.3 (Winter 2004/05):136.

  57. 57.

    Paul D’Anieri, International Relations: Power and Purpose in Global Affairs (Boston: Wadsworth, 2010), 160.

  58. 58.

    Klaus M. Knorr, The Power of Nations: The Political Economy of International Relations (New York: Basic Books, 1975), 10.

  59. 59.

    “Beyond the Powers or Legal Authority” (Latin).

  60. 60.

    See Daryl G. Press, Calculating Credibility: How Leaders Assess Military Threats.

  61. 61.

    Quoted in Munroe Smith, “Military Strategy Versus Diplomacy,” Political Science Quarterly 30, no.1 (March 1915):53.

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Smolnikov, S. (2018). Six Attributes of Credibility. In: Great Power Conduct and Credibility in World Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71885-9_10

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