Credibility, Organizational Politics, and Crisis Decision Making

Abstract

When and why do foreign policy officials believe that it is important to fight for credibility? Conventional wisdom suggests that policymakers tend to care uniformly about how others perceive them. Yet this logic overlooks substantial variation in how officials prioritize credibility when weighing policy options. I argue that organizational identity affects the dimensions of credibility that policymakers value and their preferences on the use of force. Diplomats see the world from a reputational perspective, whereas military officials do so through the lens of military capabilities. During crises, diplomats match their advice to reputational considerations, while military officials attend to available capabilities. I examine these propositions via an original, vignette-based elite experiment involving over 250 U.S. national security officials and analysis of historical elite survey data. The findings demonstrate that where you sit shapes when you want to fight for credibility.