Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T07:21:47.528Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

When Preferences and Commitments Collide: The Effect of Relative Partisan Shifts on International Treaty Compliance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2009

Joseph M. Grieco ,
Christopher F. Gelpi  and
T. Camber Warren
Joseph M. Grieco
Affiliation:
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, E-mail: grieco@duke.edu
Christopher F. Gelpi
Affiliation:
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. E-mail: gelpi@duke.edu
T. Camber Warren
Affiliation:
Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, E-mail: tcwarren@princeton.edu.
Get access

Abstract

In this article, we demonstrate that changes in the partisan orientation of a country's executive branch influence the likelihood that the government of that country complies with international legal commitments aimed at integration of capital markets. We argue that relative shifts in executive partisan orientation, whether toward the left or toward the right, represent important shifts in “national preferences” that have heretofore been absent from statistical models of treaty compliance. Using a matching estimator combined with a genetic algorithm to maximize balance in our sample, we show that the causal impact of a state signing Article VIII of the IMF Articles of Agreement is conditioned by right-to-left shifts in partisan orientation. The evidence indicates that such preference changes reduce the constraining effects of Article VIII but also indicates that Article VIII continues to exercise significant causal effects even in the face of relative shifts in executive partisan orientation.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , April 2009 , pp. 341 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abadie, Alberto, and Imbens, Guido W.. 2007. Bias Corrected Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects. Unpublished manuscript, Harvard University and National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Mass. Available at ⟨http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~aabadie/bcm.pdf⟩. Accessed 14 January 2009.Google Scholar
Beck, Thorsten, Clarke, George, Groff, Alberto, Keefer, Philip, and Walsh, Patrick. 2001. New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions. World Bank Economic Review 15 (1):165–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boix, Carles. 2000. Partisan Governments, the International Economy, and Macroeconomic Policies in Advanced Countries, 1960–93. World Politics 53 (1):38–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carrubba, Clifford J. 2005. Courts and Compliance in International Regulatory Regimes. Journal of Politics 67 (3):669–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, David B., and Signorino, Curtis S.. 2007. Back to the Future: Modeling Time Dependence in Binary Data. Unpublished manuscript, University of Rochester, N.Y. Available at ⟨http://www.polmeth.wustl.edu/retrieve.php?id=710⟩. Accessed 14 January 2009.Google Scholar
Castles, Francis G., and Mair, Peter. 1984. Left-Right Political Scales: Some ‘Expert’ Judgments. European Journal of Political Research 12 (1):73–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chinn, Menzie D., and Ito, Hiro. 2006. What Matters for Financial Development? Capital Controls, Institutions, and Interactions. Journal of Development Economics 81 (1):163–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, Alexis, and Sekhon, Jasjeet S.. 2008. Genetic Matching for Estimating Causal Effects: A General Multivariate Matching Method for Achieving Balance in Observational Studies. Unpublished manuscript. Available at ⟨http://sekhon.berkeley.edu/papers/GenMatch.pdf⟩. Accessed 8 November 2008.Google Scholar
Downs, George W., Rocke, David M., and Barsoom, Peter N.. 1996. Is the Good News About Compliance Good News About Cooperation? International Organization 50 (3):379–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutt, Pushan, and Mitra, Devashish. 2005. Political Ideology and Endogenous Trade Policy: An Empirical Investigation. Review of Economics and Statistics 87 (1):59–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearon, James D. 1998. Bargaining, Enforcement, and International Cooperation. International Organization 52 (2):269–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Geoffrey. 1998. Partisan Politics in the Global Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilligan, Michael J. 2004. Is There a Broader-Deeper Trade-off in International Multilateral Agreements? International Organization 58 (3):459–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodliffe, Jay, and Hawkins, Darren G.. 2006. Explaining Commitment: States and the Convention Against Torture. Journal of Politics 68 (2):358–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ho, Daniel E., Imai, Kosuke, King, Gary, and Stuart, Elizabeth A.. 2007. Matching as Nonparametric Preprocessing for Reducing Model Dependence in Parametric Causal Inference. Political Analysis 15 (3):199–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honaker, James, and King, Gary. 2006. What to Do About Missing Values in Time Series Cross-Section Data. Unpublished manuscript. Available at ⟨http://gking.harvard.edu/files/abs/pr-abs.shtml⟩. Accessed 14 January 2009.Google Scholar
