How can states successfully use military occupations to establish their postwar goals? I develop and test a principal-agent model to explain the conditions under which the influence of an occupying power and its enforcement strategies can effectively gain compliance from occupied territories. The central claim is that ‘principal’ occupiers should expect their occupied ‘agents’ will attempt to shirk on fulfilling postwar aims. The emergence of shirking depends upon whether the occupier has a relative power advantage to minimize such opportunities, and its strategies of enforcement to reduce the incentives of non-compliance. When occupying states can effectively coordinate their influence and strategies against the occupied territory, they are more likely to gain compliance among elites with their postwar goals. The theoretical argument presents several hypotheses regarding the success and failure of occupations, which I evaluate through multivariate tests using a new data set on postwar military occupations from 1815 through 2003.
