Trust, reassurance, and cooperation

Many scholars have argued that mistrust can prevent cooperation. These argu ments often fail to adequately address the possibility that states can take steps to reassure each other, build trust, and thereby avoid conflict. I p resent a rational choice theory of reassurance focusing on costly signals a nd identify the conditions under which players can use costly signals to re assure the other side. The central result is that reassurance will be possi ble between trustworthy players in equilibrium if trustworthy actors are mo re willing to take risks to attain mutual cooperation than untrustworthy ac tors. I discuss the implications of the model in the context of the reassur ance strategies pursued by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the end of th e Cold War.