Offshore finance allows foreign banks to create US dollars under the laws of an offshore jurisdiction. How and why does this affect international monetary power? Conceptually, I argue that offshore finance bifurcates across borders the shared power of the state and banks to create money, combining the US dollar with mostly English law. Empirically, I demonstrate that more US dollars are created offshore outside US jurisdiction than onshore within it. Offshore finance increases liquidity, at higher risk, and leads to a cross-border entanglement of issuing country, offshore financial centers, borrowers, and global banks. In short, offshore finance changes the power inherent in money. Consequently, international monetary power has become the ability to get access to offshore dollars in combination with the capacity to determine international liquidity and to set, select, or circumvent the related rules. It is constrained by the hierarchically organized social credit relations that money consists of. The international monetary power of the United States has become an instance of indirect rule with global banks having been delegated the prerogative of US dollar creation. As is common with indirect rule, it entails a difficult balancing act between geographical reach and centralization of power.
{"title":"Outsourcing Empire: International Monetary Power in the Age of Offshore Finance","authors":"Andrea Binder","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae123","url":null,"abstract":"Offshore finance allows foreign banks to create US dollars under the laws of an offshore jurisdiction. How and why does this affect international monetary power? Conceptually, I argue that offshore finance bifurcates across borders the shared power of the state and banks to create money, combining the US dollar with mostly English law. Empirically, I demonstrate that more US dollars are created offshore outside US jurisdiction than onshore within it. Offshore finance increases liquidity, at higher risk, and leads to a cross-border entanglement of issuing country, offshore financial centers, borrowers, and global banks. In short, offshore finance changes the power inherent in money. Consequently, international monetary power has become the ability to get access to offshore dollars in combination with the capacity to determine international liquidity and to set, select, or circumvent the related rules. It is constrained by the hierarchically organized social credit relations that money consists of. The international monetary power of the United States has become an instance of indirect rule with global banks having been delegated the prerogative of US dollar creation. As is common with indirect rule, it entails a difficult balancing act between geographical reach and centralization of power.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142383720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Since the end of the Cold War, the United Nations has increasingly used peacekeeping operations (PKOs) to manage crises between and within states. The mandates of contemporary PKOs are demanding, calling on peacekeeping personnel to separate belligerent parties, enforce ceasefire agreements, and protect the physical security of civilians. The pursuit of these distinct objectives presents a unique challenge for the UN because it relies on member states to volunteer personnel for these missions. Therefore, the achievement of mandated goals depends on the ability of diverse national contingents to overcome coordination problems and function as a cohesive force. Integrating research of PKOs and international military coalitions, we argue that as national contingents share operational experience within a UN mission, they develop common institutional practices, and become more effective at protecting the civilian population. Using monthly data on UN PKOs from 1990 to 2019, we find that increasing operational experience within a peacekeeping coalition reduces civilian fatalities significantly.
{"title":"Learning to Fight Together: UN Peacekeeping Coalitions and Civilian Protection","authors":"Michael A Morgan, Daniel S Morey","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae118","url":null,"abstract":"Since the end of the Cold War, the United Nations has increasingly used peacekeeping operations (PKOs) to manage crises between and within states. The mandates of contemporary PKOs are demanding, calling on peacekeeping personnel to separate belligerent parties, enforce ceasefire agreements, and protect the physical security of civilians. The pursuit of these distinct objectives presents a unique challenge for the UN because it relies on member states to volunteer personnel for these missions. Therefore, the achievement of mandated goals depends on the ability of diverse national contingents to overcome coordination problems and function as a cohesive force. Integrating research of PKOs and international military coalitions, we argue that as national contingents share operational experience within a UN mission, they develop common institutional practices, and become more effective at protecting the civilian population. Using monthly data on UN PKOs from 1990 to 2019, we find that increasing operational experience within a peacekeeping coalition reduces civilian fatalities significantly.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"97 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142084696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We are encouraged to think of refugees as resilient people with agency and capacity for flourishing, rather than passive victims needing help. This framing purports to uphold and celebrate refugees’ humanity. But some scholars worry that it problematically serves to demand resilience from refugees, normalize their displacement, and legitimate state bordering practices. This article builds on this critique by examining how powerful actors have long attributed resilience to vulnerable others to legitimate domination and control. I focus on the deployment of resilience-talk by white enslavers and their supporters to justify Black enslavement in the American South. Their philosophical, climatological, and epidemiological arguments about the resilient Black slave were supplemented with a claim that Black people could not survive liberation in the American North. I probe the resonances of this resilience-talk with contemporary invocations of the resilience of refugees in the Global South, and their supposed non-resilience in the Global North.
