The Strategic Consequences of Emotion in Diplomacy

• In Event: Reputation and Resolve

Abstract

A burgeoning psychological literature in IR argues that emotions expressed in face-to-face negotiations can credibly reveal actors’ intentions. This paper presents a model of how leaders should rationally behave in anticipation of and in response to the emotional impressions they form in face-to-face diplomacy. Face-to-face interaction is modeled as an unconscious and noisy signaling mechanism in which actors form impressions of each other that are only probabilistically correct. The analysis reveals that emotional face-to-face signals generate differential incentives for highly- and weakly-resolved actors to undertake face-to-face negotiations in the first place. This makes the actors’ agreement or rejection of face-to-face diplomacy itself a form of credible signal, which can reduce the likelihood of war. Moreover, this effect is strongest with poor negotiators, i.e., when agents lack capacity to give impressions of high resolve. In other words, states often benefit from having bad negotiators representing them in face-to-face diplomacy, which helps to account for the prevalence of in-person leadership summits in international politics.

Author

• Brandon Yoder, Australian National University