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Followers of law, politics and business commonly relate stories of individuals who appear to predict an expected performance level below what they believe themselves to be capable of. The standard explanation for such rhetoric is that it hedges against the negative consequences of unanticipated failures and takes advantage of unexpected successes. Although the strategy appears highly attractive, some individuals do provide honest evaluations of their abilities, and some overpromise. We develop a model of strategic communication designed to explain this variation. Underpromising is especially attractive when observers have strong incentives to watch a preliminary performance; however, when high-quality individuals are in large supply and when the costs of performing badly are neither too high nor too low, underpromising can result in individuals being ignored. To ensure that they are not, individuals must give up the opportunity to outperform a promise and risk an underperformance. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

AbstractAlthough scholars have made considerable progress on a number of important research questions by relaxing assumptions commonly used to divide political science into subfields, rigid boundaries remain in some contexts. In this essay, we suggest that the assumption that international politics is characterized by anarchy whereas domestic politics is characterized by hierarchy continues to divide research on the conditions under which governments are constrained by courts, international or domestic. We contend that we will learn more about the process by which courts constrain governments, and do so more quickly, if we relax the assumption and recognize the substantial similarities between domestic and international research on this topic. We review four recent books that highlight contemporary theories of the extent to which domestic and international law binds states, and discuss whether a rigid boundary between international and domestic scholarship can be sustained on either theoretical or empirical grounds.

Scholars have argued that credible commitment institutions have important impacts on political outcomes as diverse as economic growth and social order. If commitment institutions function as theorized, then their effects should vary across individuals, groups, or states, based on their respective vulnerability to promise breaking. Yet existing empirical studies never pursue this implication. The failure to do so risks a number of inferential errors and can lead to suboptimal policy prescriptions for institutional reform. In this article, the authors develop and provide empirical evidence for these claims within the context of a commitment problem that scholars believe undermines social order. Adapted from the source document.

Scholars have argued that credible commitment institutions have important impacts on political outcomes as diverse as economic growth and social order. If commitment institutions function as theorized, then their effects should vary across individuals, groups, or states, based on their respective vulnerability to promise breaking. Yet existing empirical studies never pursue this implication. The failure to do so risks a number of inferential errors and can lead to suboptimal policy prescriptions for institutional reform. In this article, the authors develop and provide empirical evidence for these claims within the context of a commitment problem that scholars believe undermines social order.

An established line of research demonstrates that vague judicial opinions are less likely to be implemented than clear opinions. Vague opinions thus present a puzzle. Why would judges craft opinions that risk noncompliance? We argue that the relationships between judges and other policy makers in separation‐of‐powers systems are central to understanding this puzzle. Opinion vagueness can reflect efforts to resolve core tradeoffs associated with judicial policymaking that bear some resemblance to standard accounts of political delegation. Vagueness offers judges the ability to manage their uncertainty over policy outcomes and to hide likely defiance from public view. At the same time, vagueness removes a central source of pressure for compliance that judges can place on other policy makers. Using a game‐theoretic model, we identify conditions under which judges use vagueness precisely as legislatures use statutory discretion. We also demonstrate conditions under which judges use vagueness in ways unanticipated by standard delegation accounts.