Back To Basics State Power in A Contemporary World PDF

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Back to Basics
State Power in a Contemporary World
E D I T E D B Y M A RT H A F I N N E M O R E
and
JUDITH GOLDSTEIN
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Back to basics : state power in a contemporary world / edited by Martha Finnemore
and Judith Goldstein.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–997008–7—ISBN 978–0–19–997009–4 (pbk.)
1. Power (Social sciences) 2. International relations. 3. World politics.
I. Finnemore, Martha. II. Goldstein, Judith.
JC330.B255 2013
327.1′1—dc23
2012029550
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Stephen Krasner, whose intellectual integrity, clarity of mind,
and fearless curiosity have made us all better scholars
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Contributors xi
PART ONE POWER AND RE ALISM A S AN

INTELLECTUAL TR ADITION
1. Puzzles about Power 3

Martha Finnemore and Judith Goldstein
2. Power Politics in the Contemporary World: Lessons from

the Scholarship of Stephen Krasner 18
3. Stephen Krasner: Subversive Realist 28

R o b e r t O. K e o h a n e
PART T WO THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS ON POWER ,

STATES, AND SOVEREIGNT Y
4. Authority, Coercion, and Power in International Relations 55

D av i d A . L a k e
5. Governance under Limited Sovereignty 78

Thomas Risse
6. Three Scenes of Sovereignty and Power 105

Etel Solingen
vii
viii C onte nt s
7. States and Power as Ur-Force: Domestic Traditions and

Embedded Actors in World Politics 139
P e t e r J. K at z e n s t e i n
PART THREE STATE POWER AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
8. Currency and State Power 159

B e n j a m i n J. C o h e n
9. International Trade Law as a Mechanism for State Transformation 177

Richard H. Steinberg
10. Choice and Constraint in the Great Recession of 2008 196

Peter Gourevitch
PART FOUR THE SUBVER SIVE EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZ ATION
11. Power Politics and the Powerless 219

Arthur A . Stein
12. Globalization and Welfare: Would a Rational Hegemon Still

Prefer Openness? 249
Lloyd Gruber
13. The Tragedy of the Global Institutional Commons 280

D a n i e l W. D r e z n e r
PART FIVE SOVEREIGNT Y AND POWER IN

A COMPLEX WORLD
14. Causation and Responsibility in a Complex World 313

Robert Jervis
15. New Terrains: Sovereignty and Alternative Conceptions of Power 339

S t e p h e n D. K r a s n e r
Index 359
P R E FA C E
No one in the field of international politics has been more central to our under-
standing of the sources and effects of power than Stephen Krasner. Whether in
his early work to refine realism or in his later work on failed states and sover-
eignty, Krasner has never let us forget that politics is still, and will always be,
fundamentally about power relations.
In honor of his many contributions to the field of international studies, we
asked some of the field’s top scholars to reflect on the role state power plays in
contemporary politics and how a power politics approach is still relevant to the-
oretical issues in political science today. These authors make up a diverse group.
All agree on the centrality of state power, but, not surprisingly, they offer very
different visions of power’s role. Many of our authors engage with some of the
same intellectual dilemmas we see in Krasner’s long career, struggling to define
power and its relationship to both interests and states. Some of our authors
largely agree with Krasner’s theoretical perspective but explore new applica-
tions created by contemporary political problems. Others see power very differ-
ently and show how their different perspectives open up new lines of inquiry.
Together, these essays provide a rich array of approaches to state power that we
hope will reinvigorate research on power in coming years.
Renewed attention on Krasner’s work on power is particularly fruitful today.
For all its proclaimed centrality in world politics, state power has not been a
major focus of international relations scholarship in recent decades. Realism
has declined as a tool of research inquiry and been eclipsed by rational choice
and game theory, neither of which puts power front and center. Liberals and
constructivists have similarly focused on other topics—the spread of democ-
racy, norms, identities, and institutions—but have also not made power’s role
in these processes central. At the same time, the world we want to understand
has changed. New actors are exercising power in new ways, creating “puzzles
about power” that are hard to explain. It is these puzzles that motivate our
ix
x P re fac e
contributors. Each of the chapters asks questions about new kinds of power and
new ways power works in the world. They tackle these problems from a diverse
array of theoretical perspectives, but one refreshing feature of all the chapters
is how uninterested they are in battles of the “isms.” In these chapters, senior
scholars show how real-world puzzles can and should drive research, and how
we can use diverse theoretical tools depending on the question asked.
Papers that became these chapters were initially prepared for a conference
held at Stanford University in December 2009 and then revised for a second
meeting at Princeton University in October 2010. During these lively meetings
and subsequently, in pulling the book together, we accumulated a number of
debts and owe thanks to the volume’s many supporters. Foremost, we want to
thank the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton and
the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford for supporting the book con-
ferences. In particular, Pat Trinity at Princeton and Jackie Sargent at Stanford
provided invaluable administrative help. Numerous colleagues attended these
conferences and offered outstanding critiques and advice. These included David
Baldwin, Christina Davis, Erica Gould, Joanne Gowa, Ron Hassner, Joseph
Joffe, Moonhawk Kim, Charles Kupchan, Edward Mansfield, John Meyer, Helen
Milner, Andrew Moravcsik, Mark Peceny, Tonya Putnam, Ronald Rogowski,
John Ruggie, Kenneth Schultz, Jack Snyder, Janice Stein, and Michael Tomz.
Michelle Jurkovich ably provided research assistance and thoughtful comments,
and special thanks to David McBride at Oxford University Press for shepherding
the volume through the review process.

June 2012
CO N T R I B U TO R S
Benjamin J. Cohen is the Louis G. Lancaster Professor of International Political

Economy, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Daniel W. Drezner is Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School
of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Martha Finnemore is University Professor of Political Science and International
Affairs at the George Washington University.
Judith Goldstein is the Janet M. Peck Professor in International Communication
and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University.
Peter Gourevitch is Professor of Political Science at the University of California,
San Diego.
Lloyd Gruber is Dean of the Institute of Public Affairs at the London School of
Economics and Political Science.
Robert Jervis is the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Affairs at
Columbia University.
Peter J. Katzenstein is the Walter S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International
Studies at Cornell University.
Robert O. Keohane is Professor of International Affairs at Princeton
University.
Stephen D. Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Studies
at Stanford University.
David A. Lake is the Jerri-Ann and Gary E. Jacobs Professor of Social Sciences
and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of California,
San Diego.
xi
xii C ont r ib utors
Thomas Risse is Professor of International Relations at Freie Universität,

Berlin.
Etel Solingen is Chancellor’s Professor of Political Science at the University of
California, Irvine.
Arthur A. Stein is Professor of Political Science at the University of California,
San Diego.
Richard H. Steinberg is Professor of Law at the University of California, Los
Angeles.
Back to Basics
PA RT O N E
POWER AND REALISM AS AN

INTELLECTUAL TRADITION
1
Puzzles about Power

We live in a diverse world. States, organizations, and the people in them are
differently endowed with wealth, knowledge, capacity, and intent. They are
also differently situated, confronting varied arrays of incentives, opportunities,
constraints, and threat. The roots of power lie in these differences, but figur-
ing out the process by which difference becomes power or what its effects may
be has been a challenge for scholars of world politics. Even actors blessed with
resources and opportunities suffer bad outcomes if they pursue unrealistic goals
or employ bad strategies.
The fact that building-blocks of power—endowments, structures, goals—do
not map neatly onto political outcomes motivates our volume. Most of us
would expect better-endowed and better-situated actors to be more successful
on the world stage. Often they are, as the rise of US power in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries suggests, but not always. States endowed with abundant
resources may remain weak, and even “fail.” We often speak of a “resource curse”
to describe resource-rich states like Venezuela or Congo that seem unable to
convert endowments into power or well-being. Conversely, small island nations
with relatively few resources may become major political or economic pow-
ers, as Britain did in the eighteenth century and both Japan and Singapore did
in the twentieth. The same paradox appears in actors other than states. The
International Labor Organization (ILO), with one of the largest budgets among
international organizations, has failed to effect sought-after labor policies, while
the World Trade Organization (WTO), with a far smaller budget, has been
highly efficacious in regulating trade.1 Similarly, resource-poor NGOs, like the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines, may succeed in reconfiguring poli-
cies of major militaries. Why resource endowments sometimes create power and
success, but not always, is a puzzle.
Even when resources create power—in the form of troops, guns, and mon-
ey—that power does not always translate into policy success. Overt exercises of
power like repression and threat can backfire; they may breed resistance rather
than compliance. Insurgencies against existing powers often thrive on repression.
Victims can become martyrs and help recruitment into the ranks of the weak.
3
4 Power and Realism as an Intellectual Tradition
Similarly, vast sums of money may be funneled to poor countries in the form of
development assistance without making appreciable differences in quality of life
for people living in those places. One can hypothesize many possible reasons for
these failures. Goals may be unrealistic; strategies may be bad. But, again, the
link between power and outcomes is not clear.
Power is ubiquitous in all social relations, but as scholars of international
politics we have a particular and long-standing interest in the power of states.
State power has been foundational for our discipline since its inception, and
understanding it is crucial to our field. Even when narrowing their focus to
states, scholars often disagree about how to define state power and have very
different understandings of its consequences in contemporary international
politics. These divergent perspectives can be fruitful. As these essays show,
attention to multiple dimensions of state power is helpful, even essential, to
understanding many of the puzzling manifestations of it we see in contempo-
rary politics.
The essays in this volume point to three possible reasons why debates
over state power and its definition continue and why contemporary scholars
remain puzzled about power’s workings and effects. First, our understand-
ing of what state power is and how it creates effects is often too limited. By
attending to more “faces” of power and more diverse pathways by which it
creates effects, our authors suggest that events that were previously mysteri-
ous may be explained. Second, our notions about the environment in which
states wield their power need to be broadened. “Power politics” is not just a
game for states anymore, if it ever was, and the assumption that the distribu-
tion of power among states is the only relevant feature of the international
environment is rarely sufficient to explain real-world politics. The diversity of
powerful non-state agents and autonomous institutions, both domestic and
international, has led to new theories about these non-state agents and struc-
tures, but it is also challenging to some of our basic notions about states’ own
roles and how state power works. Third, dilemmas of sovereignty make states
and their power much more complex. Many of the world’s 190-odd states
are problematic sovereigns in some way, creating challenges to the exercise
of power not just by them, but also upon them. The traditional assumption
of autonomous states, sovereign within and rational without, is unhelpful in
explaining behavior of these states. These sovereignty dilemmas are not lim-
ited to the weak; even very strong, consolidated states face constant trade-offs
in managing different aspects of sovereignty and power.
We are not the first to make these observations. For decades, even cen-
turies, theorists and policy makers have noted that the political environment
influences how power is manifest and when it has effects. Similarly, scholars
have wrestled with a general definition of power while trying to get a bet-
ter understanding of how and when sovereign units become “powerful.” Our
P u z z l e s about Pow e r 5
contribution is less to offer a new approach or a definitive answer to how

power should be measured and studied, but rather it is to bring power back to
center stage of thinking about international relations. Theoretical trends in the
IR field have favored extensive work on topics related to information, identity,
interests, audiences, and other important topics. While these have produced
important results, they have (perhaps inadvertently) diverted attention from
what used to be our core concept. Although power politics rarely explains all
international outcomes, ignoring relations of power risks missing the under-
lying dynamic of international affairs. Instead of offering a general theory,
our essays point readers to an agenda for theorizing about power, specifically
state power, in coming years. As Stephen Krasner discusses in the conclusion,
scholars have yet to operationalize a general state power theory to deal with
many of the empirical changes and theoretical challenges highlighted by these
chapters. Clear thinking about what the challenges are, though, is an obvious
first step toward that goal.
States, Power, and State Power

We begin with two concepts that have been central to IR scholarship for centu-
ries—states and power. Power, particularly state power, has always been at the
core of our discipline. Policy makers going back to Machiavelli’s prince have
eagerly sought good advice about how best to wield their power to achieve
desired goals. Now, as then, scholars have offered ideas on how rulers, states,
and organizations can best achieve their ends, but that advice is usually con-
tested and often wrong.
One can imagine several possible explanations for this state of affairs. One is
that scholars have mistaken or misleading understandings of state power and the
way it works. Another is that power itself has changed in contemporary politics
in ways that create new puzzles not easily understood with old concepts. Yet a
third is that states have changed in some fundamental way that alters their rela-
tion to power and their ability to use it. Our authors do not all agree on which
of these best explains the failure of conventional thinking about power politics.
All three may contain elements of truth.
There is good reason to think that our academic understandings of state
power are inadequate and, at least in recent decades, have changed more in
response to scholarly fashions than they have in response to transformations in
the real world. Consider the changing ways in which the theory most concerned
with state power, realism, has understood that concept. Within the field of inter-
national politics, the study of state power has been long associated with real-
ism. Indeed, the modern term “power politics” is largely synonymous with the
realpolitik statecraft informed by realist theory. Realism, however, makes power
central to its understanding of the world in very particular ways, and that under-
standing has changed over realism’s history.
The earliest, classical realist thinkers emphasized not just power but also fear
as crucial drivers of politics. It was not just growing Athenian power that caused
the Peloponnesian War, in Thucydides’s view; it was also the fear this created in
Sparta that made war inevitable.2 Similarly, Machiavelli emphasized fear, rather
than love, as the most effective way to exercise power and rule others. Entering
the more modern era, we see realists acknowledging the growing complexity of
political life in their expansion of what is said to be components of power. For
example, E. H. Carr’s analysis in The Twenty Years’ Crisis gives a central role to
the power of “international opinion” created by growing democratization and
economic inclusion during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.3 In
all these analyses, power is coupled with and/or filtered through other factors—
emotions, leaders’ skill, mass opinion—to produce effects in the world.
Over time, however, these contextual and tempering factors were stripped
away as scholars sought parsimonious theory. Individual passions such as fear
figured less into scholarly thinking, and concerns with mass opinion largely
disappeared from realist power analysis.4 In the post–World War II era, realism
looked less at the intent of politicians or the emotions that drove them—fear,
love, honor—and more at the constraints they faced from countervailing state
power. Why this should be is unclear, since the postwar world with its new
nuclear technologies would seem, objectively, to be at least as fear-inducing
as previous periods. This was also a period in which constraints on US power
were smaller, not larger, than they had been before. But emotion, which was so
central to early realist logic, was largely eclipsed by a concern to present real-
politik behavior as a rational response to constraints imposed by the environ-
ment in which decision making occurred. Opinion suffered a similar fate. While
the late twentieth century was an unprecedented period of democratization in
which public opinion held more sway in more places than ever before, realists
of the period moved away from Carr’s formulation and actively rejected it as a
consequential source of power. The change reflected a shift in realism’s goals.
While realpolitik survived, even thrived, as a school of foreign policy making, in
academic circles the goal of offering prescriptions to leaders took a backseat to
developing realism as an explanatory theory.
As realists, and the IR field in general, sought more-generalized explanations
for political phenomena, they became interested in developing grand theory.
Again, though, they understood this enterprise in very particular ways. Their
aim, first articulated by Hans Morgenthau in his pursuit of a “science” of pol-
itics and elaborated by “systems” theorists in the 1950s and 1960s, was most
fully realized by Kenneth Waltz in his systemic theory of “neo” realism.5 This
pursuit of grand theory, particularly that offered by Waltz, had important effects
on how scholars understood politics and what power meant in world affairs. It
imposed a form of rigor and demanded logical consistency in ways that had big
benefits for scholars and the field. It made scholars, both realists and their crit-
ics, self-conscious about their thinking. It forced them to be transparent about
their definitions and assumptions, and opened them to criticism by others in
ways that earlier, more philosophic or poetic, forms of realism had managed to
avoid.
But the pursuit of grand theory, as understood by Waltz and others of this
period, could also become a straitjacket. Its demands for parsimony and logi-
cal consistency often forced IR scholars to be procrustean in their approach
to the world. Events and phenomena that did not fit with prior assumptions
were ignored or neglected, and the field’s treatment of power fell prey to these
tendencies. Power was still central to many scholars’ thinking, but state power
became the only power that mattered. Material power, which was thought to be
more “objective” and easier to measure, ergo more tractable for scientific theory
testing, dominated the field; other forms of power faded to the background. The
distribution of power in the system constituted the international structure within
which states acted and determined interests. Power was understood primarily
as a constraint, preventing states from acting and defining what they could not
do. Structural realism was notably silent about what states actually could do; it
offered no theory of statecraft and few predictions about what states, particularly
great powers with few constraints, might actually do with their power. Some
parts of the field resisted these changes, but these changes transformed most
leading journals and dominant modes of scholarship.
Few scholars would want to return to the analytic style of Morgenthau’s day.
Scholars now demand transparent assumptions, conceptual clarity, and logical
consistency in ways they did not fifty or sixty years ago, and rightly so. At the
same time, they are grappling with political events and policy problems that did
not much concern earlier generations of scholars, and these have implications for
the way we theorize. Concepts change to reflect the reality we want to under-
stand and manage, or so one would hope. The increasing number of failed states
has made realists’ core assumption of “states as actors” problematic. Likewise, the
inability of American military power to achieve goals of stability and democrati-
zation in Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that seeing power as flowing simply from
resource endowments remains problematic. A great many standard IR assump-
tions about the way power works in the world need to be reexamined.
As our authors rethink the role of state power, they are not following the
old realist “power politics” template—far from it. They are incorporating power
into their analyses in new and different ways; they are exploring new forms of
power, new ways of wielding it, and new effects it might have on the world,
some intended, others not. Like earlier analysts of power, they are developing
new understandings suited to the contemporary problems they seek to explain.
The chapters in this volume exemplify some of these innovations but are by
no means exhaustive. Diverse understandings of how power is expressed today

suggest critical potential pathways by which power may be manifest in political
outcomes.
The Many Faces of State Power

No single definition of power satisfied all of our contributors. Some focus on
material power wielded by states, but show how changes in the world force us
to reconsider even this understanding. Benjamin Cohen, for example, explores
the way in which changes in the global economy may be creating new power
for some and weakening others as reserve currency status shifts. In the days of
unquestioned and seemingly unending US hegemony, this was never a worry.
Others explicitly reject a purely material conception, as David Lake does in
his arguments about the importance of authority in world politics, or as Peter
Katzenstein does in quite a different way with his discussion of the varied ways
political actors may be embedded in diverse social contexts.
Rather than fall into some myopic definitional trap, we find it most useful to
typologize the different kinds of power our authors see at work in contemporary
politics. This allows us, and we hope encourages readers, to think about the ways in
which various forms of power might interact in politics today. As Stephen Krasner
usefully recounts in his conclusion, concepts of power have expanded over the
past five decades. Robert Dahl’s now-classic 1957 notion that “A has power over B
to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do” is
certainly one important form of power, but our understandings have grown since
then. Bachrach and Baratz alerted us to the ways in which a larger environment
of values and institutions conditions power and prevents A and B from interact-
ing at all by keeping some issues off the agenda.6 Steven Lukes expanded notions
about power further by emphasizing the way social systems and cultures are cen-
tral to power in that they generate and structure the interactions and relation-
ships between A and B.7 Michel Foucault broadened our view still further with
his influential arguments about power’s connection to discourse and knowledge,
and power’s work through social relations from the most micro to the most macro
levels of society. Power clearly exists in multiple forms, as David Baldwin pointed
out in 1985 and Barnett and Duvall have discussed more recently in 2005. Being
alert to power’s different forms and the ways in which these forms interact can be
useful in any context but is particularly so for our study of state power.8
To help us organize our thinking about the types of state power we may be
seeing in our chapters, Krasner turns to Barnett and Duvall’s (2005) typology.
As he explains in the conclusion, Barnett and Duvall conceptualize power along
two dimensions that capture the concerns of our authors. On one dimension,
they distinguish between mechanisms through which power works: does power
work through the interaction of specific actors, as Dahl might claim, or does
power work also through social relations of constitution, as Lukes suggests. On
the other dimension, Barnett and Duvall distinguish types of relations actors
might have. Relations can be direct, which is consistent with Dahl’s approach, or
diffuse, something he did not consider but occurs when A’s interaction is with
“the market” or “nationalism.” The result is a two-by-two matrix identifying four
ideal types of power: compulsory, structural, institutional, and productive. In his
conclusion to this volume, Krasner uses this matrix to show how and why differ-
ent authors choose to focus on different types of power, depending upon their
empirical project.
Thinking about power in typological terms allows us to identify different
aspects of power that may be at work in these chapters and, importantly, allows
us to recognize the interactions among different aspects of power in the world.
Lloyd Gruber’s analysis in this volume shows how US power works, not just as
a form of Dahlian compulsion but as a form of power that is both institutional
and productive: “All states try to influence their external environments, but the
United States didn’t just try—it has succeeded.” By creating new international
institutions, such as the GATT in Richard Steinberg’s chapter, and disseminating
new values, such as economic liberalism, the United States both exercised and is
subsequently affected by several types of power. Likewise, Arthur Stein explores
the way terrorist power differs from conventional compulsion through its manip-
ulation of more diffuse and social aspects of its relations with its targets: “creating
fear rather than destroying military capability” is analytically a very different form
of power, one “totally inexplicable in our conventional focus on military power.”
This multifaceted understanding of power encourages us to think more
broadly about the relationship between states and power, and our authors do
this in a variety of ways. Two themes are particularly striking. Many of these
authors see a need to reconceptualize the environment in which states act to
accommodate contemporary changes. These new relations between states and
their environment are a logical outgrowth of the broader views of power that
attend to institutions and structures, mentioned above. In addition, a number of
authors also found that conventional IR assumptions about states themselves—
about their coherence and sovereign control—needed reexamination. We take
these up in the next two sections.
What Kind of World Do States Live In?

The old realist mantra was “We live in a world of states.” That world is gone, if it
ever really existed. In this volume, a number of our authors asked a different ques-
tion: In what kind of world do states live? States remain important, often the most
important, actors in world politics, but as our authors make clear, states today
are not the only agents wielding power. A host of other actors—some new, some
not—are crucially important to understanding the politics we see. Corporations,
terrorist groups, international organizations, empires, polities, NGOs, and substate
groups all emerge from this collection as central components of contemporary
politics. Not only do our authors encounter diverse actors, but also these actors
are navigating a complex structural topography of international law, norms, rules,
and economic arrangements that manifest themselves in all kinds of diverse struc-
tures—public-private partnerships, institutions, hierarchies, polities, and empires.
This is a far cry from the parsimonious Waltzian notion of structure as distribu-
tion of material state power. These structures of ideas, laws, and economic ties are
often not anchored in any single state or even in states at all. They often “take on
a life of their own” and create effects that are often hard to trace back to states.
Our notions of “structure” in the international system have clearly become
more complex, and these demand new thinking about how power works through
and on those structures. For example, Daniel Drezner finds that instead of exist-
ing in an atomized environment created only by state capabilities, states live in a
very institutionalized world where “cooperation under anarchy is no longer a cen-
tral problem.” He argues that states face “complex legal and technical rules” and,
like David Lake, sees authority relationships to be far more consequential than
is normally recognized in realist power analysis. Steinberg also sees legal struc-
tures as a centerpiece of the international environment facing developing states
especially and argues that these international trade structures actually reconfig-
ure states themselves in the developing world. Here, international structures like
law and organizations are doing far more than merely encouraging cooperation
between nations—they are actively reshaping domestic institutions, often in
ways that bolster states, rather than threaten or weaken them. Global markets
shape and constrain state choice, Cohen tells us, and these effects, according
to Gruber, have increased with the deepening and broadening of globalization.
The result of this is not simply “sovereignty at bay,” where strong states, even
hegemons, may find themselves at the mercy of private economic actors.9 The
effects of markets and globalization are more profound; they reconfigure domes-
tic electoral politics inside powerful states, as in Gruber’s chapter, and gener-
ate new social realities, such as complex financial instruments, new hierarchies
of reserve currencies, and a changing consensus on the legitimate relationship
between markets and government, as Benjamin Cohen and Peter Gourevitch
point out. Shared ideas and norms, too, exercise power over national leaders by
galvanizing new social groups domestically and transnationally and convincing
publics of the value of new goals and policies.
Effects created by this richer international environment vary, and different
aspects of the environment interact in diverse ways with nation states. States also
vary in their ability to both control events within their own borders and to proj-
ect their interests onto the world stage. In part, this reflects the interpenetration
of states with their environment. Corporations, transnational interest groups,

even terrorist cells are not completely separate from states. Corporations are cre-
ated by states, are subject to state laws, and have interests that overlap with those
of states. Transnational interest groups, too, are composed of citizens and often
work through or with states. The same applies, perhaps in a more limited way,
to terrorist and criminal groups. The existence of these cross-national identities,
interests, and norms shapes states and the ways they exercise power. While we
have long been aware that non-state actors, and structures of law, norms, and
identities matter, the field has not reached a consensus on how they matter and
the effects they create. Still, no analysis of international politics in the twenty-
first century can ignore their role in international politics.
What Happens When States Become

Problematic Sovereigns?
Coupled with the assumption that states are the actors that matter, many IR
scholars routinely assume that states are competent and reasonably effective in
their exercise of power. When pressed, they would of course acknowledge excep-
tions, but the prevailing view, all too often, is that state control and competence
can be taken for granted in the construction of IR theory and analysis of politics.
Waltz himself had self-consciously “black boxed” the state and set aside internal
processes of foreign policy making, believing that this simplifying move assisted
theory building. The consequence for the IR theory enterprise was to downplay,
for several decades, fundamental differences in states’ internal structures, values,
and goals. Thus, a generation of students was taught to think about nations as
“billiard balls” and political outcomes as a result of their relative material power.
This theoretical formulation put all the analytic weight on the international dis-
tribution of state power as scholars investigated the extent to which anarchy
dictated state action. The internal workings of states, their goals and their com-
petence to pursue national interests, were of secondary consideration.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, this assumption came under intense scrutiny.
Real-world events played a role in this change. “Failed states” became a topic of
concern for IR scholars as they became a pressing concern for US policy. Places
like Somalia, Haiti, and Chad that were nominally states lacked the institutions
and internal coherence to perform the most basic state functions of provid-
ing security and order, much less a functioning economy or human rights. The
decoupling of externally recognized sovereignty from any kind of internal com-
petence or control raised a host of policy challenges as well as theoretical issues
for scholars. The result has been a more nuanced set of arguments about states—
what they are, how they exercise power, and how power is exercised upon them.
The “failed state problem” rests on a paradox. Such places are states on some
dimensions, notably under international law. They have “juridical sovereignty,” or

what Krasner has termed “international legal sovereignty,” and are recognized by
other states as states. At the same time, they lack “empirical sovereignty,” or what
Krasner has called “domestic sovereignty” and “interdependence sovereignty,” and
cannot carry out many of the functions of a state.10 Can they control their bor-
ders? Can they collect taxes? The answers are sometimes surprising.
Problematizing the state-as-sovereign assumption has been a fruitful way to
understand better the various dimensions of state power for a number of our
authors. For Thomas Risse, investigating new modes governance in the absence
of consolidated statehood shows how such alternative governing arrangements
can be effective if there is a credible “shadow of hierarchy” from businesses,
international organizations, or other external actors. His suggestion that there
may be functional equivalents for statehood raises interesting questions about
ways to create some of the effects of state power through other structures and
actors, without functioning states. Katzenstein also suggests that we treat “state-
ness” as something that varies, rather than as an assumption, and explores a
variety of institutional contexts in which rulers may rule. Like Lake, he deploys
the notion of authority, which he treats as distinct from power, but he does
so in very different ways and with different conclusions. In a related vein, Etel
Solingen explores what she calls “dilemmas of sovereignty” and the kinds of
trade-offs states face. How states manage their sovereignty can have long-term
implications for their power. At the same time, a state’s power influences the
range of options available to manage sovereignty. This is true not just for failed
states but also for some of the most robust and powerful states in the system.
Using China as an example, Solingen analyzes the ways in which Chinese lead-
ers have sometimes been willing to compromise some aspects of sovereignty,
while other times holding firm. For example, China’s internationalizing lead-
ers were willing to compromise what Krasner calls “Westphalian sovereignty”
(autonomy) for gains in “interdependence sovereignty” and integration into
global market structures. They were far less willing to make that trade when it
came to nuclear weapons matters. The effects of these choices then feed back
into China’s power over time.
States and Power in the Twenty-First Century

Understanding contemporary politics requires varied and multifaceted under-
standings of what state power is and the relationship between states’ endow-
ments, situations, and goal attainment. The chapters in this volume work to that
end, providing richer empirical accounts of the varied types of power exerted
by and upon states, as well as the diverse pathways and sources of that power.
Taken together, they provide at least three insights.
First, the authors remind us that the context of politics matters. This sounds
obvious but in fact cuts against the grain of many long-standing approaches to
the study of politics and power in our field. Often, theories abstract from context,
and they may do so to good effect. But when we move to the empirical study
of policy and outcomes, there is no “state of nature.” Rather, politics, domestic
and international, occurs in a densely normed and thickly institutionalized set-
ting. This social environment not only filters and channels power exerted by (or
upon) states; it also creates new sources of power that states must reckon with.
To study state power is thus to study the context of that power. Today, foreign
policies must accommodate a dense international environment that includes
international institutions, changing normative and social expectations, an intru-
sive global economy, and a rapidly changing threat environment. Analysis can-
not and should not ignore the nuances of this environment, and we should be
wary of universal claims about power’s effects across time and space.
Gruber’s chapter, for example, looks at effects of globalization on political,
rather than economic, structures within states. Yes, globalization has important
economic effects on growth, but it also has important political effects, created
by the patterns of population movement within economically open states: “the
more open a society’s economy, the more likely are that society’s haves to be
geographically isolated from the have-nots.” This “spatial segregation of global-
ization beneficiaries and globalization losers” has implications for geographically
bounded electoral districts and representative government. Openness does not
necessarily lead to a conflict between those that do and do not benefit from
the expansion, but geographic clustering of haves in one place and have-nots
elsewhere may mean we will see increased political polarization around differ-
ent views on economic openness. For Gruber, the global economy’s effects on
inequality are likely to be mediated by changes in domestic political institutions,
which have to adapt to migration flows and population changes.
Drezner also sees the international system as having effects, but in his case the
systemic constraints vary, depending on the “thickness” of international (rather
than domestic) institutions. Contrary to the conventional wisdom of the 1980s
and 1990s, when IR scholars emphasized the varied ways international institu-
tions promoted cooperation, Drezner argues the opposite. According to Drezner,
“institutional thickening erodes the causal mechanisms that foster cooperation in
an anarchic world.” As the rules surrounding international regimes become more
complex and unwieldy, only the strongest states will have the capacity to navigate
them successfully. Increased complexity of the structures of international rules
thus increases national autonomy for the more powerful countries, while weak
states are left behind. Drezner calls this institutional “viscosity” or the amount of
resistance to change present in the international environment; as the number and
variety of international agreements increase, forum-shopping opportunities arise,
but we should expect the most capable states to be the best shoppers.
Viscosity may also be an appropriate description for the constraints nations

face in coordinating economic policies. Gourevitch points to “structural shifts
in the world economy over several decades [that have] generated imbalances.”
These imbalances favored some actors over others; growth was uneven around
the globe. When the world’s financial structure teetered in 2007–2008, how-
ever, credit everywhere was affected, and state leaders could do little to shield
their nation from economic forces. As Cohen points out, bad policy by a large
nation ripples throughout the system. Gourevitch agrees: “Strong states can pose
a threat to others as well as themselves.” It is “not the failure of weak states, but
the policy failure of strong states” that causes systemic problems.
A second implication of these chapters is that a focus on power is inexpli-
cably tied to the analysis of inequality and/or asymmetries. Again, this sounds
obvious, but the character and the structure of much IR theory have diverted
attention from the implications of this. We live in a world not of like units, but
of units that vary dramatically in their endowments, capacities, and situation, as
well as their goals. Moreover, the simple existence of these differences is a poor
predictor of a state’s manifest power, since the ability to mobilize resources and
the depth of those resources may not be related in a linear fashion to policy suc-
cess. Similarly, the existence of an opportunity or advantageous situation is no
guarantee that an actor can or will exploit it.
Figuring out the processes by which actors use their endowments (or not)
and how different situations create possibilities for action (or not) is a major
challenge. It will require IR scholars to think much more seriously about a field
they have often neglected—foreign policy analysis. Strategy and tactics become
important here, and can produce unexpected results. Smart choices by savvy
actors can surprise us, producing policy success that might on its face appear
unlikely. Of course, foolish choices may have the reverse effect.
Stein, for example, argues that the weak can exercise power with great suc-
cess when they identify vulnerabilities in their more powerful targets and lever-
age even limited resources to exploit them. The weak, he says, depend critically
on technology: “unable to defeat an opponent militarily, the strategy of the weak
is to use explosives against soft targets, often civilians.” The result is a power
paradox: “vast resources have been mobilized to hunt down individual terrorists
possessing rifles and dynamite.” Conventional understandings of state power, for
Stein, are problematic, given his case study. In reflecting on US relations with
the Arab world, he finds, for example, that efforts of Al Qaeda “reflected not its
extant power but its assessment of its prospective power.” Further, the weak rely
on some ideational and more diffuse power resources not always well captured by
analyses focused on asymmetries of material power. In particular, fear (or terror)
and propaganda play a big role as “weapons of the weak.”11 As Stein shows, the
traditional notions of power are poor predictors of behavior for both weak and
strong. Not only do the weak attack, even in the face of apparent overwhelming
strength, but also and more telling, the strong spend vast resources on defending
themselves from actors that by every indicator should be of no concern.
The difficulty of predicting behavior using traditional views of the interna-
tional distribution of power is also a theme in Solingen’s chapter. Leaders do not
always make decisions that maximize conventional notions of power. Perhaps
more interesting, leaders often face decisions that involve trading off one kind
of power for another. In her analysis, leaders repeatedly make compromises that
appear to undermine their sovereignty, but the consequences of such choices for
power are mixed. “Maximizing sovereignty/autonomy does not necessarily entail
maximizing power, and reductions in sovereignty don’t automatically lead to
reductions in power,” she argues. There is not a set of policies that are the “cor-
rect” international policies for any state. Compromising autonomy (one form of
sovereignty) by ceding authority to an international institution (e.g., the WTO)
as a strategy to gain more wealth may be the good choice at one moment but
not the next. There is no obvious single equilibrium or Pareto optimal strategy
guiding state choices in many, even most, of the situations that might interest us.
Rather, leaders face trade-offs across multiple domains of action. Their options
are often painful and their choices far from foreordained.
Third, the world of politics in the twenty-first century is one in which states
rarely govern alone. Non-state actors and institutions of many kinds are car-
rying out functions all over the globe that we used to attribute to states. This
is obviously true in weak states where NGOs and IGOs may be the princi-
pal, even the only, actors providing security, education, and economic develop-
ment—all standard hallmarks of “stateness.” But it is also true in the developed
world where non-state actors are often based, are politically powerful, and
transnationally organized.12 As Risse points out, “areas of limited statehood”
are ubiquitous and may occur in US cities (think New Orleans post Katrina)
as well as Afghanistan or Congo.
All this makes applying classical state-centric power analysis difficult, yet
abandoning such an approach may be premature. States, power, and state power
are still very much with us, and several of our authors explore the role of states
and power in these overlapping jurisdictions and functions among state and
non-state actors. Recognition that states and state power cannot explain every-
thing does not mean that they explain nothing. States continue to be central,
powerful actors in the world. Ironically, we can see this clearly in reactions to
weak or failing states: where states are weak, that weakness often galvanizes oth-
ers to intervene to rebuild and reconstruct them. When other types of actors
are weak, they are ignored. When states are weak, strengthening them becomes
an international project carried out not just by other states, but by a host of
diverse actors and institutions, as Risse clearly shows. This is hardly a new phe-
nomenon. Historically many, perhaps most, states have not been self-made; they
are conscious creations of other actors. Creating state power, or at least state
competence, often serves the interests of others and is a product of power exer-
cised by others who may or may not be states. This suggests scholars need new
ways of thinking about the interaction of state power projection with that of
other actors and institutions.
At the same time, these varied actors on the world stage are bound together
in quite diverse power relations. One such concept that surfaces in several chap-
ters is authority as an important relationship among international actors. IR
scholars traditionally have not trafficked much in authority. We have tradition-
ally considered this a comparative politics concept, something that exists within
states, not among or outside them. The authors in this volume provide strong
arguments to rethink that position, and to rethink authority as a concept. David
Lake makes this argument central to his chapter: we should be investigating
authority and not just power. Lake focuses on authority among states, and the
creation of legitimate authority as the result of hierarchy; but legitimate power
or authority appears to be associated with a range of other international actors.
“Authority is at least an equal form of power,” he suggests, and indeed, “given
that it is usually easier to gain compliance by obligating others to follow one’s
will rather than through force of arms alone, authority may actually be a pre-
ferred form of power.”
In Steinberg’s chapter the authority that is granted to these legitimate
non-state actors is aptly illustrated in the case of trade and the WTO. He
argues that the “rules have pressured not just for the abandonment of certain
national policies [e.g., pro-protectionism] in other countries, but also for shifts
of authority within the state, the creation of new kinds of state capacities, new
processes of policy making, and development of some dimensions of rule of
law.” Joining the WTO is not just a change in commercial policy but also,
more fundamentally, a shift in the form and locus of authority within the state.
Membership in the WTO demands a shift in the purpose of state institutions
and state authority structures so that they “reflect not just US and European
trade policy preferences, but also the capacities and form of the state in Europe
and the United States.” Membership is transformative. According to Steinberg,
this is all occurring in contradiction to a Westphalian sovereignty model of
international politics. The nature of the state is changing because of participa-
tion in the trade regime.
We close with the observation that understanding power today is difficult,
not because it is hard to find asymmetries, but because they are everywhere.
Causality is overdetermined in some cases while inexplicable in others. Still,
power is the glue that connects interests and ideational factors with policy out-
comes. More than ever today we must seek to understand the pathways by which
individuals, organizations, and states are able to reach their chosen goals. This
process, far messier and more diffuse than in earlier times, remains as important
today as when Morgenthau wrote his classic text.
Notes
1. The ILO’s 2010 budget was almost (US) $727 million; the WTO’s budget was less than
one-third of this amount (at $232 million).
2. Stein (this volume) also notes the role that hope plays in Thucydides’s analysis, and com-
ments on its applicability to Al Qaeda and contemporary power politics.
3. Carr 1939.
4. Theorizing about public opinion mostly shifted to the study of ethics, rather than power,
and played a much larger role in liberal thought than in realist theories.
5. Morgenthau 1948; Kaplan 1957; Rosecrance 1963; Waltz, 1979.
6. Bachrach and Baratz 1962.
7. Lukes 1974.
8. Dahl 1957, 201–215; Bachrach and Baratz 1962, 947–952; Foucault 1975/1995, and
1982, 777–795; Barnett and Duvall 2005, 39–75. See also Baldwin 1985 and 2002.
9. Vernon 1971.
10. Krasner 1999, 3–42.
11. Scott 1987.
12. Avant, Finnemore, and Sell 2010.
References
Avant, Deborah, Martha Finnemore, and Susan Sell, eds. 2010. Who Governs the Globe?
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bachrach, Peter, and Morten S. Baratz. 1962. “Two Faces of Power.” American Political Science
Review 56(4): 947–952.
Baldwin, David. 1985. Economic Statecraft. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
———. 2002. Power and International Relations. In Handbook of International Relations, edited
by Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, and Beth Simmons, 177–191. London: Sage.
Barnett, Michael, and Raymond Duvall. 2005. “Power in International Politics.” International
Organization 59(1): 39–75.
Carr, Edward Hallett. 1939. The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Dahl, Robert A. 1957. “The Concept of Power.” Behavioral Science 2(3): 201–215.
Foucault, Michel. 1975/1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 2nd ed. New York:
Vintage.
———. 1982. “The Subject and Power.” Critical Inquiry 8(4): 777–795.
Kaplan, Morton. 1957. System and Process in International Politics. New York: Wiley.
Krasner, Stephen D. 1999. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Lukes, Steven. 1974. Power: A Radical View. London: Macmillan.
Morgenthau, Hans. 1948. Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf.
Rosecrance, Richard N. 1963. Action and Reaction in World Politics. New York: Little, Brown.
Scott, James C. 1987. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
Vernon, Raymond. 1971. Sovereignty at Bay: The Multinational Spread of U.S. Enterprises. New
York: Basic Books.
Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theory of International Politics. New York: Random House.
2
Power Politics in the

Contemporary World
Lessons from the Scholarship of Stephen Krasner
When Hans Morgenthau reformulated realism for modern scholars in 1948, he

began with the concept of state power. Just as wealth was the goal and domain
of economists, so power was the goal and domain of international politics.
Politics, in Morgenthau’s view, was about states pursuing interests, and in inter-
national politics interests were defined in terms of power.1 By defining politics as
the pursuit of power and by conflating power with interests, Morgenthau set the
stage for decades of debate about these two terms and the proper relationship
between them.
Both state power and state interests turned out to be elusive concepts, and fig-
uring out how to use them as effective guides to analysis or policy proved diffi-
cult. In the 1960s and 1970s, a new generation of international relations scholars
tried to make sense of a failed US policy in Southeast Asia, but few could find
a material basis for US interest in Vietnam or, equally problematic, explain US
military failure against an apparently far weaker opponent.2 Simultaneously, the
fundamental building blocks of foreign policy analysis, states, were themselves
being challenged by an array of new organizations, both public and private—
multinational corporations, international organizations, domestic insurgencies.
The world was increasingly messy, and it was hard to imagine that state power
and state interests were, as Morgenthau had claimed, one and the same. By
the late 1980s, exploring the effects of varied state interests—interests beyond
simple power maximization—had become the central concern of international
relations scholars whose focus now was on strategic interaction among rational
actors in pursuit of diverse goals. This new focus on divergent interests and bar-
gaining tended to downplay power and the power asymmetries between states
that had been the backbone of earlier realist analyses.
No scholar better exemplifies the intellectual challenges foisted on
Morgenthau’s disciples than Stephen Krasner. Throughout his career he has
18
Power Poli ti cs in the Contemporar y World 19
wrestled with realism’s promises and limitations. He reinvigorated concepts of

relative state power in his analysis of foreign policy and international institutions
in the 1970s and 1980s, but in the 1990s came to question realism’s assump-
tions about unitary states and the fundamentals of state sovereignty. By the turn
of the century, he was abandoning his neorealist colleagues and pointing out
fundamental contradictions between realism’s ontology of fully sovereign auton-
omous states and its assumption of anarchy in which states can further their
interests in any way they choose. In an anarchical world, altering the domestic
authority structures of other states and violating their autonomy could be more
attractive strategies for states than war or diplomacy, the conventional tools of
realist statecraft among sovereigns.
The evolution in Krasner’s scholarship illustrates both how scholars have used
realism, with its focus on states and power, as an intellectual template to explain
a wide range of international behavior and the challenges entailed in apply-
ing realism today. As Robert Keohane argues in the next chapter, the changing
nature of Krasner’s work suggests that the dual concepts of power and interest
are often incomplete, and sometimes unhelpful guides for scholars confronted
by foreign policy behavior at odds with expectations. Similarly, the authors
in this volume were challenged by the theoretical stumbling blocks that faced
Krasner throughout his career. Some conclude that the traditional realist under-
standings of power, interests, and states are an insufficient basis for an explana-
tion of real-world events. Others, like Krasner, remain more wedded to realism’s
fundamental premises. All agree, however, that ignoring state power and state
interests makes little sense, since these remain the basic building blocks of inter-
national relations analysis.
Power and Realism in a Changing World

Inspired by the ideas of Morgenthau and E. H. Carr, as well as economists
like Albert Hirschman and Charles Kindleberger, Krasner began his career as a
prominent defender of realism and the importance of state power understood in
material terms, whether military or economic. Power was central to international
politics for Krasner, and he took realist premises very seriously. In the ensuing
years, however, Krasner found that empirical analysis using a realist framework
rarely provided a complete explanation for outcomes. If states seek power, he
asked, why do we see cooperation? If hegemony promotes cooperation, why
does cooperation continue in the face of America’s decline? Do states reliably
pursue their national interests, or do domestic structures and values derail the
rational pursuit of material objectives?
Krasner’s answers to these questions were as diverse as the problems he tack-
led. While they started from realist premises, they pushed, to use his phrase,
“the limits of realism.”3 For some problems, Krasner hewed to the realist line:
he argued that relevant actors were usually states and that outcomes were deter-
mined by the distribution of power they faced in pursuing their goals.4 During
his long career, however, he never settled for a simple explanation of the national
interest, and though he paid much attention to the material basis of state power,
he understood the independent importance of ideas or cognitive beliefs and the
challenge this admission posed to a straight power-politics approach. In more
recent work, he relaxed even the statist ontology of realism and argued that
non-state actors and failed states have altered the basic structure of the interna-
tional system, which for several hundred years had been defined by the distri-
bution of capabilities among major powers.5 Like many of his contemporaries,
Krasner also recognized that markets were a constant and powerful constraint
on state action, but believed ultimately that state power was the necessary requi-
site for markets to function smoothly.
Although Krasner turned his attention to myriad empirical problems over
his long career, three central themes run through his scholarship: state power
and hegemony; the relationship between states and markets; and conceptions
of the nation state in international politics. Each of these raises problems with
basic realist assumptions and logic, yet all have been central to pressing real-
world political problems in recent years. As the chapters in the volume suggest,
these themes remain important launching points for current research and analy-
sis of international politics by scholars of many types. For that reason, revisiting
Krasner’s insights on each is instructive.
State Power, Hegemony, and Cooperation Theory

Initially, like Morgenthau, Krasner gave pride of place to sovereign states as his
unit of analysis; unlike Morgenthau he constantly reexamined that assumption.
He recognized, especially in his work on sovereignty, that realist assumptions
about unitary states and state autonomy were empirically and theoretically
problematic. Even in his early work, Krasner recognized that domestic factors
could shape conceptions of national interest. Further, international constraints
on most states were so large that the notion they were autonomous in their
foreign policy choices was a fiction. Most states were limited in their inter-
national reach, and some were even unable to act autonomously within their
own borders.
To better understand the origins of foreign policy, Krasner’s early work
focused on rulers or political leaders: leaders could exercise power in ways
that were sufficiently autonomous to make realist assumptions about unitary
states with unified national interests plausible and useful.6 His early work also
focused on the other core realist concern—the effects of state power. Even
before notions of “failed” states had come into the lexicon, emerging arguments
about transnationalism and interdependence presented a challenge to realism’s
claims about state power and state autonomy.7 In 1976, Krasner attempted to
reinvigorate realism through a study of the international trading regime.8 Noting
that the world economy had alternated between periods of openness and clo-
sure, Krasner argued that this variation and the nature of the trade regime were
products of the distribution of power among states. Contrary to the prevailing
wisdom, open trade or a liberal trading regime was not a natural outcome of
domestic interests or economic ideas; rather, it was an outcome of concentrated
state power and hegemony. When a hegemonic state was rising, that state had
an interest in providing the leadership necessary to open world markets. Given
its wealth-enhancing advantage, open trade served the rising hegemon’s eco-
nomic interest. The argument drew on ideas from economists like Hirschman,
who showed that trade dependence could be used as a source of power, and
Kindleberger, who argued that a hegemonic nation should be willing to provide
the collective good of an open trade regime.9
As the field increasingly looked to economics as a model for theory build-
ing in the late 1970s, what earlier scholars had thought of as “leadership” by
great powers was subsumed into a larger conversation about “providing public
goods.” Market failure, rather than conflict and war, came to be viewed as the
defining problem in international relations, and understanding when and why
nations provide international collective goods became a critical research agenda
in the 1980s. Scholars wondered whether hegemony was really necessary to cre-
ate and maintain open trade, monetary stability, and robust military alliances,
or whether other groupings of states would be willing to cooperate and jointly
expend resources for a collective good.10
The result was a lively research debate on the more general issue of explaining
interstate cooperation. To explore this theme further, in 1982 Krasner assembled
a group of authors, four of whom join us in this volume, to explain the roots of
international cooperation in a pathbreaking project on what they termed “inter-
national regimes.” Krasner defined regimes here as principles, norms, rules, and
decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge.11 The
definition was one reached through group consensus but was strongly influenced
by John Ruggie, an important founder of what later became constructivism. In
a later essay reflecting on this experience, Krasner distanced himself from this
definition as too constructivist. He wrote that if he were to redo the regimes
volume, he would have offered different definitions of regimes reflecting differ-
ent theoretical perspectives. For realists, international regimes and the princi-
ples, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures they embodied reflected the
preferences of the powerful. For liberals, these same regimes were efficient solu-
tions to market failure problems.12 At the time, however, the shared goal of this
diverse group was to establish the existence of cooperative arrangements, even in
a world of anarchy, and to provide ways to analyze the causes and consequences
of this international political form. The regimes concept fueled much of the later
work on international institutions, and firmly established that there were multi-
ple levels of international institutions, which, along with states, exerted influence
on political outcomes.
While rich and fruitful in many ways, the cooperation focus papered over
the role that power asymmetries played in the provision of collective goods.
Cooperation almost always produced uneven benefits, and strong states
had no interest, theoretically or practically, in being shortchanged. Fifteen
years later, Krasner would revisit the puzzle of international cooperation
and regime creation to explore this distribution of benefits in an article that
appeared in World Politics in 1991.13 Here, he took up the case of the regime
for international communications. Yes, the regime was of broad benefit, but
Krasner argued that its particular form reflected the power and desires of its
strong state creators, not abstract functional needs of public goods provision.
Reacting to the liberal institutional rationale for the creation of international
institutions, Krasner argued that the organization of regimes was less about
how to solve some common problem faced by the signatories to an agree-
ment and more about how specific rules favored particular (usually power-
ful) members. While agreeing that regimes did make members better off, he
returned to his realist roots and argued that that there were multiple places
on the “Pareto frontier” that cooperation could occur.14 It was power, he sug-
gested, and not other attributes of the regime that determined the particu-
lar choice of regime rules and the degree to which the regime furthered the
interests of particular members.
States and Markets: Explaining Foreign Economic Policy

Markets have been one of the most visible and vexing forces shaping state power
since World War II. They provide sources of power, especially to hegemons, but
also place constraints on state action, and Krasner explored both throughout his
career in his work on the politics of economic policy making. His earliest work
looked at the politics of the international coffee cartel, foreshadowing his later
work on international regimes, but much of his effort in the 1970s went into
understanding American economic policy more generally. In the special issue of
International Organization in 1977, titled Between Power and Plenty, he offered the
first of what he would label “statist” explanations of US commercial and mone-
tary policy in the post–World War II era. His focus here was on the robustness
and coherence of internal state structures relative to other domestic actors rather
than capabilities vis-à-vis other states. Such state strength could vary, he argued.
In monetary policy, the state was “strong”—that is, able to develop a coherent
view of its interests and to isolate policy making from particular interest-group
pressures. In commercial policy making, by contrast, the state was “weak”
because domestic groups had tools to pursue sectoral interests and move policy
away from any “national interest” that would have been optimal for the country
as a whole. Variation in state strength vis-à-vis societal groups was crucial to pol-
icy success. In some domains, foreign economic policy making was akin to secu-
rity politics: policy makers could pursue their conception of the national interest
unfettered by domestic constraints in ways consistent with a realist view. Not
so for other areas of economic policy making, like trade. Here Krasner found
that interests were not necessarily “national” and power was rarely used to purse
national interests. Instead, policy was driven by the self-interested actions of
domestic groups and could deviate from any national interest as deduced from
the international power structure.
These ideas were developed more fully in Defending the National Interest.
Using US policy on raw material acquisition as a case, Krasner found that at
times policy resulted from a careful consideration of overarching national inter-
ests, but just as often, the pattern of policy intervention did not.15 To explain
this inconsistency, he turned to the work of Franz Schurmann.16 Schurmann was
not constrained by a realist vision of interests as a set of material goals; rather
he suggested that state interests could be shaped by a combination of both
material and ideational factors, including cognitive ideas held by central deci-
sion makers.17 Using this insight, Krasner argued that apparent inconsistency in
policy could be explained by the fact that US power and hegemony gave the
United States room to pursue both material and ideology goals—the two coex-
isted and shaped US policy. Ideological goals were likely to be most important
when a state’s material interests were secure. In these cases, a hegemon could
be tempted to follow policies based on ideological objectives, without careful
weighing of material costs and benefits. Thus, there was no reason to search for
a materialist goal in the minds of central decision makers who embarked on the
Vietnam War, a pressing policy puzzle of the day. It was a war of ideological ori-
ented against communism. Not everything was ideologically driven; other poli-
cies that assured US access to needed raw materials were materialist based. But
being powerful meant that a nation could attempt to maximize both material
and ideological goals.
The Status of Nation States

The finding that ideological variables explained some aspects of US foreign
policy led Krasner later to explore these more fully and, indeed, to reexamine
ontological assumptions about the nation state. In a series of articles beginning
in the mid-1990s, Krasner argued that states were embedded in a larger set of
global notions about sovereignty, and that international law, norms, and practice
empowered nations with rights that had little to do with their intrinsic capabili-
ties.18 Drawing on work in sociology by Nils Brunsson and John Meyer, Krasner
concluded that sovereignty and the system of sovereign states were a form of
“organized hypocrisy.”19 States formally recognized as such by other states were
not all equally sovereign on the ground, and many lacked the core attribute of
being able to defend the autonomy of their domestic authority structures much
less provide basic services to citizens. The hypocrisy ran deep. Nations that gave
lip service to the norm of state sovereignty could be quick to ignore its precepts,
as an examination of state meddling in each others’ affairs showed. For Krasner,
decoupling the idea of sovereignty from the actual practices of statehood in
the international system was necessary to explain the behavior of political lead-
ers and outcomes in the international system. Sovereignty was not an organic
package: a state could have some elements of sovereignty, such as recognition
in international law, and not others, such as the ability to effectively govern its
own territory.
Studying the historical construction of the nation-state system led Krasner
to consider more closely whether and when social ideas constructed states as
actors, as well as other aspects of the international system. Whereas early in his
career Krasner saw state action as dominated by material concerns and ratio-
nal action, now he considered whether norms, values, and identities could play
important roles. Certainly they mattered in domestic politics and at critical his-
torical moments could set future trajectories for state development.20 They were
weaker in the international environment than in the domestic but were still
consequential.
While taking norms and ideas seriously, Krasner ultimately concluded
that social factors did not dominate behavior, as suggested by constructivist
approaches. Krasner agreed that norms constrained behavior, but in a more
strategic sense, rather than a “taken for granted” sense. Norms were “hooks” on
which a leader could mobilize a domestic population around some set of social
ideas. Domestic society is “thickly normed,” so we should expect norms to play
a large role; the international environment, by contrast, is “thinly normed,” thus
limiting norms’ role internationally. Material power continues to dominate in
the international realm.
Krasner was able to apply these ideas to foreign policy when he served in
the Bush administration in 2001–2002 and then again from 2005 until the
middle of 2007. During this period, state building was a major concern of the
US government—a project for which realism provides little guidance. State
building explicitly involved violating the Westphalian/Vattelian sovereignty of
states that were weak both domestically and internationally. It thus violated a
major assumption of realism. Realism’s power predictions were similarly chal-
lenged by these weak states whose underlying material capabilities and ability
to do harm had become decoupled. A newly nuclear North Korea could kill
hundreds of thousands of people in neighboring countries whose GDP dwarfed
its own. Similarly, weak terrorist non-state actors could successfully attack hege-
mons. What mattered in this world was not the international distribution of
state power but rather the domestic capacity and ideological predispositions of
weak or failed states. Krasner’s work both before, during, and after his time in
government attempted to come to grips with the challenge of creating effec-
tive and benign (from an American perspective) domestic authority structures
in target states, a challenge that involved not only power but also attention to
ideas, culture, and norms.21
Krasner’s return to his realist roots since leaving government was in part a
result of his experiences there. Confronted with an increasing number of “failed”
states perceived as security threats, US policy became increasingly focused on
state building and ways the United States could use its influence to create more
efficient institutions in these nations. Building a world of states might seem a
very realist enterprise, but there was a twist: the states being constructed were
not equally sovereign. Despite great effort and vast resources, these reconstructed
states were effectively sovereign only in the legal or juridical sense. Outside
actors—other states, international organizations—might recognize them as legit-
imate sovereigns with juridical authority over their territory, but sovereignty in
the sense of effective control over borders and populations was very weak. These
were hardly states of the type imagined by classical realism—that is, autonomous
actors able to protect and pursue their own interests. Stranger still, the interests
of the powerful were now to create robust domestic governing structures in the
weak and to create well-being for populations in these states. Realism was now
being turned on its head! This is not a world Morgenthau would recognize. On
the one hand, Morgenthau was right: strong state power is at the center of these
sweeping changes, and strong states engage in state building because they believe
it serves their interests. What is new is the nature of those interests.
Reconceptualizing Power
The theme that runs throughout Krasner’s work is the importance of power.
Morgenthau had seen power and interests as associated terms—a nation’s
interests derived from its relative power in the international system. Power, he
argued, was the defining element of international politics. Krasner, however, was
no simple neophyte. As Robert Keohane argues in the next essay, Krasner’s per-
spective on the relationship between power and politics evolved quickly away
from classical realism. Still, throughout his long career, the theme of power was
always present—sometimes front and center in his explanation for policy out-
comes, and at other times behind the scenes in the relationship between leaders
or in the role of dominant cognitive beliefs. If scholars are to take away any les-
son from this work, it is that we cannot and should not ignore power relations,
even if the concept of power is hard to define.
Thus for Krasner, and for the authors in this volume, power remains a cen-
tral concept connecting otherwise disparate scholarship on international politics.
While authors may disagree on its purposes and effects, they agree that at the
most fundamental level the study of power involves an analysis of inequalities.
In most, if not all forms, power exists as “asymmetry”; it exists because actors
are unequal in endowments or situation. It causes asymmetries as well as being
caused by them. Thus our authors in different ways all consider a world of
inherently unequal actors, whether states or not, and all explore the ways this
inequality creates political outcomes. In this sense, we return to the fundamental
questions addressed by Morgenthau a generation ago.
Notes
1. “The main signpost that helps political realism to find its way through the landscape of
international politics is the concept of interest defined in terms of power.” (Morgenthau
1948/1960, 5).
2. With over fifty thousand dead, it was hard to defend the later argument of failure as a
result of a lack of commitment.
3. Krasner 1983b.
4. Krasner 1978, 1985.
5. Krasner 2004, 85–120; Krasner and Pascual 2005, 153–163.
6. Krasner 1978.
7. Probably the most prominent and enduring version of this challenge has been Robert
Keohane and Joseph Nye’s Power and Interdependence (1977), early versions of which
appeared in International Organization as a special issue, “Transnational Relations in
World Politics” (vol. 24, no. 3, summer 1971).
8. Krasner 1976, 317–347.
9. Hirschman 1945; Kindleberger 1973.
10. See, for example, Snidal 1985.
11. Krasner 1983a, 1.
12. For Krasner’s rethinking on regime definitions, see Krasner 2009, 12.
13. Krasner 1991.
14. Others, notably Gruber, argued that regimes were not just about the division of benefits
favoring the powerful but that some regime members were made worse off. See Gruber
2000.
15. Krasner 1978, 1977, and 1976.
16. Schurmann 1974.
17. Krasner would conclude that interests are determined by the material aims of a country’s
social and physical existence, while ideological concerns related to more fundamental
questions of beliefs about order, security, and justice. Krasner 1978, 334.
18. Krasner 1993; Katzenstein, Keohane, and Krasner 1998.
19. Brunsson 1989; Krasner 1998.
20. Krasner 1984 and 1988.
21. Krasner 2004, 2009, and 2010.
References
Brunsson, Nils. 1989. The Organization of Hypocrisy: Talk, Decisions, and Actions in Organizations.
New York: Wiley.
Gruber, Lloyd. 2000. Ruling the World: Power Politics and the Rise of Supranational Institutions.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hirschman, Albert O. 1945. State Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Katzenstein, Peter J., Robert O. Keohane, and Stephen D. Krasner. 1998. “International
Organization and the Study of World Politics.” International Organization 52(4):
645–686.
Keohane, Robert, and Joseph Nye. 1977. Power and Interdependence. New York: Little, Brown.
Kindleberger, Charles. 1973. The World in Depression, 1929–1939. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Krasner, Stephen D. 1976. “State Power and the Structure of International Trade.” World Politics
28(3): 317–347.
———. 1977. “US Commercial and Monetary Policy: Unraveling the Paradox of External
Strength and Internal Weakness.” International Organization 31(4): 635–71.
———. 1978. Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments and US Foreign Policy.
———. 1983a. “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening
Variables.” In International Regimes, edited by Stephen D. Krasner, 1–22. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
———. 1983b. “Regimes and the Limits of Realism: Regimes as Autonomous Variables.”
In International Regimes, edited by Stephen D. Krasner, 355–368. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
———. 1984. “Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics.”
Comparative Politics 16(2): 223–246.
———. 1985. Structural Conflict: The Third World against Global Liberalism. Berkeley: University
———. 1988. “Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective.” Comparative Political Studies,
21(1):66–94.
———. 1991. Global Communications and National Power: Life on the Pareto Frontier. World
Politics 43:336–366.
———. 1993. “Westphalia and All That.” In Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and
Political Change, edited by Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, 235–264. Ithaca, NY:
———. 1998. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
———. 2004. “Sharing Sovereignty.” International Security 29:85–120.
———. 2009. Power, the State and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations. New York:
Routledge.
———. 2010. “The Durability of Organized Hypocrisy.” In Sovereignty in Fragments, edited by
Hent Kalmo and Quentin Skinners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Krasner, Stephen D., and Carlos Pascual. 2005. “Addressing State Failure.” Foreign Affairs
84(4):153–163.
Morgenthau, Hans. 1948/1960. Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Schurmann, Franz. 1974. Logic of World Power: An Inquiry into the Origins, Currents, and
Contradictions of World Politics. New York: Pantheon Books.
Snidal, Duncan. 1985. “The Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theory.” International Organization
39:579–614.
3
Stephen Krasner: Subversive Realist

Robert O. Keohane
Stephen Krasner is conventionally seen as a highly intelligent and articulate

defender of an essentially realist view that emphasizes the role of the state. My
argument in this chapter, to the contrary, is that Krasner is at most a “subversive
realist.”* He has not only flirted with institutionalism and constructivism but
has incorporated so many of these perspectives into his own work as to make it
problematic to consider him a realist at all. Further, I argue that Krasner is more
a “subversive” than an adherent of any of the “isms.” He has a deeply ironic view
of world politics. Beware when he seems to adopt a view, because as sure as
night follows day, he will turn around and criticize it!
This chapter begins by responding to the editors’ request to discuss how
I view the concept of power in world politics. Since this volume is about states
and power, such a discussion is important to the integrity of the volume; but it
is also important so that the reader can evaluate my argument about Krasner as
a “subversive realist.” The hallmark of realism is its focus on power and interests
and its claim that through such a focus many otherwise inexplicable aspects of
international politics can be understood. I have critiqued the concept of power
in realism for several decades, and I will rely on this work in my brief discussion
of realism in part 1.
In part 2 I will discuss Krasner’s self-identification of himself as a realist,
turning his critical and ironic perspective onto his claims about himself. I put
forward arguments that he really should be seen as an institutionalist (part 3) or
a constructivist (part 4), before qualifying these arguments as well. Part 5 then
goes beyond Krasner’s current work by raising issues of persuasion—one of the
few major concepts not addressed in his work.
Krasner’s internal self-debate among realism, institutionalism, and construc-
tivism indicates that we should once and for all dispense with the notion that
these views are alternatives. In the hands of a master analyst of world politics
such as Steve Krasner, they are instead complements. The tensions that emerge
between them help us deepen our understanding of social norms, and could
perhaps make a similar contribution to our understanding of the role of persua-
sion in world politics.
28
Stephen Krasner: Subversive R ealist 29
1. Power in World Politics

Stephen Lukes has famously distinguished three faces of power, which is a good,
if conventional, place to begin.1 Before discussing these faces of power, however,
it is important to note that these are “faces” or aspects of power; they are not
different definitions of power. Power is defined as Dahl did: as the capability to
induce others to do what they would otherwise not do, as desired by the power
wielder. In other words, Dahl’s famous definition applies to power as such: power
is the ability to get others to do what they would not otherwise do.2 Properly
defined, as David Baldwin made clear over thirty years ago, power is a capability,
not a resource, whether “the jawbone of an ass” or anything else.3 A potential
competitor is what James March, at about the same time, called the “basic force
model” of power, which he characterized as the view that there is a one-to-one
relationship between a set of resources, tangible or intangible, and outcomes.
But as March made clear, this basic resource model of power does not predict
behavior well. The meaningful controversies about power are not contests over
definitions—these are always inherently uninteresting in social science—but
about which capabilities are relevant and the causal mechanisms linking capa-
bilities with outcomes.4
The first face of power involves the ability to use resources as positive or
negative inducements. This usage of power does not necessarily rely on coer-
cion; more generally, it involves the use of positive or negative incentives to
induce others to act as the power wielder desires. The second face is the abil-
ity to affect the decision-making agenda—what Bachrach and Baratz in the
1960s pointed out as their “second face of power.”5 The third face of power—
which Lukes appropriated from normative and interpretive work, and now
broadly seen as “constructivist” in international relations theory—is the ability
to affect what people want and believe, exemplified recently in Joseph S. Nye’s
concept of “soft power.”6
My argument in this chapter about Krasner’s work is based on the concep-
tualization of power sketched above. The key issues do not revolve around
definitions of power but around other questions: (1) the role of material as
contrasted with nonmaterial resources as means of influence; (2) the impact of
institutions on the power transmission process; and (3) the role played by ideas
in helping to set agendas and facilitate, or hinder, persuasion. In this respect,
I have two fundamental quarrels with the way scholars in the realist tradition
typically discuss power. First, realists have often applied what March called the
basic force model without understanding its limitations. These realists paid
little attention to how institutions create resources as well as constraints for
states. Fortunately, led by Stephen Krasner, astute realists have recognized over
the last twenty-five years that institutions are important. My second objection
is that realism often ignores entirely the third face of power, in which ideas and
identity formation play a major role. An extensive literature over the last twenty
years has demonstrated the importance of ideas in generating or limiting state
influence, and many events since the end of the Cold War have validated this
perspective.7
All three faces of power are affected by changes in the environment, includ-
ing changes in interests and perceptions of interests, often induced by changes in
domestic politics. Domestic politics are so intertwined with international politics
that the fields of comparative politics and international relations have become
so closely linked as to be difficult, in many cases, to differentiate. Changes in
global power relationships (emphasized by realism and also by broader theories
of asymmetrical interdependence); institutions and information (emphasized by
institutional theory); and ideas and identity (emphasized by constructivism) are
all important. Yet beginning with interests and power makes sense to me, since
we can arrive at rough but valuable explanations of behavior by linking interests
and power with the assumption of strategic rationality, which enables the ana-
lyst to connect interests and power with desired and anticipated outcomes. Such
a framework enables us to form expectations, although rarely to make precise
predictions.
The crudeness of this initial formulation requires that we add institutions,
information, ideas, and identities to the mix. As institutions change, so does
information available in the system; and so do the constraints and opportu-
nities to states. The same instrumental rationality that powers realism tells
institutionalists that important changes in institutions will alter state policies
toward those institutions and toward other states insofar as interstate relations
are themselves affected by institutions. Powerful states are often “makers” of
institutions, so some of these changes are endogenous to their own policies;
but small and middle powers are largely “takers” of institutions and, if they
are nimble, can do well by adapting to them more quickly and thoroughly
than more powerful, but less adept, states. Indeed, the “paradox of unreal-
ized power” to which the editors pay attention in their introduction is partly
resolved by the greater ability of smaller states to adapt to change. So in my
understanding of world politics, to understand state policies, and outcomes, it
is essential to understand not only crude power resources and asymmetrical
economic interdependence, but also the partially independent role of institu-
tions and the information they provide.
But even an institutional account is insufficient, since it holds the ideas peo-
ple have in their heads constant. We need to follow a large literature, with many
distinguished contributions, by looking at ideas, identity, and the social relations
that carry those concepts. Hence, after beginning with “Stephen Krasner as a
Realist,” I complicate the story—as I think my friend Steve Krasner has—by
bringing in institutions and information first, then ideas and identity, and the
closely related concept of persuasion.
2. Stephen Krasner as a Realist

In the conventional view of Krasner, the major accomplishment of his work
during the 1970s and 1980s—especially in Defending the National Interest8 and
Structural Conflict9—was to show (along with Robert Gilpin) that the realist
concepts of power and interests are central to understanding not just interna-
tional security politics but the world political economy. In Sovereignty: Organized
Hypocrisy10 Krasner extended this argument to broader issues, making new dis-
tinctions about one of the oldest concepts of international relations theory, and
showing great historical reach in his discussions of Westphalia, minority and
human rights, and new statehood, as well as the traditional international politi-
cal economy topic of sovereign lending.
Krasner himself has lent credibility to this conventional interpretation. He
declares in Defending the National Interest that one of his two central analytic
tasks is to “elaborate a statist or state-centric approach” to the study of foreign
policy, and that the second is to defend this approach against interest-group lib-
eralism and Marxism.11 He argues against liberal-pluralist theories and in favor
of a coherent notion of national interest, saying that that the “objectives sought
by the state . . . can be called appropriately the national interest.”12 In his famous
1976 article, “State Power and the Structure of International Trade,” Krasner
forcefully argues, consistent with realist premises, that openness in the world
economy is most likely to occur “during periods when a hegemonic state is in
its ascendancy.”13
In Structural Conflict, Krasner identifies himself with “the realist approach,”
arguing that “the particular strategies adopted by a given state will be con-
strained by structural considerations—the distribution of power in the interna-
tional system as a whole, and the place of a given state in that distribution.”14 In
that work he emphasizes distributional conflict to account for the strategies used
by Third World countries, under the rubric of the “New International Economic
Order” in the 1970s, to press for authoritative rather than market-oriented inter-
national economic regimes. He sees Third World countries as using “meta-power
behavior” to change principles, norms, and rules in a direction that would make
them subject to authoritative state decision.15 He shows considerable interest
in the beliefs of Third World elites, but in the end, these beliefs are rooted in
vulnerability. “The defining characteristic of Third World policies is vulnerabil-
ity.”16 Since such vulnerability cannot realistically be addressed by the pursuit
of wealth for most developing countries (China is mentioned as an exception),
the attempt to create authoritative rather than market-oriented regimes is the
preferred method for reducing it and the domestic political uncertainty that it
generates.17 Realism’s emphasis on power and vulnerability, in the end, lies at the
base of an argument that pays a lot of attention to ideas and beliefs.
Finally, in Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, Krasner directly takes on con-

structivist claims about the role of norm-consistent appropriateness in world
politics. He says that “the basic contention of this study is that the international
system is an environment in which the logics of consequences dominate the log-
ics of appropriateness.”18 And he famously concludes SOH by emphasizing coer-
cion: “In a contested environment in which actors, including the rules of states,
embrace different norms, clubs can always be trump.”19
Yet despite Krasner’s own language, quoted above, in this chapter I argue
against this conventional interpretation of his contribution to international rela-
tions theory, on the grounds that it seriously undervalues the innovativeness
and creativity of what he himself calls a modified realist orientation.20 Indeed, as
noted at the outset, my thesis is that Krasner is a subversive realist. He is a realist
since his default position on world politics is that states are the dominant actors
in world politics, their actions are best explained by their material interests, and
power is crucial: “clubs are trump.” But he keeps straying from the realist reser-
vation, exploring the role of multilateral institutions and recognizing with the
constructivists that ideas can play a major role in world politics. Krasner’s theo-
retical eclecticism coexists with his underlying realism. He is too curious and
imaginative simply to defend standard realism or neorealism against all comers,
but too sensitive to the crucial importance of interests and power in world poli-
tics to break decisively with the realist tradition.
3. Krasner as Institutional Theorist

In response to the claim just put forward, one could respond that realism is such
an elastic concept that it may not be meaningful to debate whether Krasner’s
innovations are compatible with it.21 I do not want to debate that point, because
I essentially agree with it. It is more interesting to note how creative Krasner has
been in his departures from realist orthodoxy, such as it is. Let me first consider
Krasner’s pursuit of themes that I will characterize as institutionalist.
Institutional theory begins with the empirical observation that multilateral
institutions, such as the World Trade Organization, the Montreal Protocol regime
to control ozone-depleting substances, the International Whaling Commission,
the United Nations Security Council, and NATO, play a prominent role in world
politics. These forms of institutionalized cooperation are not well explained by
realist theory. Institutional theory focuses on information and how institutions
can improve the informational environment for states, by setting standards,
monitoring state behavior, establishing focal points, and providing valid causal
information about the impact of behavior on outcomes. Not only do states seek
information about others; they may also want reliably to provide information
about themselves in order to enhance their credibility. As a result, the theory
contends, institutions perform important functions for states. Institutionalism

does not refute the core of realist theory but builds on it and modifies it in ways
that enhance our understanding of international cooperation.22
Krasner’s early realism had led him to downgrade the significance of multilat-
eral institutions. But he quickly recognized both the fact of international regimes
and the strengths of rationalist-institutionalist explanations for them. His major
contributions on this subject are bracketed by two well-known articles in World
Politics, in 1976 and 1991, with his introduction and conclusion to the famous
International Regimes volume (1982) and Structural Conflict falling in the middle
of this period. He returns to these themes, although implicitly, in Sovereignty:
Organized Hypocrisy.
As noted above, Krasner begins his 1976 article with the hypothesis that
hegemony will explain openness in the world political economy. But with his
typical honesty, by the end of the article he admits that “the whole pattern is
out of phase.”23 Indeed, he finds that his prediction is correct in only three of
the six periods that he considers. The strength of the paper is not its central
thesis—which the author himself effectively disconfirms—but the bold way in
which Krasner views state power as a solution to a salient puzzle: what accounts
for variation in the openness of international economic regimes?
Krasner’s conclusion to the volume that he edited on international regimes,
published as a special issue of International Organization in the spring of 1982
and as a book the following year, represents the point of furthest distance from
his realist roots.24 Indeed, his conclusion is entitled “Regimes and the Limits of
Realism: Regimes as Autonomous Variables.” In this essay Krasner suggests the
imagery of tectonic plates rather than billiard balls. One plate can be thought of
as the underlying structure of power, the other as “regimes and related behav-
ior and outcomes.” When regimes are constructed, they are consistent with the
structure of power, so there is little tension. But pressure builds up. Regimes
remain fairly static until there is a sudden shift—an “earthquake.”25
The implication of Krasner’s argument is that regimes have a degree of
autonomy, which “is derived from lags and feedbacks.”26 Feedbacks are particu-
larly important: “Once regimes are established they may feed back on the basic
causal variables that gave rise to them in the first place.”27 As Krasner says, this is
a “discomforting line of reasoning”—discomforting, that is, for someone inclined
toward realist assumptions. Feedbacks operate by regimes altering interests,
serving as sources of power, and altering relative power capabilities of actors.
Krasner argues, then, that the causal process assumed by realism can be reversed:
institutions could affect the fundamental building blocks of realist theory. Even
committed institutionalists might have hesitated to go so far.
As we have seen, in Structural Conflict Krasner holds that regimes are fun-
damentally structured by power, and “powerful states can destroy regimes that
are antithetical to their interests.” The explicit themes of this book are realist
ones. But even here, Krasner’s realism is subversively modified. The procedures
of international regimes can matter, and “established regimes generate inertia if
only because of sunk costs and the absence of alternatives.”28
In his World Politics article of 1991, Krasner relies on realism to critique
institutional theory for not paying sufficient attention to distributional conflict.
Even if international institutions can be explained as moving joint policy making
toward the Pareto frontier, he argues, distributional conflict will remain: states
struggle about where, on or near the Pareto frontier, outcomes will fall. But in
this article, with his usual honesty, Krasner admits that his argument, however
close it may seem to realism, “is not logically inconsistent with the analysis of
market failure” that I and others have developed. Institutionalists, he recognizes,
explicitly take power structures into account.29 His quarrel is with the institu-
tionalists’ emphasis, not their logic. He emphasizes not why institutions exist
to solve coordination and collaboration problems but why the distributions of
benefits from regimes are skewed as they are. One could as well call this “distri-
butionally sensitive institutionalism” as realism.
In Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (henceforth, SOH), Krasner engages explic-
itly with institutionalist theory. His arguments are explicitly anti-institutionalist
while, in my view, implicitly accepting institutionalist themes. Explicitly, Krasner
generates a typology of institutional theory, classifying various schools of
thought based on their assumptions about institutionalization and durability.30
He then argues that none of the institutionalist arguments, assuming high levels
of institutionalization, explains well the actual practice of sovereignty. He also,
however, rejects the classical realist anarchy model (low durability and institu-
tionalization) in favor of a view that sees sovereignty norms as durable but not
highly institutionalized, much less taken for granted. Krasner’s “organized hypoc-
risy” combines durable cognitive scripts with low institutionalization. Looking
ahead to part 4 of this chapter, it seems to bow more to a particular version of
constructivism than to either realism or institutionalism.
Yet in SOH Krasner also makes much of the distinction between control and
authority. As far as I can tell, the concept of authority is absent from DNI and
almost entirely absent from SC—with the exception of arguments about the
desire of Third World states to enhance their legitimacy,31 which implies a desire
to enhance authority. But it is very prominent in SOH, in which Krasner defines
authority as involving “a mutually recognized right for an actor to engage in spe-
cific kinds of activities.”32 “Control,” by contrast, seems to be similar to the crude
view of power as the ability to determine outcomes: it can be achieved through
“force or compulsion.” It would be quite natural to associate it with realist the-
ory, although Krasner does not explicitly do so.
Krasner’s definition of authority is consistent with the conventional view that
authority is rightful or legitimate rule, and “a political construct created and
sustained through practice by a ruler and the ruled.”33 Another way of defining
authority would be as a capacity for influence that reflects the relationship

between one who makes rules and another who follows them because he views
them as legitimate. Typically, this relationship is institutionalized in some way:
that is, it refers to situations in which durable rules prescribe behavioral roles
for actors.34 Legitimacy—the critical basis for authority—means that those sub-
ject to authority believe that the actor in authority has a “content-independent
right to rule.”35 Because it relies on beliefs, authority is a constructivist concept.
Because it relies on sustained institutionalized relationships, it is also a deeply
institutional concept. What authority is not is a classical realist concept.
Krasner uses the concepts of control and authority to discriminate among his
various types of sovereignty. Interdependence sovereignty—the ability to regulate
flows across national borders—is entirely a matter of control.36 Domestic sover-
eignty refers both to domestic authority structures (not a focus of SOH) and
the effectiveness of domestic controls. Krasner focuses in the book, instead, on
the two forms of sovereignty that are about authority, not control. International
legal sovereignty—recognition by other states—is entirely a matter of author-
ity. That is, which states, or elites in control of states, are recognized as having
the right to engage in governance? Westphalian sovereignty—territoriality and
the exclusion of external actors from domestic authority structures37—is partly
about authority: that is, who is legitimately entitled to make and enforce rules
within a given territory. Krasner’s organized hypocrisy argument is that these
authority claims are frequently, indeed necessarily, contradicted by power and
opportunism, resulting in organized hypocrisy.
Krasner’s creative use of the distinction between control and authority sug-
gests that we should pay more attention to the concept of authority in world
politics, which both David Lake and Abraham Newman perceptively discuss in
recent books. World politics is a world of power and coercion—on some issues,
in some relationships—but it is more pervasively a world of authority. As Lake
emphasizes, states are functionally differentiated, contrary to what Kenneth N.
Waltz taught; and many of them can be properly regarded as subordinate to oth-
ers, although this subordination is subtle and sometimes concealed, since it con-
flicts with the doctrine of sovereignty. In his book on the regulation of personal
data in the global economy, Abraham Newman argues that regulatory capacity,
and transgovernmental networks among regulators with such capacity, create
a form of authority. Such authority is different, as Newman also argues, from
either coercion (“hard power”) or persuasion and emulation (“soft power”).
Indeed, Newman sees regulatory authority as “a new locus of power.”38
Coupled with Krasner’s discussion of control and authority in SOH, these
works suggest to me that we need to be more careful, in discussing “power,”
to indicate whether we are actually discussing authority. How important is
legitimacy in generating obedience? For regimes within states, legitimacy
is important: as Douglas North comments, it reduces the costs of ensuring
obedience to the commands of the government.39 The same is true for

empires. Thucydides tells the story of how the increasing hubris of Athens
undermined the legitimacy of its rule, and Adrienne Mayor, in writing about
Mithradates, shows how the rapacity of Roman rule in the Black Sea area
during the first century b.c.e. undermined the legitimacy of Roman authority
and created the conditions under which Roman rule could be challenged.40
Soviet authority was challenged at the end of the Gorbachev era, leading to
a sudden decline in Soviet power; and US authority is under challenge now
in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The point is that the exercise of power without
authority is very costly and difficult to sustain.
Thinking more clearly about authority may help us to think not only about
empires but about contemporary world politics. Does increasing social mobili-
zation, spurred on by wider access to communications media, widen the gulf
between power and authority by making subjects more likely to question power
holders—or has that gulf always been wider than crude power theories would
lead us to expect? In a condition of social mobilization, is “soft power”—the
ability to entice or attract—increasingly important?41 How does the absence of
authority for the United States, and its practices, in countries such as Afghanistan
and Pakistan affect its ability to achieve its objectives in those societies?
How does democracy relate to authority in world politics? Do decisions
made by democratic states have more legitimacy, and hence more authority,
than decisions made by nondemocratic states—and with what audiences? Are
there ways in which actions by democracies, since they are responsive to cultur-
ally specific publics, could be less legitimate, and carry less authority, with people
in different cultures than decisions made by more closed leadership groups and
crafted to fit local conditions? With respect to multilateralism, are norms emerg-
ing that require quasi-democratic practices (such as those of administrative law)
as a condition for the legitimacy of regulation? Are noncoercive authoritative
decisions likely to be more democracy-enhancing than coercive ones, and if so,
under what conditions?
Krasner’s institutionalism runs deep, even though on the surface it is easier
to see his ambivalence about it than his intellectual sympathies with it. Krasner’s
willingness to entertain institutionalist ideas has enriched our understanding not
only of international institutions but also of how institutionalization can gener-
ate patterns of authority.
4. Krasner as Constructivist Theorist

