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International cooperation depends on conditional commitments between states. We examine the politics of conditional commitments in climate change using three experiments in ten major carbon-emitting countries. We specifically investigate whether public pledges of conditional action made by national governments increase public support for ambitious climate action in other countries. We find that only unconditional pledges increase public support for policy ambition in foreign countries. Additionally, countries seeking financial and technical transfers only gain foreign support for transfers when they combine conditional pledges with ambitious unconditional pledges. We also observe that the public in most countries only favors making part of their country’s climate pledge conditional on other countries’ actions when their home country makes an unconditional commitment at or above the average level necessary to prevent dangerous warming. Overall, public preferences are unconditionally aligned with addressing the climate problem. Conditional commitments are more aligned with increasing domestic support for climate policy than unlocking more ambitious settlements between countries.

Exchange‐rate policies are cornerstones of the world economy. They also have fundamental welfare and distributional consequences on nations, firms, and individuals. How do individuals internalize these consequences? We challenge the conventional wisdom on the source of mass preferences and argue that many individuals understand currency policies through the lens of inflation. Specifically, we argue that people who are concerned about inflation are more likely to support a fixed exchange rate regime and are more likely to oppose depreciation. We present observational and experimental evidence across middle‐income (Argentina and Serbia) and developed (United Kingdom) countries to support our argument. Further tests suggest that fears over purchasing power—instead of debt or savings considerations—drive inflation concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]