Two-Level Games Between Rival Regimes: Domestic Politics and the Remaking of Cross-Strait Relations

Abstract

This article develops a two-level game model to depict the sovereignty dispute across the Taiwan Strait. It shows that dissatisfaction with the status quo undermines cross-Strait stability, and that a moderate leader besieged by hard-liners in a nondemocratic regime reacts most radically to external pressures. These arguments are then empirically verified. Such findings deviate from Robert Putnam’s claim that international cooperation is enhanced by a greater domestic demand to change the status quo, and also call for a distinction between two-level games that are zero-sum and nonzero-sum. By implication, the author suggests that cross-Strait stability can be improved by concurrent power transitions, centripetal political institutions, and a nonzero-sum distribution of payoffs.