Krasner’s realism and institutionalism are accompanied by a strong pull toward
a more constructivist emphasis on ideas and identity. We have already seen the
constructivist strain in his recent reliance on the concept of authority, which
draws from both constructivist and institutionalist theory. We also see it in his
analysis, much earlier, of ideology.
Some of the most interesting and prominent arguments in Defending the
National Interest42 (henceforth, DNI) are not about interests but about ideology.
In contrast to realism, Krasner does not see interests and power as explaining
foreign policy. Morgenthau sees the “signposts” of foreign policy in terms of
“interests defined in terms of power,” and although Krasner accepts part of this
argument, he modifies it in fundamental ways. Ideology as “a vision of what the
global order should be like derived from values and experience” makes a funda-
mental difference at least to American foreign policy.43 But it makes a difference
only insofar as the United States is very powerful—hence, only after World War
II. In other words, in Krasner’s interpretation, structural power and ideology
interact to generate the actual goals that the United States has pursued.
In DNI Krasner accepts a conventional distinction between the concepts of
preference and strategy, although he does not use that language. An actor’s pref-
erences, in this conventional view, “are the way it orders the possible outcomes
of an interaction.” But constraints inherent in the environment also affect strate-
gies. In an example given by Jeffry Frieden, a firm might prefer a quota to a
tariff to no protection, but in the presence of strong opposition by the govern-
ment to quotas, it might lobby for a tariff. That is, its strategy—the means to its
end—might differ from its preference.44 Krasner makes the same point in DNI
in different language, explaining support for right-wing authoritarian regimes by
liberal American policy makers during the Cold War as a result of “constrained
choice.”45 US elites preferred democratic regimes (other things being equal) but
pursued strategies, in some situations, of supporting authoritarian ones.
In DNI Krasner explicitly rejects the notion that interests can explain the use
of force by the United States in situations involving raw materials between 1914
and the 1970s.46 He argues instead that preferences were established historically
and sociologically as a result of American experience. The goals of American
policy were set by a vision of Lockean liberalism, to which communism was
antithetical.
This sounds like constructivism before the phrase had been invented, and may
help us understand Krasner’s ambivalence toward, rather than outright rejection
of, constructivist thinking in SOH and other work.47 However, the distinctive
conceptual and theoretical contribution of DNI is not an emphasis on ideology
per se—Krasner was hardly the first analyst to take that tack—but the ingenious
attempt that Krasner made to reconcile it with his realist framework. Krasner
argues that ideology is only exceptionally important for foreign policy. Due to
constraints of power, “for most states it must be interests, and not visions, that
count.” Only very powerful states “can attempt to impose their vision on other
countries and the global system. And it is only here that ideology becomes a
critical determinant of the objectives of foreign policy.”48
Krasner is here proposing that the validity of conventional realist theory for
foreign policy analysis is conditional on the state in question not being extraordi-
narily powerful. Ordinary countries calculate their interests to derive preferences
and then adopt strategies that take into account constraints, particularly con-
strained power. “Only states whose resources are very large, both absolutely and
relatively, can engage in imperial policies.”49 The passage presciently foreshadows
the Bush administration official in 2002 who was quoted as saying: “We are
an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”50 But Krasner’s
argument also represents a very sophisticated theoretical position. Structures
of power are important, Krasner argues, but not uniformly across the range of
variation in the relative and absolute power of states. Explanations that rely on
ideology are more compelling when power constraints are low.
Note that in DNI Krasner also lets the accuracy of perceptions vary: mis-
perception by American policy makers, he claims, led them to exaggerate the
importance of communist influence in foreign countries and led them, in “non-
logical” fashion, sometimes to fail to calculate clearly about means and ends.51 It
would be a short step to argue that not only are extraordinarily powerful coun-
tries prone to act on ideology, but so are countries whose leaders mistakenly
believe themselves to be extraordinarily powerful.
With its quasi-constructivist arguments about the interaction of power,
ideology, and misperception, DNI therefore yields insights about the perfor-
mance of the first administration of George W. Bush. President Bush and his
top advisers both held strongly ideological views about the unique and multi-
ple advantages of democracy abroad and exaggerated the ability of the United
States to achieve such democracy. Their beliefs help to explain their policies—
which certainly would not have been advised or predicted by traditional real-
ists. The fact that they misperceived US power helps to explain the failure of
those policies.52
When Krasner turned to sovereignty, I think he struggled at first, because he
recognized that sovereignty is a socially constructed concept, and that discuss-
ing sovereignty would force him to come to grips with the role of social norms
in world politics. Krasner seems to adopt a conventional definition of social
norms as shared expectations, on the part of a group, about appropriate behav-
ior.53 The norm of what Krasner calls Westphalian sovereignty is the shared
expectation that external actors should be excluded from domestic authority
structures.54 Yet Krasner’s core insight is that despite the reality of this social
norm of sovereignty, it has been frequently violated, yielding organized hypoc-
risy. Hence the state that he had long celebrated as central to world politics is
a result of political and social processes that were deeply shaped by ideational
conflicts, such as the wars of religion in the early-modern state system, and its
leaders continue to struggle with tensions between norms of sovereignty and
considerations of strategic advantage.
In his discussion of the norms of sovereignty, Krasner grasps a crucial point

that is often missed in more abstract discussions of the impact of norms in world
politics: when we discuss the impact of norms, we must ask about the agents
that promote the norms. Norms have their greatest impact when they are pro-
moted by organizations or persistent networks of individuals and groups, and
normative activity has the greatest long-term impact when agents—states, non-
governmental organizations, international organizations, or domestic groups—
find the norms strategically relevant for their own purposes. Norms do not act
by themselves, but they both shape the conceptions of self-interest of agents and
can be convenient, or inconvenient, as agents pursue their interests.
This tension between Krasner’s understanding of sovereignty as a socially
constructed concept and his view of the state as a political structure with defi-
nite interests and capacities to pursue them drove him to a deeper level of schol-
arship in what I regard as his best book. For theoretical depth, he went to John
Searle’s masterly volume The Social Construction of Reality and came to see a
strong link between the game-theoretic understanding of strategy so central to
both realist and institutionalist thought and the common knowledge created by
constructivist conceptions of appropriate behavior. For historical depth, he went
not only to the extensive historical literature on sovereignty but to the texts of
documents such as the Treaty of Westphalia, which, as he pointed out, is quite
different from its reputation as the fountain of modern thinking about sover-
eignty and the state.
For Krasner the central concept that illuminates the tension between sover-
eignty and strategy is the concept of “organized hypocrisy”—systematic behav-
ior that at one level celebrates sovereignty as a central organizing concept of
international relations, and that simultaneously violates its precepts. Krasner
maintains his view that since leaders and their followers care about outcomes,
the “logic of consequences” dominates the “logic of appropriateness.” But as
soon as he makes this point, he qualifies it, since he recognizes that discourse
is profoundly shaped by ideas. As Krasner writes, “a logic of consequences, in
which control is the key issue, and a logic of appropriateness, associated with
authority, can both affect the behavior of actors.”55 The result is a work that
integrates an understanding of institutions, developed in the context of prevail-
ing ideas of sovereignty but profoundly shaped by interests; ideas, as expressed
in discourses about sovereignty, its implications, and permissive exceptions to
those apparent implications; and power and opportunism, the traditional focus
of realist thought.
In SOH, Krasner’s willingness to subvert the realist tradition without becom-
ing a renegade paid off. He saw the multiple sides of sovereignty, its various
definitions and dimensions. He analyzed the way in which institutions of sov-
ereignty emerged as a means of limited cooperation in the context of religious
strife. And he saw how attempts to apply sovereignty concepts in a consistent or
universal way have been disrupted by opportunities to exploit situations for gain
or power, in ways that have prevented their consistent implementation. SOH is
a synthesis in the best sense of the term: a work that recognizes and connects
different traditions without simply embracing all of them in an undiscriminating
and contradictory fashion.
As a subversive realist, Krasner continually claims to subscribe to the realist
credo, but protests too much. In DNI he subverts realism by treating ideology as
an independent force that does not merely rationalize interests but has the abil-
ity to trump interests. In SC and the international regimes volume he subverts
realism by conceding a great deal to institutionalist arguments. Although he dis-
tances himself from their liberal flavor, he accepts their rationalist core, which
builds on conceptions of power and interests to understand institutions.56 In
SOH Krasner subverts realism by introducing the concept of authority, which is
a deeply institutionalized notion whose validity depends on the beliefs of people
subject to rule.
I am not claiming that all of Krasner’s arguments are consistent. Notably,
Structural Conflict (SC) seems to retract the argument in DNI about the indepen-
dent role of ideology. In SC, ideology in the global sense as discussed in DNI has
disappeared, only being referred to in the context of the domestic politics of weak,
vulnerable Third World states.57 Ideology in this volume seems to be less vision
than rationalization. Krasner sees the coherence of ideological arguments “used to
rationalize and justify their demands”58 as an important variable affecting the success
of Third World attempt to create authoritative regimes responsive to their will.
Defending the National Interest emphasizes misperception and “non-logical” US
foreign policy behavior but rationalizes actions by the Third World in the 1970s
that were clearly not wealth maximizing. Structural Conflict is much more ratio-
nalist. Both books ignore the distinction between power and authority, seeming
to assume that the views of people who are ruled are not particularly impor-
tant in world politics. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, in contrast, emphasizes
authority as opposed to control. But “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of
little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”59 Krasner’s
writings are much more interesting, and insightful, than if he had stuck to a dull
realist consistency.
5. A Missing Concept: Persuasion

Steve Krasner is, fortunately, still in his intellectual prime. It therefore seems
appropriate to conclude by discussing a concept that is largely missing from
Krasner’s work: persuasion. The literature on persuasion in world politics is
fairly rudimentary, and it seems to me that Krasner, with his combination of
skepticism, intellectual rigor, and conceptual creativity, could make a significant
contribution to it. So in this final section of the chapter I put forward some
ideas of my own about persuasion in an attempt to provoke him, or others, into
a response.
Persuasion can be defined as the use of speech by one or more persons to
change the beliefs of one or more other people about what is true, right, or
appropriate, as part of a process of social influence without using or threaten-
ing force, or providing incentives.60 This definition of persuasion distinguishes
it from four other types of social influence: coercion, involving the use or threat
of force; bargaining, involving offers of rewards and threats of punishment; coor-
dination, through which actions by multiple agents become mutually supportive
without changing beliefs about truth, values, or appropriateness; and emula-
tion, implying soft power as defined by Nye.61 These distinctions are analytically
important and must be kept in mind in discussing persuasion, since in ordinary
language “persuasion” often refers to processes of bargaining, coordination, and
emulation, even if only in movies about the Mafia is it associated with coer-
cion. Political persuasion is persuasion with respect to issues involving authorita-
tive collective decision making. That is, successful political persuasion leads to
changes in beliefs that have direct or indirect impacts on authoritative decision
making by a group or political unit such as a state.
Direct Persuasion
Direct political persuasion involves changes of beliefs by one actor in response
to persuasive attempts directed toward that actor by some other actor. By “direct
persuasion” we refer to a process by which a speaker (the persuader) affects the
actors of those who hear the speech (the persuadees), as a result of cognitive
changes induced by the speech act. We can identify four plausible causal path-
ways for direct persuasion in world politics.
The first two mechanisms are entirely consistent with rationalistic theory,
and in both cases persuasion is important only insofar as it resolves uncertainty:
about actual behavior and causal processes, or about the relationship between
principles and decisions. Persuasion can involve appeals to interest, rightly under-
stood. In this form of persuasion, the persuader provides information that may
reduce the uncertainty of the persuadee about the situation she faces, including
the “types” of other players, or about causal processes. This is the type of infor-
mation emphasized in theories of instrumental rationality, as in game theory.
Christian Grobe calls it “functionalist persuasion theory.”62 Persuasion can also
involve appeals to normative principles, such as justice or reciprocity. This form
of persuasion is naturally most effective when the principles are already accepted,
so that only their relevance to a decision problem needs to be demonstrated. We
can expect that this pathway of persuasion is most common when the actors
subject to persuasive attempts have not carefully considered the issues involved,
since otherwise they will have perceived how principles that they hold as beliefs
relate to their policy choices. It is therefore unlikely to be important in direct
negotiations among states, whose leaders can be expected already, on their own,
to have considered how the principles they hold relate to their policies.
The third persuasion pathway depends on appeals to identity. Behavior may
result from what James March and Johan Olsen call “the logic of appropriate-
ness,” in which action involves “evoking an identity or role and matching the obli-
gations of that identity or role to a specific situation.”63 Identity, in turn, involves
“mutually constructed and evolving images of self and other.”64 Collective identi-
ties may be shaped through rhetorical action; in turn, persuasion may be based
on appeals to these identities.65 Even actors who are not committed to truth
seeking could, in the presence of uncertainty, be persuaded that changing their
behavior could more appropriately reflect their identities. Identity-based persua-
sion theory is clearly important, but empirically it is very difficult to distinguish
it from instrumental persuasion.66
Cognitive psychology provides a fourth plausible mechanism: persuasion as
a result of the framing of issues in particular ways. Amos Tversky and Daniel
Kahneman showed in a series of brilliant experiments that the way in which
decision problems are presented to subjects decisively affects their judgments.
Human beings do not carry in their heads fully developed, consistent, and artic-
ulated views of the world. As a result, how problems are “framed” is often criti-
cal in choice.67 It follows that one way to persuade people is to frame a problem
in a particular way.68
For all four forms of persuasion, what changes is the information available to
the persuadee. This information seems to be of three types:
Information about identity, interests, and principles themselves. For example, the
persuader may have introduced new beliefs about identity (“we are all Croats”),
new causal beliefs (“deficit spending will end the depression”), or new princi-
pled beliefs (“slavery is wrong”).69
Information about the consistency of the persuadee’s behavior with her identities,
interests, or principles. Rational individuals seek to make their behavior consistent
with their identities, interests, and principles. Hence if it is pointed out that her
behavior is inconsistent with her interests and principles, the rational persuadee
should be motivated to change either her behavior or her beliefs.70
Information that reminds the persuadee of facts previously ignored, or that con-
structs a situation that highlights the significance of certain facts, or interpretations,
over others. Such information involves the “framing” of choice discussed above.
Since new information is critical to the operation of all of these forms of

persuasion, there has to be some uncertainty in the initial situation for what
I am calling direct persuasion to operate. Without uncertainty—whether about
underlying causal relationships or about the bargaining situation itself—there is

no reason for actors who have formed their preferences to change their nego-
tiating positions or to view argument by others as anything but strategically
motivated cheap talk. If the uncertainty is merely about the bargaining situa-
tion—for example, the positions of other influential actors—as the uncertainty
is resolved one should expect changes in negotiating positions, but no persua-
sion. From a rationalist standpoint, whether bargaining is supplemented by argu-
ing under conditions of uncertainty will depend on the provision of credible
information—such as scientific information reflecting scientific consensus—that
changes participants’ conceptions of underlying causal mechanisms.
In world politics, opportunities for direct persuasion are limited precisely
because they depend not only on uncertainty but on the belief of the per-
suadee that the persuader has superior knowledge or insight. Leaders of states
typically have clear conceptions of their self-interest, and the interests of their
states, and they have incentives, and generally the capacity, to generate exten-
sive information about the context of state action and, therefore, what their
interests are in particular situations. It is unlikely that leaders of other states,
or any other outside parties, will normally be sufficiently credible, and to be
perceived as sufficiently sharing their interests, to persuade them to change
their conceptions of self-interest. The major exception to this generalization
pertains to times of great flux, such as the end of the Cold War, when it may
be critical for some leaders to persuade others of their credibility and good
faith. Genuinely new information about the state of the world is crucial to the
success of direct persuasion, because persuasion always requires that specific
other actors—persuaders—provide new information that is not otherwise available
to change prior beliefs. Such information must come from actors who are suffi-
ciently credible that the information is taken as genuine. But if state leaders are
rational and strategic, and in normal times well-informed, they should usually
be expected to be relatively immune to attempts by leaders of other states to
provide them with such information. In other words, opportunities for direct
persuasion seem relatively rare, although at crucial historical moments they
may be of the utmost importance.
Indirect Persuasion
Much persuasion is indirect. The speaker seeks to influence an agent who will
be responsive to the speaker’s audience: the speaker influences the agent through
the audience. Focusing on indirect persuasion alerts us to the distinction referred
to above between two different types of actors: elites, who can be expected to
behave strategically since their actions have discernible impacts on others; and
members of mass publics, who should not be expected to behave strategically,
because their individual actions will have negligible effects. Even if they are both
rational, actors of these two types will behave in profoundly different ways. Elites
will seek a great deal of information and will typically have a stake in ensuring
that their beliefs conform with reality. Members of mass publics—who may be
the same people playing different roles on different issues—may be “rationally
ignorant,” as theories of mass voting suggest. Indirect attempts at persuasion in
politics often involve efforts by strategic actors to persuade nonstrategic actors,
employing emotional appeals designed to appeal to people who are using heuris-
tic information processing. The strategic actors seek not to change the behavior
of policy-making elites directly by altering their preferences, but to influence the
attitudes of mass publics, whose views will in turn affect the behavior of policy
makers. In a democracy, one need not convince politicians of the merits of one’s
position in order to induce changes in their behavior; one may only need to
convince them that their electoral fortunes will be enhanced by such changes.
A theory of direct persuasion has two actors—a persuader and a persuadee.
The central process has a single stage: the speech act performed by the per-
suader with the persuadee as its target. In contrast, the central process in
a theory of indirect persuasion has three sets of actors and two stages. As in
direct persuasion, there is a persuader and a persuadee, but there is also a third
actor, the audience, which exercises some influence on the persuadee, as noted
in the previous paragraph. The first stage in the process involves attempts by
the persuader to influence the beliefs not of the ultimate target (the persuadee)
but of the audience; in the second stage, the persuadee responds to changes in
the audience’s beliefs. A full analysis of either direct or indirect persuasion also
involves yet another, earlier stage: the stage in which persuadees and audiences
evaluate the credibility of would-be persuaders.
In a theory of indirect persuasion, audiences can play one of two roles: as
principals in principal-agent relationships, and as constructors of credibility eval-
uations. In the first of these roles, audiences have relationships with agents (such
as democratic politicians) such that changes in the beliefs of the audiences alter
the incentives of the agents, and therefore the agents’ behavior. Persuading the
audience can change the behavior of the agent without necessarily persuading
the agent to change its beliefs. In the second role, audiences affect the credibil-
ity of speakers. If an audience is persuaded of a position, public advocates of an
opposite position may find their credibility even on other issues damaged if they
fail to change their professed views. If publics believe that the earth is round,
the statements of members of a “flat earth society” are likely not to be credible
on other issues as well.71 Anticipating effects on credibility, actors may adjust
their speaking behavior in response to the audience’s beliefs.
In this theory of indirect persuasion, elites are strategic actors but audiences are
not. It does not make sense, even in rational-choice terms, for individual members
of large publics to act strategically, since no individual has sufficient impact on out-
comes to make a difference. As is familiar from collective-action theory, the logic of
consequences does not apply. For example, from a purely rationalist-instrumental

standpoint it makes little sense for citizens of an even moderately large polity to
vote, since the odds of an individual’s vote being pivotal are negligible. If people
vote, it is for other reasons, such as the belief that it is appropriate for them to do
so. A second important result follows from the nonstrategic nature of audience
members: they have little reason to understand, in depth, the issues on which they
may vote, or express opinions. As a result, they are likely to be open to persuasion:
they have little information ex ante, and they have not thoroughly processed what
they have to see its implications for their behavior. Appeals to principles or iden-
tity, or framing of issues, can all be effective.
This theory of indirect persuasion views elites, by contrast, as strategic actors
following the rational-instrumental logic. They are fully informed at any given
time, although they cannot predict future states of the world under complex
conditions. They pursue their interests, which they have reflected on carefully
in light of their identities and values. But they are also dependent on publics:
either they are agents of publics (as in electoral democracies), or at least their
effectiveness depends to some extent on their credibility with publics, and
therefore on the alignment of their professed beliefs with those of the public.
In some sense, then, in this model elites are not persuaded at all: they merely
respond to a new situation in which the publics to whom they are accountable
have been persuaded. Nevertheless, I refer to this process as “indirect persua-
sion,” since the ultimate target of the persuader is not the nonstrategic audience
but the strategic decision maker who responds to this audience.
Illustrating Indirect Persuasion

Narratives seem to have a substantial power to persuade audiences, in the first
stage of indirect persuasion. For instance, Martin Luther King Jr.’s, famous “I
Have a Dream” speech in 1963 evoked deeply held beliefs in equality in a rhe-
torically moving way. King did not make arguments for equality. He assumed that
his hearers were already convinced that racial inequality was unjust. He needed
to move them to action, particularly to persuade others: that is, to frame the
issue as one requiring immediate action, not merely passive complaint. King’s
words were so eloquent, and broadcast so many times, that his hearers knew that
others had also heard them. King’s “dream” was therefore common knowledge:
“everyone knows it, everyone knows that everyone knows it, everyone knows
that everyone knows that everyone knows it, and so on.”72 Common knowledge
facilitates coordination of behavior, as long as each person’s motivation to par-
ticipate increases the more others are inclined to participate.
In the second stage of this process, politicians reassessed their estimates of
the political strength of the civil rights movement. The resonance of King’s
speech and the appeal of his dream emboldened politicians who were already
sympathetic, and persuaded others—who may not have deeply internalized

racially egalitarian values—to pronounce their support for strong civil rights
legislation. So the legislation that, pressed by President Johnson, the Congress
passed in 1964 and 1965 was much stronger than the weak bill that, as majority
leader, he had with difficulty persuaded the Senate to approve in 1957.
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address can also be seen as an exercise in
indirect persuasion. It provides a short and compelling narrative designed to
reinforce the belief of his audience (which included people not at Gettysburg
that day in November 1863) that the Union, based on worthy moral principles,
was worth fighting for. Lincoln’s three-minute speech follows the pattern of clas-
sic Greek orations, in which “suppressing particulars makes these works oddly
moving despite their impersonal air.”73 It is a narrative with a beginning (the
founding of the United States), a middle (the “great civil war”), and an end
(“that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom”). Implicit is the appeal
that if that foreseen goal is to be attained, his audience must be “dedicated to
the great task remaining before us.” As in King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, there
is no attempt to convince the audience of anything through logic, but rather
to deepen the audience’s conviction that they must be willing to sacrifice for
a great cause. Lincoln’s speech was also designed to facilitate coordination of
action by providing a base of common knowledge.
Narrative appeals cannot be expected to be very important in direct persua-
sion of policy makers in world politics. But they may be important as part of a
process of indirect persuasion. For both King and Lincoln, people who were not
in physical proximity to them were probably more important audiences than the
few who were. King could reach these people directly through television and
radio, whereas Lincoln had to rely on the print media. Both speakers, however,
presumably hoped that much of their persuasion would be indirect: that people
who heard them would persuade others, and so on. King, in particular, was try-
ing to bring pressure on the administration of President John F. Kennedy to take
stronger action on civil rights. He was seeking not to persuade Kennedy directly
of the merits of his cause, but to persuade him indirectly that he could gain
popularity and electoral support by responding to demands for civil rights.
Conclusion
Stephen Krasner’s work calls our attention once again to the importance of
the concepts we use. Concepts imply distinctions. Unless different dimensions
of concepts are distinguished from another, their use in both theoretical and
empirical work will lead to confusion. Krasner is a master of conceptualization,
both because of the clarity of his thought and his willingness to experiment in
innovative ways. He is grounded in his realism but not hamstrung by it. Indeed,
he has also made significant contributions to institutionalist and constructiv-

ist international relations theory. His own work refutes the notion that these
approaches to understanding world politics are mutually exclusive. In a variety
of ways he is truly a subversive realist.
Krasner has helped us to understand the relationships between power struc-
tures and institutions, and the multiple dimensions of sovereignty. He has made
fascinating contributions to the study of ideology and authority, and his work on
sovereignty throws light on complex issues of social norms. For Krasner, norms
are not trumps: leaders of states devise policies based on calculations about con-
sequences. Norms do not predict state behavior: this is what “organized hypoc-
risy” is all about. But norms can be important when they have advocates, whose
values and interests prompt them to promote norms or to give them incentives,
to some extent to follow these norms themselves.
In the last section of this chapter I have discussed the concept of persuasion.
There are reasons to be skeptical that direct persuasion of national leaders by other
such leaders is very important. But much persuasion in world politics is indirect,
interacting with interests, institutions, and prevailing ideas. Understanding per-
suasion will therefore require the creative synthesis of theoretical perspectives,
with the rigor and imagination for which Stephen D. Krasner is justly famous.
Notes
*I wrote the first draft of this article in 2009–2010 while a Straus Fellow at New York
University. I express gratitude to the Straus Institute and to its director, Joseph Weiler, for
the fellowship and intellectual stimulation during this year.
1. Lukes 2004.
2. Dahl 1957.
3. Baldwin 1979.
4. March 1966.
6. Nye 2004.
7. Richard K. Ashley (1984) was the leader in this movement. Martha Finnemore, Judith
Goldstein, Peter Katzenstein, Kathryn Sikkink, and their students have played key roles
in advancing this argument and giving it empirical content over the last twenty years.
See, for instance, Goldstein and Keohane 1993; Finnemore 1996; Katzenstein1996; Keck
and Sikkink 1998; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999.
8. Krasner 1978.
9. Krasner 1985.
10. Krasner 1999.
11. Krasner 1978, 5–6.
12. Ibid., 6–7.
13. Krasner 1976.
14. Krasner 1985, 26 and 28.
15. Ibid., 309.
16. Ibid., 343.
17. Ibid., 58.

18. Krasner 1999, 6.
19. Krasner 1999, 238.
20. Krasner 1985, 29 (emphasis added).
21. Legro and Moravcsik 1999.
22. For the summary argument that this paragraph condenses, see Keohane and Martin
2003, 80.
23. Krasner 1976, 341.
24. Krasner 1983, 355–368.
25. Since Steve Krasner is an easterner who has lived in California since the mid-1970s, his
sensitivity to earthquakes is understandable. Native Californians seem to take them for
granted, while lifelong easterners regard them with as little interest as they devote to
typhoons and tornadoes. For a similar argument to Krasner’s but without the tectonic
plates analogy, see Keohane and Nye 1977/2001, 126–128.
26. Krasner 1983, 359.
27. Ibid., 358.
28. Both quotes are from Krasner 1999, 29.
29. Krasner 1991, 360–361.
30. Krasner 1999, figure 2.1, 58.
31. Krasner 1985, 57.
32. Krasner 1999, 10.
33. Lake 2009, 17, 20.
34. Keohane 1989.
35. Buchanan and Keohane 2006, 405.
36. Krasner 1999, 10.
37. Ibid., 20.
38. Lake 2009; Newman 2009. The quote from Newman appears on p. 153. The reference to
Waltz is to Waltz 1979.
39. North 1981, chap. 5.
40. Mayor 2009.
41. Nye 2004.
42. Krasner 1978
43. Krasner 1978, 15.
44. Frieden 1999, 42.
45. Krasner 1978, 339.
46. Ibid., 337.
47. Notably in his joint article with Peter J. Katzenstein and myself for the fiftieth-anniversary
special issue of International Organization. Katzenstein, Keohane, and Krasner 1998.
48. Krasner 1978, 340.
49. Ibid.
50. Quoted in Esherick, Kayali, and van Young 2006, 374.
51. Krasner 1978, 16.
52. It seems to me hardly accidental that a book written in the wake of the Vietnam War con-
tains valuable insights about the decision of the Bush administration to go to war in Iraq.
Krasner characterizes US policy in Vietnam during the 1960s and early 1970s as “impru-
dent” (DNI 286) and “nonlogical” (DNI 316; 321–322). He says: “For those of us who
listened to some ten years of rationales for U.S. intervention in Vietnam there is one gnaw-
ing thought: they just do not make sense” (DNI 321). Much the same can be said for the
rationales for the US invasion of Iraq between August 2002 and March 2003. Contemporary
arguments for increasing US involvement in Afghanistan on grounds that the United States
must show “determination” and prevent its enemies from taking heart at withdrawal remind
one of Mark Twain’s aphorisms, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes.”
53. Robert Ellickson (2001, 35) defines a social norm as “a rule governing an individual’s
behavior that third parties other than state agents diffusely enforce by means of social
sanctions.” But many prominent definitions omit sanctions. Martha Finnemore (1996, 22)
defines norms as “shared expectations about appropriate behavior held by a community of
actors.” Ron Jepperson, Peter J. Katzenstein, and Alexander Wendt define norms as “col-
lective expectations about proper behavior for a given entity.” Abram and Antonia Chayes
use different language, but the point is similar: for them, norms are “prescriptions for
action in situations of choice, carrying a sense of obligation” (Chayes and Chayes 1995,
112). However, Deborah Prentice, drawing on a large literature in psychology, differenti-
ates between group beliefs and individuals’ beliefs about group beliefs, which are often mis-
taken. Social norms defined as “representations of where one’s group is located or ought
to be located on an attitudinal or behavioral dimension ” (Prentice 2009, 5) often do not
match up with the actual beliefs of members of one’s group. That is, “shared expectations”
conceal the fact that members of groups make incorrect inferences about the expectations
of others in the group: the sociological norm does not match psychological norms.
54. Krasner 1999, 20.
55. Ibid., 10
56. Keohane 1984.
57. Krasner 1985, 57.
58. Krasner 1985, 9 (emphasis added).
59. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, online, attributes this phrase to Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803–1882).
60. This definition is consistent with the typical definition in social psychology, where per-
suasion is defined as “influence designed to change beliefs” (Chaiken, Gruenfeld, and
Judd 2000). For a more elaborate discussion of persuasion from the standpoint of social
psychology, see Chaiken, Wood, and Eagly 1996, 702–742.
61. I am indebted for these distinctions to Ruth W. Grant and to Grant 2006.
62. Grobe 2010.
63. March and Olsen 1998, 951.
64. Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein 1996, 59.
65. Cruz 2000.
66. Deitelhoff 2009; Grobe 2010. I set aside the theory put forward by Jurgen Habermas in
various works, since it rests on the assumption that actors are motivated toward truth
seeking, coordinate their actions by mutual agreement, and never use arguments as a
strategic asset. These assumptions make this literature irrelevant to understanding world
politics. For useful discussions, see Checkel 2001 and 2005.
67. Tversky and Kahneman 1986.
68. Consider the problem of how to use radiation to kill an inoperable tumor, when rays
with a sufficiently high intensity to kill the tumor would also kill vital organs in the pro-
cess. Some subjects were given a story about the capture of a fortress with many narrow
roads leading to it, in which the attacking general attacked by dividing his forces. These
subjects more readily came up with the solution to the radiation problem of bombarding
the tumor with several relatively weak rays, converging on the tumor from several direc-
tions, than did subjects not given this set of cues. That is, the analogy had framed the
issue in a way that facilitated a solution to the problem. John Holland, Keith Holyoak,
and Richard Nisbet, “Analogy,” in Holland, Holyoak, and Nisbet 1989.
69. Goldstein and Keohane 1993.
70. Thomas Risse’s pioneering work on persuasion in international relations relies heavily,
it seems to me, on the logic of consistency. As Risse paraphrases the question posed by
human rights advocates of governments nominally respecting human rights but actually
violating them: “If you say that you accept human rights, then why do you systematically
violate them?” Risse 2000, 32.
71. Grobe (2010, 11) makes this point in a somewhat different way, which suggested it to me.
72. Chwe 2001.
73. Wills 1992, 53.
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PA RT T W O
THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS ON
POWER, STATES, AND SOVEREIGNTY
4
Authority, Coercion, and Power in

International Relations
David A . L ake
Despite its central role in theories of international politics, scholars—and espe-

cially realist scholars, ironically—have an impoverished conception of power.
Focusing almost exclusively on material capabilities and coercion, as the editors
suggest, scholars ignore and even actively deny the role of political authority in
relations between states. After distinguishing between authority and coercion
as two major forms of power, I show that authority is central to variations in
sovereignty, hegemonic orders, the conflict between developed and developing
states, and the current debate over failed states and international trusteeship.1
International relations cannot be explained only by material capabilities and
coercion. We need to bring authority “back in” to the study of world politics.2
This chapter is more conceptual and synthetic than theoretical or empirical.
Elsewhere, I have used the same conception of political authority briefly sum-
marized below to deduce new propositions about state behavior and test those
propositions against historical evidence.3 Much of the argument in this extension
of that work rests on these confirmed theoretical and behavioral regularities.
Here I attempt to demonstrate the importance of authority for world politics by
showing how the concept makes coherent previously problematic or incomplete
theories of international relations and produces new insights for future research.
Thus, the case for authority in international relations is made in this chapter not
on its empirical veracity—although this remains the single most important crite-
rion—but by the value it adds to a range of important literatures in the field.
State Power
Power is the primary medium of international politics. As famously defined by
Robert Dahl and used as a baseline in this chapter, power is the ability of A
to get B to do something he or she would otherwise not do.4 Power can be
used to spur actors to collective action for the public good. It can also be used
55
56 R eflections on State s and Sover eignt y
to redistribute resources from countries, groups, or individuals to others. These

purposes are frequently linked and interactive; the use of power is not always
associated with purely redistributive or zero-sum gains.5 Cooperation increases
the social surplus, often “buying” the losers from redistribution into the bargain,
while gaining a larger share is sometimes the motivation for entrepreneurs to
organize collective action.
As highlighted by the editors of this volume and explored in other chapters,
the international environment is complex and composed of many different types
of actors wielding different types of power over one another. In this chapter,
I focus on state-to-state relations for two reasons. First, despite the growth in
transnational actors and global civil society, states remain essential (if no longer
primary) actors in world affairs.6 Second, and more important, as explained by
the editors, conceptions of state power have been largely limited to coercion,
derived from differences in the material capabilities. Yet, even in state-to-state
relations, I argue, authority has been an important and enduring feature of world
politics. If there is evidence of its role and effect here, authority is likely to be
even more important in other types of international relationships.
Authority as Power
Power comes in two primary forms.7 In coercion, A threatens or uses violence—
Schelling’s “power to hurt”—to get B to alter his actions.8 B may choose to comply
with A’s demand to avoid pain (threatened violence) or remove it once imposed
(actual violence). A’s purpose is to alter B’s incentives so that he chooses to behave
in the manner A directs. Coercion can fail, obviously, in that A’s threats and uses
of violence may not always generate compliance by B. As the editors highlight,
there is often a discrepancy between power resources and outcomes. A may not
be able to inflict sufficient pain to outweigh B’s loss of utility in complying, or she
may underestimate B’s resolve and not impose a severe enough threat. Similarly, B
may fear future demands and choose to resist now rather than later, or A’s promise
not to impose or to remove the pain may not be credible. Nonetheless, as a gen-
eral rule, the greater the violence threatened or inflicted by A, the more likely B is
to comply with A’s demand. As explained by the editors, this is the dominant way
in which power has been conceived in international relations.
In political authority, according to standard conceptions, A commands B to
alter his or her actions, where command implies that A has the right to issue
such orders. This right, in turn, implies a correlative obligation or duty by B
to comply, if possible, with A’s order. B’s obligation, finally, implies a further
right by A to enforce her commands in the event of B’s noncompliance.9 In any
authority relationship, B chooses whether to comply with A’s commands, but is
bound by the right of A to discipline or punish his noncompliance. Many driv-
ers exceed the speed limit, for example, but if caught they accept the right of the
Author it y, Coercion , and Power in International R elations 57
state to issue fines or other punishments for breaking the law. Noncompliance
by itself does not demonstrate a lack of authority.
Authority differs from coercion in being fundamentally a collective or social
construct. Although the social meaning of coercion may vary, as do the social
norms governing its use, the physical ability to impose violence on another
exists independently of the self-understanding of the actors themselves. With
authority, on the other hand, the right to punish noncompliance ultimately rests
on the collective acceptance or legitimacy of the ruler’s right to rule. As Thomas
Hobbes himself recognized, “the power of the mighty [the Leviathan] hath no
foundation but in the opinion and belief of the people.”10 Richard Flathman
develops this point more fully, arguing that sustained punishment “is impossi-
ble without substantial agreement among the members of the association about
those very propositions whose rejection commonly brings coercion into play.”11
If recognized as legitimate, the ruler acquires the ability to punish individuals
because of the broad backing of others. In extremis, an individual may deny
any obligation to comply with A’s laws, but if the larger community of which
he is part recognizes the force of A’s commands and supports A’s right to pun-
ish him for violating these commands, then that individual can still be regarded
as bound by A’s authority.12 Similarly, A can enforce specific edicts even in the
face of opposition if her general body of commands is accepted as legitimate by
a sufficiently large number of the ruled. In both cases, A’s capacity to enforce
her rule rests on the collective affirmation and possibly active consent of her
subjects.13 Because a sufficient portion of the ruled accept A and her edicts as
rightful, A can employ force against individual free riders and even dissidents.
Knowing that a sufficient number of others support the ruler, in turn, potential
free riders and dissidents are deterred from violating the rules, and overt force
is rendered unnecessary or, at least, unusual. In this sense, political authority
is never a dyadic trait between a ruler and a single subject, but derives from
a collective that confers rights upon the ruler. As Peter Blau clarifies, from the
perspective of the collectivity of subordinates, compliance with authority is
voluntary, as subjects confer rights on the ruler. But from the standpoint of
any individual subordinate, compliance is the result of “compelling social pres-
sures” rooted in collective practice. As Blau concludes, “the compliance of sub-
ordinates in authority relationships is as voluntary as our custom of wearing
clothes.”14
Although distinct, political authority and coercion are intimately related in
the use of violence to enforce commands.15 The capacity for violence, if not
actual violence, is necessary to buttress or sustain authority in the face of incen-
tives to flout rules designed to constrain behavior. Even as he recognizes that he
should comply with A’s edicts, any individual may choose to violate any rule.
Duty creates only an expectation of compliance, but this does not produce or
require perfect obedience. One can cheat on one’s taxes, for instance, without
calling into question the government’s authority to impose taxes. Given incen-
tives by subordinates not to comply in specific instances, the ruler must use
violence to enforce edicts and, by example, to deter defection by other subor-
dinates. Especially in large groups where free riding is likely, violence may be
necessary to prevent widespread violation of commands and, thus, the erosion
of authority.
Despite their analytic differences, authority and coercion are thus hard
to distinguish in practice. They are deeply intertwined in their reliance on
violence, making it difficult for analysts to conclude whether, in any given
instance, a subordinate followed the ruler’s command out of duty or force.
What does differ between these two concepts is their social meaning. In
political authority, violence is used to enforce rules regarded as legitimate by
the community over which it is wielded. In coercion, violence is illegitimate,
often itself a violation of rules and, therefore, possibly subject to punishment
by some authority. Nonetheless, in any given instance, there is no bright line
separating authority and coercion, and I offer none here.16 This is not a fail-
ure of the analysis but rather a reflection of the intimate connection between
political authority and coercion.
Political authority is also distinct from other forms of legitimate social influ-
ence or power. Although the ruler and her rules must be legitimate to be in
authority, other legitimate constraints on human action exist.17 Social norms
are also legitimate—otherwise they would not be norms—and can limit the
actions of those subject to those norms. Likewise, expertise can make an actor
an authority, with a legitimate right to speak and possibly compel action on
issues pertaining to its knowledge.18 In focusing on authority here, and especially
political authority, I emphasize the ruler’s right to issue certain types of limited
commands. Thus, in my conception, political authority is an agentic form of
power different from other equally legitimate but more disembodied or struc-
tural forms of power originating within global civil society discussed elsewhere
in this volume.19
Forms of Authority in World Politics

Political authority arises in many forms. The right to rule has been variously
understood to derive from the charisma of individual leaders (charismatic
authority), tradition that is socially accepted and reproduced through ritualized
ceremony (traditional authority), or religious deities (religious authority).20 All
have played a role in legitimating political leaders and institutions in different
historical moments and continue to play a role in the world today. Joseph Nye’s
notion of “soft power,” for instance, is a variant of charismatic authority.21 In the
modern era, however, political authority largely rests on one of two primary
foundations: law or, I argue, a social contract.
In formal-legal authority, A’s ability to command B, the community of sub-

ordinates, and the willingness of B to comply, follows from the lawful position
or office that A holds.22 In this conception, A, the person (or unit) in author-
ity, possesses the right to issue laws and rules due to the office that A occu-
pies and not to any personal qualities that A may possess.23 This formal-legal
conception of authority was embodied in juristic theories of the state and, in
turn, imported into international relations, reaching its apogee in the writings of
Kenneth Waltz.24 Since there is no duly constituted legal authority above states,
it follows that there can be no authority between states.
Although perhaps useful for analyzing established domestic hierarchies, a
formal-legal conception is of dubious relevance for the study of international
relations. Most important, this approach cannot explain the emergence of
authority from within the state of nature. If political authority derives from law-
ful office, law must precede authority. But if political authority creates law, then
authority must precede lawful office. This chicken-and-egg problem implies that
the origins of authority must rest on something other than a formal-legal order.
If authority cannot derive from a formal-legal order in the first instance, it must
be that authority is compatible with or at least can arise in the state of nature.
Thus, it is possible that authority can exist within an otherwise “anarchic” inter-
national system.
Relational authority, premised on a social contract, is founded on an exchange
between ruler and ruled in which A provides a political order of value to B suf-
ficient to offset the loss of freedom incurred in subordination to A, and B con-
fers the right on A to exert the restraints on B’s behavior necessary to provide
that order. In equilibrium, a ruler provides just enough political order to gain
the compliance of the ruled to the taxes and constraints required to sustain that
order, and B complies just enough to induce A to actually provide it. A gets a
sufficient return on effort to make the provision of political order worthwhile,
and B gets sufficient order to offset the loss of freedom entailed in accepting A’s
authority. If A extracts too much or provides too little order, B can withdraw his
compliance, and A’s authority evaporates. In this way, relational authority, con-
tingent on the actions of both the ruler and ruled, is an equilibrium produced
and reproduced through ongoing interactions.
Even though states lack formal-legal authority over one another, they can
and do possess more or less relational authority, premised on the provision of
an international order.25 The terms of any social contract are determined by the
outside options of each party as well as prevailing norms of procedural justice
and fairness.26 The ability to project force over distance and create order far
from home is necessary for relational authority, and thus typically limits inter-
national authority to “great powers,” although some limited authority may also
be exercised by regional powers. Yet international authority in the nineteenth
century also rested on norms of racial and cultural superiority that justified and
“normalized” global inequalities and permitted European powers to rule over

vast colonial empires.27 Despite the greater coercive powers of the United States
today, norms of human equality and national self-determination constrain and
limit its authority to spheres of influence or, at most, “empires by invitation.”28
The fact that relational authority rests on the exchange of order for compliance
does not preclude the influence of other factors in setting the terms of the social
contract. Explaining varying patterns of international authority remains a chal-
lenge, long ignored, that can be taken up once the role of authority in world
politics is more fully revealed.
International Authority
Scholars of international politics, especially realists, have failed to understand
the distinction between coercion and authority and that both are forms of
power. The distinction is conceptual, even definitional. They are at one level
simply words, as Humpty Dumpty said to Alice, that mean only what we choose
them to mean—“neither more nor less.” Limiting conceptions of authority to
the formal-legal variety, however, scholars assume that international politics is
anarchic or devoid of authority and, thus, focus only on variations in coercive
capacity. Their emphasis on coercion at the expense of authority in world affairs
leads to impoverished theory and, at best, incomplete explanations of empirical
trends.
Though blurred in reality and hard to discern even through a more analytic
lens, the real test of the distinction between coercion and authority is whether
it allows us to see better patterns of international politics in the real world.
Elsewhere, I have demonstrated that international authority is associated with
a syndrome of behaviors by both dominant and subordinate states that is not
predicted or anticipated by traditional theories that focus only on coercion.29
In particular, dominant states provide a political order of value to their subor-
dinates, and accordingly are significantly more likely to join crises in which a
subordinate state is involved. Enjoying the protection provided by the dominant
state, in turn, subordinate states spend less on defense and engage in higher
levels of international trade—especially with others tied to the same dominant
state—than do nonsubordinate states. Legitimating the policies of their protec-
tor, subordinates are also more likely to follow dominant states in wars and,
especially, to join coalitions of the willing, even though they often contribute
little beyond their verbal support and could easily free ride on the efforts of oth-
ers. Finally, dominant states discipline subordinates who violate their commands
both by intervening to replace local leaders and ostracizing them from nor-
mal political intercourse through sanctions or other barriers to exchange. Such
behavioral patterns are the ultimate measure of the importance both analytically
and practically of international authority. Here, however, I hope to show in a
review of four distinct literatures that our understanding can also be enriched by
recognizing the authoritative nature of some (but certainly not all) relationships
in world politics.
Sovereignty: Organized Hierarchy

Sovereignty is a principle defining how authority should be organized within and
between states. It rests on three primary assumptions.30 The sovereign possesses
ultimate or final authority over all people and territory in a given realm. That is,
within any fixed territory, the sovereign has no authority above him. External
actors, in turn, are excluded from possessing or exercising authority over the
people or territory of the sovereign. Finally, sovereignty is indivisible, a whole
that cannot be shared or divided. Together, these three assumptions imply that
authority within a territorially delimited realm must culminate in a single apex
at the level of the state. Westphalian or juridical sovereignty is claimed by all
states today, even though the necessary conditions may not actually be satisfied.
Moreover, that states are, in fact, sovereign is assumed in many theories of inter-
national relations, especially realist approaches.
Revisionists have demonstrated that reality, however, is very different from
the principle of sovereignty. Krasner finds that in practice the deviations from
assumed sovereignty are sufficiently frequent and significant as to charge the
whole as “organized hypocrisy.”31 Revisionists explain anomalies in sovereignty
largely as product of coercion. Deviations from principle arise in this view
because states pursue interests and, through coercion, create exceptions in
weaker states when and where they can. Thus, Krasner shows, powerful states
create unequal rights and obligations in weaker states for protecting minorities
and human rights, sovereign debt, and so forth, creating a practice that is in
direct violation of the principle of sovereignty.32 Nonetheless, these anomalies
remain just that—anomalies. Focusing only on coercion-based deviations from
the principle of sovereignty, revisionists offer no metric for aggregating these
exceptions into any larger whole or pattern.
A focus on authority, alternatively, interprets these anomalies as patterns of
security and economic hierarchy in international relations in which sovereignty
is contingent, often partial, and always contested.33 Most important, authority
is not indivisible, and does not culminate in a single apex. Rather, it is multidi-
mensional, divisible, and possessed by many different actors both within states—
private authorities—and, more important, between states, with dominant states
exercising more or less authority over subordinate ones.34 This is obvious in the
case of formal overseas empires, such as those possessed by the European great
powers in the nineteenth century. But a variety of partial hierarchies continue
to exist in the world today. That the countries of Latin American have been
prohibited by the United States from allying with any great power other than
itself since the late nineteenth century, for instance, is not just a one-off excep-
tion to the principle of sovereignty, but a enduring restraint on their ability to
decide their foreign policies freely and a corresponding transfer of authority over
their affairs to Washington. Similarly, Japan, Germany, and even most of Europe
during the Cold War were not free to conduct independent foreign policies but
were limited to allying with the United States and complying with its defense
policy dictates. Limiting power to coercion blinds us to these patterned and
enduring relationships. Conversely, conceiving of these relationships as varying
in their degree of authority allows analysts to treat hierarchy as a variable within
the international system.35
This distinction between coercively imposed exceptions to a rule of sov-
ereignty and patterns of authority between states is not just academic, in
the full derogatory meaning of that term. Organized hypocrisy implies that
states act internationally to augment their capabilities so as to defend them-
selves against coercion from others or to make greater demands of others
in the future. In Krasner’s classic rendering, the United States intervened in
other states to defend its national interest in raw materials, defined in increas-
ing order of importance as (1) increasing competition, (2) ensuring security
of raw materials supply, and (3) promoting broad foreign policy objectives,
including material benefits for American society as a whole and ideological
objectives.36 The first two goals limit the coercive leverage raw materials pro-
ducers may wield over the United States, while the last embodies the positive
pursuit of American goals through coercion. More generally, Krasner argues,
the United States used military force, the ultimate form of coercion, only in
its self-defined interests.
Authority implies that dominant states also act to legitimate themselves in
the eyes of subordinates. Much like the feasting and gift cultures of the South
Pacific, where ceremonial banquets and exchanges can nearly bankrupt rulers
but serve to create debts of reciprocity and reinforce authority, these actions
can sometimes appear irrational or counterproductive.37 Although in relational
authority benefits are generally skewed toward dominant states that write the
rules of international order, such states must still act to create and maintain
political orders of value to subordinates even when it is inconvenient for them
to do so. For the United States, this has meant intervening in militarized dis-
putes on behalf of subordinates even when they have no direct interest in the
conflict. Dominant states must also discipline subordinates who violate the rules
of the international order they create or challenge their authority. In an extreme
case, the United States has vigorously sought to ostracize Cuba for nearly five
decades, a seemingly futile and costly effort against a minuscule power that
makes little sense other than as an attempt by a authoritative state to discipline
a wayward subordinate. Finally, and perhaps most important, dominant states
must also restrain their own authority and coercive powers to enhance their
claims to only limited rule over others.38 As but one example, the United States
has consistently wrapped its authority in multilateralism in the postwar era and,
especially, in the 1990s as it sought to expand into new regions, including the
Persian Gulf. By giving other countries some ability to “check and balance” its
authority, or at least to pull a “fire alarm” should it attempt to abuse its author-
ity, multilateralism served as a costly signal that the United States was willing to
exercise its leadership only within the bounds of what other states regarded as
legitimate.39 In authoritative relations, dominant countries, at least, do not define
their national interests in narrow self-seeking terms, as implied in a world of
only coercion. Rather, they see an interest in political order, in general, and are
willing to pay costs and forgo actions they might otherwise choose to create and
sustain their legitimate right to rule over others.
Sovereignty is not a static condition, but a variable. As the authority of the
state over more issue areas expands, its sovereignty expands as well. Conversely,
as it cedes authority over issues to others, including other states, its sovereignty
contracts. Sovereignty, like all authority, is always and everywhere contingent
and negotiated with the collectivity of subordinates who grant the “sovereign”
certain limited rights to command. Enlarging our focus to include authority as
power allows us to “see” and explain greater ranges of relationships and behav-
iors in international relations.
Authority and the Structure of International Trade

The theory of hegemonic stability captured the imaginations of many scholars
of international political economy, but then faded because of theoretical and
empirical problems.40 One variant, leadership theory, posited that hegemonic
states provided public goods as uniquely “privileged groups,” but it was never
clear analytically why small groups of large states could not do so as well.41 A
second variant, hegemony theory, expected states to have varying, structurally
determined interests in economic openness, and that free trade would arise only
as a result of coercion by the dominant state.42 Yet, sound microfoundations
were never provided for why hegemons would have more intense interests in
free trade than others. Problems of hegemonic “afterglow,” which Krasner attrib-
uted to domestic institutional friction,43 and the absence of overt attempts by
either Great Britain or the United States to coerce others to open to trade dealt
death blows to the theory.44 The rapid globalization of the world economy after
the supposed decline of the United States in the 1970s shut off further work
on this approach. Nonetheless, hegemonic stability theory called attention to
the role of great powers and political power more generally in determining the
nature and extent of globalization.
A focus on authority, noted by Gilpin but not fully developed,45 resolves

many of the analytic problems in hegemonic stability theory and, today, poses
a new research agenda for economic liberalization and globalization. Hegemony
can be understood as a set of dyadic hierarchies centered on a single dominant
state, such as the United States and Western Europe and Northeast Asia since
1945. Hierarchies are held together by promises of international order such as
the Pax Britannica, in which Britain ruled the waves, and the Pax Americana, in
which the United States today rules the air. Deterring challengers through the
atomic bomb and forward-based defense forces and governing others directly
and indirectly through the (reformed) Bretton Woods institutions, the United
States exchanges order for legitimacy. With order, countries rely upon the hege-
mon for protection and, as noted above, open themselves to international trade,
and especially to trade with other states subordinate to the same hegemon.46
Subordinates also follow the rules laid down by the dominant state. Coercion
is not central to this system but rather is the exception, necessary only against
“outsiders” who do not recognize the authority of the hegemon (e.g., the Soviet
Union and its allies during the Cold War) and to discipline wayward subordi-
nates (e.g., the Suez Crisis, Cuba). Coercion should be rare and anomalous,
and its absence should not detract from the theory.47 Similarly, authoritatively
provided international orders may need to be led by a single hegemonic state.
Although authority can be divided by issue area between states, in any given
area order is best provided and conflicts avoided when there is a single “ulti-
mate” authority able to determine the rules and adjudicate disputes. In the
absence of supranational third parties that govern states equally, international
authority is most effectively organized under a single state. Thus, while in prin-
ciple collective action problems can be solved by privileged groups of more than
one state, authoritative orders may arise most frequently and effectively under a
single hegemonic state.
In turn, authority is not strictly material and, as a social construct, can persist
long after coercive capabilities wane. Authority, of course, requires some coercive
capability to protect subordinates and punish violators, as above, but legitimate
rule is not related to material capabilities in any one-to-one relationship. Order
and authority can be maintained more easily than they are created. Subordinate
states “buy into” the hegemonic order and thereby empower the dominant coun-
try to use coercion legitimately, which reduces opposition and countervailing
coalitions that might otherwise arise and constrain the use of force. Moreover,
subordinate (and dominant) states eventually develop vested interests in the
authority and order of the hegemon, which give them incentives to actively sup-
port the dominant state, its efforts, and its uses of force when necessary. In this
way, the exchange of order for legitimacy central to relational authority, itself an
equilibrium, becomes more robust over time.48 Order and authority decline, in
turn, only when the subordinates withdraw their consent, the hegemon abuses
its authority by acting in its self-interest rather than the general interest (as hap-
pened in the early 1970s with the Nixon shocks and incipient protectionism
or in 2003 in the Iraq War), or the hegemon can clearly no longer provide the
required order. Focusing on authority rather than coercion, afterglow is not a
theoretical anomaly but an expected feature of hegemonic orders.
Finally, understanding the authoritative rather than coercive roots of hege-
mony also explains why international orders in the modern world are likely to
be liberal orders. Economic theory strongly implies that all states have an inter-
est in freer trade, even though particular groups or sectors within them may pre-
fer greater protection for their products.49 But just as economic actors within
states need order to invest in production facilities and to exchange goods, states
themselves on behalf of their economic actors need a modicum of international
order to protect rights in property, engage in a division of labor, and rely on for-
eign producers for essential goods and services. Without order, states are reluc-
tant to open themselves to high levels of international exchange regardless of its
immediate welfare effects. Liberal states, in turn, are more likely to succeed as
hegemons.50 For a state to subordinate itself to another is a profound decision.
It gives up a measure of policy autonomy, commits to following rules decided
by the dominant state, and opens itself to the possibility of punishment in the
event that it violates the rules or attempts to rescind the authority it granted to
the other. To consent to the dominant state’s authority, the subordinate must
be confident that the dominant state will not abuse its authority at some sub-
sequent date. Liberal states are more likely to be credible in their commitments
to agreed limits on their authority over other states.51 Democracy and divided
powers create internal checks and balances that constrain state authority and
create large spheres of private autonomy or private rights.52 In turn, domestic
actors adapt to and prosper within these spheres, supporting private property
rights, limited government regulation, and generally competitive markets. There
is no guarantee that their internal characteristics will always prevent abuse—
liberal empires have arisen historically—but the same limits on state authority
at home serve to limit the exercise of authority abroad as well and make liberal
states more “reliable partners.”53 As a result, liberal states are more likely to be
granted authority by others. Moreover, with either innate or selected preferences
for liberal economic orders at home, domestic interests in liberal states typi-
cally prefer liberal orders abroad that protect private property, limit concentra-
tions of market power, and encourage trade and investment. In this way, liberal
states with the support of their liberal domestic interest groups generalize their
domestic systems to the international level.54 It is not that hegemons are inher-
ently more liberal than other states, but liberal states are more likely to become
hegemonic.
A focus on authority thus resolves many of the theoretical and empiri-
cal problems at the heart of earlier, more coercive versions of the theory of
hegemonic stability. It builds upon the persistent intuition that power is central
to the structure of the international economy, and suggests that the conditions
for international economic liberalism are not so different from those for domes-
tic liberalism—and that authority, albeit limited authority, is necessary for both.
This rehabilitation of hegemonic stability theory and the continued authority of
the United States that it renders visible help explain the continued liberalism
of the international economy—even after the 2008 financial crisis, the greatest
economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Authority and Dissent: The Third World against

Global Liberalism
The New International Economic Order (NIEO) demanded by developing
countries in the 1970s posed a significant challenge to the liberal international
order created and led by the United States. Propelled by OPEC’s initial success
in raising the real price of oil, the NIEO focused attention on global inequal-
ity and demanded the “authoritative allocation” of resources, or the political
regulation of international trade and finance in explicit opposition to liberal
markets.55 The effort failed, subsequently being replaced by the “Washington
consensus,” which glorified pro-market economic reforms and international
openness.
From a focus on coercion, the NIEO is anomalous. The weakest members of
the international system sought to rewrite the rules of the international econ-
omy, propagated by the United States and other developed countries. It was a
bold call for a new redistributive bargain. The question from this perspective,
however, is not why did the NIEO fail but why did the developing states even
bother and why did the developed countries take their demands as seriously as
they did? Krasner argues, correctly, that the developing countries achieved their
limited successes only when they were able to affirm principles of international
or juridical sovereignty and exploit the rules of international institutions that
gave them voice.56 This is true as an empirical observation, but ignores the real-
ity that both sovereignty and the rules of international regimes are themselves
political institutions largely controlled, as Krasner showed elsewhere, by power-
ful states.57
To see the NIEO as simply redistributive bargaining is to interpret it too
narrowly. It was about redistributing the gains from exchange, to be sure, but
more fundamentally it was an attempt to challenge the overarching authority of
the United States, which depends in large part on subordinates recognizing the
legitimacy of the dominant state and its rules. It was the threat of collective defi-
ance and the rejection of the claim that the United States had the right to set
the rules of the international economy that made the NIEO so fraught. Even if
developing countries got little at the bargaining table—which was the eventual
result, foreseen from the very beginning—a collective denial of the authority of
the United States both promised to the developing countries an opportunity to
participate in writing a new global order and, in turn, threatened those vested in
the current American-led order. The NIEO is more fully understood as a collec-
tive act of defiance by otherwise subordinate states.
Like any opposition movement, the Group of 77 backing the NIEO contained
both reformers, who wanted to modify the rules, and revolutionaries, who sought
to overturn the entire system of authority. This split ultimately weakened the
demands for reform. Even the strategies adopted by the G77, however, reflected
the pervasive nature of American authority. The emphasis on sovereignty was
not just a bargaining ploy but an attempt to limit America’s authority over the
economic policies of developing states. By insisting on full national sovereignty,
and reclaiming national autonomy over their own affairs, developing countries
sought to reduce the areas of policy subject to US rule. In turn, postwar inter-
national institutions that permitted developing countries to give voice to their
demands were designed to create checks and balances on American hierarchy,
which they then artfully exploited.58 These multilateral institutions could not be
shut down or their members silenced because they served a larger purpose of
constraining American authority. In fact, they worked as intended as a safety
valve for complaints with American rule that produced cautious reforms on the
part of the United States.
Equally important, the NIEO was beaten back because of the support of the
community of other subordinates, largely other developed states, that continued
to recognize America’s authority and support its rules. The best prospect for suc-
cess by the developing world was to divide and conquer the developed nations,
offering special access to their own economies in exchange for meeting some or
all of their demands. By and large, however, the developed countries remained
a solid bloc and continued to support American leadership. Even in natural
resources policy, the area where the NIEO went furthest and major producers
were able to dangle attractive bilateral deals before consumers, the developed
countries maintained a degree of unity. Though they did not succeed in creating
a consumer’s cartel to break the one maintained by producers, the developed
countries did enact an oil-sharing regime that considerably blunted OPEC’s
impact;59 by the late 1980s the real price of oil had returned to pre-1973 levels.
Similarly, preferential trade agreements, like the Lomé Convention, could have
torn apart the coalition of developed countries, but in the end merely reinforced
prior regional or colonial hierarchies. Deeply vested in the Pax Americana,
Europe and Northeast Asia did not defect to any significant extent. As long
as enough other members of a community recognize the legitimacy of a ruler,
this empowers that ruler to ignore or even discipline members who challenge
its authority.60 With solid backing of other developed countries, who generally
benefited from the biases in the American-led international order and possessed
significant interests vested in that order, the United States was able to stand firm
against calls for fundamental reform of the international economy and, indeed,
to ostracize its most vociferous dissidents.
Having defeated the challenge from the NIEO, the United States suc-
ceeded in integrating much of the developing world into its international order
through the process of globalization and the policies embodied in the so-called
Washington consensus. Through the 1990s, countries liberalized their economies
both domestically and internationally, with most abandoning failed policies of
import-substituting industrialization and capital market restrictions. Even China
and India, the largest and most important holdouts from the American-led order,
liberalized their economies and became dependent on export-led growth by
the end of the century. Today, only a handful of “rogue” regimes dominated by
nationalist-religious-protectionist coalitions remain to challenge the Pax
Americana, with North Korea, Iran, Iraq before 2003, and increasingly Venezuela
forming a vanguard that now defies America’s authority.61
More consequentially, however, radical antiglobalization elements who failed
to undermine the authority of the United States through the NIEO and other
maneuvers have now taken up a global insurgency against the Pax Americana.
Having succeeded in bringing new states into its order, the United States now
faces non-state groups that have taken up arms against its authority and hide
within the interstices of the global system. The antiglobalization program that
found voice in the NIEO has now morphed into an increasingly violent move-
ment opposed to “the West.”
Sharing Authority: Failed States and Neo-trusteeship

The global insurgency now confronting the United States is being fought by
private, non-state groups hiding within failed states, which offer insurgents
safe havens either in exchange for resources or, de facto, because they cannot
prevent them from operating within their borders. Although this policy began
before 9/11 made the insurgency manifest, the United States has responded by
attempting to rebuild failed states and erecting international trusteeships over
their affairs.62 By helping states reestablish authority over their territories, the
United States hopes to shrink the safe havens and choke off the insurgents.
By developing and democratizing failed states, the United States also hopes to
recruit new subordinates for its international order.63
The problems of rebuilding failed states and the difficulties of establishing
effective trusteeships pose another paradox for approaches that understand coer-
cion as the only (or even the primary) form of international power. Failed states
are, almost by definition, the weakest members of the international community.
The United States has the coercive capability, if it chooses to use it, to intervene
at will for any purpose—to track down and kill terrorists, to station troops to
monitor and interrupt supply routes and communications, to promote friendly
governments, and other, more ambitious agendas.64 In terms of coercive capa-
bilities, relations between the United States and various failed states are among
the most asymmetrical in human history. Recognizing this fact, however, adds
little to our understanding of why state building and trusteeship are so problem-
atic in the modern age.65 Focusing on authority, however, reveals the core of the
problems currently confronting the United States.
First, whatever else it might entail, state building is first and foremost a process
of restoring the authority of the state. Following Max Weber’s famous definition,
states fail by either losing their monopoly over violence or their legitimacy.66
Rebuilding either is hard. Failed states fail for a reason. Deep-seated conflicts
of interest or historical distrust and animosity typically lead to immobilism or
violence, which then often exacerbate the underlying cleavages. Walter describes
the rebuilding of the state’s monopoly of violence as the “critical barrier” to civil
war settlement.67 Perhaps even tougher, however, is rebuilding the legitimacy of
the state. Short of total victory by one side in often multisided conflicts, the
political differences that led the state to fail must be accommodated by changing
the prior institutions and rules, but there is no political foundation on which to
build new institutions. In the anarchy that exists after state failure, groups face
the enormously difficult task of rebuilding legitimacy in an environment of fear,
animosity, and often hate without any established ground rules for political deci-
sion making. Rebuilding an authoritative government that has the support of its
population is no easy task.
Outside powers like the United States can sometimes play a catalytic role in
state building by setting new rules of politics, developed in consultation with
local stakeholders, and enhancing the credibility of this new regime.68 State
building is analogous to the problem of cycling in legislative majorities.69 In
any multidimensional issue space with no established rules and no agenda set-
ter, there may be no stable equilibrium; one coalition is displaced by a second,
which is displaced by a third, which is then possibly displaced by the first, and
so on, as witnessed in the ongoing political tragedy that is Somalia today. By
declaring that this set of rules rather than some other set will prevail, and that
it is prepared to defend these rules against challenges, the outside power can
create a focal point around which coalitions can stabilize—as with rules of pro-
cedure in legislatures, the outside power can “induce” an equilibrium.70 Despite
this catalytic role, however, the new state’s legitimacy always rests on the people.
Although an outside power can impose a focal point, it cannot make people
accept it as “rightful.” Legitimacy must grow from the ground up; it cannot be
imposed from the top down.71 The role of the United States or any other out-
side actor in state building is inherently limited.
Second, intervention in failed states violates the principle of Westphalian

sovereignty defended vigorously by states, especially postcolonial states, as a
means of limiting the authority of former colonial powers or other great pow-
ers over their affairs.72 Approving intervention in failed states risks recogniz-
ing the right of states to intervene in or exercise authority over any state.
Following the logic of the slippery slope, if it is rightful for the United States
(or any great power) to intervene in, say, Somalia, a state clearly unable to gov-
ern itself, what is to prevent it from claiming the right to intervene in states
that systematically abuse human rights (e.g., as the Bush administration did
in Iraq), adopt policies that produce high economic inequality or conversely
violate property rights (e.g., as in cases of raw materials expropriation), or per-
haps have regimes that Washington simply dislikes (e.g., Grenada)? Approving
a right to intervene in failed states is a risky first step toward broader inter-
ventionary powers. This is not a question of coercive capabilities, but rather
one of what rights do states—and especially great powers—have to govern in
whole or part other states.
As Krasner has shown, states have long intervened in one another’s affairs
and abridged their sovereignty.73 Neo-trusteeship has arisen to recognize and
at the same time to limit the authority of individual states over other states.74
Old-style trusteeship originated in an attempt to limit unilateral assertions of
rights by imperial states to rule other territories. League of Nation mandates
and, later, United Nations strategic trust territories, in essence, sought to regulate
imperialism and the forfeiture of sovereignty by subordinate units by requiring
the approval of a duly constituted body of other, already sovereign states. Both
mechanisms, however, lacked effective monitoring and oversight provisions, and
thus gave trustees a free hand in governing the trust territories for as long as
they wanted.75 Neo-trusteeship, as developed after the end of the Cold War,
expands this practice by requiring (1) the consent of some recognized body of
sovereign states, usually but not always the United Nations Security Council,
(2) a specific mandate outlining the purpose of the intervention, (3) stronger
oversight mechanisms with periodic reporting and reauthorization, and (4) a
limited timetable for withdrawing and restoring sovereignty to the territory or
turning the legal administration of the territory over to the United Nations or
another international body. By defining and tightly regulating the rights of the
trustee, the international community is attempting in practice to solve the prob-
lem of failed states while at the same time limiting the authority of would-be
trustees. But it is old wine in new bottles. Partly because of its roots in past
imperial practice, neo-trusteeship is still too controversial to be approved by the
United Nations in principle. Nonetheless, it is now close to common policy in
cases of failed states. As the exception that proves the rule, the United States
violated this emergent practice in invading Iraq without the approval of the
United Nations. This likely explains why the international community reacted
so unfavorably toward the war and, even today, refuses to offer the United States
any significant assistance in rebuilding the country.
Ironically, the restrictions that make neo-trusteeship acceptable to the interna-
tional community may also make it ineffective in rebuilding failed states. Based
on a limited number of historical cases, scholars have argued that state-building
attempts that begin early, before the violence has become widespread, are more
likely to succeed.76 But by the time that the international community agrees
that a state has indeed failed, it is usually quite late in the process. It is also
increasingly recognized that state building is a broad, multidimensional process
that requires addressing the problems within society that caused the state to fail
in the first place.77 Narrow and strict mandates, intentionally designed to limit
the authority of the trustee, cut against this goal. Finally, as noted, trustees are
often most helpful in establishing the credibility of a newly reconstituted state.
Limited time horizons and fixed timetables for withdrawal or transition, however,
undermine the credibility of the trustee’s commitment. Rather than encouraging
groups to take the new rules of politics as “given,” groups anticipate that the
trustee’s time is limited and either keep fighting or merely wait for it to depart
before contesting the state’s authority once again.78 Given the difficulties of state
building in general, finding the right balance between limits on the authority of
the trustees and the authority they need to succeed remains elusive.
The larger point, however, is that the politics of state building and neo-
trusteeship are not about coercion, which remains highly asymmetric, but are
all about how to restore authority within failed states and manage authority
between states. Nothing suggests more clearly that international politics is not
only a realm of “power politics,” if by that we mean coercive capabilities, but is
also an arena of authority by states over states.
Conclusion
Political realists, subversive or not,79 have long maintained that international
politics are, as Hans Morgenthau subtitled his classic text, a struggle for power.80
Nothing in this essay challenges this central tenet. Where scholars and realists
typically err, however, is in limiting power to material resources and coercive
capabilities. Authority is at least an equal form of power. Indeed, given that it is
usually easier to gain compliance by obligating others to follow one’s will rather
than through force of arms alone,81 authority may actually be a preferred form of
power, with coercion coming into play only to defend authority or when author-
ity itself cannot be obtained.
Recognizing the authoritative nature of world politics has profound impli-
cations for international relations theory and practice. Assuming that all rela-
tions between states are anarchic, realists portray world politics as a Hobbesian
state-of-nature, the proverbial war “of everyman, against everyman.”82 As seen

even in this brief reconstruction of several literatures, in the pursuit of authority
dominant states provide international orders of benefit to subordinates, disci-
pline subordinates that fail to comply with the rules of order or challenge their
authority, and tie their own hands through multilateralism and other means to
commit credibly to limits on their authority. Subordinate states, in turn, typi-
cally do comply with the rules of order and accept the dominant state’s position
as “rule maker” as rightful or legitimate. Although they may not benefit from
order to the same degree as dominant states, they still benefit on net compared
to their next best alternative—the state of nature. They rely on the protection of
the dominant state, enjoy unusually low defense spending, and open themselves
to trade and the benefits of the international division of labor. Seeking autonomy,
however, subordinates aim to limit the authority of dominant states over their
affairs and try to gain the best bargain they can from its order. Subordinates
adopt strategies of resistance and exploit the fetters that dominant states must
use to bind themselves. Though a contest for power, international politics are
equally a struggle for authority and autonomy.
Notes
1. In tribute to Stephen Krasner, these several literatures were selected because of his cen-
tral role in their development.
2. Bringing authority back in is part of the constructivist challenge to realist scholarship.
Nonetheless, constructivists have, by and large, not questioned the existence of interna-
tional anarchy, only its meaning for state practice (see Wendt 1992, 1999). Other con-
structivists have emphasized the role of moral authority in shaping state practice, which
is different from but complementary to the arguments I develop below about political
authority (see among others, Reus-Smit 1999, Finnemore 2003). See below.
3. Lake 2009.
4. Dahl 1957, 202.
5. See Krasner 1991.
6. For a more developed defense of this position, see Lake 2008.
7. Persuasion may be a third possible form but is not necessary for the points I want to
develop here about the role of authority in relation to coercion. On persuasion, see
Keohane (this volume). I also bracket “structural” forms of power to focus on agentic
forms. See below and Barnett and Duvall (2005).
8. Schelling 1966, 2.
9. See Flathman 1980, 35.
10. Hobbes 1651/1962, quoted in Williams 2006, 265.
11. Flathman 1980, 29.
12. Ibid., 30.
13. Bernard 1962, 169; Lasswell and Kaplan 1950, 133.
14. Blau 1963, 312.
15. Exclusion is another common means of enforcing political authority. See Lake 2010b.
16. In Lake 2009, however, I operationalize the concept of international hierarchy and dem-
onstrate that valid indicators of authority differ from those commonly used to measure
international coercive power. See esp. table 3.1, p. 81.
17. In this way, the phrase “legitimate authority” is redundant, while the phrase “authority is
legitimate” is purely definitional.
18. Flathman (1980) famously distinguishes between being in authority and being an author-
ity along these lines.
19. On structural power, see Barnett and Duvall 2005.
20. Weber 1978, 31–38, 215–254.
21. Nye 2002.
22. Weber 1978, 215–226.
23. Flathman 1980, 35.
24. On juristic theories of the state, anarchy, and international relations, see Schmidt 1998.
The concept of anarchy is most developed in Waltz 1979.
25. Lake 2009.
26. For a theory of hierarchy, see Lake 1999a. On the importance of justice and fairness in
support for authority, see Tyler 1990 and 2001
27. Crawford 2002, chap. 3.
28. On norms of national self-determination, see Jackson 1990. The phrase “empire by invi-
tation” is from Lundestad 1990.
29. Lake 2009.
30. Krasner 1999, 9–26; Lake 2009, 45–51.
31. Krasner 1999.
32. Ibid. See also Krasner 2001.
33. Lake 2009, chap. 2.
34. On private authorities within the global system, see Hall and Biersteker 2002, Cutler,
Haufler, and Porter 1999, Avant, Finnemore, and Sell 2010. For an extension of the con-
ception of authority summarized here to private authorities, see Lake 2010b.
35. On variations along dimensions of hierarchy, including in Latin America, see Lake 2009,
chap. 3. See also Weber 2000, Cooley 2005, Cooley and Spruyt 2009, and Hancock 2009.
36. Krasner 1978.
37. Diehl 2000; Godelier and Strathern 1991; Sahlins 2000.
38. For similar arguments not grounded in authority, see Ikenberry 2001 and Deudney
2007.
39. Lake 2009, chap. 4.
40. See Gilpin 1975, 1977, Krasner 1976, and Keohane 1980 for foundational works. On
problems, see Lake 1993.
41. Kindleberger 1973. On the possibility of privileged groups greater than one, see Lake
1984; Snidal 1985.
42. Gilpin 1975; Krasner 1976; Gowa 1994; Lake 1988.
43. Krasner 1976; see also Brawley 1999.
44. McKeown 1989.
45. Gilpin 1981, 30.
46. Lake 2009, 151–161.
47. Contrary to McKeown 1989.
48. Lake 2009, 30–33 and 41–43.
49. Frieden and Rogowski 1996.
50. See Gilpin 1977.
51. Lake 2009, 124–126; Martin 2000.
52. McDonald 2009.
53. Lipson 2003.
54. Lake 1999b.
55. Krasner 1985.
56. Ibid.
57. Krasner 1983, 1999.
58. Lake 2009, 126–128.

