Dennis Foster
Biographic Data
| ID | 3828693 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dennis Foster |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dennis |
| FAMILY NAME | Foster |
| SIGNATURE | FOSTER D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Virginia Military Institute |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7414-3600 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 152 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1976 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Interactive Leader Psychology and the Ebb and Flow of Interstate Rivalry
A great deal of scholarship links leaders’ psychological traits to their monadic tendency to use force abroad, but virtually no work considers how the interaction of leadership psychology influences the systematic likelihood of dyadic interstate conflict. We develop and test several competing explanations of how the interactive conceptual complexity of leaders—a psychological trait that consistently predicts monadic conflict propensity—might affe…
Presidential Risk Propensity and Intervention in Interstate Conflicts
What explains a state's decision to intervene in ongoing interstate conflicts? Intervention is a risky proposition, potentially incurring audience costs if the effort is unsuccessful or if casualties and other costs mount. Various domestic political factors and features of the international environment certainly shape the risks surrounding intervention, but recent work in political psychology suggests that individual leaders’ risk-taking propensi…
Single-party government, Prime Minister psychology, and the diversionary use of force
This paper develops expectations about the likelihood of diversionary conflict initiation by parliamentary democracies with single-party majoritarian (SPM) governments. While most of the literature on diversion and governmental arrangement claims that SPMs have little incentive and/or limited capacity to execute diversionary gambits, we contend that the structural and environmental impetuses for diversion in such states are in fact largely indete…
Inter Arma Silent Leges? Democracy, Domestic Terrorism, and Diversion
This article develops expectations about the use of military force by democracies facing domestic terrorism. Due to the necessity of balancing effective counterterrorism with liberal acceptability, domestic terrorism typically represents a significant but nonexistential threat to democracies that is ineradicable via repression; as such, it is likely to generate appreciable diversionary incentives. Moreover, the use of force abroad, coupled with c…
Don't Tread on Me
Recent research demonstrates that U.S. presidents’ psychological predispositions influence the frequency with which they choose diversionary foreign policy strategies. The purpose of this article is to extend the expectations of this “first‐image” theory of diversion to the strategic behavior of potential diversionary targets. We posit that U.S. presidents whose spontaneous public rhetoric indicates a willingness to challenge pacifying constraint…
Leaders' Cognitive Complexity, Distrust, and the Diversionary Use of Force
Journal Article Leaders' Cognitive Complexity, Distrust, and the Diversionary Use of Force Get access Dennis M. Foster, Dennis M. Foster Virginia Military Institute Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jonathan W. Keller Jonathan W. Keller James Madison University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 10, Issue 3, July 2014, Pages 205–223, https…
There Can Be No Compromise
Research on terrorism in democracies borrows from the literature on civil war and rebellion to argue that more proportional representation decreases the likelihood of terrorist violence. However, theories of broader social mobilization may be ill-suited to predicting the occurrence of terrorism. This article proposes that proportionalism's institutionalization of small minority groups as legitimate but relatively insignificant political actors le…
Working with Disabled People in Policy and Practice
Journal Article Working with Disabled People in Policy and Practice Get access Working with Disabled People in Policy and Practice, Sally French and John Swain,Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. xi + 211, ISBN 978–0–230–58–78–7 (pb), £20.99 Dr Liam Foster Dr Liam Foster Lecturer in Social Work, University of Sheffield Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 42, Is…
Presidential Leadership Style and the Political Use of Force
A growing body of work seeks to explain the lack of clear evidence for the diversionary use of force by casting doubt on such strategies' attractiveness for policy makers: while domestic political and economic problems may provide incentives for diversion, such strategies involve political and military risks that frequently outweigh these incentives. Such theories correctly identify the objective risks involved in diversion but do not account for…
