Damned If They Do, Damned If They Don't: The Assurance Dilemma in International Coercion

Why do some coercive demands succeed but others fail? A dominant paradigm explains coercive outcomes by pointing to the credibility and severity of threats. The concept of coercive assurance is an understudied type of commitment problem in the coercion literature. It suggests that a coercer must assure its target that its threats are conditional on the target's behavior. Many scholars overlook coercive assurance, in part because they assume it is automatic. But assurance is a crucial component of any coercive process. Even highly credible and severe threats can fail when the coercer's assurance is not credible. A novel theory, the assurance dilemma, helps to answer the following questions: Why do targets of coercion fear unconditional pain? Why do coercers punish after receiving compliance? What is the relationship between threats and assurances in coercion? The actions that a coercer can take to bolster the credibility of a threat undermine the credibility of its assurance that it will not punish the target. Targets fear that punishment may be unavoidable and thus look for assuring signals before ceding to the coercer's demands. The case of coercive bargaining over the Iranian nuclear program demonstrates the logic and effectiveness of the use of assurance.