International legal frameworks exist to formalize interactions between countries, supposedly muting the need for behind-the-scenes bargaining in the event of disagreements. Yet diplomacy persists, and sometimes escalates, even after countries invoke dispute settlement mechanisms. What is the...

Cooperation among militant organizations contributes to capability but also presents security risks. This is particularly the case when organizations face substantial repression from the state. As a consequence, for cooperation to emerge and persist when it is most valuable, militant groups must...

Politicians and scholars have long argued that democracies are less prone to international conflict, at least with other democracies. However, while there is widespread acceptance of this “law” in international affairs, the theoretical mechanism that drives it remains opaque. We argue that...

Limited data on regional and preferential trade agreements prevent social scientists from testing some of the international cooperation literature’s most important claims. Expert surveys—a technique that is widely used in the field of comparative politics but thus far underutilized in...

Over the past several decades, researchers have taken an interest in theatre as a unique method of analysing data and translating findings. Because of its ability to communicate research findings in an emotive and embodied manner, theatre holds particular potential for health research, which...

Under what conditions do states maintain trade cooperation? We explore this question using models of imperfect monitoring. Most formal models of international cooperation rely on signaling games, in which actors' actions are perfectly observable. Here we examine conditions for cooperation when...