Conventional Wisdom? The Effect of Nuclear Proliferation on Armed Conflict, 1945-2001
The possession of nuclear weapons confers many benefits on a state. The path to proliferation, however, is often violent. When a state initiates a nuclear weapons program, it signals its intent to fundamentally alter its bargaining environment. States that once had an advantage will now be disadvantaged. This change in the environment is not instantaneous, but evolves slowly over time. This gives states both opportunities and incentives to resolv…
Rallies and the “First Image”
Despite considerable scholarship regarding the degree to which the international use of force generates popular rallies, no work has addressed the possibility that leaders’ managerial philosophies and psychological predispositions systematically influence their assessments of whether or not diversion “works”. In this article, we test hypotheses—conceived through direct reference to work in political psychology—which suggest that the degree to whi…
Ballots, Bargains, and Bombs
Benjamin Netanyahu's come-from-behind victory over Shimon Peres in the Israeli national elections of May 1996, following an apparent intensification of Palestinian terrorism over the course of that spring, reminded observers of the political ramifications of terrorism. Since May 1996 was also the month in which Israel reentered Final Status negotiations with a Palestinian delegation in Taba, Egypt, the timing of this surge in violence encourages …
Comfort to Our Adversaries”? Partisan Ideology, Domestic Vulnerability, and Strategic Targeting
Journal Article "Comfort to Our Adversaries"? Partisan Ideology, Domestic Vulnerability, and Strategic Targeting Get access Dennis M. Foster Dennis M. Foster Virginia Military Institute Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 4, Issue 4, October 2008, Pages 419–436, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-8594.2008.00078.x Published: 17 September 2008
Presidents, Public Opinion, and Diversionary Behavior
Journal Article Presidents, Public Opinion, and Diversionary Behavior: The Role of Partisan Support Reconsidered Get access Dennis M. Foster, Dennis M. Foster Virginia Military Institute Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Glenn Palmer Glenn Palmer The Pennsylvania State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 2, Issue 3, July 2006, Pa…
State Power, Linkage Mechanisms, and Diversion against Nonrivals
Mitchell and Prins (2004) have recently found that diversion from high levels of inflation is observed only among enduring rivals. However, neither this nor any other cross-national test of the relevance of opportunity to diversion has included a potentially important determinant of diversionary capacity : major power status. I contend that since militarily powerful states have both more extensive sets of international commitments and much greate…
An "Invitation to Struggle"? The Use of Force Against "Legislatively Vulnerable" American Presidents
Recently, international relations scholars have posited that, though economically unsuccessful American presidents may have incentives to divert via international conflict, their potential adversaries are also privy to their plight and may seek to avoid fighting them at such junctures. However, this "strategic conflict avoidance" (SCA) perspective offers relatively few insights concerning the impact of a potentially important source of leadership…
Who Should Facilitate Values Education
Open Marriage
When Open Marriage was published in 1972, it was quickly given to the status of pop sociology. Two years later, the increasingly widespread acceptance of its premises calls for us to look at it with renewed interest. Several years ago Jane Loevinger and her associates developed a method for measuring ego development. A description of her adult stages of development appears to shed much light on how open marriage may be understood in terms of pers…
An "Invitation to Struggle"? The Use of Force Against "Legislatively Vulnerable" American Presidents
Recently, international relations scholars have posited that, though economically unsuccessful American presidents may have incentives to divert via international conflict, their potential adversaries are also privy to their plight and may seek to avoid fighting them at such junctures. However, this "strategic conflict avoidance" (SCA) perspective offers relatively few insights concerning the impact of a potentially important source of leadership…
Presidential Leadership Style and the Political Use of Force
A growing body of work seeks to explain the lack of clear evidence for the diversionary use of force by casting doubt on such strategies' attractiveness for policy makers: while domestic political and economic problems may provide incentives for diversion, such strategies involve political and military risks that frequently outweigh these incentives. Such theories correctly identify the objective risks involved in diversion but do not account for…
