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Chapter 11: International Organizations, Alliances, and International Law

Study

Summary

This chapter focuses on the spread of international treaties and organizations since the second half of the twentieth century. Does international law makes a difference? Does it change the behavior of states and perhaps even their interests? Is it effective in promoting international cooperation? How do we interpret states' compliance with international law? The chapter addresses these questions by contrasting different perspectives of international relations: realism, liberalism, constructivism, and the strategic perspective.

The chapter also discusses which institutional designs are more effective. Are universal and inclusive organizations better at promoting cooperation and compliance than small and exclusive organizations? How do the decision-making rules matter to the outcome of the activities of international organizations?

In addition, the chapter shows how infinitely repeated interactions can induce cooperation even in prisoners' dilemma situations. It introduces the concept of discount factor and how it shapes the players' calculations about cooperation.

One of the main themes in this chapter is that international law and organizations are endogenous to states' preferences and that their membership and decision-making rules are also. As a result, high rates of compliance are not necessarily evidence that international law changes the behavior or the interests of states. Rather, high rates of compliance can be due to international agreements' being shallow and not departing much from what states would have done in their absence. This is contrary to the constructivists' conclusion that international law is effective in transforming states' identities and inducing cooperation. However, the strategic approach acknowledges that, once created, international law can help tie the hands of leaders by increasing the costs of defection, thereby shaping their behavior.

The chapter also discusses the issue of national reputation. It introduces three types of reputation: national, leader-specific, and bureaucratic. It focuses on the leader-specific punishments as a way of inducing cooperation between states. Compliance with international law, according to this view, can be instrumental in building leaders' reputations and increasing their chances of political survival.

Study Questions

1. Are all institutions regimes? Are all regimes institutions?
   



2. What is the difference between international and domestic law?
   



3. How do realism, liberalism, constructivism, and the strategic approach view the effectiveness of international regimes in changing states' behavior and their interests?
   



4. Why does compliance with international agreements or international law matter?
   



5. How can decision-making rules affect potential compliance? What are the predictions of realism, liberalism, constructivism, and the strategic approach about states' compliance with their international obligations?
   



6. How do infinitely repeated interactions change the incentives to cooperate? What is a discount factor? Is cooperation always possible in infinitely repeated prisoner's dilemma games? What happens if the players know when their interaction will end?
   



7. Compare inclusive and exclusive regimes with regard to depth of cooperation and prospects of compliance.
   



8. How do decision-making rules matter? What do realism, liberalism, constructivism, and the strategic approach have to say about the effects of decision-making rules?
   



9. What is a costly signal? How can a treaty be a costly signal?
   



10. What types of reputations are there? How can leader-specific reputation be used to increase compliance and cooperation?