59. Keohane 1984, chap. 10.
60. Lake 2009, 18–19.
61. Solingen 1998.
62. Krasner 2004; Fearon and Laitin 2004; Bain 2003.
63. Lake 2010c.
64. Note that the choice to intervene is not the same as the choice to succeed, or to succeed
at the level of resources devoted to the goal. State building may well be beyond the abil-
ity of any external power to accomplish successfully.
65. See Stein, this volume.
66. Weber 1978. See also Lake 2010a.
67. Walter 1997.
68. Lake 2010a.
69. For an overview of the problem of cycling and its manifestations, see Schwartz 1987.
70. On structure-induced equilibria, see Shepsle 1979.
71. Lake 2010a.
72. Krasner 1999; Jackson 1990.
73. Krasner 1999.
74. Krasner 2004; Fearon and Laitin 2004.
75. Bain 2003.
76. Paris 2004; Rotberg 2004.
77. Ghani and Lockhart 2008; Paris and Sisk 2009.
78. Lake and Rothchild 1996.
79. Keohane, this volume.
80. Morgenthau 1978. Morgenthau added “and peace,” but this goal is often overlooked by
realists.
81. Levi 1988.
82. Hobbes 1651/1962.
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5
Governance under Limited Sovereignty

Thomas Risse
The social science debate on governance implicitly or explicitly remains wedded

to an ideal type of modern statehood—with full domestic sovereignty and the
capacity to make, implement, and enforce decisions.1 From a global as well as
historical perspective, however, the Western modern nation-state constitutes the
exception rather than the rule. Outside the developed OECD world, we find
areas of limited statehood that lack domestic sovereignty. Under such condi-
tions, governance requires the inclusion of non-state actors in the provision of
collective goods and the regulation of social and political issues.
Yet our conceptual apparatus is ill-equipped to deal with the governance
problématique in areas of limited statehood. The Western governance discourse
is not only heavily influenced by modernization theory. It also assumes mod-
ern statehood and a fully functioning state as background conditions, if only to
cast a “shadow of hierarchy” to induce other actors to provide public goods and
services. Stephen Krasner’s work has opened up this debate by unpacking the
concept of sovereignty and demonstrating that international, “Westphalian,” and
domestic sovereignty do not always go together and that there are many “variet-
ies of sovereignty.”2 Krasner differentiates between international (juridical inde-
pendence and mutual recognition), “Westphalian”3 (exclusion of external actors
from authority structures in a territory), domestic (organization of authority in
a state and ability of authorities to exercise effective control), as well as interde-
pendence sovereignty (ability to control cross-border flows).
In this chapter, I focus on domestic as well as “Westphalian” sovereignty.
While most states in the contemporary international system enjoy international
recognition, their domestic sovereignty is severely circumscribed, as a result of
which their “Westphalian” sovereignty is often limited, too. In other words, “lim-
ited” statehood or sovereignty is a fact of life in the contemporary international
system (and has probably always been that way). I argue, therefore, that most
states in the contemporary system are “problematic sovereigns” (see introduc-
tion to this volume).
If that is the case, then governance is problematic, too, and the question
has to be asked: Who governs for whom, and how are governance services
78
Governance under Limited Sovereig nt y 79
provided under conditions of weak statehood? I claim that limited statehood

does not mean the absence of governance or of the provision of collective
goods, as most of the literature on fragile and failed states assumes.4 I argue
in the following that limited sovereignty does not represent the end of gover-
nance. Rather, collective goods and services are provided by various combina-
tions of state and non-state actors using predominantly non-hierarchical modes
of steering.5 These so-called “new” modes of governance6 are often effective
even in the absence of consolidated statehood casting a credible “shadow of
hierarchy.” I discuss functional equivalents for such consolidated statehood of
fully sovereign states.
Emphasizing governance rather than statehood allows us to abandon the
state-centered view of politics and to ask who is providing which rules struc-
tures and which public services under conditions of limited statehood. The
governance perspective also enables us to look for functional equivalents to
the ability of consolidated states to cast a “shadow of hierarchy” as a con-
text for effective governance by and with non-state actors. Governance in
areas of limited statehood is multilevel governance linking inter- and trans-
national actors to local ones in a variety of rule and authority structures.
This environment, in which areas of limited statehood are embedded, pro-
foundly shapes governance under these conditions (see also introduction to
this volume).
The chapter proceeds in the following steps: I first describe what “limited
statehood” means. Second, I discuss the modes of governance to be found in
areas of limited statehood. Third, I analyze governance problems arising in areas
of limited statehood and then introduce functional equivalents to consolidated
statehood, which insure that rules are being enforced and governance contribu-
tions by non-state actors are effective. Finally, the chapter addresses some of the
questions raised in the introduction to this volume.
Limited Sovereignty and Limited Statehood

The concept of “limited statehood” needs to be strictly distinguished from “fail-
ing” and “failed” statehood.7 Most typologies in the literature and data sets on
fragile states, “states at risk,” etc., reveal a normative orientation toward highly
developed and democratic statehood and, thus, toward the Western model.8 The
benchmark is usually the democratic and capitalist state governed by the rule
of law.9 Take the OECD definition of fragile statehood, for example: “States are
fragile when state structures lack political will and/or capacity to provide the
basic function needed for poverty reduction, development and to safeguard the
security and human rights of their populations.”10 Such a conceptualization is
analytically problematic, because it defines states by the governance services
they are supposed to provide. This definition also contains a normative bias
toward Western statehood.
Yet we need to have an understanding of statehood before we can define
“limited statehood.” As usual, a good starting point is Max Weber’s conceptu-
alization of statehood as an institutionalized rule structure with the ability to
steer hierarchically (Herrschaftsverband) and to legitimately control the means of
violence.11 While no state governs hierarchically all the time, states at least pos-
sess the ability to authoritatively make, implement, and enforce central decisions
for a collectivity. In other words, states command what Krasner calls “domestic
sovereignty,” that is, “the formal organization of political authority within the
state and the ability of public authorities to exercise effective control within
the borders of their own polity.”12 This definition contains two aspects, namely
“authority” (Herrschaft would be the more precise German term) and “effective
control.” Herrschaft/authority is possible without effective control, since it can
be based on the voluntary consent of those being ruled; statehood usually relies
on a combination of authority and control.13
This understanding allows us to strictly distinguish between statehood as an
institutional structure of authority, on the one hand, and the kind of governance
it provides, on the other. The latter is an empirical not a definitional question.
While control over the means of violence is part of the definition, it becomes an
empirical question whether this monopoly over the use of force provides secu-
rity for the citizens as a public good (or governance).
We can now define more precisely the notion of “areas of limited statehood.”
In short, while areas of limited statehood belong to internationally recognized
states (even Somalia still commands international sovereignty), it is their domes-
tic sovereignty which is severely circumscribed. In other words, areas of limited
statehood concern those parts of a country in which central authorities (govern-
ments) lack the ability to implement and enforce rules and decisions and/or in
which the legitimate monopoly over the means of violence is lacking, at least
temporarily. Areas of limited statehood can be parts of the territory (e.g., prov-
inces far away from the national capital), but they can also be policy areas
(e.g., the inability to implement and enforce environmental laws). In this under-
standing, areas of limited statehood are not confined to fragile, failing, or failed
states—the latter having completely lost their domestic sovereignty. Rather, this
conceptualization implies that even otherwise fully consolidated states14 might
contain areas of limited statehood in which they do not enjoy domestic sov-
ereignty, at least temporarily (New Orleans shortly after the hurricane Katrina
being an example). It follows that domestic sovereignty is problematic for almost
all states in the contemporary international system, at least in some respect (see
introduction to this volume).
Areas of limited statehood are ubiquitous phenomena in the contempo-
rary international system, but also in historical comparison. After all, the state
monopoly over the means of violence has only been around for a little more
than 150 years or so. Most of the world’s current states contain “areas of lim-
ited statehood” in the sense that central authorities do not control the entire
territory, do not completely enjoy the monopoly over the means of violence,
and/or have limited capacities to enforce and implement decisions, at least in
some policy areas or with regard to large parts of the population. This is what
Somalia, Brazil, and Indonesia, but also the People’s Republic of China, have in
common. Even most of the emerging economies contain areas of limited state-
hood in which they are incapable to implement and enforce decisions.
Figure 5.1 contains a map of the world that provides an idea about the size
and scope of the phenomenon. The map is based on combining several indica-
tors measuring the degree to which a state enjoys a monopoly over the means of
violence and the extent to which it has basic administrative capacities. The indi-
cators are conservative and partly even misleading, since the index only mea-
sures entire countries and not areas of limited statehood in the sense defined
above. But they do show that the phenomenon of limited statehood is real and
not to be underestimated.
In other words, only a few countries, such as Somalia or the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), fall in the category of failed, failing, or fragile states.
The vast majority of states—democracies such as Argentina, South Africa, or
Mozambique, but also Libya or Russia—fall in the middle category in that they
are neither failed nor consolidated states, but contain areas of limited statehood
in the sense defined above.
Note that limited domestic sovereignty primarily refers to a lack of capacity
rather than willingness of states to enforce decisions. States often choose not to
enforce the rules in some issue areas for a variety of reasons, even if they could.
Many authoritarian states that enjoy full domestic sovereignty do not enforce
international human rights, even though they have committed to them.16 This
is not what is meant by limited statehood. In other cases, rule enforcement in
some parts of the territory leads to limited statehood in other parts. In the case
of Mexico City or Buenos Aires, for example, city authorities are perfectly able to
provide public security in the rich and wealthy quarters, but—as a result—lack
the resources to protect the quarters in which the poorer parts of the population
live.17 In this case, choices are made where to spend the state’s limited capacities.
Last but not least, limited statehood should not be confused with “neoliberal”
statehood in the sense of deliberate decisions by national governments to with-
draw from providing public services and governance in various policy areas.
Since lack of domestic sovereignty is an almost ubiquitous phenomenon in
the contemporary international system, this has serious consequences for the
way in which we think about statehood in general. The modern, developed, and
sovereign nation-state turns out to be a historical exception in the context of
this diversity of limited statehood. Even in Europe, the birthplace of modern
Figure 5.1 Degrees of Statehood in the Contemporary International System (2008)15
statehood, nation-states only were able to fully establish the monopoly over the
use of force in the nineteenth century. The globalization of sovereign statehood
as the dominant feature of the contemporary international order only took place
in the 1960s, as a result of decolonization.
The world today, as an international community of states, is largely based on
the fiction that it is populated by fully consolidated states. International law is
based on the idea of sovereign nation-states, which the international community
assumes are functioning states that command “effective authority” over their ter-
ritories.18 Moreover, international law and the legalization of world politics have
increasingly embedded states in a net of legal and other binding obligations in
almost every policy area.19 Legalization assumes that states are fully capable of
implementing and enforcing the law. The international prohibition on interven-
ing in the internal affairs of sovereign states is based on the assumption that
states have the full capacity to conduct their own domestic affairs. Ironically,
many developing countries where limited statehood constitutes part of the daily
experience of the citizens firmly insist on their full rights as sovereign states
and are adamantly opposed to any intervention in their internal affairs. In many
cases, the more states lack domestic sovereignty, the more they reject any intru-
sion on their “Westphalian” sovereignty.
This leads me to a more thorough discussion of the governance problématique
in areas of limited sovereignty and statehood.
Who Governs in Areas of Limited Sovereignty?

How is governance possible in areas of limited statehood, and what problems
arise? By governance, I mean the various institutionalized modes of social coor-
dination to produce and implement collectively binding rules, or to provide
collective goods.20 Governance consists of both structural and process dimen-
sions; it covers steering by the state (“governance by government”), governance
via cooperative networks of public and private actors (“governance with gov-
ernment”), as well as rule making by non-state actors or self-regulation by civil
society (“governance without government”).21
The modern (Western) nation-state, thus, constitutes a governance structure.
First, it provides a structure of rule and authority, a system of political and social
institutions to generate and to implement authoritative political decisions. Today,
democracy and the rule of law belong to the generally accepted norms of these
institutions for authoritative rule making. Second, the Western nation-state has
the task to protect the internal and external security of its citizens. The monop-
oly over the means of violence is supposed to do just that. Finally, the render-
ing of public services is part of the classical responsibilities of the state, from
the creation of economic stability, the guarantee of minimal social security, to
public health, education, and, today, the maintenance and the creation of a clean
environment. In short, the modern Western nation-state provides governance in
the areas of rule making and enforcement, on the one hand, and with regard to
collective goods such as security, welfare, and a clean environment, on the other.
While this nation-state is undergoing profound transformations,22 its ability to
ultimately make, implement, and enforce decisions is beyond doubt, even if the
modern state privatizes or deregulates previously public services.
This changes profoundly under conditions of limited statehood. Governance
in areas of limited statehood requires providing these very governance services in
the absence of a fully functioning state exerting at least a “shadow of hierarchy”
with the ability to enforce and implement decisions. So, who governs in areas
of limited statehood? Interestingly enough, areas of limited statehood are rarely
characterized by the complete absence of governance or by chaos and anarchy.
For more than a decade now, the Somaliland province of the failed state Somalia
has enjoyed comparatively decent governance in the areas of security, develop-
ment, and public health.23 The following graph (see figure 5.2) represents several
indicators for service provision by degrees of statehood. Each dot represents one
country and its degree of provision of particular services.
Three findings stand out: First and not surprisingly, consolidated states, those
with a statehood score of 0.9 or above, provide collective goods in most areas.
Second, there is huge variation in the degree to which public goods and ser-
vices are provided in states with areas of limited statehood. And this variation
remains so even in failed or failing states, those at or below a score of 0.4 on
.8
Service Provision
.6
.4
.2
0
.2 .4 .6 .8 1
Statehood
security economic subsistence
environment infrastructure
education health
Figure 5.2 Governance Indicators and Degrees of Statehood1

1
The x-axis uses the same indicators as the world map in figure 5.1. The dots represent
indicators for governance services such as security, environment, education, etc. by
country. For details see Lee et al. forthcoming.
the statehood index.24 Areas of limited statehood and even failed states are not
devoid of services. Third, the variation does not disappear in polities with areas
of limited statehood if we control for two macro variables often used in develop-
ment studies and comparative politics: regime type (democracy vs. autocracy),
on the one hand, and economic development (GDP per capita), on the other.25
So who governs and who provides public services in areas of limited state-
hood if the central government is too weak to do so? We observe empirically26
that forms of governance emerge that the contemporary social science litera-
ture discusses as “new” modes of governance or the privatization of author-
ity.27 These “new” modes usually combine two dimensions: actors and modes
of steering.
As to the actor dimension of governance, we find various combinations of
state and non-state actors governing areas of limited statehood. First, contract-
ing out and delegating authority to non-state actors such as (I)NGOs to provide
governance services has become standard procedure of many national govern-
ments and international organizations. In the international humanitarian aid sec-
tor, for example, state donors channeled about one-third of their $8.4 billion
funding through humanitarian NGOs in 2005. At the same time, humanitar-
ian NGOs received about as much money from the eight biggest state donors
(including the EU) as the various UN agencies to carry out humanitarian proj-
ects (if the International Red Cross and the Islamic Human Rights Commission
are included, 60 percent of the resources went to NGOs).28
Second, transnational public private partnerships (PPPs), in which national
governments, international (inter-state) organizations, as well as (multinational)
firms and (international) nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) cooperate,
are ubiquitous in areas of limited statehood.29 PPPs are particularly instrumental
in the implementation process of the UN Millennium Development Goals. In
issue areas such as public health, PPPs as well as private foundations such as the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have become the leading “governors” pro-
viding basic health services in areas of limited statehood.30 Child immunization
and the fight against HIV/AIDS are cases in point in which these PPPs wield
considerable power and authority, outweighing by far the relevant IOs such as
the WHO.
Third, the role of private companies in providing governance in areas of lim-
ited statehood must be mentioned.31 In some cases, such as the modern protec-
torates (e.g., Iraq or Afghanistan), companies govern on behalf of the occupation
forces or the international community in the sense of delegated authority.32 The
more interesting cases are those in which companies provide governance more
or less voluntarily, be it in the context of some transnational agreement, be it
in the form of voluntary self-regulation. After a huge transnational mobiliza-
tion, the Shell Oil Company today is a leading “governor” in the Niger delta
of Nigeria, where central state authorities are virtually absent.33 Multinational
automobile companies have become significant forces in the fight against HIV/
AIDS in South Africa.34 In most cases, companies do not provide governance
out of altruistic motives (they do not become charities), but out of sheer neces-
sity or because of transnational mobilization (I come back to this point below).
Last but not least, local non-state actors, including so-called traditional insti-
tutions, are governance actors in areas of limited statehood, too. A 2007 survey
conducted among twenty-five hundred households in northeastern Afghanistan
showed that traditional communal judiciary institutions enjoyed much more
legitimacy than the central Afghan government among the local population—
on a par with international governance actors.35 Governance in Somaliland is
provided by a combination of international and local actors (see above). In
many cases, “governors” in areas of limited statehood include warlords and
other violent actors,36 as well as the quintessential transnational “bad guys”
such as terrorist groups (e.g., Hamas in the Gaza strip and Hezbollah in south-
ern Lebanon).
The examples mentioned above point to a significant feature of governance
in areas of limited statehood. In most cases, it is “multilevel governance,” since it
systematically involves a combination of local, national, as well as international
and transnational actors, including foreign governments, IOs, multinational
companies, and NGOs.37 The governance role of inter- and transnational actors
results from necessity, given the state weakness in areas of limited statehood.
In many cases, inter- and transnational actors directly interfere with the coun-
try’s “Westphalian” sovereignty—that is, they exercise authority in the absence
of a consolidated state. Neo-trusteeships only constitute the tip of the iceberg.38
In most cases, legitimate authority is exercised in the absence of any formal-
ized trusteeship. In other words, shared sovereignty among and between local,
national, international, and transnational actors is the rule in areas of limited
statehood, irrespective of whether this is formalized or not. It is remarkable that
the enormous literature on multilevel governance that predominantly deals with
the European Union (EU) has not yet realized that similar phenomena are all
too common in areas of limited statehood.39
The second dimension of governance concerns modes of steering. The modern
and consolidated nation-state has the ability of hierarchical steering, that is, to
authoritatively enforce the law, ultimately through policing and “top down” com-
mand and control. It is precisely this ability to enforce decisions that is lacking
in areas of limited statehood. To the extent that hierarchical steering and author-
itative rule do take place in areas of limited statehood, we have to look for actors
other than the respective national governments. Warlords and local “big men”
sometimes exert hierarchical control in war-torn areas of limited statehood.40
In addition, international organizations as well as (mostly Western) states often
interfere authoritatively, particularly in the modern protectorates such as Kosovo
or Afghanistan, which have all but lost their “Westphalian sovereignty.”41
Much more common, however, are non-hierarchical modes of social coordi-

nation in areas of limited statehood.42 Non-hierarchical steering involves creating
and manipulating incentives and “benchmarking.” Positive incentives, but also
sanctions, are meant to affect the cost-benefit calculations of the relevant parties
and to induce the desired behavior. Governance also includes bargaining pro-
cesses and horizontal negotiation, as well as non-manipulative communication,
persuasion, and learning. The latter modes of governance aim at challenging
fixed interests and preferences so that actors are induced in socialization pro-
cesses to internalize new rules and norms. In the absence of a fully functioning
state able to authoritatively steer and to enforce decisions, governance in areas
of limited statehood often resembles continuous negotiation systems with rather
open-ended bargaining and arguing processes. The lack of state enforcement
capacity also implies that it is hard to make agreements stick and to engage in
credible commitments.
In short, governance in areas of limited statehood requires providing rules,
regulations, and public services in the absence of a fully functioning state whose
domestic sovereignty is compromised, at least on parts of the territory or in
some policy areas. In many cases, a state’s “Westphalian” sovereignty is com-
promised, too, insofar as external actors exercise authority in such areas of lim-
ited statehood. To some degree, this situation resembles the “cooperation under
anarchy” problématique of the international system.43 As a result, we find simi-
lar mixed-motive situations for the actors involved in governance. Under these
conditions in areas of limited statehood, forms of governance emerge that the
contemporary social science literature discusses as “new” modes of governance
or the privatization of authority. Institutional state weakness implies that PPPs
or even pure private forms of governance are becoming the rule rather than the
exception, if governance services are supplied at all.
The peculiarities of governance in areas of limited statehood create their own
problems. I will now turn to these issues.
Problems of Effective Governance in Areas

of Limited Statehood
The very reasons why governance in areas of limited statehood has to sub-
stitute for weak domestic sovereignty also explain why the effectiveness and
problem-solving capacity of the emerging modes of governance encompass-
ing state and non-state actors are often questionable. There is often a tendency
in the literature to celebrate “new” modes of governance as a solution to the
world’s problems.44 However, it is not altogether clear whether PPPs are part
of the solution or part of the problem. For example, neo-patrimonial and cli-
entelistic structures in large parts of Africa, but also in the southern Caucasus,
often resemble such public private partnerships. But in these cases, governance
is provided only for a small part of the population, namely the members of cli-
entelistic networks. Security, for example, might become a club good, so that
access to it is restricted.45 In the worst case, a state’s assets are privatized and its
resources and institutions exploited for the enrichment of the ruling elites and
their clientele.
Moreover, even well-meaning transnational PPPs or multinational corpora-
tions engaging in governance in areas of limited statehood still have to deal with
central state authorities that are often corrupt and clientelistic precisely because
of limited statehood. Weak state institutions not only lead to limited enforcement
capacities with regard to rules and regulations; they are also not capable of keep-
ing greedy or power-hungry state actors in check—let alone enforcing the rule
of law vis-à-vis government actors themselves. Limited domestic sovereignty can,
thus, seriously hamper the effectiveness of governance by non-state actors, too.
Last but not least, particularly multinational corporations for whom profit
making is constitutive and who are unlikely to become charities even in areas of
limited statehood face compliance problems under conditions of weak domestic
sovereignty. They might have committed to transnational regulations or volun-
tary principles, but implementing these rules locally and complying with them
is a more daunting task, particularly since there is little local enforcement.46 This
might partly be a lack of willingness to comply, but in many cases, companies
are faced with conflicting goals between profit making and market pressures, on
the one hand, and contributing to governance by complying with transnational
rules, on the other.
In sum, we are faced with an apparent governance paradox: the more limited
state capacities are to implement and to enforce decisions and to provide pub-
lic services, the more governance by PPPs or non-state actors is necessary to
ensure at least minimum access to collective goods. At the same time, however,
limited statehood itself seriously hampers the effectiveness of “new” modes of
governance.
This issue is usually identified in the literature as the “shadow of hierarchy”
problem.47 Research on modes of governance in the OECD world and on the
transformation of (modern) statehood has demonstrated that public-private
cooperation (such as PPPs) and private self-regulation are usually most effec-
tive under the “shadow of hierarchy.” This means that state agencies supervise
private regulatory efforts and/or that governments threaten to legislate if private
actors do not get their act together or do not provide the collective goods. The
liberalization of various public services—such as telecommunications, electric-
ity, and the like—has led to ample efforts at reregulation by the modern state.48
Hierarchical steering or the threat to do so appears to be a precondition for the
successful implementation and effectiveness of modes of governance in consoli-
dated states and beyond. In other words, non-hierarchical modes of steering and
including non-state actors in governance complement rather than substitute for

regulatory activities by national governments or supranational institutions such
as the EU. Moreover and paradoxically, strong states or strong supranational
organizations are required for non-hierarchical modes of steering to be effective
and to enhance the problem-solving capacity of governance.49 Managing pri-
vate authority requires effective state capacities, including a strong “shadow of
hierarchy.”
If these findings are universally applicable, then governance in areas of lim-
ited statehood is doomed. Areas of limited statehood are by definition charac-
terized by weak state capacities to implement and enforce decisions—that is,
by weak “shadows of hierarchy.” Moreover, the contribution of non-state actors
to the provision of collective goods has to substitute for governance by govern-
ments rather than to complement it. If the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
decides to withdraw from providing services in the area of public health—for
example, the immunization of children—in sub-Saharan Africa, these services
will not be provided at all.50 If Daimler and other automobile manufacturers
in South Africa were to withdraw from fighting HIV/AIDS at their produc-
tion facilities and the surrounding areas, the fight against the pandemic would
become hopeless.51 In each of these examples, the central governments are far
too weak to provide the collective goods in question. As a result, private actors
and the international community substitute for rather than complement gover-
nance by the state.
Moreover, as figure 5.2 above suggests, governance in areas of limited state-
hood appears to be effective in many cases across a wide range of issues. How
can this be, in the absence of a functioning “shadow of hierarchy?” The empiri-
cal evidence suggests that there are functional equivalents for the ability of con-
solidated states to not only enforce decisions, but also see to it that non-state
actors contribute to the provision of governance.
Functional Equivalents to the “Shadow of Hierarchy”

Consolidated statehood is a prominent way but not the only way to generate
a shadow of hierarchy.52 Possible alternatives can be conceptually distinguished
according to the underlying logic of social action, namely whether they rely on
a logic of consequences or a logic of appropriateness.53 According to the logic
of consequences, self-interested and utility-maximizing actors are likely to con-
tribute to governance given the right incentives and/or if they are embedded
in institutional settings constraining them. I discuss two alternatives below to
the shadow of hierarchy using the logic of consequences—namely the risk of
anarchy, on the one hand, and the involvement of external actors able to cast a
shadow of hierarchy “from afar,” on the other.
According to the logic of appropriateness, actors are embedded in normative

structures that induce them to “do the right thing” and to follow social rules.
Again, I discuss two alternatives to the shadow of hierarchy relying on this logic,
namely how normative structures affect and embed markets, and how local com-
munity norms lead to governance. Empirically, I mainly focus on companies as
the quintessential self-interested and profit-oriented non-state actors, which are,
therefore, unlikely to contribute to governance per se.
The Risk of Anarchy

While the shadow of hierarchy provides a key incentive for non-state actors to
engage in governance and the provision of collective goods, the same might hold
true for the exact opposite, namely the absence of political order. If the state is
not capable of adopting and enforcing collectively binding decisions, non-state
actors face the danger that there is no governance at all. In the case of compa-
nies, for example, the pursuit of their individual self-interests often depends on
the provision of certain common goods and collectively binding rules to produce
them. If the state is not capable or unwilling to provide them, companies have
a major incentive to step in and to provide governance in areas of limited state-
hood. Take, once again, the case of HIV/AIDS in South Africa:54 Multinational
companies of the automotive industry, such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, or General
Motors, require skilled labor, which, however, suffers from the HIV/AIDS pan-
demic. In the absence of a functioning public health system, including public
education on the risks of the pandemic, companies have been stepping in to
provide health and education services not only for their workers, but also for
their families and the larger communities. In this case, the firms’ self-interest
in human capital rather than any orientation toward the public good provides
strong incentives to engage in health and education governance in the absence
of a functioning state.55
The anarchy issue in areas of limited statehood closely resembles the inter-
national system with its absence of an enforcer or hegemon. Transnational or
global governance has to cope with the problem that there is no world state to
insure compliance with costly rules. Rather, in the case of international regimes,
individual states have to voluntarily enforce norms and rules.56 At the same time,
the various international institutionalisms57 have convincingly demonstrated that
“cooperation under anarchy”58 is indeed possible if and when egoistic actors can-
not reach their goals unilaterally or if and when their unilateral action produces
negative externalities for everybody involved. In other words, governance and
the provision of collective goods are possible even in the absence of an enforcer
who can cast a credible “shadow of hierarchy.”
Moreover, the institutionalist literature has also identified scope condi-
tions for the provision of effective governance in world affairs. The literature
on “legalization,” for instance, has argued that compliance with costly rules is
all the more likely, the more the norms and rules are well-defined (precision),
the higher the degree of obligation, and the more adjudication of compliance
is referred to independent monitoring or even judicial systems (delegation).59
This proposition was evaluated with regard to transnational PPPs providing
governance to reach the United Nations Millennium goals in areas of limited
statehood—and it held up pretty well against the empirical evidence, particu-
larly in the case of service-providing partnerships that involved large amounts
of financial resources.60 The more institutionalized the respective PPP, the more
effective it was in contributing to public services in areas of limited statehood.
External Actors Compensating for Limited Statehood

The state is not the only one to cast a shadow of hierarchy inducing actors to
provide governance on its home territory. Rather, external actors, such as inter-
national organizations and foreign governments, can commit non-state actors
to participate in effective governance. First, external actors may directly inter-
fere with a country’s “Westphalian” sovereignty, including the monopoly over
the means of violence, as well as enforcing decisions authoritatively. Prominent
examples for such areas of limited statehood are the modern protectorates
from Bosnia to Afghanistan. Moreover, the emerging international norm of the
“responsibility to protect” can be invoked if a state is neither willing nor capable
of providing even a minimum degree of governance. As a result, the interna-
tional community has at least the right to intervene and to provide governance if
everything else fails. If a state’s “Westphalian” sovereignty is constrained through
direct interference by the international community, external actors are the more
likely to cast a credible shadow of hierarchy the more they actually control the
means of violence and the more they can effectively enforce decisions. In this
case, lack of domestic sovereignty is directly substituted for by external actors
who can also provide a shadow of hierarchy necessary to ensure effective gover-
nance by non-state actors.
Second, under international law, NGOs, companies, and local actors can be
obliged to comply with standards of good governance in areas of limited state-
hood.61 Third, actors who then provide governance are obligated by the same
rules as the state government that is no longer capable of living up to interna-
tional standards. In other words, there are standards of international law that
hold non-state actors directly accountable to provide governance under con-
ditions of limited statehood. Whether this results in effective and sustainable
governance, however, is an altogether different question. Who enforces inter-
national law in areas of limited statehood? In the absence of an effective state,
direct obligations of non-state actors under international law to provide gover-
nance might not matter much. Unless a company, for example, feels committed
to international law for other reasons (the logic of appropriateness or reputa-

tional concerns; see below), enforcement of international law has to rely on
other mechanisms.
Finally, national governments of (consolidated and democratic) states, where
multinational companies and transnational NGOs have their headquarters, may
also force non-state actors to contribute to governance in areas of limited state-
hood. In this particular case, home-country laws are in place requiring non-state
actors such as companies to comply with standards of good governance or other
regulations (e.g., environmental laws) irrespective of where they invest or act.
Home-country regulations have proven to be a powerful factor to commit com-
panies in particular to provide governance in areas of limited statehood.62 There
are two causal mechanisms linking home-country regulations to companies’
contributions to governance in areas of limited statehood. In some cases, such
as the US and United Kingdom, companies can be legally bound to comply with
regulatory norms of their home country when they invest abroad. The second
mechanism is more indirect and works through economies of scale or through
market considerations in a globalized economy. Firms producing for markets
with a high degree of regulation (e.g., in the realm of environmental standards)
have little incentive to use different production standards in areas of limited
statehood. In this way, production networks in a globalized economy result in
firms providing governance.63
The provision of an external authority casting a shadow of hierarchy points
to the opposite mechanism as the one identified above as the “risk of anarchy.”
While the latter is defined by the absence of a state, the former still requires
consolidated statehood—for example, in the home country of a non-state actor.
The two alternatives to domestic sovereignty may complement and actually rein-
force each other. In this case then, the multilevel nature of governance in areas
of limited statehood provides for a functional equivalent to consolidated state-
hood’s ability to cast a shadow of hierarchy. Binding non-state actors to inter-
national law as well as home-country regulations does not require the formal
intrusion in a state’s “Westphalian” sovereignty that usually meets stiff resistance,
especially by weak and fragile states. Rather, the international community and/
or Western consolidated states can see to it that non-state actors such as firms
and NGOs engage in governance and provide public services in areas of limited
statehood.
Norms and Socially Embedded Markets

To begin with, NGOs and transnational social movements often launch interna-
tional campaigns naming and shaming companies who fail to contribute to the
provision of common goods in areas of limited statehood. As a result, environ-
mental and human rights norms have started to creep into the core business of
many companies, particularly multinational corporations with a “brand name”

to defend and whose products target markets in (consolidated and democratic)
states where consumers care about the provision of common goods.64 What
is now being called “corporate social responsibility” requires firms to integrate
environmental and human rights norms into their production, management,
and general business practices. In many cases, companies had been subjected to
NGO campaigns including consumer boycotts. Today, more and more compa-
nies have incorporated these norms into their business practices, including their
risk management, even though their compliance record still varies enormously.
Empirical research shows that NGO campaigns are particularly effective when
they target firms with a strong brand name, whereas they are much less influen-
tial when attacking firms that lack such an identity.65
Of course, the incorporation of environmental and human rights standards
into their practices does not turn firms into charities. But companies increas-
ingly realize that their markets are socially embedded and that their custom-
ers care about these issues. As footwear companies such as Nike learned
the hard way, their American and European customers did not want to buy
sneakers and running shoes produced through child labor in the Philippines.
Having learned their lesson, some companies with vested interests in cor-
porate social responsibility standards even regulate and control their supply
chain to ensure a clean production. Such activities are another example of a
functional equivalent to the “shadow of hierarchy” cast by the threat of state
regulation.
Reputational concerns about socially accepted behavior induce firms to take
norms more seriously. Norm compliance can then turn into a strategic advantage
in competitive markets, leading to a “race to the top” with regard to regulatory
standards. A study of South African firms has documented these mechanisms.66
Contributing to governance then becomes a matter of self-interest, since it pays
off if a firm can set the industry standard with regard to environmental or human
rights standards. As Annegret Flohr et al. argue, this can even turn firms into
norm entrepreneurs.67 Yet, the mechanism only works if consumers—mostly in
the home countries of the multinational corporations—care about social norms
and good governance in areas of limited statehood and are prepared to pay a
certain price for it.
In sum, corporate social responsibility is an interesting case in which the logic
of appropriateness intersects with the logic of consequences. The more that con-
sumers of companies’ products, particularly in high-end markets, care about gov-
ernance in areas of limited statehood, including human rights and environmental
standards (the logic of appropriateness), the more they use market mechanisms
to induce firms into compliance with these norms (the logic of consequential-
ism). This then translates into reputational concerns for companies, particularly
those with a brand name to defend.
Local Normative Structures

Social norms of appropriate behavior are not only institutionalized at the inter-
national level or in areas of consolidated statehood. So-called “traditional” com-
munities in areas of limited statehood have their own social standards, even if
they do not always fully conform to global standards of human rights, democ-
racy, and good governance. For example, while African governments often do
not care whether Chinese companies comply with environmental standards,
local communities often do.68 Likewise, companies may be embedded in local
communities defined by clan structures sharing certain standards of appro-
priate behavior that include the provision of governance. Studies on mining
operations in Africa and Latin America show how demands for benefits from
resource extraction in the form of the provision of collective goods are increas-
ingly raised by communities at the local level, laying blame and grievances at
the doorstep of companies’ operations.69 The South African mining industry has
been exposed to this mechanism in a particular way. Mining companies used
to have a terrible record with regard to environmental pollution and workers’
rights during apartheid. In post-apartheid South Africa, then, local communi-
ties in mining towns and NGOs used naming-and-shaming practices to induce
companies to provide governance with regard to social rights and cleaning
up the environment. At the same time, companies contributed to governance
for regaining legitimacy in the wider public, and for avoiding state regulation
against them.70 Concerns about norms, thus, affected the utility calculations of
an entire industry.
In these cases, local communities do not provide a shadow of hierarchy, but
they expect from non-state actors—companies and NGOs alike—that they com-
ply with local governance norms and that they contribute to the provision of
collective goods, particularly when the central state institutions are too weak (or
to corrupt) to govern. Noncompliance can quickly become costly for non-state
actors, particularly when the multilevel nature of governance in areas of limited
statehood comes into play. In many cases, local communities are well connected
to transnational advocacy networks of NGOs and international organizations and
thus can link up with global civil society.71 An exemplary case involved indige-
nous peoples in the Niger delta of Nigeria who linked up with the transnational
human rights and environmental communities to denounce the behavior of the
Shell Oil Company, which had both ruined the environment and violated the
human rights of local communities.72 As a result of these campaigns, Shell today
is a different company, one that has embraced the norms of “corporate social
responsibility” even though compliance with these norms in the Niger delta is
still disputed.73 The example shows again how the norms of local communities
and the social embeddedness of markets can work together to force non-state
actors to contribute to governance in areas of limited statehood.
Conclusions
The introduction to this book raises three questions with regard to state power
in the twenty-first century: (1) What kind of a world do states live in? (2) What
happens when states become problematic sovereigns? and (3) What are the
many faces of state power? The argument of this chapter can be summarized in
response to these questions as follows, starting with the second question:
Areas of limited statehood characterized by a lack of domestic sovereignty of
central state authorities are ubiquitous in the contemporary international sys-
tem. In this sense, most states in the international system are “problematic sov-
ereigns” (see introduction to this volume). Weak state capacities to enforce and
implement rules and regulations also lack a “shadow of hierarchy.” That interna-
tional sovereignty translates into domestic sovereignty is a myth and has prob-
ably always been a problematic assumption. In this sense, Krasner is right about
sovereignty as “organized hypocrisy.”74 As a result, the governance problématique
in areas of limited statehood is twofold: On the one hand, governance provided
by various combinations of state and non-state, external and local actors has to
substitute for the lack of “governance by government.” On the other hand, func-
tional equivalents for the ability of states to enforce the rules have to be present,
too, in order to make these non-hierarchical modes of governance effective.
But it would be wrong to equate limited domestic sovereignty with a lack of gov-
ernance. Areas of limited statehood are not “ungoverned” or even “ungovernable”
spaces, as some of the literature on fragile and failed states assumes. In fact, gov-
ernance is often provided even under rather adverse conditions of fragile or failing
statehood. Under particular circumstances, non-state actors become “governors” in
that they systematically engage in rule making or the provision of collective goods.
Governance without a state then depends on particular scope conditions as well
as on both incentive structures and norms inducing non-state actors such as firms
or even warlords and rebel groups to contribute to governance.75
Many of these incentive structures and norms are properties of the interna-
tional environment in which areas of limited statehood are embedded. Moreover,
external actors—international organizations, donor agencies, but also non-state
actors such as multinational corporations or NGOs—are part and parcel of the
governance structures in areas of limited statehood.76 The world in which areas
of limited statehood find themselves (the first question above; see introduction
to this volume) is a world in which the usual boundaries between the “domes-
tic” and the “international” have become fluid and porous. It is a transnational
world, which is also densely institutionalized through international law and all
kinds of international regimes.77 Therefore, it is a world in which the state has
got company and in which non-state actors—private corporations, NGOs, even
warlords—are part and parcel of governance.78 As a result, state-centric theories
of international relations do not have much on offer to explain either the domes-
tic or the transnational dynamics in areas of limited statehood.
The state is not absent in areas of limited statehood, though. The debate is not
between either governance by the state or the complete privatization of govern-
ance. Rather, central state authorities are still around in areas of limited statehood,
even though they lack the ability to govern hierarchically. Most of the time, they
are in a negotiation relationship with other actors, thereby either contributing to
or hampering governance. Yet state power—to answer the third question raised in
the introduction—changes fundamentally: under conditions of consolidated state-
hood, the power of the state consists fundamentally in its ability to enforce deci-
sions hierarchically—that is, to exercise domestic sovereignty in terms of effective
control. It can still be a cooperative state in the sense that it induces other actors
to contribute to governance.79 But consolidated state power is both structural and
institutional, given its authority to rule hierarchically and to set the rules of the
game.80
This changes under conditions of limited statehood: the power of state actors
in areas of limited statehood becomes relational—both vis-à-vis domestic actors
and international as well as transnational ones. State actors now have to exer-
cise influence rather than being able to exert control. They might have material
resources (tax revenues, rents) at their disposal. They might also have ideational
resources—for example, legitimacy as the internationally recognized govern-
ment. But they have to use these resources in negotiations with other actors in
order to get what they want, since they can no longer govern hierarchically. In
sum, “weak states” have not necessarily lost power in areas of limited statehood;
but the type of power they are able to exercise has certainly changed.
One corollary of this consideration is, of course, that power relations still
matter in areas of limited statehood. “Non-hierarchical modes of governance” by
no means imply the absence of power or symmetric cooperative relationships.81
Asymmetrical capabilities based on material resources matter, but so does dis-
cursive power in the sense of being able to frame and define the nature of the
problem or the range of possible solutions (take the “good governance” dis-
course of Western aid institutions and international organizations, for example).
In sum, thinking about the governance in the context of limited statehood
raises fundamental issues of political science, such as notions of statehood, sov-
ereignty, and power—questions about which Stephen Krasner has cared about
throughout his scholarly life.
Notes
1. Drafts of this chapter were presented at the conferences honoring Stephen D. Krasner,
Stanford University, December 4–5, 2009, and Princeton University, October 1–3, 2010.
I thank the participants for their critical comments, in particular Martha Finnemore,
Judith Goldstein, Ron Hassner, Andrew Moravcsik, and Steve Krasner. This chapter is
part of an ongoing conversation with Steve that started over dinner in a lovely Italian
restaurant overlooking Halensee in Berlin in early 2004 and has since led to several
cooperative endeavors (see, e.g., Krasner and Risse, forthcoming-a). Research for the
paper has been carried out in the framework of the Collaborative Research Center 700
“Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood,” located at the Freie Universität Berlin and
funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).
2. See Krasner 1999. In the European Union, for example, consolidated states with more
of less strong domestic sovereignty have voluntarily agreed to accept strong intrusions in
their “Westphalian” sovereignty while not giving up their international sovereignty.
3. I use “Westphalian” in quotation marks, because this aspect of sovereignty has histori-
cally little to do with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, as Krasner himself has repeatedly
acknowledged.
4. For example, Rotberg 2003, 2004; see also Arthur Stein’s contribution to this volume.
5. See Risse and Lehmkuhl 2007; Risse 2011b; Krasner and Risse forthcoming-b.
6. These modes of governance are not new at all. Non-state actors have always been part
and parcel of governance, and their governance contributions predate the rise of the
modern and fully consolidated nation-state. For these modes of governance in colonial
times see, for example, Lehmkuhl 2007; Conrad and Stange 2011.
7. For a more comprehensive treatment of the following see Risse 2011a.
8. For example, Rotberg 2003, 2004.
9. Leibfried and Zürn 2005; Hurrelmann et al. 2007.
10. Quoted from Mata and Ziaja 2009, 5.
11. Cf. Weber 1921/1980.
12. Krasner 1999, 4.
13. Krasner 1999, 10.
14. Note that the opposite of limited statehood is not “unlimited statehood” in the sense of
an almost totalitarian state. Rather, I would prefer to call the other end of the continuum
“consolidated statehood” as an ideal typical configuration in which state authorities enjoy
full domestic sovereignty over their territory or in the various policy areas.
15. The measurement of degrees of statehood is derived from three indicators: “failure of
state authority” and “portion of country affected by fighting” (measuring the state
monopoly over the means of violence; source: Political Instability Task Force, Center for
Global Policy, George Mason University, Washington, DC), as well as “bureaucracy qual-
ity” (source: International Country Risk Guide, Political Risk Services, Syracuse, NY).
See Lee et al. forthcoming for details.
16. Keith 1999; Hathaway 2002.
17. Braig and Stanley 2007.
18. See Schuppert and Kötter 2007; Ladwig and Rudolf 2011.
19. Goldstein et al. 2000; Zangl and Zürn 2004.
20. See e.g. Mayntz 2009; Schuppert and Zürn 2008.
21. Compare with Benz et al. 2007; Czempiel and Rosenau 1992; Grande and Pauly 2005;
Zürn 1998.
22. Leibfried and Zürn 2005; Hurrelmann et al. 2007; Leibfried forthcoming.
23. See Menkhaus 2006/2007; Debiel et al. 2010; Renders and Terlinden 2010; Schäferhoff
2011.
24. Note that the measurement of statehood is orthogonal to regime type and that the indi-
cators for governance performance used in figure 5.2 do not include human rights or the
rule of law.
25. Data not shown here, but see Lee et al. forthcoming for details.
26. Risse 2011b.
27. See, for example, Avant, Finnemore, and Sell 2010; Cutler, Haufler, and Porter 1999;
Grande and Pauly 2005; Hall and Biersteker 2002.
28. Data according to Cooley 2010, 253.
29. See Schäferhoff, Campe, and Kaan 2009; Liese and Beisheim 2011.
30. See Schäferhoff 2013; for the notion of “governors” in this context see Avant, Finnemore,
and Sell 2010.
31. See Börzel et al. 2011; Flohr et al. 2010; Deitelhoff et al. 2010; Haufler 2010.
32. Cooley 2010.
33. Zimmer 2010.
34. Thauer 2009.
35. Koehler and Zürcher 2007.
36. Chojnacki and Branovic 2011.
37. Beisheim and Fuhr 2008; Beisheim, Liese, and Ulbert 2008; Schäferhoff, Campe, and
Kaan 2009.
38. Krasner 2004; Fearon and Laitin 2004.
39. On multi-level governance see, for example, Hooghe and Marks 2001, 2003.
40. Chojnacki and Branovic 2011.
41. Schneckener 2011.
42. Göhler, Höppner, and De La Rosa 2009.
43. Oye 1986.
44. See e.g. Reinicke 1998; Reinicke et al. 2000; Kaul, Grunberg, and Stern 1999.
45. Chojnacki and Branovic 2011; Avant 2005.
46. For a discussion with regard to mining companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo
see Hönke 2010; Börzel and Hönke 2010.
47. Scharpf 1993.
48. See e.g. Héritier 2003; Héritier and Lehmkuhl 2008.
49. Börzel 2009, 2010.
50. For details see Schäferhoff 2013; Liese and Beisheim 2011.
51. Börzel et al. 2011; Müller-Debus, Thauer, and Börzel 2009.
52. The following summarizes Börzel and Risse 2010.
53. See March and Olsen 1998.
54. Börzel et al. 2011.
55. Thauer 2009; Müller-Debus 2010.
56. Krasner 1983; Rittberger 1993.
57. Overview in Simmons and Martin 2002.
58. Oye 1986.
59. Abbott et al. 2000; Zangl and Zürn 2004.
60. Liese and Beisheim 2011; Beisheim, Liese, and Ulbert 2008.
61. Ladwig and Rudolf 2011.
62. See Flohr et al. 2010, 52–66; Deitelhoff and Wolf 2010, 212–214.
63. Prakash 2000; Haufler 2001; Vogel and Kagan 2004; Greenhill, Mosley, and Prakash
2009.
64. See, for example, Potoski and Prakash 2006; Prakash and Potoski 2007; Flohr et al.
2010.
65. Thauer 2009; Börzel et al. 2011; Hönke et al. 2008; Flohr et al. 2010; Deitelhoff and
Wolf 2010.
66. Börzel et al. 2011; see also Greenhill, Mosley, and Prakash 2009.
67. Flohr et al. 2010. See also Deitelhoff and Wolf 2013.
68. Hackenesch 2009.
69. Hönke 2010; Szablowski 2007.
70. Hönke 2010; Hamann 2004.
71. For these mechanisms see Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999; Risse,
Ropp, and Sikkink 2013.
72. Frynas 2000.

73. Zimmer 2010.
74. Krasner 1999.
75. On the latter see Chojnacki and Branovic 2011; Jo and Bryant 2013.
76. See Krasner and Risse forthcoming-a.
77. See Krasner 1983.
78. See Risse 2013.
79. Benz, Scharpf, and Zintl 1992; Voigt 1995.
80. See Barnett and Duvall 2005, 51–53, on these distinctions.
81. See Göhler, Höppner, and De La Rosa 2009 on this point.
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6
Three Scenes of Sovereignty and Power

Etel Solingen
Sovereignty and power are both ubiquitous and highly contested terms in inter-
national relations. Sovereignty comes in various forms, and these forms do not
necessarily co-vary.1 Power, too, comes in many forms, and they do not co-vary
either.2 All of which makes an understanding of the reciprocal relationship
between sovereignty and power even more taxing, and this chapter no more
than an exploratory probe. Sovereignty as an organizing principle of international
relations often creates dilemmas, forcing states into sovereignty compromises
that are sometimes inherently contradictory, hard to reconcile, or “hypocritical.”
Organized hypocrisy can be traced to logical contradictions, international power
asymmetries, and rulers’ responsiveness to domestic preferences, principles, and
norms that are not always fully compatible with international ones.3 On the one
hand, the way leaders manage dilemmas of sovereignty—the kind of compro-
mises they make—can be highly consequential for both their own domestic
political survival and for altering the power of their own states, regions, and
global order. On the other hand, a state’s international power clearly influences
the repertoire of compromises, or rulers’ responses to dilemmas of sovereignty.
Thus, sovereignty compromises both reflect and transform the power of leaders,
states, regions, and global order.
I explore these reciprocal relationships by zooming in and out of three dif-
ferent scenes of contemporary international relations: the ascent of China as
a great power, variations in regionalism, and the evolving nonproliferation
regime. These three realms offer fruitful arenas for probing the relationship
between these two master variables in Krasner’s work; address various levels
of analysis, from domestic structures and rulers to states, entire regions, and
international regimes; and speak to crucial themes in the contemporary study
and praxis of international relations. Scene 1 focuses on a single state, China, in
its shifting sovereignty compromises in tandem with its ascent to international
power. Scene 2 turns to the regional level to illuminate divergent sovereignty
compromises in the Middle East and East Asia, with attendant consequences
for aggregate regional power. Scene 3 explores how both vastly compromised
105
sovereignty and power asymmetries have influenced the evolution of the inter-
national nonproliferation regime.
Some basic working assumptions underlie the discussion of all three scenes.
The analytical point of departure is the competition between two ideal-typical
coalitions (internationalizing and inward looking) for power and control of the
industrializing state. These two coalitions logroll competing material economic
and ideational interests across state and private actors. At times they carve out
different parts of the state, cohabiting a hybrid state divided by internal coalitional
competition. At other times either coalition succeeds in controlling the state and is
thus able to implement its preferred model of political survival. Internationalizing
models rely on economic performance and growth via integration into the global
economy, whereas inward-looking models rely on autonomous “self-sufficiency.”4
The two ideal-types—which capture the essence of a far more diverse empiri-
cal variety—also differ in the extent to which states (including military-industrial
complexes) replace or enhance markets. The coalitional nature of states thus
contributes to the heterogeneity one observes in recent history and across con-
temporary industrializing states. States with different relations to global markets,
international institutions, and great powers cannot but differ with respect to their
evolving state forms, relative power, and sovereignty compromises.
Where internationalizing coalitions successfully accomplish their favored model
of political survival, they also enhance their states’ aggregate economic and politi-
cal power. They do so by capturing opportunities offered by markets, international
institutions, and great powers, all critical pieces in their international environment.
These opportunities also entail a relaxation of some forms of sovereignty (con-
trol) vis-à-vis international markets, institutions, and, at times, other states. Yet
looks can be deceptive: what seems like ceding some sovereignty can effectively
enhance their power, or certain forms of it. Whose power, and the power to do
what? The compromises struck by successful internationalizing models enable
two things. First, armed with increased resources and compensatory mechanisms,
internationalizing ruling coalitions are better suited to overcome domestic (power)
challenges from inward-looking competitors. This allows them to continue steer-
ing their states in an internationalizing direction. Second, the material and reputa-
tional proceeds from internationalizing models also enhance the aggregate power
of their state vis-à-vis the same markets, international institutions, and states to
which they had initially “ceded” some sovereign control. The state’s relative ability
to influence outcomes—always a bounded one for any actor in the international
system—grows in tandem with the strength of internationalizing models. Various
East Asian states provide a good approximation for this dynamic.
Where inward-looking coalitions accomplish their favored model of politi-
cal survival, they exercise power by challenging the reach of markets, interna-
tional institutions, and powerful states, and asserting sovereignty and control
across most issue areas. Yet looks can be deceptive: what seems like enhanced
Three Scenes of Sovereig nt y and Power 107
sovereignty and control does not translate neatly into enhanced power. Whose
power, and the power to do what? Given their composition, inward-looking
ruling coalitions are often in command of large statist and military-industrial
complexes that endow them with political and military power to threaten, deter,
and compel domestic and regional competitors. But inward-looking coalitions
also undermine their own—and their state’s—power at other levels. First, these
models deplete material and compensatory resources needed to stem domestic
challenges, including those from internationalizing constituencies. Second, these
models further undercut the states’ aggregate power vis-à-vis markets and inter-
national institutions, which they seek to keep at arm’s length in any event. Third,
though challenging great powers may yield some symbolic or reputational inter-
national capital, inward-looking political-economy models fundamentally hin-
der the state’s ability to ascend the ranks of international power (particularly as
influence) except sometimes in military terms. Several Middle East states and
North Korea provide good approximations for this dynamic.
To summarize this core analytical thread, competing models of political sur-
vival—internationalizing, inward-looking—lead to different sovereignty compro-
mises. Different compromises, in turn, enhance or diminish both the power of
competing coalitions and of the states they come to dominate. Models of political
survival don’t envelop states overnight or in linear fashion. They evolve through
coalitional competition and different causal mechanisms studied in comparative
politics. The models’ dynamic trajectory thus suggests that sovereignty compro-
mises and power at time t (e.g., under a state’s hypothetical control by inward-
looking rulers) might be quite different from sovereignty compromises and power
at t+1 (e.g., under a hypothetical shift to internationalization), and vice versa. In
other words, spatial or horizontal power differentials with other states evolve in
tandem with temporal or longitudinal changes in power differentials within the
same state over time. Furthermore, the rest of the world does not remain static.
A state’s relative power vis-à-vis other states varies from t to t+1 over and beyond
the effects of its own internal coalitional evolution, and in response to other states’
models and trajectories. Models of political survival thus go a long way in explain-
ing different sovereignty compromises at the domestic, regional, and global levels
over time.5 The three scenes below provide only a window into some of these
processes linking a state’s dominant model, sovereignty compromises, and differ-
ent forms of accrued or vanishing power. These relationships have consequential
effects on the nature of evolving regional and international orders.
Scene 1: The Ascent of China

As with other rising hegemons, China’s ascent to power was accompanied by
shifting dilemmas regarding interdependence and, to a lesser extent, Vattelian
sovereignty. Mao’s autarchic model of political survival—congruent with high

Vattelian and interdependence sovereignty—condemned China to lower levels
of international power at time t (1950s–1960s) than it might have otherwise
accrued.6 Subsequent efforts to integrate China in the global political economy—
the road to WTO membership—introduced greater strain into that coherence.7
China’s internationalizing ruling coalition—departing from Mao’s model—
became progressively bound by global rules and “reconceptualized” sovereignty
to reconcile it with domestic expectations. “Self-reliance” and “autonomy” could
no longer provide a coherent motto for an economy increasingly dependent
on external (including Japanese) markets, capital, investments, technology, and
expertise. To reconcile this dilution of interdependence sovereignty with contin-
ued domestic appeal for self-reliance, Deng Xiaoping and his successors high-
lighted the opportunities offered by this shift, and unleashed the synergistic dual
promise of individual wealth (xianfuqilai) and national power. In Premier Wen
Jiabao’s words, “development is the last word; it is not only the basis for resolv-
ing all internal problems but is also the basis for boosting our diplomatic power.
The basis of competition between states lies in power.”8
Those compromises indeed made China more powerful at t+1 (2000s) but
also heightened tensions between praxis and continued rhetorical support for
sovereignty. Without challenging the legitimacy of a sovereignty principle, China’s
internationalizing leaders compromised it in practice. Yet, in terms of Krasner’s
modalities of sovereignty compromises, these were concessions by invitation—
conventions, contracts, international economic institutions—rather than coer-
cion. Ties with the World Bank and the IMF—including domestic adaptation
to their guidelines—preceded negotiations for WTO membership. China agreed
to align its domestic laws with the principles and rules of WTO, indeed accept-
ing special WTO-plus terms, external monitoring of its compliance with rules,
and dispute settlement mechanisms. Adopting Western intellectual property law,
among many other rules, violated China’s own standards; its de jure commit-
ment was thus significant, even if execution remained deficient. China abdicated
the right to curb raw material exports to meet domestic demand, as reminded
in a 2011 WTO ruling. Conveniently, compromising sovereignty to capitalist
international institutions also raised the costs of future defections by domestic
opponents of internationalization and privatization while dramatically reducing
poverty and expanding employment and foreign reserves.9 Interdependence sov-
ereignty compromises, in other words, strengthened the leadership domestically
as well as in aggregate state economic and political power, as long as interna-
tional conditions made the model viable.
Sovereignty compromises were not circumscribed to the economic
arena. China’s aversion to the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as hypocriti-
cal, unfair, and discriminatory was congruent with Mao’s energetic defense of
self-reliance and autonomy.10 Preventing other states from following China’s own
development of nuclear weapons would have entailed extreme hypocrisy for a

regime self-identified with disenfranchised developing states seeking to redress
discriminatory practices. Thus, Mao’s China recognized the sovereign right of
states to acquire nuclear weapons and its own right to share nuclear technol-
ogy even with potential proliferators. By contrast, “reform and opening” (gaige
kaifang) and the road to WTO membership subordinated sovereignty claims
to international expectations of behavior compatible with an internationalizing
model. Whereas Mao’s model considered the Biological Weapons Convention
“a fraud of sham disarmament” in the early 1970s, China acceded to this con-
vention by 1984.11 In 1985 it unilaterally accepted International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) safeguards on part of its civilian nuclear program and condi-
tioned its nuclear exports on recipients’ acceptance of IAEA safeguards. By the
early 1990s it began complying with obligations to report nuclear exports to the
IAEA and accepting CWC and IAEA verification, including on-site inspections.
In 1996 it signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which
imposes multilateral binding monitoring and inspections that could place lim-
its on nuclear modernization.12 In 1997 China joined the Zangger Committee
(restricting exports of fissionable material). It also began incorporating interna-
tional obligations into its internal legal infrastructure, for instance on export con-
trols of nuclear technology and materials.13 Progressive compliance with these
regimes was not linear. Yet securing economic aid from Japan, restoring inter-
national legitimacy after Tiananmen Square, and demands from the scientific
community, among others, led China to sign the NPT in 1992 and support the
treaty’s indefinite renewal in 1995. While it had once shared sensitive nuclear
technology with Pakistan, in 1998 China joined other UN Security Council
(UNSC) permanent members in condemning Pakistan’s (and India’s) nuclear
tests.14 In 2004 China joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group—which some devel-
oping countries consider to be an international cartel—and supported UNSC
Resolution 1540 strengthening domestic export controls. US diplomacy, central
to many of these steps, was endogenous to China’s internationalizing model.15
US (or Soviet) nonproliferation diplomacy was irrelevant under Mao.
China’s ascent to power steered by an internationalizing leadership thus
imposed new responsibilities and compromises—and a new approach to inter-
national institutions—though not dramatic sovereignty losses. Indeed, assertions
of sovereignty over its own nuclear arsenal grew stronger with its rise in power.
Testing nuclear weapons at t (1964) was congruent with Mao’s strong assertions
of sovereignty; and “minimal deterrence”—forged under the economic hardships
of autarchy—did the job. At t+1, however, far greater material power resources
led China to uphold its sovereign right to upgrade nuclear capabilities and
deflect demands for transparency in nuclear and conventional modernization,
arguing that weaker powers must keep stronger powers guessing.16 An interna-
tionalizing model thus induced differential adherence to sovereignty principles
across issue areas. The sovereign right to nuclear weapons (self-defense) and the
sovereign right to economic self-reliance were more in synch at t, under Mao.
The sovereign right to upgrade its nuclear arsenal at t+1 appears less compatible
with charm offensives within and beyond the region, and with budding leader-
ship positions in regional and international forums reflecting China’s growing
international power, from the G-20 to the Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC)
grouping. Nor do sovereignty compromises vis-à-vis international economic
institutions carry over to those advancing conventional standards of democracy
and human rights. Interdependence sovereignty could be relaxed, while Vattelian
sovereignty remained under protective lock.
Tensions in sovereignty compromises are not only evident across issue areas
but also within them. As argued, the sovereign right of others to develop nuclear
weapons was endorsed at t but disparaged at t+1. Even the means to dampen
horizontal proliferation evolved in tandem with China’s ascent to power. While
it continues to extol sovereignty rhetorically, China’s policies regarding sanctions
on proliferating states reveal mounting fissures. Sanctions were once deemed
serious violations of noninterference under Mao’s “Five Principles of Peaceful
Coexistence,” reacting to “hegemonistic” Soviet and Western dictates to China.17
Yet China began endorsing UNSC resolutions sanctioning North Korea and Iran
since 2006, not once but at least seven times. Though sanctions were less biting
than others might have preferred, and though some question China’s effective
observance, supporting UNSC resolutions on sanctions nonetheless signaled
some relaxation of sovereignty norms. The growing tension between rhetoric
and action emanate, here as well, from wrenching dilemmas internationalizing
leaders faced from within and without. Oil and natural resources are crucial to
breakneck economic growth—and hence to Chinese leaders’ own political sur-
vival—explaining billion-dollar investments in Iran’s oil and gas sector in recent
years, and extensive Chinese exports of machine tools, factory equipment, and
other capital goods to Iran.
Upholding Iran’s sovereignty over the full nuclear fuel cycle—including
enrichment—helps with Chinese trade and investment in Iran’s oil and gas but
also creates tensions with Saudi Arabia (China’s top oil supplier, which provides
nearly twice as much oil to China as does Iran), other Arab Gulf partners, the
US, and Europe. Nor does China benefit from Iran’s threatened destabilization
of strategic maritime lanes that provide it with crucial inputs for continued
growth.18 Former Iranian Supreme National Security Council secretary Hassan
Rohani acknowledged as early as 2005 that China could not be counted to
defend Iran’s nuclear behavior: “Most of the activities that we had not reported
to the IAEA had already been reported to the IAEA by other countries that
had worked with us and that were party to those activities, such as China. We
had certain projects with China in the past that, according to the regulations,
we had to report to the IAEA and had not done so. . . . China, for instance, has
hundreds of billions of dollars worth of trade with the West, with Europe, and
is not ready to jeopardize all that for our [Iran’s] sake. . . . The powerful countries
are all against [our nuclear fuel cycle activities].”19
Though China officially declared it would not reduce oil purchases from Iran
in response to new sanctions by the US, EU, and others, it reduced by half its pur-
chases from Iran for January 2012. China’s effort to discount the price of Iranian
oil seemed to have been a crucial motivation, however. As Iran’s largest buyer—
20 percent of Iran’s total oil exports for about $16 billion in 2011—China has
been able to maneuver through the wave of international sanctions on Iran. Oil
payments are offset by $12 billion in Chinese goods to Iran, with the remain-
ing $4 billion—largely in goods or gold—circumventing payments through Iran’s
Central Bank.20 Nor has China fully enforced UN sanctions on nuclear-related
equipment and shipping to Iran according to some reports, though US firms have
also been found to violate sanctions. Yet China has consistently urged Iran to
cooperate with the IAEA and implemented only an estimated $3 billion of the
much larger energy investment agreements previously announced. In the first trip
to Saudi Arabia by a Chinese premier in twenty years, and a first ever to Qatar
and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Wen Jiabao expressed stronger-than-usual
criticism of Iran’s defiance on its nuclear program, expressing in Qatar that China
“adamantly opposes Iran developing and possessing nuclear weapons” and warn-
ing Iran against closing the Strait of Hormuz, an action that would be regarded as
“aggression against most of the world’s nations.”21
China’s support for limited sanctions on North Korea following its 2006
first nuclear test also depart from previous practice, even if compliance has
been selective, reluctant, and intermittent, reflecting another multifaceted chal-
lenge.22 A destabilizing (sovereign) nuclear North Korea may not be the pre-
ferred outcome of China’s internationalizing ruling coalition, but neither is it the
least preferred. North Korea’s collapse; an assertive unified and sovereign Korean
peninsula; and an even more intrusive US presence in Northeast Asia are all
considered worse than the status quo.23 Thus, policies vis-à-vis North Korea—a
crucial test of China’s adherence to sovereignty—also reveal contradictions. In
2003, officials described China’s positions as consistently opposing sanctions and
coercion.24 However, following North Korea’s first nuclear test, China approved
UNSC Resolution 1718 invoking Chapter 7 (though barring the use of force
under article 41), while opposing cargo inspections. After North Korea’s 2009
second nuclear test, China endorsed UNSC Resolution 1874 calling to “inspect
and destroy all banned cargo,” to impose financial sanctions, asset freezes, and
targeted travel bans (a rare concession), and to block trade in nuclear and mis-
sile components. China’s representative called this a “balanced reaction of the
Security Council” while urging respect for North Korea’s “sovereignty, terri-
torial integrity and legitimate security concerns.” Only after it returned to the
NPT, Chinese officials now argued, would North Korea enjoy the right to
peaceful use of nuclear energy. Meanwhile China would “implement the resolu-
tion earnestly.”25 Increased instability in North Korea related to dynastic succes-
sion led China to water down UN sanctions following North Korea’s sinking of
South Korea’s warship Cheonang and its shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. Chinese
firms were reported to continue supplying North Korea with crucial compo-
nents for ballistic missiles, all in violation of UN Resolution 1874.26
These linguistic and behavioral contortions reveal new compromises aimed
at aligning rhetoric of sovereignty with endorsement of sanctions. China’s lead-
ers viewed this shift as compelled by new responsibilities of an emerging global
power, in line with expectations from both domestic audiences and the exter-
nal environment.27 Furthermore, while opposing forceful regime change, they
sought to persuade Kim Jong-Il to transform North Korea’s authority structures
and basis of legitimacy through China-style reforms and international economic
openness. This has been, by any other name, a departure from Vattelian sover-
eignty principles, even if it involved mostly persuasion and occasional withhold-
ing of oil transfers to North Korea as coercive warnings.28 North Korea’s excesses,
reneging on promises to de-nuclearize through China-sponsored six-party talks,
and its flouting of Chinese warnings against missile and nuclear tests entail repu-
tational losses for China’s leaders, at home and abroad. Those losses have led a
growing domestic constituency in China, including internationalizing Chinese
experts, to strongly endorse sanctions on North Korea.29 These forces seek to
influence China’s North Korea policy against constituencies benefiting from
economic exchange, particularly in the northeast, and others adamantly guard-
ing North Korea’s “sovereign” right to nuclear weapons. Competing demands
from internationalizing and inward-looking camps help explain China’s tortuous
efforts to square the sovereignty circle; its tentative application—and lax imple-
mentation—of sanctions; its stated agreement with the Proliferation Security
Initiative’s mission even as it refuses to join it; and its contested interpretation of
UNSC resolutions as compatible with enhanced trade, investments, and aid to
North Korea and Iran.30 Retaining a modicum of consistency between policies
vis-à-vis North Korea and Iran is no less challenging, given competing domestic
pressures and strategic interaction in the Iran–North Korea relationship.
In Krasner’s familiar formulation, the logic of consequences—maximizing
leaders’ political survival—has thus far gained ground over the logic of appropri-
ateness (nonintervention) in both the Iranian and North Korean theaters.31 Even
mild interventionist steps reveal that political expediency trumps normative
consistency as China urges Iran to provide unimpeded access to IAEA inspec-
tors, ratify the Additional Protocol, and suspend enrichment, reprocessing, and
heavy water–related activities, and urges North Korea to reform its economy
and abandon nuclear weapons while publicly acknowledging that “the dual track
[carrot-and-stick] strategy is the right one.”32 On sanctions, as with sovereignty
principles more generally, China’s rise has compelled compromises intended to
signal its new reputation as a “responsible major power” (fuzeren de daguo).33

Reputational considerations may derive from norms, instrumentalities, or both,
and as Keohane argues, it can be difficult to identify which is endogenous to
the other (“observational equivalence”).34 Leaders may be paying lip service to
norms they don’t necessarily believe in, using them as rationalization for ulterior
preferences, but they may also be acting in response to role expectations—at
home and abroad—of an emerging superpower.
In sum, China’s ascent to power provides a window into evolving shifts in mag-
nitude and forms of compromised sovereignty. It illuminates evolving “solutions”
to tensions induced by sovereignty norms across the domestic-international divide,
across issue areas, across different norms in the same issue area, within the same
norm over time, across successive ruling coalitions, and across domestic constitu-
encies. Sovereignty norms conflicted with other norms and interests contem-
poraneously and over time, as the power transition from t to t+1 confronted
Chinese leaders with new norms, expectations, and interests. These continue
to exert pressures for new sovereignty compromises. While China navigates
through dilemmas of a fledging superpower, rhetorical allegiance to sover-
eignty remains deeply engrained among some domestic constituencies, com-
pelling even internationalizing leaders to be sensitive to sovereign norms as
a means to preserve their power. Certain issues heighten that sensitivity, as
reflected in China’s uncompromising response to Japan over the maritime
incident in September 2010 and the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute; in the line-in-
the-sand approach over protecting every bit of domestic sovereignty from cen-
trifugal tendencies (Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang); and in rejection of any external
intrusion into fundamental domestic authority structures related to democracy
and human rights.35 Of all dilemmas of sovereignty posed by China’s rise, per-
ceived threats to domestic sovereignty are second to none in the leadership’s
struggle for political survival. China’s enhanced political and economic power,
and its progressive flexing of military and diplomatic power, has made it more
resilient against intrusions on its Vattelian sovereignty, for now. Indeed, this
greater accrued power could help China revisit even some of its concessions
in the realm of interdependence sovereignty, as needed to steer continued eco-
nomic growth and ensure political survival.
As argued, models of political survival don’t evolve in linear fashion, and the
competition among inward-looking and internationalizing camps in China has
not reached the end of history. Continued dissatisfaction over corruption, envi-
ronmental degradation, human rights abuses, housing prices, rural poverty, and
growing inequality lingers as a threat to China’s internationalizing model despite
enormous strides in the provision of material advantages to vast segments of
the population. The global economic crisis and its reverberations in China
have enhanced pressures from nationalist groups within the party (such as the
International Department), and from segments of state enterprises, the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA), the National Development and Reform Commission

and the Ministry of State Security, as well as some Internet networks. Those
pressures forced adjustments and new compromises reflected in more discrimi-
natory policies protecting “strategic industries,” export restrictions, greater PLA
intrusion and rigidity vis-à-vis maritime border conflicts in the East and South
China Sea, continued support for North Korea, and persistent skepticism of the
CTBT, among others.36 At the time of this writing it remains unclear whether
the sacking of “red princeling” Bo Xilai will have ramifications for China’s evolv-
ing sovereignty compromises.
Scene 2: Sovereignty Constructs: Variation

within and across Regions
Variations in sovereignty compromises can also be observed at the regional
level, with attendant consequences for aggregate regional power. International
legal sovereignty was challenged both in East Asia and the Middle East circa
the mid-twentieth century (time t). Except for Taiwan, legal recognition of
states became the norm in East Asia by t+1 (century’s end) but remained
more challenged in the Middle East in inter-Arab and Arab-Iranian arenas
no less than the Arab-Israeli one. Domestic and interdependence sovereignty
also endured comparable challenges in both regions at t but remained more
challenged in the Middle East by t+1. Cross-regional variation can also be
detected with respect to interdependence (and perhaps Vattelian) sovereignty
compromises incurred through participation in the global political economy,
and those incurred through participation in regional institutions. In Europe
the two kinds—global and regional—evolved if not in complete synchrony at
least in the same general direction: toward progressive acceptance of greater
external intrusion on domestic authority structures. East Asia reveals grow-
ing acquiescence with sovereignty limits imposed by global institutions over
time, accrued in connection with outward-oriented economic models. These
were largely voluntary concessions “by invitation,” in Krasner’s terms. Yet, in
tandem with internationalizing models, East Asian states were both far more
reluctant to cede sovereignty to regional institutions and far more sensitive
to neighboring intervention in each other’s domestic affairs, keeping such
intrusions at relatively low levels. Middle East states, conversely, exhibited far
lower tolerance for sovereignty losses stemming both from participation in the
global political economy and in regional institutions. Uninvited intervention
in neighbors’ domestic affairs, however, was rampant.
The contrast between the two regions is particularly intriguing because they
shared many common initial conditions as industrializing regions at t: colonialism,
state-building challenges, economic crises, stagnation, collapse, low per-capita