Conventional Wisdom? The Effect of Nuclear Proliferation on Armed Conflict, 1945-2001
The possession of nuclear weapons confers many benefits on a state. The path to proliferation, however, is often violent. When a state initiates a nuclear weapons program, it signals its intent to fundamentally alter its bargaining environment. States that once had an advantage will now be disadvantaged. This change in the environment is not instantaneous, but evolves slowly over time. This gives states both opportunities and incentives to resolv…
Presidents, Public Opinion, and Diversionary Behavior
Journal Article Presidents, Public Opinion, and Diversionary Behavior: The Role of Partisan Support Reconsidered Get access Dennis M. Foster, Dennis M. Foster Virginia Military Institute Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Glenn Palmer Glenn Palmer The Pennsylvania State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 2, Issue 3, July 2006, Pa…
There Can Be No Compromise
Research on terrorism in democracies borrows from the literature on civil war and rebellion to argue that more proportional representation decreases the likelihood of terrorist violence. However, theories of broader social mobilization may be ill-suited to predicting the occurrence of terrorism. This article proposes that proportionalism's institutionalization of small minority groups as legitimate but relatively insignificant political actors le…
Leaders' Cognitive Complexity, Distrust, and the Diversionary Use of Force
Journal Article Leaders' Cognitive Complexity, Distrust, and the Diversionary Use of Force Get access Dennis M. Foster, Dennis M. Foster Virginia Military Institute Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jonathan W. Keller Jonathan W. Keller James Madison University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 10, Issue 3, July 2014, Pages 205–223, https…
State Power, Linkage Mechanisms, and Diversion against Nonrivals
Mitchell and Prins (2004) have recently found that diversion from high levels of inflation is observed only among enduring rivals. However, neither this nor any other cross-national test of the relevance of opportunity to diversion has included a potentially important determinant of diversionary capacity : major power status. I contend that since militarily powerful states have both more extensive sets of international commitments and much greate…
Rallies and the “First Image”
Despite considerable scholarship regarding the degree to which the international use of force generates popular rallies, no work has addressed the possibility that leaders’ managerial philosophies and psychological predispositions systematically influence their assessments of whether or not diversion “works”. In this article, we test hypotheses—conceived through direct reference to work in political psychology—which suggest that the degree to whi…
Inter Arma Silent Leges? Democracy, Domestic Terrorism, and Diversion
This article develops expectations about the use of military force by democracies facing domestic terrorism. Due to the necessity of balancing effective counterterrorism with liberal acceptability, domestic terrorism typically represents a significant but nonexistential threat to democracies that is ineradicable via repression; as such, it is likely to generate appreciable diversionary incentives. Moreover, the use of force abroad, coupled with c…
Ballots, Bargains, and Bombs
Benjamin Netanyahu's come-from-behind victory over Shimon Peres in the Israeli national elections of May 1996, following an apparent intensification of Palestinian terrorism over the course of that spring, reminded observers of the political ramifications of terrorism. Since May 1996 was also the month in which Israel reentered Final Status negotiations with a Palestinian delegation in Taba, Egypt, the timing of this surge in violence encourages …
Comfort to Our Adversaries”? Partisan Ideology, Domestic Vulnerability, and Strategic Targeting
Journal Article "Comfort to Our Adversaries"? Partisan Ideology, Domestic Vulnerability, and Strategic Targeting Get access Dennis M. Foster Dennis M. Foster Virginia Military Institute Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 4, Issue 4, October 2008, Pages 419–436, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-8594.2008.00078.x Published: 17 September 2008
Presidential Risk Propensity and Intervention in Interstate Conflicts
What explains a state's decision to intervene in ongoing interstate conflicts? Intervention is a risky proposition, potentially incurring audience costs if the effort is unsuccessful or if casualties and other costs mount. Various domestic political factors and features of the international environment certainly shape the risks surrounding intervention, but recent work in political psychology suggests that individual leaders’ risk-taking propensi…
Interactive Leader Psychology and the Ebb and Flow of Interstate Rivalry
