The President and International Commitments: Treaties as Signaling Devices

Abstract

U.S. presidents can choose the form of international agreements that they negotiate. Using the Constitution's Article II procedure to gain ratification of a formal treaty is a costly and time‐consuming endeavor, so presidents frequently turn to executive agreements that do not require approval by two thirds of the Senate. Given this alternative, why do presidents ever choose the Article II procedure? This article argues that treaties serve as a costly signal of intent to comply with the terms of international agreements. The choice between treaties and executive agreements is therefore a strategic executive decision that takes into account the anticipated reactions of other states. A signaling model predicts that high‐benefit agreements should take the form of treaties. The predictions of purely domestic models of a positive relationship between the reliability of a government and the probability that an agreement is a treaty should not hold. These propositions are tested on a large data set of U.S. international agreements between 1980 and 1999.

Going it Alone: The Politics of Signing Statements from Reagan to Bush II

“…In fact, many executive agreements require congressional appropriations to take effect or are subsequent to congressional statutory action (Margolis, 1986). Interestingly, Martin (2005) finds very little evidence that such decisions are based on evading Congress or difficult domestic conditions; rather, presidential decisions in making international agreements systematically respond to international political conditions. Similarly, Krutz and Peake (2006) find little support for the evasion hypothesis in explaining international agreements.…”

“…For example, Martin's (2005) analysis develops and tests models that explain the use of treaties versus executive agreements in the making of international compacts. Although presidents maintain considerable discretion over such agreements, a large majority of these are characterized by some level of congressional participation.…”

Treaty Compliance and Violation

“…Lisa Martin demonstrates theoretically and empirically the significance of the signaling power of treaties by showing that that United States presidents typically choose treaties rather than executive agreements for "high-value" international agreements. She argues that higher cost treaty ratification is useful to assure other countries that the United States intends to comply (Martin 2005). Similarly, in their research on alliance agreements, Andrew Long and co-authors argue that because of the up-front cost of negotiating and ratifying formal alliance agreements (compared, presumably to mere political agreements), these constitute credible commitments about a state's intent to maintain peaceful relationships among the contracting parties (Long et al 2007).…”

International Soft Law

“…It is not unheard of, for example, for treaties to sit with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for decades without being sent to the full Senate for an up-or-down vote on advice and consent. Although it is true that having to seek the approval of a coordinate branch of government can be extremely burdensome (which can also be a benefit because it allows a state to send a costly signal of how important cooperation is to it (Martin 2005)), it is probably more accurate to say that separation-of-powers concerns are the exception rather than the rule. Throughout most of history, of course, monarchs had no formal legal checks on their power to enter into binding international agreements.…”