GNPs, heavy-handed authoritarianism, widespread poverty, human rights viola-
tions, vast gender inequities, high illiteracy and unemployment, ethnic clashes
and civil wars, low intra- and extra-regional economic interdependence, weak
or nonexisting regional institutions, and long coastal lines suitable for trade. Its
much higher share of land dominated by temperate climate would have predicted
higher growth potential for the Middle East. Elbadawi suggests that the subse-
quent divergent evolution of the two regions confirms that economic growth
requires deliberate and strategic intervention by states.37 Physical endowments
do not always materialize in greater power, as Finnemore and Goldstein suggest
in the introduction. Both regions also shared norms emphasizing family, literacy,
and community. Some imputed East Asia’s rapid development to those norms,
yet they did not have comparable effects in the Middle East. Furthermore, both
regions exhibited high intra-regional diversity, although East Asia had greater
variation in language, ethnicity, religion, levels of development, and regime type
(democratic or authoritarian). Much of the Middle East shared Arabic language
and culture, entrenched authoritarianism, and an overwhelmingly Islamic char-
acter despite ethnic, tribal, and communal diversity. Yet, counterintuitively, East
Asia’s higher intra-regional diversity did not preclude much higher levels of
regional cooperation and restraint in cross-border interventions over time than
the arguably less diverse Middle East.
How can the puzzle of differential sovereignty compromises at the regional
and global levels be explained? And what were the implications of those com-
promises for aggregate regional power? In line with the argument developed
above for China, East Asian internationalizing leaders made significant sover-
eignty concessions as they deepened ties to the global political economy. The
region’s typical model of political survival—incepted by Japan and emulated by
“tigers” and “cubs” even before China—hinged on economic performance and
growth fueled by export-led manufacturing and promotion of private enter-
prise. This pioneering model, adopted while much of the industrializing world
remained steeped in dependency models, required sovereignty compromises to
facilitate access to international capital, technology, markets, and investments.38
It thus enabled greater intrusion, such as conditionality arrangements by inter-
national institutions, foreign powers (including erstwhile colonial power Japan),
and private banks and corporations. By contrast, the reigning Middle East model
following Egypt’s 1952 revolution and its equivalents elsewhere in the region
hinged on inward-looking self-sufficiency, nationalism, and state and military
entrepreneurship, buttressed by oil rents where available. This model required—
from the standpoint of domestic political survival—resisting sovereignty losses
to markets, international institutions, and foreign powers (i.e., high protection of
Vattelian autonomy and low interdependence).
Different domestic ruling coalitions linking state and private actors under-
wrote models in each region.39 Politically stronger beneficiaries of relative
closure, import substitution, militarization, and natural-resource monopolies—
largely within the state itself—could veto alternative models in the Middle East
for decades. Furthermore, sovereignty losses to extra-regional actors (state or
private) were particularly costly because inward-looking rulers relied heavily on
pan-Arab norms of autonomy and anticolonial rhetoric as sources of legitimacy.40
Neither model characterized all cases in its region, but each captures Weberian
ideal types. Most East Asian states evolved into market-friendly developmental
states emphasizing performance in international markets as yardsticks for suc-
cess.41 The contrast with the typical Middle East predatory state is clear, over
and beyond differences in natural resource endowments and authoritarian forms
(praetorian versus monarchic).42 High tariffs and nontariff barriers, import sub-
stitution, extensive state and military entrepreneurship, and a weakened private
sector transcended those differences.43
Both regional models became self-reinforcing via path-dependent mechanisms
that strengthened beneficiaries in each case. Path dependency implies lasting leg-
acies that reproduce political forces invested in extant institutional arrangements
and “increasing returns” whereby actors reinforce the model’s logic, alternatives
are dismissed, and institutions magnify existing patterns of power distribution.44
Chatelus emphasized overwhelming incentives by Middle East dominant groups
to retain rents and disincentives to shift to productive activities.45 Beblawi and
Luciani described the “perception of a lack of any politically accepted alterna-
tive.”46 Although rejection of export-led growth may not have been unusual for
the 1960s, Middle East states also resisted subsequent opportunities: the 1970s
oil windfalls, the 1980s crises, the global transformations of the 1990s, and con-
sequent dramatic expansion of capital flows.47 The share of foreign direct invest-
ment (FDI) to all developing countries captured by Middle East states declined
from 11.6 (1990) to 2.1 (mid-1990s) and 1 percent (2001).48 More recent
efforts to reverse this trend, including trade liberalization, have yet to transform
deep-seated anti-export biases.49
Different sovereignty compromises are also evident in intra-regional relations.
State sovereignty became far more problematic in the Middle East under the
pincer movement of inward-looking, self-sufficiency political-economy models
and transnational pan-Arab allegiances. Both influenced regional institutional
arrangements and the high incidence of interventions in each other’s domestic
affairs. Middle East rulers launched import substitution to achieve rapid indus-
trialization via robust entrepreneurial states, decreased reliance on international
markets, and redistribution. Yet this model unintentionally depleted states’
resources and ossified the political machinery—often the military—that con-
trolled them. As chief beneficiaries of import substitution and state entrepre-
neurship, military-industrial complexes perpetuated their rents under the aura
of military prowess, nationalist myths, and pan-Arab symbols.50 Drained and

entropic states could not deliver resources to constituencies previously mobi-
lized through revolutionary nationalist fervor. Thus external conflict, national-
ist rhetoric, and intervention in neighboring states became effective substitutes
for deflecting coups and enhancing domestic legitimacy. As Halliday, following
Tilly, contended, “Middle Eastern states are in essence . . . based on the use and
threat of force,” prone to deploy violence at home and abroad.51
Inward-looking Middle East models had an inherent tendency toward com-
petitive outbidding among “truer” versions of the ideal type. Reinforced by
pan-Arab rhetoric, they fueled mutual assaults on sovereignty.52 Individual Arab
states were not the highest locus of political identification and legitimacy; colo-
nialism was blamed not for incorrect border demarcation but for conceiving
of borders at all.53 Pan-Arab (qawmiya) and pan-Islamic norms weakened the
legitimacy of sovereign statehood (wataniya), stimulating mutual challenges to
Vattelian sovereignty, subversion of neighboring rulers, cross-border militarized
conflicts, political unification schemes, and violent campaigns for ideological
“homogenization” across states.54 Such challenges became rarer in East Asia
once internationalizing models took hold. Noble (1991, 75) notes that “Arab
governments relied primarily on unconventional coercive techniques . . . strong
attacks on the leadership of other states, propaganda campaigns to mobilize
opposition, and intense subversive pressures, including cross-frontier alliances
with dissatisfied individuals and groups” to destabilize and overthrow oppos-
ing governments.55 Sovereignty was little else but “organized hypocrisy” in a
regional environment where competing nationalistic claims—pan Arab qawmiya
vs. state-based wataniya—could hardly coexist easily together.
Nasser’s junta benefited from external confrontations, diverting attention from
a severe domestic economic crisis by attacking Yemen and targeting oil-rich
monarchies;56 challenging Arab leaders to endorse an Arab Collective Security
Pact and unified army; threatening to suspend relations with “duplicitous”
Arab states favoring the Baghdad Pact; proposing counter-pacts with Syria and
Saudi Arabia; and intervening in others’ domestic affairs by mobilizing protests,
forcing replacement of prime ministers, and confining Jordan’s King Hussein.
Nasser’s regional designs resembled Hirschman’s (1945) imperial commercial
strategies, using trade to induce maximum dependence by neighbors, turning
them into raw materials suppliers, diverting Egypt’s trade to weaker partners
for whom trade utility was higher, and deindustrializing weaker competitors for
export markets.57 His proposed United Arab Republic with Syria (and later Iraq)
entailed no seepage of sovereignty toward a supranational authority. Rather,
it forced Syria to import industrial goods exclusively from Egypt, paralyzing
Syrian-Lebanese trade and restricting Lebanese exports to Egypt. Syrian agri-
cultural and commercial interests and even the military resisted it, leading to
Syria’s secession.58 Lebanon’s open-trading entrepôt model based on extensive
extra-regional trade and commercial and banking interests was particularly

threatened by protectionism, state entrepreneurship, import substitution, and
highly militarized economies. Though Nasser’s record may be better known, it
was far from an anomaly. Hafiz al-Asad intervened in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon;
Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, and others in various other countries.
This pattern attenuated over time but never disappeared, as the assassination
of Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri (a Saudi protégé) by Hezbollah suspects—
according to a UN special tribunal—suggests.
Though aligned with pan-Arab rhetoric, most of those interventions contra-
dicted the 1945 Arab League’s charter. Article 8 proscribed intrusions in domes-
tic arrangements, committing members to respect other’s forms of government,
a truly Vattelian-compliant document.59 Article 5 prohibited the use of force
to settle disputes, allowing the Council to consider only disputes unrelated to
“independence, sovereignty or territorial integrity.” The charter foreclosed even
the mildest forms of intervention in crucial categories of conflict. In reality, how-
ever, public behavior favoring wataniya—consistent with the charter—was bad
form and bad politics. Pan-Arab qawmiya was an important source of domestic
and trans-regional legitimacy; leaders could neither live with it nor without it,
forcing them to embrace the rhetoric while circumventing sovereignty losses in
practice. The league’s design was not an unintended outcome but an accurate
reflection of converging preferences for an institution that would not achieve
unity. These push-pull pressures for unity led to extreme rhetoric but limited
achievements; centrifugal regional relations; and baroque compromises over
(including assaults on) sovereignty. Failing to tame competitive outbidding,
the league unintendedly provided a stage for that competition. Summits were
not designed to enhance information and transparency about true sovereignty
preferences but instead revealed the depth of rivalries and mutual attacks on
domestic legitimacy. Al-Jazeera became another arena for mutual subversion,
with far greater reach than league meetings. A shared identity did not neces-
sarily help Arab states overcome collective action problems; it may have even
exacerbated them.60
Fears of sovereignty loss also explain the prevalence of war.61 Weak accept-
ance of sovereign noninterference and of borders themselves fueled inter-Arab,
Arab-Israeli, and Arab-Iranian conflicts. Israel, Turkey, and Iran were drawn into
a regional system with tenuous deference to sovereignty norms.62 Krasner argues
that “most rationalist approaches would predict that if rules were violated they
would change. Most sociological approaches would predict that if rules and
norms were violated they would wither away. But the rules of sovereignty per-
sisted even though they were violated.”63 The Middle East experience is emblem-
atic of this apparent paradox. Violations of sovereignty persist to this day. Syria
hosted terrorists reportedly implicated in attacks in Baghdad, resisting extradition
and leading to ambassadorial recalls by Syria and Iraq, and to Iraqi warnings to
retaliate in kind. Their bilateral diplomatic ties—symbols of mutual recognition

of legal sovereignty—had barely been resumed in 2006 after twenty-four years
of interruption. Saudi Arabia’s air force attacked Zaydi Shia Houthi rebels in
Yemen in retaliation for violation of Saudi sovereignty. The 2011 Arab upheav-
als saw official Arab League support for NATO (and direct Qatari) intervention
in Libya. Saudi forces under Gulf Cooperation Council underwriting intervened
to suppress Bahrain’s domestic upheaval. The al-Asad regime’s gruesome killing
of Syrian civilians triggered Arab League intervention and Saudi-Qatari military
support for Syrian opposition forces. The unfolding civil war in Syria has already
led to over fifty thousand Syrian deaths.
Sovereignty norms took hold in East Asia only during the late twentieth
century, although some find them rooted in much earlier periods for China.64
Embraced with a vengeance at the regional level, these norms led to strong
reluctance to cede sovereignty to regional institutions. ASEAN, APEC, the
ASEAN Regional Forum, the ASEAN Treaty on Amity and Cooperation,
and other regional arrangements are all sovereignty-preserving, emphasizing
noninterference in others’ internal affairs and respect for territorial integrity.65
These features enabled China to transcend its erstwhile reluctance and endorse
sovereignty-upholding regionalism enthusiastically.66 Violent and subversive
efforts to undermine other states’ authority structures, prevalent in East Asia as
in the Middle East under inward-looking models, declined dramatically in East
Asia with internationalizing models.
This pattern cannot be separated from East Asia states’ concessions of inter-
dependence (and perhaps some Vattelian) sovereignty at the global level to facil-
itate economic growth and enhance domestic political survival. These models
required macroeconomic and regional stability and predictability, conditions
propitious for attracting foreign investment, capital, technology, and expertise.
Common “resilience,” a widely affirmed concept particularly in Southeast Asia,
was instrumental for export-led growth. Incentives to signal cooperation to neigh-
bors and foreign investors alike dampened interventionist impulses in others’
domestic affairs. Collective rhetorical support for sovereignty was aligned with
a praxis of restraint on territorial, maritime, trans-boundary, and other conflicts.
This moderation is especially notable given many unresolved competing sover-
eignty claims—in the Korean peninsula; the Taiwan Straits; the Spratly, Senkaku/
Diaoyu, and Takeshima/Dokdo Islands, and among various Southeast Asian
dyads—and given incomplete domestic sovereignty over territories in Indonesia,
Philippines, Thailand, and others.67 A further contrast with the Middle East is
East Asia’s near universality in diplomatic relations, extending mutual recognition
of legal sovereignty even to adversarial states such as North Korea.68 In terms of
Krasner’s modalities of sovereignty compromises, challenges to sovereignty in
intra-regional relations were far more frequently of the coercive non-Pareto type
in the inward-looking Middle East than in internationalizing East Asia.69
In sum, the two regions shared many features at time t (1940s–1950s), when
their respective inward-looking models underpinned similar patterns of regional
conflict and sovereignty violations. Their eventual evolution into competing
models of political survival led them in dramatically different directions and
contrasting approaches to sovereignty at t+1 (late twentieth century onward).
A preference for regional stability, restraint, and compliance with sovereignty
and nonintervention helped sustain over three decades of peace in continen-
tal Southeast Asia, over four decades in maritime Southeast Asia, and over five
decades in Northeast Asia. Higher receptivity to sovereignty losses vis-à-vis the
global political economy, and lower receptivity to sovereignty violations among East
Asian states, jointly contributed to stability, growth, and a dramatic rise in collective
regional and global power. At t+2, roughly five or six decades removed from t,
East Asia has become ground zero of the twenty-first-century global economy,
the center of economic and financial power, a region nimble and resilient to
the 1997 Asian and 2008 global crises. Conversely, lower receptivity to sovereignty
losses vis-à-vis the global economy and higher receptivity to sovereignty violations
at the regional level jointly relegated much of the Middle East to significantly lower
rankings in industrial prowess, resilience, stability, and collective regional and inter-
national power.
What are the consequential implications of these differences? Whereas
East Asian economies are increasingly vital to each other and to the world,
the same cannot be said about the Middle East.70 East Asian economies
export over 50 percent of their total exports to each other; Middle East econ-
omies only about 14 percent.71 East Asian economies collectively account for
nearly 25 percent of world exports in goods and services; Middle Eastern
ones for less than 5 percent. East Asia contributes nearly 30 percent of the
world’s manufacturing exports; the Middle East less than 2 percent. East
Asia accounts for nearly 18 percent of global commercial service exports;
the Middle East less than 4 percent. East Asia contributes over 41 percent
of the world’s high technology exports; the Middle East less than ½ percent.
Whereas both regions attracted comparable shares of FDI inflows in the early
1980s—about 10 percent of the world’s total—East Asia averaged 10–20 per-
cent since 1985 (25 percent in the mid-1990s) and the Middle East 1–2 per-
cent (5 percent in 2003–2004). East Asia accounted for at least 10 percent
of total world FDI outflows (1981–1997); 15 percent for all but one year;
20 percent in four of those years; and 12 percent average during the 2000s.
The Middle East accounted for 1–2 percent of world FDI outflows in 1980s,
virtually nil in 1990–2003, and about 2 percent between 2003 and 2007.
Middle East information and technology links are among the weakest in the
world, in contrast with East Asia.72 Among the top ten ranking states in for-
eign exchange reserves (2009), East Asian states controlled about $4 trillion
to the Middle East’s $400 billion. The G-20 includes five East Asian countries
(China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and Australia) and two Middle
Eastern ones (Saudi Arabia and Turkey). OECD members include four East
Asian but only two Middle East states (Turkey and Israel), both of which had
embarked on internationalizing reforms by the 1980s.
The one caveat in these indicators relates to fuel exports, where the Middle
East contributes about 22 percent of the world’s total, to Asia’s 13 percent. Oil
and gas reserves have rescued the Middle East from even lower economic power
rankings but have also kept it ever more vulnerable to global trends; precisely the
kind of vulnerability (threats to sovereignty?) that Middle East models sought
to avoid for many decades. The region would rank much lower without the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) states, an intriguing partial and relatively recent
departure from the standard Middle East model.73 GCC efforts to international-
ize the economy have deepened despite their heavy oil and gas export depen-
dence, moving some GCC states to emulate East Asian models. All GCC states
are WTO members, as opposed to only twelve of twenty-two Arab states. GCC
states are busily negotiating bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and preferential
trade agreements (PTAs) with major and middle powers. The GCC’s combined
nominal GDP represented over half that of all Middle East countries (2003)
and accounted for over half of all FDI inflows into the twenty-two Arab coun-
tries since 2004. Three of the top six sovereign wealth funds are GCC-owned.
GCC reliance on external powers for security—a crucial compromise over
sovereignty—also resembles East Asia’s extra-regional alliances, reflecting an
even more extreme case of contracting out security. Such contracts, though rhe-
torically affirming GCC sovereignty, violate Vattelian sovereignty in practice by
subjecting domestic military institutions and personnel to external authority.74 A
relatively more relaxed approach to sovereignty concessions to external powers
contrasted with deep resistance to sovereignty losses to other GCC states, par-
ticularly given perceived Saudi (and Iranian) hegemonic ambitions.75 This pat-
tern too resembles East Asian compromises, informal institutions, and wariness
of regional arrangements that exclude the US in the context of a rising China.
Though both East Asia and the GCC remain averse to sovereignty concessions
to regional institutions, they have made important steps in financial coordina-
tion. GCC progress on labor mobility, unified passport controls, joint invest-
ments, diversification, and unification of standards have not removed concerns
with sovereignty, impeding a full customs and monetary union and a proposed
common currency even before the EU debacle. Yet latent intra-GCC territo-
rial sovereignty disputes have been significantly restrained, as in East Asia, an
important condition for attracting FDI. The 2011 Saudi military intervention
in Bahrain was invited by Bahrain and approved by the GCC to counter per-
ceived Iranian-fueled protests against Bahrain’s Sunni rulers. The Iranian nuclear
program and the Arab spring—both of which engendered perceived domestic
threats to their rule—have enhanced GCC cooperation. Following a visit by
Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a disputed island claimed by the

UAE, the GCC declared in April 2012 that any transgression to the sovereignty
of a GCC state or interference in its domestic affairs would be considered a
transgression against them all.
As a federation, the UAE—a GCC member—seems an anomaly for Middle
East sovereignty compromises.76 The Emirates regretted British-imposed inde-
pendence in 1971, another unusual pattern for the broader Middle East,
where anticolonial struggle has been dominant. The emergence of the UAE
was a peculiar transition from colonial non-sovereignty to federal sovereignty.
Though doubting it would ever function as an effective unit, the British hoped
that recognition of the UAE as a unified international entity would help pro-
tect it from external intervention by Iran, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia.77 Counter
to most expectations, today’s UAE seems far more consolidated than various
other Middle East states, transcending—albeit with some limits—the pen-
chant for individual sovereignty (wataniya) so strictly guarded in the broader
region. A central bank replaced old currencies with a common dirham and
helped establish a thriving banking system. Emirates manage their own sover-
eign wealth funds independently but conduct a unified foreign policy, largely
run by Abu Dhabi.
The GCC’s partial departure from the archetypical Middle East model should
not be simplistically associated with oil resources. Some Emirates lacking in
oil resources (less than 6 percent of Dubai’s GDP is accounted for by oil) but
also others well-endowed have been at the forefront of internationalizing shifts;
Saudi Arabia has been a laggard. Moreover, various other oil-rich Middle Eastern
states (Iran and pre-2003 Iraq) remained quintessentially inward-looking. By
mid-2012 it is too early to tell whether the 2011 Arab upheavals will provide
a turning point in the standard political-economy model that has characterized
North Africa and the Levant, or indeed, in the slowly evolving GCC model.
Their respective ability to exercise international relational power and authority
hangs in the balance.
Scene 3: Sovereignty, Power, and Hypocrisy in the Global

Non-Proliferation Regime (NPR)
If states seek power maximization—as in standard neorealist accounts—why
would most renounce their sovereign right to nuclear weapons? The NPR oper-
ates in the thorniest domain of national security, where the emergence and
functioning of international institutions should be most difficult.78 One could
easily conceive of the nuclear realm as the last bastion of sovereignty, where
states would be expected to reject all restraints, limits, or prohibitions imposed
by external authority structures. Yet the heart of the NPR—the Treaty on the
Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)—won ratification by 190 states

and is the most widely subscribed international treaty, even though it is arguably
the most constraining security regime of all insofar as it proscribes what some
regard as the ultimate guarantee of security, the “absolute weapon.”
Despite its severe deficiencies, it would be difficult to argue that the NPR is
neither institutionalized nor consequential. If one can conclude without doubt
that all states joined voluntarily rather than through coercion or imposition, the
NPR arguably does not violate legal sovereignty.79 Expert views vary regarding
such assessment. There might be broader agreement on the NPR as an interna-
tional authority structure that violates Vattelian sovereignty, subverting member
states’ control over nuclear activities within their territory, severely reducing their
autonomy and compromising their de jure and de facto authority to develop
nuclear weapons; dictating specific authority structures that must regulate
domestic nuclear matters;80 and endowing external authorities (the IAEA) with
ever-expanding rights to inspect and secure compliance. The NPR also overrides
states’ authority to regulate cross-border flows of nuclear materials, equipment,
and weapons; states must subordinate their regulations to the NPR and cannot
assist, encourage, or induce non–nuclear weapons states (NNWS) to acquire
nuclear weapons. UNSC 1540 takes the erosion of sovereignty a step further,
compelling UN members to adopt national legislation to prevent proliferation
of materials, weapons and delivery systems.81
This story of dramatic acquiescence with sovereignty loss is arguably correct
for most of the 184 (189 minus 5) NNWS that have genuinely abdicated their
right to develop nuclear weapons. It is less relevant for three other groups. First,
five states are recognized as de jure nuclear weapons states (NWS) under the
NPT—the US, Russia, China, the UK, and France—conforming to Krasner’s
recognition of relative power as an important source of violations of sovereign
equality norms. Second, some states signed the NPT but had no qualms violat-
ing it, including Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Iran, all found in violation
of reporting commitments to the IAEA. Organized hypocrisy is a particularly
apt term for these cases insofar as their rhetorical commitments to nonprolifera-
tion norms were flouted in practice, sometimes with (unintended) IAEA assis-
tance. Third, India, Pakistan, and Israel abstained from signing the NPT and
proceeded to develop nuclear weapons, the former two testing them and the
latter neither testing nor acknowledging them. By not signing the NPT, these
three exhibited greater consistency than the previous group, neither compromis-
ing Vattelian sovereignty nor technically violating the NPT.
The NPR’s recognition of a two-tier system of NWS and NNWS recalls
Krasner’s dominant “modalities of deviation” from sovereign equality, whether
the regime operated through coercive, imposed, or contractual power asym-
metries, and whether or not it yielded Pareto-improving results. The contrac-
tual account builds on the NPT bargain that stipulated the right of NNWS to
obtain civilian nuclear technology in exchange for renouncing sovereign rights

to nuclear weapons. This is a story of presumed Pareto optimality. Betts, how-
ever, concluded that “if the NPT . . . prevented proliferation, one should be able
to name at least one specific country that would have sought nuclear weapons
or tested them, but refrained from doing so, or was stopped, because of [this]
treaty. None comes to mind.”82 Furthermore, it is possible that the very con-
ditions leading states to sign and ratify the NPT, although not always directly
observable (or measurable), can also explain subsequent compliance better
than would the NPT itself (i.e., selection bias can overstate the effect of treaty
commitments). But it is also plausible that the NPR as a cluster of institutions
did, in Krasner’s formulation, help move “states closer to their most preferred
outcomes.”83
The coercive account dwells on superpower efforts, particularly by the US
and USSR/Russia but also others, to deny nuclear capabilities to NNWS, with
the 2003 war in Iraq providing the most forceful instance of coercion to ensure
denial. The coercive account is a story of the strongest powers imposing their
own favored solution along the Pareto frontier. Coercion by powerful states,
however, did not preclude North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel (or China itself,
for that matter) from acquiring nuclear weapons or Iran from reaching thresh-
old nuclear status. As Waltz argued, “in the past half-century, no country has
been able to prevent other countries from going nuclear if they were deter-
mined to do so.”84 Krasner’s discussion of “modalities of deviation” from sover-
eignty does not include a persuasion account, but his recurrent attention to the
logic of appropriateness draws attention to the possibility that some 180 states
might have been persuaded to forgo nuclear weapons because of their arguably
low moral standing, at least among some states. The idea of a universal anti-
nuclear acquisition norm, however, clashes with a reality of competing norms
endowing nuclear weapons with redemptive anticolonial, ethnic, religious, or
civic-nationalist values.
There is no systematic empirical evidence one way or another for all 180
cases that could help adjudicate unequivocally among competing accounts cred-
ited for this feat of sovereignty trimming by the NPR.85 The extent to which
this feat can be traced to international power asymmetries alone or primari-
ly—or to norms alone or primarily—remains subject to contestation. Indeed,
political-economy models of the kind discussed in Scenes 1 and 2 (internation-
alizing vs. inward-looking) are at least as apt in elucidating patterns of nuclear
weapons abstention/acquisition since the NPT’s inception, and indeed capable
of endogenizing other interpretations. The contrast between a cluster of East
Asian states forgoing nuclear weapons despite technical capabilities and a cluster
of Middle East states seeking such weapons despite limited capabilities speaks to
the connection between the models identified above and their relative acquies-
cence to international institutions curtailing sovereignty.
Whatever its main source, the NPR has raised the reputational costs of pursu-
ing nuclear weapons for NNWS. There is a common but not always compelling
perception that granting NWS status to the five has had the effect of freezing
the international power hierarchy in existence in the 1960s when the NPT
was negotiated. States that did not limit their nuclear sovereignty presumably
gained or preserved power, whereas states that renounced the sovereign right
to develop nuclear weapons somehow detracted from their potential power. A
simplistic “power as resource” perspective may perhaps suit this line of thinking.
However, a relational perspective that looks at international power as the ability
to affect outcomes might find possession of nuclear weapons to be a more ques-
tionable source of power. Nuclear weapons did little for the US and the USSR in
Vietnam and Afghanistan. Nuclear weapons programs may have arguably helped
bring Pakistan and North Korea closer to failed state destiny than to regional
hegemony by, among other things, breaking their economic back. As Finnemore
and Goldstein suggest, some traditional trappings of power may be poor predic-
tors of outcomes, and nuclear weapons may be particularly so in the twenty-first
century, given asymmetrical warfare and elusive terrorist networks. At the other
end, it is unclear that states that abdicated sovereign rights to nuclear weapons
in fact became less powerful. Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Brazil, and
others have enhanced their power quite dramatically through internationalizing
models, avoiding material, reputational, and high opportunity costs of nuclear
weapons and delivery systems (which, despite an old conventional wisdom, are
not cheap). China’s real ascent to power—as ability to affect international out-
comes—can similarly be traced to its internationalizing model much more so
than to the (nuclear) power “resource” it acquired prior to internationalization,
in 1964.
Recent pressures by NNWS have resulted in declaratory commitments by
NWS that they would strive to achieve a nuclear-weapons free world. Those
pressures emanated chiefly from article 6 of the NPT urging NWS to achieve
nuclear disarmament, a concession extracted from NWS at the time of NPT
negotiations. Whether or not NWS considered article 6 a serious commitment or
a symbolic gesture to engineer the perception of a Pareto-optimal treaty remains
the subject of intense debate. Yet article 6’s commitment to pursue nuclear dis-
armament negotiations “in good faith” entailed some form of self-binding of
nuclear sovereignty by the most powerful actors. For much of the treaty’s life
span, article 6 remained in the background, rather inert, as power-based per-
spectives would expect. That the less powerful (NNWS) states would succeed
in curtailing the sovereign right of the more powerful NWS to retain nuclear
weapons might turn standard neorealist theories of international power on their
head. This outcome seems unlikely anytime soon, but NWS have already been
pressed into verbal and written commitments that can hardly be explained by
relative power. Though initially favoring the most powerful states that created it,
the NPR could end up canceling those states’ prerogatives. The road to that elu-
sive outcome could be plagued by resistance from domestic audiences in both
NWS and other newcomers (India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel), as well
as by structural difficulties inherent in “getting to zero” in a multilateral nuclear
world. And even if such difficulties were to be surmounted, hypocrisy might
well remain a feature of a Nuclear Zero world: the presence of latent differential
power capabilities (nuclear, technological, industrial) among states might con-
tinue to foil stable Pareto-optimal nuclear-free outcomes.
Conclusions
The three scenes surveyed here take us through an array of relevant actors cohab-
iting and interacting in contemporary international relations, from domestic
coalitions to states, regions, and international institutions. This brief excursion
suggests that domestic models of political survival are both a crucial driver of
sovereignty compromises and consequential for various forms of power. The
evolving scenes also confirm that sovereignty types do not necessarily co-vary,
and that the sovereignty bundle is a continuously evolving construct. China’s
reduced sphere of interdependence sovereignty in the wake of its internation-
alization has been accompanied by some concessions of Vattelian sovereignty
regarding WTO-mandated rules, principles, and procedures as well as in the non-
proliferation area (CTBT in particular). China’s traditional rhetorical assertion of
Vattelian sovereignty for other countries may have also been weakened, as reflected
in the new policy of supporting sanctions on nuclear proliferation under UNSC
resolutions. Responding to mounting domestic and international pressures, China
condemned North Korea’s uranium enrichment activities, which it had erstwhile
defended as a sovereign prerogative. While some may wish more-dramatic shifts,
China has accepted at least some constraints on its neighbor’s sovereignty and
has occasionally ventured into soft coercion, belying its proclaimed adherence
to “sovereign equality.”86 China’s own concessions related to interdependence
(and some Vattelian) sovereignty have gone hand in hand with a dramatic rise
in recognition of its international legal sovereignty buttressed by UN member-
ship and, thus far, with a strengthening of its domestic sovereignty. Indeed, sov-
ereignty concessions to international markets and institutions may have arguably
reinforced China’s ability to withstand external intervention in domestic authority
structures relevant to democracy and human rights, although the extent to which
this ability can be sustained is highly contested.
Some of the same sovereignty trade-offs can be observed throughout East
Asia more generally: greater acceptance of limits on interdependence (and
some Vattelian) sovereignty cum heightened levels of domestic sovereignty, cer-
tainly relative to many of these states’ inward-looking past, in Southeast Asia
for instance. Taiwan was able to endure minimal legal sovereignty—the very
prospect of state death—through extensive compromises over interdependence
and Vattelian sovereignty but robust domestic sovereignty. Since 1970, with the
inception of the NPT, several East Asian states with significant capabilities to
acquire nuclear weapons renounced them in tandem with their internationaliz-
ing models and receptivity to markets, international institutions, and other states’
expectations. By contrast, greater resistance to interdependence and Vattelian
sovereignty losses by many Middle East states did not necessarily strengthen
domestic sovereignty or effective state control over activities within their bor-
ders (Yemen is only an extreme example, but similar tribal, ethnic, and politi-
cal challenges afflicted most states throughout the region). Some of the states
most resistant to interdependence sovereignty losses have also been keenest to
retain sovereign rights to develop nuclear weapons. Ironically—but in line with
the coalitional argument advanced in this chapter—the high opportunity costs
of both of those efforts to assert sovereignty helped undermine domestic sover-
eignty from Pakistan to Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya, and arguably North Korea.
The three scenes also illuminate the many faces of international power—not
all of which co-vary—and their complex interaction with different sovereignty
compromises. Such compromises are consequential for the ability of ruling coali-
tions to sustain themselves in power and for altering outcomes in their inter-
actions with markets, international institutions, and other states. Sovereignty
compromises at time t have also profound implications down the road, beyond
the short term, for the power of successive rulers, states, entire regions, and inter-
national institutions. Inward-looking models are about asserting maximum sover-
eignty across the board, with differential effects on power resources and ability to
affect outcomes. Given their makeup, centering on statist control of the economy
frequently underpinned by vast military-industrial complexes, inward-looking
models tend to amass significant coercive and military power that often trans-
lates into the ability to threaten and compel domestic and external actors. Yet,
as the 2011 Middle East upheavals suggest, the price of coercion is also delegiti-
mization. Furthermore, inward-looking models and demands for greater Vattelian
and interdependence sovereignty often detract from other power capabilities,
primarily economic and political. Strong demands for undiluted sovereignty by
China’s Maoist leadership may have enhanced Vattelian autonomy from exter-
nal and internal forces but also stifled China’s ascent in relative global resources
and influence, and ultimately weakened the domestic power of Mao’s allies.87
Similarly, rigid interdependence and Vattelian sovereignty claims by Middle East
rulers both sapped their own power resources at home and shackled their ability
to enhance their region’s international power and influence.88 Finally, resistance to
sovereignty compromises embedded in NPT membership (including Additional
Protocols) reduced the international economic and political power of North
Korea, pre-2004 Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Pakistan.89
By contrast, successful internationalizing models may compromise some

interdependence sovereignty (and sometimes Vattelian sovereignty) but also
enhance their domestic sovereignty and economic and political power at home
and vis-à-vis international markets, institutions, and other states. Such compro-
mises have been instrumental in enhancing the power of China’s international-
izing rulers domestically and internationally, thus far, although they also remain
vulnerable entry points for exploitation by inward-looking opponents. Even as
China became more bound by international conventions and more dependent
on external markets—for exports, natural resources, and technology, among
others—its power to affect outcomes also rose within and beyond governance
structures such as the G-20, the BRICs, and the UNSC. Similarly, voluntary lim-
itations on their interdependence and Vattelian sovereignty by East Asian states
also helped propel their region to higher levels of international economic and
political power (as both resource and ability to influence outcomes not just on
markets but also, progressively, on governance structures). Furthermore, there
is no evidence that the renunciation of nuclear weapons by Japan, Singapore,
South Korea, Taiwan, or many others in and beyond this region—a remarkable
concession of Vattelian sovereignty—necessarily diminished their power to affect
economic and political outcomes relative to what it would have been had they
acquired nuclear weapons. Indeed, some may argue that their ability to influ-
ence outcomes may have been enhanced by such “concessions,” though others
might ponder the counterfactual (that nuclear weapons might have made them
even more powerful). All in all, our three scenes remind us that some traditional
trappings of power (natural resources, nuclear weapons) may be poor predictors
of outcomes. Power as the ability to affect international outcomes is more often
the by-product of internationalizing models than of rigid sovereignty-seeking
inward-looking ones.
The conclusions thus far suggest that maximizing sovereignty/autonomy
does not necessarily entail maximizing power, and reductions in sovereignty
do not automatically lead to reductions in power. They also suggest that sov-
ereignty compromises have consequential implications for different forms of
power. But does greater power inevitably lead to greater demand for sover-
eignty? A future research agenda along the lines of this chapter would cer-
tainly be drawn to this question. The answer will be highly contingent on the
nature of the international system at a particularly world-time, which influ-
ences the convertibility of sovereignty compromises into power and vice
versa. A global order privileging economic openness has different implications
from one hinging on closure. Relatedly, whether or not greater power leads
to greater demands for sovereignty would also be contingent on the internal
strength of inward-looking models. Sustained global crises, increased inequal-
ity, and spreading nationalism privilege inward-looking models and, with them,
demands for strengthened sovereignty.
As for contemporary international relations, our brief zooming into the three
scenes arguably suggests that greater power can paradoxically require greater
receptivity to sovereignty compromises and reduced autonomy. Even states with
vast power (as resources) find it in their interest to cede measures of interde-
pendence and Vattelian sovereignty to markets, international institutions, and
other states. But such “concessions” are made with an eye on further enhancing
their power to influence outcomes. Whereas China might have preferred a freer
hand and much lower profile on the sanctions debate vis-à-vis North Korea
and Iran, an internationalizing model with attendant domestic and international
expectations leaves it less room for autonomous behavior (certainly of the kind
practiced by Maoist China). But this is quite different from arguing that China
cannot continue to assert autonomy to modernize its nuclear weapons or to
resist encroachment in its Vattelian and domestic sovereignty.
In sum, as Finnemore and Goldstein suggest in the introduction, power does
not translate tidily into political outcomes. Neither do sovereignty compromises.
Nor do power and sovereignty map onto each other in self-evident ways. Yet the
models of political survival analyzed in this chapter provide one important con-
ceptual anchor for thinking about these complex relationships. The ascent and
decline of competing models and corresponding power measures, however, are
neither linear nor inevitable. The stability of the internationalizing model that
underpinned China’s rise, regional differences across East Asia and the Middle
East, and incentives of NNWS to remain nonnuclear are all evolving and poten-
tially reversible. Any research agenda on their attendant consequences for power
and sovereignty compromises will be indebted to Krasner’s efforts to problema-
tize both as central concepts of international relations.
Notes
Preliminary versions of this paper were presented at Stanford University, Princeton University,
Free University Berlin’s Otto-Suhr Institute for Political Science, and the 2010 APSA meet-
ing. I would like to acknowledge the editors Judith Goldstein and Martha Finnemore
and discussants John Meyer, Andrew Moravcsik, Tanja Börzel, and Ron Hassner. Richard
Steinberg and other conference and panel participants offered helpful suggestions, as did
Iain Johnston, Richard Rosecrance, Tai Ming Cheung, Henrik Stålhane Hiim, Tony Saich,
Injoo Sohn, and Galia Press-Barnathan. The discussion of China’s sovereignty dilemmas
benefited from personal interviews in Shanghai (September 2009, December 2009), Beijing
(September 2009 and July 2010), and Hong Kong (November 2010). I thank Helen Klein
for research assistance.
1. Krasner (2009, 180) defines interdependence sovereignty as “the ability of public authorities
to regulate the flow of information, ideas, goods, people, pollutants, or capital across the bor-
ders of their state.” This sovereignty category is exclusively concerned with control and not
authority, with capacity to regulate trans-border flows and their domestic impact, a capacity
arguably diminished under globalization. Krasner (2009, 15) subsumes “interdependence
sovereignty” under “domestic sovereignty,” or the ability of political authorities to con-

trol a state’s authority structure and legitimacy within and across its borders effectively.
Westphalian/Vattelian sovereignty accepts states as juridically independent, autonomous, not
subject to external authority (2009, 15), a concept that negates the right of states to inter-
vene in the internal affairs of other states. International legal sovereignty entails mutual rec-
ognition by states, including the right to voluntarily enter agreements or treaties.
2. Krasner (1976) defines power as a resource or attribute, as economic capabilities (size,
per capita income, shares of world trade, and investment flows). Krasner’s (1999) book
on sovereignty commonly refers to “power asymmetries” as a relational concept—getting
others to do something they would otherwise not do—or the ability to determine out-
comes, to coerce and control. For a recent overview of evolving meanings of power in
international relations see Krasner (this volume) and Baldwin 2011.
3. On “organized hypocrisy,” see Krasner 1999, 3, and Krasner 2009, 211.
4. Reasons of space allow only a cursory outline of this coalitional argument. For its theo-
retical foundations and empirical applications, see Solingen 1998, 2007a and b, and 2013
(forthcoming). Weberian ideal types are limiting conceptual constructs or abstractions
that need not fit every case or indeed any particularly case completely but rather provide
a heuristic, a helpful shortcut and a comparative framework capable of reducing complex
reality down to some fundamentals (Weber 1949; Eckstein 1975; Ruggie 1998, 31–2).
“Internationalizing” points to an evolving empirical approximation to the ideal type. On
the political economy of industrializing regions and their relationship to the industrial-
ized core see Krasner 1985. On Middle Eastern oil economies, see Krasner 1978. On
trading states, see Rosecrance 1986.
5. There has been disagreement over the sources of state shifts on approaches to sover-
eignty. This chapter focuses on one such source, models of domestic political survival,
which has not yet gained systematic attention.
6. Mao’s autarchic model—reacting to “100 years of shame and humiliation” by the West
and Japan—denounced external coercion and infringements on sovereignty (Carlson
2005; Medeiros 2009). The model was less congruent when it came to other countries’
sovereignty, endorsing revolutions throughout the developing world. Another inconve-
nient incongruence were secret protocols (1950) giving the Soviet Union extraterritorial
economic privileges in China ( Johnston 2008).
7. Sovereignty compromises, in China as elsewhere, evolved over time, sometimes cycli-
cally. Organized hypocrisy was typical of imperial China, where behavior inconsistent
with Confucian norms was reinterpreted for domestic audiences (Krasner 2009, 222).
Late twentieth-century compromises, though of a different kind, were nothing new for
China. See also Shirk 1993 and 2007.
8. Medeiros 2009, 15. Although reasons of space don’t allow a more fine-grained differen-
tiation among Deng’s successors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao have straddled the coali-
tional divide without reversing internationalization (Cheung 2012). See also footnote 4
on ideal versus real types.
9. Johnston 2008, 209.
10. Gill 2010, 5.
11. Kent 2007.
12. On the tight relationship between China’s internationalizing model and its acceptance of
the CTBT, see Johnston 2008 and Hiim 2010.
13. Gu and Miller 2009.
14. A more recent agreement with Pakistan followed other states’ bending of nuclear export
rules on behalf of India.
15. Medeiros 2009.
16. Gill 2010.
17. International Crisis Group 2009, 13.
18. As expressed by Ambassador Wang Guangya after endorsing UNSC sanctions against
Iran in 2006 (United Nations 2006). Following Saudi complaints, China also moved
toward greater cooperation with the Arab League on Syria despite Russia’s reluctance.
19. Supreme Cultural Revolution Council 2005, 7–38.
20. Katzman 2012; Solingen 2012.
21. Wines 2012.
22. UNSC Resolution 1718 reportedly had no impact on Chinese behavior, as total Chinese
exports (including luxury goods) to North Korea continued to increase in the aftermath
of the two nuclear tests relative to the underlying economic fundamentals (Haggard and
Noland in Solingen 2012). Proscribed military trade from North Korea reportedly con-
tinued to use China as a transshipment post.
23. Solingen 2010. China perceives the influx of North Korean refugees into Yanbian as fuel-
ing Korean irredentism. See also Guardian 2010 and Tisdall 2010.
24. United Nations 2003.
25. United Nations 2009; Global Security Newswire 2009.
26. Ryall 2012.
27. See Rosecrance and Gu 2009, and interviews in International Crisis Group 2009, 13.
According to Zhu Feng (2010), surveys showed that a majority of Chinese disliked Kim
Jong-Il’s regime and its hereditary power structures but that bureaucratic conservatism
and “morbid reminiscence” of past Sino–North Korean relations precluded more sig-
nificant change. China’s position on North Korea remains “the single most divisive for-
eign policy issue in China.” None of China’s top nine leaders—the Standing Committee
of the Politburo—had close ties to North Korea, at least thus far. Chinese leaders in
Northeastern China are increasingly frustrated by the flow of North Korean refugees and
North Korea’s failure to develop cross-border trade and special economic zones ( Johnson
and Windes 2010, A12).
28. More than persuasion may have been involved in additional occasions. Senior Chinese
leader Zhou Yongkang reportedly told Kim Jong-Il that China would support his succes-
sion efforts but North Korea would have to take substantive steps to open up its econ-
omy ( Johnson and Windes 2010, A12). Whether or not efforts by China yielded fruit,
attempts to effect internal changes in North Korea’s domestic structures signal an evolu-
tion in China’s position.
29. Christensen 2011; ICG 2009, 5; LaFraniere 2010, A6. On senior Chinese figures speak-
ing of North Korea as a “threat to the whole world’s security” and on the younger gen-
eration of Chinese Communist Party leaders no longer regarding North Korea as a useful
or reliable ally, see Wikileaks cables in Tisdall 2010 and Guardian 2010. Even China’s
state-controlled Global Times favored a sterner warning to North Korea following the lat-
ter’s declaration that it is constitutionally a nuclear power. On China’s official warnings
against tests, see Perlez 2012.
30. Shen 2009.
31. Krasner 2009, 211.
32. Agence France-Presse 2007.
33. On Chinese leaders’ concern with China’s reputation as underlying its shift toward CTBT
endorsement, see Johnston (2008, 113). Expected material benefits (access to trade, aid,
technology, and investment) as well as symbolic reasons drive China’s concern with rep-
utation, according to Medeiros (2009, 17).
34. Keohane 2009, 10.
35. Krasner (2001, 28) suggests that Chinese and Tibetans might be better off if Tibet
regains some of the autonomy it had as a tributary state under China’s empire, yet
domestic resistance pivoted on sovereignty norms has prevented that outcome. On the
connection between “losing Taiwan” and “losing power,” and the sacrosanct approach to
domestic sovereignty, see Shulong 2001; Johnston 2008, 210; and Carlson 2005, 227.
36. Wang 2004; Jakobson and Knox 2010; Christensen 2011; Saich 2011; Shambaugh 2012.
On apparent retreat from WTO commitments, see Long Yongtu, the Chinese diplomat
who negotiated WTO accession, in Bacchus 2011.
37. Elbadawi 2005, 319.
38. Krasner 1981.
39. On permissive and catalytic conditions explaining the origins of these models, and on
neighborhood effects, see Solingen 1998, 2007b, and 2009a.
40. Anticolonialism cannot easily explain differential approaches to the global economy
between East Asia and the Middle East because both regions were subjected to colonial
domination, occupation, and exploitation. China’s yoke under colonial powers, Japan’s
colonial violence in its region and its own occupation by the United States, and Vietnam’s
repeated victimization are only some instances of colonial oppression in East Asia.
41. Stiglitz 1996; Haggard 2004; MacIntyre and Naughton 2005.
42. Developmental states usher in industrial transformation; predatory states undercut it even
in the narrow sense of capital accumulation (Evans 1995). On MENA’s common features
and the strong case for treating the region as a unit, see Abed and Davoodi 2003.
43. Hakimian and Moshaver 2001; Arab Human Development Reports 2002–2009; Galal
and Hoekman 2003; Elbadawi 2005; Noland and Pack 2005.
44. Krasner 1999, 61–62; Thelen 1999; Pierson 2000.
45. Chatelus 1987, 111.
46. Beblawi and Luciani 1987, 16.
47. Owen and Pamuk 1998; Henry and Springborg 2001, 44–5; Halliday 2005, 264 and
295.
48. Hakimian and Moshaver 2001, 89; Arab Human Development Report 2002, 87.
49. Galal and Hoekman 2003; Hoekman and Sekkat 2009.
50. Bill and Springborg 2000; Dawisha 2003.
51. The same mechanisms—delegitimized mukhabarat (secret police) authoritarian states
with mammoth military-industrial complexes—afflicted both inter-Arab and Arab-Israeli
relations even prior to the Six-Day War (Kerr 1971). See also Gause 1992; Halliday
2005, 291; and Dodge 2002, 177.
52. Solingen 2009b. Pan-Arab rhetoric camouflaged ethnic minority control by Alawi (Syria),
Sudairi (Saudi Arabia), Hashemite ( Jordan), and Tikriti (Iraq) tribes, to deflect internal
opposition.
53. Gause 1992.
54. Halliday (2005, 35) considered those norms epiphenomenal, invoked primarily for
“political calculation.”
55. Noble 1991, 75.
56. Halliday 2005.
57. Hitler’s Germany was the textbook imperial strategy. Arab nationalists considered
European fascism “a virile politico-economic system superior to other Western models”
(Macdonald 1965).
58. Hasou 1985; Macdonald 1965.
59. In 2003 the league denied Iraq’s Governing Council the right to represent Iraq for lack-
ing “sovereign” legitimacy, a particularly poignant justification, given the league’s over-
whelmingly autocratic membership.
60. Barnett and Solingen 2007.
61. Dodge and Higgott 2002, 24–25.
62. Halliday 2005.
63. Krasner 2009, xiii.
64. Chan 1999, 200; Hui 2005.
65. Solingen 2008.
66. Johnston 2008.
67. Ganesan and Amer 2010.

68. Taiwan, which China claims as part of its sovereign domain, is the East Asian excep-
tion, whereas inexistent or interrupted diplomatic ties have been far more frequent in
the Middle East (Syria/Lebanon, Iraq/Syria, Egypt/Iran, Morocco/Iran, Mauritania/
Morocco, Libya/Egypt, Egypt/Sudan, Arab states/Israel, etc.). Egypt recalled its ambas-
sador to Algeria following mutual attacks on soccer fans during a playoff game for the
2010 World Cup.
69. Krasner 2009, 198.
70. Asian Development Bank 2008.
71. Averages for 2000–2008 (see Solingen 2009b for additional sources, including for GCC
countries discussed below). Intra-Arab trade accounted for 7–10 percent of their total
since the 1950s (Arab Human Development Report 2002, 126).
72. Abed and Davoodi 2003.
73. The GCC includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, account-
ing for only 1.4 percent of world GDP (2005).
74. Krasner 2009.
75. Sovereignty was traditionally exercised over peoples and not over territory in the Arabian
Peninsula (Legrenzi 2008, 195). As oil concessions became important, so did territorially
based disputes.
76. The emirates are Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain, Ras al-Khaimah,
and Fujairah.
77. Legrenzi 2008.
78. Revisiting his 1982 definition of international regimes, Krasner (2009, 12) argues that
theoretically neutral definitions of regimes are impossible. In a constructivist world,
regimes are “sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making
procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area.” For realism,
regimes entail rules and norms reflecting the interests of most powerful states. For neo-
liberal institutionalism, regimes are principles, rules, norms that mitigate market failures.
The NPR can be understood through these different lenses focusing on norms, power,
and institutions respectively, but all three approaches have distinct limitations (Solingen
2007a).
79. Krasner 2009, 15.
80. For instance, prohibiting links between civilian and military programs in NNWS, institu-
tionally “sanitizing” the nuclear fuel cycle.
81. States must develop and maintain appropriate physical protection measures, includ-
ing border controls and law-enforcement efforts to detect, deter, prevent, and combat
illicit trafficking; establish, develop, review, and maintain appropriate, effective national
export and transshipment controls over export, transit, transshipment, reexport, financ-
ing, and transporting that might contribute to proliferation; establish end-user controls
and enforce appropriate criminal or civil penalties for violations of such export control
laws and regulations. United Nations 2004.
82. Betts 2000, 69.
83. Krasner 2009, xiii.
84. Waltz 2003, 38.
85. Solingen 2007a.
86. Cheung (2010) discusses China’s “stealth sanctions,” or practice of refraining from pub-
licizing its implementation of economic sanctions, especially when applied to allies or
important trading partners. China was reported—but never acknowledged—to have
halted vital oil supplies to North Korea in 2003, 2006, and possibly 2011 to pressure
North Korea (Lee 2011).
87. Inward-looking models often undermine power both as an attribute and in a relational
sense (ability to affect outcomes).
88. Although some consider GCC states to be superseding this pattern in tandem with a
very incipient internationalizing shift and added international influence, the region’s 2011
upheavals present them with a significant challenge.
89. Brazil’s acceptance of NPT commitments preceded—and did not preclude—its dramatic
ascent to power.
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(December): 8.
7
States and Power as Ur-Force

Domestic Traditions and Embedded Actors in World Politics
Peter J. Katzenstein
In his writings on power, Stephen Krasner has been as consistent as an ortho-

dox rabbi who advocates praying on the Sabbath. Ours is a world of states and
power. The most powerful rule. They bend the rules as they see fit. And they can
be blind. Krasner’s view is intellectually austere, rigorously causal, and experien-
tially pessimistic. Without slaying any of his fathers—Machiavelli, Hobbes, Carr,
Kennan, Morgenthau, Niebuhr, Waltz, and Gilpin—he found his own distinctive
voice as one of the most important realists of our generation. More hedgehog
than fox, Krasner held on to one basic insight rather than being distracted by
many small ones. He deepened this insight by developing one rhetorical skill
to perfection: setting up any opposing argument in ways that left it vulnerable
to intellectual subsumption. Interdependence, transnationalism, regimes, global-
ization, ideas, ideologies, beliefs, norms, identity, discourse, and other analytical
constructs came, and went, during the last four decades. Yet they all affected the
world “merely” by mediating the world’s Ur-force—states and power.
In his first, landmark book on raw materials policy, Krasner was able to dem-
onstrate the superiority of a statist account over liberalism and instrumental
Marxism.1 Central to his argument was his inquiry into the ideological roots
of America’s liberal foreign policy, which permitted him to undermine a liberal
explanation. The empirical cases at hand, however, did not permit him to distin-
guish clearly between the explanatory strength of realism with its focus on power
and states and structural Marxism. He therefore went to another case, Vietnam,
to settle the matter.2 It was the irrationality of liberal ideology (which had driven
the United States to disastrous defeat in Vietnam and serious division at home)
that helped Krasner to establish the superiority of a statist over a structural
Marxist explanation of American foreign policy. For Krasner, a coherent liberal
ideology crystallizes around core values that can impel profoundly irrational poli-
cies. This chapter asks, is liberalism really the crystallization of coherent values?
Two decades later, in another pathbreaking book, Krasner—statist par
excellence—came to the ineluctable conclusion that realism is ontologically
139
incoherent.3 Sovereign states are epiphenomenal. They are neither unitary actors
nor the basic unit of analysis. States lack autonomy. Too often, their sovereignty
is compromised. Sovereignty is thus not a deeply institutionalized norm in
international politics. The Westphalian state system is grounded in hypocrisy,
not sovereignty. After each breach of an exceedingly brittle sovereignty norm,
actors return to that norm as the default option in both rhetoric and practice.
Yet they are always prepared to break with the norm again when necessity or
desire so dictates. Autonomous, rationally calculating rulers, not sovereign states,
are the basic unit in international politics, and Machiavelli, not Hobbes, is the
preeminent realist theorist. This chapter asks, are rulers really autonomous and
rational?
In developing answers to both questions, I rely on Michael Barnett’s and
Raymond Duvall’s searching reexamination of the concept of power in inter-
national politics, which also informs Stephen Krasner’s concluding chapter in
this book.4 They refer to power as the production of effects, in and through
social relations, that shape the capacities of actors to determine the conditions
of their existence. Power has two dimensions—type and specificity. It works,
first, through two types of social relations—interaction and constitution; power
is either an attribute of particular actors and their interactions, or of social pro-
cesses of constitution that create actors as social beings. And it works, second,
either directly and in socially specific ways, or indirectly and in socially diffuse
ones. Barnett and Duvall’s taxonomy generates four ideal types of power rela-
tions: compulsory power in social interactions characterized by direct control
of one actor over another; institutional power in diffuse interactions marked by
indirect control; structural power, which constitutes an actor’s power in direct
structural relations; and productive power as the socially diffuse production of
actorhood in systems of meaning. In differentiating institutional, structural, and
productive power from compulsion, this taxonomy makes it possible for us to
show the interaction, coevolution, and mutual constitution of different types of
power. It thus makes possible the conceptual move that I suggest in this chap-
ter: focusing on the interaction between productive, institutional, and structural
aspects of power that are too often disregarded by analyses that highlight only
the direct effects of interactions among specific actors.
In this chapter I inquire into the domestic foundations of power, the Hartzian
view of liberalism that consistently informs Krasner’s writings on American for-
eign policy. Liberal values are, for Krasner, coherent and unitary. This is at odds
with much of Louis Hartz’s writings, which historicized America’s liberal tradition
in the examination of its manifestations in subnational, international-comparative,
and global contexts. In sharp contrast, Krasner’s coherence view offers only a
simplified snapshot of that tradition. Krasner argues in his first book that an
anarchic international system normally pushes sovereign states toward coher-
ence, political unity, and rational policies aiming at survival. Lacking that
State s and Power as Ur- Forc e 141
external push, the United States, as the most powerful of all states, heeds the
unifying power of its liberal ideology, which drives it toward the adoption of
irrational policies aimed at remaking the world. Students of American political
development disagree, denying the existence of a unifying liberal ideology as the
foundation for America’s state. Instead, they point to a large ideological space
accommodating America’s multiple political traditions. If America is united, it is
not by a consensual ideology but by the domestic contestation among its multi-
ple traditions. It is only from afar—the view of realists uninterested in domestic
politics and foreigners who do not appreciate the difference between North and
South Dakota—that America appears unitary. Such a long-distance view offers a
vision of American power that is politically highly salient. It is a view that gets
deployed, both in the United States and abroad, for specific political purposes.
Which is not to say that such a view is plausible, let alone true. For it overlooks
the creativity of power that exploits for its own political purposes the structural
racial and institutional political divisions of America.
Second, I also engage Krasner’s argument that rulers, not states, are the basic
unit of international politics. For Krasner rulers are motivated by the logic of
consequences rather than the logic of appropriateness. Actor preferences are
uniform at all times and in all places, and rulers are intent on maximizing their
individual power. The means to achieve that end may differ, but not the end
itself. In this view history is a storehouse of facts illustrating the recurrence of
one constant theme. Krasner’s intellectual move opens the door to a room fur-
nished in minimalist style, featuring only black and white. I prefer here warmer
hues and more comfortable furniture. Rather than stipulating the existence of a
Homo politicus in a world of rational and autonomous rulers, we should stretch
our conceptual categories to conceive of a world of rulers constituted by struc-
tures, embedded in institutions and seeking to exercise various kinds of power.
This enlarges the scope of the questions we pose by including the variability of
the means to a given end as part of the inquiry. Max Weber rather than Gary
Becker becomes our preferred interior designer. Weber focused on history, not
as the endless repetition of sameness, but as a story of change. In arguably the
most personal part of his book, Krasner concedes this vital point, thus under-
mining his central claim. He dedicates this book to his two children, Daniel and
Rachel, “who do change.”
In the chapter’s final section I draw out the implications of these two argu-
ments about contested and multiple traditions and constituted and embed-
ded rulers. We are better served by capacious rather than sparse concepts.
Intellectual capaciousness gives us purchase to formulate interesting and
novel questions that encompass both actor-centric and relational perspectives.
Capacious concepts allow us to escape the strong clutches of paradigmatic
thinking and the comfortable cocoon of the like-minded. Working at the inter-
stices of paradigms, with luck and hard work, we can reimagine the world in
novel ways. And we can fashion eclectic analyses that mix and match elements
from different analytical traditions.
Coherent Liberal Values or Multiple, Contested Traditions

For several generations, Louis Hartz’s single-tradition theory of America has
shaped profoundly the thinking of scholars.5 His consensus view of America’s
liberal culture had an epigrammatic quality that no Cliffs Notes could rival.
“No reactionary feudalism in the past means no revolutionary socialism in the
future.” America’s consensual liberalism reigns unchallenged and forever, as
Locke’s overweening presence has desiccated America’s political imagination.
Liberal and pragmatic muddling through has become America’s homegrown,
totalitarian ideology. Since America takes its own ethics for granted, it is free to
turn all political problems into matters of technique. Because its reach is total,
American liberalism needs no partisan advocates. Liberal unanimity easily tips
over into tyrannical conformity. Because it is unopposed, liberalism’s main bene-
ficiary, business, is overcome by a paranoid sense of political impotence. Finally,
America’s unconstrained ideological fervor imposes on its foreign policy a mes-
sianic impulse to spread Lockean liberalism on a global scale.
Krasner agrees fully with Hartz.6 He argues that America has a weak state
and a strong society, held together by a strong ideology. Compared to other
countries, the American state lacks the political resources and institutional rules
to concentrate power. State actors cannot easily resist private pressure, change
private behavior, or alter social structures. The United States has developed
into a fine art the fragmentation of political power within and across the three
branches of government. The causes of this fragmentation have deep historical
roots. Born lucky, international pressures impinged much less on the United
States than on other states. Hence power did not need to be concentrated in
the hands of a strong state. With the minor exception of the War of 1812, the
United States never confronted the credible threat of a foreign invasion. Political
fragmentation was countered by ideological cohesion. “America’s dominant social
values did not have to be changed to ensure social cohesion or economic devel-
opment. America, born modern, did not have to be made modern.”7 Krasner
refers to Hartz and to those who followed his lead, such as Samuel Huntington;8
like them, he discounts America’s race problem. For Krasner, both supporters
and critics of the American political system subscribe to the all-encompassing
Hartzian view of shared liberal values as the most distinctive trait and unifying
element of America’s weak state.9
This encompassing liberal ideology moves center stage in the toughest ana-
lytical task that Krasner faces in his book: differentiating between two struc-
tural explanations. In sharp contrast to both liberal and instrumental Marxist
explanations, structural accounts see the state as relatively autonomous from

societal interests and endowed with long-term political objectives. For structural
statists, the interests of the state are not reducible to specific social interests.
States have a political logic of their own. Alternatively, from a structural Marxist
perspective the interests of the state in long-term social stability aim at the pro-
longation of a system of class exploitation. Although these two perspectives dif-
fer sharply, they are not easily tested empirically. To decide the case, Krasner
draws on American foreign policy and the use of covert or overt violence during
the Cold War. He argues that American leaders were adopting an illogical policy
while pursuing their anticommunist campaign during the Vietnam War. Lacking
a rational means/ends calculus, American policy undermined the coherence
and stability of both state and society. The irrationality of autonomous state
action, Krasner argues, was due to the iron grip of Lockean liberal ideology over
America’s collective imagination.10
Krasner did not adopt in his analysis the simple unitary actor concep-
tion of systemic realism. For neorealists, the quest for survival in an anarchic
world enforces a unity of purpose and eliminates political pluralism. This is
not Krasner’s view. He argues that over time, the harsh systemic pressures of
international anarchy or the more benign ones of a world with serious security
dilemmas came to matter less and less for the United States. The rise of America
to a position of unchallenged international primacy lifted the constraints of the
international system. America was freed to act on its internal compulsions. This
change led to a shift from the politics of interest (the defense of specific territo-
rial or economic interests) to the politics of ideology (the projection of a total-
istic Lockean vision upon the world). In full agreement with Hartz’s consensus
view of American liberal ideology, once the United States had the requisite
power, it wanted to remake the world in its own image. Graham Greene’s bril-
liant novel The Quiet American captures the result for the wars in Vietnam and
Iraq: high-minded, simplistic naïveté gone astray in a dark and complex world.
Hartz’s lasting intellectual influence on Krasner rests on his interpretation of
America’s liberal tradition.11 But Hartz’s earlier and later writings illustrate an
acute awareness that there is more to America than one set of coherent liberal
values. In his first book, Hartz addressed what we might call the developmental
state of Pennsylvania in the pre–Civil War era, pointing to the complex historical
roots of contemporary liberalism.12 His detailed inquiry into Pennsylvania’s eco-
nomic ideas between the American Revolution and the Civil War gives ample
testimony to the active role of the state in the economy.13 Jacksonianism in
particular became a populist force for equality, displacing a Whig Party tainted
by whiffs of aristocratic sentiments. The state acted as promoter, entrepreneur,
and regulator, thus playing a decisive and positive role in economic life. That
role could be likened to East Asia’s developmental states during the last sev-
eral decades, with one great difference. State objectives outstripped capacities
by significant margins. The alignment of economic and political forces was thus
more complex than allowed for by the canonical distinction between interven-
tionism and laissez faire. “It was in the principle of public profit,” writes Hartz,
“that the positive character of the democratic theory of state enterprise showed
itself perhaps most clearly.”14 The lack of state capacity created disillusionment
with those who were implementing ambitious public plans. Corporate develop-
ment and antistate ideology grew hand in hand and ushered in a very different
political era after the Civil War. Yet on some questions of economic policy, the
statist roots of America’s liberal tradition remain visible even in recent years.15
In an ambitious, unapologetically Euro-centric work of comparative and
international intellectual history, Hartz located the specificity of America’s lib-
eral tradition in the broader universe of the ideological beliefs of settler colonies
in Latin America, Canada, Australia, and South Africa.16 He argued that like the
United States they were all European seeds, partial fragments of Europe’s infi-
nitely rich culture and ideology. These fragments displayed an intellectual immo-
bility that differed sharply from Europe’s capacity for intellectual self-renewal.
After their escape from Europe’s past, these frozen fragments hoped fervently
that they could sit out the future. Suspension from history, however, was a tem-
porary solution. The decolonization movement of the 1950s and 1960s began
to break down the barriers these settler communities had erected, forcing their
fundamentally conservative ideologies to confront the challenges posed by
international and global intellectual developments. Isolationism, nationalism,
xenophobia, hysteria, and reactionary intellectual movements gave testimony
to a period of transition as the fragments came to terms with the experience
of being reconnected to Europe’s intellectual imagination, now displayed on a
global scale.17 America’s bourgeois liberalism stood out as both similar to Dutch
South Africa and English Canada, and different from Europe’s feudal fragments
in Latin America and French Canada as well as its radical fragments in Australia
and English South Africa. Leaving little room for American exceptionalism,
Hartz’s comparative analysis offers us plenty of intellectual space for appreciat-
ing America’s distinctiveness.
Finally, in his last, brilliant and flawed book on global history, Hartz shed his
Euro-centrism and placed America in a multi-civilizational world.18 His argument
is inspired by Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud, and the book is filled with sweeping
generalizations about the interchangeability of philosophical superstructures and
convertible ideologies, all fundamentally similar in their psychological roots as
they are grounded in a hidden fusion of the “active” and “passive” moments of
human existence. Not a conventional piece of scholarship and with an uncer-
tain pedigree of publication, this book conveys a curious mixture of debilitating
self-doubt and limitless intellectual ambition. Patrick Riley, whose reading of the
text I rely upon here, calls it a “strange and extreme but coherent and compelling
book.”19 Hartz focused his attention on the dialectical tension between “action”
and “quiescence” to account for cultural absolutes such as various strands of

Western and non-Western political philosophy, the major “Axial Age” religions
(such as Islam, Confucianism, Christianity, Buddhism), and modern secular reli-
gions (such as natural law and Marxism). That tension generates irrational fears
that find their resolution in a religiously inspired compulsive certainty. Western
liberalism is portrayed as a distinct part of a much larger ensemble, respectable
instrumentalist rather than principal conductor on the global stage. The American
experience and those of the other European fragments are too narrow and too
averse to Europe’s ideological imagination to permit heroic thrusts and massive
surrenders. Hartz’s fragment theory is not subordinate to his “activity-passivity”
theory of the absolute.20 Instead, the two coexist side by side.21
Hartz’s own writing on American liberalism is thus more variegated and
complex than Krasner leads us to believe. Furthermore, in recent decades,
students of American history have focused their attention on the concept
of multiple traditions, which offers a direct challenge to the liberal thesis.22
Specifically, Rogers Smith has reworked an older scholarly tradition organized
around the concept of dueling intellectual beliefs such as Jeffersonianism and
Madisonianism, an approach that Hartz replaced when he articulated his uni-
tary view of American liberalism. Smith argues that American political develop-
ment is marked not only by the egalitarian values of liberal democracy but also
by inegalitarian and illiberal ones. It is the clash between these different tradi-
tions that time and again has reoriented America’s reigning ideas and practices.
The multiple-tradition theory argues that America has been shaped not by any
one tradition, but by a complex pattern of what often looks like inconsistent
combinations of different traditions.23
In Smith’s reasoning, what Hartz’s analysis overlooks are America’s republi-
can and racial strands. Hartz argues that conflict in America, for example over
democratic and economic rights or between majority rule and minority rights,
occurs within the liberal tradition. This minimizes the influence of America’s
republican tradition.24 The rejection of monarchism generated strong political
support for a popular republicanism that was infused with ideals of civic vir-
tue. This republican tradition reverberated with Jeffersonian and Jacksonian con-
ceptions of American democracy and underlay a distinctive form of American
communitarianism. In addition, Hartz is virtually silent on the issue of race. To
be sure, he acknowledged that liberal slavery was more vicious and cruel than
feudal slavery. Liberal slavery denied slaves their very humanity by making them
pieces of property rather than relegating them to the bottom of society. But
Hartz argued also that the abolition of slavery and the restoration of the slaves’
humanity had revealed liberalism’s generosity. Unlike feudalism, the liberal tradi-
tion lacked arguments to halt demands for equality. In fact, contra Hartz, lib-
eral hegemony did not eliminate racism, slavery’s twin, from American politics.
Like republicanism, racism is one of America’s vital political traditions. From the
perspective of multiple traditions theory, Krasner’s insistence on the ideological

glue of liberal ideology in support of a weak state is wrongheaded.
Unlike Krasner, other scholars of US foreign policy have followed multiple-
rather than single-tradition theories of American foreign policy, disagreeing
with the Hartzian argument. They turn to America’s past and see not one but
numerous traditions. Walter Russell Mead, for example, distills from American
history distinct schools of thought that provide the intellectual and ideological
foundation for American foreign policy.25 In his book, Jeffersonianism competes
with Madisonianism, Wilsonianism, and Jacksonianism. More recently, Henry
Nau offers an ingenious reinterpretation of Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy to
add to our stock of foreign policy traditions or schools of thought.26 Reagan’s
conservative internationalism complements traditional realism and liberalism.
Realist nationalism dates back to Hamilton and Teddy Roosevelt, liberal inter-
nationalism to Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, and conservative international-
ism to Jefferson, Polk, and Truman. Like Reagan, these three presidents were
assertive and deployed military force, when necessary, to expand freedom and
self-government rather than international or global governance.
The multiple tradition thesis undercuts the coherence view of a sovereign
American state and accommodates race as a central fact of American politics.
Although it is the deepest of all divides, race does not factor into either Hartz’s
or Krasner’s accounts. This is politically implausible and intellectually problem-
atic, as Michael Hunt has pointed out.27 Throughout the nineteenth century,
American foreign policy has been profoundly shaped by racial categories—in
US relations with American Indians, Mexicans, Cubans, Filipinos, Chinese, and
Japanese, and in an elaborate racial hierarchy in which the Anglo-Saxon race
was deemed superior to successive waves of German, Slavic, Jewish, south-
ern European, and Irish immigrants. Woodrow Wilson, as Stephen Skowronek
argues convincingly, was a man of the South, a liberal and a racist whose organic
theory of history caused him to support tutelary empires over black Americans
at home and Filipinos abroad, and to veto the racial equality clause at the end of
World War I.28 Furthermore, the internationalism of the New Deal coalition was
founded on a political bargain between the liberal wing of the Democratic Party
in the Northeast and conservative Democrats in the South who were able to
continue their long-standing policies of racial discrimination as long as they sup-
ported an internationalist foreign policy. Since the 1970s, as race was gradually
replaced by religion as the central political issue in southern politics, the domes-
tic foundation for a different wave of American internationalism was renewed,
this time under conservative auspices.
Contra Krasner, a weak American state is not sustained by a powerful and
unifying liberal ideology, and domestic sovereignty is not supported by the crys-
tallization of liberal values. The domestic bases of American foreign policy have
instead been deeply contested. With rare exceptions, Americans are divided and
conflicted about what they want and how to go about getting it. Conventional
coalitional, sectional, sectoral, institutional, and other forms of analysis link up
well with the multiple-tradition perspective. They underline numerous inter-
sections between the institutional separation of powers, divisive race and class
structures, and the political practices that are both enabled and constrained by
these enduring characteristics of American politics.
State Sovereignty or Multiple, Embedded Rulers

In his historically and theoretically far-ranging discussion of sovereignty, Krasner
focuses primarily on Westphalian and legal sovereignty. He argues that different
types of sovereignty do not correlate well with one another. Since the norma-
tive veneer of power and ideology is much thinner in international affairs than
in domestic politics, the logic of consequences trumps the logic of appropri-
ateness. The historical record, Krasner argues, is unambiguous. Throughout the
ages, the domestic autonomy of states has regularly been compromised. At their
core, Krasner argues, neorealism and neoliberalism are intellectually incoherent.
States are not the basic unit of the international system.
Shedding a lifetime of intellectual commitment to the state, Krasner thus
makes a sharp break by adopting Machiavelli rather than Hobbes as his central
theorist. “The starting point for this study,” he writes, “the ontological givens,
are rulers, specific policy makers, usually but not always the executive head of
states. . . . Whether international legal sovereignty and Westphalian sovereignty
are honored depends on the decisions of rulers.”29 Since rulers have habitu-
ally broken the principles associated with sovereignty, such principles are best
thought of as organized hypocrisy.
In Krasner’s theory, actors rule the world. And actor preferences are appli-
cable uniformly across time and space. If the preferences themselves are prob-
lematic, they need to be explained rather than seen as doing the explaining.
Stipulating simple preferences is thus central. For this task, Krasner chooses the
logic of economics. Rulers want to stay in power. How they accomplish this will
differ across time and space. Krasner then proceeds to make his empirical case
like an economist, willing and able to disregard context and change. His histori-
cal episodes of the encroachment on sovereignty are universal stories. Timeless
history is for him endless repetition.
Although Krasner’s intellectual move is bold, he fails to take full advantage
of the intellectual space that he is creating. Specifically, he does not inquire
into more encompassing, social versions of actor-oriented theories, such as
actor-centric institutionalism or network approaches to international politics.30
These approaches are better equipped to analyze not only the pursuit of power
but also the choice of means to pursue and defend it. Rather than tracking
only constancy in history, an actor-oriented institutionalism opens our eyes to

processes of historical change and differences in context. Organized hypocrisy
marks many domains of politics besides sovereignty politics, including Swedish
labor markets (from which Krasner derived his inspirations) and Japanese poli-
tics (with its distinction between two spheres of social life, the world of sincere
feelings and the world of social appearances, honne and tatemae). Being able to
differentiate what organized hypocrisy means in different contexts, and how it
operates, advances our knowledge. World politics is not inhabited by autono-
mous and rational rulers, but by rulers who are deeply embedded in different
structural and institutional contexts. Three in particular concern me here: states,
polities, and empires.
States are centers of political authority with distinct identities and institu-
tions, endowed with the capacity of collectively mobilizing resources in the
achievement of political objectives. They are not the only such centers of author-
ity. Although centralized-territorial rule is their hallmark, states are not unitary.
They take on very different forms. And they persist today in many parts of the
world, not unchallenged, but as an integral part of overlapping and intersecting
networks of rules. States are often nested in such broader structures of authority,
both newer ones such as emerging polities or governance structures, and older
ones like historical or universal empires.
The degree of “stateness” and its social context are variable. Compared to con-
tinental Europe, for example, the United States is marked by relative stateless-
ness.31 Its elected government is comparatively limited in its power. Individual
rights, a litigious culture, a constitutionally mandated separation of powers, and
the institution of judicial review all constrain the power of the state. The pres-
idency, especially in times of national emergency, can acquire extraordinary
powers, as illustrated by the policies adopted after 9/11. But the overreaching
of one branch of government should not be confused with the creation of an
institutionally strong state. Other states, such as Japan, can draw on broader and
deeper sources of state power than can the United States. State power is some-
what smaller in India and perhaps also in China, especially if we refer to China
as the combination of both the territorial state of China and the networks that
connect a large Chinese diaspora.
Historically, the triumph of the European state over alternative forms of polit-
ical organization was based on its superior record of keeping peace at home,
securing property rights in markets, collecting taxes, organizing a common
defense, and waging war.
Today, at the European level, stateness remains low in the case of Europe’s
emerging multilevel polity. It does not exist at all in the case of the global umma
of Islam. The social embeddedness of the state also varies. State policies and
practices may be constituted by domestic norms; they may be guided by domes-
tic rules; or they may be merely permissible under domestic rules.32 The social
context in which states operate is variable. It can privilege regime, group, national,
or civilizational norms. Michael Mann sees contemporary world politics undergo-
ing complex changes.33 Under the impact of globalization, these changes cause
states in some parts of the world to lose control over some political domains,
while gaining control over others as the need for increasing regulation of human
affairs intensifies. In Mann’s view, states are thus becoming increasingly polymor-
phous and crystallizing in multiple forms; they do not exist as singular actors.
Polities are a second institutional context for rulers. Compared to states,
they are broader centers of authority that are not exclusively territorially based.
Ferguson and Mansbach rely on the concept of polity to cover the manifold and
increasing changes that have affected the role of the state historically and in con-
temporary world affairs.34 For them, states and polities are both parts of multi-
ple, overlapping, and intersecting networks. John Meyer and his colleagues and
students have developed systematically the idea of one global polity that pro-
vides cognitive and normative models to help constitute contemporary states.35
Such models provide contemporary states with universal rules in which to
ground their claims to legitimacy. As was true of nineteenth-century America,
far from producing anarchy, political conformity is being generated by the reli-
ance on common cultural material: law, science, civic associations, religious sects,
and nationalism. Thinking of American analogues for the international system in
the nineteenth century, Daniel Deudney has referred to this as the “Philadelphia
system.”36 What was true of nineteenth-century America, John Meyer argues, is
also true of today’s global polity.37 That polity acts as a consultant and for the
most part produces talk that is addressed primarily to constituent states and
influences the goals they set (social and economic development as well as wel-
fare, justice, rights, and equality). Indeed, “it becomes rational rather than trea-
sonous to propose copying policies and structures that appear to be successful
in a virtuous or dominant competitor.”38 The usefulness of the concept of polity
thus depends on the empirical phenomena to which it is applied. Political anal-
ysis of the European Union, for example, refers to a multi-tiered polity rather
than an embryonic federal or confederal system of government. In the case of
China, it may make sense to operate with the concept of polity if the inquiry
extends beyond the territorial state of the PRC to incorporate the role of the
overseas Chinese. And we can refer to Islam’s global umma as a stateless polity.
Besides states and polities, empire offers a third institutional context embed-
ding rulers. European empires exported state institutions to other parts of the
world, where they provided an overlay to indigenous political forms of organi-
zation and loyalty, which eventually nested within the institutional import from
Europe. In contemporary world politics, the American imperium is the closest
analogue to traditional European empires. It conjoins the powers of a territorial
empire with those of a non-territorial empire.39 Imperium combines traditional
elements of old-fashioned European imperialism with elements of rule that are
distinctively new. The system of far-flung military bases and the power of the
American military illustrate the importance of the territorial-military aspects of
America’s imperium. At the same time, the United States is also a central actor
and part of a system that is creating new forms of non-territorial rule, for exam-
ple in the evolution of governing mechanisms in financial markets or in the stan-
dards that help delineate the evolution of consumer society and definitions of
individual happiness and contentment.
Historically, territorially based empires or universal states differ from normal
states and polities in terms of size, scope, salience, and sense of task. Inter-imperial
relations are defined by the relationship of subordinate states to the dominant
power.40 Empires remind us that an important part of international politics is
defined by hierarchical rather than egalitarian relations among states.41 Empires
are marked by direct or indirect rule and by differential bargains between the
imperial center and subordinate political communities. When empires assert
the unilateral right to define the criteria for membership in the community of
civilized states—as was true of European states in the nineteenth century and
the United States after 9/11—they move beyond the bounds of realist interna-
tional politics.42 They operate often indirectly through heterogeneous and asym-
metric contracts with local elites who are recruited from core or periphery, or
have come to leading positions in their own right. An imperial ideology often
complements self-professed standards of civility and transcendental convictions.
The balance of capabilities between empires thus is often a highly salient fac-
tor shaping the manifold types of encounters and engagements that ensue. With
the disintegration of the land-based Habsburg and Ottoman empires after World
War I, the overseas European empires after World War II, and the Soviet empire
at the end of the Cold War, the era of territorial empire has largely ended, as the
United States learned only incompletely in its unsuccessful wars in Vietnam in
the 1960s and 1970s and in Afghanistan and Iraq after 2001.
The non-territorial side to the American imperium has political and soci-
ocultural features. The American imperium has considerable power to define
the political norms and rules governing international politics. International
regimes, a variety of global governance arrangements, soft law, and various
methods of policy coordination are shaped to some extent by the norms and
practices the United States has actively promoted during the last half century.
In contrast to other empires, in the American imperium these norms cannot
simply be broken with impunity by the strongest power, following the dic-
tate of “might makes right.” Instead, significant international decisions are
now taken by majority rule, and international arbitration procedures have
grown in importance. Both developments have undermined the unanimity
principle and the principle of the sanctity of state sovereignty. Furthermore,
some norms, such as those prohibiting unprovoked aggression or the waging
of genocidal wars, have become widely accepted and, if violated, can result in
international sanctions and criminal prosecution of individuals. On issues such

as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, American policy since 2003 has clearly been
affected by strong international condemnation. Indeed, American justification
for the war against Iraq was based on both encompassing international norms
and narrow American interests. The American imperium thus is not exempted
from its own normative pressures.
The sociocultural side of the American imperium goes well beyond the explic-
itly political aspects of authority and legitimacy. Technological advances and the
shrinking of time and space have made available to more people and over longer
distances the model of “the American way of life” in all its manifestations, admi-
rable to some and appalling to others. The open door policy that was a hallmark
of US expansion in the second half of the twentieth century has created the
conditions for the informal penetration of foreign societies by America’s social
and cultural practices. The existence of social ties with precolonial elites, which
establishes the precondition for the successful exercise of informal imperial gov-
ernance, is less important than the unmediated seductive fascination with the
energizing impulses of a liberal brand of democratic capitalism and an entre-
preneurial culture that promises self-advancement. As an idea and as a dream,
America has always had a non-territorial aspect, spurring both political imagina-
tion and fear. Both have grown with the shrinking of time and space, and so has
America’s political relevance in global politics.
Although they are important, these three contexts are only illustrative. There
exist others, which specific research questions may suggest as being more salient
for specific inquiries. Furthermore, actors often inhabit overlapping spaces. This
is true of the United States, which is both a state and an imperium. It is true
of European states, which are pooling some of their sovereignty into Europe’s
emerging polity without relinquishing their stateness. It is arguably true of
China, which, following Lucian Pye, is not just another nation-state but “a civ-
ilization pretending to be a state.”43 And it is true of the stateless umma that
provides a context, or weak polity, for all Islamic states. All of these provide dif-
ferent contexts that enable and constrain political practices by both rulers and
ruled. Machiavelli’s prince lives not a life that is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short. Instead, he lives in a deeply social world that typically defies Hobbes’s
characterization. No ruler is an island.
Conclusion: The Advantages of Capacious Concepts

Shifting our analytical focus from coherent liberal values to multiple, contested
traditions, and from state sovereignty to multiple embedded actors points the
way to capacious rather than sparse concepts of analysis. One common way of
thinking about international relations focuses on unitary states operating in the
Westphalian state system. The multiple-tradition argument reminds us that states

are not unitary actors but are moved by the impulses of different and compet-
ing traditions, which are reflected in their domestic structures and practices.
Furthermore, focusing on an actor-centric institutionalism points us beyond
rational, autonomous rulers to complementary and overlapping contexts affect-
ing both individual and collective actors.
The choice of capacious over sparse conceptualizations of traditions and actors
is in part a matter of individual taste. Some like gothic more than baroque. But
tastes vary with social context.44 Some tastes are characteristic of individuals. But
other tastes vary by social context. Some canonical and profound puzzles that
are well defined from within particular research traditions are quite meaningless
and frivolous when viewed from outside. Individual taste is less important than
the paradigmatic grounds on which we pose our questions and seek to answer
them. For some questions, sparseness may do. For others we need to think more
broadly. This is true, specifically, of conceptions of power that either seek to com-
partmentalize or crossbreed compulsory, institutional, structural, and productive
conceptions of power. Crossbreeding may help us to recognize new problems,
develop new lines of argument, and thus open doors to new ideas. The movie
Babette’s Feast offers a visual metaphor for the choice between capaciousness and
sparseness, as it celebrates an exotic opulent feast over familiar thin gruel.
Capacious concepts can help us capture analytically a political reality that is
marked by multiple rather than single political traditions and by actors who are
institutionally embedded rather than autonomous. Furthermore, such concepts
are likely to analyze political arenas and policy processes more adequately if they
rely on the analytical vocabulary of power that Barnett and Duvall have made
available to us. Intellectually capracious research agendas invite us to experiment
with analytic eclecticism.45
Thinking about America as a civilizational empire, for example, offers a line
of analysis that goes well beyond our conventional categories of American state
power and hegemony in the Westphalian state system. Anatol Lieven likens
America to ancient China, Rome, the early Islamic caliphates, and perhaps parts
of the Soviet empire.46 They were neither military empires like the Mongols, nor
European seaborne Herrenvolk empires. Civilizational empires unite many dif-
ferent ethnic groups under one language and culture. And they leave a legacy
that shapes the history and character of its successors long after these empires
have vanished from the scene. The assimilatory capacity of America and the
institutionalization of its multiculturalism are impressively large. And so are its
economic and military success, as well the vitality and global salience of its cul-
ture. America became a civilizational empire only after it had eradicated legally
sanctioned racism and substantially weakened racial prejudice. Language, creed,
and culture, not race or ethnic origin, are the operative criteria for America’s
civilizational empire.
This is merely one conceptual move we can make to capture America’s

engagement with the world. The terms of that engagement are more complex
than conventional views of power, liberal ideology, and rational rulers acknowl-
edge. They include processes by which multiple traditions are remade and actors
are refashioned. If we want to grasp contemporary world politics, much speaks
for relying on capacious rather than sparse categories of analysis. Krasner’s work
is testimony to the fact that brilliant hedgehogs, in the end, can act like foxes.
Working from within paradigms, they scale or smash the walls that imprison
them. We all reach Rome, traveling, as we must, by different roads.
Notes
Parts 1 and 2 of this chapter amplify and replicate, respectively, material from Katzenstein
(2010a, 2010b). For earlier comments and suggestions I would like to thank Martha
Finnemore and Judith Goldstein and the participants who met at two conferences in
Stanford in December 2009 and Princeton in September 2010 to honor Stephen Krasner.
The writing of this chapter was supported generously by the Louise and John Steffens
Founders’ Circle Membership at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where
I spent the academic year 2009–2010. For editorial improvements I am, as always, deeply
indebted to Sarah Tarrow.
1. Krasner 1978a.
2. Setting up the analysis in these terms took considerable intellectual courage. In the
mid-1970s, junior faculty members in Harvard’s Government Department were neither
encouraged nor eager to give Marxism a serious hearing in their scholarship.
3. Krasner 1999.
4. Barnett and Duvall 2005, 42–43.
5. Hartz 1955.
6. Krasner 1978a, 55–90.
7. Ibid., 66–67.
8. Huntington 1981, 2004.
9. Krasner 1978a, 70; 1978b, 54–56. Robert Kagan (2006) unknowingly duplicates Krasner’s
analysis of Vietnam in his argument about the Spanish-American and, indirectly, the Iraq
War. In Kagan’s view, Left and Right in America are divided by small family quarrels,
not major family feuds. All Americans share in one encompassing liberal vision and are
united in a grand coalition of arrogance and ignorance. This unanimity is what made
America a Dangerous Nation. Like Krasner’s, Kagan’s is an oddly incomplete and unsatis-
factory account of American politics. It elides the deep and painful divisions, ideological,
political, and otherwise, that have marked America with its multiple traditions, not only
during these two wars but at all other times as well.
10. Krasner 1978, 332–335, 346–347.
11. Hulliung 2010.
12. Hartz 1948.
13. Ibid.; Swedberg 2009.
14. Ibid., 299.
15. Eisinger 1988.
16. Hartz 1964.
17. Ibid., 22–23, 44–48, 63–65.
18. Hartz 1984.