A great deal of scholarship links leaders’ psychological traits to their monadic tendency to use force abroad, but virtually no work considers how the interaction of leadership psychology influences the systematic likelihood of dyadic interstate conflict. We develop and test several competing explanations of how the interactive conceptual complexity of leaders—a psychological trait that consistently predicts monadic conflict propensity—might affe…
Single-party government, Prime Minister psychology, and the diversionary use of force
This paper develops expectations about the likelihood of diversionary conflict initiation by parliamentary democracies with single-party majoritarian (SPM) governments. While most of the literature on diversion and governmental arrangement claims that SPMs have little incentive and/or limited capacity to execute diversionary gambits, we contend that the structural and environmental impetuses for diversion in such states are in fact largely indete…
Don't Tread on Me
Recent research demonstrates that U.S. presidents’ psychological predispositions influence the frequency with which they choose diversionary foreign policy strategies. The purpose of this article is to extend the expectations of this “first‐image” theory of diversion to the strategic behavior of potential diversionary targets. We posit that U.S. presidents whose spontaneous public rhetoric indicates a willingness to challenge pacifying constraint…
Open Marriage
When Open Marriage was published in 1972, it was quickly given to the status of pop sociology. Two years later, the increasingly widespread acceptance of its premises calls for us to look at it with renewed interest. Several years ago Jane Loevinger and her associates developed a method for measuring ego development. A description of her adult stages of development appears to shed much light on how open marriage may be understood in terms of pers…
Who Should Facilitate Values Education
Presidents, Public Opinion, and Diversionary Behavior
Journal Article Presidents, Public Opinion, and Diversionary Behavior: The Role of Partisan Support Reconsidered Get access Dennis M. Foster, Dennis M. Foster Virginia Military Institute Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Glenn Palmer Glenn Palmer The Pennsylvania State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 2, Issue 3, July 2006, Pa…
State Power, Linkage Mechanisms, and Diversion against Nonrivals
Mitchell and Prins (2004) have recently found that diversion from high levels of inflation is observed only among enduring rivals. However, neither this nor any other cross-national test of the relevance of opportunity to diversion has included a potentially important determinant of diversionary capacity : major power status. I contend that since militarily powerful states have both more extensive sets of international commitments and much greate…
An "Invitation to Struggle"? The Use of Force Against "Legislatively Vulnerable" American Presidents
Recently, international relations scholars have posited that, though economically unsuccessful American presidents may have incentives to divert via international conflict, their potential adversaries are also privy to their plight and may seek to avoid fighting them at such junctures. However, this "strategic conflict avoidance" (SCA) perspective offers relatively few insights concerning the impact of a potentially important source of leadership…
Comfort to Our Adversaries”? Partisan Ideology, Domestic Vulnerability, and Strategic Targeting
Journal Article "Comfort to Our Adversaries"? Partisan Ideology, Domestic Vulnerability, and Strategic Targeting Get access Dennis M. Foster Dennis M. Foster Virginia Military Institute Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 4, Issue 4, October 2008, Pages 419–436, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-8594.2008.00078.x Published: 17 September 2008
Rallies and the “First Image”
Despite considerable scholarship regarding the degree to which the international use of force generates popular rallies, no work has addressed the possibility that leaders’ managerial philosophies and psychological predispositions systematically influence their assessments of whether or not diversion “works”. In this article, we test hypotheses—conceived through direct reference to work in political psychology—which suggest that the degree to whi…
Ballots, Bargains, and Bombs
Benjamin Netanyahu's come-from-behind victory over Shimon Peres in the Israeli national elections of May 1996, following an apparent intensification of Palestinian terrorism over the course of that spring, reminded observers of the political ramifications of terrorism. Since May 1996 was also the month in which Israel reentered Final Status negotiations with a Palestinian delegation in Taba, Egypt, the timing of this surge in violence encourages …
Working with Disabled People in Policy and Practice
