Alliances and  Incomplete Contracting:  Institutional Design, Audience Costs, and Compliance

A talk by Dan Reiter, Ph.D.
Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Political Science
Emory University

Agreements are incomplete when they fail to thoroughly describe compliance expectations under all possible conditions. When an agreement is incomplete, it is easier for leaders to evade the audience costs of non-compliance, because they can more persuasively argue to audiences that their chosen behavior is not necessarily non-compliant. The paper finds empirical support for the theory.

Professor Reiter is the author of How Wars End, which won the 2010 Conflict Processes Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association. His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, International Organization and many other outlets.  He was the recipient of the 2002 Karl Deutsch Award, given by the International Studies Association.  He received his PhD in political science from University of Michigan.

Presented by: The Lancaster Chair of the UCSB Political Science Department and the Orfalea Center's Global Security Hub