Robert F. Trager

Diplomatic Calculus in Anarchy: How Communication Matters

When states come to believe that other states are hostile to their interests, they often reorient their foreign policies by realigning alliance commitments, building arms, striking first, mobilizing troops, or adopting policies to drain the resources of states that menace them. This article presents a crisis bargaining model that allows threatened states a wider array of responses than the choice to back down or not. Two implications are that (1) “cheap talk” diplomatic statements by adversaries can affect perceptions of intentions, and (2) war can occur because resolved states decline to communicate their intentions, even though they could, and even though doing so would avoid a war. The model relates the content and quality of diplomatic signals to the context of prior beliefs about intentions and strategic options. In simulations, this form of diplomatic communication reduces the likelihood of conflict.

Long-Term Consequences of Aggressive Diplomacy: European Relations after Austrian Crimean War Threats

There is a large literature on the impacts of explicit threats on the outcomes of crises between states, but the longer-term impacts of threats on dyadic state relationships and on international outcomes have been much less studied because of the difficulty of establishing causal connections between events separated in time. By comparing nearly identical foreign policy contexts before and after the Austrian Crimean War ultimata to Russia, this article demonstrates that, contrary to the prevailing view in much of the international relations literature, such long-term effects are not marginal ones that theoretical simplification with the goal of analyzing the central tendencies of the international system can usefully ignore. Under conditions discussed below, when a state is threatened in a way that attempts to deny one of its key policy objectives, that state will be less likely to come to the aid of the threatening state in the future and more likely to join the other side in future wars, realign its alliance commitments, and adopt strategies to drain the resources of the threatening state. Among the implications of these findings are that policymakers should take greater account of the long-term consequences of aggressive negotiating stances than current theories imply and that scholars have underestimated the information conveyed by private threats in crisis bargaining.

How the scope of a demand conveys resolve

Author(s): Trager, RF | Abstract: How does the scope of costless threats convey information about resolve to adversaries? Analysis of a model similar to Fearon demonstrates that higher demands increase perceptions of a states resolve to fight for more favorable outcomes when bargaining is such that both sides share in the benefits of avoiding conflict, in contrast to the ultimatum game, and making a credible high demand does not lead to a favorable outcome with certainty. Interestingly, compromise offers will be made even though they increase an adversarys perception that the compromising state would be willing to make an even greater concession. In contrast to many other signaling mechanisms described in the literature, signaling of this sort does not depend on risking war and often reduces the probability of conflict. Copyright

Is There a War Party? Party Change, the Left–Right Divide, and International Conflict:

Are leaders from certain parties particularly likely to engage in military conflict? This question is difficult to answer because of selection bias. For example, countries may be more likely to elect right-wing leaders if their publics are more hawkish or if the international system is particularly dangerous. Put simply, who comes to power is not random, which makes causal inference difficult. We overcome this problem by using a regression discontinuity design. Specifically, we look at close presidential elections that were essentially “tossups” between two candidates. We find that electing right-wing candidates increases state aggression. We also find that electing candidates from challenger parties makes countries much more likely to initiate military disputes, particularly in the first year of the new leader’s term. This result is consistent with other studies that find that the likelihood of state aggression increases following major leadership transitions.

The Scope of Demands

When the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia dreamt of forming Italy in 1859, it set about forging a secret alliance with France, inspiring insurrections in Austrias Italian provinces, and conducting military maneuvers close to the Austrian border. The Austrians mobilized in response and war appeared likely. A compromise proposal was floated by the Powers according to which the Austrians would pull their troops back from the boarder in return for Piedmontese demobilization. In private diplomatic communications, the Austrians rejected this compromise, insisting the Piedmontese demobilize first. In cases such as this, costless communication is difficult, and is often thought to be impossible. All parties knew what the Austrians wanted; what they did not know initially was whether Austria was willing to fight rather than accept a compromise. Why should words uttered in private convince anyone? Austria had incentive to make the more substantial demand even if it were not willing to fight over the matter. But nevertheless, observers did learn from the Austrian refusal. The British ambassador to Austria even concluded that he had “not the smallest hope that the Austrian Government will agree to any such [compromise].” How did observers reach this conclusion? The ambassador may have drawn this inference because he believed that Austria, having made the threat, would not have wanted to be caught in a bluff, but this could be said of every threat and diplomats sometimes believe that threats lack credibility. Although a range of factors certainly affected the ambassadors conclusion, he likely made the following simple inference: in demanding more, Austria had given up the opportunity to achieve a compromise solution that Austria believed Piedmont was much more likely to have conceded without fighting; therefore, Austria is resolved to fight for the more substantial demand. Through this mechanism, the scope of state demands commonly conveys information about resolve to adversaries in international politics. Despite literature in international relations that argues the contrary, such simple inferences are often quite rational in diplomatic relations. This chapter analyzes a model similar to Fearon (1995) in order to demonstrate that higher demands can increase perceptions of a states resolve to fight for more favorable outcomes when two conditions hold. First, when negotiations produce a peaceful outcome, both sides must share in the bargaining surplus from avoiding war.

Can Adversaries Communicate

The relationship between Austria and Russia was without hint of conflict in the first half of the nineteenth century. Austrians wept with joy when Russia offered military assistance against the Hungarians, and the Austrian Emperor traveled to Warsaw, where he knelt on one knee to kiss the Tsars hand. The two powers signed an agreement to conduct their foreign policies “only together and in a perfect spirit of solidarity,” and the Tsar told foreign diplomats, “when I speak of Russia, I speak of Austria as well.” Yet, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the two empires were in constant tension, and often directly at odds. Russia offered aid and support against Austrian interests, first to Sardinia and Prussia, enabling those states to form Italy and Germany, and later to Serbia and other Balkan powers, leading to the World War. This dramatic shift in Russian policy towards Austria happened suddenly in the 1850s and did not result from changes in national capabilities or material interests; what brought it about? Another important shift in European politics occurred during the Great Eastern Crisis in 1876. Germany and Russia had previously had the closest of relations, while Germany and Austria had fought a war a decade before. Yet, during the Great Eastern Crisis, a rift formed between Germany and Russia, while Germany and Austria–Hungary drew closer together. The German statesman, Otto von Bismarck, was convinced that the words his ambassador to Russia had uttered to the Tsar had brought about this “new situation” in Europe. Soon after, Germany signed the alliance with Austria that lasted until both Empires were destroyed fighting side by side in the cataclysm of the First World War. What did produce this new situation and how did it then convince Germany and Austria to bind themselves in a rare, permanent alliance despite having recently fought each other in a war? The twentieth century contains many examples of similar shifts in leaders’ beliefs and policies with lasting consequences. At the turn of the century, for instance, Russo-Austrian relations were merely conflictual, but by 1914, the Austrian emperor had come to believe that Russian policy aimed at “the destruction of my empire.” Austrian statesmen, who had previously rated Germany an unreliable ally, came to believe instead during the July Crisis that Germany could be relied upon in an existential struggle.