Journal Article Working with Disabled People in Policy and Practice Get access Working with Disabled People in Policy and Practice, Sally French and John Swain,Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. xi + 211, ISBN 978–0–230–58–78–7 (pb), £20.99 Dr Liam Foster Dr Liam Foster Lecturer in Social Work, University of Sheffield Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 42, Is…
Presidential Leadership Style and the Political Use of Force
A growing body of work seeks to explain the lack of clear evidence for the diversionary use of force by casting doubt on such strategies' attractiveness for policy makers: while domestic political and economic problems may provide incentives for diversion, such strategies involve political and military risks that frequently outweigh these incentives. Such theories correctly identify the objective risks involved in diversion but do not account for…
Conventional Wisdom? The Effect of Nuclear Proliferation on Armed Conflict, 1945-2001
The possession of nuclear weapons confers many benefits on a state. The path to proliferation, however, is often violent. When a state initiates a nuclear weapons program, it signals its intent to fundamentally alter its bargaining environment. States that once had an advantage will now be disadvantaged. This change in the environment is not instantaneous, but evolves slowly over time. This gives states both opportunities and incentives to resolv…
Leaders' Cognitive Complexity, Distrust, and the Diversionary Use of Force
Journal Article Leaders' Cognitive Complexity, Distrust, and the Diversionary Use of Force Get access Dennis M. Foster, Dennis M. Foster Virginia Military Institute Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jonathan W. Keller Jonathan W. Keller James Madison University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 10, Issue 3, July 2014, Pages 205–223, https…
There Can Be No Compromise
Research on terrorism in democracies borrows from the literature on civil war and rebellion to argue that more proportional representation decreases the likelihood of terrorist violence. However, theories of broader social mobilization may be ill-suited to predicting the occurrence of terrorism. This article proposes that proportionalism's institutionalization of small minority groups as legitimate but relatively insignificant political actors le…
Don't Tread on Me
Recent research demonstrates that U.S. presidents’ psychological predispositions influence the frequency with which they choose diversionary foreign policy strategies. The purpose of this article is to extend the expectations of this “first‐image” theory of diversion to the strategic behavior of potential diversionary targets. We posit that U.S. presidents whose spontaneous public rhetoric indicates a willingness to challenge pacifying constraint…
Inter Arma Silent Leges? Democracy, Domestic Terrorism, and Diversion
This article develops expectations about the use of military force by democracies facing domestic terrorism. Due to the necessity of balancing effective counterterrorism with liberal acceptability, domestic terrorism typically represents a significant but nonexistential threat to democracies that is ineradicable via repression; as such, it is likely to generate appreciable diversionary incentives. Moreover, the use of force abroad, coupled with c…
Presidential Risk Propensity and Intervention in Interstate Conflicts
What explains a state's decision to intervene in ongoing interstate conflicts? Intervention is a risky proposition, potentially incurring audience costs if the effort is unsuccessful or if casualties and other costs mount. Various domestic political factors and features of the international environment certainly shape the risks surrounding intervention, but recent work in political psychology suggests that individual leaders’ risk-taking propensi…
Single-party government, Prime Minister psychology, and the diversionary use of force
This paper develops expectations about the likelihood of diversionary conflict initiation by parliamentary democracies with single-party majoritarian (SPM) governments. While most of the literature on diversion and governmental arrangement claims that SPMs have little incentive and/or limited capacity to execute diversionary gambits, we contend that the structural and environmental impetuses for diversion in such states are in fact largely indete…
Interactive Leader Psychology and the Ebb and Flow of Interstate Rivalry
A great deal of scholarship links leaders’ psychological traits to their monadic tendency to use force abroad, but virtually no work considers how the interaction of leadership psychology influences the systematic likelihood of dyadic interstate conflict. We develop and test several competing explanations of how the interactive conceptual complexity of leaders—a psychological trait that consistently predicts monadic conflict propensity—might affe…
Political science (17 works) · Law (14 works) · Law (14 works) · Economics (12 works) · Politics (11 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (10 works) · Political economy (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (9 works) · Psychology (8 works)