Replication Data for: A Dispositional Theory of Reputation Costs

Politicians frequently turn to reputational arguments to bolster support for their proposed foreign policies. Yet despite the prevailing belief that domestic audiences care about reputation, there is very little direct evidence that publics care about reputation costs, and very little understanding of how. We propose a dispositional theory of reputation costs in which citizens facing ill-defined strategic situations turn to their core predispositions about foreign affairs in order to weigh competing reputational dimensions. Employing a diverse array of methodological tools—from vignette-based survey experiments to automated text analysis—we show that the mass public has a “taste” for reputation, but understands it in fundamentally different ways, with hawks concerned about the negative reputational consequences of inconsistency, and doves equally concerned with the negative reputational consequences of belligerence and interventionism. In illustrating how reputation costs are in our heads, our findings offer both good and bad news for theories of reputation in IR.政治家时常借助声誉论证，为其拟议的外交政策争取支持。然而，尽管主流观点认为国内受众重视国家声誉，但鲜有直接证据表明普通公众在意声誉成本，且学界对公众如何考量此类成本也知之甚少。我们提出一种声誉成本的倾向理论：当公民身处模糊的战略情境中时，会依托其对外交事务的核心固有倾向，来权衡相互冲突的各类声誉维度。我们运用从情景式调查实验到自动化文本分析等多样化研究方法，证明普通大众对国家声誉存在“偏好”，但对声誉的理解却存在根本性差异：鹰派担忧言行不一带来的负面声誉后果，而鸽派则同等担忧好战与干涉主义引发的负面声誉后果。本研究阐释了声誉成本如何根植于人类认知，其研究结果对国际关系（International Relations, IR）领域的声誉理论而言，兼具积极与消极两方面的启示。