{"title":"Why differentiated integration is such a common practice in Europe: A rational explanation","authors":"K. Holzinger, J. Tosun","doi":"10.1177/0951629819875522","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629819875522","url":null,"abstract":"With Brexit imminent, the debate on the need for differentiated integration (DI) by means of opting-out has gained new momentum. At the same time, non-member states decide to adopt European Union (EU) rules as exemplified by the European Neighbourhood Policy. In light of these opposing observations, we examine the EU’s disposition to supply DI. We outline the strategic interactions of the EU member states or non-members in the context of two forms of DI: opting-out and inducing-in. In the case of opting-out, EU member states can refrain from adopting EU rules; inducing-in refers to providing non-member states with incentives to adopt EU rules. We show that the information asymmetries inherent to the strategic interactions result in a situation in which the EU is likely to supply opportunities to opt-out for member states to a much greater extent than necessary. Furthermore, the EU is likely to offer more compensation to non-member states in exchange for adopting EU rules than it would actually need to.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951629819875522","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45885140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editor’s Introduction to JTP issue 31.4","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/0951629819886225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629819886225","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951629819886225","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41608090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The design of enforcement: Collective action and the enforcement of international law","authors":"Leslie Johns","doi":"10.1177/0951629819875514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629819875514","url":null,"abstract":"International organizations (IOs) play a vital role in enforcing international law. I argue that collective-action problems and the design of legal-standing rules drive decisions about whether to enforce international law. When cooperation generates concentrated benefits—such as compensation for the expropriation of foreign investment—transnational standing can work well because the cost and benefit of enforcement are both fully internalized by the litigant. However, when cooperation generates diffuse benefits—like a cleaner environment—individuals and even governments have the incentive to free ride on enforcement, avoiding the cost of litigation in the hopes that another actor will step up. In such circumstances, supranational standing is necessary to uphold international law. Finally, hybrid regimes, which contain multiple forms of enforcement, are most needed when an IO has members that vary in their ability to enforce, or regulates issue areas that vary in their diffuseness.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951629819875514","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48210012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The design of enforcement: Collective action and the enforcement of international law:","authors":"Leslie Johns","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2956515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2956515","url":null,"abstract":"International organizations (IOs) play a vital role in enforcing international law. I argue that collective-action problems and the design of legal-standing rules drive decisions about whether to e...","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.2139/SSRN.2956515","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49652132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Plausible deniability","authors":"Joshua A Strayhorn","doi":"10.1177/0951629819875518","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629819875518","url":null,"abstract":"One explanation for why voters sometimes fail to hold elected officials accountable for corruption is failure to correctly attribute blame. Yet existing theories of how voters attribute responsibility do not consider how voters assessments may be shaped by the possibility that politicians can strategically delegate corrupt activity. This paper develops a formal model of an electoral accountability environment where politicians can pursue malfeasance directly or indirectly, but where ‘rogue agents’ occasionally pursue malfeasance independently. Corruption can arise via multiple pathways, and politicians sometimes possess plausible deniability. In one equilibrium, voters rationally reelect after plausibly deniable corruption due to a non-obvious and novel mechanism. Politicians are also more likely to delegate malfeasance to agents when they anticipate lenience. Voter lenience is non-monotonically related to many parameters, including politician competence, the agent’s malfeasance preferences, and transparency.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951629819875518","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41435923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Persuading policy-makers","authors":"C. Salas","doi":"10.1177/0951629819875512","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629819875512","url":null,"abstract":"Interest groups persuade policy-makers by publicly providing information about policies—for example, through commissioning scientific studies or piloting programs—or about constituents’ views—for example, through opinion polls or organizing manifestations. By understanding these public lobbying activities as public signals whose informational content can be strategically manipulated, this paper studies the strategic use of these tools in order to persuade a policy-maker. A game between a policy-oriented interest group who can design a public signal and a self-interested executive who can implement a policy is used to analyze the equilibrium public signal and policy, the underlying persuasion mechanism, and the consequences for voters. This paper finds that, even when an interest group always wants the same policy regardless of the state of the world, voters can sometimes benefit from the group’s activity. Furthermore, voters may be best served by a worse (less able or more cynical) policy-maker. This is because a-priori a worse policy-maker will tend to herd on the prior relatively more than a better policy-maker; this will force interest groups to release greater amounts of information in order to change the policy-maker’s mind, which increases the probability that the voters’ best policy is implemented. Ideologically biased policy-makers are not totally undesirable either, for they induce similar incentives to interest groups of opposite ideology.