Words without swords: International institutions and crisis diplomacy

International institutions shape world politics through domestic framing effects. In other words, international rules and customs influence how political actors define and explain foreign issues for domestic audiences and, in turn, this domestic framing shapes subsequent foreign policy and international outcomes. For example, international institutions influence whether great power concerts succeed. Great power concerts involve the world's strongest countries jointly managing threats to international security. A particularly difficult challenge for great power concerts arises when one member attacks an important client of another, provoking a spin-off crisis between members. While concerts usually fail to peacefully resolve such disputes, sometimes they succeed. This study helps understand why. Sometimes the explicit and customary rules of a great power concert provide leaders the grounds for publicly protesting their rival's actions without committing themselves to a particular response. When this occurs, leaders use concert principles such as prior consultation to frame the foreign threat for domestic audiences. This type of public protest helps leaders legitimize in advance a broader range of potential crisis policies, thereby helping them better position themselves relative to possible domestic opponents. In this way, concert-based frames enable leaders to pursue the nuanced diplomacy needed to peacefully resolve these complex disputes.; The record of great power concerts over the last two centuries comports with the theory. So far no war between great powers has arisen out of a dispute covered by a prior consultation obligation embedded in great power agreements and customs, even though such institutions have covered some challenging issues. Indeed, focused comparison shows great power concert success with these rules, in a spinoff dispute otherwise more severe than one that ended in great power war. Process tracing with historical methods and materials shows that the domestic framing effects of concert rules can play a decisive role in spin-off disputes.; International institutions in general have more robust and varied effects than we had previously thought. Even with weak rules in dangerous disputes between strong countries, international institutions can have decisive effects on world politics by helping political actors in their domestic legitimation struggles.