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Negotiating under Political Uncertainty: National Elections and the Dynamics of International Co-operation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2017

Mareike Kleine  and
Clement Minaudier
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Abstract

This article explores if (and how) national elections affect the chances of concluding an international agreement. Drawing on a literature about the informational efficiency of elections, it examines how political uncertainty in the run-up to an election impacts the dynamics of international negotiations. Using the case of decision making in the European Union (EU), it finds that (1) pending national elections significantly reduce the chances of reaching an agreement at the international level (2) this effect is strongest during close elections with uncertain outcomes and (3) the effect is particularly pronounced in the case of elections in larger member states. The findings highlight the fruitfulness of further research on the dynamics between national and international politics. The article has positive and normative implications for the literature on two-level games, international negotiations and legislative bargaining in the EU.

Keywords

electionsinternational negotiationspolitical uncertaintyambiguitytwo-level gameslegislative bargainingEU politics
Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 315 - 337
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science (email: m.o.kleine@lse.ac.uk); Department of Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science (email: c.minaudier@lse.ac.uk). This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500070/1]. Data replication sets are available at http://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/BJPolS and online appendices are available at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1017/S000712341600051X

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Supplementary material: PDF

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Appendix

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Kleine and Minaudier Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/V7QQCR
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