19. Riley 1988, 377.
20. Hartz 1984, 79–81, 114–117, 273–277; Moreau 2003, 137–174.
21. Riley 1988, 394.
22. Smith 1988, 1993, 1997, 1999.
23. Katzenstein, Ibrahim, and Rubin 2010.
24. Kane 2008.
25. Mead 2002.
26. Nau 2008.
27. Hunt 1987.
28. Skowronek 2006.
29. Krasner 1999, 7.
30. Scharpf 1997; Kahler 2009.
31. Nettl 1968.
32. Andrews 1975.
33. Mann 1986, 1993.
34. Ferguson and Mansbach 1996; Ferguson, Mansbach, et al. 2000.
35. Meyer 1994; Meyer et al. 1997.
36. Deudney 2007, 161–189.
37. Meyer 1994.
38. Ibid., 13.
39. Katzenstein 2005, 2–6.
40. Liska 1967, 9, 11.
41. Lake 2009.
42. Ferguson 2007; Nexon and Wright 2007; Motyl 2006, 2001, 1999.
43. Pye 1990, 58.
44. Akerloff and Kranton, 2010, 6.
45. Sil and Katzenstein 2010a, 2010b.
46. Lieven 2004, 41–47.
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PA RT T H R E E
STATE POWER AND THE

GLOBAL ECONOMY
8
Currency and State Power

Benjamin J. Cohen
The modern field of international political economy has had remarkably lit-
tle to say about the concept of power in monetary relations. Well into the
1990s—apart from some early discussions by Charles Kindleberger,1 Susan
Strange,2 and myself3—the theory of monetary power remained, in the words of
Jonathan Kirshner, “a neglected area of study.”4 Much has been written about the
instrumental use of power in monetary relations. But only recently have scholars
begun to explore the concept of monetary power itself, its nature and sources,
in formal theoretical terms,5 including two previous efforts of my own.6 Many
questions, however, still remain unanswered.
The aim of this chapter, building on my previous efforts, is to address one
issue in particular: the effect of an international currency on state power. We
know that at any given time, a few national moneys play important international
roles. We also know—or, at least, assume—there must be some connection
between currency and state power, though it is not always obvious which way
the arrow of causation runs. To some extent, clearly, power plays the role of
independent variable, driving currency choice. A money will not come to be
used internationally if its issuing state does not already enjoy a significant mea-
sure of economic and political standing in the world. For the purposes of this
essay, however, the emphasis will be on the reverse causal relationship—power
as a dependent variable, driven by currency choice. A state’s initial endowment
of power will be assumed to be given. The question is: What will happen to that
endowment of power once the national money comes to play an important inter-
national role? In short, what value is added by currency internationalization?
In conceptual terms, we really know very little about the specific causal path-
ways that run from cross-border use of a money to the capabilities of its home
government. To set the issue within a firm analytical framework, this chapter
disaggregates the concept of currency internationalization into the separate roles
that an international money may play. Attention is then focused on three specific
questions: What is the effect on state power of each specific role, considered on
its own? Are there interdependencies among the various roles? And are what are
their relative or cumulative impacts?
159
160 State Power and the Global Economy
In the end, three roles appear to be of paramount importance: a money’s

role in financial markets, trade, and central-bank reserves. The roles in financial
markets and reserves enhance the issuing state’s monetary autonomy, making it
easier to delay or deflect adjustment costs. Autonomy in turn creates a capacity
for influence, though whether that capacity can be actualized will depend on
ancillary conditions that may vary considerably over time. A currency’s role in
trade is important, above all, because of its impact on central-bank reserve pref-
erences. The more a currency dominates in each of these three roles, the greater
is the issuing state’s monetary power.
Framing the Issue

The concept of state power is not simple, as the editors of this volume remind us. In
the context of international monetary relations, most power analyses tend to focus
on overt manifestations of influence at a micro or macro level—the ability of a gov-
ernment to play an authoritative role in, say, crisis management or financial regula-
tory politics or the supply of payments financing. But to truly understand monetary
power, we have to go behind these manifestations to see where such abilities come
from. That demands clarification of two key analytical issues: the relevant definition
of power and the nature of the environment in which states operate.
For most scholars of world politics, including most of the contributors to this
volume, power tends to be equated simply with influence—“letting others have
your way,” as diplomacy has jokingly been defined. But in monetary relations a
second dimension of power must also be emphasized—the dimension of auton-
omy, understood as an ability to act freely, without external constraint (in effect,
others letting you have your way). The relevant definition of power encompasses
both autonomy and influence.
In the monetary domain, autonomy is important because, as I have argued
elsewhere, it is the essential prerequisite for influence.7 The starting point is the
balance of payments—the flows of money in and out of a country generated by
international trade and investment. Through the balance of payments, with its
inevitable surpluses and deficits, national economies are inescapably linked. The
ever-present risk of unsustainable imbalance poses a persistent threat to policy
independence. For most states, therefore, the foundation of monetary power is
the capacity to avoid the burden of adjustment required by payments disequilib-
rium—an ability to delay adjustment or deflect its costs onto others. Only once
autonomy is established might a government then be able to turn its thoughts
to the possibility of influencing others as well.
In a real sense, of course, influence is inherent in autonomy. Because mon-
etary relations are inherently reciprocal, a potential for leverage is created auto-
matically whenever policy independence is attained. By definition, a capacity to
Currenc y and State Power 161
avoid adjustment costs implies that if payments equilibrium is to be restored,

others must adjust instead. At least part of the burden will be diverted else-
where. Hence a measure of influence is necessarily generated as an inescapable
corollary of the process. But what kind of influence? The influence that derives
automatically from a capacity to avoid adjustment costs is passive, represent-
ing at best a contingent aspect of power since it can be said to exist at all only
because of the core dimension of autonomy. Moreover, the impacts involved are
diffuse and undirected. This kind of passive power is very different from what is
conventionally meant by influence, which normally is understood to imply some
degree of deliberate targeting or intent—“purposeful acts,” in the words of David
Andrews.8 Monetary autonomy translates into influence in the accepted sense of
the term—a dimension of power aiming to shape the actions of others—only
when the potential for leverage is actualized, self-consciously applied to attain
economic or political goals.
In turn, whether we are talking of autonomy or influence, it is evident that
the key to analysis lies in the nature of the environment within which states
operate. Currency internationalization is largely a market phenomenon, reflect-
ing the preferences of diverse agents in global trade and financial markets. But
since moneys tend to be issued by states (or, as in Europe, by a group of states),
the power derived from currency internationalization is generally manifested in
state-to-state relations. Most salient, therefore, is the structure of transactional
relationships among states, as emphasized in the so-called “relational power”
approach (or “social power” approach) that has dominated power analysis since
the mid-twentieth century.9 What matters is who depends on whom and for
what. How asymmetrical are prevailing relationships among states, and how
centrally located is a country in the global network of interactions? Relational
asymmetries manifestly lie at the root of monetary autonomy and therefore may
be said to be the source of a state’s influence as well. The connections run from
(1) mutual dependence to (2) a capacity to avoid the burden of adjustment to
(3) passive or actualized influence.
Framing the central issue for this essay then is relatively straightforward. A
framework for analysis can be outlined in the form of a series of four interre-
lated sets of questions:
1. What is the effect of an international currency on the issuing state’s position

within the global monetary network? In particular, is dependence reduced or
centrality of position enhanced?
2. What is the effect of an international currency on the state’s monetary
autonomy?
3. What is the effect of an international currency on the state’s capacity for
influence?
4. What is the likelihood that influence will be actualized?
Money and Power

Few knowledgeable observers doubt that currency internationalization can add
to the power of the state that issues it. As Strange put it long ago: “It is highly
probable that any state economically strong enough to possess [an international
money] will also exert substantial power and influence. The rich usually do.”10
Remarkably, however, the conventional wisdom has never been put to a seri-
ous test. A broad causal relationship is assumed, linking currency to power, and
much has been written about how the resulting capabilities might be used as
an instrument of statecraft.11 But no one has ever tried to spell out the connec-
tions in detail, to see just how or why any of the diverse cross-border uses of
a national money might actually affect the autonomy or influence of its issuer.
International currencies play many roles, and not all of those roles may have the
same impact on state power. We need to take a closer look to see what specific
characteristics of international money make the most difference.
The Conventional Wisdom

The logic of the conventional wisdom is impeccable. From the days of the earli-
est coins in ancient Greece, a pronounced hierarchy has always tended to exist
among the world’s diverse moneys in what I have previously characterized as
the currency pyramid.12 Competition among currencies has thrown up one or a
few market favorites that, for shorter or longer periods of time, predominate in
cross-border use and set a standard for all other moneys. Not insignificant is the
fact that in every case the dominant currency’s issuer—at least at the start—was
also a major, if not dominant, economic and political power.
It hardly seems implausible, therefore, to assume that there might be a con-
nection between currency and power. The very notion of hierarchy, after all,
is inherently political, suggesting degrees of reciprocal influence—differential
impacts on the ability of governments to achieve goals at home or abroad. So
why not just connect the dots? The stronger the currency, the stronger the coun-
try. As Nobel laureate Robert Mundell once wrote, “Great powers have great
currencies.”13
In the extant literature, however, we find only the vaguest clues to how the
dots might in fact be connected. Most observers, including myself, have tended
to limit themselves simply to enumerating the benefits that can accrue to the
issuer of an international money. Standard analysis identifies four main gains—
two economic and two political. These are:
1. Seigniorage. Technically defined as the excess of the nominal value of a

currency over its cost of production, seigniorage at the international level
is generated whenever foreigners acquire and hold significant amounts of

domestic money, or financial claims denominated in the domestic money,
in exchange for traded goods and services. Cross-border accumulations rep-
resent the equivalent of a subsidized or interest-free loan from abroad—
an implicit economic transfer that constitutes a real-resource gain for the
economy at home. Included as well is the benefit of any reduction of overall
interest rates generated by the extra demand for home-country assets.
2. Macroeconomic flexibility. Cross-border use can also relax the constraint of
the balance of payments on domestic monetary and fiscal policy. The greater
the ability to finance payments deficits with the country’s own currency, the
easier it is for policy makers to pursue public spending objectives, both inter-
nally and externally. Macroeconomic flexibility may be considered another
way of expressing the autonomy dimension of monetary power.
3. Reputation. At the symbolic level, a position of prominence in the hierar-
chy of currencies can promote the issuing state’s overall reputation in world
affairs—a form of what political scientists today call soft power. Broad inter-
national circulation may become a source of status and prestige, a visible
sign of elevated rank in the community of nations.
4. Leverage. Finally, in more tangible terms, prominence in the hierarchy of
currencies may promote the issuing state’s capacity to exercise leverage over
others through its control of access to financial resources—a form of hard
power. This benefit, obviously, corresponds to the influence dimension of
monetary power.
Standard analysis of course also identifies potential costs, mostly associated with
the risks posed by an excessive accumulation of foreign liabilities. The benefits
of currency internationalization, as I have previously suggested,14 are most likely
to accrue at the earliest stages of cross-border use, when a money is most popu-
lar. Later on, gains may well be eroded by a growing “overhang” of debt that
could erode confidence in the currency’s future value or usefulness. To persuade
foreigners to hold on to their accumulated balances, interest rates may have to
be raised, reducing or even eliminating seigniorage gains,15 and compromising
macroeconomic flexibility. Eventually both reputation and leverage could also be
adversely affected. In a very real sense, therefore, an international currency can
be regarded as a two-edged sword, potentially valuable as a means to shape the
behavior of others but, in time, possibly also dangerous to its issuer.
Time in this context, however, is likely to be quite lengthy, measured not
in years but decades, given the well-known inertias in international currency
choice.16 Consider how long it took the US dollar, despite its many attractions,
to displace Britain’s pound sterling at the top of the currency pyramid in the last
century. As Paul Krugman has commented: “The impressive fact here is surely
the inertia; sterling remained the first-ranked currency for half a century after
Britain had ceased to be the first-ranked economic power.”17 As a practical mat-

ter, the costs of currency internationalization are likely to assert themselves only
in the very long term. In the shorter term, accordingly, policy makers under-
standably may be inclined to discount the potential risks involved, focusing on
the benefits instead.
But beyond enumerating these potential gains and risks, the extant litera-
ture has put remarkably little effort into analyzing the specifics of causation.
Currency internationalization, typically, is treated more or less holistically, with
little regard for the distinctively separate roles that an international money may
play. Apart from a few casual comments here or there, the possibility that these
separate roles might have differential impacts on the power of issuing states has
never been formally addressed.
The Roles of Money

Impeccable as the logic of the conventional wisdom may be, therefore, it still
leaves critical gaps in our understanding. We know that international currencies
play many roles, to a greater or lesser extent. But we know little about how each
of these roles separately may (or may not) connect to state power. To improve
understanding, we need to systematically disaggregate the concept of currency
internationalization in order to isolate the impact of each individual role.
The standard taxonomy for characterizing the roles of international money,
which I can take pride in originating,18 separates out the three familiar func-
tions of money—medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value—at two
levels of analysis: the private market and official policy, adding up to six roles
in all. Specialists today generally speak of the separate roles of an international
currency at the private level in foreign-exchange trading (medium of exchange),
trade invoicing and settlement (unit of account and medium of exchange),
and financial markets (store of value). At the official level, we speak of a mon-
ey’s roles as an exchange-rate anchor (unit of account), intervention currency
(medium of exchange), or reserve currency (store of value). Each of the six roles
is distinct in practical as well as analytical terms. The taxonomy is summarized
in Figure 8.1.
At any given moment, only one or two currencies are ever likely to be of sig-
nificance for all these diverse functions. These are what, with a nod to Strange,19
I have called “top currencies”—moneys whose scope and domain are more or
less universal. Top currencies are what an economist would call full-bodied
money, generally accepted for all purposes. Today the only true top currency is
the US dollar, which for all its tribulations still dominates for most cross-border
uses and in most regions.20 Not even the gale-force winds of the recent global
financial crisis could topple America’s greenback from its perch at the peak of
the currency pyramid, though debate about its future continues.21
Functions
Levels of analysis Medium of exchange Unit of account Store of value
Private Foreign exchange trading, trade settlement Trade invoicing Investment
Official Intervention Anchor Reserve
Figure 8.1 The Roles of International Money
Just below are what I call patrician currencies—moneys whose use for
various cross-border purposes, while substantial, is something less than domi-
nant and whose popularity, while widespread, is something less than global.
Most prominent among these is of course the euro, the joint money of the
European Union (EU), which is already second to the greenback in most
categories of use. Though many observers have predicted that the euro is
destined soon to achieve parity with or even surpass the greenback as inter-
national money,22 the evidence suggests otherwise.23 In reality, after a fast
start, cross-border use of the euro appears to have leveled off and, especially
after Europe’s sovereign-debt problems that began in the spring of 2010, has
come to be largely confined to the EU’s immediate hinterland around the
European periphery and in parts of the Mediterranean littoral and Africa.
The only other patrician currency of note today, despite some recent loss of
popularity, is the Japanese yen. Many expect the euro and yen to be joined
eventually, though not anytime soon, by China’s yuan, otherwise known as
the renminbi (“people’s currency”).
And below the patrician currencies come what I call elite currencies—mon-
eys of sufficient attractiveness to qualify for some degree of cross-border use but
with only limited scope or domain. These are the minor international currencies,
a list that today would include, inter alia, Britain’s pound sterling (sadly no lon-
ger a top currency or even a patrician currency), the Swiss franc, the Canadian
and Australian dollars, and a small handful of others.
The challenge is to look carefully at each of the principal roles of an inter-
national currency and, using the framework suggested in this essay, ask: What
is the effect on state power of each specific role, considered on its own? Are
there interdependencies among the various roles? And what are their relative or
cumulative impacts? Only then can we begin to get a real handle on the specif-
ics of causation in the currency-power relationship.
The Private Level

In international markets, selected national currencies—whether top, patrician, or
elite—may play any of three roles: in foreign-exchange trading, trade invoicing
and settlement, or financial markets. Examining each role on its own, it becomes
evident that their respective implications for state power differ noticeably. All
three may generate economic dividends, but only the role in financial markets,
where currencies serve as an investment medium, can prove advantageous in
political terms as well. The big dividing line is between the medium-of-exchange
and unit-of-account functions of money, on the one hand, and the store-of-value
function on the other.
Foreign-Exchange Trading
Nothing better illustrates the network-like quality of international monetary
relations than the foreign-exchange market—that vast agglomeration of banks
and other financial institutions around the world where national currencies are
actively traded for one another. Given the more than 150 distinct state moneys
now in existence, it is evident that the total of bilateral relationships numbers
in the thousands, constituting a gigantic web of interactions. The metric for all
of these relationships is of course the rate of exchange between each pair of
currencies.
Not all relationships are of equal importance, however. In most cases, the
direct connections between pairs of currencies are weak at best, meaning that
the expense of direct purchases is likely to be high, if not prohibitive. Most
wholesale trades therefore tend to go through a more widely used intermediary,
a “vehicle” currency, in order to minimize transaction costs. The idea is to take
advantage of scale economies or what economists call “network externalities.”
One peripheral currency is used to buy the vehicle currency; the vehicle cur-
rency is then used to buy another money. In the exchange market today, accord-
ing to the most recent survey by the Bank for International Settlements,24 the
US dollar is by far the most dominant vehicle currency, appearing on one side
or the other of some 86 percent of all market transactions. (Percentages add up
to 200 percent because every transaction involves two currencies.) Trailing far
behind are the euro (37 percent), yen (16.5 percent), and a small handful of
elite currencies.
Vehicle currencies clearly enjoy a position of centrality in the global currency
network, since so many exchanges pass through them. For issuing states, this
almost certainly translates into economic benefit. Transactions costs are likely to
be reduced for local enterprises; financial institutions may gain some competi-
tive advantage from the volume of business done in their own home currency.
Political benefits, on the other hand, seem slight, since the role appears to have
little impact on monetary autonomy. Widespread use as an intermediary for cur-
rency trading in no way affects a state’s ability to delay or deflect adjustment
costs. No constraint on state action is removed or alleviated. The vehicle role is
a purely mechanical one and can be easily replaced.
Trade Invoicing and Settlement

Much the same can also be said of a currency’s role in trade invoicing and settle-
ment. Whenever goods or services are bought and sold internationally, the par-
ties to the transaction must agree on the monetary unit to be used to denominate
contracts and effectuate payments. And here too scale economies dictate a domi-
nant role for a small handful of currencies at the center of the global monetary
network. Available data suggest that roughly half of all world exports today are
invoiced and settled in US dollars. Partly this is because of America’s large market
size and still predominant place as an importer and exporter, all providing a large
transactional network that enhances scale economies. And partly it is because of
the greenback’s central role in the markets for virtually all reference-priced and
organized exchange-traded commodities—including, most notably, the global
market for oil, the world’s most widely traded product. Next in importance is the
euro, which accounts for perhaps 15–20 percent of exports, mainly in and around
the European region. Most other moneys play a marginal role at best.
The benefits of the trade role too appear to be largely economic rather than
political. On the economic side, local enterprises need worry less about the issue
of exchange risk; financial institutions may enjoy a competitive edge in provid-
ing commercial credit or other trade-related services in their own home currency.
These are definite advantages. But on the political side gains again seem slight, and
for much the same reason. The market’s choice of a national currency for invoic-
ing and settlement, on its own, adds nothing directly to the issuing government’s
ability to delay or deflect adjustment costs. Again, no constraint is removed or
alleviated. Bills must still be paid on time, whatever the currency used.
Financial Markets
Effects are quite different, however, in financial markets, where currencies play a
role as an investment medium. One of the principal functions of financial markets
is to facilitate the management of investor risk by creating opportunities for port-
folio diversification. At the international level this means widening the range of
currency choice. To spread risk, global portfolio managers typically invest across
a variety of currencies, including all the familiar moneys near the peak of the
currency pyramid. Most popular here too is the US dollar, though by a declining
margin. Representative are the figures for the outstanding stock of international
debt instruments (defined as securities issued in a currency other than that of
the borrower’s home country). At the end of 2008, the greenback’s share of the
global bond market stood at 45 percent, down from about 50 percent in 1999.
The euro’s share, by contrast, was up noticeably, from just 19 percent in 1999 to
roughly one-third in 2008. At least a half-dozen other moneys, including the yen
and a number of elite currencies, account for the remainder.25
Like the vehicle and trade roles, the investment role clearly yields economic
benefits. Most significant is the seigniorage gain that automatically results
from the willingness of market actors to hold a currency that is not their own.
Additional benefits may also accrue to local banks or other financial institutions
that generate, trade, or manage the claims owned by foreigners. But unlike the
vehicle and trade roles, the investment role also yields political benefits insofar
as it relaxes traditional balance-of-payments constraints on domestic macroeco-
nomic policy. Autonomy is enhanced when it becomes possible to finance exter-
nal deficits with the state’s own currency. Adjustment costs can more easily be
delayed or deflected.
Is influence enhanced as well? We know that a capacity to exercise leverage
emerges automatically as a corollary of enhanced autonomy in the adjustment
process. But can that potential be actualized? That depends greatly on two ancil-
lary conditions: (1) the availability of alternatives to the state’s currency as an
investment medium, and (2) the magnitude of existing foreign holdings of the
currency. The former variable is important because it determines the issuing state’s
ability to control the supply of investment opportunities; the latter, because it
helps shape market sentiment regarding the attractiveness of those opportunities,
thus affecting demand. At one extreme would be a situation like that enjoyed by
the United States after World War II, when market actors had few alternatives to
the US dollar, and greenback holdings were low. America had a virtual monopoly
on quality outlets for savings, and few feared for the dollar’s future value. As a
result, Washington was in a position to make access to its financial markets an
explicit instrument of foreign policy, welcoming friends or barring adversaries.
At the other extreme would be a situation like the present, when alternatives to
the greenback are more plentiful and the accumulated overhang of foreign dol-
lar claims has grown alarmingly. Any attempt today to actualize the potential for
leverage might be met simply by a flight from the dollar, which almost certainly
would be more disadvantageous than advantageous from America’s point of view.
On balance, therefore, the power implications of the investment role are
ambiguous. Autonomy is initially increased as a result of the greater degree of
macroeconomic flexibility. But influence in the active mode may or may not be
facilitated, depending as it does on ancillary conditions that can vary consider-
ably over time. Gains in the shorter term might well eventually be reversed in
the longer term. If an international currency can be regarded as a two-edged
sword, the investment role is one reason why.
The Official Level

At the official level, involving relations between governments, national curren-
cies may also play any of three roles, as an exchange-rate anchor, intervention
currency, or reserve currency. Here too each role, considered separately, has its
own implications for state power. Likewise, here too the biggest difference is
between the medium-of-exchange and unit-of-account functions, on the one
hand, and the store-of-value function on the other.
Exchange-Rate Anchor
Since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods pegged-rate system in the early
1970s, governments have been free to choose whatever exchange-rate regime
they desire, from various versions of a “hard” or “soft” peg to managed flexibil-
ity or an independent (“clean”) float. States that prefer to retain some form of
peg have a wide range of units of account to choose from. In practice, only a few
currencies figure prominently as exchange-rate anchors, either for single-currency
pegs or as a prominent part of basket pegs. Most dominant, once again, are the
US dollar and euro. About sixty states now align their exchange-rate policy,
wholly or in part, with the greenback, ranging in size from tiny islands in the
Pacific to China. Close to forty countries, including four European mini-states
(Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and the Vatican), six current members of the
EU, and several more candidates for EU membership, rely solely or mainly on
the euro.
As with trade invoicing at the private level, the anchor role at the official
level appears to produce gains that are largely economic rather than political.
The relative stability of a peg is likely to reduce the cost of doing business with
aligned countries, as compared with economies with more flexible or freely
floating rates. Power implications, by contrast, appear to be as ambiguous as
with the investment role. An anchor role certainly enhances the centrality of a
currency, putting it at the core of a formal or informal monetary bloc. That may
help promote the issuing state’s soft power, by adding to the country’s global
prestige and reputation. But hard power benefits little, since on its own the peg-
ging function, understood simply as a currency numéraire, does nothing to aug-
ment monetary autonomy. Indeed the net impact on the issuing state’s power
position could even turn out to be negative, to the extent that use as an anchor
constrains the government’s ability to resort to exchange-rate shifts as part of the
adjustment process. Its power to delay or deflect might actually be eroded. This
role too may be a two-edged sword.
Intervention Currency
Except for an absolutely clean float—rare in practice—all exchange-rate regimes
involve some degree of government intervention in the exchange market,
whether modest or substantial. But what foreign currency should be bought
or sold in order to manage an exchange rate? Here too, as in foreign-exchange
trading, scale economies matter. Efficiency criteria dictate choosing a currency

that is as widely traded as possible, to ensure that the effects of intervention will
be quickly and smoothly generalized. That means relying on one of the most
popular international moneys, such as the US dollar, euro, or yen. Use for inter-
vention purposes generally tends to mirror a money’s prominence as a vehicle
currency.
Effects of the intervention role, for the issuing state, appear to parallel those
of the anchor role. On the one hand, there is likely to be some economic ben-
efit, insofar as widespread use of the currency advantages home financial institu-
tions. On the other hand, power implications are ambiguous. There is nothing in
the intervention role, considered separately, that augments monetary autonomy.
There is, however, a risk of loss of influence over the exchange rate in the adjust-
ment process to the extent that bilateral rates are controlled by the intervention
practices of others. Once again, we find a two-edged sword.
Reserve Currency
Finally, we come to the role of reserve currency—the function that most readily
comes to mind when we think about international currencies. For central banks,
reserve assets serve as a store of value that can be used directly for intervention
purposes or else can be more or less quickly converted into a usable intervention
medium. For historical reasons gold is still included in the reserve stockpiles of
many countries, despite the fact that it is no longer directly employable as a
means of exchange. So too are Special Drawing Rights, which like gold must be
exchanged for a more usable instrument when the need for financing arises. But
the great bulk of reserves is held in the form of liquid assets denominated in
one of the small handful of moneys at the peak of the currency pyramid. Once
again the US dollar predominates, accounting at end-2009 for some 62 per-
cent of global reserves, according to the IMF’s public database on the Currency
Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER). This was down
from 71.5 percent in 1999 but well up from a low of around 45 percent in 1990.
And once again the euro is second, with a share of 27 percent at end-2009, up
from 18 percent in 1999.
Effects of the reserve-currency role most closely resemble those of the invest-
ment role. On the one hand there are clear economic benefits, including a gain
of seigniorage for the economy as a whole, as well as heightened profit opportu-
nities for local financial institutions that are in a position to assist foreign central
banks in the management of their reserves. On the other hand, power implica-
tions are ambiguous and highly dependent on ancillary conditions that can vary
over time.
Here too autonomy is increased initially as a result of a greater degree of
macroeconomic flexibility. The more foreign central banks are willing to add to
their reserve holdings, in effect extending credit to the issuing state, the easier
it is for the issuer to delay or deflect adjustment costs. A capacity to exercise
leverage emerges. But whether that potential can be actualized is another mat-
ter entirely—once again, the two-edged sword. Much depends on the same
ancillary economic considerations that make the investment role so contingent:
the availability of alternatives and the magnitude of existing holdings. Because
here we are speaking of official state institutions, and not just private market
actors, much also depends on political considerations, including especially the
nature of the issuing state’s diplomatic and security relations with reserve hold-
ers. Possibilities vary enormously, from a condition of potentially great strength
early on to, later, a position of decided weakness.
Interdependencies
Overall, a distinctive pattern emerges. All six roles generate economic benefits
of some magnitude. Political effects, however, tend to be more concentrated.
Only the two store-of-value roles—the investment role at the private level and
the reserve role at the official level—seem able to add directly to the issuing
state’s monetary autonomy, creating a potential for effective leverage (though in
time this advantage may be eroded by an accumulation of foreign debt). In this
respect, there is a clear dividing line between the store-of-value function and
the other two functions of international money (medium of exchange, unit of
account).
That does not mean, however, that the two store-of-value roles are the only
ones that matter. Analysis cannot stop with a consideration of each role on its
own. The possibility of interdependencies among the various roles must also be
considered. For example, we know that the intervention role of an international
money is closely tied to its importance as a vehicle currency. As indicated, scale
economies matter in exchange-rate management. Likewise, it is evident that a
close link exists between the invoicing role of a currency in international trade
(a unit-of-account function) and its settlement role (a medium-of-exchange func-
tion). It is no accident that typically these are spoken of, as I have done here, in
tandem: the trade role. Most parties to international trade find it convenient to
use the same currency for both purposes.
The real question, however, concerns the two store-of-value roles and the
dividing line between them, on the one hand, and the other two functions of
international money on the other. Is either the investment role or the reserve
role in any way dependent on a currency’s use as a medium of exchange or unit
of account at either the private or official level?
At the private level, the answer is clear: no. For most portfolio managers, seek-
ing diversification to manage risk, use of any given currency as an investment
medium is most closely tied to the critical qualities of “exchange convenience”

and “capital certainty”—a high degree of transactional liquidity and reasonable
predictability of asset value. The key to both is a set of broad and well-developed
financial markets for claims denominated in the issuing country’s currency, suf-
ficiently open to ensure full access by investors of all kinds. Neither exchange
convenience nor capital certainty appears to depend in any way on how much
a money may or may not be used as a vehicle in currency markets or for trade
invoicing and settlement. In currency markets the vehicle is not held as a store
of value at all. In trade, a species of investment instrument is created in the form
of commercial paper, but the claims involved are very short-term and effectively
self-liquidating.
At the official level, the answer is trickier. In principle central banks are no
less free than market investors to diversify the currency composition of their
holdings, so long as the assets they hold can be quickly converted when needed
into a medium useful for intervention purposes. To that extent, the qualities
they seek are the same as those valued by private actors: exchange convenience
and capital certainty. In practice, however, reserve preferences in most coun-
tries tend to be distinctly skewed, favoring one currency in particular. In Latin
America, the Middle East, and much of Asia, the US dollar typically predomi-
nates, while around Europe and in parts of Africa the euro is more popular.
Why is that?
Superficially, it might appear to have something to do with the anchor and
intervention roles. If a country’s money is formally or informally aligned with
one anchor currency in particular, it makes sense to intervene in that currency
as well; and that in turn would logically encourage concentrated holdings of the
currency, to facilitate easy entry or exit in the exchange market. But that fails to
explain why we also see the same kind of skewed preferences in states with float-
ing currencies, which may not actively manage their exchange rate on a regular
basis. Nor, for states that do intervene frequently, does it account for the choice
of anchor to start with. Such decisions are not made arbitrarily.
Looking deeper, it seems evident that the really crucial link lies elsewhere—
in the trade role. Politics aside, reserve preferences are most likely to reflect the
pattern of currency choice in a country’s foreign commercial relationships. The
popularity of the US dollar in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia is a
direct reflection of either or both of two considerations: the importance of the
United States as a market or supplier; or the importance of reference-priced
and organized exchange-traded commodities in each country’s exports. Since
the greenback is the main monetary unit used for invoicing and settlement in
both bilateral trade with the United States and global commodity trade, it is
hardly surprising to find it dominant in the reserves of these countries as well.
Conversely, the euro naturally dominates in the European region, where trade
relations are focused more toward members of the EU.
Plainly, therefore, the investment and reserve roles are not the only ones that
matter. In terms of direct implications for state power, the dividing line between
the two store-of-value roles, on the one hand, and money’s other two functions
(medium of exchange and unit of account), on the other hand, remains essen-
tial. But indirectly, the role of a currency in private trade can be seen to play
a vital part, too, insofar as it helps to shape government reserve preferences.
Overall, three of an international money’s six possible roles—specifically, the
trade, investment, and reserve-currency roles—are critically involved, not just
the two store-of-value roles.
Relative and Cumulative Impacts

What are the relative or cumulative impacts of these three roles? Ultimately, it
seems not unreasonable to conclude that a currency’s reserve role has the great-
est effect on state power, owing to the enhanced capacity that emerges for direct
leverage on governments. By comparison, the investment and trade roles would
appear to be of secondary importance. Their relevance derives mainly from the
part they play in making the reserve role possible.
There are two reasons for discounting the relative impact of the invest-
ment role considered on its own. First, as compared with the reserve-currency
role, it is clearly more difficult to actualize any potential for influence. We
know that both store-of-value roles enhance autonomy, by relaxing traditional
balance-of-payments constraints on domestic macroeconomic policy. A capacity
for leverage is the automatic corollary of any increase in the power to delay or
deflect adjustment costs. But when the enhanced autonomy results from decen-
tralized investment decisions in the open marketplace rather than from central-
ized government choices, impacts are bound to be more dispersed and diffuse,
making it harder to target specific actors with self-conscious intent. When a cur-
rency is held just by private investors, pressures can be brought to bear on other
states only indirectly. When the same currency is held by public agencies, pres-
sures on foreign governments can be applied directly, to much better effect.
Second, the investment role also offers a lower degree of control over supply,
again as compared with the reserve-currency role. That is evident from the differ-
ing degrees of diversification in private markets and official reserves. At the pri-
vate level, as indicated, as many as eight to ten currencies figure prominently in
global finance. It is not like the immediate aftermath of World War II when just
one country, the United States, could enjoy anything like a monopoly over avail-
able alternatives. Given the higher level of competition today, few issuing states
are in a position even to try to exercise deliberate leverage through the role of
their currency as an investment medium. Assets denominated in the monetary
units of countries like Australia, Canada, and Switzerland are all actively traded
in global markets, but no one would claim that this translates into any kind of
power for their issuing governments. At the official level, by contrast, where just
two currencies dominate, an effective duopoly prevails. More room, accordingly,
is offered for actualizing influence.
On the other hand, it is clear that an investment role is essential if a cur-
rency is ever to rise to the status of a reserve currency. While a given money
can play an investment role even if never used as a reserve currency, the reverse
is unlikely ever to happen in a market-based currency system. Monetary history
suggests that the investment role comes first and then is followed by a reserve
role in addition. Certainly that was the pattern followed in the nineteenth cen-
tury by the pound sterling, which first found an international role as a conse-
quence of London’s preeminence as a financial center, and only later began to
be held by central banks as well. Likewise, it was true of the US dollar, which
first rode the rise of New York as a rival to London for foreign lending, well
before it surpassed sterling as a reserve asset. It is necessary to think in terms of
cumulative effects. A state whose currency is used as a store of value in private
markets alone gains only the influence created by that role. But a state whose
currency is used as a store of value by central banks too gains the cumulative
effect of both roles.
The link, of course, is the trade role, which plays a critical part in determin-
ing which among several investment currencies will emerge as a favored reserve
asset as well. The issuer of an international money that is used only as invest-
ment medium can aspire at best to just some modest modicum of power. But
add widespread use for trade invoicing and settlement leading to a reserve role,
and soon the issuing state becomes much more centrally placed in the global
monetary network, enhancing its influence considerably. Combined dominance
in all three—financial markets, trade, and reserves—produces the “exorbitant
privilege,” as Charles de Gaulle put it, of a true top currency.
Conclusion
The practical implications of all this are clear. Several states around the world
today are thought to harbor ambitions to amplify their monetary power—includ-
ing, most prominently, the four BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and above
all China). One way to do this is to promote a reserve role for their currency,
discounting the longer-term risks of currency internationalization. How can that
be done? The analysis suggests two crucial imperatives. One is a commitment to
broad financial-market development, building up the exchange convenience and
capital certainty of their currency, in order to attract the interest of private inves-
tors and portfolio managers. The other is a commitment to wider use of their
currency in trade invoicing and settlement, reshaping commercial relationships,
in order to attract the interest of foreign central banks. Neither path is easy, of
course, and success is by no means guaranteed. But the consequences could be
significant, even profound. As Steve Krasner has long reminded us, any change in
the distribution of state power in the world economy is bound to have impacts
that can be ignored only at our peril.
Notes
1. Kindleberger 1970.
2. Strange 1971a, 1971b.
3. Cohen 1971a, 1977.
4. Kirshner 1995, 3.
5. Kirshner 1995; Lawton, Rosenau, and Verdun 2000; Andrews 2006a.
6. Cohen 2000, 2006.
7. Cohen 2006.
8. Andrews 2006b, 17.
9. Baldwin 2002.
10. Strange 1971a, 222.
11. Kirshner 1995; Andrews 2006a.
12. Cohen 1998, 2004.
13. Mundell 1993, 10.
14. Cohen 1998, 129.
15. Cohen 1971b.
16. Cohen 1998, 136–137.
17. Krugman 1992, 173.
18. Cohen 1971a.
19. Strange 1971a, 1971b.
20. Cohen 2009.
21. Helleiner and Kirshner 2009.
22. Chinn and Frankel 2008.
23. Cohen 2011.
24. Bank for International Settlements 2007.
25. European Central Bank 2009.
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Relations, edited by Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, and Beth A. Simmons, 177–191.
Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage.
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Derivatives Market Activity in 2007. Basle: Bank for International Settlements.
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Finance 11(1): 49–73.
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Macmillan.
———. 1971b. “The Seigniorage Gain of an International Currency: An Empirical Test.”
Quarterly Journal of Economics 85(3): 494–507.
———. 1977. Organizing the World’s Money. New York: Basic Books.
———. 1998. The Geography of Money. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
———. 2000. “Money and Power in World Politics.” In Strange Power, edited by Thomas C.
Lawton, James N. Rosenau, and Amy C. Verdun, 91–113. Aldershot, UK : Ashgate.
———. 2004. The Future of Money. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
———. 2006. “The Macrofoundations of Monetary Power.” In International Monetary Power,
edited by David M. Andrews, 31–50. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
———. 2009. “Dollar Dominance, Euro Aspirations: Recipe for Discord?” Journal of Common
Market Studies 47(4): 741–66.
———. 2011. The Future of Global Currency: The Euro versus the Dollar. Abingdon, UK :
Routledge.
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215–231.
———. 1971b. Sterling and British Policy. London: Oxford University Press.
9
International Trade Law as a Mechanism

for State Transformation
Richard H. Steinberg *
Famously, “structural realist” regimes theory depicted international law as epi-

phenomenal: international law merely reflected the interests of powerful states,
and weaker states were compelled to follow international law, so international
law had no independent effect on outcomes.1 Scores of commentators subse-
quently simplified that into a claim that international law does not matter—and
many of them confounded “structural realism” with “realism.” Hence, “realism”
became a straw man that enabled commentators to show how international law
matters.2 “Realism” became international law’s whipping boy.
Yet at the time when the “structural realist” regimes theory straw man was
created, only one commentator was cited for the claim that regimes have no
effect on behavior or outcomes.3 Not even Ken Waltz, the father of structural
realism, had argued that; structural realists focus on structure, so the structural
realist deduction about regimes should have been that they have no indepen-
dent effect on system structure—not that they don’t have any effect on behavior
or nonstructural outcomes.4
In fact, the history of realist thought consistently embraces the notion that
international law is consequential, even if in limited ways. Thucydides showed
that some treaties of alliance advanced states interests, while treaties concluded
because countries were “sister democracies” sometimes harmed their state inter-
ests, as did the failure to conclude treaties because of religious beliefs.5 Machiavelli
made similar arguments.6 Morgenthau argued that power configurations, shared
interests, or shared norms could be a basis for international law, and that rules
backed by both interests and norms are most likely to enjoy compliance.7 In the
same piece in which Krasner (who is generally regarded as a realist) distilled the
claim that international law is epiphenomenal, he distanced himself from that
claim by identifying himself as a “modified structural realist,” taking the stance
that international regimes may enable cooperation that otherwise would be impos-
sible. Hence, contrary to the tenor of the discourse in the past three decades, the
realist tradition has long attended to international law and its consequences.
177
This chapter suggests another way, from a realist perspective, in which inter-
national law may be consequential and offers empirical support for that claim:
power shapes international law, which is a mechanism for state transformation.
In the 1947–1995 period, contemporary international trade law emerged as a
product of US (and, later, US-European) power, exercised through the creation
and operation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its
successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and reflected in the GATT/
WTO’s substantive rules.8 Those rules reflect not just US and European trade
policy preferences, but also the capacities and form of the state in Europe and
the United States.9 The rules have pressured not just for the abandonment of cer-
tain national policies in other countries, but also for shifts of authority within
the state, the creation of new kinds of state capacities, new processes of policy
making, and development of some dimensions of rule of law—all contradictions
of Westphalian sovereignty.10 The GATT/WTO rules promulgated by Europe and
the United States may be seen as a cast of the Western, industrialized trading
state, which has molded the state in third countries in the image of that model.11
The result has been bounded convergence in the form of the trading state
across countries. Of course, the extent to which particular states have converged
on the Western, industrialized model has varied. For one thing, GATT/WTO
rules have not been applied evenly across countries: richer developing coun-
tries have been pressured more intensely than poorer ones to abide by the rules,
while the poorest countries (with their small markets) have been largely ignored
over the past half century. The result has been that many of the world’s poorer
countries have been left behind, and others are experiencing deformation (i.e.,
defective formation) of the trading state.
Part 1 summarizes arguments I have made elsewhere—that GATT/WTO
rules and principles, which were shaped by EC-US trade bargaining power over
most of the past half century, reflect national political economies and state struc-
tures similar to those of the United States and Western Europe. Part 2 explains
how that international trade law has exerted pressure on weaker states, trans-
forming them and favoring bounded convergence in the form of the state. Part 3
describes five dimensions along which state formation and transformation have
taken place. Part 4 considers these changes in national context, with particular
attention to poor countries. Part 5 concludes by elaborating the role of interna-
tional law in molding the state.
1. Casting the Western, Industrialized Trading State

As argued in earlier work, European and US power shaped GATT/WTO rules.12
“Power” was defined in that work as the ability to get states to do what they
would not otherwise do, and it was operationalized in terms of market size, as
Inte r nati onal Trade Law as a Mechanism for State Trans for mati on 179
territories with big markets could use them as leverage in trade negotiations.13
The extent to which that bargaining power was used varied over time, as system
structure changed and relative market size varied: in the early postwar period,
the US market was dominant and the United States ran the trade regime; after
the European Commission (EC) was established and its market size grew to
about a third of GATT GDP, it joined the United States in co-governing the
trade regime; after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the EU and United States
were less attentive to developing-country interests and imposed new rules on
them via the single undertaking of the Uruguay Round; and since 2000, the
growth of developing-country markets has endowed them with greater influence
in the WTO.14
What do GATT/WTO rules and principles, which were shaped by EC-US
trade bargaining power over most of the past half century, suggest about the
state and the structure of the national political economy of each GATT/WTO
member? Not surprisingly, they assume national political economies and state
structures similar to those of the United States and Western Europe. GATT 1947
rules and principles presumed that the political economy of each contracting
party would be fundamentally market oriented. The GATT was built on four cor-
nerstones—most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment, national treatment, bound
tariffs, and the elimination of quotas—each of which could be undermined by
the activities of state enterprises or state trading enterprises.15 For example, a
state trading enterprise with a monopoly on all imports of a particular product
could undermine the tariff bindings on that product in the country where the
enterprise operates: it could simply import the product, pay the tariff rate bound
in that country’s schedule of concessions, then internally resell all units of the
product at a mark-up that exceeded the tariff paid for each unit. Hence, while
GATT 1947 negotiators expected that some contracting parties might maintain
state enterprises, Article XVII was written to constrain their activities, so that
decisions would be taken according to purely commercial considerations.16 Yet
that solution has not always been considered sufficient, and the accession of
some countries has been delayed or denied until there was convincing evidence
of a trend and commitment toward drastic reduction in the role of the state in
the economy.17
GATT contracting parties were also expected to have relatively few monopo-
lies or oligopolies engaging in anticompetitive practices. Just as large monopoly
state enterprises could undermine the four cornerstones, so could sizable private
monopolies. For example, anticompetitive distribution networks could behave
in ways that created a barrier to trade, with effects similar to tariffs, quotas,
or denial of national treatment. Such arguments have frequently been leveled
at the Japanese keiretsu and the Korean chaebol systems.18 The Havana Charter
included express provisions against “restrictive business practices,” and while the
Havana Charter never came into being, a shared European-US norm against
anticompetitive practices sufficed to limit political friction over the issue until
Japan emerged as a significant economic power in the 1980s. Since then, the
United States, the EC, and other GATT/WTO members have used GATT-legal
national laws and agencies aimed at “unfair trade practices”—such as antidump-
ing law—to offset and pressure countries that tolerate anticompetitive business
practices.
In addition to capacity to act against anticompetitive practices, constitu-
ent states have been permitted by GATT 1947 to maintain other capacities—
regardless of their trade-limiting effects. GATT Article XXI permits the state to
perform military security functions without constraint. Article VI, Article XVI,
and related rules contemplate that the state may maintain simultaneously agen-
cies that actively subsidize certain sectors (e.g., agriculture)—and agencies that
regulate other excessive subsidies by foreign governments. Moreover, in requir-
ing “specificity” in order to challenge foreign subsidies, GATT negotiators have
carefully permitted states to pursue broad social welfare and social safety net
programs, which are presumed to be common to GATT/WTO members and
crucial to their domestic politics. Article X, requiring transparent publication
and a means of adjudicating disputes over trade regulations within each con-
tracting party, demands in effect that constituent states maintain at least some
elements of an operational judicial system. And the Article XX exceptions show
that constituent states are expected and permitted to maintain agencies to protect
consumers, the domestic environment, public morality, and intellectual property.
The Tokyo and Uruguay Rounds further defined GATT/WTO rules and princi-
ples, and expressly acknowledge the role of constituent states in regulating vari-
ous service sectors, including telecommunications and financial services.
Not every GATT/WTO member state was expected to be structured pre-
cisely along the lines suggested by the regime’s rules and principles. For exam-
ple, derogations have applied to developing countries. And some countries, such
as France and Japan, were able to conduct significant state economic interven-
tion without substantial foreign complaint, until their economies became large
enough to threaten the interests of other powerful contracting parties.19 These
exceptions aside, GATT/WTO rules and procedures have been drafted with a
particular range of permissible state structures in mind, structures that reflect
those of the United States and Western Europe.
2. The Formation of Trading States on the Western,

Industrialized Model: Molding the State in Third Countries
Stephen Krasner has shown many ways by which powerful states have coerced
or imposed state transformation in weaker countries.20 In the past half century,
the European Union and the United States have used international trade law to
transform weaker states. GATT/WTO rules and principles have provided oppor-
tunities and incentives for the transformation of the state, particularly in richer
developing countries. The agenda-setting that led to the GATT 1947 and the
1995 WTO agreements was dominated by the United States and Europe, estab-
lishing agreements that demanded relatively little immediate legal or institutional
change in either territory. Yet for most other countries, the procedural and sub-
stantive requirements of joining and participating in the GATT/WTO, and the
incentives and opportunities created by the regime and related activities, have
required or favored substantial change in state institutions. As the international
trade legal environment has thickened, molding mechanisms have become more
legalized. Some important molding mechanisms are intrinsic to the trade regime
itself, while others operate through complementary institutions and processes.
These mechanisms have operated most effectively at important and identifiable
historical moments.
Molding Mechanisms Intrinsic to the Trade Regime

Accession. There have been powerful economic incentives to accede to the
GATT/WTO system. Nonmembers suffer trade and investment diversion21 and
risk losing access to the world’s largest markets.22 As the GATT/WTO started to
grow and integration among its members deepened, so did these costs of non-
membership, creating a bandwagon effect.23 Accession also promised to buttress
the domestic political position of liberal-minded reformers in developing coun-
tries that had been pursuing import-substitution-industrialization policies and
transitional economies that had pursued central planning.24 Hence, the regime
has grown from 22 members in 1948 to over 150 members by 2009.
For most states, GATT/WTO accession necessitates not only policy changes,
sometimes referred to as “paying the price of admission,” but also institutional
changes in the acceding state.25 For example, consider the substantive and institu-
tional demands of implementing just one of the GATT/WTO agreements—the
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
TRIPS requires each WTO member to enact substantive laws guaranteeing
protection for patents, copyrights, trademarks, and know-how. It also mandates
the establishment or maintenance of various state institutions, such as a patent
office. Moreover, by requiring that each WTO member offer “effective means” of
enforcing intellectual property protection through injunctive relief, civil actions,
and other enforcement mechanisms, the agreement demands that states main-
tain court systems that operate according to the rule of law. Institutional form
follows function.
Rule Deepening. As GATT/WTO liberalization has deepened, so has the
scope of the demand for state institutional change among members. Over time,
the scope and scale of GATT/WTO obligations have increased. This increase is
reflected in the size of GATT/WTO accession protocols: in 1951, the Model

Protocol of Accession to the GATT was three pages and required adherence to
the GATT and the acceding country’s schedule of tariff concessions; in 2001,
the package of commitments that constituted China’s Protocol of Accession was
several hundred pages long, including required adherence to the GATT, approxi-
mately four hundred pages of additional WTO agreements, (de facto) the rules
and principles established in GATT/WTO dispute settlement decisions, China’s
schedule of tariff concessions, its schedule for services liberalization, and other
understandings. The GATT 1947 and subsequent multilateral trade negotiations
prior to the Tokyo Round addressed largely border measures, such as tariffs and
quotas. Since the 1970s, however, GATT/WTO agreements have concentrated
increasingly on behind-the-border issues, such as services regulation, health reg-
ulations, industrial standards, and intellectual property rights. The Doha Round
of negotiations initially added investment regulations, competition policy, and
environmental regulation to the agenda, suggesting the possibility of a host of
new issues for the future trade agenda. As multilateral integration has deepened,
the demands on GATT/WTO member states have increased.
Enforcement of the Rules. In the 1970s and 1980s, GATT rules were often
enforced unilaterally, but even that enforcement usually took place in the con-
text of the GATT dispute settlement process. Since establishment of the WTO,
enforcement has taken place through a highly legalized system.26 Both systems
have given powerful states institutionalized channels for imposing (or threat-
ening to impose) trade sanctions on countries that failed to adhere to GATT/
WTO rules.
The GATT 1947 provided for only a rudimentary system of consultation and
investigation of complaints that a contracting party was maintaining rules that
nullify or impair trade concessions. Those foundational rules were interpreted
and elaborated by the Contracting Parties, eventually yielding a series of under-
standings that incrementally legalized the GATT dispute settlement system. Still,
the GATT dispute settlement system could never reliably adjudicate all disputes,
because each important procedural step could be blocked by the refusal of the
respondent to join a consensus to take the step.
In that context, the US government notoriously employed Section 301 of the
Trade Act of 1974 to engage a process of consultation and GATT dispute settle-
ment, both of which operated in the shadow of a threat to impose trade sanc-
tions in order to enforce GATT rules. During the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of
“301 petitions” were filed with the United States Trade Representative, which
pursued cases associated with almost all of those petitions. In addition, under
the “Super 301” process, the USTR had to annually designate those countries
engaging in the most egregious patterns of GATT violations as “priority foreign
countries,” a designation that triggered a sharply defined process to pressure
change. As a result of these processes, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, India, Indonesia,
Korea, and other countries faced enormous pressure from the United States to
change their trade-restrictive rules and institutions.
Since establishment of the WTO in 1995, rule application and enforcement
has taken place primarily through the highly legalized WTO dispute settlement
system. Like the domestic 301 institution, this process can also ultimately sub-
ject states to trade sanctions for continued noncompliance with WTO rules.
Since its inception, the system has handled about fifty cases per year at the dis-
pute settlement stage, and more than two-thirds of those decisions have been
addressed by the Appellate Body. In addition, for each one of the scores of cases
that have been filed under this system, many disputes and assertions of rule vio-
lation have been resolved through rule-compliant agreements reached in the
shadow of a threat to use the formal system.27
Complementary Molding Mechanisms

These molding mechanisms have been complemented by activities undertaken
by other international organizations and powerful WTO members. Most of
these activities have taken place—to varying degrees—in express coordination
with the WTO.
Complementary Pressure from the Bank and the Fund. From the birth of IMF
and World Bank conditionality in the late 1960s, through the mid-1990s, con-
ditionality policies seem to have been driven primarily by economic orthodoxy.
There is little evidence that these policies were motivated directly by a desire
to ensure GATT compliance per se, or by political pressure from trade minis-
tries. Nonetheless, many elements of typical IMF and World Bank conditional-
ity packages have supported compliance with GATT/WTO obligations over the
past thirty years, including public expenditure priorities that disfavor subsidies;
tax reform measures intended to generate revenue internally (instead of tariffs);
and policies favoring financial liberalization, tariff reduction and quota expan-
sion, abolition of import licensing, foreign direct investment, and privatization
of state enterprises.
Since the late 1990s, however, IMF and World Bank policies have been con-
sciously coordinated with WTO rules and priorities. Perhaps the earliest clear
case of coordination took place in 1997, when Indonesia’s financial bailout pack-
age included provisions requiring adherence to specified WTO rules, a shift in
IMF conditionality taken at the behest of the US treasury secretary, who had
acted in close consultation with the USTR.
In the same year, the World Bank, WTO, United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development (UNCTAD), United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), International Trade Centre (ITC), and IMF agreed to serve as imple-
menting agencies for a new program designed to integrate the least developed
countries (LDCs) into the multilateral trading system. The Integrated Framework
for Technical Assistance (IF) attempts to deliver trade-related technical assis-

tance to LDCs and use trade policies to produce development and poverty
reduction strategies. The collaborating institutions seek to ensure that the LDCs
will comply with WTO rules, develop trade policy strategies to maximize their
benefits from the Uruguay Round, and acquire the capacity to scrutinize trade
policies. Within a few years of its establishment, it became clear that the IF was
facing difficulties due to differences between the donors and beneficiaries, weak
coordination among the various institutions, and a management-by-committee
approach. In July 2000, the six institutions agreed to reform the IF operations,
resolving to increase resources by devising a UNDP-administered trust fund
that would attract $20 million over three years for technical assistance, delegate
to the World Bank responsibility for ensuring that trade issues are included in
a country’s development plans, and establish a WTO-chaired and coordinated
steering committee to oversee the program. As of 2004, the IF had completed
or was nearing completion on thirteen projects with an additional six set to
begin in that year.28
Technical Assistance. These multilateral organizations have not been the
only institutions to offer developing countries technical assistance and train-
ing intended to support implementation of GATT/WTO rules. Since the late
1990s, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the United
Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), the Australian
Agency for International Developmnent (AUSAID), the European Commission,
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), among others, have supported trade
capacity-building. Dozens of developing countries have undergone a process in
which foreign experts in trade policy, including officials from foreign govern-
ments and international organizations, along with foreign private sector consul-
tants, have assessed their trade capacity needs and then attempted to educate
developing country government officials about WTO obligations, as well as the
domestic rules, institutions, and processes necessary for compliance with those
obligations and for participating in global, regional, and bilateral trade negotia-
tions and dispute settlement processes.29 In many cases, foreign officials and
private sector consultants have helped draft domestic legislation to build trade
capacity and bring the country into compliance with its WTO obligations.
In some countries, such as Ghana and Mozambique, administration of some
trade-related functions that are normally operated by states have been success-
fully outsourced to private, foreign consulting firms.
Preferential Trade Agreements. Finally, the molding process has been super-
charged by the proliferation of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs), particu-
larly those to which the United States or the European Union have been parties.
PTAs are supposed to be consistent with the provisions of GATT Article XXIII,
liberalizing “substantially all trade” within the PTA. Generally, PTAs concluded
with the United States or the EU contain trade and investment liberaliza-
tion obligations that run considerably deeper than those in WTO agreements.
Therefore, they demand substantially more state institutional change in devel-
oping countries than is demanded by adherence to WTO rules alone. Hence,
the 2004 and 2006 EU enlargement entailed profound changes in the nature of
the state in “new” Europe, and conclusion of the NAFTA led to the most signif-
icant reorganization of the Mexican trading state in its contemporary history.30
The proliferation of free trade areas (FTAs) with the EU, growing now to over
ninety with the shift from Lomé Convention preferences to Cotonou-mandated
FTAs, is demanding significant changes in the state, particularly in the African,
Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) countries. Indeed, the negotiation of these FTAs cat-
alyzed establishment of an EU-supported trade capacity building program for
ACP countries. Similarly, the US trade strategy of “competitive liberalization,”
launched early in the George W. Bush administration, led to an explosion of US
FTAs with developing countries, which was complemented by a major expan-
sion of USAID trade capacity building programs starting in 2003.
PTAs among developing countries tend to liberalize far less deeply than rich
country–poor country agreements, so they demand less state change. However,
the establishment of regional economic cooperation and customs unions among
developing countries, such as the Southern African Development Community
and the West African Economic and Monetary Union, have sometimes resulted
in a considerable shift of member-state authority to the regional level and enabled
member states to share the burden of trade-related policy development.31 The
flip side of such developments is that the weaker and poorer countries in a cus-
toms union, such as Lesotho in the Southern African Customs Union, may lose
control over important economic policies, such as tariff rates.32
Historical Moments
Molding has been most pronounced and effective at particular historical
moments, most of which are associated with the molding policies identified
above. For many countries, such as Mexico and China, the moment of GATT
or WTO accession has demanded significant state change. For others, such as
Argentina, Brazil, and Korea, the period of intense US unilateralism in the late
1980s helped catalyze trading-state change. For those that have joined a PTA
with the United States or EU, the process of concluding and implementing
those agreements has defined a period of profound development of the trading
state. For those that have faced demanding conditionality agreements, such as
Indonesia and Brazil, periods of severe financial difficulties have inspired trans-
formation of the trading state. And in the last decade, explosive growth of trade
capacity building programs has facilitated substantial state change in some coun-
tries like Ghana and Mozambique.
The most effective development of trading-state institutions has taken place at

times when several molding methods were used simultaneously, particularly in
the context of an active, emergent indigenous reform movement. For example,
the Brazilian trading state changed markedly in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
when a domestic reform movement received external support for its objectives
in the form of unilateral reformist pressure from the US government, a host of
GATT dispute settlement cases, and conditionality pressure from the IMF.
3. Dimensions of State Formation and Transformation

GATT/WTO rules (and the complementary mechanisms identified above)
have favored a bounded convergence toward some aspects of a US / Western
European and GATT/WTO model of the state along five dimensions:
1. Reduced Role for State-Led and Central Planning Institutions. GATT/WTO

rules, and the trade and investment diversion suffered or feared by those
countries outside the GATT/WTO system, have favored reducing the state’s
direct role in domestic economic planning—central planning, state trading
enterprise systems, state-owned enterprises, and state-led capitalism.
2. Elements of New State Capacity. At the same time, the GATT/WTO (1)
expressly permits, anticipates, and disciplines increased regulatory capacity
over—and fallout from—sectors once controlled by dismantled state trading
and state-owned enterprises (especially over competition, financial services,
telecoms, labor policies, etc.);33 (2) provides opportunities (which combine
with strategic trade goals to become incentives) for strategic trade institu-
tions that can administer antidumping, countervailing duty, and safeguards
laws, technology policy (but constrained industrial policy), export promo-
tion capacity, and technical standards and testing; (3) requires (or is mov-
ing toward requiring) the establishment and maintenance of state institutions
supporting intellectual property rights, environmental protection, and labor
rights; and (4) favors the establishment of capacity for addressing internal
spillovers from liberalization—internal revenue generation (to replace rev-
enue previously generated from duties), a social safety net that can address
dislocations associated with liberalization, and more technical standards and
testing (to protect consumers, workers, and the internal environment from
damage from imported goods).
3. Shifts of Authority. The GATT/WTO has required or created incentives for
shifts of authority within the state. While formerly state-led and central plan-
ning systems have experienced diminished state authority over the economy,
in other countries, authority over the economy has in some ways become
more concentrated in the state: (1) in federal systems, from sub-federal
levels to the central government (so that the state can negotiate with a single
voice and comply with international obligations);34 (2) in presidential sys-
tems, from the legislative to the executive branch (so that the executive can
bargain credibly and secretly); and (3) to trade ministries from other min-
istries—or to the external affairs division of trade and industry ministries—
as previous domestic topics, such as intellectual property, environment, and
labor, have become objects of trade negotiations.
4. Changes in National Policy-Making Processes. Shifts in state capacity and
the concentration of authority demand new processes of policy making.
For example, if authority over a particular policy shifts from one agency
to another, then the processes of policy making must also shift, so that
non-state actors can articulate their interests to the new authoritative pol-
icy makers. Similarly, if authority over a particular policy becomes shared
by two domestic institutions when it was previously controlled by one,
policy-making processes must shift, so that the institution previously at the
center of a policy-making process can participate in the new and expanded
process. As the range of issues that are the subject of GATT/WTO nego-
tiations has expanded, the domestic institutions of trade policy mak-
ing have adapted, so that broader sets of interests can feed into the trade
policy-making process.
5. National Legal System Changes. The process and outcomes of GATT/WTO
and preferential trade liberalization have favored and been accompanied by:
(1) an expansion in constitutionally acceptable forms of international agree-
ments (e.g., in the United States, from treaties to executive agreements and
congressional-executive agreements, for speed, secrecy, and credibility); and
(2) marginal increased rule of law along some dimensions—formalization,
transparency, and independent judicial review (as required by GATT articles,
TRIPS, and accession agreements).
4. State Change in National Context: Trading State

Formation and Transformation in Poor Countries
Mindful of Robert Jervis’s suggestion in this volume that causal arguments
depend partly on where one’s analysis of a process begins, I argue that the extent
of change along each dimension depends on a country’s starting point—in par-
ticular, its level of economic development, the extent and form of state inter-
vention in the economy prior to institutional adjustment, and whether it has
enough market power to help set the global trade agenda. Of course, molding
pressures on states to adapt in a functional manner are mediated by particular
national histories and strategic choices.
The external trade-related impetus for institutional transformation in the

United States and EC has not been the substance of GATT/WTO obligations,
but rather the exigencies of the GATT/WTO bargaining process, the strategic
and tactical advantages of establishing a particular trade bargaining tool set, and
the expanding scope of trade negotiations. And for them the political vehicle for
change has not been external pressure to comply with GATT/WTO obligations,
but rather economic internationalists within the state and interest groups newly
drawn into trade policy by economic spillovers from deepening integration.
In short, the United States and Europe have reorganized to effectively govern
world trade. In these countries/entities, change has been seen primarily along
three dimensions: GATT/WTO negotiations have favored shifts of authority
(e.g., toward trade ministries in the central government) and new state capacity
(e.g., new capacity developed at the EC level so that the European Commission
could have a full trade bargaining tool set that includes antidumping, countervail-
ing duty, and competition law and administration); and the foregoing demanded
changes in processes of trade policy making.35
In contrast, in the wealthier developing countries, the opportunities and
incentives embodied in the GATT/WTO agreements have precipitated change
along all five dimensions. These countries include those that previously followed
import-substitution-industrialization policies (e.g., Mexico, Brazil, Argentina,
India), those that were state-led (e.g., Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea), and
transitional countries (e.g., China). Unlike the LDCs, the markets of these
countries have been substantial enough to attract EU or US interest in applying
GATT/WTO rules, which have demanded state institutional change. Contracting,
coercion, and imposition have been used to shape the trading state in the richer
developing countries.36 They have been the repeated objects of GATT and WTO
dispute settlement cases.
State institutional change associated with trade regime demands has been less
extensive in the poorer developing countries, including the LDCs. In these coun-
tries, until very recently there was little institutional shift associated with GATT/
WTO liberalization across any of the five dimensions. Most of the demands of
the GATT/WTO system have been formally suspended or simply not enforced
for these countries. Many of the world’s poorer countries acceded to the GATT
as newly independent colonies that were exempted from the usual process of
“paying the price of admission” by virtue of the sponsorship procedure for
accession under GATT Article XXVI:5(c). In addition, many poorer developing
countries have enjoyed nonreciprocal preferential access to US and European
markets through generalized systems of preferences, special preferential systems
(such as the United States’ African Growth and Opportunity Act), or the EU’s
long-standing series of Lomé agreements. These nonreciprocal preferential sys-
tems have relieved many poor countries of political pressure to develop a trad-
ing state.37 But most importantly, their markets are so small that the powerful
trading states have faced little domestic pressure to demand changes in the form
or capacity of their states. Moreover, in most of these poor countries, state insti-
tutional capacity and political authority structures have not reached a threshold
at which trade regime demands would have any meaning. Hence, there is little
motivation or logic for forcing changes in these states, so no GATT or WTO
dispute settlement case has ever been filed against an LDC. In this respect,
from the founding of the GATT through the mid-1990s, the trading state in the
world’s poorer countries was simply left for dead.
However, beginning in the late 1990s, and accelerating in recent years, the trad-
ing state has developed significantly in some LDCs and poor developing countries.
Substantial technical assistance for state building has been provided in recent years
by rich-country governments and international organizations. Moreover, starting
in the late 1990s, the World Bank and the IMF have expressly coordinated their
policies with those of the GATT/WTO by means of the IF. In this same period,
PTAs have flourished, most importantly those with the United States or the EU,
especially those being negotiated pursuant to the Cotonou Agreement.
The motivations for this sudden convergent application of molding mechanisms
are varied. It is clear that the US strategy of “competitive liberalization” and its
desire to work slowly toward a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, and the
EU’s transformation of the Lomé system into a set of FTAs, are leading to a rad-
ical proliferation of rich country–poor country PTAs, which are demanding insti-
tutional change in poor-country trading states. And when US trade officials have
met their counterparts from some poor developing countries, such as Mozambique,
they have reported dismay that there was no one to negotiate with, so the US gov-
ernment expanded its trade capacity building program in 2003. South–South PTAs
have also proliferated in the last decade, and these agreements have also demanded
some state change and enabled shared trade policy development. In addition, the
war on terror has generated a policy objective of building the state in poor countries
to avoid state fragility or failure that could present fertile ground for terrorists.
Taken together, the resulting molding mechanisms might be beginning to
form and transform the trading state in a handful of poorer developing coun-
tries. The extent to which the trading state is forming in these countries varies
highly and appears to depend on several factors: the country’s precise level of
economic development; whether it is participating in a PTA in which it is either
a dominant member, or in which the dominant members are interested in the
political-economic stability of weaker members; whether its geographic position
or ethnic mix attracts geostrategic interest that favors foreign capacity-building
assistance; whether it has experienced financial problems that have required
IMF intervention and conditionality; the existence of a domestic reform move-
ment; and the existence of civil war or general state failure.
Hence, some of the world’s poorest countries, with few of the attributes iden-
tified above, such as Lesotho and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have
experienced almost no development of the trading state. Lesotho, for example,

enjoys nonreciprocal trade preferences with the United States and the EU, and
its market is so small that it has never been a target of US, EU, or WTO trade
policy pressures. Its currency is tied to the South African rand, so the IMF has not
had occasion to exact conditionality from Lesotho. It has not been a focus of US
“competitive liberalization” policy, the war on terror, or any other recent geostrate-
gic concern, so it has not received any significant trade capacity building support.
It is a member of SACU, whose trade policies have been driven almost exclusively
by South Africa’s desire to drop the common external tariff, radically diminishing
Lesotho’s main source of revenue generation. Lesotho remains left for dead.
In contrast, some poorer countries, such as Bolivia, Ghana, the Ivory Coast,
Morocco, and Mozambique, appear to have enjoyed significant development
of the trading state along all five dimensions in the last fifteen years. All have
received trade capacity building assistance in recent years; most have been a tar-
get of IMF or World Bank conditionality in the last decade; and most partici-
pate in a reciprocal PTA with the EU or the United States.
5. Conclusion: The Second Image Mirrored and the

Role of International Law
The international system has shaped national political economic structures in
ways that are historically contextual.38 The contemporary international environ-
ment is characterized by an unprecedented degree of legalization, suggesting that
international law could be central to understanding national structures.39
In 1938, Hans Morgenthau argued that international law reflected not only
shared norms, but also the interests of powerful states.40 In his work on inter-
national regimes, Stephen Krasner added parsimony to the argument, offer-
ing a “structural realist” null hypothesis that international law might be merely
a reflection of underlying power, with no independent effect on international
outcomes.41 If that macro-level argument by Krasner suggested possible lim-
its on the significance of international law, his work on sovereignty shook its
micro-foundations.42 Krasner’s argument that sovereignty is a fiction also implied
that state “consent” is a fiction. Beginning with Grotius,43 and culminating with
Austinian positivism,44 international law has long been conceptualized as resting
on a foundation of state consent. Hence, the four primary sources of interna-
tional law—treaty, custom, general principles, and law generated by international
organizations—are said to be based on consent, expressly or implicitly. If con-
sent is fiction, then all of international law rests on fiction.
Yet Krasner did not deny that international law could have meaning. He
never subscribed to the “structural realist” straw man, identifying himself instead
as a “modified structural realist,” arguing that international law could enable
cooperation that was otherwise impossible. Hence, while Krasner argued that
much of international life is about bargaining on the Pareto frontier, he never
denied that treaties could also be Pareto-improving.45 He also identified lags and
feedback as possible ways that regimes could affect international relations46—
what David Lake later called the “afterglow” of hegemony.47 Even his work on
sovereignty suggested that international law is functional, at least sociologically:
sovereignty legitimates the state as the supreme authority within a territory and
as the fundamental unit of analysis in the international system.48
This chapter suggests still another way in which international law matters
from a realist perspective. International law reflects policies and state structures
favored by powerful states. But by constraining and mandating substantive com-
mitments assumed by weaker states and the procedures by which additional
commitments are assumed, international law helps mold the form of the state.
For powerful countries, this export of the form of the state may be both
functional and normatively appealing. Ancient Rome spread its system of law
and administration throughout the conquered dominions that were afforded
self-government, which lowered Rome’s administrative costs and helps explain
the empire’s persistence.49 Napoleon mimicked the Roman approach, impos-
ing his family and the civil law system on conquered states to facilitate imperial
governance.50 Imperial Britain followed suit, famously governing India through
a civil service system modeled on Britain’s own and imposed on India through
conquest.51 What these earlier empires achieved in shaping foreign states through
military conquest has been emulated (albeit to a lesser degree) by the United
States in a less costly fashion through international law.
Global trade liberalization in the postwar period has assumed a distinct insti-
tutional form embodied in GATT/WTO law and characterized by a process
of lawmaking that has depended crucially on EU-US cooperation and power.52
Consistent with realist theory, international trade law reflects the interests, laws,
and state structures of Western advanced industrial countries. The terms of
accession to the trade regime, the deepening of GATT/WTO rules, and their
enforcement have demanded changes in the trading state in developing coun-
tries. By participating in international trade legal systems, most countries outside
of Western Europe and the United States have accepted rules and principles that
transform them, endowing them with attributes that resemble Western advanced
industrial states. Hence, the structure of trading states in the periphery is reca-
pitulating that of states in the core.
These factors have been complemented by other mechanisms—IMF and
World Bank conditionality, trade capacity building assistance, and participation
in PTAs—that have also helped mold the trading state. Together these molding
mechanisms have precipitated bounded convergence of the trading state along
the lines seen in the Western advanced industrialized countries, which wrote
the rules of the system. While economic efficiency favors trade liberalization,
ideas and persuasion help explain the establishment of the liberal trade regime,53
and sociological micro-processes help explain state institutional isomorphism
in many areas of governance,54 this chapter has shown how material pressure,
operating through international trade law, has been crucial to the formation and
transformation of the trading state.
Notes
*I am grateful to Marty Finnemore, Judith Goldstein, Peter Gourevitch, Joanne Gowa, Peter
Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, David Lake, Jonah Levy, Tonya Putnam, Joost Pauwelyn, Kal
Raustiala, Art Stein, Dan Tarullo, and John Zysman for their helpful comments and sugges-
tions on earlier drafts.
1. Krasner 1982.
2. See, for example, Slaughter Burley 1993; Arend 1998, 116, 128–129, 132–33; Abbott
1999, 365; Guzman 2002, 1837; Hathaway 2002; Greenberg 2002.
3. Strange 1982.
4. Waltz 1979.
5. Thucydides 2008, 269–277.
6. Machiavelli 1883, bk. 1, chap. 59.
7. Morgenthau 1940.
8. Steinberg 2002; Barton et al. 2005; Gowa and Kim 2005.
9. This argument is consistent with David Lake’s assertion that global powers externalize
their domestic structures to the international economy. Lake 1999, 43–48.
10. Krasner 1999.
11. “Cast” and “mold” are merely metaphors. The paper argues below that we are seeing
bounded convergence in the form of the state, which suggests some measure of imperfec-
tion or ambiguity in the “casting” or “molding” processes (i.e., factors other than the political
and institutional processes that are the focus of this chapter are also affecting the state).
12. Steinberg 2002.
13. Dahl 1957.
14. Steinberg 2002; Goldstein and Steinberg 2008.
15. Jackson 1989.
16. Wilcox 1972.
17. Steinberg 1998; Clarke 1994.
18. Tyson 1992.
19. Cohen 1998.
20. Krasner 1999.
21. Viner 1950; Rosecrance and Stein 2001.
22. Steinberg 2002.
23. Barton et al. 2005.
24. Goldstein 1994.
25. Jackson 1969.
26. Abbott et al. 2000; Goldstein and Martin 2000.
27. For more background on the GATT and WTO dispute settlement systems, see Hudec
1980; Steinberg 2004; and Barton et al. 2006.
28. Agarwal and Cutura 2004; Stiglitz 2002.
29. Prowse 2002; OECD 2003; Sauve 2004.
30. Knill 2001; Fukuyama 2005.
31. International Monetary Fund 2003; Ivorien Authorities 1998; Kalenga 2004.
32. World Trade Organization 1998; Lundahl, McCarthy, and Peterson. 2003.
33. Vogel 1996.
34. EU proposals in October and November 2009 for constitutional change in Bosnia,
including a strengthening of the federal government at the expense of the Republika
Srpska, as a condition for accession, exemplify this point.
35. Steinberg 2006.
36. Krasner 1999.
37. Ozden and Reinhardt 2002; Mold 2005.
38. Gourevitch 1978; Tilly 1975; Gerschenkron 1963.
39. Goldstein and Martin 2000.
40. Morgenthau 1938.
41. Krasner 1982.
42. Krasner 1999.
43. Grotius 1625/2004.
44. Austin 1832.
45. Krasner 1991.
46. Krasner 1982.
47. Lake 1991.
48. Krasner 1999.
49. Doyle 1986.
50. Merryman 2007.
51. Ferguson 2002.
52. Gruber 2000; Steinberg 2002, 2004.
53. Goldstein 1994; Goldstein and Keohane 1993.
54. Meyer et al. 1997.
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10
Choice and Constraint in the Great

Recession of 2008
Peter Gourevitch
The economic crisis of 2007–2009 has been grist for our various mills. Crises
are the feed grain for arguing about interpretation. They present opportunities
for change in policy and for evaluation of our causal theories: “A crisis is too
valuable to waste.” The Great Recession of 2008 and responses to it reveal a cri-
sis of sovereignty and more generally in our ability to specify the interaction of
system, unit, and subunit variables. What happens within countries constitutes
the major substance of the relations among them. Countries are so impacted
by what their neighbors do (the environment, finance, economic stability) they
can no longer sit by and accept traditional boundaries of noninterference and
notions of “domestic” politics. The concept of “failed states” developed to deal
with weak regimes unable to manage their affairs and thereby threatening oth-
ers. But strong states can pose threats to others as well as themselves: not the
failure of weak states, but the policy failure of strong states. These policy failures
lie in internal responses to external pressures, so that understanding response to
pressures from the outside turns on understanding decision making within. The
Great Recession of 2008 thus lies squarely in the crosshairs of Krasner’s contri-
butions to our field.
Structural shifts in the world economy over several decades generated imbal-
ances in trade,1 capital flows, and security concerns that altered the balance of
power at the global level and laid the foundation for both dynamic growth and
collapse. These global shifts arose out of international agreements to liberalize the
flow of trade and capital. These agreements reflect not only an international logic—
as one country liberalizes, the rewards to others increase—but domestic politics
within each country about how it chose to internalize the international opportuni-
ties and threats. Within each country, policy debates concern macro variables in
policy (attributes of the economy as a whole) at the unit level of the state, and
micro variables (internal to the various institutions and markets of each country).
States do matter in this analysis: states have agency. They make choices, deci-
sions.2 They are influenced by systemic variables, but they have capacity to shape
196
Choice and Constraint in the Great R ecession of 2008 197
their response to those influences. System-level thinkers, of constructivist, real-

ist, or neoliberal persuasion, stress constraints.3 At the same time, analysis at the
state system level is insufficient. If states are able to make a choice, we need to
explain that choice. Here I privilege domestic politics: precisely because states
have options, unit level analysis (generalizing from national interest, from place
in the system to policy outcomes) is insufficient in accounting for how states
choose among their options. For that, we need to understand the processes
whereby states pick among those options, how countries “choose” to exercise
their agency.
The United States has the capacity to project its military, but does not have
to do so. The disjuncture between great dominance in military and a multipo-
lar economic order is the great objective fact of the international system. But
this defines possibilities, not outcomes.4 The Europeans destroyed their impe-
rial position through two world wars. They, and Japan, revived by shifting to
export-oriented trade. The drive for territorial empire and then the shift to trade
were both the result of internal choices.
The issue of domestic choices reappears in assessing the spectacular changes
in the world system over recent decades, especially the rise of Brazil, Russia,
India, and China (the BRICs) and other countries in the G-20 (Turkey, nota-
bly). These shifted global economic activity in ways that created structural
imbalances.5 In this respect the present time resembles earlier periods: the crisis
of 1873–1896, which reflected the spread of market economies and technolo-
gies to new regions of the world;6 and the crisis of the interwar years, which
reflected similar shifts as the consequence of World War I and its aftermath.
Dominance by the United States, the hegemon, eroded over time, not only as
Japan, Germany, and Europe rebuilt, but now by the spread of dynamic market
economies. This has created a multipolar economic world. Our theories suggest
such worlds risk instability.7
At the same time, these systemic trends raise important questions of national
choice. Systems approaches allow us to explore the constraints on countries, the
ways they are limited by the behavior of others. We see many examples of this:
China and Germany have evolved as export economies, stressing manufactur-
ing with constrained domestic consumption and high savings, while the United
States and the UK rely on high consumption to drive their economies, and con-
siderable imbalances of capital, which rely on extensive borrowing. It is not easy
for these countries to switch gears, for the former to consume more and the
latter to save more.8 And yet, these are national choices; the world system does
not compel them to spend or save. They chose to do what they are doing. This
compels our attention to attributes of the country, the unit in the system, and its
internal processes of balancing in response to global forces.
The Great Recession of 2008 naturally invites comparison with earlier epi-
sodes: of course the Great Depression of 1929, in severity and impact; but also
the Panic of 1907, and the recession of 1873–1893. This one resembles those,
but has its own features. Rather than worry about locating the crisis in a com-
parative frame, I will focus here on the causal challenges posed by trying to
understand the choices the countries have been making. The challenges illus-
trate some major issues in our field having to do with three systems of interac-
tion: first, the interaction of macro and micro forces in explanation of the causes
of the crisis and responses to it; second, the interaction of country and system
levels of explanation, the degree to which countries are constrained by interna-
tional factors in their response; and third, the degree of choice or agency in the
hands of political leaders during the crisis and in explaining responses to it.
The valence of these variables is interactive. The power of trade turns on the
responsiveness of domestic institutions to the opportunities and punishments
trade brings. The pressure to change financial institutions turns on regulation
about capital flows. As Robert Jervis notes elsewhere in this volume, the causal
arguments can shift with analytical perspective. As with policy, the plausible
causation story depends on what you see and what you want to argue.
The Comparison Frame

