Autocratic Accountability and the Arab-Israeli Dispute

How do mass publics affect authoritarian regimes' foreign policy choices? Does the interaction between non-democratic regimes and their domestic challengers convey information to their international rivals? When do dictators face domestic political sanctions for battlefield defeats? Is the politics of peacemaking as perilous for autocrats as it is for democrats?I suggest that autocrats' foreign policy decisions are carried out in the shadow of popular punishments from the general public- what I refer to as "mass audiences." Using the Arab-Israeli rivalry as an empirical backdrop, I examine three puzzles that have been repeatedly examined in democratic contexts. First, I examine how the interaction between the incumbent government and the opposition sends costly signals to rival states during peace processes (in this case, Israel). Second, I examine the relationship between peacemaking and political survival in autocracies, with special attention to Anwar Sadat's hold onto power. Third, I examine how losses on the battlefield affect dictators' ability to retain office. I make three general findings. First, using evidence from the peace process with Jordan in the late 1940s and Egypt in the 1970s, I found that by repressing the nationalist opposition, dictators reassure their external rivals, giving them strong incentives to reciprocate cooperative gestures. Dictators who coopt the nationalist opposition tend to extend their lease on political life but tie their hands in the process, making them beholden to hawkish constituencies and weaken their ability to cut a deal with a rival state. Second, dictators who fight and lose a war are likely to suffer domestic political punishments from mass audiences. Major defeats, such as those suffered during the Israeli War for Independence and the Six Day War, weaken the dictatorship's repressive apparatus, making it easier for the domestic opposition to punish an incumbent through mass protests. Third, peacemaking is "risky business" for dictators. Mass publics are likely to protest against leaders who offer concessions to the state's longstanding rivals because mass publics fear the nation may be exploited by a longstanding rival