International Reputation Costs and Assurances: A Case of East Asia

How can states credibly commit to peace and assure other countries? One source of credible assurances that previous studies identify is international reputation costs. When a state violates a previous commitment to peace, it loses its international reputation, which is costly in many ways. These reputational costs, in turn, should work as a tying-hands signal that makes peaceful commitments credible. Nonetheless, we only have a scarce empirical investigation about whether and under what conditions such reputation costs emerge. To address this problem, this study conducts a preregistered survey experiment in the United States using a hypothetical scenario of military buildups of China and Japan. The results indicate that the violation of commitments to peace hurts the credibility of future commitments, especially for a rival country. The findings suggest that, with some limitations, international reputation costs can be a reliable mechanism for the credibility of assurances.