Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Electorally Sustainable International Cooperation

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

This Doctoral Dissertation addresses a central question in the study of international cooperation and organization: How does electoral politics impact the structure and dynamics of international agreements? This approach to international cooperation focuses on the optimal structure of such agreements and takes explicitly the contingency of international agreements on electoral outcomes. More precisely, this dissertation assumes that political uncertainty about electoral outcomes changes stochastically from one period to another in the cooperating states. This changes the study of optimal interstate agreements to a dynamic contracting problem which makes the structure of international agreements temporally contingent on political outcomes inside the cooperating states. To the Ph.D. student's knowledge, this is the first study that frames the problem of optimal international agreements as a stochastic dynamic contracting problem. The empirical dissertation research supported by this grant would allow the Ph.D. student to collect, code and analyze time-series data on the structure and dynamics of international agreements and merge such data with existing data on domestic political variables. Such data collection will then allow for testing of the empirical implications of this theoretical analysis. The implications include dynamically optimal use of escape clauses, application of renegotiation provisions, and implications for agreement structure between different types of regimes. Testing these claims requires statistically suitable time-series data on the on the structure of international agreements, the use of escape clauses that would also include domestic political variables, such as electoral results data and data on regime type. This empirical dissertation research has the potential for broader social value by integrating domestic and international politics and filling a significant research gap. All the data collected as a part of this project should be of great interest to other researchers in the field of international cooperation, organization and law as well as to policy makers interested in these topics.