Postdoc @BrownWatson | @Duke PhD | former RA @BrookingsInst & girls coach @WilsonCrewDC. Domestic politics of USFP, Congress, and Public Opinion.
Providence, RI
Joined May 2015
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Honored and grateful to the @FPA_ISA team for this recognition!
7/end. Thanks go to friends and colleagues @DukePoliSci for lots of terrific guidance (and funding)!
6/ We think our findings have a few implications—one is that the 'folk' version of deterrence theory to which citizens on average subscribe may be surprisingly urbane. A second is that leaders seeking credibility might take care to convey deliberation as well as determination.
5/ Drawing upon bounded rationality theory, we developed two sets of indicators of leader skill and environmental difficulty, and tested them experimentally. We find that most indicators shape credibility in the ways we expected, and find suggestive support for our mechanism.
4/ We thought observers might do this because they intuitively recognize that leaders navigating crisis are dealing with high uncertainty. Threats from leaders who seem like they've mitigated uncertainty over downstream costs and benefits might, in turn, seem more credible.
3/ We wondered: 1) whether observers could parse public signals designed to convey resolve that seemed like they were the product of reasoned leader decision-processes, versus those that seemed more haphazard; and 2) if those judgments shaped perceptions of credibility.
2/ Leaders are, after all, human just like the rest of us—and face the same cognitive limitations and environmental challenges that shape all of our 'intendedly rational' behaviors. Especially when they're managing time pressured international crises!
1/ Excited to announce a new paper on credibility in IR in @The_JOP with @Trent_Oll and @sojinlee123!
The intuition here is that observers might be able to suss out what seem like 'mistaken' signals of resolve. A thread...
journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10…
Andrew Kenealy retweeted
"Taken together, these three accessible and politically viable messaging approaches—strength in numbers; policy, not president; and move first and persist—might help legislators amplify their influence over public opinion and, in turn, over U.S. foreign policy," writes @KenealyAM.
A bit belated to post this (is anyone still on here?), but I defended last month. I'm grateful to my mentors and friends @DukePoliSci and in Durham, whom I will miss. Very excited (and, again, grateful) for the next step: a postdoc at @Watson_School.
Trump has overridden a remarkable range of political norms. Yet Patrick and I show that, at least when it comes to bombing Iran, Trump largely did what Congress wanted. For better or for worse, there’s been overwhelming R and even some limited D support.
Check out @KenealyAM and my new Lawfare piece using AI to measure lawmaker sentiment toward the Iran strikes last month. Punchline: more support than you might have imagined, both before and after.
Andrew Kenealy retweeted
Questions about how the “war powers” work in practice? Check out my piece in @apsrjournal. TL;DR President is far more constrained by Congress that usually realized.
Just published on APSR First View: War and Responsibility by M. PATRICK HULME (@mphulme ) cambridge.org/core/journals/…
I owe thanks to mentors here at @DukePoliSci, especially @rmmyrick91 and @kcbeardsley!
The article theoretically specifies why we might observe such a phenomenon, tests the association between democratic political institutions and crisis response timing, and illustrates the mechanisms that it proposes drive the association with two brief case studies.
This notion, which we might call the slow mobilization mechanism or 'the democratic patience', has been largely ignored by contemporary political science...until now!
We all know of the democratic peace, a phenomenon that has deservedly received lots of scholarly attention. But it turns out that folks like de Tocqueville, Lippmann, and George Kennan also all suspected that democracies—when they do fight a war—would be sluggish to start.
I'm also excited that a paper I wrote on the connections between domestic politics & IR is now published in @JPR_journal! It presents the 'democratic patience', and finds that democracies are slower to resort to violence during interstate crises.
doi.org/10.1177/002234332412…
I owe thanks to Simon Miles, @secolbourn, folks at @AWConsortium, @MikulasPesta, @Kelsey_Landau, and the many dedicated public servants & dissidents who spent time sharing their recollections.