{"title":"Resilience and Domination: Resonances of Racial Slavery in Refugee Exclusion","authors":"Luke Glanville","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae116","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae116","url":null,"abstract":"We are encouraged to think of refugees as resilient people with agency and capacity for flourishing, rather than passive victims needing help. This framing purports to uphold and celebrate refugees’ humanity. But some scholars worry that it problematically serves to demand resilience from refugees, normalize their displacement, and legitimate state bordering practices. This article builds on this critique by examining how powerful actors have long attributed resilience to vulnerable others to legitimate domination and control. I focus on the deployment of resilience-talk by white enslavers and their supporters to justify Black enslavement in the American South. Their philosophical, climatological, and epidemiological arguments about the resilient Black slave were supplemented with a claim that Black people could not survive liberation in the American North. I probe the resonances of this resilience-talk with contemporary invocations of the resilience of refugees in the Global South, and their supposed non-resilience in the Global North.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"96 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141994387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Previous work in International Studies Quarterly shows higher levels of humanitarian aid prolong civil conflicts. It also finds, among conflict–years in which aid is received, that this conflict-prolonging effect is more acute in insurgency-based civil conflicts, albeit with weaker supporting evidence. However, I show this work accidentally generated its conflict duration variable incorrectly, with the duration measuring time since January 1, 1960, not time since civil conflict onset. The duration values also exclude the first at-risk day for the first observation in each conflict, which drops true one-day durations from the estimation sample. I rerun the original analysis with the corrected duration coding and find evidence that supports the opposite of the author's main hypothesis: higher levels of humanitarian aid either have no effect on or shorten civil conflict duration. Additionally, the weak evidence for the author's second hypothesis mostly disappears, depending on the conflict's duration.
{"title":"Calendar versus Analysis Time: Reanalyzing the Relationship between Humanitarian Aid and Civil Conflict Duration","authors":"Shawna K Metzger","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae106","url":null,"abstract":"Previous work in International Studies Quarterly shows higher levels of humanitarian aid prolong civil conflicts. It also finds, among conflict–years in which aid is received, that this conflict-prolonging effect is more acute in insurgency-based civil conflicts, albeit with weaker supporting evidence. However, I show this work accidentally generated its conflict duration variable incorrectly, with the duration measuring time since January 1, 1960, not time since civil conflict onset. The duration values also exclude the first at-risk day for the first observation in each conflict, which drops true one-day durations from the estimation sample. I rerun the original analysis with the corrected duration coding and find evidence that supports the opposite of the author's main hypothesis: higher levels of humanitarian aid either have no effect on or shorten civil conflict duration. Additionally, the weak evidence for the author's second hypothesis mostly disappears, depending on the conflict's duration.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"376 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141991807","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How might international institutions matter? To consider this central question of International Relations, we analyze a most-likely case for the importance of materially driven enforcement: the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) use of blacklisting in the global regime targeting money laundering and terrorism financing. Scholars and practitioners often argue that fear of financial harm caused by FATF’s lists explains the near-global commitment to FATF’s standards, even if compliance lags. We search for statistical evidence of this impact across four different measures of financial flows and find that listing is not correlated with financial harm. To explain these null results, we examine bank decision-making and find that the lists’ impact is likely diminished by two overlooked factors: the existence of multiple, competing lists and banks’ access to more fine-grained, client-specific information provided by third-party companies. We interpret this contradiction—a commitment to compliance generated in part by a fear of enforcement, despite a lack of evidence for enforcement’s impact—as a “rational myth.” The results challenge a common understanding of a major global governance regime, confirm ideas about the limited ability of states or International Organizations to control governance outcomes, and advance a new research agenda on the impact of bank decision-making on global governance.
{"title":"The Limits of Enforcement in Global Financial Governance: Blacklisting in FATF as Rational Myth","authors":"Devin Case-Ruchala, Mark Nance","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae115","url":null,"abstract":"How might international institutions matter? To consider this central question of International Relations, we analyze a most-likely case for the importance of materially driven enforcement: the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) use of blacklisting in the global regime targeting money laundering and terrorism financing. Scholars and practitioners often argue that fear of financial harm caused by FATF’s lists explains the near-global commitment to FATF’s standards, even if compliance lags. We search for statistical evidence of this impact across four different measures of financial flows and find that listing is not correlated with financial harm. To explain these null results, we examine bank decision-making and find that the lists’ impact is likely diminished by two overlooked factors: the existence of multiple, competing lists and banks’ access to more fine-grained, client-specific information provided by third-party companies. We interpret this contradiction—a commitment to compliance generated in part by a fear of enforcement, despite a lack of evidence for enforcement’s impact—as a “rational myth.” The results challenge a common understanding of a major global governance regime, confirm ideas about the limited ability of states or International Organizations to control governance outcomes, and advance a new research agenda on the impact of bank decision-making on global governance.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141974308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Why do some states assist other countries to reach across national borders and repress their diaspora, while others do not? Transnational repression involves host countries (including democracies) working closely with origin states (typically autocracies) to transfer their citizens living abroad into their custody and silence dissent. We expect international cooperation on transnational repression to rely on a host country’s domestic rule of law (opportunity to repress) and economic ties with the origin country (leverage to cooperate). To measure international cooperation on transnational repression, we present new data containing 608 direct physical cases of transnational repression from 2014 to 2020 involving 160 unique country dyads (79 host countries and 31 origin countries). We test our hypotheses using a dataset of 33,615 directed dyad-years that accounts for refugee flows between pairs of countries and find empirical support for our theoretical argument. Autocracies are better able to elicit cooperation on human rights violations from states that have shared economic interests and a weak rule of law. Our findings provide one of the first quantitative accounts of foreign complicity in extraterritorial repression and have policy implications for civil society activists that seek to prevent governments from committing future human rights abuses against foreign nationals living abroad.
