Foreign Military Intervention and Cabinet Government Stability

Abstract

Cabinet governments are the most prevalent form of democratic rule and studies of cabinet government duration are common. These studies tend to focus on the domestic influences associated with cabinet longevity, not the impact that foreign policy decisions may have. We begin to address this gap in the literature by analyzing the effect that one particularly visible foreign policy decision, the initiation of a foreign military intervention, has on cabinet duration. We argue that the consequential decision to send troops abroad and possibly into harm’s way holds the potential to reset a country’s policy agenda. Such a reset can, in turn, prove beneficial for cabinet longevity. In Cox proportional survival analyses of 563 cabinets from 26 European countries between 1946 and 2008, we find that foreign military intervention does have a significant impact on government duration. Governments that dispatched soldiers overseas on supportive or neutral missions lasted significantly longer than those that did not, even after controlling for numerous alternative explanations of cabinet duration. Research on cabinet stability would thus benefit from looking beyond the domestic conditions commonly associated with longevity. The impact of foreign policy decisions should be considered as well.