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AbstractHow can international organizations persuade governments to adopt policy recommendations that are based on private information when their interests conflict? We develop a game-theoretic model of persuasion that applies regardless of regime type and does not rely on the existence of domestic constituency constraints. In the model, an international organization (IO) and a domestic expert have private information about a crisis, but their preferences diverge from those of the government, which must choose whether to delegate decision making to the expert. Persuasion can take place if the international institution is able to send a credible signal. We find that this can take place only if the preferences of the IO and the domestic expert diverge and the institution holds the more moderate policy position. This result contrasts with conventional wisdom, which holds that the necessary condition for IOs to exert influence is support from a domestic constituency with aligned preferences. Our model suggests that, far from being an obstacle to international cooperation, polarized domestic politics may be a necessary condition for IOs to exert effective influence.

Although democracy is a key concept in political science, debate continues over definitions and mechanisms. Bueno de Mesquita, Smith, Siverson, & Morrow (2003) make the important claim that most of democracy's effects are in fact due to something conceptually simpler and empirically easier to measure than democracy: the size of the minimum winning coalition that selects the leader. The argument is intuitively appealing and supported by extensive data analysis. Unfortunately, the statistical technique they use induces omitted variable bias into their results. They argue that they need to control for democracy, but their estimation procedure is equivalent to omitting democracy from their analysis. When we reestimate their regressions controlling for democracy, most of their important findings do not survive.

Democracies are more supportive of US positions on important votes in the UN General Assembly than of nondemocracies. Is this because democracies share common perspectives, or does this pattern reflect coercion? Since 1985, US law has stipulated that the US State Department identify important votes and that aid disbursements reflect voting decisions. To unravel these alternative explanations, we introduce a strategic statistical model that allows us to estimate voting preferences, vulnerability to influence, and credibility of linkage, which are theoretical quantities of interest that are not directly observable. The results reject the hypothesis of shared democratic values: poor democracies have voting preferences that are more oppositional to US positions than autocracies, and they are more willing than autocracies to take symbolic stands that may cost them foreign aid. Democracies support US positions, however, because US aid linkages are more credible when directed toward democratic countries. Splitting the sample into Cold War and post-Cold War segments, we find that the end of the Cold War changed the way US linkage strategies treated allies and left- and right-leaning governments, but the effects of democracy remained constant. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractDemocracies are more supportive of US positions on important votes in the UN General Assembly than of nondemocracies. Is this because democracies share common perspectives, or does this pattern reflect coercion? Since 1985, US law has stipulated that the US State Department identify important votes and that aid disbursements reflect voting decisions. To unravel these alternative explanations, we introduce a strategic statistical model that allows us to estimate voting preferences, vulnerability to influence, and credibility of linkage, which are theoretical quantities of interest that are not directly observable. The results reject the hypothesis of shared democratic values: poor democracies have voting preferences that are more oppositional to US positions than autocracies, and they are more willing than autocracies to take symbolic stands that may cost them foreign aid. Democracies support US positions, however, because US aid linkages are more credible when directed toward democratic countries. Splitting the sample into Cold War and post–Cold War segments, we find that the end of the Cold War changed the way US linkage strategies treated allies and left- and right-leaning governments, but the effects of democracy remained constant.