Is victory enough? Taking the economy seriously in the models of postwar leadership tenure

Previous studies on postwar tenure consider the outcome of war as the single most important determinant of electoral consequences and, thus, the duration of postwar tenure. Economic voting literature argues that economic change may be the most significant determinant of individual voting decisions. Draw on these two distinctive but interrelated literatures, I argue that neither the outcome of militarized disputes nor economic performance at home has a fully determining effect on the political future of a chief executive. Instead, the effect of the outcome is conditional upon the domestic economy, and there is an interactive relationship between the economy and the outcome of war. Thus, the outcome of war combined with the effect of economic performance will influence the future of a leader.; The empirical results from the Cox proportional hazard model support my argument that there is an interaction between the outcome and the economy and it has a significant effect on the duration of leader tenure. I also find that the economy plays a significant role determining the duration of tenure for leaders. The outcome alone may not have statistically significant effect on the duration of leader tenure, but when decaying effect of victory is incorporated in analyses it becomes significant and negative on the hazard ratio. This research is an effort to better understand postwar tenure in a more complete fashion by incorporating economic voting literature and conflict behavior of international relations.