Book Projects

[1] “Provocative Cooperation: Military Assistance, Power Shifts, and War,” working book manuscript (with Bradley C. Smith).

[2] “Taiwan and the Politics of Buying Time,” working book manuscript.

Papers

[1] “Economic Wars: When does Economic Dependence cause Peace and War?” (with Haonan Dong and Bradley C. Smith)

[2] “Inducing Bargaining Delay with Alliances’

Abstract: Can third-party promises of defense conditional on allies’ non-provocation deter or delay conflict during ongoing shifts in power? This paper makes a distinction between deterrence of provocations and deterrence of war to examine the policy-stabilizing and peace-enhancing aspects of non-provocation alliances. We develop a formal model that shows that such alliances might deter any changes to the status quo, but such deterrence does not reduce the risk of war. Non-provocation alliances might also deter war even though they fail to deter provocations. Finally, non-provocation alliances can delay bargaining and deter preventive war even when a declining power stands to lose significantly in future bargaining and would behave aggressively without the alliance.

[3] “Kicking the Can Down the Road: Strategic Delay in the China-Taiwan Crisis ”

Abstract: Countries bargaining over a disputed issue or territory often agree to “kick the can down the road” or essentially freeze the status quo and delay resolution until some unspecified time in the future. When players discount the future, standard models predict immediate settlement. Under what conditions then do states that discount the future and have diametrically opposed political interests agree to wait? This paper models delay in a dynamic framework when one state is a rising power and the value of the disputed issue might change over time. When the anticipated power shift is large enough to induce a preventive attack from the declining power, growing the pie for the declining power induces delay rather than fighting in the short term. Three implications follow from the analysis. First, delays that freeze the status quo in the short-term can mean tolerating short-term bargaining concessions so as to avoid fighting and to realize future benefits. Second, delay in this context is pareto improving, raising the potential that states facing conflict through commitment problems and preventive war might collude to manipulate future stakes to permit delay and avoid fighting. Third, dangerous sizable potential power shifts create the greatest potential for disputants to agree to delay. Implications from the model are examined in depth with evidence of the agreement to delay bargaining between China and Taiwan in the “1992 Consensus”.

[4] “Transmission of Violence through Arms Trade Networks” (with Kristopher Ramsay)

Abstract: Does the global trade in small arms and light weapons affect the deadliness of civil war conflict? We show how the arms trade network transmits conflict from terminated civil war locations to countries with ongoing civil war, creating a partial conservation of violence. Terminating a civil war reduces battle deaths and demand for weapons in that country. Countries with ongoing civil wars import more weapons at lower prices and experience an increase in battle deaths. Consequently, civil war terminations reduce global violence, but a portion of that violence is conserved and transmitted to civil wars elsewhere. Two implications follow. First, violence in civil wars is sensitive to changes in economic conditions in global markets. Second, the termination of war is itself a source of spillover for civil war.

[5] “The Effect of Foreign Policy on Public Opinion: Conditional Preferences in Taiwan” (with Emerson M.S. Niou).

Abstract: Do voters’ attitudes toward their government’s foreign policies depend on the foreign policies of other countries? We examine public opinion on security issues in Taiwan to investigate the possibility that public preferences for a government’s foreign policy itself depends on perceptions held by the public about other governments’ foreign policies. We show that public support for policies in Taiwan depend critically on the foreign policy decisions of China and the United States.  We show that democratic publics are often so pragmatic that a majority might swing to either side of salient and polarizing issues depending on the anticipated behavior of another government.  A main implication is that foreign policies of democratic countries might be susceptible to a certain degree of manipulation by other countries’ foreign policies in a way that constrains democratic leaders’ actions.

[6] “Nuclear Arming, Inspections, and Ambiguity” (with Quan Wen).

Abstract: This paper studies nuclear armament and disarmament strategies with and without a verification mechanism. We compare two models of nuclear development. The first model analyzes a government’s development and disarmament decisions under “ambiguity,” where the absence of external verification makes it possible for states to develop nuclear weapons secretly. The second is an “inspections” model, in which a government’s arming decisions are verifiable. Welfare comparisons show that deterrence by doubt is Pareto optimal under limited conditions but ambiguity also leads to arming and conflict in other circumstances. In most states of the world, inspections are more likely to result in peace and non-proliferation. Additionally, there are not any extortion benefits of ambiguity that do not also exist with inspections. In fact, a counter proliferator is more willing to offer transfer payments with inspections, implying that governments might be willing to pay countries to join an inspections regime like the NPT.

[7] “An Experimental Analysis of Alliance Design, War Payoffs, and War.”

Abstract: Does it matter how an alliance affects war payoffs when analyzing the relationship between military alliances and war?  This paper studies how military alliances relate to conflict in standard crisis bargaining games that are used extensively in the study of interstate war.  We analyze data from a lab experiment in which subjects play a two-player ultimatum bargaining game and payoffs for outside options are treated with alliance “shocks”.  Identifying how such shocks affect players’ incentives in bargaining provides intuition for understanding variation in aggression and bargaining failure.   We show that in an experimental context, shifts in probabilities of war depend on how alliance technologies change players’ war payoffs. Subtle shifts in how war fighting technologies of military alliances change the war environment result in dramatic directional differences in the probability of war.