C ooperation helps states realize mutual gains, but mistrust and disagreements over institutional design inhibit cooperation. This article develops a network explanation for how states achieve cooperation in the face of persistent coordination and collaboration problems. The analysis focuses on bilateral cooperation agreements, a vast body of treaties spanning multiple issue areas. Bilateral agreements constitute an evolving network of cooperative ties. This network defines the strategic environment in which states bargain over new agreements, endogenously influencing subsequent bilateral endeavors by revealing strategically valuable information about states' trustworthiness and preferences over institutional design, while also generating externalities that incentivize bilateral partnerships. Inferential network analysis shows that states are more likely to create bilateral agreements if they (1) share agreements with common third parties, (2) accede to more agreements in general, and/or (3) share important exogenous characteristics with current bilateral partners. These network dynamics drive bilateral cooperation in everything from commodities to cultural exchange to fisheries.

Diplomatic recognition is an essential tool of statecraft but remains largely unanalyzed by political scientists. Two recent trends in diplomatic practice raise notable puzzles: (i) use of diplomatic ties to signal (dis)approval of a regime or its policies, based largely on cues from diplomatic partners, and (ii) reliance on diplomatic missions as a means of securing prestige in the international system. I argue that both trends are the result of network influences. States face resource constraints and must choose diplomatic partners wisely, but they lack complete information about the risks and benefits of extending diplomatic recognition. To solve this informational dilemma, they condition recognition on the diplomatic activity of others. First, states send missions to countries that host missions from their own diplomatic partners, which increases the strength of diplomatic signals and reduces political risks. Second, states send missions to countries that host large numbers of missions in general (that is, “prestigious” countries), which increases their capacity for information gathering. In general, a state's decision to extend or retract diplomatic recognition depends heavily on the decisions of other states. Employing novel network methodologies, I show that these endogenous network influences are among the most consistent and substantively powerful determinants of diplomatic recognition.

No abstract

This paper applies the poliheuristic theory of foreign policy decision making to non-democratic states. Poliheuristic theory asserts that state leaders assign primary importance to their political survival; however, the meaning of ''the political'' varies dramatically from country to country. Furthermore, the types of actors who hold leaders politically accountable also vary between countries. Consequently, leaders often pursue vastly different means of ensuring their political survival. The author uses the common distinction between single-party, military, and personalist autocracies to show that apparently arbitrary differences in autocratic leaders' political concerns actually vary in systematic and potentially predictable ways. Because this argument is generalized to nondemocratic states as a whole, it has important implications for the ways in which democratic states craft their policies toward autocracies.Despite the rapid spread of democracy during the last half of the twentieth century, much of the world's population continues to live under autocratic regimes. Recently, international relations scholars have begun to investigate non-democratic political systems more thoroughly, which has produced a number of important and robust conclusions about the nature of international behavior, perhaps the most notable of these being the democratic peace theory. However, little effort has been made to supplement these broad statistical correlations with a more thorough understanding of the internal dynamics of autocratic decision making. With that goal in mind, this paper examines the nature of foreign policy decision making in nondemocratic regimes. Specifically, this paper asks two questions: (1) what are the political interests of autocratic decision makers, and (2) do those political interests function in a non-compensatory (i.e., non-additive) way in the making of foreign policy decisions? The answers to these questions will not only increase our understanding of non-democratic states, but they will also have important implications for how democracies should craft their policies towards non-democratic states. Poliheuristic Theory And Autocratic RegimesThe study of foreign policy decision making has often vacillated between two seemingly incommensurable poles: rational choice and cognitive psychology. Proponents of the former approach side with Milton Friedman in emphasizing the rationality of decision-making outcomes, while advocates of the latter approach follow in the footsteps of Herbert Simon and focus instead on the processes by which outcomes are arrived at. While most students of foreign policy fall into one of r 2005 International Studies Association. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK International Studies Perspectives (2005) 6, 114-128.

Bilateral defense cooperation agreements, or DCAs, are now the most common form of institutionalized defense cooperation. These formal agreements establish broad defense-oriented legal frameworks between signatories, facilitating cooperation in such fundamental areas as defense policy coordination, research and development, joint military exercises, education and training, arms procurement, and exchange of classified information. Although nearly a thousand DCAs are currently in force, with potentially wide-ranging impacts on national and international security outcomes, DCAs have been largely ignored by scholars. Why have DCAs proliferated? I develop a theory that integrates cooperation theory with insights from social network analysis. Shifts in the global security environment since the 1980s have fueleddemandfor DCAs. States use DCAs to modernize their militaries, respond to shared security threats, and establish security umbrellas with like-minded states. Yet, demand alone cannot explain DCA proliferation; to cooperate, governments must also overcome dilemmas of mistrust and distributional conflicts. I show that network influences increase thesupplyof DCAs by providing governments with information about the trustworthiness of partners and the risk of asymmetric distributions of gains. DCAs become easier to sign as more states sign them. I identify two specific network influences—preferential attachmentandtriadic closure—and show that these influences are largely responsible for the post-Cold War diffusion of DCAs. Novel empirical strategies further indicate that these influences derive from the proposed informational mechanism. States use the DCA ties of others to glean information about prospective defense partners, thus endogenously fueling further growth of the global DCA network.