Outside options can induce bargaining asymmetries that influence the outcome of international negotiations. This article focuses, however, on the impact of a regime-provided inside option on the willingness to cooperate and the distributive outcomes reached. Using a new data set covering 417 maritime boundaries, that fall under the Law of the Sea framework, this article shows that the ability to find agreement is closely linked to the distributional outcomes that states are able to realize. Different potential gains from cooperation result in bargaining asymmetries that influence both the ability to settle a maritime boundary and the distributive outcome reached when cooperation succeeds. Our evidence shows that the opportunity to invest in long-term projects that require legal certainty, such as offshore oil, facilitates cooperation and is associated with smaller distributional adjustments.
ÁsgeirsdóttirÁslaugSteinwandMartin. 2015. “Dispute Settlement Mechanisms and Maritime Boundary Settlements.” Review of International Organizations10 (2): 119–43.
2.
BarbieriKatherineKeshkOmar. 2012. “Correlates of War Project Trade Data Set Codebook, Version 3.0.” Accessed January 11, 2012.http://correlatesofwar.org.
3.
BarbieriKatherineKeshkOmar M. G.PollinsBrian. 2009. “Trading Data: Evaluating our Assumptions and Coding Rules.” Conflict Management and Peace Science26 (5): 471–91.
CarterDavid B.GoemansHein E.. 2011. “The Making of the Territorial Order: New Borders and the Emergence of Interstate Conflict.” International Organization65 (2): 275–309.
FishStat Plus. 2010. Fisheries and Aquaculture Department. Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization.
12.
GartzkeErikLiQuanBoehmerCharles. 2001. “Investing in Peace: Economic Interdependence and International Conflict.” International Organization55 (2): 391–438.
13.
Global Maritime Boundaries DatabaseTM. 2011. Herndon, VA: Global GIS Data Services LLC.
14.
GilliganMichael J.JohnsLeslie. 2012. “Formal Models of International Institutions.” Annual Review of Political Science15:221–43.
GriecoJoseph. 1990. Cooperation among Nations: Europe, America, and Non-tariff Barriers to Trade. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
17.
GuethWernerTietzReinhard. 1990. “Ultimatum Bargaining Behavior: A Survey and Comparison of Experimental Results.” Journal of Economic Psychology11:417–49.
18.
HeckmanJ. J.1979. “Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error.” Econometrica, 47 (1): 153–61.
19.
HenselPaul R.MitchellSara McLaughlinSowersThomas E.ThyneClayton L.. 2008. “Bones of Contention: Comparing Territorial, Maritime and River Issues.” Journal of Conflict Resolution52 (1): 117–43.
20.
HonakerJamesKingGaryBlackwellMatthew. 2011. “Amelia II: A Program for Missing Data.” Journal of Statistical Software45:1–47.
21.
HuthPaul. 1996. Standing Your Ground: Territorial Disputes and International Conflict. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
22.
HuthPaulAlleeTodd. 2003. The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
23.
HuthPaulCrocoSarah E.AppelBenjamin J.. 2011. “Does International Law Promote the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes?” American Political Science Review105 (2): 415–36.
24.
HuthPaulCrocoSarah E.AppelBenjamin J.. 2013. “Bringing Law to the Table: Legal Claims, Focal Points and the Settlement of Territorial Disputes since 1945.” American Journal of Political Science57 (1): 90–103.
25.
HyneNorman J.2012. Nontechnical Guide to Petroleum Geology, Exploration, Drilling and Production, 3rd ed. Tulsa, OK: PennWell.
KeohaneRobert. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
28.
KeohaneRobert.1986. “Reciprocity in International Relations.” International Organization40 (1): 1–27.
29.
KeohaneRobertNyeJoseph. 2000. Power and Interdependence, 3rd ed. New York: Longman.
30.
KingGaryHonakerJamesJosephAnneScheveKenneth. 2001. “Analyzing Incomplete Political Science Data: An Alternative Algorithm for Multiple Imputation.” American Political Science Review95 (1): 49–69.
31.
KirkeyChristopher. 1995. “Delineating Maritime Boundaries: The 1977-78 Canada-U.S. Beaufort Sea Continental Shelf Delimitation Boundary Negotiations.” Canadian Review of American Studies25 (2): 49–67.
32.
KrasnerStephen, ed. 1983. International Regimes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
KwiatkowskaBarbara. 2001. “The Eritrea-Yemen Arbitration: Landmark Progress in the Acquisition of Territorial Sovereignty and Equitable Maritime Boundary Delimitation.” Ocean Development & International Law31 (1): 1–25.
35.
KwiatkowskaBarbara. 2002a. “The Qatar v. Bahrain Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions Case.” Ocean Development & International Law33 (3&4): 227–62.
36.
KwiatkowskaBarbara. 2002b. Decisions of the World Court Relevant to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: A Reference Guide. Hague, the Netherlands: Kluwer Law International.
37.
LuLingyuThiesCameron G.. 2010. “Trade Interdependence and the Issues at Stake in the Onset of Militarized Conflict Exploring a Boundary Condition of Pacific Interstate Relations.” Conflict Management and Peace Science27 (4): 347–68.
38.