The earlier crisis periods produced big outcomes, which is what compels our
attention to them. From 1929, we got dictatorship, critical realigning elections,
breaks from economic orthodoxy, a great world war, the Holocaust. We are in the
equivalent of 1933 (four years since the collapse of Lehmann Brothers and the
bailout of AIG) or 1932, by which time most of these dramatic outcomes had not
happened. Economically we may experience a long period of slow growth or stag-
nation something like the 1863–1896 period, or a modest recovery, or another col-
lapse as various chickens come home to roost: if demand falls owing to the return
to balanced-budget orthodoxy now prevailing, as in 1936–1937; or deflation sets
in, as with Japan in the 1990s; or the exposure of weaknesses as prices readjust, as
with the Greek crisis of 2010. It will take time to settle on whether this is a panic
(like the one of 1907), an acute business cycle downturn (like 1929), or a deep
structural adjustment in the world economy (like 1873–1896). While people are
suffering from unemployment, insecurity, and inequality, we do not have as yet
the cataclysmic political outcomes that made earlier crises such compelling topics
(world wars, regime change, rebellion, migration, genocide).9
Despite the uncertainties about the endpoint, we can see that the nation-
state is hardly dead as a unit, pace Kindleberger’s famous comment a number
of years back,10 but its role is more clearly than ever understood as positioning
a country in a global economy. The specific pieces are interactive. It is to their
nation that firms run to be bailed out, and to their national governments to get
help from international institutions. Everyone is affected by the crisis; in that
sense it is global. How countries respond varies considerably; in that sense the
nation remains a hugely important unit. Policies centered in nations caused the
crisis, and policies centered in nations shape the way they variously respond.
International coordination remains constrained by a number of nationally cen-
tered policy behaviors, the ways it did almost a century ago. Krasner’s work on
national interest, on system, on sovereignty, and on regimes lies at the center
of debates on these questions, as we watch the national manifestations of the
global crisis express themselves.
1. The Global Processes

The global imbalances of goods, capital, and peoples certainly lie at the core of
the Great Recession of 2008. Its outlines are by now quite familiar: The United
States ran immense deficits in its national budget and on its trade balance sheet.
This was financed by vast borrowing overseas, especially from China. These
exports allowed China to promote employment, at the expense of manufacturing
sectors in the United States and elsewhere. China’s export of capital and import
of raw materials promoted growth in many developing countries. The global
system in the economy resembled temperature-balancing mechanisms in global
ocean and air flows: some countries promoted growth with strong demand and
low savings (the United States and the UK); other countries promoted growth
by exports of goods and capital, with depressed domestic demand. Other coun-
tries entered the system in different ways, balancing or adding to the process.
International institutions sought to manage these relationships: stabilization
plans for some, bailouts for others; rules on free trade and subsidies; regulation
of finance and payments. When times were good, the results seemed impres-
sive and the literature on international institutions flourished. A world system of
trade rewarded those who participated in it. It created rewards for countries able
to undertake the domestic adjustments needed to compete: education, infra-
structure, institutions, political peace.
The system worked much less well in preventing the imbalances that created
the bubble that burst. China and the United States continued their bilateral pat-
tern, without much impact of international exhortation. The EU has managed to
contain the financial crisis of the smaller counties, but its structures did not pre-
vent the rich countries, notably Germany, from fiscal deficits larger than the EU
rules formally allowed, and its rules do not accommodate the diversity of domes-
tic arrangements on micro features of wages, job security, and investments. The
stress on the euro from embracing heterogeneous political economies remains
severe, and becomes a good test of the power of international arrangements.
Does attention to the system influences drown the particularity of the
countries? Analytically we can see countries as having choice, as I do in the
next section, but the nature of that choice requires unpacking. The export-
ing, high-savings countries, on the one hand, and the low-savings, importing
countries on the other have become mutually interdependent. Each relies on
the motor set by the other. They have continued on their respective pattern
for some time. They cannot easily change without their counterpart changing.
Change by any one player in the system would require changes by the others. In
that sense the system is quite constraining, so the countries may appear to have
little agency in shaping their destinies. The comparison of China–United States
with Germany–Mediterranean Europe proves striking in this regard: the creditor
seems virtuous, but has in fact been driving the imbalance with the debtor by
reaping the benefits of high exports.
And yet, important choices do lie at home. Countries are not obligated to
run deficits, to have low (or high) savings (or consumption), nor to have trade
unions, nor cartels, nor high pensions or low, nor vigorous (or weak) domestic
competition. These arise out of policy decisions. And these are policy decisions
taken within national units: the actors making these decisions may be influenced
by incentives arising from the international context, but these are confronted
within national decision-making units, and it is to these that we turn.
The great contraction can be interpreted in systemic terms, to question the
degrees of freedom counties have. Rajan (2010), Aoki (2010), Johnson and
Kwak (2010), and Gourevitch (2010) all note that deep patterns have taken hold
among the countries, so that they depend on each other, and would have diffi-
culty moving away from their current trajectory: the high-savings, high-export
countries rely on the low-savings, high-import countries, and vice versa. We can
say the former (China) need to increase domestic consumption, and that the
later (the United States) need to save more. But this is not easy to do, precisely
because the patterns are deeply rooted in the micro institutions of employment,
safety nets, labor market flexibility, in the institutional complementarity noted
above. The Liberal Market Economies (LMEs) countries “need” the Coordinated
Market Economies (CMEs), and vice versa.11 They have evolved into specializa-
tions, into niches in the world economy, a division of labor. Countries specialize
in savings, investment, and export, or they specialize in consumption and import.
Each makes a big contribution to the economy: the “buyer of last resort” for the
United States, the lender of first resort for China.
Many countries have benefited from this process: China imports vast raw
materials from around the world, and many specialized machine tools and fin-
ished products. This stimulates growth, so that while China floods the advanced
world with lower-cost products, it stimulates growth in many parts of the world,
which then buy from the United States, and so on, a happy cycle. If the United
States is wrecking its economy by its various deficits, well, it is up to the United
States to fix it. But if it did so, who would buy China’s products and thus pick
up the demand side of this relationship? So China is “stuck” in lending to the
United States so that it can sell, to stimulate domestic growth and avoid unem-
ployment, and stimulate much of the world’s economies?
Among the wealthy countries, Germany faces a similar conundrum: in the
early part of the crisis, it was badly hit by trade contraction, as were all exporters
including poor country ones. In mid-2010-11, as this is being written, German
exports are booming, leading all of Europe, and China seems to be doing well.
By mid 2012, when these chapter revisions were undertaken, all the economies
seem to be facing a slump, as each drags down the other. Germany has done best
so far: its high-skilled export approach has sustained it, while the LMEs with
large financial sectors have been doing poorly. Forecasters wonder if Germany
will now face a challenge from falling demand.
It is not that one model is superior; each has strengths and weaknesses. But
each is also part of a system. The impact is to constrain choice: the story of
countries “picking policies” implies a sense of choice. The reasoning and the
problem echo that of dependencia theory of a couple generations ago, where
countries were locked into core periphery positions, of selling raw materials to
the rich industrial countries, trapped in a position from which they could not
escape.12
Countries could change their position, it turned out, and did so by develop-
ing the very high-savings export model we associate with East Asia. Which ones
did change and which ones did not turned on domestic choices.13 The rise of the
East Asian countries played a central role in raising the importance of domestic
politics in the study of international relations, precisely because it wrecked the
dependencia logic.
International Coordination
The other system variable that compels attention takes us to another major
theme from earlier periods: international coordination. The 1930s remain leg-
endary in our field for the failure to overcome collective-action problems, lead-
ing to a variety of “beggar-thy-neighbor” policies, such as devaluation and tariffs.
The counterproductive element of these policies is brilliantly represented by the
famous Kindleberger Spiral (itself based on League of Nations data), which
shows month by month how world trade sharply contracted.14 The entire post-
war policy and intellectual apparatus developed to prevent a reoccurrence of
that failure: the IMF, the World Bank, the UN at the institutional level, and,
in the study of international relations, the development of neo-institutionalism,
hegemonic stability theory.
The Great Recession suggests some limits in these solutions. International
institutions proved unable to prevent the profound imbalances noted above
in trade and capital among countries. Nor were they able to stop the budget
deficits that generated these imbalances. The regional version of this lay in
the EU: at present the budget deficits in southern Europe command atten-
tion; despite pressure on the euro, Germany came forward with enough funds
to prevent a collapse. There was substantial political hostility to that bailout in
Germany, showing the domestic foundations of cooperation and sources of fra-
gility of international cooperation. In Greece there was substantial hostility to
going along with the cutbacks required by the deal. This kind of conflict over
international cooperation is familiar to us, with the imbalances after World War
I but one searing example.
The tensions over allocating blame for the euro crisis are great: as of mid
2012, many worry that the euro will not survive: Germany refuses to bail out
the profligate, who in turn blame Germany for policies promoting the imbal-
ance. The EU continues to contend with the tension created by having a uni-
fied currency but not a unified polity or common and enforceable standards on
other issues. The role of the other nonfinancial variables in a finance crisis has
been noted. It is hard to balance the region with such differences in the various
micro-markets.
The efforts to coordinate at the international level seem quite mixed. There
was a lot of conferring among central bankers, finance ministers, and chief exec-
utives, but it is not clear how much policy adjustment there really was. There
was plenty of coordination and bargaining, but how much persuasion and impo-
sition really took place because of this discussion? Did each country play the
card it wanted, given its various incentives? Did it submit to pressure? Did it do
what it wanted to do, whatever that might mean?
The occurrence of the Great Recession itself suggests failure of international
coordination: everyone knew the national and global imbalances were serious.
But international institutions were not able to get countries to fix the trade and
financial imbalances known to be putting the global economy at risk, a failure
that occurred at the macro level (budget and trade deficits) but also at micro
level, with imbalances at the firm and financial level. Indeed, with each financial
crisis (Mexico in the early 1980s and the Asian financial crisis of 1997) we see
ever deeper domestic issues of financial obligation exposed.15
2. Macro and Micro Choices within the Unit

Anyone familiar with unit-system debates in the international relations and com-
parative politics fields will find themselves well prepared for the micro/macro
controversy in explaining the Great Contraction. Macro theorists stress the
imbalances at the national level, policies that shape general economic conditions
in which all actors in the national system operate—primarily fiscal and mone-
tary policy. Micro refers to policies specific to units within the system: corporate
governance, banking, labor relations, education, etc. This distinction resonates
with those in the international relations field concerning unit and system, and
the autonomy of each in shaping outcomes. Just as the boundary has eroded
in IR, it is under stress in economic policy making: macro variables operate
through units, so the micro foundations of behavior to macro policy becomes
a major issue. Did the crisis happen because of poor macro policy (low sav-
ings rates, too much capital flowing into countries getting into to debt), or did
it spread because of poor regulation of banking, mortgages, credit ratings, and
weak supervision of managers?
This debate echoes that of the 1930s. There were certainly great structural
changes in the world economy: new technologies, like the automobile and
energy (the oil industry, electrification), stimulating building booms and invest-
ments, and the spread of production into new regions of the world, adjustment
to disruptions of World War I. And business cycles remained a common fea-
ture of economic life, driven by investment/consumption patterns. Yet many
specialists see the cycle deepened by bank failures and contraction of monetary
policies—thus avoidable, had more attention been paid to these variables in key
countries.
The macro view of the Great Recession of 2008 stresses the excessive spend-
ing by the United States particularly: big budget deficits, low savings rates, huge
trade imbalances, extensive borrowing from other countries. This produced a
large flow of money into the country, which is what led to the rest: excessive
borrowing, lending, at both the macro level (the governments) and the micro
(individuals, banks, lending agencies, firms), creating the bubble that led to the
collapse. A stress on the macro forces can downplay the role of the micro forces,
so that the much-discussed flaws in the micro system of regulation become
details in the larger force of the macro policy “errors.” The larger interpretive
works on the crisis look at both. To examine the politics of what produced the
policies that led to the crisis—the task of a political scientist—we need as well
to look at both.
In the macro view, the US roots of the crisis lies in years of high spending
and low savings rates. While Japan ran large budget deficits, it had trade sur-
pluses and high domestic savings rates. The United States, by contrast, had large
deficits, in both the national budget and trade, and low savings rates. Frieden
and Chinn (2011) see US patterns as a repeat of a classic debt crisis experi-
enced by countries all over the world; big trade deficits, big fiscal imbalances at
home, low savings rates, and overleveraged firms, consumers, and financial insti-
tutions. Reinhart and Rogoff ’s title capture their argument perfectly: This Time
Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (2009).
These economic conditions arose from government policies, and from a pat-
tern that had been building for many years. Despite campaigning for less govern-
ment spending, Republican presidents spent more, with more military spending
(Star Wars under Reagan, Iraq and Afghanistan under George W. Bush) and the
drug plan for retired people. Democratic presidents also spent on military pro-
grams (Vietnam for Johnson) and on social programs (Medicare under Johnson).
Major tax-cut plans were pushed hard by Reagan and George W. Bush.
The big difference between the Republican and Democratic administrations /
Congress lies in the composition of taxes and spending and the efforts to balance
taxes with spending cuts. The Clinton years produced a bargain, to increase taxes
with some spending cuts. The result was lowered interest rates that encouraged
economic growth, so large that the budget went into surplus. The government
was rapidly paying down the US debt, so fast, in fact, as to be disconcerting to
Alan Greenspan at the Federal Reserve. This posed an important choice point:
to increase spending (on infrastructure, which had been neglected for years, on
health care, and/or on education) or cut taxes. Greenspan favored the tax cut.
The incoming George W. Bush administration undid the Clinton bargain and
set off another round of growing deficits. It considerably lowered taxes, with-
out lowering spending. It seemed to pursue the “starve the beast” approach: cut
taxes, strongly demanded by its core constituencies, while discounting the grow-
ing deficits, pushing onto future administrations and the Democrats the need to
confront the problem down the road. This would force the Democrats either to
cut programs their constituencies want, or to raise taxes, against which the GOP
felt confident it could run. Difficult to achieve the first time, the Clinton bar-
gain will be harder to rebuild now. The sharp cut in taxes without corresponding
spending reductions set up the macro situation that led to the crisis.
At the policy level, Greenspan chose not to “prick the bubble,” as housing
and stock prices rose. We don’t know what is a bubble, he argued, but we know
how to pick up the pieces if one bursts. One justification given was the increase
in productivity: the new technologies were creating capacity that allowed going
farther in judging the risks of inflation from full employment. The avoidance of
limiting the bubble turned on assumptions about macro and micro distinctions
that turned out to be questionable.
The micro interpretation of the Great Recession stresses the elements of reg-
ulation and behavior, which made their own powerful contribution to the result.
The strong version of this blames the crisis on the micro incentives of a number
of players in the system vast risks leading them to generate the hugely leveraged
economic patterns of the bubble, which then popped. The weaker version sees
these micro variables as “enabling” the macro variables to have their impact. The
strong macro version, in turn, sees the macro conditions as determinative: once
that amount of money was set loose, it would find its way into the system. The
micro regulations were the idiom, but not the basic language (Frieden, 1997).
The micro arguments stress that the incentives many players in the economy
had to take substantial risks, to place big bets because of the return to them
as individuals, putting at risk the larger economy. (The idea that incentives to
make a lot of money could put the whole at risk runs contrary to the hegemonic
neoclassical orthodoxy of the preceding decades, to which we return in evaluat-

ing the role of ideology as a cause of the crisis.) Financial institutions of all
kinds increased the leverage of their basic capital, adding new obligations, creat-
ing new instruments, like the credit default swaps, in the process of securitizing
many aspects of the economy (Blyth, forthcoming). These earned large fees. As
instruments for purchase in the market, they substantially diffused the exposure
around the world among individuals, institutions, and countries. The securiti-
zation of mortgages and the financial innovation built to do it was meant to
spread the risk, by having many people own smaller portions of any one piece.
Instead, it spread the risk by having many people, and institutions, vulnerable to
downturn. A comparative point of some importance is that countries differed
in the extent to which their vulnerability spread. At the international level, no
institutions failed to stop the spread.
High pay of individuals at the very top may have incentivized higher risk tak-
ing. The huge bonuses and salaries of the financial and corporate elite may have
worked against shareholder interests, rather than with those interests, as the
orthodox finance ideas would have suggested. Having managers own large equity
was supposed to align their incentives with that of shareholders to overcome the
problem of managerial agency costs. But a very big reward to a few creates a
gap with the many. The risk of the big gain seems to have overwhelmed the
prudence one might expect. Why did people risk their own money? Why did
the “counterparties” Greenspan expected would contain excessive risk not do
so? Excessive gain provides an answer. Prudence is not automatic.16
Moral hazard issues, linked to political influences, intensify this dynamic. Risk
takers were confident they would be bailed out—the too-big-to-fail dynamic.
The “Greenspan put” meant the risks would be covered by the government, by
taxpayers.
Simon Johnson noted the pattern reminded him of what he saw during his
years as chief economist of the IMF when developing countries overleveraged
and overspent and came for aid.17
The mortgage system in the United States seems to have spread the insta-
bility: weak borrowers encouraged to make outsized loans with predatory prac-
tices. Big firms had strong motives, from the big mortgage brokers, to banks,
to Fannie and Freddie. The Bush administration encouraged home ownership;
the Democrats did as well. The Republicans use Fannie and Freddie to throw
responsibility on the Democrats for loose lending, underplaying the role of
banks, finance, mortgage brokering, etc.18 Bond-rating agencies issued AAA rat-
ings without cost to being wrong. Insurance on derivatives was issued without
any capital requirement normally required for insurance.
These practices arose from law and regulation: changes in formal laws such
as the repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1934, separated commercial
and investment banking, one of the major New Deal developments, which had
already been gutted by regulatory edicts and rejected by the mainstream of

finance in and out of the academy. Other regulations allowed weakening of capi-
tal adequacy ratios. Some efforts to regulate were defeated: separating account-
ing from consulting, and supervision of derivatives are two examples.
This long list of micro elements of the economy has received considerable
attention since the Great Recession began. Would a different regulatory environ-
ment or a different micro political economy have prevented the crisis, or blunted
it, given the macro policies being pursued? For regulation and micro policy to
do that, we have to imagine the micro elements as a dam, able to hold back the
rising waters of excess spending. The “strong macro” understanding of the story
sees big trade and budget deficits letting in the money, so that nothing could
stop it. The money would seek a way into the economy and would probe until
it found it, like water seeking the lowest level, or the weak elements of a dam.
The micro variables are lesser details in this story.
The “strong micro” understanding says the micro variables are decisive, or at
least hugely important in enabling macro variables to have their effect. Stronger
regulation could have weakened the impact of the money flow, could have “neu-
tralized” them the way currency inflow can be neutralized by the authorities.
Comparing countries suggests that the two dimensions interact, a relationship
more evident in some treatments of the crisis than others. The United States,
the UK, Ireland, and Greece seem to have had very large crises of their finan-
cial systems, while Germany and Japan much less so. And their macro policy
responses have been strongly shaped by the micro institutions.
This is a central point for us: the macro policy options and responses are
strongly shaped by micro institutions in each country, a point understood, or
clearer, in some accounts than others. The tension between the United States
and the UK on one side and Germany and France on the other side over
demand stimulus in fighting the contraction shows this quite well. The former
pair wanted the latter pair, especially Germany, to step up deficit spending in
2009–2010. Germany responded by pointing to the demand impact provided
by its more extensive welfare state: unemployment benefits and health care,
and by its labor market practices. Germany has encouraged firms to sustain
employment by providing tax benefits and a certain jawboning about sustaining
employment. In the first year of the crisis, Germany seemed to be doing worse,
along with the other high-saver/exporters in Asia, but in mid 2010 Germany is
doing better than the economies where firms are sustaining profits but cutting
employment expenses.
The impact of micro structures on macro policy reopens a debate on
central-bank independence. Do formal institutional arrangements such as
central-bank independence fully explain how central banks behave, or is there a
broader political context, whereby the formal delegation of authority to central
banks or other regulators actually is contingent, and depends on continuing the
broader political support for the policies of those supposedly autonomous insti-
tutions? Hall and Franzese (1998), and Soskice, Iversen, and Pontusson (2000)
argue that the role of central-bank independence cannot be understood sepa-
rately from labor market institutions: in Germany, the ability to achieve strict
anti-inflation policies derives from union-business bargaining over wage restraints:
wage gains would be limited to productivity increases. The US Federal Reserve
clearly favored certain groups over others: it internalized a particular conception
of the needs of the finance industry over that of other financial interests (small
regional banks and various companies needing credit), other groups (the unem-
ployed) and other values (equality of income). It did this in the framework of
necessity for the economy, thus a structural reason. Greenspan’s announcements
about what were acceptable deficits and tax cuts reflected a specific understand-
ing of interests, not a technical, economic one.
The Federal Reserve did not use its various powers to supervise finance: it
tolerated weak capital, adequacy ratios poor mortgage standards, inadequate
accounting rules, high risk taking, etc. Purely institutional explanations lose
plausibility here: the Federal Reserve did not use the powers it had. Giving it
more powers, the thrust of Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, will not fix things if those
appointed do not use the powers they have.
This calls attention to the importance of politics in shaping how institutions
are used.
Explanation and the Role of Politics

We turn now to a political explanation of what caused the policies that caused
the crisis. By a political interpretation I mean the acquisition of the power to
prevail: how a particular policy is able to beat out alternative policies. There
are always rival recommendations presented, usually by knowledgeable people.
One recommendation wins out. Politics is the process of that victory, and of
the defeat of the other’s argument. Theory may tell us this or that policy is the
best, or optimal, but often optimal policies are not followed. Policies need back-
ers. Max Weber, famous for analysis of ideology, assumed that ideology needs
supporters, and that we need therefore an account of who supports the sup-
porters. He thought of a sociology of ideas: he wanted to know who were the
“idea-bearing classes,” that is, groups that had the power to articulate ideas and
have them prevail.
The pattern to be explained is the willingness to run deficits and support the
policies that favor the great financial institutions of the United States, in contrast
to the pattern in other countries like Japan, Germany, and China among the large
ones, Canada among the smaller, which do not favor finance in this respect. Japan
has run large deficits, to the point that in January 2011 its debt was downgraded
by rating agencies; but it has had substantial domestic savings to buy that debt
up. The pattern of multiple deficits in trade and budget and low savings correlates
with a massive shift away from manufacturing, a rise of joblessness, a decline of
industries in key regions and cities, inequality of income on one side, and the
flow, on the other, of resources to the financial sector in the United States and
the downgrading of other economic objectives in that country.
We have no difficulty finding possible variables of relevance: the decline
of unionization; the changing distribution of rewards in the global division of
labor; new crosscutting political lines of cleavage involving culture, ethnicity,
and religion; international issues; changing party alignments; the media; cam-
paign finance. These variables compose a complex causal picture—too complex
to be helpful. They have been with us for some time, and thus do less well in
explaining the bubble and burst of the Great Recession. A simpler account can
be provided by exploring the striking disjuncture of this period: the growth of
finance and the loose credit policies of those years. This too has an echo in the
past: Hilferding’s Das Finanzkapital in 1910.19
Finance has grown tremendously in the US economy as well as in the UK,
be it measured by percentage of profits, by market capitalization, or by employ-
ment.20 It gets a growing share of income in the United States, a large percent
of the profits, and contributes to the income inequality through the return that
has gone to the top-paid people in that field. It can be seen as driving the poli-
cies that led to the crisis, and when the crisis occurred, it received substantial
assistance of a kind that aided shareholders and executives.
How to explain the pro-finance policies and the bailout? The phrase “too big
to fail” compels attention. It we parse it, it suggests several readings: (1) an elec-
toral argument; (2) a structural interpretation; (3) an ideological argument that
stresses ideas; and (4) an institutional argument.
The Electoral Argument

The electoral argument provides the conventional explanation of political
resources in campaigning and lobbying. Finance has gotten its way because of
its resources: the sheer quantity of money it pours into electoral campaigns, its
capacity to lobby, and its capacity to dominate the terms of debate because of
those resources. Wall Street buys support, making massive contributions to both
political parties, at the presidential and congressional levels. The Democrats may
be especially vulnerable to this because they lack corporate support from other
industries, reflecting a historical change, where export and finance went with the
Democrats and protectionists were Republicans. The structural change of prefer-
ences leaves the Democrats without a clear need by business for their support
in intra-business quarrels. This electoral mechanism of explanation prevails in
the high positivism of the US and UK research communities because it can be
visibly measured by looking at forms of power like votes, campaign contribu-

tions, and lobbying.
The Structural Interpretation

Finance has influence because it is essential to the health of the economy. It is
like water and air: it has no functional substitute in a market economy, as every-
one needs money and credit. If finance stops, everything else stops. “I want to
return as the bond market” noted Clinton adviser James Carville upon hearing
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin speak so often of the bond market in objecting
to New Deal–type spending suggestions on social investment.
In the United States, the most well-known political science statement of this
position is that of Charles Lindblom in Politics and Markets (1977). The book
provoked Mobil Oil to take out a full-page New York Times ad denouncing
it.21 Structural Marxists in Europe criticized him for being too cautious. In the
United States, sociologists have written following in this logic,22 while political
scientists have shied away from it, though Robert Dahl (1961), the dominant
figure in the contrasting pluralist analysis, did become more critical of the US
system as undemocratic.23
The structural Marxist version stresses the logic of the power of economic
groups without being particularly clear on how it brings about the behavior of
policy makers who follow the need of finance because they have to by the logic
of the system. Lindblom’s non-Marxist version reflects more on the mechanism:
policy makers conform because they anticipate the negative consequences in the
political marketplace of bad economic outcomes: if finance fails, the economy
falls and voters punish the politicians. This line of reasoning differs from the
conventional electoral mechanism argument in going beyond campaign resources
and spending: Measuring resources does not capture the influences, because a
“capital strike” (non-investment) structure compels response to finance regard-
less of resources spent on elections. To the extent the structure argument absorbs
a political mechanism, it may blur with the campaign approach. To the extent
it does not look at mechanism, it has been unpopular in the positivist culture
of the United States, and more sympathetically heard in Europe. In Europe the
methodological issues were taken up in the Miliband–Poulantzas debate dur-
ing the decades after World War II. Some efforts at operationalizing structural
approaches can be done by correlating policy outcomes with capital outflows
(the equivalent of a capital strike), investments, exchange rates, labor strikes,
and other behavioral indicators of functional power.24
Many critics have chastised the Obama administration for not forcing a
more severe “haircut” on the bank owners and top managers as part of the bail-
out—a recapitalization of the banks with new ownership before reprivatizing,
as has been done in other countries. Why was this not done? The structural
interpretation would stress the need to reassure markets, keep banks function-
ing, prevent another collapse in 2009, and roll the economy along.
A variant of the structure argument focuses on “networks.” Henry Paulson
and Robert Rubin are attacked as coming from the same firm, Goldman, despite
the difference in parties. They, along with Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke,
are criticized for speaking only to finance people, for socializing with them, for
being deeply engaged with the very people they are supposed to be regulating.
As they inhabit the world of finance, they cannot imagine the economy separate
from catering to its needs.
The fact of socializing or common background does not prove mechanism
of policy causality, as people could disagree even from the same background.
But networking could have an impact if it creates interdependencies. If top
leaders cycle in and out of Wall Street, they may have an incentive to please
the group that shapes their careers. Phil Gramm leaves the Senate to join a
major firm. Upon retirement, top Japanese and French civil servants become
executives for the firms they were supervising in the ministries (a prac-
tice known as amakaduri in Japan, pantouflage in France): it can be hard to
prove the direction of the influence, but not so hard to see the converging of
self-interest and mutual protection. The Goldman executives and others must
surely be influenced by the need to retain standing and status in the world to
which they are likely to return.
This network reasoning, showing the interconnections, can be recast as evi-
dence for the structures argument. Governments need the “good opinion” of
key people in finance and business, so they pick from among them, and consult
them. But this is a description of political reality, not a separate cause. Drawing
the links is a way of describing a structural reality, rather than a cause of it.
The Ideological Argument

A third important frame of political analysis of economic policy deals with ideas
and ideology.25
The shift against regulation and in favor of “starve the beast” fiscal policy
reflects political differences on the role of government, the allocation of tax
money, the size and depth of a safety net, market failure, and risk. These can be
seen as differences of “interest” (as the argument just summarized notes) or as
differences of philosophy, ideas, or ideology. These labels convey a substantial
difference in evaluative judgment, but they can all be seen as part of the same
family of argumentation, the importance of framing, where the frames shape
analysis of causes and policies, hence of outcomes.
Interpreting Greenspan reveals one’s analytic “priors.” Greenspan’s aversion to
regulation and intervention is often linked to his connection to Ayn Rand. That
may help “explain” Greenspan’s “frames,” his narrative, his way of understanding
the world. It cannot be a satisfying overall explanation, because it avoids asking

why Greenspan’s policies were so widely supported. His institutional position
was surely important, but overall Greenspan’s ideas were celebrated, and it is the
extent of that support that requires explanation.
Political sociology suggests we turn to the broader support base of the ideol-
ogy, and there we find both an interest version and an autonomous ideational
one. The interest version suggests people support ideas that favor their inter-
ests—largely financial. The ideational one suggests people believe in certain
ideas, apart from their interests. The terms “ideology” and “ideas” express the
difference: ideology means justification for your interests; ideas suggests views
are taken at face value.
The acceptance of a particular financial view of the economy has surely been
quite deep in the United States over several decades. It commands the high-
est status in the academy—departments of finance, economics, and law schools
most notably. The great awards, leading departments, journals, editorships all
subscribe largely to notions of efficient markets, the ability of markets to evalu-
ate risk, the celebration of financial innovation, the measurement of economic
success via the size of the financial sector, and the broad ideas Greenspan rep-
resents.26 The power of elegance as a factor of persuasion is surely familiar to
people in universities. But it neglects the self-interest in the promotion of those
ideas; people trained in these methods pulled down big jobs and salaries, as
did their teachers.27 Large sums to promote these ideas poured into universities
and think tanks from the from conservative foundations, and donors (the Olin
Foundation chairs in Law Schools are but one example).
Lindblom locates ideas as an important aspect of a structural argument.
The grip of capital lies in its ability to define the boundaries of acceptable
discourse, to cast challenges as extremism. Our positivist methodology doesn’t
know how to measure this: it is a non event, a non non-barking dog, on which
we have some research, but testing this remains an analytic challenge. The grip
of ideas and ideologies certainly has great power, but it could use some “polit-
ical sociology,” some Weberian questions about who are those able to make
these ideas prevail.
4. Political institutions. Given the influence of institutional analysis in politi-

cal science and its attraction to many economists, it is interesting how little
appears in the writing of many analysts of the Great Recession, at least at
first blush. By institutions, I do not mean the structures of regulation, such
as formal lack of authority by the US Fed to intervene with failing brokerage
houses. This is a secondary variable: the rules are written loosely enough that
the Fed could have done anything, though there may have been controversy
and litigation. Regulators escape responsibility in saying they lacked formal
authority. Many changes have occurred through rule interpretation: Glass-
Steagall was undermined by the Securities and Exchange Commission and

Federal Reserve regulations long before its formal abolition in the Gramm-
Leach-Bliley Act. Formal regulatory authority will not fix problems if there is
no political will to enforce the rules by strict standards.
By institutions I mean here the set of structures that aggregate preferences, that
turn preferences into policy outcomes. The dominant distinction at present is
the majoritarian/consensus distinction.28 While powerful for many policy out-
comes, it does not seem to do as well in explaining the Great Recession. Several
countries across the institutional spectrum pursued loose policies: Sweden and
Norway twenty years ago; in the more recent crisis, Spain, Iceland, the UK, the
United States, and Greece have all had troubles.
The variable that does give some purchase in sorting out responses among coun-
tries has to do with CME/LME distinction. The CMEs seem less likely to have
developed the range of policies that led to the bubble: they have tighter banking
systems, less risky financial innovation, less debt, more concern with manufactur-
ing. The CME pattern in turn has some relationship to the arrangement of formal
political institutions: CMEs correlate with consensus systems, while majoritarian
systems correlate with LMEs. The mechanism lies in the logic of producer coali-
tions over consumer ones: the former require commitment to the bargain, and
that seems more likely in consensus systems, which slow down change and give all
key players a voice in shaping the rate and direction of change.
Conclusion
The argument here has been to stress choice, to work from the international
system level down to the micro institutions within each country. Countries do
have choices, as do the people in them. There are constraints, striking ones, but
they are political constraints: China and the United States cannot easily switch
course from savers and consumers, exporters and importers. The reason lies with
the politics of resistance to change. Each country has groups deeply invested in
existing patterns. Adjustment will be resisted. The structures of consumption are
not well developed in China, nor are the structures for saving in the United
States. The global adjustment would also be substantial were these countries
to switch gears. Many depend on Chinese imports of raw materials and on the
US consumption of manufactured goods. Analytically we can see how these are
national choices, but politically it is not easy to see the drive for switching.
Change would require a shift in the various elements of the interactive system:
moving from inside out, it would require change internal to the actors of each
country, a change of ideas, of the institutions that articulate those ideas, change
of institutions that aggregate them, a change in interest-group patterns. We are
not likely to see such change taking place without strong internal or external
shocks: internally a shift in the political balance through rebellion (for example,
as occurred with the end of the Cold War, or which may be occurring in the
Mideast / North Africa in 2011), or sharp shift of preferences within countries;
externally, an upheaval of some kind such as a war, or an environmental disaster,
which altered strongly the relative prices that sustains the current internal balance.
Our analytic boundaries have surely eroded in recent decades. What states do at
home affects other countries so much that they are under growing pressure to
accommodate, but the decisions on how much to do so remain domestic ones.
Notes
1. Rajan 2010; Frieden and Chinn 2011; Reinhart and Rogoff 2009.
2. Gourevitch 2008a.
3. Katzenstein, Keohane, and Krasner 1999.
4. Snyder 1991.
5. Rajan and Lines 2010.
6. Gourevitch 1986.
7. Waltz 1979; Keohane 1984; Gilpin 1975.
8. Garnaut and Smith 2009.
9. Chwieroth and Walter 2010.
11. Hall and Soskice 2001.
12. Cardoso and Faletto 1979.
13. Haggard 1990; Wade 1990.
15. Gourevitch 2008b, 2008c.
16. Soros 2010; Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission 2011; Bebchuk 2010.
17. Johnson 2009; Johnson and Kwak 2010.
18. See Krugman 2008.
19. Hilferding 1985.
20. Kippner 2011.
21. Mobil Corporation 1978.
22. Bloch 1977; O’Connor 1973; Domhoff 1978.
23. Dahl 2003.
24. Eichengreen 1992; Simmons 1994; Gourevitch 1996.
25. Hall 1989.
26. Stiglitz 2010.
27. Creswell 2010.
28. Rogowski and Kayser 2002; Lijphart 1999; Persson and Tabellini 2005.
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PA RT F O U R
THE SUBVERSIVE EFFECTS OF

GLOBALIZATION
11
Power Politics and the Powerless

Arthur A . Stein *
A slide presented as part of a Washington security briefing captures the con-

ventional wisdom of the age (Figure 11.1). The image is dominated by a cen-
tered triangle labeled, “21st Century Security Threats.” Above its apex are the
words “Failed States”; at its the bottom left, “Terrorism”; and at its bottom right,
“WMD.” The slide captures graphically the perception of threat as it exists in the
United States and other countries.
This chapter argues that notions captured by the slide are perplexing, given
the dominant conception of power politics and security. None of our models
of international politics can explain why the totally powerless would attack the
most powerful. Nor, for that matter, can those models explain why the most
powerful country in the international system would be preoccupied with a threat
supposedly posed by states so weak that they cannot even project power within
their own borders. Put differently, the disjuncture between strength and security
is a striking feature of contemporary international politics. The weak do not fear
to attack the strong, and the strong feel threatened by the weak. Moreover, the
foreign policies of the powerful have become focused on the virtually powerless.
All of this seems inexplicable by standard theories of international politics.
This chapter argues that the vast asymmetry of power in the contemporary
world generates dynamics that are missing in our conventional views of inter-
national politics. It characterizes the expectations about the current age derived
by scholars of international relations and then discusses in more detail the puz-
zling tactics of terrorists who undertake extraterritorial attacks on a great power.
It then treats the centrality of terrorism and failed states to the security con-
cerns of the powerful. After presenting possible, but problematic, ways in which
the behavior of terrorists and great powers might be explained, it develops an
explanation for the strategies and concerns of the very weakest and the most
powerful in an age of immense power asymmetry. It argues that vast dispari-
ties in power lead the weak to use force in unlikely efforts at political mobiliza-
tion within their own communities. At the same time, the strong, who are made
more secure with increasing disparity, expand their definition of security and
respond with counter-political mobilization.
219
220 The Subver sive Effects of Globalization
Figure 11.1 Figure by Joscelyn Stein

Top row: Refugees travel by truck, DefenseImagery; US soldiers in Somalia, US Army;
Tents for Somali refugees, UNHCR/B. Bannon
Middle row: Threat levels, US Navy; Osama Bin Laden propaganda poster,
DefenseImagery; Gas mask, DoD / Staff Sgt. Fredrick P. Varney, 133rd Mobile Public
Affairs Detachment; warning icons, WikiMedia Commons
Bottom row: Pentagon attack 9/11, DoD / Tech. Sgt. Cedric H. Rudisill; Secretary of
State Powell at UN, White House
A Unipolar Age
Scholars of international relations, of whatever intellectual persuasion, accept
the critical importance of power and the balance of power. Historically, states’
security concerns have led policy makers and scholars alike to a preoccupation
with relative power and a focus on the behavior of the great powers. The most
powerful states dominate and protect small ones and pose the greatest threats to
others, large and small. In this context, the weak are considered “the weak in the
world of the strong.”1
Power Poli ti cs and the Powerless 221
Power as conceptualized in this chapter is the relative strategic ability to

impose costs, bestow benefits, and structure choice when there is a conflict of
interest. It is exercised to achieve one’s objectives by getting others to do what
they would not do otherwise.2 In short, the choices and interactions of the
great powers matter. The weak, on the other hand, face a much smaller range
of options, operate under tight constraints, and do not affect the overall interna-
tional system. Great powers are like the large firms characterized as price mak-
ers. These firms structure and dominate markets, deciding how much to produce
and what prices to charge. Small firms, or price takers, have no such market
power, must treat market forces as given, and have no choice but to respond to
them. Analogously, great powers in international relations are security makers,
and small states are security takers. The great powers structure the system, and
small states are constrained by it.3
Recognition of this core reality is inherent in the standard characterization of
international politics as a system with a particular distribution of power. During
the Cold War (1945–1990), two superpowers confronted each other in a bipo-
lar international system. Each superpower’s national security concerns revolved
around the other, and both of these hugely powerful rivals could threaten or
protect small nations. Each superpower turned to increasing its own strength
and securing formidable allies. Realists emphasized the superior position of
the United States, given that it had allies with substantial wealth and, there-
fore, greater power or potential power. They pointed out that the United States
desired, above all, that no opponent gain control of Western Europe or Japan,
the two other centers of wealth and power.4 This view was captured in the arti-
cle title “Why Europe Matters, Why the Third World Doesn’t.”5
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of military bipolarity ushered in
an era of unquestioned US military preeminence.6 There are many terms for its
current status—hegemony, unipolarity, lone remaining superpower, hyperpower,
and überpower, among them. And although scholars agree on the importance of
the distribution of power for international politics, there remain different assess-
ments of unipolarity, its stability and durability, and the kinds of conflicts that
can be expected in such an era. Yet none of them can adequately explain terror-
ist attacks on the global superpower by non-state actors.7 And none explain a
superpower’s preoccupation with weak states. If the Third World did not matter
during the Cold War, in an era of US-Soviet rivalry, then the case for its impor-
tance became even weaker after the end of the Cold War.8
Most balance-of-power theorists predict that any unipolar system will be
short-lived. Any single dominant power will be perceived as a threat to others,
who will therefore strive to increase their own power and combine in alliances
to balance the hegemon. Before long, the world will return to balance, and
either bipolarity (even if one of the poles is a coalition) or multipolarity will
prevail.9 After the Cold War, some predicted that balancing against the United
States would come in the form of Russian, Chinese, French, and even German
and Japanese opposition. But there has been little evidence of classical balanc-
ing, either in the form of increased military mobilization to counter US power
or in realignments that would create countervailing coalitions.10 And nobody
forecast a direct attack against the United States by non-state actors, the very
weakest entities on the planet.
A competing perspective holds that unipolarity is not unusual, that the bal-
ance of power is not an equilibrium state of international politics, and that his-
tory has seen both hegemony and empire. One wide-ranging historical treatment
concludes, “the ubiquity of some hegemonial authority in societies of indepen-
dent or quasi-independent states, stands out so clearly from the evidence that the
question arises why studies of state systems and political theory underestimate
or even ignore it.”11 In this view, international order is typically provided by a
single great power, and war and instability result from the decline of hegemony
and the rise of challengers. Peace and stability result from hegemony because
the international hierarchy is clear and unambiguous. Prospective challengers do
not oppose the hegemon because they will lose any resulting military conflict,
and hegemons obtain their wishes without the use of force because no one chal-
lenges them.12
Although disagreeing about the long-term durability and short-term implica-
tions of a unipolar international system, all agreed that the world had entered
a period of unrivaled US military hegemony. There was debate, however, about
whether and when the United States would be challenged and over what US
national security policy should be. Those who expected a return to multipolar-
ity saw future challenges as coming from mid-range powers. They argued that
the United States should act to prevent “peer competitors” (the Pentagon’s
wording). Others expected an extended period of US hegemony characterized
by the universal adoption or acceptance of US rules for global governance. No
one expected a military challenge to the United States by the weakest military
groups imaginable, bands of lightly armed individuals. And in neither perspec-
tive was there an expectation that the United States should be worried about
threats from non-state actors and weak failed states. Thus the events of the last
two decades have proved troublesome for both perspectives.
Theories of stable unipolarity predict that unparalleled US power should have
resulted in a more peaceful global order in which there would be no challenges
to US dominance. Yet there has been a challenge to the United States, and it has
come neither from a coalition of states nor in the form of political opposition
to US preferences. Rather, it appeared as a direct military attack by a non-state
actor that did not have even the capability of a small state. The attacks on the
hegemon have come from the very weakest actors on the global scene. It is most
difficult to explain the declaration of war against the United States by a terrorist
organization such as Al Qaeda. Moreover, the United States and other countries
have, in turn, focused primarily on the military threat posed by the very weak-
est, among them non-state actors in the form of terrorist groups.13
The Puzzling Tactics of Terrorists with Global Reach

Asymmetries of power are not new. Nor are strategies of asymmetric warfare.
When insurgents have little ability to challenge the conventional military power
of their own government or when nationalists cannot undertake conventional
attacks on occupying powers, the strategy of the weak is to use guerrilla tactics
to hit and run or hit and die.14 Often, terror becomes the primary strategy in
asymmetric warfare.
The viability of these attacks by the weak depends critically on technology.
During the nineteenth century, for example, dynamite was the most important
development to empower terrorists. Revolutionaries looked to it as the great equal-
izer, since it allowed one person to kill many, thus leveraging the terrorists’ small
numbers. In the words of an anarchist journal, “One man armed with a dynamite
bomb is equal to one regiment of militia.”15 Dynamite was not difficult to obtain
or to deliver against a target. It gave anarchists and nationalists the opportunity
clandestinely to deploy explosive power sufficient not only to kill many people in
one attack, but also to damage or destroy large buildings. A history we have largely
forgotten is filled with what we would now call terrorist attacks, including bomb-
ings in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Madrid, and elsewhere.16
The weak not only leverage the little strength they have; they also exploit the
weaknesses of their targets. Without the means to degrade the military power
of their enemies and finding it difficult to attack military targets, the weak have
adopted the strategy of using explosives against soft targets, often civilians. And
attacking civilians is not only easier—it has the added benefit, in the presumed
calculus of terrorists, of terrifying the citizens of the state they oppose.
None of this is difficult to understand or explain. The puzzling element is that
insurgents and national liberation movements have also come to target extrater-
ritorial actors. The attackers are not, that is, native insurgents hoping to mobi-
lize the population against a local government or a foreign occupier. It is much
harder to explain why they declare war on a foreign power they cannot possibly
defeat. It is not enough to argue that they will be satisfied simply by their ability
to terrorize that state’s population.17
The 9/11 attack constituted an important shift in the strategy of terror-
ist groups in that the target was not in the terrorists’ homeland. In response,
President Bush, in his initial address to a joint session of Congress, declared that
the United States was now at war with Al Qaeda and “every terrorist group of
global reach.”18 Local, native terrorists were not the same, in his view, as those
targeting extraterritorial powers.19
Even granting that terrorism is practically the only option for the relatively
powerless unwilling simply to accept their fate, the assault on the United States
is difficult to fathom, because the overwhelming imbalance of power makes it
difficult to imagine what the strategy entertained by the weak could possibly
be.20 Sustained military campaigns waged by purposive actors presume some
theory of victory, some blueprint and strategy for achieving one’s objectives.
Traditionally, victory is achieved by destroying an opponent’s capacity to wage
war. The inability to defeat an opponent militarily requires the introduction of
other factors into the standard calculus. Terrorism does have the advantage of
making use of little power, exploiting the main weakness of an adversary, and
signaling resolve. But why do revolutionaries expect terror to result in capitula-
tion rather than retribution? Put differently, what theory of victory is associated
with this strategy?21
How, in other words, do we explain why terrorist groups have declared war
and mounted assaults against countries with immense military power? Unlike
native insurgents, they have targeted states they do not hope to supplant. They
have no chance to defeat these states militarily and even have difficulty attacking
military targets, and not surprisingly have assaulted civilians and soft targets.
Security Concerns in a Unipolar Age:

Terrorism and Failed States
The response of great powers to the small groups of individuals who make war
on them is also puzzling. Terrorists and failed states have become the core secu-
rity concerns of the United States and its allies. The United States spends more
on its military than all the other countries in the world combined, and yet its
security policy is largely focused on states that are weak and on bands of indi-
viduals who have no military capability or ability to project power in the usual
sense. They have no tanks and no planes. What weapons they have, they have
not produced, and the weapons they can produce are quite crude.22 Indeed, the
ability to produce weapons of greater sophistication than a rifle requires a tech-
nological base available in only a small number of countries, and so it is one of
the ironies of modern international politics that states fear non-state actors who
have little training and at best fight with whatever other countries are willing to
provide them. But even with what the weak do have in the way of weaponry,
they cannot defeat the powerful countries they threaten and attack.
The emphasis on terrorism has become conjoined with one on failed states,
places in which terrorists congregate and train.23 But this, too, is inexplicable in
standard arguments of power politics—how do we explain that much of the pow-
erful hegemon’s national security policy addresses the weakest states in the interna-
tional system? Our standard expectation would be for great powers to concentrate
on the problem of rising challengers, on prospective peer competitors, even on

middle states pursuing a nuclear weapons capability, which would be a deterrent
counter to the great power’s capacity. We do not expect a focus on failing states.24
This emphasis of great-power foreign policy constitutes a substantial shift in
assessments of the consequences of political instability. During the Cold War
and into the 1990s, the security concerns stemming from political instability in
the Third World revolved around two quite different issues. Where internal insta-
bility was most severe, the concern was that the resultant vacuum would draw in
outside forces supporting different warring factions. The other fear involved less
stable governments that might nonetheless start foreign conflict to increase their
domestic legitimacy. No study focused on the weakness of states as a source of
or launching point for exported terrorism.25
The contemporary concern with fragile states has generated a substantial lit-
erature that offers subtle distinctions between weak, fragile, and failed states.26
Unfortunately governments and officials use the terms in ways driven by poli-
tics.27 The Dutch Foreign Ministry, for example, uses the term “weak states”
because, in the words of Wepke Kingma, the head of the ministry’s Africa
Division, “it’s not very polite to go to a president and say ‘hello, president of a
failed state or a fragile state. We’ve come to help you.’”28 Others have adopted
“fragile” in preference to “weak,” “failed,” or “failing.”
This focus on weak states and what might be done to prevent their inter-
nal political collapse has also generated debates within the United States about
what its defense policy should be. Some complain that focusing on weak and
failed states has meant emphasizing “the social, political, and economic condi-
tions within borders.” This notion of “foreign policy as social work” stemmed
in part from an initial concern with failed states in the early 1990s that simply
reflected an expanded international agenda contemplating humanitarian inter-
vention and the regional implications of political instability.29 Indeed, during the
2000 presidential campaign, Republicans distinguished their foreign policy from
the Democrats’ on precisely these grounds. But 9/11 led to a dramatic shift for
everyone by creating a consensus on the centrality of the threat that failed states
posed to US security.30 This consensus was affirmed in the report of a task-force
co-chaired by Sandy Berger, President Clinton’s second national security adviser,
and Brent Scowcroft, President George H. W. Bush’s national security adviser,
which argued that “action to stabilize and rebuild states marked by conflict is
not ‘foreign policy as social work,’ a favorite quip of the 1990s. It is equally a
humanitarian concern and a national security priority.”31 In short, the United
States has come to emphasize a security threat emanating from states that do
not have enough power to impose internal order, much less to undertake a bel-
licose foreign policy.
This shift to a concern with weak states constitutes a fundamental change in
world politics more broadly, as recognized in one conclusion of the 2002 U.S.
National Security Strategy: “America is now threatened less by conquering states

than we are by failing ones. We are menaced less by fleets and armies than by
catastrophic technologies in the hands of the embittered few.”32 It was also rec-
ognized by Secretary of State and international relations scholar Condoleezza
Rice, who argued that centuries of international politics had been transformed:
For the first time since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the prospect of
violent conflict between great powers is becoming ever more unthink-
able. . . . the greatest threats to our security are defined more by the
dynamics within weak and failing states than by the borders between
strong and aggressive ones. . . . Our experience of this new world leads
us to conclude that the fundamental character of regimes matters more
today than the international distribution of power.”33
This view is held widely:
• “There is no doubt that failed and failing states present an international threat
and require international intervention.”34
• “Weak and failed governments generate instability, which . . . ultimately threat-
ens US interests in . . . protecting Americans from external threats to our
security.”35
• “Weak and failing states pose as great a danger to the American people and
international stability as do potential conflicts among the great powers.”36
• “As a superpower with a global presence and global interests the United States
does have a stake in remedying failed states.”37
• “In the past, governments have been concerned by the concentration of too
much power in one state, as in Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet
Union. But today it is failing states that provide the greatest threat to global
order and stability.”38
• “Weak and failed states pose an acute risk to U.S. and global security.”39
The US position is mirrored in the views of its allies.40 Following the end of the
Cold War, NATO had reassessed its strategic focus and adopted new strategic
statements in 1991, 1999, and 2010. It included terrorism in its list of “alliance
security interests.”41 Following the 9/11 attack on the United States, the European
members of NATO invoked article 5 of the organization’s structuring treaty, which
defines an attack on any of its members as an attack on all. Under that umbrella,
it provided assistance to the United States as a NATO member that had come
under attack and extended that logic in order to involve NATO in Afghanistan
because of that nation’s hosting of Al Qaeda. This was a mission totally beyond
NATO’s historic and presumed area of geographic operation. In the UK, which
has a long history of aligning itself with the United States, the same assessment
of security prevails. Shortly after the UK joined the United States in toppling the
Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw spoke of “the many
threats posed by a failed state.”42 More recently, a report by the Commission on
National Security in the 21st Century, a group sponsored by a UK think tank,
makes the same point as does the US national security strategy: “Weak, corrupt,
and failing states have become bigger security risks than strong states,” and for
the same reasons, they could become “jumping-off points for direct threats to
the UK via terrorism or transnational crime.”43 Similar language can be found in
documents from other nations, including Canada and Australia.44
Great powers have not only shifted their military strategies toward dealing
with failed states, but have also made such states central to their development
aid policies. National and international development agencies now concentrate
their efforts on such states. Fragile states have become a “structuring notion
for the OECD and the World Bank’s aid policies.”45 Development has, in effect,
become securitized.
Conundrums: Of Protective Belts and

Auxiliary Hypotheses
Here then are two puzzles of modern power politics. Incredibly weak, non-
state actors with little more than improvised or commandeered explosives are
deemed a threat by the most powerful country on earth. The first mystery is
why they directly challenge a global superpower militarily when it cannot be
militarily defeated. In fact, directly targeting the great power’s homeland expands
the attacked nation’s capacity for military mobilization and reduces its presumed
casualty aversion.46 But the reaction of the United States and other countries is
equally puzzling. They expend resources analyzing and assisting states too weak
to threaten their own neighbors and, in many cases, too weak to control their
own territories. They have mobilized vast resources to hunt down individual ter-
rorists possessing no more than rifles and dynamite. The reaction of some schol-
ars has been to argue that the weak are, actually, powerful, but that is not a real
way out of this conundrum. It does not solve the puzzle.
Could Terrorists Be More Powerful Than Great Powers?

Power depends on capability. The greater an actor’s resources, the more pow-
erful the actor. In international politics, force is the core capability, and power
achieved through force is coercive.47 It achieves objectives through the credible
threat of inflicting pain or by actually doing so. In this sense of capability, terror-
ist groups such as Al Qaeda are clearly militarily weaker than the great powers
they have attacked. In fact, they recognize that they cannot win militarily.
The Power of Cost Tolerance

Yet a greater physical ability to inflict suffering is neither sufficient nor neces-
sary to make one actor more powerful than another. There are, after all, two
dimensions of power: the ability to inflict hurt and the ability to tolerate it. In a
contest in which two rivals seek to hurt each other, the relative ability to tolerate
pain becomes equally important. A party with less ability to impose costs than
its opponent can still believe itself to be more powerful because it has a higher
cost-tolerance. The militarily weaker can still be more powerful if its ability to
punish is greater than its opponent’s ability to tolerate that punishment and as
long as the militarily weaker has the ability to tolerate more pain than its oppo-
nent can inflict.48
Big states have lost small wars in part because of differential cost toleranc-
es.49 The US experience in Vietnam, for example, reinforced the perception of
the United States as casualty averse, as incapable of absorbing much pain.50
Although the United States could inflict substantial casualties and destroy
armaments and industries, North Vietnam was able to achieve a military vic-
tory by inflicting more casualties than the United States would tolerate. US
departures from Lebanon in the wake of an attack on a Marine barracks in
1984 and from Somalia in 1994 after a deadly battle in the capital city of
Mogadishu have become commonly proffered examples of this phenomenon.
Although low cost-tolerance can emerge from a variety of sources, a key root
is the asymmetry of motivation.51 War, like deterrence, is a combination of
will and capability, and the will of a militarily powerful state is weaker when it
wages war far from home, over objectives somewhat removed from an imme-
diate military threat.52
Yet problems exist for any analysis suggesting that the militarily weaker
party relies on such a logic to achieve victory against the United States. First,
the United States has demonstrated in two Gulf wars, two cases of conven-
tional warfare, that it is able to defeat an opponent quickly and with few casu-
alties of its own.53 Second, the attack of 9/11 was on US soil and reduced
this constraint on bearing costs substantially. Indeed, rather than raising as an
issue the perceived cost of a foreign military involvement, the attack had the
impact of cementing a link between events overseas and a direct threat to the
homeland.54 Attacking the US homeland only increased American cost toler-
ance vis-à-vis Al Qaeda.
The Power of Strategy

Relative power is not just about the existence of capability but also about
how it is wielded, the strategy and tactics used in its deployment. The Greeks
and Trojans fought for a decade before the Trojan horse allowed the Greeks
to triumph. A modern example would be the use of military tactics such

as blitzkrieg, which allow a party weaker in capability to defeat a militarily
more capable adversary.55 And as argued above, power can derive from tech-
nology conjoined to a strategy. In the biblical story of David and Goliath,
Goliath is understood to have greater physical strength. David turns out to
be more powerful, however, because he uses a weapon that compensates for
his smaller size and lesser strength.56 Power thus entails the deployment of
intellectual resources as well as natural and physical ones. David wins by
outwitting Goliath. But the puzzle remains if we argue that power combines
capability and strategy in a relational exercise to affect another’s behavior, for
Al Qaeda does not have a strategy that will enable it to defeat the United
States militarily.
Marginal Calculation
All these examples demonstrate that power inheres in a relationship between
an actor who has it or wields it and another who is affected by it.57 Robert
Dahl’s modern definition of power is the ability of one actor to get another
to do something it would not otherwise do.58 Such dominance relies on the
existence of the influencing actor’s capability and strategy relative to that of
the actor who is influenced. Yet there are times in which the weaker party can
influence the other’s behavior. An ability to affect another’s behavior does not
necessarily imply greater power. This is so because behavioral change is con-
textual. In some situations, an actor with less capability, with a lower cost tol-
erance, and without a superior strategy can still affect another’s actions. This
occurs when the affected actor’s decision point is close to its indifference point.
Although the end of US involvement in Somalia is seen as an example of cas-
ualty aversion and low US cost-tolerance, I would suggest an alternative inter-
pretation. The United States certainly had greater military capability than the
forces it faced. And, I would posit, the United States had a substantial ability
to accept casualties. There were no strategic and material benefits and the mis-
sion was undertaken as a humanitarian one that carried an expectation of small
cost. Although nineteen dead American soldiers was a (relatively) small cost,
it nevertheless was sufficient to drive the United States to the other side of
indifference and so end its involvement. In this case, I would argue, the weaker
power achieved its objective despite its weakness because its adversary was
close to indifferent. In such a context, even the imposition of a small cost can
alter behavior. Yet in this case, one would still describe the United States as
more powerful and its opponents as very much weaker. Behavioral change was
achieved through little effort and only a slight ability to impose costs. It may
be that terrorists see US involvement in their part of the world as being close
to the point of US indifference and believe that attacking US targets will result
in a US decision to leave. Ironically, this calculus is entirely undone by directly

attacking the US homeland.
Neighborhood Effects
Finally, one can affect another’s behavior without its constituting an exercise of
power at all. Take the case in which those hearing of a ring of thieves operating
in their neighborhood decide to install burglar alarms. Clearly they would have
preferred not to have to do so and had not, in fact, installed them earlier. The
burglars clearly affected and influenced the choices and actions of others from
whom they did not steal. But we would not say that the thieves have power over
those who subsequently installed alarms. Rather, we would argue that the bur-
glars did not intend such an outcome, did not benefit from it, and were actually
hampered by it in the future. The response of others to a burglary, their acting
to improve their own security, made the thieves worse off. Implicit in the char-
acterization of power as an ability to get others to do something they would
rather not do is the assumption that the behavioral change is in the interest of,
and intended by, the actor exercising power. Similarly, terrorists affect the beha-
vior of people and countries whom they have not directly attacked. Much has
changed in the United States in response to 9/11, yet this is not an expression
of the terrorists’ power. The responses undertaken within the United States to
improve US security were neither intended by Al Qaeda, nor does Al Qaeda
benefit from them. Indeed, the responses make it more difficult for Al Qaeda to
continue its attacks on the US homeland.
Failed States with Terrorists with Nukes

One can no more explain the behavior of terrorists by emphasizing their degree
of power than one can make the case that failed states constitute core secu-
rity concerns. The case for the security importance of failed states also entails
adjunct propositions, and the argument ultimately becomes not that failed states
pose a threat, but that their weakness and inability to control their own terri-
tory provide terrorists critical space in which to organize and train and from
which to operate. These weak governments do not threaten outsiders per se, but
their territory can be exploited by others who actually do pose a threat. We have
seen, as a result, proposals for surrogate sovereignty or some reinstitution of a
trusteeship system.59
Yet the concern with failed states as providing training grounds is one at
some remove, for much of the training can be reproduced elsewhere, even in
the United States. The kinds of training facilities Al Qaeda had in Afghanistan
can be, and have been, re-created on private campgrounds in the United States
and other Western countries. An EU strategy document adopted in 2003
notes, “Logistical bases for Al Qaeda cells have been uncovered in the UK,
Italy, Germany, Spain and Belgium.”60 Not only can strong states provide train-
ing facilities, but some of them, including Britain and France, “have problems
controlling portions of their own territories, such as weak border controls and
‘no-go’ Diaspora enclaves, in which their police exert little authority, and which
serve as facilitating environments for the spread of religiously extremist and vio-
lent groupings.”61
So it is that WMDs come to constitute the critical addition, the last aux-
iliary component, needed to generate a national security threat: “The avail-
ability of weapons of mass destruction and the presence of transnational
terrorism have created a historically unprecedented situation in which poli-
ties with very limited material capability can threaten the security of much
more powerful states.”62 Creating WMDs is, however, beyond the capacity of
failed states and terrorist groups. Moreover, if the worry is about the trans-
fer of such weapons to terrorists by states capable of building them, then
the focus on weak states where small groups of terrorists train is misplaced.
Rather than focus on large numbers of failed and failing states (the numbers
given range from 30 to 46 to as high as 131),63 policy makers might better
consider the small number of known nuclear states and those pursuing such
a capability, and few of these are failed or failing.64 Yet ironically, US policy is
directed at making some of the nations able to create WMDs more unstable
by imposing sanctions on them.
In short, a US national security policy that focuses on failed states as an
extension of the problem of terrorism or that emphasizes generic instability is
inherently puzzling. Terrorism does not threaten great-power survival. Nor do
failed states create terrorism; they at most facilitate, but are not necessary to,
actors like Al Qaeda.65 Failed states cannot project military power and are inca-
pable of autonomous nuclear weapons development.66 Yet US national security
policy tries to stabilize failed states because of a concern that terrorists will
obtain nuclear weapons even as the United States tries simultaneously to desta-
bilize countries pursuing a nuclear weapons capability.
Propaganda by the Deed and Terrorist Audiences

The foregoing has argued that neither the actions of terrorists in attacking great
powers nor the responses of the latter can be explained in terms of conventional
power politics. Assessing both requires a different understanding of their uses of
power in an age of immense power disparity. Because terrorist violence cannot
achieve military objectives directly, the focus has to be on their intended audi-
ences. And because great powers have elevated weak states to security concerns,
they have redefined security in an era of unparalleled military strength.
As the substantially weaker party, terrorists cannot achieve their goals by mil-
itarily imposing their preferences. The presumption is that their strategy depends
not on the actual harm inflicted but on the fear instilled in those not directly
affected. It is essential then to understand the target audience of terrorist action,
which can differ from the actual target of an attack.67
Al Qaeda’s objective has been, and continues to be, the reestablishment
of the caliphate uniting Muslims in one state controlling all lands once ruled
by Muslims and governing that territory according to its interpretation of
Islamic law. Achieving this would require toppling Arab governments that
Al Qaeda considers apostate and removing Western power and influence. Its
original strategy focused on the near enemy, regimes it deemed weak and
illegitimate.
In attacking New York and Washington on 9/11, Al Qaeda undertook “out-of-
area” operations and shifted from a strategy that targeted the “near enemy” to
one focused on the “far enemy.” It was a change born of the failure to generate
uprisings against, much less topple, regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. There
was some division in the organization about the wisdom of the shift, but one
key hope was that such an attack would galvanize the umma, the Muslim com-
munity. There was, that is, no shift in audience entailed in the move to opera-
tions in the West. Though Americans were targeted, the actual audience for the
attack of 9/11 was still the umma. The attack was intended to convey the extent
of anti-US sentiment in the Arab world and thereby embolden those opposed to
US interests in the region.68
Al Qaeda’s efforts reflected not its extant power, but its assessment of its pro-
spective power, of the power it could mobilize. The intention was to mobilize
the international Muslim community to rise up and topple the local regimes that
rule the umma and to expel Western power from current and former Islamic
lands, including Palestine and Andalusia. Like anarchist terrorists in the nine-
teenth century, they conceive of the propaganda by the deed.69 The language
they use is that of past revolutionary theorists. They speak of the role of a van-
guard and of violence.
An extension of the argument that the purpose of violence by the weak is
to instill fear is that it is also to generate an overreaction by the target. It is
intended to goad and provoke, and the excessive response, whose very nature
may impose much collateral damage, is presumed to lead to a weakening of
support for the overreacting target. It is this second-order effect, the impact
of the response, that is the key to achieving a political objective, as the over-
reaction by the more powerful increases support for the otherwise weak and
marginal.70
These varied explanations all make assumptions about the distribution of pref-
erences and the existence of incomplete information in some community (in the
targeted country, in the Arab world, or in the country that becomes the focus
of retaliation). Terrorist violence serves as a signal that conveys information to

some actors who otherwise have incomplete information. In one interpretation,
for example, the 9/11 attacks are said to have been meant to convey to US citi-
zens the degree of opposition that exists in the Arab world to the United States
and/or its policies.71 In another, the attacks are argued to have been intended
to convey to Arabs and Muslims across nations the degree of anti-regime and
anti-American sentiment. Violence is intended to mobilize current adherents to
the cause and to attract new ones by conveying to individuals that others share
their hatred for the governing regime and the United States. The anticipated and
desired overreaction is assumed to be an additional means of convincing Arabs
and Muslims of US antipathy toward them.
These varied explanations of terrorism disagree about the nature of the
information transmitted by its violent attacks. Some believe that the attacks trans-
mit information about the attackers, about their strength and resolve.72 Others,
however, see the attacks as conveying information about actors other than the
terrorists themselves. In some models of revolution, for example, attacks by reb-
els reveal to members of the general society the degree of anti-regime sentiment
among the citizenry.73
Extra-territorial terrorism is not a military strategy in the classic sense. Its
primary intended audience is the community terrorists hope to mobilize rather
than the targets of their attacks.
Unbridled Power, Task Expansion, and the

Counterpropaganda of the Deed
As policy makers in great powers have achieved security against external assault
they have the luxury of shifting their eyes to whatever smaller threats remain or
can be envisioned as arising in some near or distant future. Unbridled power
generates task expansion to encompass concerns not typically thought of as
national security ones. This is demonstrated strikingly in a strategic document
drawn up by the European Union (EU). The paper has a schizophrenic quality.
On the one hand, it notes that things have never been so good: “Europe has
never been so prosperous, so secure nor so free. The violence of the first half
of the 20th Century has given way to a period of peace and stability unprec-
edented in European history.” Central to this, the scourge of war has disap-
peared: “Large-scale aggression against any Member State is now improbable.”
Nevertheless, Europe faces “key threats,” the first of which is terrorism, which
“poses a growing strategic threat to the whole of Europe.” Even though listed
second, the “Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction is potentially the
greatest threat to [European] security,” and the two threats are conjoined in that,
“the most frightening scenario is one in which terrorist groups acquire weapons
of mass destruction.”74
The same schizophrenic quality affects the UK’s strategic assessment. On the
one hand, it points out that “Britain today is both more secure and more vulner-
able than in most of her long history.” More secure, it explains, “in the sense that
we do not currently face, as we have so often in our past, a conventional threat
of attack on our territory by a hostile power.” In the past, the country “grappled
with the brutal certainties of the Cold War—with an existential danger that was
clear and present, with Soviet armies arrayed across half of Europe and the con-
stant threat of nuclear confrontation between the superpowers.” And yet, the
country is “more vulnerable” and “faces a different and more complex range of
threats from a myriad of sources,” which include “non state actors.” And, the
document recognizes, “the concept of national security in 2010 is very different
to what it was ten or twenty, let alone fifty or a hundred years ago.”75
Being able to worry about more than survival means that the definition of
the threat posed by failed states has come to include such nations as export-
ers of disease, organized crime, and drugs, as well as terrorism. This is not the
classic characterization of a national security threat, and any security policy that
focuses on organized crime and drugs clearly implies the pursuit of secondary
and tertiary objectives beyond the primacy of the physical and territorial integ-
rity of the state. The great powers live in a period of unparalleled prosperity
and security. Nuclear war and even great-power conventional war seem largely
unimaginable.76 In such a setting, attention is focused on what would have been
counted as minor concerns in a different era. Yet even in an age of unparalleled
security, militaries still plan for contingencies and for new and prospective ene-
mies.77 Even in an age of unparalleled national security, governments still must
attend to those threats to their citizens that do exist, however differently they
are defined and however much more minor they may seem.
International relations theory provides few useful guidelines for understand-
ing the peripheral objectives pursued by states. A theory that posits that states
are at a minimum dedicated to their own survival is not particularly useful in
understanding the interests and actions of those whose existence is assured.78
Those prepared to posit secondary and tertiary national interests typically only
add ideology and material interests to security ones. Focusing on failed states
as threats constitutes an elevation of a host of relatively minor concerns to
security ones.
Moreover, meeting the challenge of groups intent on political mobilization
through terror requires responding to the propaganda by the deed with counter-
propaganda. It requires an ability not to be provoked and not to overreact, and
a comparable focus on political mobilization. The effort to counteract Al Qaeda’s
efforts to mobilize Muslim masses is what is meant by the battle for hearts and
minds in this context.
The focus on failed states reflects a combination of task expansion by the secure
with their need for counterpropaganda and the pressure of domestic politics. In
democracies, politicians are often not rewarded for their achievements but pun-
ished for their failings.79 Success simply removes a given issue from electoral
politics when challengers highlight the failures of incumbents and incumbents
emphasize the fear of change. Failed states and the externalities they generate—
refugees, disease, conflict, among them—can also embroil the United States in
the world of the weak because they affect conscience even when they do not
affect security. It is striking that this point is made by two realists who served in
the Bush administration, Richard Haass80 and Stephen Krasner. The latter wrote,
as part of an argument for new institutions for dealing with failed states:
Poorly governed societies can generate conflicts that spill across inter-
national borders. Transnational criminal and terrorist networks can
operate in territories not controlled by the internationally recognized
government. Humanitarian disasters not only prick the conscience of
political leaders in advanced democratic societies but also leave them
with no policy options that are appealing to voters.81
It is stunning how far removed these criteria for action fall from the needs of
addressing the maintenance of security, how much they are not issues of power
and threat.
In the end, this expansive notion of the requisites of security has led the
strongest to worry about the threats emanating from the weakest. To meet
both the requisites of domestic politics and to mobilize against international
threats below the level of survival, powerful states now treat humanitarian issues
as having security implications. Security policy is driven by a confluence of
humanitarianism and the political desire of government officials to be seen as
doing everything possible to prevent a terrorist attack on the homeland82 and
as responding to domestic sentiment. The result has been the elevation of the
domestic and international politics of conscience.
Conclusion
International relations scholars typically analyze the role of power.83 Exogenous
forces may change power relations, but certain dynamics flow from the result-
ing distribution of power. Questions that lie outside the understanding of the
field include which country industrializes first, which develops the atomic bomb,
which implodes economically or socially, and so on.84 The study of power pol-
itics purports to explain only what follows such disturbances in the balance of
power, not the seeds of changes themselves. Although an incomplete explana-
tion for the behavior of great powers, relative power is considered to most con-
strain the behavior of the weakest actors in the system.85
What we observe in this world of immense power disparity does not

conform to the conventional expectations of power politics. Vast asymme-
tries of power transform the calculus of both the strong and the weak. Our
standard vision owes much to the words spoken by the Athenian envoys in
what has come to be known as the Melian Dialogue: “the strong do what
they can and the weak suffer what they must.”86 Put differently, the strong
have choice, and the weak do not—they are constrained by their incapacity.
Making the dictum even more telling are the words that come before it. In
full, it reads, “since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes,
is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they
can and the weak suffer what they must.” That is, power matters most in
relations between states when the states are clearly unequal in power. Issues
of justice, of right and wrong, arise only when the parties are nations of
equal power. When power is highly asymmetric, it is all that matters, and
the weak have little choice.
Yet, this chapter holds, the events of the early twenty-first century have dem-
onstrated a different conclusion, that asymmetries of power do not conform to
this simple calculus. This too can be seen in the response of the Melians, who
make two points about submission. First, they say, “We know that the fortune
of war is sometimes more impartial than the disproportion of numbers might
lead one to suppose; to submit is to give ourselves over to despair, while action
still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect.” The outcomes of war, they
point out, do not always reflect the initial disproportion in power, and this pro-
vides some hope and reason to fight. Moreover, they continue:
You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of
contending against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal.
But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since
we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power
will be made up by [those] who are bound, if only for very shame, to
come to the aid of their kindred. Our confidence, therefore, after all is
not so utterly irrational.
Knowing that they are less powerful, but believing that justice is on their side,
they choose to place their trust in the gods and hope that others will come to
their aid. One can transpose this conversation to modern times and hear the
arguments of Al Qaeda leaders.87 They recognize the inequalities in power, and
their hope in god is one of utter certainty and not just the hope for compara-
ble good fortune; but the key to their hope is the mobilization of the masses of
Muslims in their struggle.88
Having heard the argument of the Melians against them, the Athenians pressed
their original point: “Your strongest arguments depend upon hope and the future,”
which stand in contrast to the Melians’ scant resources. The Athenians recognize
that the Melians are revolutionaries, focused on a future they intend to bring about
rather than a present they reject: “Well, you alone, as it seems to us, . . . regard what
is future as more certain than what is before your eyes, and what is out of sight, in
your eagerness, as already coming to pass.”89 In short, in the face of large asymme-
tries of power, the weak can submit, but they can also fight in the hope that they
will mobilize allies and achieve a level of power they do not have.90
But large asymmetries in power affect the strong as well as the weak. As the
world’s sole superpower, the United States is subject to imperial temptation.91
At a minimum, relative growth in power leads to expectations of greater compli-
ance by others. Whatever one argues about whether the United States did or did
not succumb to this temptation in invading Iraq and whether it will continue
down this path,92 what is surprising is the focus on failed states, on the weakest
states. The greater security provided by greater relative power during the last
decades led to the elevation of minor concerns into major ones, and the eleva-
tion of non-security concerns into security ones. Thus we observe what some
would call the securitization of failed states.
The combination of a globally connected world and immense power asymme-
try changes the viability and utility of military power. The weak cannot defeat
the strong militarily yet can use force as part of a strategy of political mobili-
zation. A weak non-state actor attacks militarily the most powerful country on
the planet in order to convey hope and possibility to people far from its target.
The actions matter more for their symbolic and signaling import than for their
actual physical consequences. The focus of the groups and their actions is on the
potential and not the actual. Violence is used to actualize the potential power
of mobilized masses. And the strong, unprecedentedly secure, adopt foreign
policies that deal with matters far removed from their core security concerns.
Tertiary objectives become elevated to primary goals, and the great powers turn
from military objectives to political counter-mobilization.
Notes
*My thanks to participants at conferences held at Stanford and Princeton to discuss the
chapters in this book and to Jim Fearon, Ed Mansfield, Marty Finnemore, Judy Goldstein,
Amy Davis, and Joscelyn Stein.
1. The title of a book by Rothstein (1977).

2. Although a complete explication of this definition is beyond the purview of this paper,
aspects of it are discussed further below.
3. One of the ironies of the realist depiction of an international system that constrains states
is that it is better suited to explain the actions of small states whose choices are tightly
circumscribed than big ones who are not comparably constrained. But the theory is gen-
erally applied only to the latter, and the former are typically ignored. See Stein 2006.
4. Walt 1985, 34.

