Enemies in Agreement: Domestic Politics, Uncertainty, and Cooperation between Adversaries

Abstract

Adversarial agreements, such as the nuclear weapons treaties, disarmament zones, or conventional weapons limitations, vary considerably in the information sharing provisions they include. This dissertation investigates why adversarial states sometimes choose to cooperate by creating restraining institutions, and how their choices for the form of that cooperation are constrained and motivated. I argue that uncertainties arising out of domestic political volatility, which includes leadership changes or public unrest, make arms control agreements more likely because these moments create the possibility of foreign policy change. When states consider one another as relatively cooperative, increasing uncertainty about the adversary's security incentives leads them to hedge and pursue low monitoring agreements instead of relying on informal cooperation. Conversely, under highly competitive conditions, increased uncertainty makes states more willing risk cooperation and form agreements with intrusive information provisions where no agreements were previously possible. I show support for the theory through tests using an original data set of all adversarial cooperation agreements (1816-2007) and their provisions. Controlling for other determinants of arms control, I show that both types of domestic political volatility contribute to a higher likelihood of an agreement. As expected, the effect of volatility on types of information provisions is conditional on the prior relationship between the states. A detailed study of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (US-Soviet Union, 1987) traces how shifts created by Gorbachev's new leadership contributed to greater uncertainty among US policymakers about Soviet intentions, giving both sides the negotiating space to design an intrusively monitored treaty. I then demonstrate the generalizability of the theory across a wider range of cases by looking at the effects of domestic volatility on agreement outcomes for adversaries experiencing détente; for those engaged in post-conflict competition, and for asymmetric powers negotiating new weapons limitation.