{"title":"Transnational Repression: International Cooperation in Silencing Dissent","authors":"Rebecca Cordell, Kashmiri Medhi","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae108","url":null,"abstract":"Why do some states assist other countries to reach across national borders and repress their diaspora, while others do not? Transnational repression involves host countries (including democracies) working closely with origin states (typically autocracies) to transfer their citizens living abroad into their custody and silence dissent. We expect international cooperation on transnational repression to rely on a host country’s domestic rule of law (opportunity to repress) and economic ties with the origin country (leverage to cooperate). To measure international cooperation on transnational repression, we present new data containing 608 direct physical cases of transnational repression from 2014 to 2020 involving 160 unique country dyads (79 host countries and 31 origin countries). We test our hypotheses using a dataset of 33,615 directed dyad-years that accounts for refugee flows between pairs of countries and find empirical support for our theoretical argument. Autocracies are better able to elicit cooperation on human rights violations from states that have shared economic interests and a weak rule of law. Our findings provide one of the first quantitative accounts of foreign complicity in extraterritorial repression and have policy implications for civil society activists that seek to prevent governments from committing future human rights abuses against foreign nationals living abroad.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"111 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141904496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How do US foreign military deployments impact the defense policies of host states? Dominant scholarship holds that these deployments play a pivotal role in assuring allies that their security is guaranteed, which in turn leads host countries to neglect their national defense contributions. In this research note, we examine the micro-foundations of this conventional wisdom, investigating how nuclear and conventional troop deployments impact attitudes toward defense policies in (potential) host states. We highlight that the presumed linkage between assurance and free-riding critically implies that foreign military deployments must positively affect perceptions of security among host nations. We test this core logic, alongside some alternative pathways, at the micro level through two survey experiments that randomize hypothetical withdrawals (Germany) and deployments (Czech Republic). Although we find some evidence that foreign military deployments can decrease citizens’ subjective need for defense, the survey experiments also reveal that citizens hardly feel protected by these deployments. Thus, our results cast doubt on the core logic underlying the theory of free-riding in alliances.
{"title":"Do Foreign Military Deployments Provide Assurance? Unpacking the Micro-Mechanisms of Burden Sharing in Alliances","authors":"Alexander Sorg, Julian Wucherpfennig","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae107","url":null,"abstract":"How do US foreign military deployments impact the defense policies of host states? Dominant scholarship holds that these deployments play a pivotal role in assuring allies that their security is guaranteed, which in turn leads host countries to neglect their national defense contributions. In this research note, we examine the micro-foundations of this conventional wisdom, investigating how nuclear and conventional troop deployments impact attitudes toward defense policies in (potential) host states. We highlight that the presumed linkage between assurance and free-riding critically implies that foreign military deployments must positively affect perceptions of security among host nations. We test this core logic, alongside some alternative pathways, at the micro level through two survey experiments that randomize hypothetical withdrawals (Germany) and deployments (Czech Republic). Although we find some evidence that foreign military deployments can decrease citizens’ subjective need for defense, the survey experiments also reveal that citizens hardly feel protected by these deployments. Thus, our results cast doubt on the core logic underlying the theory of free-riding in alliances.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"75 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141880164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Why do some international agreements yield more cooperation than others? I argue that the network context of agreements conditions their effectiveness. I focus on bilateral defense cooperation agreements (DCAs), which promote defense activities like joint military exercises, peacekeeping, arms trade, and the sharing of classified information. Because DCAs emphasize ongoing cooperative actions, they offer an ideal setting to assess treaty effectiveness. The analysis shows that when agreements are embedded in transitive “friend of friend” relations, characterized by extensive ties to common third parties, they generate higher levels of cooperation. I argue that this network effect is the result of policy convergence. When states share ties with common third parties, their own policies become more closely aligned, and this alignment in turn reduces the costs and increases the benefits of cooperative actions. The theory and findings developed here apply to a wide array of cooperative interactions across multiple issue areas. The effectiveness of international agreements depends on network context.
