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Description
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Proposed international agreements generally need to be explicitly or implicitly ratified by domestic agents, most often legislatures. In these circumstances, legislators will attempt to capitalize on uncertainty about their intentions using costless signaling, or cheap talk. How credible is such parliamentary posturing? Existing studies varyingly discount it or credit it with infinite efficacy. This dissertation seeks to redress the indeterminacy of the effect of domestic politics on international bargaining when uncertainty prevails at home.
Drawing on a formal model, the argument focuses on the strategic consequences of varying degrees of uncertainty about the intentions of legislators. Under greater uncertainty, legislative rhetoric takes on an all or nothing character, polarizing internal debate. One consequence is that uncertainty promotes the prospects for (efficient) international cooperation. A second result is that uncertainty deprives the executive of her ability to capitalize on the existence of a moderate opposition in the legislature for bargaining advantage vis-à-vis a foreign negotiator. That is, uncertainty reduces the state's bargaining power.
The dissertation shows how specific domestic institutions contribute to uncertainty, including parliamentary/presidential regimes, party structure, legislative organization, electoral rules, and election timing. Utilizing a new database of 256 trade disputes conducted under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) from 1948 to 1993, the dissertation quantitatively establishes a strong link between uncertainty-promoting domestic institutions and the efficiency and distrib utional characteristics of bargaining outcomes. In addition, three case studies trace the causal process posited by the dissertation, from the specified domestic institutions, to uncertainty, to legislators' signaling behavior, and finally to the impact of that signaling on international bargaining. The results of both em pirical tests strongly support the domestic institutional argument put forth in the dissertation.
The dissertation contributes by providing a determinate picture of the role of legislative signaling in international bargaining. Parliamentary posturing matters. Because of legislative signaling, uncertainty has some very counterintuitive effects: it can actually promote international cooperation. The dissertation also contributes by providing a coherent picture of the international consequences of a wide variety of domestic institutions.
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