Essays on understanding international relations through experimentation

This dissertation studies a set of fundamental mechanisms in international relations theory. Commitment problem and incomplete information explanations of conflict are central to current thinking in international relations. Yet there is surprisingly little direct empirical testing of these mechanisms. The first two chapters use experimental methods to study ways in which commitment problems are made more or less severe (Chapter 2) and whether people update beliefs in bargaining games with incomplete information (Chapter 3, with Stephanie Wang). The third chapter thinks about the role of beliefs in a non-strategic setting. How does an individual's beliefs about what a policy will accomplish affect their support for that policy? Some suggest these beliefs about causal mechanisms linking policies and policy outcomes are fundamental to explanations of behavior relevant to international relations. I study the role of these beliefs in the context of foreign aid. Finally, I address a more applied question. Recent work argues that publics will form preferences for immigration that depend on their own labor market position and on the post-tax effects of state fiscal institutions. How strong is this relationship? I provide an additional set of tests using new survey data with large samples and experimental manipulations to help identify these effects. Throughout the dissertation, I emphasize the utility of laboratory and survey-based experiments to study international relations theories. The conclusion of the dissertation reviews the chapters and provides some reflective thoughts on each of the essays.