Signaling & International Politics

John LeeDepartment of Political Science

Florida State University

The Problem

• How do states communicate information about themselves?

• Cheap Talk – The costless communication of information.

Rationalist Explanations for War

1. Private information with the incentive to misrepresent.

– You are unsure about my probability of victory. Because I know that a bargain is based on my probability of victory I tell you that I will with p = 1.

– But, you know that I have an incentive to say that p = 1, so you discount what I say as cheap talk…

Costly Signals

• Costly Signal – Forms of communication which are not “free.”

• For example, the United States could signal its resolve to attack Iran by deploying naval vessels/troops to the Iranian border.

Types of Costly Signals

1. Domestic-Political – The institutional make-up of a state may allow the transmission of costly information (e.g. democracies v autocracies).

2. Military – The use/mobilization of military forces may allow the transmission of costly information (Slantchev 2005).

Domestic-Political

• Audience Costs – Electoral penalties leaders suffer for “bad actions.” Leaders who make threats and back down are removed from office. Thus, a military threat from a democratic leader is costly to that leader.– Leaders want to stay in power.– Is a free press necessary (Slantchev 2006).

IR as Two-Level Game

• Leaders of states worry about two audiences.– Domestic constituencies.– International actors (e.g. other states).

• Think about farm subsidies in US. Good for US farmers, bad for third world countries.

• Possibility of multiple levels?

Why Audience Costs?

1. National honor/reputation (see for example Fearon 1994).

2. Leader competence. Leader knows his/her competence…citizens are unsure. Foreign policy outcomes represent noisy signals regarding a leader’s competency. Incompetent leaders make threats and then back down more frequently, since they expect poor outcomes (Smith 1998).

Audience Costs – Just Democracies?

• Weeks (2008) audiences of all leaders value (1) good international reputations and (2) competent leaders. As a result, any leader with an audience should face audience costs if foreign policy decisions (1) hurt reputation or (2) signal competence.

• All leaders have winning coalitions, but do all care about international reputation/competence?

Military Signals

• States that undertake military preparations send clear signal to other side that their threats are not hollow.

• These types of signals can increase the probability of war since they diminish the cost of conflict (sunk costs).

• Generally considered more informative than actions that qualify for “audience costs.”

Other Sources of Information

• Opposition political parties in democracies reveal information about resolve. If both parties agree on policy this result sends a strong signal about a country’s resolve (Schultz 1998).