LujalaPäiviRødJan KetilThiemeNajda. 2007. “Fighting over Oil: Introducing a New Dataset.” Conflict Management and Peace Science24 (3): 239–56.
39.
MansfieldEdward D.MilnerHelen V.Peter RosendorffB.. 2002. “Why Democracies Cooperate More: Electoral Control and International Trade Agreements.” International Organization56 (3): 477–513.
40.
MansfieldEdward D.PollinsB. M.. 2001. “The Study of Interdependence and Conflict: Recent Advances, Open Questions, and Directions for Future Research.” Journal of Conflict Resolution45 (6): 834–59.
41.
MarshallMonty G.JaggersKeithGurrTed. 2011. Polity™ IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2010. Vienna, VA: Center for Systemic Peace and Societal-Systems Research.
42.
McDormanTed. 2009. Salt Water Neighbors: International Ocean Law Relations between the United States and Canada. New York: Oxford University Press.
43.
MearsheimerJohn. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W.W. Norton.
44.
MilnerHelen. 1997. Interests, Institutions and Information: Domestic Politics and International Relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
45.
MuthooAbhinay. 1999. Bargaining Theory with Applications. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
46.
MuthooAbhinay. 2000. “A Non-technical Introduction to Bargaining Theory.” World Economics1 (2): 145–66.
47.
NemethStephen C.MitchellSara McLaughlinNymanElizabeth A.HenselPaul R.. 2014. “Ruling the Sea: Managing Maritime Conflicts through UNCLOS and Exclusive Economic Zones.” International Interactions40:711–36.
48.
OdellJohn S.2000. Negotiating the World Economy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
49.
OdellJohn S.2002. “Creating Data on International Negotiation Strategies, Alternatives and Outcomes.” International Negotiation7 (1): 39–52.
50.
OnealJohn R.RussettBruce. 1999. “Assessing the Liberal Peace with Alternative Specifications: Trade Still Reduces Conflict.” Journal of Peace Research36 (4): 423–42.
51.
OyeKenneth, ed. 1986. Cooperation under Anarchy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
52.
PrattMartin. 2002. “International Maritime Boundaries.” From the International Boundary Research Unit, Durham University, United Kingdom. Data shared in personal correspondence.
53.
PrelliLawrence J.Larsen-BeckerMimi. 2001. “Learning the Limits of an Adjudicatory Strategy for Resolving United States-Canada Fisheries Conflicts: Lessons from the Gulf of Maine.” Natural Resources Journal41:445.
54.
PutnamRobert. 1988. “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-level Games.” International Organization42 (3): 427–60.
55.
SattlerThomasBernauerThomas. 2011. “Gravitation or Discrimination? Determinants of Litigation in the World Trade Organization.” European Journal of Political Research50:143–67.
56.
SchellingThomas C.1960. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
57.
SchofieldClive. 2012. “No Panacea? Challenges in the Application of Provisional Arrangements of a Practical Nature.” In Maritime Border Diplomacy, edited by NordquistM. H.MooreJ. N., 151–69. Leiden, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.
58.
Schram StokkeOlafAndersonLee G.MirovitskayaNatalia. 1999. “The Barents Sea Fisheries.” In The Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes: Causal Connections and Behavioral Mechanisms, edited by YoungOran, 91–154. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
59.
SimmonsBeth. 2006. “Trade and Territorial Conflict in Latin America: International Borders as Institutions.” In Territoriality and Conflict in the Era of Globalization, edited by KahlerMilesWalterBarbara F., 151–87. New York: Cambridge University Press.
60.
SingerJ. David. (1987). “Reconstructing the Correlates of War Dataset on Material Capabilities of States, 1816-1985.” International Interactions14:115–32. Version 4.0.
61.
SingerJ. DavidBremerStuartStuckeyJohn. 1972. “Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820-1965.” In Peace, War, and Numbers, edited by RussettBruce, 19–48. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
62.
SoveyAllison J.GreenDonald P.. 2011. “Instrumental Variables Estimation in Political Science: A Readers’ Guide.”American Journal of Political Science55 (1): 188–200.
63.
StoneRandall W.2008. “Choosing How to Cooperate: A Repeated Public-goods Model of International Relations.” International Studies Quarterly52 (2): 335–62.
64.
StoneRandall W.2011. Controlling Institutions: International Organizations and the Global Economy. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
65.
StreinerDavid L.2002. “Breaking Up is Hard to Do: The Heartbreak of Dichotomizing Continuous Data.” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry47:262–66.
66.
TanakaYoshfumi. 2001. “Reflections on the Concept of Proportionality in the Law of Maritime Delimitation.” International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law16 (3): 433–63.
VoetenErik. 2001. “Outside Options and the Logic of Security Council Action.” American Political Science Review95 (4): 845–58.
69.
WaltzKenneth N.1979. Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
70.
XiangJun. 2010. “Relevance as a Latent Variable in Dyadic Analysis of Conflict.” Journal of Politics72 (2): 484–98.
71.
YoungOran. 1989. International Cooperation: Building Regimes for Natural Resources and the Environment. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
72.
YoungOran, ed. 1999. The Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes. Causal Connections and Behavioral Mechanisms. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