5. Van Evera 1990. For the opposing view, see David 1989.
6. The qualifications in this sentence are necessary. First, bipolarity at most existed in a
military sense and not an economic one. The Soviet Union was not a global economic
power, and following the general economic recovery after World War II there were major
economic powers other than the United States. Second, there are some who see the end
of the Cold War as less momentous in this regard, since they characterize even that era
as one of US hegemony. For them, the Soviet collapse only increased the degree of US
superiority over others.
7. For a typology of armed non-state actors, see Schneckener 2007.
8. David 1993, see also Desch 1996.
9. Mearsheimer 1990; Layne 1993, 2006; Waltz 1993, 2002.
10. In contradistinction to the expectations from conventional international relations theory,
some scholars have seen in the opposition of some nations to the US war in Iraq what
they have coined “soft balancing.” See Pape 2005 and Paul 2005.
11. Watson 1992, 314.
12. This argument was labeled power transition theory by Organski 1968. Similar arguments,
with slightly different emphases, include the hegemonic stability theory of Gilpin 1981,
the power preponderance theory of Doran and Parsons 1980, and the long cycle theory
of Modelski 1987. Consistent with this vision of hegemony and order are the recent revi-
sionist arguments made about the nature of empire; see Lal 2004, Ferguson 2004, and
also Mandelbaum 2005. Niall Ferguson (2004, 2) argues that “many parts of the world
would benefit from a period of American rule,” but some readers were tremendously dis-
comfited by his characterization of an American empire; see Ferguson 2005a.
13. Violent non-state actors, some of which adopt terrorist tactics, are of long standing in
international politics. They have often emerged as nationalist movements fighting to
become states. But the United States is threatened by non-state actors whose strategy is
extraterritorial. There is no small irony in Al Qaeda’s targeting the more powerful United
States if its purpose is to topple the Saudi regime, for example.
14. The Iraq War provides an interesting example. In the initial stages, two militaries engaged
in combat. Although Iraq possessed some of the elements of modern power, including
aircraft, missiles, and tanks, it was utterly defeated in a conventional war and inflicted
few casualties and little damage. By contrast, in the subsequentphase of the conflict, the
remnants of the Iraqi military and security services could only undertake guerrilla tactics
and suicide missions.
15. Lukas 1997, 64.
16. A bombing of Wall Street used the truck bomb of its age, dynamite in a horse-drawn
wagon; see Gage 2009. See Boyarsky 2009 on the bombing of the Los Angeles Times
headquarters. European terrorists attacked post offices and trains in London, a Madrid
theater, the Paris stock exchange, and the French Chamber of Deputies, among others;
see Stewart 2005; also see Kassel 2009. Rapoport 2004 characterizes this as the first
wave of modern terrorism. Note that the emphasis in this paper on the role of dynamite
in modern terrorism differs from Rapoport’s discussion.
17. This is one way to characterize what is new about terrorism, about which there is a
debate. See Tucker 2001 and Duyvesteyn 2004.
18. Roberts 2003. Still later, the Bush administration broadened its response to what it
labeled a “global war on terror” (GWOT). More recently, the Obama administration
has dropped this term in favor of “overseas contingency operation” (in the nomencla-
ture of the Defense Department), see Kamen 2009, and Wilson and Kamen 2009, and
“man-caused disaster” (the term used by the Department of Homeland Security), see
Der Spiegel 2009. There has been an ongoing debate on how to conceptualize terrorism
and whether it should be treated as anything more than crime. See Schmid 2004,
Kruglanski 2008, and Kruglanski et al. 2008.
19. Some nationalist movements have been characterized by extraterritorial attacks, such
as the modern IRA attacks in Great Britain, but the Al Qaeda attack on the United
States stretched the conception of occupying power to target the United States simply
because it supported certain governments in the Middle East and had bases in the region
(bases that had been voluntarily accepted and were the product of invitation rather than
coercion).
20. Note that this analysis focuses on terrorists attacking the homelands of the United States,
Britain, and others. It sets aside the use of terrorist tactics by insurgents waging a guer-
rilla war on their own soil against a government and its foreign supporters.
21. The search for a theory of victory animating the powerless is driven by a presumption
that they are purposive calculating actors and that irrationality, evil, and hatred are inad-
equate explanations for their actions. A parallel problem exists in explaining the behavior
of extremists; see Cetinyan and Stein 1997. Psychologists find little evidence that terror-
ism is an emotional syndrome rather than a strategic tool; see Kruglanski and Fishman
2006. Note that treating terrorism as purposive behavior and assessing the strategy of its
perpetrators does not imply that it will be successful. As a desperate last resort, it is akin
to experimental cancer treatments or a “Hail Mary” pass play in football, something tried
but with a low probability of success. The likely lack of success is not an indicator that
the choice or the strategy was not purposive, calculated, and rational.
22. The US military characterizes the weapons used by insurgents in both Iraq and Afghanistan
as improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Despite the limited ability of non-state actors to
produce weapons, a cottage industry of doom has developed depicting a world in which
terrorists can so leverage technology that the entire world can be threatened. At the
extreme, we have to come to worry about “super-empowered individuals”; see Friedman
1999.
23. Only in a few cases were the terrorists raised in those societies.
24. Thus, the disjuncture between rogue states and fragile ones; see Bilgin and Morton
2004.
25. The list of reasons given by David 1993 for why the Third World matters does not
include failed states harboring terrorists. Indeed, he argues that the Third World matters
because of its strength, not its weakness.
26. The “U.S. National Security Strategy” statements of 1998, 2002, and 2006 “all point to
several threats emanating from states that are variously described as weak, fragile, vul-
nerable, failing, precarious, failed, in crisis, or collapsed”; see Wyler 2008, 1. An enor-
mous literature has arisen on these states, on how to conceptualize state failure, how
to develop early-warning indicators of such failure, and how to deal with it. See, among
others, Dearth 1996; Dorff 2005; Gros 1996; Milliken and Krause 2002; Norton and
Miskel 1997; Rotberg 2002a, 2002b, 2003, 2004; and Zartman 1995. Scholars disagree
about terminology and whether it is a singular category and even whether it is a useful
term at all.
27. The same problem arises with the use of the term “national interest.” It is used by domes-
tic political actors and officials who characterize specific policies as being in the national
interest. But it is also used by scholars as an analytic construct for explanation.
28. Beauchemin 2004.
29. Helman and Ratner 1992 initiated the discussion of failed states. The
foreign-policy-as-social-work critique is Mandelbaum’s of 1996. In 1994, at the request
of Vice President Gore, the CIA established a State Failure Task Force and contracted
scholars to develop models for predicting state failure. The initial studies are Esty et al.
1998 and Goldstone et al. 2000.
30. “Before September 11th, failed states were largely considered a humanitarian problem.
They were seen as an obstacle to development, to democratic governance, to economic
growth and to human rights. Failed states were generally not thought of as military or
security problems, but as, at worst, regional problems, but not a danger to national or
global security”; see Lambach 2005, 10.
31. Berger, Scowcroft, and Nash 2005, 6.
32. US President 2002, 1.
33. Rice 2005.
34. Ottaway and Mair 2004, 1.
35. Commission on Weak States and US National Security 2004.
36. Korb and Boorstin, 2005, 7.
37. Hamre and Sullivan 2002, 95, an article that was part of a task force report.
38. Brown 2009, 18.
39. Krasner and Pascual 2005, 153.
40. This poses a problem for any idiosyncratic reliance on a notion of American exceptional-
ism to explain this focus of US security.
41. NATO 1991, 1999. Also see NATO 2010.
42. Straw 2002.
43. Norton-Taylor 2008.
44. Lambach 2005, 2006, and Desrosiers and Lagassé 2009. For a complaint about the
consequences of “over-securitisation” of the South Pacific, see Greener-Barcham and
Barcham 2006.
45. Châtaigner and Ouarzazi 2007, 1. Also see Beall, Goodfellow, and Putzel 2006; Bertoli
and Ticci 2010; and Guillaumont and Jeanneney 2009.
46. Stein 1980.
47. Although it does not matter for the discussion below, it should be noted that power also
derives from an ability to bestow benefits as well as impose costs. It should also be rec-
ognized that there is a difference between coercion and exchange, even though it can be
argued that an end to coercion in return for submission/acquiescence does constitute a
benefit (of sorts).
48. Rosen 1970, 1972.
49. See, among others, Sullivan 2007.
50. Low cost-tolerance on the part of the United States is typically characterized as “casualty
aversion” (a term that does not adequately capture the idea). The existence of casualty
aversion has again become a matter of debate and contention as the United States is
again embroiled in war; see Mueller 2005, and Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler 2009.
51. In contrast, Al Qaeda stressed that the United States had “reached a stage of effeminacy”;
quoted in Hart 2008.
52. The Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s provides a demonstration of the intensity with which
soldiers fight under different circumstances. In the initial stages of the war, Iraqi forces
penetrated Iranian territory and Iranian forces fought with greater intensity. In the lat-
ter stages, Iranian forces, having successfully repelled the invaders, crossed into Iraq and
went on the offensive. At that point, Iraqi forces fought with greater determination and
intensity. The greater motivation of defending the homeland provides one explanation of
this shift. See Dodds and Wilson 2009.
53. US battle deaths in the first Gulf War totaled 147; 11 soldiers died (only 4 were fatalities
due to hostilities) in Afghanistan in the toppling of the Taliban in 2001, and there were
109 American battle deaths in the defeat of the Iraqi military in March and April 2003.
For the two Gulf wars, see Fischer 2005, and for Afghanistan, see iCasualties.org (n.d.).
54. Some in the George W. Bush administration referred to the end of the Vietnam syn-
drome. Indeed, the Bush administration garnered domestic support not only for invading
Afghanistan, but also for invading Iraq, even though the latter was not linked to 9/11. In
that sense, the attack of 9/11 had an effect similar to that of Pearl Harbor in 1941, free-
ing an administration that had then been constrained by internal isolationist sentiment
to go to war against Germany as well as Japan. The attack on Pearl Harbor made possible
the very mobilization Japan feared and insured its defeat.
55. This is relevant to the question of how much power is required to deter an adversary—
whether deterrence can be achieved with lesser capability, with comparable capability, or
requires superior capability. It turns out the answer depends on the strategy available to
an aggressor.
56. Certain martial arts emphasize leveraging and using another’s power to defeat them.
57. I am putting the point this way because it is possible to understand actors as having
the “power to” do something and to treat this as non-relational and solely dependent on
capability. Thus, power affords autonomy and in effect frees actors from relationships.
58. Dahl 1957.
59. Krauthammer 1992, 1993; Jackson 1998; Langford 1999; Fearon and Laitin 2004; and
Krasner 2004.
60. European Council 2003, 4–5. Similarly, a planned camp in Oregon was to offer “train-
ing in archery, combat, martial arts, rifle and handgun handling, all in a secure environ-
ment in a ‘pro-militia and fire-arms state’”; see Carter and Bernton 2005. The training
to fly civilian aircraft into buildings was provided in the United States, not Afghanistan.
Similarly, visitors to the United States have the ability to practice military maneuvers in
paintball exercises.
61. Sinai 2007. Some have even suggested that failed states are less useful to terrorist groups
than weak states because the former cannot provide the infrastructure terrorists require,
whereas the latter provide infrastructure while not being able to control such groups.
It has even been suggested that terrorists are most vulnerable in failed states, that they
“are not ‘safe havens’; they are defenseless positions”; see Dempsey 2002, 13. In contrast,
the case for the importance of training facilities in a weak host state is made by Takeyh
and Gvosdev 2002 and by the report of the 9/11 commission; see Miko 2004. For a
correlational assessment, see Piazza 2008. For an assessment of the relative suitability of
ungoverned territories as havens for terrorists, see Rabasa et al. 2007.
62. Krasner 2004, 86.
63. The lower number is from Anderson 2005, 2; the higher one is from Fund for Peace 2009.
64. Ironically, the United States and its allies could deal with the problem of failed states and
groups such as Al Qaeda and still face the problem of states with nuclear weapons who
could transfer them to terrorist groups of their own creation so as to see the weapons
used and not experience retribution.
65. Newman 2007.
66. This is an important proviso in that the number of countries that autonomously and
independently developed nuclear weapons is smaller than those that currently possess
them. Most nations that currently have nuclear weapons received assistance from others
in initially building reactors and other nuclear facilities. This was the reason for the con-
struction of international rules for such transfers.
67. Different approaches to assessing Al Qaeda strategy can be found in, among others,
Abrahms 2006; Libicki, Chalk, and Sisson 2007; and Hart 2008. On the evolution of its
strategy, see Brooke 2008, Cullison 2004, and Zabel 2007. For Al Qaeda documents, see,
among others, Ibrahim 2007.
68. Only about the attack on Spain can one make a case that the primary audience was in
the target country, that terrorists targeted Spain immediately prior to an election hop-
ing to generate sufficient opposition sentiment to topple the ruling government and see
the new government withdraw Spanish forces from Iraq. Ironically, the conventional wis-
dom is that support for the opposition arose because of the government’s initial attempt
to attribute the attacks to Basque separatists and not admit their true source. In formal
models, this is characterized as voters not knowing the competence of their own govern-
ment. A terrorist attack serves to shift the modal assessment of government competence
and can thus affect electoral outcomes and, in turn, public policy. In this case, the terror-
ists achieved their aim because the attacks led to a change in Spain’s governing party and
the withdrawal of Spanish forces from Iraq.
69. Propaganda by the deed was typically thought of as entailing a revolutionary vanguard
attacking authority within their own societies. It has been modeled by Bueno de Mesquita
and Dickson 2007. What is distinctive about Al Qaeda is the choice of an extra-regional
target to mobilize a local, though multinational, community.
70. This discussion develops a larger assortment of possible audiences than recognized by
Kydd and Walter 2006.
71. In pitching their decision to target the West, Al Qaeda leaders engaged in the same kinds
of policy “overselling” as US politicians and offered a number of reinforcing arguments
to explain their motivation. This makes it possible for those in the West proffering expla-
nations to disagree as to whether the terrorists hate the US way of life, hate Americans,
are simply opposed to US policy in the Middle East, and so on. This inability to separate
determinants plagues analyses of terrorist motivations.
72. The assumption here is that the more asymmetric the relationship, the less terrorist
action is about signaling strength, because the strategy is one of weakness when the rela-
tive capability is known. Contrast this with Hoffman and McCormick 2004.
73. Bueno de Mesquita 2010. One problem with explanations of incomplete information is
that they should apply only to short-lived contests in which a few battlefield encounters
serve to provide the information the parties did not have at the outset. Revolutionaries
who expect a mass uprising following a violent demonstration can gauge mass sentiment
in the aftermath. Sustained attacks are thus a problem for incomplete-information mod-
els of terrorism. Indeed, there is evidence that terrorists are quite slow to update their
assessments. It is interesting that revolutionary jihadists continue to see regimes they
attack as illegitimate and with little popular support, even when their attacks have not
generated evidence of widespread anti-regime sentiment. Rather, they treat their assess-
ment of Middle Eastern regimes as common knowledge.
74. European Council 2003, 1, 3, 4.
75. UK Prime Minister 2010, 3.
76. The one exception is the possibility of a confrontation between the United States and
China over Taiwan.
77. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted in the early 1990s that
“I’m running out of demons, I’m running out of villains. I’m down to Castro and Kim Il
Sung”; quoted in Kaplan 1991.
78. Scholars have typically broken down into two camps when assessing secondary state
objectives: those who emphasize inductive or subjective criteria versus those with a
deductive or objective approach; see Rosenau 1968 and Krasner 1978.
79. For such an argument about the economy and US electoral politics, see Brown and Stein
1982.
80. Berger, Scowcroft, and Nash 2005, xiii.
81. Krasner 2004, 86.
82. Feith 2008.
83. Even those who are not realists accept the centrality of power in international relations.
84. For many in the field, the implosion of the Soviet Union was just another exogenous
factor, whereas for others, the field’s inability to predict the event was a matter for
soul-searching and the spur to pursue new intellectual directions.
85. Balance of power is a typical equilibrium theory that describes the forces that maintain
equilibrium but treats shocks to that equilibrium as exogenous. For a brief explication of
realism and neorealism, see Stein 2001.
86. The quotations in this section are from the Crowley translation and can be found in
Thucydides 1996, 351–356.
87. See Van Creveld 2006, 226–227, for the implications of power asymmetries for the
choices of the weak and strong and the resulting assessments of justice.
88. In contrast, the Melians were looking to their allies to come to their assistance.
89. Kissinger (1966) describes this as a charismatic-revolutionary type of leadership.
90. This vision of action as preserving hope in contrast to submission fits with prospect the-
ory and the argument that people will opt for risky choices with worse expected utilities
rather than accept sure losses.
91. The point was made in the wake of the first Gulf War (Tucker and Hendrickson 1992)
and repeated after the Iraq War a decade later ( Joffe 2006).
92. In that regard, it is interesting to note the changing subtitles of the book Niall Ferguson
wrote championing a US imperial role. The hardcover, published in 2004, was titled
Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire; the paperback, published in 2005 (Ferguson
2005b) was called Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. Changes in book
titles published during the last decade provide one metric of the half-life of the imperial
temptation, if not of the empire.
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12
Globalization and Welfare: Would a

Rational Hegemon Still Prefer Openness?
Lloyd Gruber
The “globalization debate” within today’s political economy and development lit-
eratures is often cast as an irreconcilable dispute. On one side are the optimists
who see global markets working to all societies’ long-term economic advantage.
On the other side are pessimists who fear that international integration will end
up discouraging long-term economic growth in countries forced to compete too
soon or in resource-intensive sectors affording few spillovers to the rest of their
economies. As important as it is, however, the question of how globalization
affects long-run economic performance is not the only relevant consideration:
What about globalization’s impact on long-run political performance? This latter
question has not received the attention it deserves.
It’s true that political scientists have spent a lot of time analyzing how inter-
national trade influences domestic political cleavages. Building on the pioneering
work of Ronald Rogowski and Jeffry Frieden, contributors to this literature can
now predict with a high degree of certainty which segments of society are most
likely to benefit from globalization, and which domestic actors are most likely
to get hurt.1 But even if these scholars are right that holders of internationally
mobile assets belong in the “winners” category and holders of internationally
fixed assets are globalization “losers,” these classifications can’t tell us whether
countries that lower their barriers to international exchange should expect more
or less political conflict over time.
So we are back to square one: Does globalization stimulate long-run political
growth and development? Or might it be having precisely the opposite effect,
encouraging political paralysis instead of compromise, promoting not civil soci-
ety but civil war?
To answer these questions, we need to know more than just who wins and
loses from globalization, or even which of these groups is more powerful. We
need to know whether the preferences embraced by these different groups can
be reconciled politically. Is such a reconciliation possible? If so, how? For how
much longer will the grand political bargains on which democratic societies have
249
relied to keep their communities functioning as self-governing political units be

able to endure?
Understanding international economic integration’s long-term implications
for domestic political consensus (or conflict) is of crucial importance to aca-
demics and policy makers alike, bearing as the relationship does on the stability
and, indeed, very survival of democratic institutions. Self-government and civic
virtue are things we care about for their own sakes, of course. But democratic
institutions also have indirect effects, including—although it remains controver-
sial—the stimulation of higher and more stable rates of economic growth.2 And
then, too, there is the link between democracy and peace.3 If globalization leads
to the collapse of once-stable democratic institutions, the long-run consequences
could be dire indeed.
Motivated by the recognition of how much is at stake—and also how quickly,
for better or worse, globalization is proceeding—this essay inquires into free
trade’s long-term domestic political consequences. If one accepts the logic that
Stephen Krasner famously set forth in his groundbreaking 1976 article, “State
Power and the Structure of International Trade,” the United States should be
reaping enormous benefits from today’s free trade order. In contrast with small
or medium-size countries, very large countries—what Krasner termed hege-
monic powers—are where the world’s most dynamic firms tend to gravitate. The
hegemon’s government can encourage this process by enacting business-friendly
policies. But the clustering of internationally competitive industries within a
hegemon’s borders would happen anyway, according to Krasner, for very large
countries can offer ambitious entrepreneurs and firms something that smaller
countries cannot: a very large internal market.
Economically, then, the hegemon is in great shape. Businesses located there
are able to exploit the economies of scale afforded by its gigantic market. And
as their unit costs decline, they become more competitive, domestically as well
as internationally. But what happens to this virtuous circle when we introduce
politics? Free trade may be good for the hegemon’s economy but bad—perhaps
very bad—for its politics. Are the long-run interests of the United States really
well-served by a continuing push for global economic integration?
The truth is we don’t know. Nor can we know until globalization scholars begin
taking the theoretical literature’s omitted variable bias problem seriously. Perhaps
the hegemon’s push for globalization made sense in the past, in free trade’s “early
days,” but with the effects of trade-induced political volatility now beginning to
take their toll, pushing for openness may no longer be a rational strategy. And
if we determine that a mid-course correction makes sense for the world’s cur-
rent hegemon, it would presumably also make sense for a China, an India, or a
Brazil, should one of today’s rising powers assume the hegemonic mantle in the
future. If free trade ends up eroding political stability—if the inequality it gener-
ates turns out to impede political compromise and the smooth functioning of
Gl obali z ati on and Wel fare 251
democratic institutions—the hegemon’s globalization boom begins to look more

like a bust, and any conclusions drawn from Krasner’s biased (because exces-
sively economistic) free trade calculus may no longer hold.
Although my analysis will include a brief empirical section, most of the chap-
ter’s discussion stays at a fairly abstract, conceptual level. This wasn’t a matter of
choice so much as necessity. While there is no substitute for empirical testing,
the data on globalization and political performance are extraordinarily messy.
Further complicating matters is the future-oriented nature of the question at
issue. Even if globalization is wreaking domestic political havoc today—and,
again, the numbers do not speak for themselves—this could merely be a case of
the storm coming before the calm, the short-term pain leading to long-run gain.
How would we know?
Normally we would consult the received theoretical wisdom. The problem
here is the one just noted: like the empirical literature, the theoretical literature
on globalization and domestic political conflict is underdeveloped, offering noth-
ing that could be described as a conventional wisdom on the issue, let alone a
fully developed general equilibrium model. There may be some merit, then, in
simply figuring out which of the various arguments bearing on the question
stand up to close theoretical scrutiny. To the extent that some of these argu-
ments require further theoretical elaboration, there is little to be lost in delaying
the empirical part of the analysis. First things first.
To be clear, the goal here is not simply to elaborate various theoretical argu-
ments. I am also interested in building the case for a particular argument:
inasmuch as globalization may be inducing political polarization, it is—I will
suggest—because it operates in ways that accentuate the spatial divide between
societies’ economic winners and losers. In placing such emphasis on geographic
cleavages, my theory departs from more familiar accounts of trade liberalization,
which see it, along with democratization and the extension of universal suffrage,
gradually eroding the political salience of “territorial oppositions” (Lipset and
Rokkan 1967). For me, by contrast, those oppositions are both durable and, as
potential impediments to democratic stability, hugely important. Although it has
only recently begun to make its way into the globalization literature, this geo-
graphically oriented line of analysis does, I think, cut right to the heart of the
matter. And with globalization’s future as hazy as it is, the sooner the argument’s
internal logic is developed, the better for everyone. This is crunch time.
The remainder of the chapter is organized into five sections, followed by a
brief conclusion. Sections 1 and 2 explore the theoretical underpinnings of the
view that trade and openness promote long-term political consensus rather than
conflict. The intervening variable here is growth: the short-term politics of glob-
alization may be turbulent, reflecting integration’s short-term economic disloca-
tions, but because globalization generates long-run growth, the political storms
associated with its early years will eventually give way to a more temperate
political calm. But what if globalization does not actually promote long-run
prosperity? Inasmuch as the economic literature equates openness with growth,
it does so conditionally, subject to a society’s acquisition and maintenance of
a particular set of political arrangements. Which raises an interesting question:
what if globalization inhibits the functioning of these arrangements, the institu-
tional foundations of long-run, globalization-induced prosperity? Even if global-
ization does contribute to a society’s aggregate prosperity in the medium term
(after the economic dislocations generated by the initial shock have worked their
way out of the system), the societal inequities it creates along the way could
endure and, by fueling domestic political conflict, end up sharply diminishing
the society’s prosperity in the longer run. The theoretical arguments surveyed in
the second section of the chapter flesh out the underlying logic.
As I discuss in section 3, however, that logic is not altogether coherent.
For when it comes to inequality-induced political conflict, it is not aggregate
or society-wide inequality that should matter so much as spatial inequality: the
geographic segregation of differently endowed societal actors. After laying out
this argument, I offer—in section 4—a preliminary assessment of globaliza-
tion’s long-term demographic effects.4 And in section 5 I anticipate a possible
objection to my emphasis on spatial segregation: by reducing economic barri-
ers to secession, globalization might be thought to diffuse, rather than sharpen,
geographic tensions and the polarized politics that accompany them. Although
superficially compelling, this line of analysis is shown to be politically naïve. For
all the talk about globalization’s “disintegrationist” tendencies, the obstacles to
forming a new nation are impossibly high for most would-be secessionists—and
so they are likely to remain for the foreseeable future.
1. Globalization and Political Conflict:

The Storm before the Calm?
While globalization’s long-run impact on economic growth and development
has been much discussed and debated, globalization’s long-run effects on politi-
cal growth and development have received relatively little systematic attention.5
Still, if one wanted to make the case that globalization will eventually have a
calming effect on politics, it would not be difficult. For international economic
integration generates prosperity—so the argument would go—and prosperity
ultimately enriches everyone, rich and poor alike. Even if this process takes a
while, and even if people employed in protected industries suffer during the
interim, these economic losers will enjoy a higher standard of living in the long
run. And having been enriched, they will grow more satisfied and complacent,
hence less politically demanding. Globalization is conducive to domestic recon-
ciliation, in this view. It is an effective, albeit slow-acting, tranquilizer.
Variants of this argument pervade the political science literature. In interna-

tional relations, students of liberal-peace theory envision a gradual drying up of
territorial conflict, as global interdependence breeds prosperity and prosperity in
turn breeds contentment with the geopolitical status quo.6 Besides, international
conflict is costly; war is bad for business.7 The comparative-politics versions
have a similar flavor, only the conflicts at issue here—the political tensions for
which prosperity acts as a palliative—are domestic ones. Think of Lipset’s mod-
ernization theory of democracy, for instance, or Przeworski and Limongi’s more
refined “exogenous” model.8 While prosperity does not exactly cause democracy
in the Przeworski-Limongi model (as it does in the Lipset model), it does at
least stabilize democracy, bolstering the public’s support for new electoral rules
and procedures in formerly authoritarian countries that have managed, for what-
ever reason, to acquire them. How does it do this? Przeworski and Limongi’s
answer is the familiar one: prosperity breeds contentment and, in so doing,
reduces the fuel available for societal conflict.
One implication of all these arguments is that “go-it-alone power,” the
status-quo-shifting capability enjoyed by globalization’s prime movers in the
United States and Western Europe, is actually a force for good—everyone’s
good, not just the wealthy or the powerful. For if countries globalize, even if it
is only because their political leaders fear being left behind,9 the long-term result
will be an easing of political conflict. If theories were stories, this one would
have a happy ending. The question is whether we should believe it.
One objection is straightforward: what if globalization turns out not to
generate long-term growth after all? Of particular concern in the international
economics literature is what might be termed the Romer Problem.10 If trade lib-
eralization leads developing countries to specialize in the low-technology sectors
in which they hold an initial comparative advantage, the growth effect of open-
ness could well turn out to be negative. Trade would have the effect of moving
resources out of these societies’ most technologically innovative industries—the
very industries on which their economies’ long-run growth depends.11
The path-dependence that concerned Romer was an economic problem. But
in some societies the biggest obstacles to long-run, globalization-induced pros-
perity may not be economic at all. Their biggest problem may be the absence
of appropriate, prosperity-sustaining political arrangements. Without these
arrangements—what Rodrik (1997 and 1999) terms “conflict management”
institutions—trade flows, and especially capital flows, have a way of generating
enormous economic volatility, suppressing long-term investment and, ultimately,
growth. Rather than a recipe for long-term prosperity, globalization, in the
absence of democratic (or at least quasi-democratic) political structures, may be
a recipe for long-term economic stagnation.12
This assessment may not be as gloomy as it appears, however. Many coun-
tries do possess these structures and so, by implication, would benefit from
globalization. As for the others, perhaps the requisite political institutions could
be imposed from outside (cf. Przeworski and Limongi 1997). Even if they can-
not impose their will by force, there is nothing to stop the United States, the
EU, or Japan from using other, more subtle forms of power—including go-it-
alone power—to introduce democratic institutions in polities that do not already
enjoy them.13 So maybe globalization really will, in the end, have a calming
political influence. Assuming a solution can be found for the Romer Problem,
international trade and investment will eventually make all countries richer, and
the political storms that have swept across the developed and developing worlds
in recent years will pass.
2. Globalization, Growth, and Inequality

But even if future developments should lead to a world in which all societies
possess the institutional foundations for globalization-induced growth—and it
is a big if—those foundations may not be stable. The political institutions in
question may perform well at first, even perhaps (as in the case of the United
States) for centuries, only to ossify and deteriorate as a new, more fully global-
ized world takes shape. Indeed, globalization itself may be their biggest enemy.
Why might globalization pose a threat to the stability of growth-sustaining
political institutions? One possibility—a long-standing preoccupation of
Marxists and non-Marxists alike—is trade’s tendency to worsen domestic eco-
nomic inequality.14 Most of the economists, political scientists, and sociologists
who make this argument take it as self-evident that economic inequities are
politically destabilizing, and hence bad for growth, in the societies experiencing
them. Attention centers instead on the question of how, and how much, global-
ization contributes to the problem.15
The arguments in this literature can usually be boiled down to two steps. The
first involves explaining how exactly globalization creates domestic economic
divisions. Of course, all economies—even those that remain largely closed to
international trade and investment—reward certain individuals more than oth-
ers. The claim here is not just that globalization creates winners and losers, but
that the gap between their respective economic fortunes is now much greater
(or will be soon) than the gap that separated winners and losers in older,
pre-globalization economies.16
Next comes the political part of the argument: what are the political implica-
tions of this new, and presumably bigger, economic disparity? If we assume that
one’s political preferences are essentially a byproduct of one’s relative economic
position, the answer might seem obvious: the domestic economic inequalities
induced by globalization will become fodder for political disagreements more
protracted and intense than those we are accustomed to seeing. If true, this
would surely be a cause for concern. But is it true? Cross-national comparisons

of Gini coefficients are all well and good, but the question here requires a dif-
ferent set of tools.17
First, it is possible that the gap between globalization’s economic winners and
losers is less important than globalization-induced cultural divisions. A cultural
divide does appear to be opening up (or widening) in many societies, and it is
not unreasonable to think that globalization is at least partly responsible. Why
assume that the political disagreements engendered by international economic
integration are attributable only to integration’s economic effects? The most seri-
ous disagreements may well concern its social, possibly even its ethical or moral,
consequences.18
Second, though it may seem obvious, the theoretical basis for concentrating
on relative disparities, whether economic or noneconomic, is actually rather ten-
uous and, in any event, requires more systematic attention than it has received
thus far in the literature. If everyone is benefiting in absolute terms, perhaps
those relative disparities would not matter very much even if they were grow-
ing. The fact that globalization enlarges the gap between the winners and the
losers—assuming it is true19—may be less politically consequential than the
fact that some of the relative losers are also absolutely worse off. If globalization
creates political disagreements, this argument suggests, it is because it creates
absolute losers.
As research progresses, we are likely to get a better sense not just of whose
interests are hurt by globalization, but also whether those individuals are
increasing in number and the winner-vs.-loser preference gap growing. Even
that won’t be the end of the story, however. For when it comes to conflict, the
extent to which the political preferences of the winners and losers diverge may
be less important than the degree to which the two groups are intermingled,
or separated, in physical space. It is where the winners and losers live that may
matter most of all.
3. Inequality and Political Conflict:

It’s Spatial Inequality That Matters
While the political economy and development literatures have tended to empha-
size the number of relative (or absolute) losers and the nature of the disagree-
ments that divide them, there are other possible pathways from globalization to
political turmoil—other inegalitarian dynamics that, though relatively neglected
to this point, may be even more important.
Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that the forces of globalization do in
fact produce the polarizing effects described above, driving a wedge between the
political preferences of different citizens or voters in a society.20 Preferences over
what? It would be a mistake to assume that these globalization-induced political

disagreements must always be about free trade and protectionism. Sometimes
that may be case: the citizens who profit from globalization (materially or oth-
erwise) are likely to want more of it; the domestic actors who do not benefit
will want less. In principle, however, the losers could decide that continuing
down the globalization path, though it undermines their own economic or cul-
tural interests, is the most prudent course of action. Why? Because the alter-
native—retreating from international markets while the rest of the world (or a
large proportion of it) remains integrated—could end up inflicting even more
harm. Ultimately, in other words, the losing group’s preference for the “back-
lash” option would come down to strategic considerations.
But while the losers may not actively object to the winners’ policy stance on
the globalization issue per se, they would object—or so one can safely assume—
to their preferences on a whole range of domestic redistributive policies. Although
heated political disagreements would remain, these globalization-induced con-
flicts would center less around the question of whether to integrate into world
markets than how to integrate—how aggressively to respond to integration’s
various economic and social dislocations, for example. What the losers would
demand is not protection but equity.21
One might think that these domestic disagreements, as they became more
heated and intense, would wreak havoc on the domestic policy-making process,
destabilizing national politics and undermining domestic cohesion more gener-
ally. Happily, though, this conclusion does not always follow.
Figure 12.1 below depicts the distributional preferences of a hypothetical
society both before and, more important, after its policy makers have dismantled
the country’s barriers to international trade. In the “before” case, the citizens of
the society are in broad agreement on the need for government intervention,
though some inhabitants (those toward the left of the political spectrum) would
prefer a somewhat larger welfare state, while others (those toward the right)
would prefer a somewhat smaller one. As globalization proceeds, however, the
society polarizes into two camps, one favoring quite a bit more distribution than
was once the norm, the other favoring a substantial amount less.22 The story,
then, is one of increasing preference divergence, increasing differences of politi-
cal opinion. So how does the story end?
“Badly” might seem to be the logical answer—as the society polarized, its
politics would become more conflictual. If the status quo policy remained in
place, it would be because the system was gridlocked, not because that policy
was supported (as it had been in the pre-globalization case) by a broad-based
societal coalition. And government policy might not stay the same; if ever one
side were to gain the upper hand, national policy would immediately lurch
toward that side’s preferred position and away—indeed, far away—from the
policies favored by its domestic opponents.
pre-globalization
distribution of
redistributive
preferences
more RL ? SQ ? RR less
redistribution status quo redistribution
Figure 12.1 Redistributive Preferences before and after Globalization: A Stylized

Representation
That polarization would produce these effects is not obvious, however. Take
a look at figure 12.2, a district-by-district (or state-by-state) breakdown of our
hypothetical globalizing society. For the sake of simplicity I will assume for now
that the society is a democracy, that it has just four electorally salient districts
or regions, and that each is a more or less perfect microcosm of the larger soci-
ety: each district experiences the same globalization shock, and each polarizes in
more or less the same way.
Now suppose you are the political representative of one of these districts and
you are trying to get yourself reelected to the national legislature. The fact that
your constituents are growing more divided does not mean that you must now
abandon your support for the government’s pre-globalization policy. If Downsian
District 1 District 2
more less more less

redistribution SQ redistribution redistribution SQ
redistribution
more less more less

SQ SQ
redistribution redistribution redistribution redistribution
Figure 12.2 Polarized Preferences in a Four-District Polity

logic operates, you would continue along as before, embracing a centrist redistrib-
utive position and, in so doing, assuring yourself the votes necessary for reelec-
tion.23 And because your three colleagues in the legislature would each run—and
win—on that same position, national politics would remain as harmonious as
they had always been, globalization’s polarizing effects notwithstanding.
To be sure, figure 12.2 has each district polarizing symmetrically; the citi-
zens who favor a bigger welfare state are perfectly counterbalanced, in each
of the four districts, by the citizens who prefer a smaller welfare state. Yet the
lack of association between societal polarization, on the one hand, and politi-
cal conflict, on the other, does not require the two sides to be evenly balanced.
Perhaps our polarizing society has “left-leaning” preferences, with the globali-
zation losers who favor expanding the welfare state greatly outnumbering the
anti-compensation globalization winners.24 In this scenario, globalization would
cause all four of our Downsian politicians to move to the left, abandoning the
status-quo policy in favor of (somewhat) greater redistribution toward the poor.
In contrast with the previous scenario, this time societal polarization would have
real political consequences: it would create a new policy.25
What it would not create is political conflict. After all, the four members of
the legislature would continue to share each other’s views on the redistribution
issue; it’s just that now these views would be less centrist. The result: no grid-
lock, no extreme deviations in policy—in short, no political turmoil.
The larger lesson here is one that often gets overlooked in the political
economy and development literatures: globalization may lead to inequality, but
inequality need not engender political strife. Quite the contrary, each of the
politicians in my examples would have a strong electoral stake in defusing the
redistribution conflict and, to that end, shifting political debate toward differ-
ent (preferably more encompassing) sets of issues.26 Yet even if that were not
possible—even if redistributive concerns continued to divide their societies at
both the district and national levels—that doesn’t mean the country’s politicians
would have to be divided.27
Sometimes, on the other hand, things could work out in precisely the oppo-
site fashion, with the severity of political divisions and polarities far exceeding
the underlying societal bases for them. How is that possible? The key lies in
appreciating the previously neglected spatial nature of (some) inequalities. It
is when the winners and losers live apart from one another—and, specifically,
when they live in different political districts—that the inequality problem really
becomes problematic.
To see why, return to the hypothetical society of the first two figures, only now
let’s relax the assumption that the society’s globalization-induced preferences are
identical across all four of its electorally significant districts. The situation I have
in mind is similar to the situation in the earlier figures; here too, trade liberali-
zation has caused the society’s preferences to polarize. The difference is that, in
this case, the winners and losers are spatially removed from each other, lead-
ing to a wide disparity in district-level preferences. The two left-side districts—1
and 3—are populated by the losers, their globalization-induced suffering moving
their policy preferences toward the left; the winners, meanwhile, happen to be
clustered in the two right-side districts—2 and 4—and their welfare-state pref-
erences are moving toward the right.
Politically, as these new spatial asymmetries emerged, they could create
real turmoil at the national level. Districts 1 and 3 would elect politicians
who favored expanding the welfare state; districts 2 and 4 would choose poli-
ticians who favored scaling it back. In principle, of course, the two left-wing
politicians could always work out a compromise with their two right-wing
counterparts. Doing so would not be easy, however, and for good electoral
reasons. Put yourself in the shoes of district 1’s political representative. Were
you to agree to a compromise at, say, the point SQ, you would make yourself
vulnerable to a (successful) electoral challenge from the left. To drive you
from office, a challenger would simply need to enter the race on a platform
of SQ-minus-a-hairsbreadth. By promising ever so slightly more redistribu-
tion toward the poor, your opponent would capture the vast bulk of your
erstwhile supporters and win in a landslide. While the example is stylized,
the point is pretty basic: political harmony would require compromise (as it
would not in the like-minded legislature of figure 12.2), and compromise is
often difficult.
What if globalization were to create more districts of one preference-profile
than the other? Might the resulting imbalance, by giving one side a clear major-
ity, render such compromises unnecessary? Perhaps—but the fact that one side
would enjoy political dominance wouldn’t necessarily spell the end of political
conflict. It might well have the opposite effect. How? By prompting the other
side to leave the game entirely.
In figure 12.3, that other side is the “right-wing” minority—the constella-
tion of forces opposed to any expansion of the welfare state beyond its status
quo level. Disillusioned with democracy, the inhabitants of districts 2 and 4
could decide to form a polity of their own. Secession is not the only way of
leaving the game, however; nor, for reasons I elaborate in section 5, is it usu-
ally very realistic. And, in any event, another alternative exists. Recognizing
the futility of leaving the polity, figure 12.3’s spatially concentrated minority
might decide to take it over, wresting outright control of a collective deci-
sion-making apparatus that, because it was democratic, had been working
against their interests.28 To be clear, the kinds of political conflicts that would
arise in figure 12.3 societies—conflicts wherein one side seeks a fundamen-
tal overhaul of government—are not the same as the political confrontations
I described in the context of figures 12.1 and 12.2. They are, if anything, even
more extreme.
RL SQ SQ RR
RL SQ SQ RR
District 5
RL SQ
Figure 12.3 A Spatially Polarized Polity with “Left” Districts Outnumbering “Right”
Districts
4. The Link Back to Globalization:

Does Integration Cause Segregation?
Missing from my discussion thus far has been any analysis of how globaliza-
tion might produce the kinds of enduring spatial inequalities that my theoretical
argument suggests are a necessary condition for heightened and protracted polit-
ical conflict. Whether there currently exists an empirical relationship between
globalization and spatial segregation is hard to say. The most sophisticated econ-
ometric work in this area to date—that of UCSD labor economist Gordon
Hanson—looks at the relationship between economic openness and internal,
region-to-region wage differentials in Mexico and finds that, indeed, the two are
related.29
If anything, Hanson’s findings understate globalization’s wedge-driving capac-
ity, since two regions populated by very different types of individuals—one
having a preponderance of high-tech workers, let’s say; the other populated pre-
dominantly by low-skilled workers—could nonetheless have very similar wage
levels. It is possible that globalization’s economic beneficiaries (the high-tech
workers in this example) would be willing to sacrifice high wages in return for
“exogenous amenities”30 like nice weather—think of Palo Alto—or perhaps just
for the right to live among like-minded fellow citizens with similar backgrounds
and skill levels. If this were the case, the analysis of regional wage or income dif-
ferentials could obscure wide disparities in the economic orientations and polit-
ical preferences of a country’s various regions.
These empirical issues require closer investigation. For present purposes,
however, I am more interested in establishing the theoretical link between glo-
balization and spatial divergence. To the extent that such a link exists, why does
it exist? What is the conceptual logic that leads us to believe it is not merely
an artifact of the data or a temporary blip but an enduring and in some sense
“natural” relationship?
The place to start is with the literature on economic geography.31 Here, then,
is a simple theoretical story, one I take to be consistent with this literature yet
that represents, at least in its last step, something of a departure as well.
In the beginning, this story goes, markets were too small to support large-scale
industrial production—because the barriers to exchange were too high—and
people lived scattered about, mostly on farms or in small towns. As technology
advanced, however, and the costs of doing business declined, markets grew in size
to encompass entire nations. And with the growth of (domestic) markets came
the rise of cities, concentrations of people and economic activity in a handful of
geographic locations. Why urbanization should accompany marketization isn’t
obvious, and there are, in the economic geography literature, at least three dif-
ferent explanations: the internal-economies explanation, which stresses the impor-
tance of forward and backward linkages,32 the external-economies explanation,
which emphasizes the knowledge spillovers that can occur between firms situ-
ated in the same location,33 and the political-favoritism explanation, which views
urban-biased allocations of resources as the rationale for urban concentration.34
These three explanations are not necessarily in competition. The relatively
low price of production inputs and close proximity to customers are what
may have initially led businesses and workers to concentrate in a city, just as
the internal-economies theory would imply. But once economic activity has
agglomerated, information about new ideas and techniques would spread more
rapidly from firm to firm (the external-economies argument) and politicians
could become more willing, if not desperate, to satisfy urban demands (the
political-favoritism argument). Whatever the specific chain of events, the point
is that the extension of markets would be especially good for a country’s urban
core, while peripheral areas would grow more slowly, or perhaps not at all, exac-
erbating any previously existing trend toward urban agglomeration.
“Exacerbating” is not the right word, however, for cities are not a prob-
lem in this model. On the contrary, they are engines of growth. And, if the
argument of this chapter is correct, they are engines of political compro-
mise and stability as well: the agglomerating tendencies I have just been
discussing would leave a country’s most and least productive citizens clus-
tered together in the same geographic spaces. The result, owing to this spa-
tial intermingling, should be a moderation, if never a complete cession, of
domestic political conflict.
Enter globalization. Over the years, a combination of technological innova-
tions (e.g., air travel) and political innovations (e.g., the inauguration of the
GATT and, later, the WTO) began to eradicate what were once, at least during
the interwar years, insuperable barriers to international economic exchange.35
One consequence of this development—the creation of a truly international
market—has been a gradual weakening of agglomeration pressures and attrac-
tions. As Fujita, Krugman, and Venables explain, “A plant that receives most of
its intermediate inputs from abroad and sells most of its output to foreign mar-
kets has little incentive to locate in the domestic core, and the diseconomies of
agglomeration outweigh the remaining linkage advantages of a core location.”36
As for the external-economy attractions of city living (and, more important, pro-
ducing), these advantages dissipate as well. No longer would firms need to be
located in the same city, or even in the same country, to reap the rewards of one
another’s innovations. So what happens?
Liberated from the cities and regions where the logic of agglomeration had
compelled them to set up shop, innovative industries relocate (though, in prac-
tice, the “relocated” companies may be new ones). Where do they go? Since
they can locate virtually anywhere, they naturally migrate toward the part(s) of
the country with the nicest site-specific resources and amenities—again, think of
Palo Alto or, in regional terms, the New South. During this transition, the glo-
balizing country would experience faster growth in its cores than in its periph-
ery, just as before. Only now, its core would consist of enclaves—regions, cities,
suburbs, etc.—inhabited primarily (if never exclusively) by the winners. Why
wouldn’t the globalization losers flock to those same areas, leaving them as inte-
grated as before? Explicit government prohibitions against internal migration,
such as the Chinese government’s long-standing policy of restricting the flow
of migrants from the hinterlands to the cities, may play some role here, though
purely economic forces could also operate in ways inimical to the free flow of
people. I noted earlier that the winners might be willing to take an income hit
for the luxury of residing in an exclusive, amenity-abundant community. Even
with this sacrifice, however, the beneficiaries of globalization would be in decid-
edly better financial shape than their globalization-suffering fellow citizens. And
because their pockets would be deeper, one can also assume they would be will-
ing to expend greater resources on housing costs, bidding up the price of real
estate beyond what the less well-endowed losers, trapped in their own exclusive
(but less amenity-rich) communities, could afford to pay.
All of which is to suggest that globalization’s effect on domestic interdepen-
dence may be the opposite of its famously positive impact on international
interdependence—and this, potentially, is a big problem. In addition to driving
a wedge between the preferences of those whom it benefits and those who get
hurt, globalization could also cause the two groups to become more isolated
spatially. And that geographic isolation would in turn have the effect of magnify-
ing, as well as unifying, each block’s political voice.37
True, the decline of domestic interdependence has many different causes, and
it is not as if dispersion pressures would altogether evaporate if countries were
to de-globalize and return to the days when markets were primarily domestic.
Inasmuch as we have recently been seeing a decline in domestic interdependence,
some part of that decline is surely a product of “exogenous” dispersion forces hav-
ing little to do with globalization: the invention of suburbs, for instance, or the
worsening of urban pollution. Still, one could argue that these exogenous forces
have largely run their course, their marginal effects rapidly diminishing, whereas
the forces of globalization are only now beginning to pick up steam. If correct,
we should expect the political problems associated with declining domestic inter-
dependence to get worse over time, not better. So much for the end of history.38
Recognizing that correlation is not causation and that more careful empirical
work is urgently needed, I think it’s fair to say that integration into world mar-
kets has already been accompanied in many societies by deepening geographic
cleavages, ethnic and economic alike. My own list of “trouble spots” would
start with today’s increasingly integrationist China. A period of regional income
convergence during the late 1970s and early 1980s was followed in China by a
period of increasing regional asymmetry, with the coastal areas, particularly the
region around Hong Kong, enjoying spectacular rates of growth while the inte-
rior of the country suffered the effects of a geographic poverty trap.39 As early as
the 1990s, the coastal regions were “exhibit[ing] a decreasing willingness to pay
tax to the center in order to equalize the patterns of growth.”40
Not that China is the only Asian country experiencing increased regional ten-
sions. Consider Indonesia. In the late 1950s, Indonesia’s national authorities suc-
cessfully, albeit repressively, countered a secessionist threat from the country’s
resource-rich outer islands of Sumatra and Sulawesi. While the pressures for
outright secession have waned, serious regional fissures remain, with the impov-
erished East Timorese on one end of the spectrum and the relatively prosper-
ous residents of Aceh on the other. Or take India, where a political-geographic
divide separates the high-tech states of the southern peninsula—Tamil Nadu,
Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka—from the rest of the country. And
though the scale may be smaller, the situation in Vietnam is much the same: an
impoverished north, a vastly more prosperous south.
In Europe, meanwhile, the list would have to include Italy, the United
Kingdom, and especially Belgium (though their openings are hardly recent),
as well as Spain, Ireland, and virtually the whole of Central and Eastern
Europe. Of course, there is also Africa: it would be hard to name a country in
sub-Saharan Africa that is not riven by political-geographic cleavages.41 And
moving over to the Americas, there is the north-south divide in Mexico, the
east-west divide in Canada, and the red state–blue state divide in the “purple”
United States.42
The point of grouping these diverse countries together is to suggest that some
larger cross-national force must be at work. That said, the idiosyncrasies of each
case are important. Even if the lower chamber of the US legislature is becom-
ing a “House divided,” the situation in other globalizing countries could look
very different. Not only might their degrees of spatial inequality differ (in either
direction) but their electoral systems could—and, in most countries, do—differ
as well.
Although I have not emphasized it in my previous discussion, this last
point is crucial: holding other things constant, different electoral systems will
lead to different degrees of political conflict. Thus proportional representation
(PR) systems, to varying degrees, diminish the importance of geography. In
the limit, when entire nations comprise a single electoral district (as in Israel
or the Netherlands), there is only one electorate, and the spatial distribution
of voters of different types is less likely to be reflected in the country’s party
system. In systems with smaller districts, by contrast, the way the nation is
partitioned by electoral boundaries is a critical step in the preference-to-policy
mapping function. The upper limit for importance of electoral boundaries is
the single-member plurality systems used in elections to the US House of
Representatives, as well as in the British, Canadian, and Indian Houses of
Commons.43 The bottom line is that spatial inequality’s conflict-causing poten-
tial is mediated, to some extent, by electoral rules.44 Or rather, my theory pre-
dicts that it should be; if this turns out not to be the case, then the theory is
deficient.
Which is precisely why empirical analysis of these issues must ultimately be
extended beyond the United States, ideally to encompass the entire world: the
more electoral variation, the better. Given the methodological difficulties noted
earlier (not to mention the more mundane data-gathering hurdles), demon-
strating the empirical plausibility of this chapter’s theoretical claims for the US
case may be all that one can reasonably expect at this stage of the game. But
the game, it seems to me, has really only just begun. My hope is that this brief
empirical exercise will serve as the foundation for a “progressive” research pro-
gram (cf. Vasquez 1997), a theoretical and empirical edifice whose exact size
and shape will emerge in the years ahead as political scientists begin focusing in
on the spatial dimensions of the larger globalization story.
5. Domestic Conflict vs. Outright Disintegration

In some ways, the single-member districts of the United States make it is an
easy case for my theory. In other respects, however, it is a hard case—most
obviously because of the immense size of the US economy’s internal market. If
globalization-induced polarization is happening in the United States, a country
that has been relatively little affected by the globalization phenomenon, one can
reasonably conclude it is happening elsewhere as well. The US case is revealing
in another way, too. As divided as its internal politics may be, the United States
is not about to break up into two separate nations. And therein, I think, lies an
important point. Put simply—lyrically?—breaking up is hard to do.
But perhaps it’s getting easier. In suggesting that the winners and losers are
stuck with each other in the domestic-politics version of a failed marriage, per-
haps I am being excessively pessimistic. Although globalization’s long-term spa-
tial effects may well be divisive, one of globalization’s other effects is alleged to
be its easing of barriers to political secession.45 From this, one might conclude
that the kinds of worrisome political tensions I have been describing could be
averted relatively easily, with each side volunteering to break off and form a new
sovereign state of its own. The prediction? A proliferation of new, more opti-
mally sized national units.
One could imagine that these smaller political jurisdictions would have a
harder time exploiting economies of scale in the provision of public goods.
But as Alesina and other have argued, this disadvantage may not be very large,
whereas the political advantages of smallness—reduced preference heterogene-
ity, more responsive government, and the like—could turn out to be huge.46
And while the secession option may not have been economically attractive in a
world of high international trade barriers, subnational groups would now have
the option of integrating directly into the international economy. Maintaining
access to one’s home market is no longer as important as it used to be, and los-
ing that access is no longer as costly.
All that said, the notion that globalization facilitates the peaceful breakup
of a society’s various subgroups requires some heroic assumptions. For one, it
requires that these groups live in territorially distinct regions of a society, as
opposed to being scattered throughout. The degree to which the opponents of
a country’s government are spatially intermingled with government supporters
could have a profound effect on whether the opposition camp decides to secede.
For now, however, let’s just consider the extreme case in which the government’s
opposition comes from one geographically contiguous part of the country, and
its supporters all live together in another. Would either faction be tempted to
break away?47
The answer in most cases would still be no. Inasmuch as globalization
increased the attractiveness of the secession option, it is doubtful that it would
do so by enough to tip the scales for the society’s poorer citizens. Although there
are exceptions, it is usually the richer parts of a country that pose the greatest
secessionist threat. And for good reason—the poor faction, were it to create a
new state, would lose its privileged economic access to the markets of the coun-
try it had left behind. And not only that: it would also give up its prior claim,
assuming it had held a political majority, to the wealth and resources of the new
country’s more prosperous (but now politically sovereign) inhabitants.
The poor, then, might not want to secede.48 Quite the contrary, they would
have a big financial stake in seeing “their” state remain intact. How? By reduc-
ing the attractions of secession for wealthier citizens who would normally find
it desirable.
Appealing to outsiders could be one means to that end. The intervention of
outside actors, and of the United States in particular, could greatly influence the
incentives and disincentives of the secession option. If US policymakers decided
it was in their interests for other societies to remain unified, they could take steps
to ensure that the disincentives dominated. Most important, the United States
could establish a policy of trading only with existing (i.e., unified) polities.49
Why would US policymakers want to use their economic leverage in this
way? One might think they would support the formation of new breakaway
states, and so, far from shutting them out of US markets, would offer them pref-
erential access. Leaving aside the fact that the United States itself was once a
breakaway state, the best argument for agreeing to do business with outwardly
oriented, autonomy-seeking minorities is that it would greatly bolster the eco-
nomic performance of their new state, should it ever be permitted to gain its
independence. Confident that their new nation would be economically viable,
the minority factions would have less need—hence less inclination—to assume
direct control over their home societies, the majority of whose citizens support
politicians with preferences very different from their own (recall Figure 12.3).
This is a happy scenario. But there is, as always, another side to the story.
Consider the majority’s point of view. By opening its markets to the
globalization-friendly minority, the United States would be encouraging that
minority to secede. Were this to happen, a democratic state would be denied its
primary source of funding for redistributive programs, as well as its major source
of productive investment. And so the citizens of that state would be unlikely to
look favorably toward the United States. But, again, the United States has the
power to prevent all of this from happening. And its leaders would probably use
it—even, one suspects, without being asked.50
Not that outside intervention would always be required, of course. The
“rump” majority government might be able to prevent its secession-minded
opponents from breaking away even without the assistance of the United States
or other external actors—most obviously, by using its own forces to defeat
the secessionists militarily. Is it unrealistic to assume that the state’s majority
government would be willing to go to war to put down its minority rebellion

and preserve the union? Possibly, but the notion that secessionists would be
willing to go to war against their country’s government-funded military is, if
anything, even less realistic—and so, as a practical matter, very few regional
conflicts ever reach that stage.
Staying with this line of argument, it might be objected that members of the
majority, by muzzling the wealthier minority’s secessionist ambitions, would be
undermining their own economic prospects. If the human-capital-endowed seg-
ments of a country’s population are unhappy, they could refuse to invest and
innovate and, in this way, reduce the size of the economic surplus available to
their oppressors. It is certainly true that holders of capital enjoy a privileged
position in democratic societies; as long as capitalists can exit (i.e., disinvest),
democratic governments concerned about economic outcomes must cater to
their demands.51 And as globalization proceeds, capitalists gain a whole new
array of exit options, raising their political clout by even more.52
But the extent of globalization and, by implication, capital’s ability to exit
are policy variables: governments can close them off without altogether under-
mining their societies’ prospects for economic growth. The key point is that
innovators will innovate and capitalists invest so long as they expect positive
returns and, importantly, these returns are the largest available. And that being the
case, one would expect the beleaguered majority to go out of its way to close
off these alternatives—including the alternative of physically migrating to other,
higher-returns societies. There is no reason to think this strategy would always
work, of course. Or that, because it worked for a while (think of the Soviet
Union during the early decades of the Cold War), it would work forever (think
of the Soviet Union today).53 My point is simply that the citizens threatened by
a secessionist movement would not have to take their predicament lying down.
They could call out the troops (or threaten to) and plug up their “brain drains”
without necessarily shooting down their economies in the process.
In sum, for all the talk about globalization’s disintegrationist tendencies, the
barriers to secession—even for relatively prosperous regionally concentrated
subnational groups—are likely to remain extremely high. If certain spatially
concentrated groups within a developing democracy are at loggerheads, seces-
sion might seem to offer a natural, conflict-mitigating way out. Indeed, the exit
option might seem particularly appealing now that globalization has reduced the
economic costs of secession for aggrieved subnational groups; in a fully global-
ized world, these groups could delink from their national economies without
any sacrifice in terms of reduced market access. Even if we leave aside the fact
that successful secessions have historically been few in number, however, there
are a host of problems—conceptually, not just empirically—with this argument.
As noted earlier, secession’s attractions to the rich tend to be much greater than
to the poor; by removing themselves from the national political struggle, the
poor would be denying themselves any claim to the wealth and resources of
their former fellow citizens. And though the secessionists’ loss of access to the
national market might not be as costly as it would have been in pre-globaliza-
tion days, it’s hard to imagine that their access to international markets would be
better than the privileged access they had once enjoyed in the national market-
place. While there is more to be said on all of this, my purpose in this section
has simply been to suggest why enduring domestic political conflict, rather than
outright secession, is the more likely prognosis for globalization’s future. Or to
put the same point in a different domestic context, not all failed marriages end
in divorce.
6. Out of This World: A New Agenda for

Globalization Research
All states try to influence their external environments, but the United States
did not just try—it succeeded. Given its large size and dynamic economy,
the postwar period’s global hegemon was well positioned to prosper in a
globalized world. And so a globalized world is what, for at least fifty years
now, American presidents have sought to create. It was the environment they
wanted, and it was the environment they got. But even when political actors
are able to influence their environments, those environments have a way of
influencing the character, the ambitions, and even, at the extreme, the politi-
cal survival of the prime movers who called them into existence. International
politics is a two-way street.
Staying with this metaphor, one could say that Krasner’s early work (espe-
cially his 1976 World Politics article) called attention to one direction of traffic—
from the preferences of states, and of one state in particular, to the structure
of the international economic system. For Krasner, the international environ-
ment reflected the distribution of power across differentially sized states. When
one state in this distribution became considerably larger than the others, that
nation—the hegemon—would use its disproportionate influence to create an
external environment closer to its ideal point. Being large, it would prefer free
trade. And being powerful, it would succeed in prying open the markets of
smaller states whose leaders did not prefer it. Others might complain, but an
open trading system would suit the hegemon just fine.
But what happens next, after the hegemon has succeeded in creating the
external environment it wants? This, I have argued, is where things really get
interesting. For once the hegemon’s preferred free trade order has been estab-
lished, the traffic begins flowing in the other direction—from the external to
the internal—as the hegemonic state that created this order begins, in turn, to
be shaped by it.
One would not expect this personality change to happen overnight. The hege-
mon’s interests at Time 1 and Time 2 may well be the same. Fast forward to Time
5 or Time 10, however, and the pro-free trade preferences that guided the hege-
mon’s actions in earlier years may no longer be as dominant. And by the time
we get to Time 40 or 50, the globalization-friendly enacting coalition that pre-
sided over the country when it first gained international supremacy may have lost
its earlier grip on power altogether. Over time, its domestic authority could have
been supplanted by a newly empowered coalition of globalization “losers” who
owe their newfound political influence, if not their very existence, to the free trade
order they inherited and are now, in their own self-interest, seeking to overturn.
That time has not yet come. Despite some fraying around the edges—a “buy
American” clause slipped into a president’s financial stimulus package here, a “buy
French” clause slipped into another president’s bundle of reforms there—global-
ization’s pivotal US-led coalition has held firm in its commitment to free trade in
goods, services, and (to a lesser extent) capital. As for the countries of the devel-
oping world, most have only recently hitched themselves to the globalization
bandwagon, and their leaders are not about to let go. Surveying the current polit-
ical scene, one would be hard-pressed to find any country, save perhaps Bolivia
or Chavez’s oil-rich Venezuela, where political parties championing protectionism
could be described as having a secure hold on domestic public authority.
But the fact that the losers’ time has not yet come does not mean it will never
come—and as political economists and students of international relations, we
should be making preparations. Is there any advice we can offer the globaliza-
tion naysayers of the future, including those who may one day find themselves
behind the wheel of a major hegemonic power? Would changing course—slow-
ing the free trade bandwagon, if not necessarily reversing it—really be in their
interests?
If only we knew. At this point, however, globalization scholars are not in a
position to provide much useful guidance. For as I noted at the outset of this
chapter, the long-run costs and benefits of globalization have not exactly been a
hot topic in international relations research. While it’s true that the subfield of
international political economy specializes in the analysis of international com-
mercial and monetary relations, most of the subfield’s cutting-edge work contin-
ues to focus on the political, hence shorter-term, motivations for international
cooperation, of which globalization is the cooperative case par excellence.54 Less
emphasized are the long-run welfare consequences of all this cooperation, the
effects that globalization and the proliferation of new institutional arrangements
undergirding it are likely to have on societal actors and their living standards in
a future too distant to be politically relevant today. This neglect may be under-
standable or even, from the standpoint of parsimony, desirable. But whatever its
motivation, the effect has been to bias political economy research away from
these longer-term welfare effects.
And yet for students of international politics, the big research questions for
the future are questions about the future. They are about how national politi-
cians will respond to the redistributive demands of their countries’ globalization
losers should trade’s economic toll continue to rise and reduce (or be perceived
to reduce) the living standards of their families. And they are questions about
how that response will, in turn, influence the prospects for economic growth,
democratization, and geopolitical stability in the years ahead. All are open ques-
tions crying out for creative new research.
I say “open” because none of the domestic political scenarios I have been laying
out in this chapter has been taken to its logical conclusion. So that should be the
first task: using theory to plug the gap in our current thinking about how global-
ization, democratization, and political secession interact. By no means is it preor-
dained that a democracy with an anti-integrationist majority will, as it globalizes,
fragment along economic lines. To the contrary, the conditionality of the relation-
ship between economic openness and self-sustaining democracy has been a major
theme running throughout my analysis: whether a compromise between the globa-
phobic majority and its outward-looking opponents occurs—and, if so, what form
that compromise takes—is likely to depend on a host of factors, I have argued,
among the most important of which are the policy responses of the international
system’s hegemonic power, be it the United States or (in future years) China.
The second task is empirical. More econometric work, ideally combined with
detailed case analysis, will also be needed. While political scientists already have
a fairly good set of indicators for democracy, the work of assembling the neces-
sary battery of internal demographic statistics remains—not an easy job, to be
sure, but eminently doable.
Given the stakes involved, the sooner that work is completed, the better. For if
policy makers are to manage globalization effectively, they will need hard answers
to the longer-run, future-oriented questions addressed in this chapter. But it
is not just their salience for policy makers that makes this new line of inquiry
so exciting. As I hope my discussion here has demonstrated, thinking through
globalization’s long-term logic can also be expected to provide insight into the
fundamental dynamics of political geography, sovereignty, and secession. Like glo-
balization itself, these are topics of long-standing social-scientific controversy—a
theoretical goldmine whose richest veins we are now, finally, about to discover.
Notes
1. Frieden and Rogowski 1996; see also Gourevitch 1978; Rogowski 1989; Hiscox 2002;
Scheve and Slaughter 2006.
2. See, for example, Przeworski et al. 2000; Easterly 2002; Ross 2006.
3. Russett 1994; Mansfield and Snyder 2002; Lipson 2005.
4. Disentangling trade’s independent causal role is no easy task, either statistically or con-
ceptually, and so my conclusions here must be tentative. Previous empirical investigations
of this issue have tended to focus on the United States, where economic segregation is
said to be rising over time as well as contributing in some way to political polarization
(see, e.g., Wilson 1997; Dreier, Mollenkopf, and Swanstrom 2004; and Bishop 2008). As
for the specific role of international economic forces in “sorting” American society, here
the debate is only now getting under way and thus emerges from section 4 as a particu-
larly ripe area for further study.
5. I should stress at the outset that my emphasis throughout this chapter will be on the
long-run consequences of openness rather than the political forces that have led us
to this point, though the latter are no less important or, indeed, controversial, having
ignited a fierce debate among IPE scholars (including this one). Nor, in taking the longer
view, will I be analyzing the ebbs and flows in globalization’s political support over the
past few decades, except to note that the flows have far exceeded the ebbs. Although
anti-globalization protests are not uncommon, the short-term prospects for open markets
would seem remarkably—almost astonishingly—secure. I will return to this point in the
chapter’s concluding section.
6. See, for example, Oneal and Russett 1997.
7. Liberman 1998; Brooks 2007.
8. Lipset 1963; Przeworski and Limongi 1997; see also Przeworski et al. 2000.
9. Gruber 2000.
10. See Romer 1986; also Young 1991; Grossman and Helpman 1991; Krugman and
Venables 1995; and Feenstra 1996.
11. This perverse dynamic is frequently invoked by critics of the Doha Round of WTO trade
talks; see esp. Wade 2006. While the concern here is with developing economies becom-
ing trapped in low-spillover industries, the idea that having a comparative advantage in
resource-intensive activities can impede a country’s economic progress also has a mon-
etary dimension. The discovery of North Sea oil in the l970s is the paradigmatic case: as
foreign investors bid up the price of the Dutch currency, export firms located outside the
Netherlands’ oil sector saw their international competitiveness decline dramatically. On
the political economy of so-called Dutch Disease, see Shafer 1994, Karl 1997, Ross 1999,
and, more recently, Ross 2003 and DiJohn 2009.
12. One could make a case that developing countries need these structures even more than
higher-income countries, since the former are typically less diversified and thus more
susceptible to macroeconomic shocks and disruptions emanating from the global econ-
omy. On the relationship between openness and economic volatility, see the contrasting
perspectives of Rodrik 1997 and Quinn and Woolley 2001, on the one hand, and Garrett
1995 and Iversen and Cusack 2000, on the other. For a range of perspectives on the
links between democracy, political instability, and growth, see, in addition to the works
already cited, Alesina et al. 1996; Barro 1997; Edwards 1998; Garrett 1998; Przeworski
et al. 2000; and Keefer and Knack 2001.
13. As, indeed, they already are. See my discussion in section 5.
14. It is also possible that globalization will exacerbate international inequality, though that is
not my focus here. The distribution of wealth and resources across states or regions is not
something national policy makers can alter in any event, except perhaps at the margins—
and even then, recent experience suggests, only after a great deal of collective-action
problem-solving (see Sachs 2005 for a more hopeful take).
15. To be clear, no one would argue that trade openness is the one and only cause of domes-
tic inequality. Exactly how much causal weight should be assigned to the lowering of
barriers to global trade and investment has emerged as a question of intense scholarly
debate, as other factors are clearly also important. Two of these other variables are the
weakening of labor unions and technological changes biased in favor of high-skilled
workers—though of course each of these developments may itself be caused, to some

extent, by globalization-induced competitive pressures (see, e.g., Freeman 1995; Trefler
and Zhu 2005).
16. This distinction is important. It is possible that the losses sustained by those on the losing
side of today’s economic divide are no greater than the losses sustained by the economic
losers of pre-globalization times, either relatively (compared with the gains enjoyed by
the winners) or in absolute terms (compared with some absolute economic baseline such
as the poverty index). Looking ahead, then, it is hard to predict—at least not without
going beyond the specification of political preferences and cleavages—whether the total
fuel available for political conflict will increase, decrease, or stay the same as our leaders
lay the foundations for a truly global economy.
17. Gruber 2011.
18. Singer (2004) provides a nice discussion of the ethical dimensions of international
trade and the kinds of inequities it can produce, though the philosophical literature on
social justice and market-generated inequality—whatever its source—is obviously much
broader; see, e.g., Nussbaum and Sen 1993; Cohen 2008; Sen 2009; Sandel 2012.
19. There is some question as to whether the Gini coefficients so pervasive in the litera-
ture are a good indicator of the kinds of winner-loser gaps that are at issue. What really
matters is not inequality so much as polarization, the degree of clustering in a society’s
population. For an illuminating theoretical discussion, see Esteban and Ray 1994. Keefer
and Knack (2001) question whether the distinction matters empirically.
20. To keep things simple, I am deliberately sidestepping another line of theory here—one
that starts not from inequality’s impact on the political preferences of the haves and the
have-nots (as I do here) but from its impact on the political resources available to each
group. See, e.g., Benabou 2000; Krugman 2003; and Bartels 2008.
21. These equity demands could be addressed both domestically and internationally, in the
latter case through the reform and reconfiguration of such institutions as the WTO, the
World Bank, and the G-8, now G-20. In illustrating my arguments, however, I focus
exclusively on the domestic arena, where the primary battles have concerned the expan-
sion and contraction of the welfare state.
22. Why would globalization generate greater polarization? The Stolper-Samuelson exten-
sion of the Heckscher-Ohlin trade model famously predicts that earnings inequality will
decline along with trade liberalization, at least in developing countries where unskilled
labor is the abundant factor. That said, the Stolper-Samuelson theorem has not done a
particularly good job of explaining the earnings dynamic empirically; contrary to its pre-
dictions, earning divergences have been growing in a number of the developing world’s
most open economies (see, e.g., Goldberg and Pavcnik 2007 and IMF 2007). But to say
that something else is going on—which is almost certainly the case—just begs the ques-
tion of what it is. See Gruber 2011 for a review.
23. Cf. Downs 1957.
24. As in Frank and Cook 1995.
25. This conclusion builds upon the more general model of distributive politics introduced
by Meltzer and Richard 1981. For applications, see Alesina and Rodrik 1994; Boix 2003;
Acemoglu and Robinson 2005; and Larcinese 2007, among many others.
26. Which could explain why only some social divisions become “full-blown cleavages
embodied in party systems” (Lipset and Rokkan 1967, 14). See also Przeworski and
Sprague 1986.
27. Although not my focus here, the “bowling alone” literature on civic virtue, democratic
deliberation, and social capital (see esp. Putnam 2000) may be vulnerable to a similar
critique. It would certainly be nice if considerations about the social good dominated pri-
vate concerns whenever the citizens of a democracy went to the polls or otherwise par-
ticipated in public life; the virtues of civic-mindedness have been extolled by everyone
from Tocqueville and Mill to Gutmann (1998) and Sandel (1996, 2012). The ques-
tion, however, is whether democracies require civic-mindedness. The argument here is
that they do not. Democracy-sustaining political compromises can occur in the absence
of public-spirited citizens, I would suggest, so long as the politicians they elect have a
self-interested, electorally motivated stake in moving to the political center. Social capital
is sufficient for democracy, in this view, but it is not necessary.
28. Which of these options (if either) the minority chooses would depend on its opportuni-
ties and constraints. And these in turn would be conditioned, in part, by geographic con-
siderations. See section 5 for a discussion of these issues as they relate to the exit option,
that is, secession. As for the second option—staging a coup d’état—the very possibil-
ity might seem farfetched: one of the central tenets of the comparative literature is that
democracies, once established, are stable so long as they remain reasonably prosperous
(see esp. Przeworski et al. 2000). But while prosperity may be helpful in smoothing over
distributional conflicts, that does not mean it is sufficient to keep democratic regimes
from backsliding into dictatorship. The empirical evidence amassed by Przeworski and
his coauthors suggests that in countries with a GDP per capita of $6,000 or more,
democracy is robust. Yet because the theoretical underpinnings of this finding are tenu-
ous (as Przeworski himself concedes; see also Cleary 2007), one can legitimately ques-
tion whether it will stand the test of time—particularly if that time is characterized by
rising inequality.
29. Krugman and Hanson 1993; Hanson 1997, 2005; see also Sánchez-Reaza and
Rodríguez-Pose 2002; Duranton and Overman 2005; Chiquiar 2008. These findings for
Mexico are consistent with recent work on trade’s spatial effects in the United States and
Canada. See, for example, Silva and Leichenko 2004 and Breau and Rigby 2010.
30. Rosen 1979.
31. See esp. Krugman 1991.
32. Hirschman 1958; Ades and Glaeser 1995; Fujita, Krugman, and Venables 1999.
33. Henderson 1988.
34. See, again, Ades and Glaeser 1995; cf. Bates 1981.
35. The term globalization here refers to any development that reduces the costs of transact-
ing across national borders. On the history of globalization, see Bordo, Eichengreen, and
Irwin 1999 and O’Rourke and Williamson 1999.
36. Fujita, Krugman, and Venables 1999, 330.
37. While I have been focusing here on the question of whether it depresses domestic eco-
nomic interdependence, globalization could also diminish the spatial integration of dif-
ferent noneconomic groups. How? By weakening the agglomeration forces that sustain
cosmopolitan, multiethnic cities. The extent to which globalization does, in this way,
promote ethnic or cultural clustering is another question requiring further research, with
Amy Chua’s provocative World on Fire (2002) serving as a useful point of departure.
38. Fukuyama 1989.
39. Ravallion and Jalan 1999; see also Raiser 1998 and Jian, Sachs, and Warner 1996.
40. Segal 1994, 15.
41. See esp. Herbst 2000.
42. This last entry is admittedly controversial, though recent empirical strongly suggests
that the American electorate is sorting into clusters with widely divergent policy pref-
erences based on class, income, and occupational-sectoral differences (see esp. Bishop
2008), and that these divergences have been contributing to partisan polarization at all
three levels, the district, the state, and the nation as a whole (e.g., Ansolabehere, Rodden,
and Snyder 2006; McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2006; Bartels 2008; Gelman 2008).
This more recent empirical work bears out the earlier predictions of Arthur Schlesinger’s
The Disuniting of America (1992). See also Reich 1991; Wilson 1997; and especially
Jargowsky 1996, 1997.
43. I am grateful to Brian Gaines for useful discussions on this point.

