Multidimensional Diplomacy

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert F. Trager
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Statics ◽  
International Crisis ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Issue Dimensions

AbstractStates often negotiate with each other over more than one issue at the same time. This article presents a model of multidimensional international crisis bargaining. Unlike unidimensional bargaining, with two issue dimensions states can send costless signals about their resolve that have dramatic effects on other states' beliefs and actions. One reason is that when states claim a willingness to fight over an issue they in fact are not willing to fight over, they may lose the opportunity to get what they really want without conflict. As a result, when there is a chance that adversaries may each be willing to fight over two issues, the states can even sometimes convey with certainty when they will fight for both issues. The model also leads to some surprising comparative statics, for example, decreases in the probability that the target is willing to fight can increase the probability of war.

Goliath's Curse: Coercive Threats and Asymmetric Power

2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 627-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd S. Sechser
Keyword(s):  
Military Power ◽  
International Crisis ◽  
Coercive Diplomacy ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Side Payments ◽  
Asymmetric Power ◽  
Target States ◽  
Compellent Threats ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Reputation Building

AbstractStates typically issue compellent threats against considerably weaker adversaries, yet their threats often fail. Why? Expanding on a standard model of international crisis bargaining, I argue that a theory of reputation-building can help shed light on this puzzle. The model casts reputation as a strategic problem, showing that challengers issuing compellent threats have incentives to anticipate the reputation costs that target states incur when appeasing aggressors. If challengers can recognize these costs and offset them with side payments or smaller demands, then even reputation-conscious targets will acquiesce. I argue, however, that military strength contributes to information problems that make challengers more likely to underestimate their targets' reputation costs and insufficiently compensate them. In this way, military power can undermine the effectiveness of compellent threats. The logic is illustrated by the 1939 Russo-Finnish crisis, and the argument's implications for the study of coercive diplomacy are explored.

Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail

2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd S. Sechser ◽  
Matthew Fuhrmann
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Selection Effects ◽  
International Crisis ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
Compellent Threats ◽  
Significant Attention

AbstractDo nuclear weapons offer coercive advantages in international crisis bargaining? Almost seventy years into the nuclear age, we still lack a complete answer to this question. While scholars have devoted significant attention to questions about nuclear deterrence, we know comparatively little about whether nuclear weapons can help compel states to change their behavior. This study argues that, despite their extraordinary power, nuclear weapons are uniquely poor instruments of compellence. Compellent threats are more likely to be effective under two conditions: first, if a challenger can credibly threaten to seize the item in dispute; and second, if enacting the threat would entail few costs to the challenger. Nuclear weapons, however, meet neither of these conditions. They are neither useful tools of conquest nor low-cost tools of punishment. Using a new dataset of more than 200 militarized compellent threats from 1918 to 2001, we find strong support for our theory: compellent threats from nuclear states are no more likely to succeed, even after accounting for possible selection effects in the data. While nuclear weapons may carry coercive weight as instruments of deterrence, it appears that these effects do not extend to compellence.

Empirical Implications of Signaling Models: Estimation of Belief Updating in International Crisis Bargaining

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taehee Whang
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Models ◽  
Strategic Choice ◽  
Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Essential Characteristic ◽  
International Crisis ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Bayesian Equilibrium ◽  
True Type ◽  
Empirical Implications

Signaling models are ubiquitous in political science. An essential characteristic of these models is that actors can update their beliefs about their opponents. An actor observes the behavior of his opponent, and this behavior functions as a signal that allows the actor to learn more about his opponent's true “type.” As a result, the actor is able to adapt his own behavior. Current statistical models of strategic choice based on perfect Bayesian equilibrium, however, allow for very little, if any, belief updating. I explain why current models allow for little updating and offer in their stead a new, fully strategic choice estimator that calculates the correct amount of belief updating.

Stylized Facts and Comparative Statics in (Social) Science Inquiry

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 482-485
Author(s):  
Neil Narang ◽  
Brad L LeVeck
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Science Inquiry ◽  
Comparative Statics ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Wisdom Of Crowds ◽  
Stylized Facts ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Large Groups

Abstract In a recent article, David Blagden (2019) critiques our research published in the International Studies Quarterly (LeVeck and Narang 2017a), in which we draw on the well-known “wisdom of crowds” phenomenon to argue that, because democracies typically include a larger number of decision makers in the foreign policy process, they may produce fewer decision-making errors in situations of crisis bargaining. As a result, bargaining may fail less often. Blagden's critique focuses on two supposed flaws: first, that “[d]emocracies may have a larger number of more diverse policymakers, of course, but this relationship is not necessary,” and second, that “weighing against the superior ability of large groups to average towards accurate answers, meanwhile, is a substantial drawback of larger groups: the diminishing ability to take and implement decisions” due to additional veto players. In this article, we demonstrate the ways in which we believe Blagden's critique to be misguided in its approach to social science inquiry. In particular, we argue that much of his critique requires that we reject two hallmarks of scientific inquiry: the use of stylized facts in theory building; and the use of comparative statics to generate testable hypotheses.

Effects of Cooking Oil Subsidy Removals on Related Markets in Malaysia: A Comparative Static, Multicommodity, Multi Stage Production Approach

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamal Othman ◽  
Yaghoob Jafari
Keyword(s):  
Equilibrium Model ◽  
Comparative Statics ◽  
Partial Equilibrium ◽  
Cooking Oil ◽  
Multi Stage ◽  
Supply Factor ◽  
Partial Equilibrium Model ◽  
Factor Markets ◽  
Input Markets ◽  
Production Approach

Malaysia is contemplating removal of most of her subsidy support measures including subsidies on cooking oil which is largely palm oil based. This paper aims to examine the effects of cooking oil subsidy removals on the competitiveness of the oil palm subsector and related markets. This is done by developing and applying a comparative static, multi-commodity, partial equilibrium model with multi-stages of production function for the Malaysian perennial crops subsector which explicitly links different stages of production, primary and intermediate input markets, trade, and policy linkages. Results partly suggest that export of cooking oil will increase by 0.2 per cent due to a 10 per cent cooking oil subsidy reduction, while domestic output of cooking oil may eventually see a net decline of 1.97 per cent. The results clearly point out that the effect of reducing cooking oil subsidies is relatively small at the upstream levels and therefore it only induces minute effects on factor markets. Consequently, the market for other agricultural crops is projected to change very marginally.   Keywords: Multicomodity, comparative statics, partial equilibrium model, output supply-factor markets linkages, effects of cooking oil subsidy removals.

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