Domestic Institutions and International Bargaining: The Role of Agent Veto in Two-Level Games

Putnam's (1988) conjecture that negotiators can benefit from their domestic constraints implies that they may want to impose domestic constraints on themselves by granting veto power to an agent. I show that a negotiator's decision to employ an agent as veto player depends on the kinds of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American political science review 1995-12, Vol.89 (4), p.914-924
Main Author: Mo, Jongryn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agreements
Bargaining
Expected utility
Foreign Affairs
Foreign policy
Foreign relations
Game Theory
GAME THEORY AND DECISION THEORY IN MODELS
Information
International agreements
International mediation
International relations
Nash equilibrium
NEGOTIATE, NEGOTIATIONS
Negotiation
Negotiations
Numerical analysis
Political aspects
Political science
Political theory
Preferences
Principals
Trade legislation
Trade policy
Truth
Upper houses
Veto
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Summary:Putnam's (1988) conjecture that negotiators can benefit from their domestic constraints implies that they may want to impose domestic constraints on themselves by granting veto power to an agent. I show that a negotiator's decision to employ an agent as veto player depends on the kinds of information available to the foreign country and the alignment of preferences between the negotiator and the agent. When the foreign country has incomplete information about the negotiator's preferences and the negotiator has preferences too divergent from those of the agent, the negotiator will not give veto power to the agent. However, this applies only to an agent with extreme preferences, and a surprisingly large number of agent types will receive veto power. The attractiveness of the agent veto to the negotiator is in part due to its informational effect. By granting veto power to an agent, the negotiator can transmit more information to the foreign country and capture informational gains that would be lost in the absence of the agent veto.
ISSN:0003-0554
1537-5943
DOI:10.2307/2082517