{"title":"Network Context and the Effectiveness of International Agreements","authors":"Brandon J Kinne","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae099","url":null,"abstract":"Why do some international agreements yield more cooperation than others? I argue that the network context of agreements conditions their effectiveness. I focus on bilateral defense cooperation agreements (DCAs), which promote defense activities like joint military exercises, peacekeeping, arms trade, and the sharing of classified information. Because DCAs emphasize ongoing cooperative actions, they offer an ideal setting to assess treaty effectiveness. The analysis shows that when agreements are embedded in transitive “friend of friend” relations, characterized by extensive ties to common third parties, they generate higher levels of cooperation. I argue that this network effect is the result of policy convergence. When states share ties with common third parties, their own policies become more closely aligned, and this alignment in turn reduces the costs and increases the benefits of cooperative actions. The theory and findings developed here apply to a wide array of cooperative interactions across multiple issue areas. The effectiveness of international agreements depends on network context.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141597370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
s The number of fortified borders around the world has risen precipitously. This surge in walls is an important part of the larger globalization “backlash,” as countries react to the unwanted consequences of economic openness and globalization, with a rise in illicit trade and smuggling being a prominent example. Despite the prominence of the idea that walls are built to combat illicit flows, no research systematically explores how walls generally affect illicit trade. This is a notable omission for at least two reasons. First, the most prominent explanations for wall construction put combating illicit trade front and center. Second, recent work that finds walls significantly reduce legal trade argues that this finding derives from border fortifications diverting illegal trade to ports of entry, which leads to more inspection, security, and transaction costs. We develop a new measure of illicit trade flows using over five decades of product-level data and provide a battery of evidence that shows border barriers increase illicit flows at ports of entry.
{"title":"Border Barriers and Illicit Trade Flows","authors":"David B Carter, Bailee Donahue, Rob Williams","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae094","url":null,"abstract":"s The number of fortified borders around the world has risen precipitously. This surge in walls is an important part of the larger globalization “backlash,” as countries react to the unwanted consequences of economic openness and globalization, with a rise in illicit trade and smuggling being a prominent example. Despite the prominence of the idea that walls are built to combat illicit flows, no research systematically explores how walls generally affect illicit trade. This is a notable omission for at least two reasons. First, the most prominent explanations for wall construction put combating illicit trade front and center. Second, recent work that finds walls significantly reduce legal trade argues that this finding derives from border fortifications diverting illegal trade to ports of entry, which leads to more inspection, security, and transaction costs. We develop a new measure of illicit trade flows using over five decades of product-level data and provide a battery of evidence that shows border barriers increase illicit flows at ports of entry.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141521711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Reputations for resolve are critical in international relations for deterring adversaries and reassuring partners. However, a state’s resolve is unobservable and can change unbeknownst to its audience. How does the possibility of unobserved change impact reputation dynamics? I provide a theory of long-run reputations with changing resolve via a formal model covering conflict and cooperation domains. In the model, the possibility that current reputations are based on outdated information makes the audience extend the benefit of the doubt to states with poor reputations. This leads to states building or spending their reputations depending on their current reputations. Importantly, when damaged reputations can be rebuilt, states with better reputations face stronger temptations to spend them. Thus, reputations constrain states with poor reputations the most. Further, because demonstrations of resolve improve reputations, which, in turn, reduce incentives for future demonstrations of resolve, there is a cyclical rhythm to conflict and cooperation. A major implication is that a state’s behavior changes with its reputation even if its resolve is unchanged and the stakes are identical. Reputational enforcement works, but the price is occasional breaches of trust. These results also settle a few long-standing controversies in the IR-reputation literature.
{"title":"Reputations and Change in International Relations","authors":"Ekrem T Baser","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae097","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae097","url":null,"abstract":"Reputations for resolve are critical in international relations for deterring adversaries and reassuring partners. However, a state’s resolve is unobservable and can change unbeknownst to its audience. How does the possibility of unobserved change impact reputation dynamics? I provide a theory of long-run reputations with changing resolve via a formal model covering conflict and cooperation domains. In the model, the possibility that current reputations are based on outdated information makes the audience extend the benefit of the doubt to states with poor reputations. This leads to states building or spending their reputations depending on their current reputations. Importantly, when damaged reputations can be rebuilt, states with better reputations face stronger temptations to spend them. Thus, reputations constrain states with poor reputations the most. Further, because demonstrations of resolve improve reputations, which, in turn, reduce incentives for future demonstrations of resolve, there is a cyclical rhythm to conflict and cooperation. A major implication is that a state’s behavior changes with its reputation even if its resolve is unchanged and the stakes are identical. Reputational enforcement works, but the price is occasional breaches of trust. These results also settle a few long-standing controversies in the IR-reputation literature.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141521367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}