When Consistency Doesn't Matter: A Preference-Based Theory of Audience Costs

When are foreign policy commitments credible? Traditional theories emphasize audience costs—that domestic audiences punish inconsistency between a leader’s words and deeds. Yet a growing body of evidence reveals a puzzle: leaders are sometimes punished for consistency and forgiven for inconsistency. I propose a new theory of audience costs (PACT)—that roots credibility not in rhetorical consistency, but in whether leaders align with public preferences. When audiences are divided—hawks and doves coexist—leaders face hand-tying costs regardless of policy. But when public opinion is homogeneous, credibility depends on whether leaders align with prevailing preferences, not on whether they are consistent. I formalize this logic in a parsimonious game-theoretic model and test its implications using original survey experiments and a historical case study of the 1895 Venezuela Crisis. PACT reconciles experimental and historical evidence on credibility and offers a unified framework connecting foreign policy commitments to citizens’ policy preferences.