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951629819875512","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48048260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Accessing the state: Executive constraints and credible commitment in dictatorship","authors":"Anne Meng","doi":"10.1177/0951629819875515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629819875515","url":null,"abstract":"When do executive constraints provide credible commitment power in dictatorships, and under what conditions do leaders establish such constraints? This article argues that institutions successfully constrain autocrats only when elites are given real access to state power, such as appointments to key governmental positions. I present a game theoretic model in which an autocratic leader decides whether to establish binding constraints at the start of her rule. Doing so shifts the future distribution of power in favor of elites, alleviating commitment problems in bargaining. I show that leaders are likely to place constraints on their own authority when they enter power especially weak, and these initial decisions shape the rest of their rule. Even if a leader enters power in a uniquely weak position vis-á-vis other elites, and is on average, quite strong, the need to alleviate commitment problems in the first period swamps expectations about the future distribution of power. I illustrate the model’s findings through case studies of Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951629819875515","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45297567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Collective risk social dilemma and the consequences of the US withdrawal from international climate negotiations","authors":"Oleg Smirnov","doi":"10.1177/0951629819875511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629819875511","url":null,"abstract":"International climate negotiations represent an interesting theoretical problem, which can be analyzed as a collective risk social dilemma as well as an n-person bargaining model. The problem is made more complicated by politics due to the differences between: (1) total and per capita emissions; and (2) present-day and cumulative emissions. Here, we use a game theoretic approach in conjunction with the literature on effort-sharing approaches to study a model of climate negotiations based on empirical emissions data. We introduce a ‘fair equilibrium’ bargaining solution and examine the consequences of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Our results suggest that the collective goal can still be reached but that this requires additional greenhouse gas emissions cuts from other countries, notably, China and India. Given the history of climate negotiations, it is unclear if these countries will have sufficient political will to accept the additional costs created by the US defection.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951629819875511","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42391751","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Presidential action and the Supreme Court: The case of signing statements","authors":"Sharece Thrower","doi":"10.1177/0951629819875519","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629819875519","url":null,"abstract":"Recent attention to presidential action recognizes the legal and constitutional questions surrounding the controversial use of many of these powers. Yet, scholarly research on executive policymaking tends to ignore the role of the courts, instead focusing on presidential–congressional relations. I develop a formal theory of the president’s decision to issue a signing statement in the face of constraints from the Supreme Court. The model produces several novel predictions. First, I predict that the president is more likely to issue a signing statement when he is ideologically aligned with the Court. Second, contrary to previous literature, the president is more likely to issue a statement when his preferences are also aligned with Congress. Finally, when reviewing legislation that is constitutionally challenged, I predict that the Court is more likely to rule in favor of the president’s position when he has issued a signing statement.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951629819875519","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43597018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Strategic Ambiguity with Probabilistic Voting","authors":"Yasushi Asako","doi":"10.1177/0951629819875516","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629819875516","url":null,"abstract":"Political parties and candidates usually prefer making ambiguous promises. This study identifies the conditions under which candidates choose ambiguous promises in equilibrium, given convex utility functions of voters. The results show that in a deterministic model, no equilibrium exists when voters have convex utility functions. However, in a probabilistic voting model, candidates make ambiguous promises in equilibrium when (i) voters have convex utility functions, and (ii) the distribution of voters’ most preferred policies is polarized. JEL Classification: D71, D72","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951629819875516","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45652472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}