WHEN AND HOW DO DOMESTIC CONSTRAINTS MATTER - 2-LEVEL GAMES WITH UNCERTAINTY

Recent studies of uncertainty in international relations treat nation- states as unitary actors, but it may be more realistic to suppose that uncertainty also arises from domestic decision-making processes. By f ormalizing Putnam's theory of two-level games, this article attempts t o integrate the studies of uncertainty and the ''second image.'' The d istinction between domestic and international asymmetric information t urns out to be subtle yet important. When there is complete informatio n and international asymmetric information, domestic constraints may o r may not enhance bargaining power; but they do not make successful ra tification difficult. On the other hand, when there is incomplete dome stic information, successful ratification is not guaranteed although t he expected payoffs of the constrained negotiators may be still greate r than without domestic constraints.