Chapter Fourteen: International Organizations and International Law

Study

Chapter Summary

This chapter presents a comprehensive view of the role of institutions and organizations in creating and maintaining cooperation. Institutions can facilitate cooperation, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient for cooperation to emerge. This empirical fact weakens the constructivist case that institutions and organizational membership can change states' preferences. In the strategic perspective, leaders commit to institutions and organizations both to signal their commitment to a given cooperative policy and also to tie the hands of future leaders, who will often be unwilling to incur the large costs of leaving or modifying an institution to pursue their personal preferences. An organization's decision rules and membership strongly influence its scope of activity and its policy outcomes.

Study Questions

• Are all institutions regimes? Are all regimes institutions?
  
  
  
• How does the strategic perspective understand and explain regimes?
  
  
  
• Both the NATO charter and the Helsinki Final Act are treaties, elements of international law. What similarities and differences did they have? Think about how the United States used them against the Soviet Union, and the nature of the obligations in each.
  
  
  
• Why does compliance with international agreements or international law matter? How can decision-making rules affect potential compliance?