IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/intorg/v68y2014i04p845-876_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decision Maker Preferences for International Legal Cooperation

Author

Listed:
  • Hafner-Burton, Emilie M.
  • LeVeck, Brad L.
  • Victor, David G.
  • Fowler, James H.

Abstract

Why do some decision makers prefer big multilateral agreements while others prefer cooperation in small clubs? Does enforcement encourage or deter institutional cooperation? We use experiments drawn from behavioral economics and cognitive psychology—along with a substantive survey focused on international trade—to illustrate how two behavioral traits (patience and strategic reasoning) of individuals who play key roles in negotiating and ratifying an international treaty shape their preferences for how treaties are designed and whether they are ratified. Patient subjects were more likely to prefer treaties with larger numbers of countries (and larger long-term benefits), as were subjects with the skill to anticipate how others will respond over multiple iterations of strategic games. The presence of an enforcement mechanism increased subjects' willingness to ratify treaties; however, strategic reasoning had double the effect of adding enforcement to a trade agreement: more strategic subjects were particularly likely to favor ratifying the agreement. We report these results for a sample of 509 university students and also show how similar patterns are revealed in a unique sample of ninety-two actual US policy elites. Under some conditions certain types of university student convenience samples can be useful for revealing elite-dominated policy preferences—different types of people in the same situation may prefer to approach decision-making tasks and reason through trade-offs in materially different ways.

Suggested Citation

  • Hafner-Burton, Emilie M. & LeVeck, Brad L. & Victor, David G. & Fowler, James H., 2014. "Decision Maker Preferences for International Legal Cooperation," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(4), pages 845-876, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:intorg:v:68:y:2014:i:04:p:845-876_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S002081831400023X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nyborg, Karine, 2018. "Reciprocal climate negotiators," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 707-725.
    2. A. Burcu Bayram & Erin R. Graham, 2017. "Financing the United Nations: Explaining variation in how donors provide funding to the UN," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 421-459, September.
    3. Marcel Lumkowsky & Emily K. Carlton & David G. Victor & Astrid Dannenberg, 2023. "Determining the willingness to link climate and trade policy," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(10), pages 1-24, October.
    4. Bethke, Felix S., 2016. "Cultural Bias in the Perception of Foreign-Policy Events," Global Cooperation Research Papers 14, University of Duisburg-Essen, Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research (KHK/GCR21).
    5. Håkon Sælen, 2020. "Under What Conditions Will the Paris Process Produce a Cycle of Increasing Ambition Sufficient to Reach the 2°C Goal?," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(2), pages 83-104, May.
    6. Heidi Hardt, 2018. "Who matters for memory: Sources of institutional memory in international organization crisis management," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 457-482, September.
    7. Heggedal, Tom-Reiel & Helland, Leif & Morton, Rebecca, 2022. "Can paying politicians well reduce corruption? The effects of wages and uncertainty on electoral competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 60-73.
    8. Aseem Mahajan & Reuben Kline & Dustin Tingley, 2022. "Collective Risk and Distributional Equity in Climate Change Bargaining," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 66(1), pages 61-90, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:intorg:v:68:y:2014:i:04:p:845-876_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/ino .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.