Political leaders value public demonstrations of support from foreign leaders and frequently make concessions in order to obtain them. We model the bargaining dynamics surrounding these exchanges and their impact on the recipient leader’s political survival, with a focus on top-level diplomatic visits as a means of signaling international support. Our model addresses two interrelated questions; first, we consider how symbolic displays of support from one leader to another can be informative even when they are “purchased” with concessions, and second, we derive the equilibrium price and political impact of a visit under different bargaining protocols. The incentive to make a concession in exchange for a visit generally undermines a visit’s signaling value. We identify a diplomatic resource curse, where the existence of opportunities for diplomatic exchange can force leaders into accepting visit-for-concession deals that leave them worse off than if they were diplomatically isolated. Visits never occur when negotiations are fully transparent. Mutually beneficial quid pro quo diplomacy requires opacity in negotiations.

Does diplomacy affect the prospects of international conflict and cooperation? Systematic empirical assessment has been hindered by the inferential challenges of separating diplomacy from the distribution of power and interests that underlies its conduct. This paper addresses the question of diplomacy's efficacy by examining the intragovernmental politics of US foreign policy, and the varying influence of diplomatic personnel in the policy process. I claim that diplomats hold the strongest preferences for cooperative relations with their host countries, relative to other participants in the foreign policy process. They also exert substantial influence over the formation and implementation of US policies toward their host countries but their influence is intermittently weakened by the short-term shock of an ambassadorial turnover. As a result, when ambassadors are removed from post, diplomacy is more likely to be eschewed for more conflictual means of settling international disagreements, and opportunities for economic exchange are less likely to be realized. I test this theory using newly collected data on US diplomatic representation, for the global sample of countries from 1960 through 2014. To address concerns of diplomatic staffing being endogenous to political interests, I leverage a natural experiment arising from the State Department's three-year ambassadorial rotation system. The turnover of a US ambassador causes a decrease in US exports to the country experiencing the turnover, and heightens the risk of onset of a militarized dispute between that country and the US. These findings point to bureaucratic delegation as an important but overlooked determinant of macro-level international outcomes.

Why do political leaders travel abroad? In this article, we propose an informational mechanism linking in-person diplomacy to leader survival. A foreign power visits an incumbent in order to reap a future policy concession; the visit is only worth the effort if the incumbent remains in power long enough to deliver on the deal. A diplomatic visit thus provides a visible and credible signal of the visitor's high confidence in the incumbent's stability in office. Domestic opponents, facing incomplete information as to the incumbent's strength, observe the signal and are deterred from mounting a challenge. Using data on U.S. diplomatic visits from 1960 to 2013, we find strong empirical support for our predictions: A visit with the U.S. president substantially reduces the risk of a leader's removal from office.

Diplomacy always occurs in the shadow of domestic political competition. We develop a model of top-level diplomatic exchange embedded within a global game of regime change, and examine four mechanisms that induce a relationship between diplomatic visits and regime survival. First, the foreign leader chooses to visit incumbents who are ex ante more secure in office (a selection effect). Second, because the foreign leader’s decision is based partly on private information, the citizens update on the revelation of that information (a learning effect) and are discouraged from mounting a challenge. Third, the foreign leader can bolster the incumbent’s strength in office with a transfer of material support (a strengthening effect). The latter two effects are then amplified by the complementarities in the citizens’ strategies (a multiplier effect). Contrary to standard global games results, we show that increased precision in the public information transmitted strategically by the foreign power induces a unique equilibrium, as citizens coordinate on the foreign leader’s action. Our findings explain why leaders are so eager to receive state visits from major world powers.

How do leaders select their top-level foreign policy appointees? Existing explanations point to appointees' hands-tying value at the international bargaining table, or their ability to insulate leaders from domestic political criticism. This paper evaluates these explanations through a formal model of the domestic and intragovernmental politics surrounding an international crisis. In the model, a leader selects a foreign policy appointee, anticipating how the appointee will shape the advice he receives in the crisis, the electoral incentives he faces, and ultimately the policies that he and his foreign counterparts pursue as a consequence. The analysis uncovers a fundamental strategic tension in the leader's ability use appointments to advance his core political and policy objectives---deterring foreign aggression, obtaining valuable policy advice, and maximizing domestic approval: any appointment that advances one of these objectives invariably comes at the cost of another, and the leader's appointment strategy must balance across these tradeoffs. Analyzing cross-national appointment patterns to the offices of ministers of defense and foreign affairs, we find descriptive evidence consistent with the model's predictions: leaders from dovish parties are more likely than leaders from hawkish parties to select cross-partisan and politically independent appointees, and such appointments are less likely for leaders of either party as they approach reelection.

What makes some bureaucrats more influential than others in shaping U.S. foreign policy?I argue that a bureaucrat's appointment status---whether or not she has received a presidential appointment and senate confirmation---serves as a coordination device to guide the behavior of other actors across the U.S. government and beyond toward that bureaucrat, ultimately determining the degree of influence she is able to exercise in the foreign policy process. I test the theory in the context of U.S. ambassadorial appointments, leveraging the State Department's routinized rotation schedule as a natural experiment to isolate exogenous variation in ambassadorial vacancy. Compared to presidential appointees, I find that acting officials play a less active role in internal advocacy over policy, as measured by diplomatic cable traffic; that they receive less access to top-level decision makers, as documented in presidential meeting schedules; and that they are less effective in getting their host countries' concerns onto the US foreign policy agenda, as indicated by written presidential orders, international agreements, and presidential diplomatic travel. The findings demonstrate that bureaucrat-level variation can create significant distortions in the allocation of time, effort, and attention across foreign policy issues.

Powerful states exert influence over international organizations (IOs) in a manner that is at odds with the organizational mission and the interests of the broader membership. Yet other member states actively participate in these organizations despite this hegemonic influence. Under what conditions can such a system be sustained, and what are the implications for IO performance? To answer these questions, this paper examines the relationship between vote shares, cost shares, and agency expertise in a model of project finance within an IO. We develop a game-theoretic model of the strategic interaction between a membership who wants the IO to provide a global public good, a hegemon who wants to advance its private interests through the IO, and a secretariat who is accountable to both principals. In equilibrium, the secretariat biases its recommendations in favor of the hegemon’s interests, even though their primitive preferences diverge. The members tolerate this influence to a limited degree, in exchange for the benefits they enjoy from the hegemon’s financial contributions, and the project expertise that the IO provides. Increased IO expertise limits the degree to which the secretariat “shades” its recommendations, and reduces the value of larger vote shares for the hegemon. We show that IO expertise is bounded in equilibrium: participation is incentive-compatible for all members only if the secretariat is not “too good” at its job. Our model provides a unified theoretical framework to explain conditions of IO design, accession, exit, and reform.

How do powerful states maintain plausible deniability for their secretive foreign interventions? Existing research focuses on the need for interveners to avoid direct exposure of their covert activities. We contribute by highlighting the challenges posed by circumstantial evidence: the inferences that audiences might draw from observing outcomes consistent with the intervener's interests and capabilities, but without direct evidence of their involvement. Through a formal model, we uncover a novel mechanism whereby interveners enhance their plausible deniability by openly promoting public coercive actions and, even, inviting some scrutiny that raises the risk of exposure. We find evidence of the use of such a "cover story" tactic in an in-depth case study of Operation PB-SUCCESS, the CIA operation that overthrew Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. The theory advances our understanding of how leaders evade accountability for norm-violating behaviors across a wide range of foreign and domestic policy domains.