Four Costly Signaling Mechanisms

Abstract

Two mechanisms of costly signaling are known in international relations: sinking costs and tying hands. I show that there exist four mechanisms of costly signaling that are equally general. I develop the new mechanisms of installment costs and reducible costs and contrast them with sunk costs and tied-hands costs. I then conduct experiments to test the four signaling mechanisms. I find that each mechanism can improve credibility when the costs are high, but reducible costs can improve credibility even when the costs are low.

Fighting Fire With Fire? Relegitimizing Strategies for Media Institutions Faced With Unwarranted “Fake News” Accusations

“…Overall, these demographic profiles are similar to online samples surveyed in other studies conducted in the United Kingdom and United States (Huff & Tingley, 2015). While recent works in the survey research show that while online samples can differ from population-based samples on certain demographic variables (Clifford & Jerit, 2014; Quek, 2021), these authors also show that scholars can still make credible inferences based on online samples. In China, a recent study of the emerging trend toward internet recruitment shows that online convenience samples generate attitude estimates that are highly consistent with national probability samples (Li et al, 2018).…”

Testing Tripwire Theory Using Survey Experiments

“…H. Snyder 2015;Trachtenberg 1989). A later generation employs formal modeling to articulate different signaling mechanisms, various kinds of empirical methods to assess the effectiveness of different kinds of signals, or both (Fearon 1994(Fearon , 1997Quek 2021).…”

“…For theorists, understanding whether attacks on forward-deployed troops produce demands for escalation could clarify how different kinds of pre-commitment devices work-in particular, whether Snyder's conjecture that blood is thicker than parchment is empirically accurate. Policymakers and the public, both in the United States and in countries reliant on U.S. security commitments, would thus be wellserved to know more about whether and how forward deployment functions as a pre-commitment device, and how strong the effect it produces through the public opinion channel is (Quek 2021).…”

Untying Hands: De-escalation, Reputation, and Dynamic Audience Costs

“…In crisis diplomacy, tying hands is to take “an action that increases the costs of backing down if the would-be challenger actually challenges but otherwise entails no costs if no challenge materializes” (Fearon 1997, 70). The canonical example of tying hands is by generating audience costs (for a review, see Chan, Liu, and Quek 2021a).…”