S. Levy, leaders may be unaware of audience costs. To the extent that audience costs work, that may be a learned practice, rather than a consistent and timeless feature of international politics. Research by Jessica Weeks argued that some authoritarian regime types have similar audience costs as in democratic states. Research by Jessica Chen Weiss argued that the Chinese regime fomented or clamped down on nationalist (or anti-foreign) protests in China to signal resolve. Fomenting or permitting nationalist protests entail audience costs, as they make it harder for the Chinese regime to back down in a foreign policy crisis out of fear of the protestors turning against the regime. Secret negotiations Some scholars have grappled with the relationship between secret negotiations and audience costs. Shuhei Kurizaki, Austin Carson, Keren Yarhi-Milo, and Levenotoglu and Tarar have argued that secret operations, threats, and agreements can reduce inadvertent escalation to war by insulating leaders from the domestic backlash that would have occurred if the diplomacy had been conducted in public. Austin Carson argues that covert operations allow states to pursue their foreign policy interests without risking escalation to war. By keeping the operation covert, states avoid pressure by domestic audiences to escalate the operation beyond their original intent and communicate to their adversary their intent to keep the operation limited. Keren Yarhi-Milo argues that secret agreements between adversaries can lead to lasting peace if their initiator faces domestic opposition to the terms of the agreement. The ability of the other state to publicly disclose the terms means that it is a form of costly signaling of intentions by the initiator. In other contexts States may be more likely to honor alliance commitments because of audience costs. According to a 2020 study by Joshua A. Schwartz and Christopher W. Blair, gender stereotypes about leaders lead to audience costs, as women leaders are punished more severely for backing down after issuing threats. A 2006 study by Todd Allee and Paul Huth found that leaders try to avoid audience costs for voluntary-negotiated settlements by instead using rulings by an international court or arbitration body, which the leaders can blame for adverse outcomes. References International relations theory Foreign policy