CAREER: Credible Commitments in International Relations

智力优势：领导人每天都对其他国家发出威胁和承诺。 如果没有一个迫使领导人信守承诺的世界政府，为什么以及何时会有人相信外国领导人的话？在这项职业研究中，研究人员提出了一个研究和教育的综合计划，以探索这个基本问题。 研究和教学的重点是两个潜在的重要标志的可信度。 领导人是否公开告诉自己的公民他们在国外发出的威胁和承诺？ 它们是否通过将其承诺纳入条约和其他国际协定而走向法律的？虽然关于公共和法律的承诺的理论文献进展迅速，但实证研究却没有跟上步伐。 研究人员已经认识到但尚未圆满解决的根本问题是内分泌。 恰恰在公开和合法化会使违约代价高昂的情况下，理性的领导人要么坚持到底，要么一开始就避免承诺。 这使得学者们几乎没有机会观察和衡量作为我们理论模型核心的惩罚。 研究也受到关于看法的数据不足的阻碍。 关键行动者是否认为违反公共和法律的承诺的代价更高？ 为了确切地知道，我们需要关于回溯公共和法律的承诺的感知成本的系统数据。首席研究员通过首次对国际关系中的公共和法律的承诺进行实验分析来解决这些问题。 该建议有三个相互关联的组成部分。 首先，我将通过在对大众和精英的调查中嵌入实验来完善和检验领先的理论。 实验的目的是衡量违背公共和法律的承诺的实际和感知成本，同时避免观察性研究特有的内观。 总体而言，该项目提供了一个广泛的类模型的经验微观基础和理论和实证研究开辟了新的途径。第二，调查员开发了一个计算机软件包，以方便调查实验的研究和教学。 学者们只需要提供问题，设置一些控制实验的参数，并根据需要包括声音或视频剪辑。 该软件自动改变问题的内容、顺序和数量，以匹配研究人员的设计，然后编辑一个多媒体调查，通过互联网交付。 该工具降低了运行实验的财务和人力成本。 此外，其视听功能应提高受访者的满意度，并得到更周到的反应比标准的互联网调查。最后，该项目包含一个强大的教育组成部分，包括研究为基础的课程，在斯坦福大学的本科生。 作为课程的一部分，学生将制定关于国际军事和经济事务的假设，用调查软件工具进行测试，并以口头和书面形式提出他们的调查结果。 在课堂之外，研究人员进行了一个国际关系实验室，本科生与我合作，并在这个建议的研究彼此。 通过我们收集的数据，学生有机会做出自己的发现，并将其作为荣誉论文或学术文章发表。 每年夏天，研究人员都会邀请有积极性的高中生，特别是代表性不足的少数群体的成员到实验室实习，学习政治学。 最后，该项目通过一门关于国际关系实验方法的新课程为研究生提供服务。该项目（1）积极让本科生和高中生参与学术研究，（2）开发一种调查工具，可供许多学科和私营部门的教师和研究人员使用，（3）提供了判断外国领导人是否有可能履行其威胁和承诺的实际标准，（4）为必须决定是否在国际事务中公开和合法承诺的领导人提供了见解。

Intellectual Merit: Every day leaders make threats and promises to other countries. Without a world government that compels leaders to keep commitments, why and when should anyone take foreign leaders at their word? In this CAREER research the investigator presents an integrated program of research and education to explore this fundamental question. The research and teaching focuses on two potentially important markers of credibility. Did leaders go public by telling their own citizens about threats and promises they issued abroad? And did they go legal by embedding their commitments in treaties and other international agreements?Although the theoretical literature about public and legal commitments has advanced quickly, empirical research has not kept pace. The fundamental problem, which researchers have acknowledged but not satisfactorily overcome, is endogeneity. In precisely the situations when publicity and legalization would make it costly to renege, rational leaders will either follow through or avoid committing in the first place. This leaves scholars little chance to observe and measure the penalties that are central to our theoretical models. Research has also been hampered by insufficient data about perceptions. Do key actors believe public and legal commitments are more expensive to break? To know for sure, we need systematic data about the perceived costs of backtracking on public and legal commitments.The Principal Investigator addresses these problems through the first-ever experimental analysis of public and legal commitments in international relations. The proposal has three interrelated components. First, I will refine and test leading theories by embedding experiments in surveys of masses and elites. The experiments are designed to measure the actual and perceived costs of reneging on public and legal commitments, while at the same time avoiding the endogeneity that is endemic to observational studies. Overall, the project supplies empirical microfoundations for a broad class of models and open new avenues for theoretical and empirical research.Second, the investigator develops a computer software package to facilitate survey experiments in research and teaching. Scholars need only supply the questions, set a few parameters that control the experiments, and include sound or video clips as desired. The software automatically varies the content, order, and number of questions to match the researcher's design, and then compile a multimedia survey for delivery over the Internet. This tool reduces the financial and human costs of running experiments. Moreover, its audio and visual features should improve respondent satisfaction and elicit more thoughtful responses than standard Internet surveys.Finally, the project contains a strong educational component including a research-based curriculum for undergraduates at Stanford. As part of their coursework, students will formulate hypotheses about international military and economic affairs, test them with the survey software tool, and present their findings in oral and written form. Outside the classroom, the investigator conducts an international relations laboratory where undergraduates collaborate with me and each other on the research in this proposal. With the data we collect, students have opportunities to make their own discoveries and publish them as honors theses or academic articles. Each summer, the investigator invites motivated high school students especially members of underrepresented minority groups to intern in the lab and learn about political science. Finally, the project serves graduate students through a new course about experimental methods in international relations.Broader Impacts: The project (1) actively involves undergraduate and high school students in scholarly research, (2) develops a survey tool that could be used by teachers and researchers in many academic disciplines and in the private sector, (3) provides practical criteria for judging whether foreign leaders are likely to carry out their threats and promises, and (4) offers insights to leaders who must decide whether to commit publicly and legally in world affairs.