The United States and International Commitments: Treaties as Signaling Devices

U.S. presidents can choose the form of international agreements that they negotiate. Using the constitution’s Article II procedure to gain ratification of a formal treaty is a costly and time-consuming endeavor, so presidents frequently turn to executive agreements that do not require approval by 2/3 of the Senate. Given this alternative, why do presidents ever choose the Article II procedure? This paper argues that treaties serve as a costly signal of intent to comply with the terms of international agreements. The choice between treaties and informal executive agreements is therefore a strategic governmental decision that takes into account the anticipated reactions of other states. A signaling model predicts that high-benefit agreements should take the form of treaties. The predictions of purely domestic models of a positive relationship between the reliability of a government and the probability that an agreement is a treaty should not hold. These propositions are tested on a large dataset of U.S. international agreements between 1980 and 1999.