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Previously reported empirical evidence suggests that when conflict arises, military alliances are not reliable; state leaders should only expect their alliance partners to join them in war about 25% of the time. Yet, theoretical arguments explaining the choices of leaders to form cooperative agreements are at odds with such empirical evidence. This puzzling gap between theory and evidence motivates a reconsideration of previous measures of alliance reliability. Many alliance treaties include specific language regarding the circumstances under which the alliance comes into effect, often limiting obligations to disputes with specific target states or in specific geographic areas, and many treaties do not go so far as to require states to join in active fighting. Considering the specific obligations included in alliance agreements provides an improved estimate of the propensity of states to honor their commitments. Results show that alliances are reliable 74.5% of the time.

ABSTRACTThis article illuminates the existing gap between situation‐specific and actor‐specific approaches to the study of international bargaining. According to game‐theoretically inspired situation‐specific models, situational factors determine the playing and outcome of bargaining games regardless of who the actors are. Actor‐specific models, on the other hand, focus on actor idiosyncrasies as explanatory variables. Certain actors or groups of actors are assumed to negotiate in characteristic ways. Examples of hypotheses derived from each of the two approaches are given, and the lack of rigid empirical tests by which these hypotheses could be validated, invalidated, or modified is noted. The thesis of this article is that the gap between situation‐specific and actor‐specific approaches could, and should, be bridged, and that this requires better coordination than hitherto of theoretical and empirical research in the field of international bargaining. One possible synthesis of actor‐specific and situation‐specific models, based upon the findings of an empirical study of Soviet negotiating behavior, is suggested.