New insights into how observers judge resolve unite capability, stake, signal and past action factors.
Democracies vs Autocracies Our conjoint experiment reveals a surprising bias: democratic capabilities appear less credible than autocratic ones in high-stakes scenarios.
Citizen Perception Ordinary people rely on intuitive cues, not full rational deliberation when assessing resolve. Their judgments align surprisingly with elite interpretations of costly signals.
Research Method We employ conjoint experiments to uncover nuanced resolve perceptions that other methods miss. This allows us to test theoretical propositions empirically.