Huber, John D., and Gabel, Matthew J.. 2000. Putting Parties in Their Place: Inferring Party Left-Right Ideological Positions from Party Manifestos Data. American Journal of Political Science 44 (1):94–103.Google Scholar
Huber, John, and Inglehart, Ronald. 1995. Expert Interpretations of Party Space and Party Locations in 42 Societies. Party Politics 1 (1):73–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iversen, Torben. 1999. Contested Economic Institutions: The Politics of Macroeconomics and Wage Bargaining in Advanced Democracies. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kahler, Miles. 2000. Conclusion: The Causes and Consequences of Legalization. International Organization 54 (3):661–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelley, Judith. 2007. Who Keeps International Commitments and Why? The International Criminal Court and Bilateral Nonsurrender Agreements. American Political Science Review 101 (3):1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, Honaker, James, Joseph, Anne, and Scheve, Kenneth. 2001. Analyzing Incomplete Political Science Data: An Alternative Algorithm for Multiple Imputation. American Political Science Review 95 (1):49–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, and Zeng, Langche. 2006. The Dangers of Extreme Counterfactuals. Political Analysis 14 (2):131–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koremenos, Barbara. 2001. Loosening the Ties That Bind: A Learning Model of Agreement Flexibility. International Organization 55 (2):289–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laver, Michael J., and Budge, Ian. 1992. Party, Policy, and Government Coalitions. London: St. Martin's.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laver, Michael J., and Garry, John. 2000. Estimating Policy Positions from Political Texts. American Journal of Political Science 44 (3):619–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGillivray, Fiona, and Smith, Alastair. 2006. Credibility in Compliance and Punishment: Leader Specific Punishments and Credibility. Journal of Politics 68 (2):248–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milner, Helen V., and Judkins, Benjamin. 2004. Partisanship, Trade Policy, and Globalization: Is There a Left-Right Divide on Trade Policy? International Studies Quarterly 48 (1):95–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Ronald B. 2002. A Quantitative Approach to Evaluating International Environmental Regimes. Global Environmental Politics 2 (4):58–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Ronald B. 2006. Problem Structure, Institutional Design, and the Relative Effectiveness of International Environmental Agreements. Global Environmental Politics 6 (3):72–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reinhardt, Eric. 2001. Adjudication Without Enforcement in GATT Disputes. Journal of Conflict Resolution 45 (2):174–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sekhon, Jasjeet S. 2007. Alternative Balance Metrics for Bias Reduction in Matching Methods for Causal Inference. Unpublished manuscript, University of California at Berkeley. Available at ⟨http://sekhon.berkeley.edu/papers/SekhonBalanceMetrics.pdf⟩. Accessed 14 January 2009.Google Scholar
Sekhon, Jasjeet S.Forthcoming. Matching: Multivariate and Propensity Score Matching with Automated Balance Search. Journal of Statistical Software. Computer program available at ⟨http://sekhon.berkeley.edu/matching/⟩. Accessed 14 January 2009.Google Scholar
Simmons, Beth A. 1994. Who Adjusts? Domestic Sources of Foreign Economic Policy During the Interwar Years. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, Beth A. 2000. International Law and State Behavior: Commitment and Compliance in International Monetary Affairs. American Political Science Review 94 (4):819–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, Beth A., and Hopkins, Daniel J.. 2005. The Constraining Power of International Treaties: Theory and Methods. American Political Science Review 99 (4):623–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swank, Duane. 2002. Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Stein, Jana. 2005. Do Treaties Constrain or Screen? Selection Bias and Treaty Compliance. American Political Science Review 99 (4):611–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar