Description
Book Synopsis'Domestic politics matters' has become a rallying cry for international relations scholars over the years, yet the question still remains: Just how does it matter? This book argues that an important part of the international impact of domestic politics springs from the institutional responses to its many uncertainties.
Trade Review"George Downs and David Rocke's new book on the intersection of domestic politics and international relations is an important and exciting contribution to the burgeoning game theory literature on the subject. Moving beyond the two-level game metaphor both in terms of analytical rigor and in terms of subject matter, it focuses on how uncertainty about aspects of a state's domestic politics can affect international behavior and institutions."--Andrew Kydd, Political Science Quarterly
Table of ContentsList of Figures ix List of Tables xi Preface xiii 1 The Impact of Uncertainty 3 1.1 Introduction 3 1.2 Realism and Early Rational Choice 9 1.3 The Psychological Tradition 13 1.4 The Institutionalist Tradition 19 1.5 Recent Research 23 1.6 Conclusion 25 2 Game Theory and Uncertainty 27 2.1 Modeling Uncertainty 27 2.2 Games of Incomplete Information 28 2.2.1 Introduction 28 2.2.2 Bayesian Updating 31 2.2.3 Signaling and Reputation 35 2.3 Principal-Agent Models 41 2.4 Trigger Strategies 44 2.5 Conclusion 54 3 Gambling for Resurrection 56 3.1 Introduction 56 3.2 The Theory 59 3.3 The Executive's Dilemma 67 3.4 Gambling for Resurrection 68 3.5 Conclusion 71 3.6 Appendix: Optimal Bayesian Policies 72 4 Optimal Imperfection: GATT and the Uncertainty of Interest Group Demands 76 4.1 Introduction 76 4.2 Modeling Trade Treaties 77 4.3 Treaty Maintenance under Perfect Information 79 4.3.1 Reversionary Strategies 79 4.3.2 Reciprocity and Tit-for-Tat 85 4.4 Interest Group Uncertainty 87 4.5 Asymmetric Preferences 91 4.6 Coping with Nontariff Barriers: U.S. Section 301 93 4.7 Conclusion 99 4.8 Appendixes 101 4.8.1 Assumptions 101 4.8.2 Proof of Proposition 4.1 101 4.8.3 Proof of Proposition 4.2 102 4.8.4 Proof of Proposition 4.3 104 5 Willing but Maybe Not Able: The Impact of Uncertainty about State Capacity 105 5.1 Introduction 105 5.2 An Environmental Model 107 5.2.1 Enforcement Ill 5.2.2 Trigger Strategy 112 5.3 Capacity Uncertainty and Change 114 5.3.1 Capacity Uncertainty 114 5.3.2 Capacity Change 117 5.3.3 Equilibrium Behavior 119 5.4 The Effects of State Capacity Uncertainty 121 5.5 Informational Issue-Linking and a Multivariate Model 123 5.6 Conclusion 125 5.7 Appendixes 127 5.7.1 Normal Mixture Distributions 12 5.7.2 Proof of Proposition 5.1 127 6 Conclusion 130 6.1 Domestic Uncertainty and Institutions 130 6.2 Policy Prescriptions 138 Bibliography 143 Index 155
