By approaching an important foreign policy issue from a new angle, Jonathan Mercer comes to a startling, controversial discovery: a nation's reputation is not worth fighting for. He presents the most comprehensive examination to date of what defines a reputation, when it is likely to emerge in international politics, and with what consequences. Mercer examines reputation formation in a series of crises before World War I. He tests competing arguments, one from deterrence theory, the other from social psychology, to see which better predicts and explains how reputations form. Extending his findings to address recent crises such as the Gulf War, he also considers how culture, gender, and nuclear weapons affect reputation. Throughout history, wars have been fought in the name of reputation. Mercer rebuts this politically powerful argument, shows that reputations form differently than we thought, and offers policy advice to decision-makers.

When Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people in Syria, he clearly crossed President Barack Obama’s "red line." At the time, many argued that the president had to bomb in order to protect America's reputation for toughness, and therefore its credibility, abroad; others countered that concerns regarding reputation were overblown, and that reputations are irrelevant for coercive diplomacy. Whether international reputations matter is the question at the heart of Fighting for Credibility. For skeptics, past actions and reputations have no bearing on an adversary’s assessment of credibility; power and interests alone determine whether a threat is believed. Using a nuanced and sophisticated theory of rational deterrence, Frank P. Harvey and John Mitton argue the opposite: ignoring reputations sidesteps important factors about how adversaries perceive threats. Focusing on cases of asymmetric US encounters with smaller powers since the end of the Cold War including Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Syria, Harvey and Mitton reveal that reputations matter for credibility in international politics. This dynamic and deeply documented study successfully brings reputation back to the table of foreign diplomacy.

How do countries form reputations? Do these reputations affect interstate politics in the global arena? Reputations abound in world politics, but we know little about how state reputations form and how they evolve over time. We frequently use words like trust, credibility, resolve, integrity, risk, known commodity, and brand, to name a few, overlapping with reputation like a Venn diagram. As a result, the concept of reputation often gets stretched or diluted, weakening our ability to ascertain its role in cooperation and conflict. In this book, Crescenzi develops a theory of reputation dynamics to help identify when reputations form in ways that affect world politics, both in the realms of international conflict and cooperation. A reputation for honoring one's obligations in a treaty, for example, can make a state a more attractive ally. A reputation for war and conflict can trigger more of the same, leading to a cycle of violence that exacerbates security challenges. While these processes of cooperation and conflict seem distinct, they are linked by a common use of the information held in each state's reputation. In each case, states use reputational information in an attempt to resolve the uncertainty they face when crafting foreign policy decisions. With this theory in place, Crescenzi uses a blend of historical and empirical analysis to convince the reader that reputations do indeed matter in world politics. Moreover, we are able to identify patterns of reputation's influence in international relations. He demonstrates that over time and across the globe, reputations for conflict exacerbate crises while reputations for cooperation and reliability make future cooperation more likely.

How do reputations form in international politics? What influence do these reputations have on the conduct of international affairs? In Reputation for Resolve, Danielle L. Lupton takes a new approach to answering these enduring and hotly debated questions by shifting the focus away from the reputations of countries and instead examining the reputations of individual leaders. Lupton argues that new leaders establish personal reputations for resolve that are separate from the reputations of their predecessors and from the reputations of their states. Using innovative survey experiments and in-depth archival research, she finds that leaders acquire personal reputations for resolve based on their foreign policy statements and behavior. Reputation for Resolve shows that statements create expectations of how leaders will react to foreign policy crises in the future and that leaders who fail to meet expectations of resolute action face harsh reputational consequences. Reputation for Resolve challenges the view that reputations do not matter in international politics. In sharp contrast, Lupton shows that the reputations for resolve of individual leaders influence the strategies statesmen pursue during diplomatic interactions and crises, and she delineates specific steps policymakers can take to avoid developing reputations for irresolute action. Lupton demonstrates that reputations for resolve do exist and can influence the conduct of international security. Thus, Reputation for Resolve reframes our understanding of the influence of leaders and their rhetoric on crisis bargaining and the role reputations play in international politics.

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How psychology explains why a leader is willing to use military force to protect or salvage reputation In Who Fights for Reputation, Keren Yarhi-Milo provides an original framework, based on insights from psychology, to explain why some political leaders are more willing to use military force to defend their reputation than others. Rather than focusing on a leader's background, beliefs, bargaining skills, or biases, Yarhi-Milo draws a systematic link between a trait called self-monitoring and foreign policy behavior. She examines self-monitoring among national leaders and advisers and shows that while high self-monitors modify their behavior strategically to cultivate image-enhancing status, low self-monitors are less likely to change their behavior in response to reputation concerns. Exploring self-monitoring through case studies of foreign policy crises during the terms of U.S. presidents Carter, Reagan, and Clinton, Yarhi-Milo disproves the notion that hawks are always more likely than doves to fight for reputation. Instead, Yarhi-Milo demonstrates that a decision maker's propensity for impression management is directly associated with the use of force to restore a reputation for resolve on the international stage. Who Fights for Reputation offers a brand-new understanding of the pivotal influence that psychological factors have on political leadership, military engagement, and the protection of public prestige.

Surveys patterns of crisis, coercion and credibility in US-North Korea relations from the 1960s through to 2010.