Audience costs, which are defined as political costs for a leader generated when the leader fails to follow through on international commitments, are an important concept in international relations to understand the causes of war and peace. However, despite its prominence, evidence for audience costs is mixed at best. In this dissertation, by conducting a series of survey experiments in the United States, I examine a variety of causal mechanisms and observable implications of audience cost models. In Chapter 2 I explore the role of the media. The result of a survey experiment shows that the media's negative framing of a leader's backing down from a threat increases audience costs, but only after subjects are informed of the leader's justification. Chapter 3 tests the idea that the magnitude of audience costs depends on an individual's personality traits. A pilot experiment using a sample of undergraduate students does not support this expectation. Lastly, I compare the credibility of public versus private threats in Chapter 4. A conjoint survey experiment demonstrates that as many proponents of audience cost theory suggest, public threats are perceived as more credible, and the sources of their credibility are domestic audience costs.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-204). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

The trials of a comfort woman was never revealed after the conclusion of WWII. More than half a century has passed before the name was uttered on the international stage. Why the sudden break of silence? What is the response of the Japanese government. In this paper, we discuss the issue of the comfort women and the the political implications it holds on Japan. Japan's failure to accept wartime reparation, largely due to Allied intervention, has resulted in the widening gap between Japan and Asia. This paper focuses on the combination of increased US influence as a result of the San Francisco Treaty of 1951 and Japan’s fervent nationalistic identity served to widen the gap between Japan and other East and Southeast Asian nations, making reconciliation over the issue of comfort women a problem that remains unresolved to this day.

The diploma thesis deals with mutual trade between the United States of America and the Third Reich during the years 1933 - 1945 and analyzes the influence of American companies that had their branches or other business interests in Germany during Nazism. The thesis analyzes the international trade and its development between both states in the pre-war period as well as international trade during the war. Thesis deals with the contribution of American companies to the German war economy and analyzes their influence and behavior change after the outbreak of war. The hypothesis on the reduction of business co-operation with the on-going war at state level has been confirmed, just as hypothesis of continuing the cooperation of American firms after the outbreak of war.