44. Compare with Lipset and Rokkan 1967.
45. Gourevitch 1979; Alesina and Spolaore 1997; Bolton and Roland 1997; Alesina, Spolaore,
and Wacziarg 2000; Hiscox 2003.
46. Alesina, Baqir, and Hoxby 2004.
47. Although this scenario lies at one end of a spectrum of possibilities, it often makes
sense—for theory-building purposes—to begin with the simplest case. Good examples
here, all touching on similar questions, are Casella and Weingast 1995; Alesina and
Spolaore 1997; Bolton and Roland 1997; and Hiscox 2003.
48. A possible exception would be if the poor region were characterized by higher lev-
els of income inequality than was the case for the nation as a whole. In that event, a
poor-group secession would allow the new state to tax its richest inhabitants at a steeper
rate than had been in effect prior to the secession. This theoretical possibility is explored
by Bolton and Roland 1997, though whether it fits any real-world cases is an open ques-
tion; see van Houten 2003, for instance.
49. One implication is that the United States, by wielding the full range of policy tools at its
disposal, can wield great influence over the internal political structures of other countries.
In this way, the logic here runs directly counter to today’s conventional wisdom. Short of
long-term occupation, goes the more familiar line of argument, the United States simply
no longer has the means to shape the domestic political institutions of other countries.
While we may not like seeing once-stable societies break into warring factions, there is
little we can do about it unless we are prepared to use force. And because threats only
work when they are credible, even force itself is problematic: if the citizens of newly
established democratic states find it impossible to reconcile their differences, the United
States will not be able to make them. Nor is it a small task—even for hegemonic pow-
ers—to restore democracy to states that have lost it or, indeed, never had it; witness
Cuba, Haiti, and now, some would argue, Iraq and Afghanistan.
50. Although my focus here has been on US policy, I want to emphasize that the basic thrust
of my argument would apply to the European Union as well. Lest one doubt that EU
accession rules can affect the internal structure of non-EU states, see Carol Skalnik Leff ’s
(1997) fascinating study of Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Divorce” in 1992. Had the members
of the EU made it clear that breakaway states would not be welcome in the EU’s newly
inaugurated internal market, the Czech and Slovak sides would have had greater incen-
tives to reconcile their differences and, according to Leff, their marriage may never have
dissolved.
51. The term “privileged position” comes from Lindblom 1977, though the same theme also
runs through the writings of Marx and—more recently—Przeworski and Wallerstein
1988, Garrett 1998, Rogowski 1998, and Boix 2003.
52. See, e.g., Alesina and Spolaore 1997; Rodrik 1997.
53. Although the difficulty of restricting cross-border flows of goods and capital is a recur-
rent theme in the IPE literature, the most important constraint that governments may
run up against in their efforts to manage globalization may well be the least studied: the
difficulty of restricting cross-border flows of people, particularly those well-endowed with
human capital.
54. The political forces motivating globalization’s “enactors” to choose one institutional form
over another has emerged in recent years as another major subject of debate in main-
stream IPE research (see, e.g., Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal 2001; Kahler and Lake
2003; Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Hawkins, Lake, Nielson, and Tierney 2006). These
same themes—and the same emphasis, if not overemphasis, on short-term consid-
erations—has also characterized much of my own previous work, inquiring as it does
into the politics and not just the longer-run economics of international cooperation (see
Gruber 2000, 2001, 2005).
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13
The Tragedy of the Global

Institutional Commons
Daniel W. Drezner
In recent years there has been a proliferation of international rules, laws, and
institutional fora in world politics. The 2008 financial crisis and subsequent Great
Recession have spurred additional calls for new regimes—and new responsibili-
ties for older regimes.1 This spike in supply and demand has been matched by
renewed attention to the role that forum shopping, nested and overlapping insti-
tutions, and regime complexes play in shaping the patterns of global governance.2
Some policy makers, a fair number of international relations scholars, and many
international lawyers posit that these trends will lead to more rule-based out-
comes in world politics.
This increased attention has not necessarily improved our theoretical under-
standing of the phenomenon, however. The increasing thickness of the global
institutional environment clearly suggests a change in the fabric of world poli-
tics.3 Just as clearly, however, multiple actors in international relations have dem-
onstrated a willingness to engage in forum shopping in order to advance their
interests on the global stage.4 This leads to an important question. Does the pro-
liferation of rules, laws, norms, and organizational forms lead to an increase in
rule-based outcomes, or merely an increase in forum shopping?
This chapter argues that the growth of global governance can have a para-
doxical effect on world order. Institutional thickening eventually erodes the
causal mechanisms that—according to the institutionalist paradigm—foster
cooperation in an anarchic world. As global governance structures morph from
international regimes to regime complexes, legal and organizational prolifera-
tion can shift world politics from rule-based outcomes to power-based out-
comes. Proliferation enhances the ability of powerful states to engage in forum
shopping relative to other actors. To be sure, weaker actors, as well as the great
powers, will avail themselves of forum shopping as a strategy. There are a vari-
ety of reasons, however, why international regime complexity stacks the deck in
favor of the strong over the weak to a greater degree than the status quo ante.
280
The Trag edy o f the Gl obal Insti t uti onal Commons 281
In the process, institutional proliferation erodes the causal mechanisms through

which regimes ostensibly strengthen international cooperation.
For the purposes of this chapter, I define state power as a function of national
capabilities and state capacity. In my previous work, I have relied primarily on
national economic capabilities to demonstrate how states get what they want
in world politics.5 That observation remains true in the twenty-first century;
powerful states act as centers of gravity for profit-seeking actors in the global
economy. Security scholars acknowledge that market size is a necessary pre-
condition for converting a country’s potential power into actual state power.6
Because states live in an institutionally thick environment, however, raw material
capabilities are an insufficient condition for states to be powerful. In a world of
international institutional proliferation, state capacity is also a necessary element
of power. For states to successfully navigate across regime complexes, they must
draw upon a Weberian administrative apparatus. States with significant capacity
possess trained cadres of legal, professional, and scientific experts. Great powers
have the capacity to coordinate actions across an array of national bureaucracies
and advance the national interest in multiple overlapping forums.7
If even powerful actors are constrained from forum shopping, then the ero-
sion of global governance structures would be ameliorated. We can label this
property the degree of viscosity within global governance structures. In fluid
mechanics, viscosity is the resistance a material has to change in its form. High
levels of viscosity imply a material that changes slowly. In global governance,
high levels of viscosity would imply substantial amounts of internal friction
within a single regime complex, raising the costs of forum shifting. It is worth
contemplating whether some regime complexes possess higher rates of viscos-
ity than others—and also whether some regime complexes grow more or less
viscous over time.
Recent literature on international organizations, including the rational design
school, propose a number of factors that could explain the relative viscosity of
global governance structures.8 To assess these possible constraints, this chapter
looks at two regime complexes that would be considered to possess high degrees
of viscosity—the public health amendment to the TRIPS accord, and the Law
of the Sea constraint against the interdiction of ships on the open seas. In both
cases, the preexisting regime would be considered “strong” in terms of legaliza-
tion, norm coherence, and rule adherence. Nevertheless, the cases suggest that
these factors do not pose either a consistent or persistent constraint to forum
shopping. Even over short periods of time, powerful states can break down vis-
cosity within global governance structures.
The rest of this chapter is divided into seven sections. The next section
revisits the realist-institutionalist debate to understand why institutions initially
contribute to rule-based outcomes. The third section discusses why the pro-
liferation and legalization of global governance structures can undercut rather
than reinforce institutionalist theories of world politics. The following section

draws on recent literature to evaluate the collection of factors that could increase
the viscosity of global governance. The fifth section examines the great power
response to the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and public health to determine
how great powers worked around a hard-law constraint on pharmaceutical pat-
ents. The sixth section examines recent efforts to carve out a WMD exception
to international legal constraints against interdiction on the high seas. The final
section summarizes and concludes.
Why Institutions Matter

To understand why institutional proliferation can erode global governance, it is
worth recalling why international institutions are considered to be significant in
the first place. In the debate between realists and institutionalists from a gen-
eration ago, the latter group of theorists articulated clear causal mechanisms
through which international regimes and institutions affected world politics.9
Although this scholarly debate ran its course some time ago, the institutionalist
logic permanently shifted the terms of debate.
Neoliberal institutionalism posited that cooperation was possible in an anar-
chic world populated by states with unequal amounts of power.10 According to
this paradigm, international institutions are a key mechanism through which
cooperation becomes possible. One way institutions facilitate cooperation is by
constructing “focal points” for agreement between states in the international sys-
tem.11 This logic borrowed from the new institutionalist literature in American
politics, which focuses on the role that domestic institutions played in facilitat-
ing a “structure-induced equilibrium.” Neoliberal institutionalists made a parallel
argument about international regimes in world politics.12 By creating a com-
mon set of rules or norms for all participants, institutions foster the convergent
expectations that define cooperative behavior and define the conditions under
which states are labeled as defectors from the agreed-upon rules.
The importance of institutions as focal points for actors in world politics
is a recurring theme within the institutionalist literature. Indeed, this concept
is intrinsic to Stephen Krasner’s famous definition for international regimes:
“implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures
around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international rela-
tions.”13 More than a decade later, Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin reaffirmed
that, “in complex situations involving many states, international institutions can
step in to provide ‘constructed focal points’ that make particular cooperative
outcomes prominent.”14
By creating focal points and reducing the transaction costs of rule creation,
institutions can shift arenas of international relations from power-based outcomes
to rule-based outcomes. In the former, disputes are resolved without any articu-
lated or agreed-upon set of decision-making norms or principles. The result is a
Hobbesian order commonly associated with the realist paradigm.15 While such a
system does not automatically imply that force or coercion will be used by stron-
ger states to secure their interests, the shadow of such coercion is ever-present in
the calculations of weaker actors.16
Institutionalists fully acknowledge that power plays a role in determining
rule-based outcomes as well.17 However, they would also posit that the creation
of a well-defined international regime imposes constraints on the behavior of
actors that are not present in a strictly Hobbesian system. As Duncan Snidal
puts it, “institutions drive a wedge between power and outcomes. That is, out-
comes cannot be predicted simply by understanding states’ power (and inter-
est) without reference to the institutions that connect them.”18 Institutions act
as binding mechanisms that permit displays of credible commitment, for great
powers and small states alike.19 In pledging to abide by clearly defined rules,
great powers make it easier for others to detect their own noncooperative behav-
ior. Even great powers will incur reputation costs if they choose to defect. If a
particular regime is codified, it imposes additional legal obligations to comply
that augment the reputation costs of defection.20 In the case of the World Trade
Organization (WTO), for example, the spread of hard law has made it increas-
ingly difficult for governments to waive obligations by invoking escape clauses or
safeguards.21 Even if the strong write the rules, institutionalists argue, those rules
provide certainty and protection for the weak as compared to a lawless world.
For smaller and weaker actors, institutions provide an imperfect shield against
the vicissitudes of a purely Hobbesian order.22
Most variety of realists allow that, at least at the margins, international institu-
tions enable rule-based outcomes. Mainstream realist scholars acknowledged that
international regimes persist despite changes in the underlying distribution of
power.23 Even offensive realists acknowledge that international institutions amelio-
rate the cheating problem that anarchy poses.24 Other realists have acknowledged
the contributions made by neoliberal institutionalists.25 For any given issue area,
moving from an anarchical world structure to one with coherent international
regimes shifts world politics from Hobbesian to Lockean outcomes.
The Tangled Web of Global Governance

For the first generation of institutionalist literature, the animating problem was
how to surmount the transaction costs necessary to agree upon the rules of the
game in a world where there were no institutional focal points.26 The prolifera-
tion of international law and international organizations reduces the importance
of this question, however.27 Table 13.1 demonstrates the proliferation of global
Table 13.1 Growth in Global Governance Structures
Type of international regime 1981 1993 2003

International bodies 863 945 993
Subsidiaries or emanations of international bodies 590 1100 1467
Autonomous international conferences 34 91 133
Multilateral treaties 1419 1812 2323
TOTAL 2906 3948 4916
Source: Union of International Organizations, data accessed at http://www.uia.org/statistics/
organizations/ytb299.php.
governance structures in recent years. There has clearly been a steady increase in
the number of conventional international governmental organizations (IGOs),
autonomous conferences, and multilateral treaties.
The causes for institutional proliferation are variegated, ranging from func-
tional to opportunistic to mimetic causes.28 An increase in “issue density”
undoubtedly stimulates the demand for new rules, laws, and institutions.29 In
other instances, the “capture” of international institutional institutions by a
powerful state or interest group could spur the creation of countervailing orga-
nizational forms.30 The creation of new regimes is a stratagem for rational state
actors to cope with situations of uncertainty and complexity.31 The bounded
rationality of international actors explains the existence of such structures.
Organizational overlap is created when institutions are created in an evolu-
tionary manner, suggesting that such instances are not necessarily planned in
advance.32 The world society school posits that actors create new rules and
institutions as a mimetic exercise to adopt the forms of powerful institutions—
which can explain the expansion of world associations and the proliferation of
regional groupings.33 For the concerns of this chapter, the relevant fact is that
the sources of institutional proliferation are neither strictly endogenous nor
strictly opportunistic.34
In a world thick with institutions, cooperation under anarchy is no longer the
central problem for institutionalists. The puzzle now shifts to selecting among
a welter of possible governance arrangements.35 As Duncan Snidal and Joseph
Jupille point out: “Institutional choice is now more than just a starting point for
analysts and becomes the dependent variable to be explained in the context of
alternative options.”36 The current generation of institutionalist work recognizes
the existence of multiple and overlapping institutional orders.37 For many issues
and/or regions, more than one international organization can claim competency.
Kal Raustiala and David Victor label this phenomenon as regime complexes: “an
array of partially overlapping and nonhierarchical institutions governing a par-
ticular issue-area. Regime complexes are marked by the existence of several legal
agreements that are created and maintained in distinct fora with participation of
different sets of actors.”38
Many scholars, lawyers, and practitioners have welcomed the proliferation
of international institutions. The literature on regime complexes and the pro-
gressive legalization of world politics examines the extent to which these legal
overlaps constitute a new source of specific politics and what strategies govern-
ments pursue to maneuver in such an institutional environment.39 The editors of
Legalization and World Politics observe approvingly that “in general, greater insti-
tutionalization implies that institutional rules govern more of the behavior of
important actors—more in the sense that behavior previously outside the scope
of particular rules is now within that scope or that behavior that was previously
regulated is now more deeply regulated.”40 International lawyers by and large
concur with this assessment.41 Relying on a different causal logic, public-choice
scholars affirm that the growth in the number of regimes will stimulate compe-
tition—and therefore more-efficient governance.42
Policy makers and policy analysts issue calls for ever-increasing institutional
thickness.43 In the final report of the Princeton Project on National Security,
John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter concluded,
Harnessing cooperation in the 21st century will require many new

kinds of institutions, many of them network-based, to provide speed,
flexibility, and context-based decision making tailored to specific prob-
lems. This combination of institutions, and the habits and practices of
cooperation that they would generate—even amid ample day-to-day
tensions and diplomatic conflict—would represent the infrastructure of
an overall international order that provides the stability and governance
capacity necessary to address global problems.44
The proliferation of international rules, laws, and institutional forms might lead
to the outcomes predicted by Ikenberry, Slaughter, et al. As regimes grow into
regime complexes, however, there are at least four reasons to believe that the
institutionalist logic for how regimes generate rule-based orders will fade in their
effect. Institutional proliferation dilutes the power of previously constructed focal
points. The existence of overlapping rules raises the costs of monitoring opportu-
nistic defections from existing regimes. The creation of conflicting legal mandates
weakens actors’ overall sense of legal obligation, softening hard-law arrangements
in the process. Finally, the increased complexity of global governance structures
raises the costs of national compliance with international mandates with more
severe resource constraints. All of these reasons create dynamics that favor the
great powers more than would be expected under the institutionalist paradigm.
The proliferation of regime complexes and decision-making fora leads to an
inevitable increase in the number of possible focal points around which rules and
expectations can converge. This is true even if newer institutions are created to
buttress norms emanating from existing regimes. Actors that create new rules, laws,
and organizations will consciously or unconsciously adapt these regimes to their
political, legal, and cultural particularities.45 Even if the original intent is to rein-
force existing regimes, institutional mutations will take place that can be exploited
via forum shopping as domestic interests and institutions change over time.
The problem, of course, is that by definition focal points should be rare, oth-
erwise it becomes more problematic to develop common conjectures. Indeed, in
his original articulation of the idea, Thomas Schelling stressed that uniqueness
was essential for focal points to have any coordinating power.46 If the number
of constructed focal points increases, then actors in world politics face a larger
menu of possible rule sets to negotiate. Logically, actors will seek out the forum
where they would expect the most favorable outcome.47
Second, the proliferation of international rules, laws, and regimes makes it
more difficult to determine and detect when an actor has intentionally defected
from a preexisting regime. Within a single international regime, the focal point
should be clear enough for participating actors to recognize when a state is devi-
ating from the agreed-upon rules. If there are multiple, conflicting regimes that
govern a particular issue area, then actors can argue that they are complying
with the regime that favors their interests the most, even if they are consciously
defecting from other regimes. This undercuts the costs to reputation that osten-
sibly binds states to keep their international commitments.48
Consider, for example, the persistent trade dispute between the United States
and the European Union over genetically modified organisms in food.49 The
United States insists that the issue falls under the WTO’s purview—because the
WTO has embraced rules that require the EU to demonstrate scientific proof
that GMOs are unsafe. The EU counters that the issue falls under the 2001
Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety—because that protocol embraces the precau-
tionary principle of regulation. The result is a legal deadlock, with the biosafety
protocol’s precautionary principle infringing upon the trade regime’s norm of
scientific proof of harm. Neither actor suffers significant reputational costs from
noncompliance with the other actor’s favored regime.
Third, the legalization of world politics can paradoxically reduce the sense
of legal obligation that improves actor compliance with international regimes.
Scholars of international law argue that the principle of pacta sunt servanda, but-
tressed by the general norms and procedures of the international legal system,
imposes important obligations upon states.50 The proliferation of international
law, however, can lead to overlapping or even conflicting legal obligations. If one
posits an evolutionary model of institutional growth, such an occurrence can
take place even if actors are trying to adhere in good faith to prior legal man-
dates. International legal scholars have been aware of this problem, labeling it
the “fragmentation” of international law.51
Once conflicting obligations emerge, so does the problem of reconciling such

a conflict. As Raustiala and Victor point out, “the international legal system has
no formal hierarchy of treaty rules. Nor does it possess well-established mecha-
nisms or principles for resolving the most difficult conflicts across the various
elemental regimes.”52 This statement reflects the consensus of international legal
scholars, despite recent efforts to articulate hierarchical norms. The principle of
equivalence means that national governments can legally evade international laws
and treaties that conflict with their current interests by seeking out regimes that
espouse contradictory norms. Even if governments did not initially intend to act
opportunistically when creating overlapping law, shifts in either the international
environment or domestic political preferences can create political incentives for
exploiting their existence—and, in the process, erode or shift the opinio juris
necessary for international law to function properly.
This problem is hardly unique to international law. In American politics, for
example, different federal and state agencies with overlapping mandates will often
conflict at the joints of a complex policy problem. This leads to legal or bureau-
cratic battles. There is at least one important difference between the domestic
and international realms, however. In American politics, administrative law and
administrative courts function as a means for adjudicating overlapping mandates.
When the courts issue their rulings, they are reasonably confident that their judg-
ments will be executed. No concomitant body of widely recognized law exists at
the international level.53 Furthermore, courts like the WTO Appellate Body and
the International Court of Justice will be wary of issuing rulings that clarify the
hierarchy of law, particularly if the dispute involves great powers. Courts wish to
preserve their authority, which means that they will be wary of issuing rulings
that will lead to noncompliance. Since international courts possess no enforce-
ment power, they will be loath to make judgments about the hierarchy of law
that they know will be ignored by countries with the capability to resist. In the
case of the GMO dispute, for example, the WTO panel declined to say anything
about the relationship between trade and environmental law.
The effect of overlapping legal mandates and reluctant international courts
is a softening of hard law. Obligation, precision, and delegation are the three
criteria by which international relations scholars judge law to be hard or soft. If
the question of which laws apply when becomes an open question that courts
are unwilling to answer, then one can see hard law begin to weaken on both the
obligation and precision dimensions.
Finally, and related to the last point, institutional proliferation increases the
complexity of legal and technical rules. Negotiating the myriad global gover-
nance structures and treaties requires considerable amounts of legal training
and technical expertise related to the issue area at hand. This is particularly true
when dealing with regime complexes that contain potentially inconsistent ele-
ments. Navigating these competing or overlapping global governance structures
requires a great deal of investment in specialized human capital—raising the

costs of compliance.
Institutional proliferation will encourage all actors to exploit the complex envi-
ronment to advance their own interests. Indeed, developing countries have per-
sistently tried to use United Nations economic institutions to thwart or override
the Bretton Woods institutions.54 However, there are strong reasons to believe
that regime complexity enhances the bargaining advantages of great powers more
than would be the case in a world of coherent international regimes. Consider,
for example, the proliferation of focal point institutions. Because powerful states
possess greater capabilities for institutional creation and rule promulgation,
regime complexity endows them with additional agenda-setting powers relative
to a single regime.55 For example, Emilie Hafner-Burton looks at the relative per-
formance of overlapping regimes concerning human rights and trade.56 She finds
statistical evidence that human rights provisions contained within American and
European preferential trade agreements have a more significant effect on human
rights performance than the effect of United Nations human rights treaties. In
this situation, the ability of the United States and European Union to shift fora
away from the United Nations and into trade deals allowed these governments
to push for their preferred human rights standards. Power, in and of itself, is one
way to generate new focal points.
Similarly, international regime complexity also allows great powers to exploit
the higher costs of monitoring and enforcement. In theory, institutionalists
ascribe monitoring and enforcement activities to international regimes. In prac-
tice, most global governance structures rely on the states themselves to report on
compliance by themselves and others. Because the great powers possess greater
monitoring and enforcement capabilities, they will be more willing to detect
outright defections by weaker actors. Power asymmetries, however, will prevent
smaller actors from being able to contest similar defections by the great powers.
Although nongovernmental organizations can potentially ally with weaker actors
to provide additional monitoring capabilities,57 their capabilities simply do not
match those of the great powers.
Competing legal claims also advantage the great powers. States, international
governmental organizations, and courts will face difficulties in trying to imple-
ment policies that lie at the joints of regime complexes.58 Politically, however,
this gap in legal clarity privileges more powerful actors at the expense of weaker
ones. As Eyal Benvenisti and George Downs observe, “A fragmented legal order
provides powerful states with much needed flexibility. . . . the existence of mul-
tiple contesting institutions removes the need for them to commit themselves
irrevocably to any given one. This helps them to manage risk, and it increases
their already substantial bargaining power.”59 Legal scholars further acknowledge
that a few powerful actors are fully capable of shifting international customary
law on a given subject.60 Finally, when states bring conflicting legal precedents
to a negotiation, the actor with greater enforcement capabilities will have the
bargaining advantage. One reason the United States and EU benefit so much
from the World Trade Organization is not just that they can sanction countries
that violate WTO rules—but that the sanctioning power of smaller countries is
more limited.
Finally, the rising costs of legal and technical interpretation also advantage the
great powers. Although these transaction costs of interpreting and promulgating
rules in a world of regime complexity might seem trivial to great powers with
large bureaucracies, they can be imposing for smaller states.61 Specialized human
capital is a relatively scarce resource in much of the developing world.62 It is less
problematic for states that command significant resources. This asymmetry in
resources allows great power governments to interpret and implement rules in
ways that favor their interests. Even relatively large emerging states, like Brazil,
have found themselves outmanned in negotiating new institutional arrangements
with both the United States and the European Union.63
Figure 13.1 displays the relationship posited here between institutional thick-
ness and the prevalence of rule-based outcomes. The institutionalist paradigm
would predict a positive and linear relationship between the legalization and rule
adherence. The argument presented here suggests a more parabolic relationship.
In moving from a purely Hobbesian order to one with a coherent, well-defined
international regime, there is a marked shift away from power-based outcomes
to rule-based outcomes. However, as institutional thickness increases, the preva-
lence of power-based outcomes increases. Contrary to the expectations of global
governance scholars and practitioners, after a certain point the proliferation of
nested and overlapping regimes and the legalization of world politics actually
abets more realpolitik outcomes.
A world of institutional proliferation turns the realist-institutionalist debate
on its head. If it is possible for the major powers to shift policy from one fora to
Rule-based
outcomes
Power-based
outcomes Institutional Proliferation
Figure 13.1 Institutional Proliferation and World Order

another, an institutionally thick world begins to resemble the neorealist depic-

tion of anarchy. A hegemon like the United States has the luxury of selecting
the forum that maximizes decision-making legitimacy while ensuring the pre-
ferred outcome. For example, in the wake of the financial crises of the nineties,
the G-7 countries shifted decision-making from the friendly confines of the IMF
to the even friendlier confines of the Financial Stability Forum.64 If there are
only minimal costs to forum shopping, and if different IGOs promulgate legally
equivalent outputs, then institutional thickness, combined with low levels of vis-
cosity, actually increases the likelihood of neorealist policy outcomes.
US policy makers are quite aware of the ability to exploit institutional pro-
liferation to advance American interests.65 The March 2006 National Security
Strategy explicitly stated: “Where existing institutions can be reformed to meet
new challenges, we, along with our partners, must reform them. Where appro-
priate institutions do not exist, we, along with our partners, must create them.”66
This attitude toward institutional proliferation was hardly limited to officials in
the Bush administration. Clinton administration officials also prided themselves
on their ability to forum shop in order to advance American interests.67 Buried
in a critique of Bush-era policies, Francis Fukuyama supports a similar forum-
shopping strategy:68 “An appropriate agenda for American foreign policy will be
to promote a world populated by a large number of overlapping and sometimes
competitive international institutions, what can be labeled multi-multilateral-
ism. . . . a multiplicity of geographically and functionally overlapping institutions
will permit the United States and other powers to ‘forum shop’ for an appropri-
ate instrument to facilitate international cooperation.” The Obama administra-
tion explicitly switched fora from the G-7 to the G-20 in 2009.69
Candidate Constraints to Forum Shopping

The hypothesis presented here on the ways in which institutional proliferation
can undercut the institutionalist logic rests on a key assumption: forum shop-
ping is a relatively cost-free strategy for international actors. Is this true? Recent
work on international organizations—including the rational design project and
legalization efforts in the pages of International Organization—suggest a welter
of possible variables that would present costs to forum shifting: membership,
scope, centralization, legalization, and legitimacy, among others.70
While these variables undeniably affect the origins of international regimes,
the shift in focus from forum creation to forum shifting renders many of these
factors less important. The variables of concern in the study of regime creation
seem less salient in looking at institutional choice. Any examination of the cohe-
sion of international choice must recognize that at some point in the past, the
relevant actors were able to agree on a set of strategies such that cooperation
was the equilibrium outcome.71 This means that the costs of monitoring and
enforcement could not have been too great. As James Fearon observes: “There
is a potentially important selection effect behind cases of international negotia-
tions aimed at cooperation. We should observe serious attempts at international
cooperation in cases where the monitoring and enforcement dilemmas are prob-
ably resolvable.”72
This selection effect implies that some factors affecting the origins of interna-
tional cooperation are not as relevant for explaining the viscosity of international
regimes. For example, cooperation theorists place a great deal of emphasis on
the ability of international regimes to centralize the provision of information to
ensure effective monitoring of norm adherence.73 While it cannot be questioned
that imperfect information about actions can lead to the breakdown of coop-
eration, it would be odd to claim that states invest in negotiations to reach an
agreement without considering how to monitor it.74 It would be hard to believe
that information provision would provide a barrier to forum shopping.
Consider the example of membership, which has been posited as a bar-
rier to forum shopping through its effects on collective legitimacy. An IGO
has high legitimacy if it can enhance the normative desire to comply with
the promulgated rules and regulations. Norms derive their power in part
from the number of actors that formally accept them.75 The greater the num-
ber of actors that accept a rule or regulation, the greater the social pressure
on recalcitrant actors to change their position.76 As an IGO’s membership
increases, its perceived “democratic” mandate concomitantly increases—
thereby enhancing its legitimating power. On this dimension, the more pow-
erful compliance-inducing IGOs are those with the widest membership—such
as the United Nations organizations.77 Aspiring forum shoppers must factor in
the costs of lost legitimacy if they try to shift governance responsibilities away
from legitimate institutions.
This logic is compelling but incomplete, in that it ignores the existence of
alternative sources of collective legitimacy. Membership affects process legiti-
macy, under the assumption that an IGO with more participants confers greater
authority. Beyond membership, however, IGOs can derive process legitimacy
from other factors, such as technical expertise, a track record of prior suc-
cess, or simply the aggregate power of member governments.78 In some cases,
the democratic character of the member states in question affects legitimacy.79
For example, the United States opted to launch its 1999 bombing campaign
against Serbia with the backing of NATO rather than the United Nations
Security Council. This action generated minimal costs in terms of legitimacy;
indeed, the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, retroactively gave his blessing to
the operation.80 One could argue that was for two reasons. First, in terms of
military power, expertise, and prior success at peace enforcement, NATO had
greater legitimacy than the United Nations, despite the latter IGO’s advantage in
membership. Second, Serbia’s specific reputation as a transgressive actor during

the Balkan Wars endowed NATO with a greater moral legitimacy.81
At first glance, theoretical factors that affect the design and effectiveness of
regime complexes do not appear to alter their viscosity. Indeed, in looking at a
range of empirical cases from the global political economy, there appear to be
few barriers to forum shifting when the great powers want to change the content
or enforcement of the rules.82
The Aftermath of the TRIPS Amendment on Public Health

The intellectual property rights (IPR) regime complex for pharmaceuticals repre-
sents a tough test for the arguments made in previous sections of this chapter.83
The World Trade Organization is the center of gravity for the IPR regime com-
plex and has the reputation of being a high-functioning organization. Its Dispute
Settlement Understanding represents the gold standard of international judicial
power. The humanitarian norms invoked on the issue of pharmaceutical patents
are singularly powerful. Once rules promoting the diffusion of life-saving drugs
were enshrined, global civil society scholars posited, it would be extremely dif-
ficult for even powerful states to evade their normative power.84 If any regime
should have displayed persistently high levels of viscosity, it should have been
this one.
In November 2001, at the Doha ministerial meeting of the World Trade
Organization (WTO), member governments responded to concerns that the
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
was too stringent in the protection of patented pharmaceuticals. Members
signed off on the “Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health,”
or Doha Declaration. This declaration stated that “the TRIPS Agreement does
not and should not prevent members from taking measures to protect public
health. . . . The Agreement can and should be interpreted and implemented in a
manner supportive of WTO members’ right to protect public health and, in par-
ticular, to promote access to medicines for all.”85 In August 2003, an additional
WTO agreement was reached to clarify remaining ambiguities from the Doha
Declaration.86 In December 2005 these agreements were codified through a per-
manent amendment to the TRIPS accord.87 These events were the culmination
of a sustained campaign by global civil society designed to scale back intellectual
property restrictions on the production and distribution of generic drugs to the
developing world.88
If the story ended with the formal amendment to the TRIPS regime, then it
could be argued that viscosity in global governance represents an effective brake
against the dynamics discussed here about the problems of institutional prolif-
eration and fragmentation. However, the story does not end. After the Doha
ministerial, however, a parallel story emerged, enabling the regulation of IPR

to shift back toward the great powers’ preferred set of outcomes. This has hap-
pened largely because of the proliferation of new institutional forms—namely,
bilateral free trade agreements.89
Even prior to the Doha Declaration, some countries had pushed for the
inclusion of stronger IPR protections than TRIPS—referred colloquially as
“TRIPS-plus”—in trade agreements outside the WTO framework.90 After Doha,
however, the developed economies—led by the United States—began pursuing
this tactic with greater fervor. The European Commission and the European Free
Trade Area both inserted TRIPS-plus IPR provisions into their free trade agree-
ments with developing countries.91 EU agreements with Tunisia and Morocco,
for example, included provisions requiring IPR protection and enforcement “in
line with the highest international standards.”
The United States was equally persistent in this practice. Table 13.2 demon-
strates the TRIPS-plus IPR provisions in US trade agreements that have been
negotiated since 2000. In all these cases, TRIPS-plus provisions were inserted
into the text of the agreement. Beyond the use of FTAs, the United States has
Table 13.2 IPR Provisions in American FTAs, 2000–2006
FTA Mandatory Protection of Marketing Limits on parallel

patent test data restrictions imports or compulsory
extensions licensing
Jordan X X
Singapore X X X X
Chile X X X
Australia X X X
Morocco X X X X
CAFTA X X X
Bahrain X X X
Peru X X X
Oman* X
Colombia* X X X
Thailand* X X
*FTA negotiated but not ratified
Sources: Committee on Government Reform minority staff, US House of Representatives, Trade
Agreements and Access to Medications under the Bush Administration, Washington, DC, June 2005;
Oxfam, Patents versus Patients: Five Years after the Doha Declaration, Oxfam Briefing Paper no. 95,
November 2006; Consumer Project on Technology, “Health Care, Regional Trade Agreements,
and Intellectual Property,” http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/trade/ (accessed January 11, 2007).
also used the carrot of bilateral investment treaties in order to secure bilateral
intellectual property agreements that can include TRIPS-plus agreements.92
Over time, the viscosity of global governance on intellectual property rights has
lessened.
These FTAs have increased the legal complexity of the intellectual prop-
erty regime for the signatory parties. The TRIPS-plus provisions contained in
FTAs would appear to conflict with the norms embedded within the Doha
Declaration. Indeed, most of these FTAs contained side-letters specifically men-
tioning that nothing in the FTA should infringe on the Doha Declaration. For
example, the side letter to CAFTA states that the treaty’s intellectual property
provisions “do not affect a Party’s ability to take necessary measures to protect
public health by promoting access to medicines for all, in particular concerning
cases such as HIV/AIDS.”93 The Doha Declaration is also explicitly mentioned in
the understanding. Frederick Abbott argues, however, that these side agreements
“are drafted in a substantially more restrictive way” than the Doha Declaration
itself.94 In interviews, USTR officials confirmed that the legal complexity was an
intentional strategy of the second-best. Since eliminating the TRIPS flexibilities
on public health was a nonstarter, the idea was to create a sufficient tangle of
law that FTA partners would be paralyzed into inaction and abstain from using
the flexibilities. At a minimum, the combination of legal texts introduces legal
uncertainty, constraining the flexibility of the TRIPS accord desired by develop-
ing countries and global civil society.
As table 13.2 demonstrates, the most prominent of the TRIPS-plus provi-
sions is the protection of test data.95 To satisfy government regulations, drug
manufacturers are required to undergo significant amounts of testing to demon-
strate safety and effectiveness, imposing additional costs on first-mover manufac-
turers. Data protection prevents other drug manufacturers from relying on that
data to obtain approval for drugs that are chemically identical to the original
patent-holder drug. The United States ensures data protection for five years;
EU member states offer between six to ten years. In 2005, the USTR stated in
its Special 301 Report to Congress that data protection would be “one of the
key implementation priorities” for the executive branch. The report went on
to identify deficiencies in data protection for pharmaceuticals testing in more
than twenty countries, including China, India, Russia, Mexico, and Thailand.96
Even this implicit threat of economic coercion was sufficient to force dependent
allies into altering their regulations on these issues.97 By ensuring the protection
of test data in these FTAs, developed countries have successfully extended the
scope of patent protections.
Both proponents and opponents of patent protection on pharmaceuticals
agree that the ground has shifted in favor of the US position. Many of the same
global civil society scholars and activists who claimed a victory at Doha acknowl-
edge that the proliferation of “TRIPS-plus” provisions in free trade agreements
undercuts the public health norm established at Doha.98 Frederick Abbott, who
under the auspices of the Quaker United Nations Office provided legal assistance
to developing countries in TRIPS negotiations, concludes that the developing
world and NGOs have “substantially increased their negotiating effectiveness in
Geneva but have yet to come to grips with the U.S. forum-shifting strategy.”99 In
a May 2004 letter to US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, approximately
ninety NGOs protested the inclusion of these TRIPS-plus provisions in FTAs,
stating, “Intellectual property provisions in US free trade agreements already
completed or currently being negotiated will severely delay and restrict generic
competition . . . through complex provisions related to market authorization and
registration of medicines.”100 In a November 2006 report, Oxfam International
declared that “every FTA signed or currently under negotiation has disregarded
the fundamental obligations of the Declaration by maintaining or imposing
higher levels of intellectual property protection.”101
It should be stressed that these developments represent a second-best out-
come for the developed countries.102 Given their preference orderings, their ideal
outcome would have been for the Doha Declaration to never have been signed
in the first place. Since Doha, however, the United States and European coun-
tries have successfully pursued a forum-shopping strategy to achieve their desired
ends. The proliferation of laws and institutions since the Doha Declaration has
shifted the status quo closer to the preferred outcome of the great powers, one
in which flexibility is invoked only in times of crisis epidemics. At the same
time, this proliferation has increased the degree of legal uncertainty developing
countries must face when they contemplate this issue. While the final outcome
does not precisely fit with great power preferences, a strategy of institutional
proliferation has allowed these states to get far more than legal observers pre-
dicted in 2001.
Interdiction on the High Seas

In December 2002, acting on intelligence from the United States, a Spanish
frigate boarded the freighter So San and discovered fifteen Scud-type missiles
bound for Yemen from North Korea. Yemeni officials demanded that the mis-
siles be delivered. That same month, the Bush administration had emphasized
in its National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that
“effective interdiction is a critical part of the U.S. strategy to combat WMD and
their delivery means.”103 Despite this affirmative statement, a reluctant United
States complied with the Yemeni request.
The official reason proffered for this decision was the desire not to violate
international norms regarding the interdiction of cargo on the high seas. In
explaining the decision, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer stated that “there
is no provision under international law prohibiting Yemen from accepting deliv-

ery of missiles from North Korea. . . . In this instance there is no clear authority
to seize the shipment of Scud missiles from North Korea to Yemen. And there-
fore, the merchant vessel is being released.”104 The undersecretary of state for
arms control, John Bolton, complained that “fear from the lawyers had caused
panic,” preventing a seizure of the weapons.105
Prior to 2002, the rules regarding interdiction on the high seas were relatively
clear and straightforward. As Douglas Guilfoyle writes, “With only a few limited
exceptions . . . it is clear that a warship or law-enforcement vessel may not board a
foreign vessel in international waters without flag state consent.”106 This principle
is codified in article 6 of the 1958 High Seas Convention and article 92 of the
United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Despite its failure
to ratify the Law of the Sea treaty, the United States embraced this norm when the
Reagan administration pledged in 1983 to abide by almost all of its provisions.107
The motivation for US adherence derives from the substantial benefits that come
from the unimpeded movement of commercial and military shipping.108 In the
aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks and North Korea’s decision to
pursue uranium enrichment, however, the United States became concerned about
the shipment of WMD materials to terrorist groups. The inability to seize the So
San’s cargo highlighted the US dissatisfaction with the status quo.
The incident triggered a sustained effort, spearheaded by the United States,
to carve out another exception to the Law of the Sea that permitted the forcible
interdiction of WMD materials. To do this, the United States launched a new
regime complex to ratchet up interdiction capabilities. In June 2003, President
Bush announced the creation of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) to
“aims to enhance and expand our efforts to prevent the flow of WMD, their
delivery systems, and related materials on the ground, in the air, and at sea, to
and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern.”109 Two weeks
later, the “core group” of the PSI met in Madrid to hammer out the details of
the initiative. The United States initially kept the core group limited to eleven
countries, all of them treaty allies of the United States. The idea was to craft a
strong set of interdiction norms before expanding the regime.110
By September 2003, PSI members had agreed on a Statement of Interdiction
Principles to serve as the basis for further cooperation and activity.111 The
principles—based largely on US Defense Department guidance—encouraged
members to “strengthen their relevant national legal authorities” and “strengthen
when necessary relevant international law and frameworks” to support inter-
diction efforts.112 On the high seas, the principles urged members to “seriously
consider providing consent under the appropriate circumstances to the boarding
and searching of its own flag vessels by other states, and to the seizure of such
WMD-related cargoes in such vessels that may be identified by such states.” As
one research report observed: “the PSI relies on the ‘broken tail-light scenario’:
officials look for all available options to stop suspected transport of WMD or
WMD-related items.”113
PSI activities were not publicly advertised, but the initiative achieved some
policy successes. The PSI was credited with halting the shipment of centrifuges
to Libya in 2003. The interdiction was a contributing factor in that country’s
decision to renounce its WMD ambitions in December 2003.114 US officials
stated that between September 2004 and May 2005, the PSI acted on eleven
separate occasions; between April 2005 and April 2006, the PSI was activated
two dozen times.115
Legal scholars have been dubious about whether US ambitions for PSI would
be consistent with the Law of the Sea Treaty.116 Beyond the PSI, therefore, the
United States also shifted the international legal status quo on the issue through
three other mechanisms. First, the United States was able to secure unanimous
passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1540. The resolution called upon all
UN members to “take cooperative action to prevent illicit trafficking in nuclear,
chemical or biological weapons, their means of delivery, and related materials.”117
The State Department has stated publicly that it views 1540 as sufficient legal
authority for a country to cooperate with PSI activities. Beyond 1540, the Security
Council has passed three additional resolutions—1718, 1737, and 1747—that
authorized specific interdiction efforts against North Korea and Iran.
Second, the United States signed a series of bilateral treaties with “flag of con-
venience” states in order to facilitate interdiction on the high seas. Most of these
agreements require the United States to request permission from the flag state of
its intent to board and search a suspect vessel. If the country assents, or does not
reply within a few hours, permission is assume to be granted.118 Between 2004 and
2009, the United States signed nine of these treaties, including four with the larg-
est flag of convenience states: Cyprus, Liberia, Malta, and Panama.119 Combined
with the PSI core group members, by the end of 2007 the United States pos-
sessed the expedited ability to interdict more than half of world shipping.120
Third, in October 2005 the International Maritime Organization agreed upon
a new Suppression of Unlawful Acts (SUA) protocol.121 The new SUA protocol
amends the preexisting SUA to outlaw the shipment of WMDs and WMD mate-
riel. This includes “dual-use” material that “significantly contributes to the design,
manufacture, or delivery” of weapons of mass destruction. The protocol will enter
into force once the requisite number of states ratify it. The United States declared
that the SUA protocol would “provide an international legal basis to impede and
prosecute the trafficking of WMDs, their delivery systems and related materials
on the high seas.”122 Legal and security scholars concur with this assessment.123
The combined effect of these measures on the legal state of play remains
subject to debate. China and India pushed back against US efforts to create an
international norm permitting WMD interdiction on the high seas, particularly
via the PSI. China refused to approve 1540 until the United States removed any
explicit mention of the Proliferation Security Initiative. Beijing also rejected PSI
participation, expressing concerns about its legality. Because of its nuclear his-
tory, India has been wary of embracing the PSI, for fear that the new regime will
be targeted against its nuclear program.
Despite this resistance, however, the new counterproliferation norm attracted
an increasing number of adherents. More than sixty-five countries attended the
June 2006 meeting in Warsaw commemorating PSI’s third anniversary. By the
end of 2007, more than eighty countries, including Russia, had publicly com-
mitted to the initiative. The United Nations adopted a cautiously optimistic atti-
tude toward the PSI. The High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
requested all member governments to support the PSI. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan stated that the PSI would “fill a gap in our defenses.”124 There have also
been concrete effects on state behavior. In 2005, Denmark’s ambassador to the
United States asserted that “the shipment of missiles has fallen significantly in
the lifetime of PSI.”125
Several legal scholars argue that the proliferation of new rules, initiatives, and
practices will alter customary international law. As early as 2003, a critical legal
analysis of the new regime conceded that “a customary international law norm
against trafficking in nuclear materials may have formed.”126 As more countries
embrace the PSI, legal commentary on the regime has acknowledged the cre-
ation of an emergent interdiction norm. Joel Doolin argues that “over time, PSI
will make seizure of weapons of mass destruction at sea an international norm.”
In evaluating PSI and other efforts, Douglas Guilfoyle concludes, “The PSI may
not be an organization, but it is certainly a means of organization: it is a con-
tinually evolving strategy for the coordination of existing jurisdictional bases for
interdiction and the creation of new ones. This mere ‘activity’ has already had
legal effects.”127 Some security scholars go even further, arguing that these efforts
to create a new interdiction regime have created a new norm that permits the
preventive use of force short of war as a means to forestall proliferation.128
As with the intellectual property case, the current situation remains a second-
best outcome for the United States. The first-best option would be an explicit
amendment of the Law of the Sea Treaty categorizing WMD proliferation with
piracy and slavery as a clear exception to the right of free navigation. Given con-
tinued US failure to ratify the treaty, this outcome is highly unlikely. Nevertheless,
compared with the regime complex on this issue in 2002, the United States has
managed to shift the status quo toward its ideal point.
Conclusion
The proliferation of international rules, laws, and organizational forms does not
necessarily lead to an increase in rule-based outcomes. Institutional thickening
weakens the power of preexisting focal points, raises the costs and complexity of
monitoring and compliance, and creates conflicting legal obligations at the global
level. This situation endows great powers with fewer constraints and greater
capabilities to affect outcomes. Paradoxically, after a certain point the prolifer-
ation of global governance structures shifts the international system toward a
more Hobbesian environment.
The results in this chapter are preliminary. Clearly, further empirical research
is warranted to investigate the aggregate effects of institutional proliferation. The
cases presented in this chapter are suggestive, however, of the effects delineated
above. The post-Doha regime for intellectual property rights demonstrates that
even the presence of strong preexisting regimes does not constrain great pow-
ers in an institutionally complex world. The development of a counterprolifer-
ation norm to permit WMD interdiction on the high seas demonstrates that,
even in regimes with high degrees of legalization, viscosity remains low. To be
sure, in both cases preexisting institutions imposed residual constraints on great
power action. Those constraints, however, are considerably more lax than insti-
tutionalists would have predicted ex ante. Even in regimes where international
institutions have compulsory jurisdiction—such as the International Criminal
Court—powerful actors have developed new institutions and new techniques to
shift status quo policies.129
In the long term, the theory presented here suggests that institutional pro-
liferation can erode the coherence of global governance structures. To be sure,
in a unipolar world, the short-term effects of this strategy are not necessarily
threatening to world order. The hegemon can use a forum-shopping strategy
as a means of adjusting shifting regime complexes closer to its preferred policy
positions. In numerous issue areas, the United States has switched fora from
what it perceived to be an ineffective or weak regime to a club regime inhabited
by like-minded states.130 States with attractive forum-shopping options create an
incentive for preexisting organizations—and member states in those organiza-
tions—to skew their policies toward appeasing those states.131
Forum shopping and evasion are not costless over time, however. The prob-
lems emerge when more than one state has the power to effectively pursue this
strategy. Successful forum shopping creates an incentive for all great powers to
build up their forum-shifting options. Movement toward a multipolar distribu-
tion of power will encourage other states to act in a manner similar to that of
the United States. The European Commission is looking to promote its own
policy preferences by “promoting European standards internationally through
international organization and bilateral treaties.”132
The most active region in institution building, however, has been the Pacific
Rim. Over the past decade China created new institutional structures outside of
America’s reach, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Forum
on China-Africa Cooperation, and the BRIC summits. The Asian financial crisis
clearly spurred the creation of a number of regional arrangements, including

a network of bilateral preferential trade agreements with ASEAN and other
regional actors, the East Asia Summit, Chiang Mai Initiative, Asian Bond Markets
Initiative, and ASEAN Plus Three meetings. What is noteworthy about these
regional arrangements is the absence of the United States from all of them.133
The trend was significant enough for former Singaporean prime minister Lee
Kuan Yew to warned American policy makers that “you guys are giving China
a free run in Asia. . . . The vacuum in US policy is enabling the Chinese to make
the running.”134
In a multipolar era, institutional proliferation can shift global governance
structures from a Lockean world of binding rules to a Hobbesian world of plas-
tic rules. As global governance structures become more fragmented, components
of each regime complex can develop reputations for “organized hypocrisy.”135 A
hypocritical IGO generates policies that are either decoupled from stated norms
or so inchoate that they cannot be implemented or enforced. While some United
Nations agencies have already been accused of functioning as organized hypoc-
risies,136 proliferation will begin to affect the Bretton Woods institutions as well.
Jagdish Bhagwati has complained about the “spaghetti bowl” of overlapping trade
agreements weakening the coherence of the World Trade Organization.137 Even
if these challenges are currently at nascent levels, over time the forum-shopping
phenomenon erodes the stability of significant international regimes.
To paraphrase Montesquieu, hypocritical regimes weaken necessary regimes. As
more and more institutions are created, each of them will find their legitimacy
devalued when forum shopping occurs. With each state willing to walk away from
global governance structures that fail to advance their interests, all of these struc-
tures will experience a decline in both legitimacy and effectiveness. In the long
run, it appears that an institutionally thick world bears more than a passing resem-
blance to the neorealist conception of anarchy. Paradoxically, the proliferation of
transnational rules can lead to a tragedy of the global institutional commons.
In the beginning of this chapter, I defined state power as a function of
national capabilities and state capacity. Powerful actors are able to break down
even the most viscous global governance structures. If the growth of hypocriti-
cal regimes persists, however, then an additional dimension of state power will
need to be considered. There is a literature in domestic politics on how political
leaders design bureaucratic structures in order for their preferred policy outputs
to survive their term of office.138 As more and more states develop the capacity
to forum shop, the new dimension of state power will be the ability to build up
the viscosity of a particular regime complex. Declining great powers will have an
incentive to use every normative, ideational, and material technique available to
keep their own institutions highly viscous. The ways in which states keep their
preferred institutions sticky in an institutionally thick world will be an interest-
ing research program well into the twenty-first century.
Notes
Previous versions of this paper were presented at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, Duke
University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Virginia, McGill University, Harvard
University, the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, the University of Chicago
PIPES seminar, the University of Toronto, and the 2006 International Political Economy
Society meeting. I am grateful to Karen Alter, Stephen Bernstein, Charli Carpenter, Antonia
Handler Chayes, Dale Copeland, Christina Davis, Martha Finnemore, Emilie Hafner-Burton,
Jack Goldsmith, Judith Goldstein, Vaidyanatha Gundlupet, Yoram Haftel, John Ikenberry,
Judith Kelley, Jeff Legro, Sophie Meunier, Layna Mosley, Sharyn O’Halloran, Jennifer Mitzen,
Kevin Narizny, Louis Pauly, Mark Pollack, Steve Saideman, Anne Sartori, Dahlia Shaham,
Duncan Snidal, Alex Thompson, and Joel Trachtman for their feedback.
1. Mattoo and Subramanian 2008; Group of Twenty 2009; Group of Thirty 2009.
2. Goldstein et al. 2001; Raustiala and Victor 2004; Aggarwal 2005; Alter and Meunier
2006.
3. Alter and Meunier 2009.
4. Gruber 2000; Drezner 2007; Benvenisti and Downs 2007; Busch 2007.
5. Drezner 1999, 2007.
6. Mearsheimer 2001, chap. 2.
7. This is similar to arguments made in Zakaria 1998 and Bach and Newman 2007.
8. Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal 2003.
9. See Baldwin 1993 for a summary of this debate.
10. Keohane 1984; Axelrod 1984; Axelrod and Keohane 1985; Oye 1986; Baldwin 1993;
Keohane and Martin 1995; Hasenclever, Mayer, and Rittberger 1996; Martin and
Simmons 1998. Though often conflated, the institutionalist paradigm is distinct from lib-
eral theories of international politics. On this distinction, see Moravcsik 1997.
11. Schelling 1960.
12. On structure-induced equilibrium, see Shepsle 1979. See Milner 1997, and Martin and
Simmons 1998, for conscious translations of this concept to world politics.
13. Krasner 1983, 2. See also North 1991, 97.
14. Keohane and Martin 1995, 45.
15. Waltz 1979; Mearsheimer 1994/95, 2001; Wendt 1999, chap. 6.
16. Carr 1939 [1964]; Drezner 2003.
17. Indeed, Oran Young made this point in an early article about international regimes. See
Young 1980, 338.
18. Snidal 1996, 127.
19. Ikenberry 2000.
20. Snidal and Abbott 2000; Goldstein and Martin 2000.
21. Goldstein and Martin 2000, 619.
22. Ikenberry 2000; Reus-Smit 2004; Kelley 2007.
23. Krasner 1983, 357–361. See also Hasenclever, Mayer, and Rittberger 1996, 187.
24. Mearsheimer 1994/95. Offensive realists nevertheless dispute the explanatory power
of institutionalists, because the latter paradigm cannot account for the effect of relative
gains concern.
25. Schweller and Priess 1997, 10.
26. For a review, see Lipson 2004, 1–4.
27. For one empirical account of this growth see Shanks, Jacobson, and Kaplan 1996.
28. Even researchers who stress the nonrational aspects of global governance agree that some
actors engage in explicit efforts to foster strategic inconsistencies within a single regime
complex. See, for example, Raustiala and Victor 2004, 298.
29. Keohane 1982.
30. On this possibility, see Mansfield 1995.

31. Rosendorff and Milner 2001; Koremenos 2005; Benvenisti and Downs 2007.
32. Jupille and Snidal 2005; Snidal and Viola 2006.
33. Meyer, Thomas, and Ramirez 1997.
34. Benvenisti and Downs 2007, 609.
35. Krasner 1991.
36. Jupille and Snidal 2005, 2.
37. Aggarwal 1998, 2005; Helfer 1999, 2004; Raustala and Victor 2004; Jupille and Snidal
2005; Alter and Meunier 2006.
38. Raustiala and Victor, 2004, 279.
39. See the citations in n. 2.
40. Goldstein et al. 2001, 3.
41. Koskenniemi and Leino 2002; Burke-White 2004; Prost and Clark 2006.
42. See, for example, Frey 2008.
43. For recent examples, see the citations in n. 1, as well as Slaughter 2004; Martin 2005;
Daalder and Lindsey 2007.
44. Ikenberry and Slaughter 2006, 27. See also Slaughter 1997, 2004.
45. For empirical examples, see Raustiala 1997a; Hafner-Burton 2009.
46. Schelling 1960, 58.
47. Raustiala and Victor 2004, 280; Drezner 2007, chap. 3; Busch 2007.
48. Benvenisti and Downs 2007.
49. Drezner 2007, chap. 6.
50. Snidal and Abbott 2000; Goldstein et al. 2001, 24–28; Norman and Trachtman 2005;
Kelley 2007.
51. Hafner 2000; United Nations International Law Commission 2006; Krisch 2006;
Benvenisti and Downs 2007.
52. Raustiala and Victor 2004, 300. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties provides
a limited set of vague norms regarding the hierarchy of law, but there is little observed
adherence to these norms.
53. Krisch 2006.
54. Krasner 1985.
55. Krasner 1991; Voeten 2001.
56. Hafner-Burton 2005, 2009.
57. On this point, see Raustiala 1997b.
58. Aggarwal 2005; Alter and Meunier 2006.
59. Benvenisti and Downs 2007, 627.
60. Norman and Trachtman 2005; Goldsmith and Posner 2005.
61. Jordan and Majnoni 2002; Reinhardt 2003; Drezner 2007, chap. 5.
62. Chayes and Chayes 1995. Some governments outsource their legal needs to Western
law firms well versed in international law. This mitigates the human capital problem but
replaces it with a budgetary problem.
63. Woll and Artigas 2007, 129.
64. Drezner 2007, chap. 5.
65. Brooks and Wohlforth 2005, 515.
66. Executive Office of the President, The National Security Strategy of the United States
of America, March 2006, 36, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/nss2006.pdf
(accessed January 2008).
67. See, for example, Wechsler 2001.
68. Fukuyama 2006, 158, 168.
69. Group of Twenty 2009.
70. Goldstein et al. 2001; Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal 2003.
71. See Keohane 1984 for a verbal description of cooperation, and Bendor and Swistak
1997, 297–298, for a more technical description.
72. Fearon 1998, 279. Italics in original.
73. Axelrod and Keohane 1985; Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal 2003; Mitchell 1998; Dai
2002.
74. Downs, Rocke, and Barsoom 1996.
75. Finnemore and Sikkink 1998. As will be seen, this is not to imply that membership size
is the only source of legitimacy in world politics.
76. Johnston 2001.
77. Steffek 2003. It is certainly debatable whether the one-country, one-vote principle used
in most IGOs is truly democratic—however, the question here is whether the perception
of democracy is present.
78. Voeten 2005.
79. Pevehouse 2002.
80. Prantl 2006.
81. NATO’s success in halting Serbian actions in Kosovo highlights another point—regard-
less of process legitimacy, there is also the legitimacy of outcomes. If great powers devi-
ate from established international regimes, but succeed in achieving their stated goals,
that success can ex post legitimate their actions. For example, despite the UN Security
Council’s refusal to authorize Operation Iraqi Freedom, Security Council Resolution
1483, passed in May 2003, conferred legitimacy by recognizing Great Britain and the
United States as the “Authority” in Iraq. See http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/
scres/2003/res1483.pdf (accessed November 2006).
82. Benvenisti and Downs 2007; Drezner 2007.
83. This section draws from Drezner 2007.
84. Keck and Sikkink 1998; Sell 2003; Prakash and Sell 2004.
85. “Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health,” http://www.wto.org/english/
thewto_e/minist_e/min01_e/mindecl_trips_e.htm.
86. “Implementation of paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and
public health.” August 30, 2003, http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/implem_
para6_e.htm (accessed August 11, 2005).
87. “Amendment of the TRIPS Agreement,” December 6, 2005, http://www.wto.org/eng-
lish/news_e/news05_e/trips_decision_e.doc (accessed December 2005).
88. Epstein and Chen 2002; Sell 2003; Prakash and Sell 2004.
89. These FTAs were used to push other standards as well. See Hafner-Burton 2009.
90. Drahos 2001.
91. Ibid., 13; see also European Commission, “EU Strategy to Enforce Intellectual Property
Rights in Third Countries,” MEMO/04/255, November 10, 2004. For information on
EFTA trade pacts, see Julien Bernhard, “Deprive Doha of All Substance,” August 2004, at
http://www.evb.ch/cm_data/Deprive_Doha.pdf (accessed August 12, 2005).
92. Drahos 2001, 6.
93. Office of the USTR, “Understanding regarding Certain Public Health Measures,”
August 5, 2004, http://www.ustr.gov/assets/Trade_Agreements/Bilateral/CAFTA/
CAFTA-DR_Final_Texts/asset_upload_file697_3975.pdf (accessed August 9, 2005).
94. Abbott 2005, 352.
95. Correa 2006.
96. Office of the USTR, “Special 301 Report,” April 2005. Quotation from p. 6.
97. Drezner 2003.
98. Sell 2003, chap. 6; Abbott 2005.
99. Abbott, 2005, 317.
100. “Letter from 90 NGOs to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick,” May 27, 2004,
http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/trade/ngos05272004.html (accessed August 11, 2005).
101. Oxfam International 2006, 14.

102. I am grateful to Larry Helfer for making this point.
103. The White House, “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,”
December 2003, 2.
104. Press briefing by Ari Fleischer, December 11, 2002, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/
releases/2002/12/20021211-5.html#2 (accessed January 2008).
105. Bolton 2007, 121. The legal constraint was not the only factor in US decision making;
Yemen’s status as an ally in the war on terror played a part, as did the Bush adminis-
tration’s desire to remain focused on building a “coalition of the willing” to act against
Saddam Hussein.
106. Guilfoyle 2007, 4–5. The exceptions deal with combating the slave trade, piracy, and nar-
cotics trafficking. Legal scholars agree that there is significantly greater latitude if a ship
is within a state’s coastal waters or exclusive economic zone.
107. Taft 2004.
108. Byers 2004, 527.
109. State Department, “Proliferation Security Initiative: Frequently Asked Questions,” at
http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/fs/23764.htm (accessed January 2008).
110. Bolton 2007, 122–126.
111. They can be accessed at http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/fs/23764.htm.
112. Ibid. See also Bolton 2007, 125.
113. Squassoni 2006, 4.
114. Jentleson and Whytock 2005/6, 74.
115. Holmes and Winner 2007, 284, 294.
116. Byers 2004; Cotton 2005.
117. The text can be read at http://www.state.gov/t/isn/73519.htm (accessed October 2012).
118. Two hours for Liberia and Panama; four hours for the Marshall Islands. Ahlström 2005,
756.
119. The full list is available at http://www.state.gov/t/isn/c27733.htm (accessed January
2009).
120. Holmes and Winner 2007, 284.
121. http://www.imo.org/About/Conventions/ListOfConventions/Pages/SUA-Treaties.aspx
(accessed October 2012).
122. Quoted in Guilfoyle 2007, 28.
123. Doolin 2006; Holmes and Winner 2007.
124. State Department Bureau of Nonproliferation, “Proliferation Security Initiative Frequently
Asked Questions,” May 2005, http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/fs/46839.htm (accessed
January 2008). Arms Control Association, “The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)
at a Glance,” October 2007, http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/PSI.asp (accessed
January 2008).
125. Arms Control Association, “The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) at a Glance,”
October 2007.
126. Friedman 2003, 5.
127. Doolin 2006, 31; Guilfoyle 2007, 35.
128. Dombrowski and Payne 2006; Shulman 2006; Holmes and Winner 2007.
129. On the ICC, see Weller 2002, Scheffer 2005 and Kelley 2007.
130. Krisch 2005; Benvenisti and Downs 2007; Drezner 2007.
131. Gruber 2000; Johns 2007. This go-it-alone power is why the public choice argument that
competition will improve global governance structures is unlikely to be true. Competition
will merely encourage all structures facing a threat of hegemonic exit to cater to great
power preferences even more than they otherwise would.
132. Quoted in “EU wants rest of world to adopt its rules,” Financial Times, February 18,
2007.
133. Barma, Ratner, and Weber 2007.

134. Quoted in Edward Luce, “Obama Urged to Fix Trade Policy Vacuum,” Financial Times,
November 9, 2009.
135. Krasner 1999.
136. Lipson 2007.
137. Bhagwati 2008.
138. Moe 1990; Hammond and Knott 1996.
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PA RT F I V E
SOVEREIGNTY AND POWER IN

A COMPLEX WORLD
14
Causation and Responsibility in a

Complex World
Robert Jervis
Power, as a form of causation, is at the heart of how we try to understand our

world. It is hard to tell a story without bringing in how the behavior of one per-
son leads others to respond, and even the youngest children interpret what they
see in terms of cause-and-effect relations. It is a further but small step from say-
ing that someone exercised power and caused an outcome to arguing that she
was responsible for the way events unfolded, and responsibility has important
normative connotations and implications.
The problem is, of course, that power can be disguised in various ways.
Stephen Krasner has shown that in back of choices made by various actors can
be power exercised by others at times or places at some remove that, by chang-
ing the structure of the situation and the alternatives that the actor faces, can
do much of the causal work.1 Even those without social science training sense
this. When I have my students play Prisoner’s Dilemma, some of them ask who
arranged the situation this way and insist that next time they be able to be the
District Attorney. But if this idea is not new, it has not been fully explored. This
is not to say that I can do so here, but at least I will call attention to it and
bring out several of its aspects, including the implications for allocating credit
and blame.
When a typhoon kills thousands of people in Bangladesh, this seems like a
natural disaster. In part it is, but stepping back we can see that people lived in
these low-lying areas only because of shortages of land and jobs. So we might
argue that the cause is overpopulation. Or we could see the hand of powerful
interests and individuals in the disaster by noting that most farmland is con-
trolled by large landlords, or that the government followed economic policies
that rewarded the military and/or special interests at the expense of providing
more widespread employment. We cannot try to choose among these accounts
in the same way that we pit standard explanations against each other. In some
sense, they may all be correct. But they differ in their starting points and there-
fore offer different accounts of responsibility.
313
314 Sovereignty and Power in a Complex World
Causation is particularly difficult to attribute when the effects—if any—are

mediated and indirect. Recent events provide two quite different examples. How,
to what extent, and in what ways were the heated political atmosphere and the
right-wing attacks on liberals and the government implicated in the shooting of
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others in Tucson in January 2011? Jared
Loughner might have killed had talk radio not existed; he does not seem to have
listened, and in fact his political views are unclear. But there is a social atmo-
sphere, and treating government officials as the enemy can seep in in ways that
are almost impossible to determine. So it is not surprising that liberal commen-
tators did see a connection, if only an indirect one, and that conservatives con-
sidered this argument outrageous. It is similarly hard to tell whether the leaked
American cables documenting the egregious extravagance and corruption in
Tunisia played a role in fueling the mass protests that led to the overthrow of the
government. It is not clear how many people read the cables, and in any event
it was hardly news to anyone in the country. But they may have rubbed salt into
the wounds, led to discussion of how bad the government was, and provided
a shared sense of outrage that helped coordinate the protests. The fact that we
do not know and probably cannot know does not mean that the leak played no
role.2 These are unique events, but having lots of cases may not solve the prob-
lem. Thus we know both that children who grow up poor, especially without
an intact family, are more likely to become criminals than are more-advantaged
children. Yet some of the latter turn to crime, and not all of the former do. We
talk of contributing factors and predisposing ones, and with enough data we
can make much more fine-grained generalizations, but the questions of causa-
tion and responsibility remain. As in the Giffords case, it is not surprising that
conservatives stress that the fact that only a minority of poor people become
criminals shows that responsibility remains in the hands of the individual, and
that liberals argue that the overall difference shows society’s role.
Causation, power, and responsibility do not take place in a vacuum or
between two atom-like actors. Rather, they are embedded in a context and oper-
ate within structures. Some of this is nicely caught by Karl Marx in one of his
most famous statements: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it
as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under
circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition
of all dead generations weighs like an nightmare on the brains of the living.”3
Almost impossible to deny, this makes understanding causal and power relations
extremely difficult. It may be best to start with the point that causes can be nec-
essary or sufficient (or both), which, while familiar, needs to be more deeply
explored in connection with power and responsibility. This analysis leads to a
consideration of counterfactuals. Here what is most important is that we need
to bring out the counterfactual claims that are implicit in many arguments if we
are to reach considered judgments about the empirical and normative questions
Causation and R e sponsibilit y in a Complex World 315
involved. All of this is rather static, however. Even analysis of counterfactuals

often looks at variables one at a time. In fact, interactions are frequent, and their
presence means that the relationship that at first appears to be at work may be
disguising more significant ones. Further interesting twists appear when we look
at changes through time, which I do in the last section of this chapter. Here we
see that attributions of power and responsibility can be crucially influenced by
the point in time at which we start our analysis.
Multiple Sufficient Causation

It is often the case that several pathways lead to the same result, something
known as multiple sufficient causation. Although all social scientists know
about this phenomenon, it nevertheless causes a variety of problems, which
may be why we try to put it aside whenever we can.4 To start with, it means
that the use of the standard comparative method may not be able to eliminate
a causal role for a variable. For example, Michael Blaker’s Japanese International
Negotiating Style presents an interesting picture of the way Japan conducts inter-
national negotiations, and relates this pattern to Japanese politics and society.5
My first reaction was that this style did not seem so different from what the
Americans did. But even if this is correct, my impulse to dismiss Blaker’s causal
argument may be premature, because similar Japanese and American behav-
iors could have been generated quite differently. The comparison to the United
States shows that Japanese politics and society is not necessary to produce the
outcome, but it cannot show that it is not sufficient. Indeed, even if key ele-
ments of Japanese culture and government changed and the pattern did not,
Blaker’s argument would not be disproved, because other factors could have
arisen to produce the same result. This might reduce the significance of the
factors he originally focused on, but would not mean that they had been unim-
portant at the time.
The broader question behind the possibility of multiple sufficient causation
is whether there are alternative ways of reaching an outcome. A policy may
succeed, and let us say we have reason to believe that the results would have
been less favorable had policies A, B, or C been pursued. So far so good, and
in practice we may be satisfied to stop here. But we would really like to know
whether the outcome would have been as good or even better with policies E,
F, or G. If we believe that this is the case, should we credit the leader for pro-
ducing a success or blame him for not having done better? Some evidence may
guide us here, but it is not likely to be definitive. Even if policies E, F, or G had
been applied in other instances, the circumstances are not likely to have been
the same (and indeed cannot be if knowledge of the previous cases affects the
actors’ behavior).
Problems of attributing responsibility can arise not only when different

circumstances or policies can yield the same result, but also when multiple
sufficient causes are present simultaneously—that is, when the outcome is over-
determined. They were in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, in
which all of the people in the car participated in killing the victim, who richly
deserved his fate. Legally all are guilty, and if this had been a real case, pre-
sumably all would have been severely punished; but this disturbs some of our
standard notions of causation and responsibility, because in the counterfactual
of any individual having lost his nerve or being sick that day, the victim still
would have died.6 This question is not academic but arose when John Edwards
was tried for having used campaign funds to keep secret his payments to his
mistress. Under the law, he was guilty if the motive was to protect his presiden-
tial campaign but not if his goal was to keep the affair from his wife. The obvi-
ous problem was that both motives could have been at work, and so the judge
instructed the jury that “the government does not have to prove that the sole or
only purpose of the money was to influence the election . . . . On the other hand,
if the donor would have made the gift or payment notwithstanding the election,
it does not become a contribution merely because the gift or payment might
have some impact on the election.”7
Although it is impossible to tell with certainty whether many historical events
are in fact overdetermined, the question raises important analytical and norma-
tive questions. An example is the debate over the extent to which anti-Soviet
motives were responsible for President Truman’s decision to use atomic bombs
against Japan. The arguments are intricate and fascinating, but all that I want
to do here is note that while the desire to intimidate the USSR and limit its
gains at Japan’s expense may have not only been present, but been sufficient to
produce the bombing, the more obvious motive of ending the war as quickly
and favorably as possible was even more clearly sufficient to produce the out-
come. Indeed, I do not think we can find a single case of a country that has
developed a weapon of great power refraining from using it when there is no
danger of retaliation.8 We can argue that the use of the weapon was unwise or
immoral (although I am not persuaded of this), but the claim that Truman was
anti-Soviet enough so that this consideration might have led to his actions is not
incompatible with the argument that he would have used the bomb irrespective
of his views of the Soviet Union.
A parallel argument can be made for American policy toward sharing
the atomic “secret” with the USSR,9 which some see as playing a large role
in triggering the Cold War. These analyses treat the American (really the
Anglo-American) decision as problematic. But do we find cases in history
where countries have shared such secrets?10 One can of course reply that the
circumstances were unusual, that the Cold War would have been mitigated
if not avoided if Truman had been more forthcoming, and that Truman was
therefore responsible for the frictions that did in fact result. But this argument
must recognize that Truman’s behavior was not unusual, which means that even
without the special element of fear and hostility toward the Soviet Union, only
a decision maker of rare courage and boldness would have been willing to fol-
low this path. Here as with the use of the bomb, the fact that the decisions fit
the normal pattern of international history casts a different light on assertions
about the blame (or credit) due to Truman. If any leader would have acted
as Truman did, then it is hard to assign him unique credit or blame; he just
happened to be the person in the position of responsibility (and the use of
this word brings up the ambiguity of whether or not we should hold Truman
responsible).
Some of the problems of multiple sufficient causation can be seen in terms of
whether functional substitutes are possible.11 In many cases we can readily detect
an event that led to a certain response. In a real sense, the event then was a cause,
but perhaps had it not occurred any number of others could have, and produced
the same effect. A well-known example is that while it was the Vietcong raid on
the American air base at Pleiku that preceded the American bombing of North
Vietnam, it is implausible to argue that American policy would have been very
different had this raid not occurred (assuming that all the relevant major actors
continued their basic policies). As McGeorge Bundy, Johnson’s national security
adviser who was in Vietnam at the time, put it: “Pleikus are streetcars.”12 What
he meant was that one will come along if you are waiting for it. The Vietcong
and North Vietnamese were bent on victory, and the United States was deter-
mined to prevent it, and if the raid on Pleiku had failed or not been ordered, the
United States sooner or later would have been faced by the same alternatives of
escalating or losing. It would then be foolish to say that Pleiku was a cause of
the American bombing, let alone of the entire wider war.
There is room to disagree with my argument that the existence of likely func-
tional substitutes for an action reduces if not its causal role, then at least the
credit or blame we place on the actor. In a murder trial, a hit man cannot plead
innocence on the ground that if he had not accepted the job, someone else
would have, nor can he say that he should not go to jail because the victim was
suffering from a terminal disease. Even though the person would have died even
had the perpetrator gone to the beach instead of carrying out the murder, the
fact that he did carry it out means that in the eyes of the law, and much moral-
ity, he should be punished. But do we want to apply the same kind of attribu-
tion to politics? Even if we were to agree that the failure to give the Soviets
information on the atomic bomb would have provoked hostility in almost any
country, it would not seem to make much sense to argue that this was a cause of
the Cold War if Soviet-American relations would have been much the same had
Truman and Churchill behaved differently, especially if one were to believe that
Stalin was paranoid and/or aggressive and so could not have been conciliated.
Necessary Conditions
Things do not get much easier when we move to necessary conditions. While
sufficient causes always are important, necessary ones can be trivial from the
standpoint of most analysis. Thus it does not get us far to say that the existence
of oxygen is necessary for wars. This example is linked to the now-familiar point
that searching on the dependent variable (i.e., looking only at cases in which the
phenomenon of interest occurs) may not discover factors that distinguish cases
in which the effect is present from those in which it is absent.
But this does not mean that the approach is without value. Critics of Organski
and Kugler’s power transition theory were quick to point out that even if it was
the case—which can be debated—that major wars occurred only during peri-
ods of power transitions,13 other power transitions, such as that between Great
Britain and the United States, occurred peacefully. This is clearly true, but if-
and this remains a big if—power transitions are not only a necessary condition
for war, but also are quite rare, then the theory would be of significant value in
narrowing the range of circumstances in which major wars occur.
Theories that involve necessary conditions also shed light on actors’ respon-
sibilities. Most obviously, we should give no credit to leaders who have avoided
war in circumstances in which the necessary conditions for it are absent, because
there was nothing they could have done that would have led to war. On the
other hand, we could also ask whether their policies and actions had some role
in seeing that the necessary conditions were absent. Indeed, one major virtue
of theories of this kind is that they may direct actors’ attention to how they can
make the situation safer. Obviously, not all necessary conditions can be manip-
ulated—we cannot bring peace by removing oxygen from the atmosphere. But
the danger of fire in some industrial processes can be eliminated by conducting
them in oxygen-free containers, and if decision makers cannot go this far, aware-
ness of the necessary conditions may enable them to exercise greater vigilance
when those conditions are present. For example, the knowledge that power
transitions are dangerous could lead to greater efforts at diplomacy and concili-
ation during these periods. Of course, the knowledge could also lead to preven-
tive war; but if it had the more benign effect, the result would be to reduce the
apparent explanatory power of the theory because there would be more cases in
which the necessary condition was present without producing war.14
Counterfactuals
As the previous paragraphs indicate, like most analyses of causation my dis-
cussion points to the importance of counterfactuals.15 In most formulations,
to say that A was a cause is to imply that if it had been absent or different, the
subsequent behavior of others would have been different. Although this is well
known, making it explicit can be useful for probing arguments. For example,
President Eisenhower comes in for severe criticism for sponsoring the over-
throw of the Mossadeq regime in Iran in 1953 and Arbenz in Guatemala the
next year. To the extent that the condemnation is rooted in the moral pre-
cept that one government should not overthrow another, counterfactuals are
irrelevant. But much of the animus stems from the subsequent unhappy his-
tory of both countries. The regimes the United States helped put in place were
oppressive and supported the upper classes; both countries still bear the scars
of the American-supported regimes, and in the case of Iran the backlash has
come to haunt the West. I have sympathy with this analysis, but it involves
beliefs about causation and counterfactuals that need to be scrutinized. The
claim that the United States made things worse implies that the trajectories of
these countries, absent the overthrows, would have been more benign for the
populations involved and perhaps for the United States. But this happier story
is vulnerable to two lines of reply. One is that the coups mattered much less
than is generally assumed and that even without US covert action, the forces
of the old power structure would have reasserted themselves. The regimes of
Mossadeq and Arbenz were very weak, and the very fact that they were over-
thrown by small operations shows this.16 By contrast, the Bay of Pigs failed
because Castro had much more popular support and had been able to build
strong institutions. Arbenz and Mossadeq had not been able to do this, and
in the absence of the covert actions any number of perturbations could have
overturned them. Of course this leaves open the question of what would have
replaced these regimes, but there is little reason to believe that the successors
would have acted in accordance with the values of the critics of US policy. The
second line of argument is that if the regimes that the United States helped
overthrow had continued, they might not have brought democracy and pros-
perity to their peoples. Arbenz and Mossadeq had strong authoritarian streaks,
and it is far from clear that they wanted to establish a liberal democracy or
would have been able to do so. One can argue that it is hard to imagine out-
comes worse than those that did eventuate, but such a stance may betray a
failure of imagination.
In the end this kind of argument must remain speculative. But nevertheless
once we admit that the outcome might have been similar no matter what the
United States did, then the attribution of causality that seems so obvious in
most accounts needs to be questioned, and if either line of rebuttal is correct we
should hesitate before putting too much blame on the United States.17 The other
side of this coin is the defense that Tony Blair offered to the commission investi-
gating his decision to join in overthrowing Saddam: if he and the United States
had not done so, “we [now] would be facing a situation where Iraq would be
competing with Iran on nuclear weapons capability and in support of terrorist
groups.”18 Although this straight-line projection from 2003 assumes too much
and is too simple, the claim similarly needs to be rebutted rather than ignored.
Interactions
Things get more complicated when we look at how factors can combine and
interact.19 Basic difficulties in tracking causation and allocating responsibility
arise when the influence of one factor depends on the state of another variable.
Sometimes the processes are simply additive, but often they interact in more
complex ways. That the relations are not always linear further hinders the search
for causation and responsibility.
Many people have observed that while per-student educational spending in
primary and secondary education has increased greatly over the past twenty
years, test scores have not. The obvious inference is that increased spending has
not had an effect. While this conclusion may be correct, it does not follow from
the evidence. Even leaving aside the question of whether test scores measure
education and the fact that much of the increase in spending has gone to teach-
ing children whose disabilities led to their exclusion from many earlier tests, two
lines of argument are possible. First, changes in society may have made today’s
children harder to educate. More children come from broken homes, education
is less valued in a more commercialized world, and the prevalence of TV and
electronic games distracts students from studying and may reduce their attention
spans. In other words, the increase in spending could be having a real effect, but
one that is disguised by counterbalancing changes. Second, a significant part of
the increase in spending is attributable to higher salaries for teachers. The obvi-
ous inference would be that the data show that this money is wasted, or at least
has failed to produce better teachers. But this ignores the fact that the labor
market has changed over the past thirty years, especially in the vastly increased
opportunities for women. Thus at least a portion of the increased spending may
be an example of the “Red Queen” effect of the need to run ever faster to stay
in the same place: in order to attract as skilled teachers as were employed years
earlier, schools have to pay more. The spending is not wasted, but the only way
to reveal this would be to return salaries to their earlier levels and observe the
(posited) decline in teacher skill and student achievement.
Here the effects of each variable, taken separately, are independent of one
another. But this is not always the case. For example, the number and severity
of floods does not seem to have decreased with the building of more and higher
levees. One possibility parallels the previous discussion: other factors such as
deforestation and climate change may have worsened, with the result that flood-
ing would be even more frequent and severe had stronger levees not been con-
structed. But it is also possible that the levees themselves, while helping contain
high waters, have simultaneously contributed to the problem by changing both

the physical and human environment. The levees restrict the channels of the riv-
ers, lead more silt to be deposited in the main channel, and reduce the seep-
age into adjoining lands. Other changes involve human reactions. People take
advantage of the construction of levees by moving into the floodplain, which
means that high water can no longer be diverted out of the main channel and
damage is much greater when the levees do break. Furthermore, once people
have moved into flood-prone areas, the political pressures for more and higher
levees will increase.
Turning to international politics, the obvious case is an arms race. In the
ideal type—and there is great debate about which if any historical cases actu-
ally fit it—two states seek only security, and do so by procuring an “adequate”
level of arms. But because what is adequate for one side depends on how armed
the other is, Red Queen dynamics operate as each side has to increase rapidly
in order to keep up with the other. Interestingly enough, students of evolution
have tracked similar dynamics between predator and prey.20 Here causes and
effects merge through reciprocal causation, and while the entire interaction may
be futile in the sense of not yielding changes (or at least not desired ones), each
action does indeed have an effect (or rather has multiple effects).
This complicates our sense of causation and responsibility for the sad state
of affairs. This kind of arms race can be halted only by both sides cooperating,
which is the obvious point of arms control proposals. But for a whole slew of
familiar reasons, these are difficult to arrange. When they cannot be, it is easy
enough to say that the failure is a shared one. But what exactly does this mean
for the responsibility of each individual actor? Only by working together could
they change the situation, but no actor can be sure that taking a peaceful initia-
tive would be reciprocated, and, if it were not, such an action could damage the
state. (This is the familiar problem of a malign Nash equilibrium.) The stance
of blaming everyone while excusing each individual is not satisfying, and while
it is too mechanistic and misleading to say that the blame should be equally
shared, it is not easy to say much more. The flip saying current in the 1960s that
“the system is the problem” has a good deal of merit, but makes responsibil-
ity illusive. Can we—should we—be satisfied with the conclusion of the chief
investigator for the Chemical Safety Board concerning the BP oil spill of the
summer of 2010: “Most accidents are not caused by individual acts but [by]
safety-system deficiencies,” and so prosecuting individuals is not appropriate?21
In another set of cases, the problem is not that the influence of one factor
may offset that of others or that causation may be reciprocal, but that factors
interact in a way that complicates our judgment of the contribution of any one
of them. It is trite but true to say that the whole is often greater than the sum
of its parts. More usefully, this means that an effect may depend less on the
quantity or even quality of each kind of input than on the way they do (or do
not) work together. One example could be the use of threats on the one hand
and diplomacy on the other to reach foreign policy goals. Each of these affects
the other side’s incentives, and in a simple world one might function as a sub-
stitute for the other in that the goal could be reached either by large enough
rewards or by sufficiently credible and punishing threats. But in many cases this
model is inappropriate, and neither instrument alone, no matter how potent or
well-crafted, can do the trick. Here both are necessary, and the problem is how
to combine them effectively, which varies from one case—or at least one kind
of case—to another. The crucial details of the empirical analysis is the focus of
much diplomacy and scholarship,22 but the point here is just that in situations
like this, parsing causation and allocating responsibility between the instruments
is difficult in practice and perhaps unsound in conception.
The operation of military forces provides a more concrete example of what
I have in mind. Throughout history debates have raged about the relative impor-
tance of various military arms, with proponents of each branch or weapon argu-
ing for its potency. Some do make greater contributions than others, and hard
choices cannot be avoided. But in many cases military efficacy is produced by
the joint operation of several weapons. Thus while early enthusiasts for tanks
argued that they could substitute for infantry or that the latter needed to be sub-
ordinated to the former, only in a few cases are even the best tanks able to oper-
ate alone because they are vulnerable without the support of other branches.
Victory can only be secured by both kinds of forces operating together, and so
when we compare the military strength of countries or try to find predictors of
which side will win battles, often the quantity or quality of any one weapon or
even the training of those who operate it does not tell the full story. Instead we
need to look at how each side is able to orchestrate the use of multiple weapons
and tactics, and praise or blame cannot be parceled out among the weapons, but
goes to the way they are—or are not—brought together.
In the same way, contemporary actors and later observers often argue about
the relative contributions of military offensives and the economic blockade in
bringing down the Central Powers in World War I. A more sophisticated under-
standing, however, is that the two worked in tandem. Those who argued for
conserving manpower by staying on the defensive and letting the blockade do
its work did not realize that it was the continuing need to fight at a high tempo
that put the pressure on the Central Powers’ economic system that enabled the
blockade to do real damage.23 Similarly, in World War II, strategic bombing and
land campaigns worked together in multiple ways. Although German military
production did not collapse until the last months of the war, Allied bombing
throughout the war required the Germans to divert extensive resources to anti-
aircraft activities, thus reducing the effort they could put into fighting Allied
armies. To take a narrow example, because the Germans had to try to beat
off the deep bombing the raids in 1943 and 1944, their fighter forces suffered
grievously, which meant that they could do little to harass the Allies when they
landed in France. Soldiers on the ground at Normandy complained that they
could not see any benefit from the bombing campaign, but the great benefit
was in what they did not see—German forces that were destroyed or could not
get to the battlefield. Bombing reciprocally had greater effects because the land
fighting put German forces on the roads, where they could be attacked from
the air, and stretched German requirements, which gave bombing damage much
more effect than would otherwise have been the case.24
Of course a scholar can simply say that these sorts of interactions mean that
it is foolish to try to apportion credit. But the armed forces compete not only
for bragging rights, but for resources. Civilian officials have to make decisions
about what forces to buy, and therefore have to face trade-offs between tanks
and planes. There is no straightforward way to proceed here, and it is not sur-
prising that the arguments about past battles never end or that decisions on
resource-allocation seem muddled.
Interactions are even harder to unpack when the effects are less visible. In the
nineteenth century, French philosopher and economist Frédéric Bastiat pointed
out that arguments about taxation and government spending were often ill-con-
ceived because people focused on what economic activity occurred rather than
what did not, which was what we now call the opportunity cost of the spend-
ing.25 This point is a foundation for modern economics, but even when we do
not lose sight of it, it complicates our analysis of causality and responsibility
because it is difficult to determine the counterfactual—that is, to say what the
other side would have done if the actor had behaved differently. Only in a few
cases is the answer is clear. It was when, in the wake of the militarily insignifi-
cant American bombing attack on Tokyo of April 1942 (the “Doolittle raid”), the
Japanese pulled enormous resources out of the field to construct extensive anti-
aircraft defenses. The common view that the raid was only important for boost-
ing American morale missed its more concrete contributions to the war effort.26
Disentangling causation and responsibility is particularly difficult when vari-
ables interact in a nonlinear fashion. Here inputs and outputs do not scale
directly, and sometimes the sign as well as the magnitude of the effect will differ.
Thus scholars often ask how Sino-American relations will be influenced by the
rate of the PRC’s economic growth. Some theories make invariant predictions
in claiming that frictions if not armed conflict will increase to the extent that
China narrows the economic gap with the United States, but a plausible alter-
native is that the effect of Chinese economic growth will depend on the course
of Chinese domestic politics. If China remains authoritarian, greater growth
would be seen by the United States as at least somewhat threatening. But if it
democratizes, an economically stronger China would be seen not only as more
of a valued ally than would be the case if China were not democratic, but as a
more valued partner than it would if the Chinese economy were growing more
slowly.27 If this claim is right, we can still analyze the causal role played by the
rate of economic growth, but have to do so with particular care. If China were
to remain authoritarian and to grow rapidly, we might be tempted to blame
the (posited) worsening of Sino-American relations on China’s growing power.
While this would be correct in the sense that this was the factor that changed,
it would disguise the fact that the causation depended crucially on the status of
another factor. We might then be led to an incorrect generalization (along the
lines of power transition theory) and would place an undue burden of responsi-
bility on material factors in determining rivalries and friendships.
Causation, Responsibility, and Chronology

Some of the previous discussion touched on temporal changes, and this is
what I want to focus on for the remainder of this chapter.28 Politics of course
unfolds over time, and the very notion of causation implies that the cause
comes before the effect. Nevertheless, political scientists usually pay relatively
little attention to chronology, and when it comes to analyzing causes and
responsibility I think we can fruitfully note three sorts of troublesome phe-
nomena. The first is how causation is blurred as each actor takes over from
what another has done. The second is the power to structure situations. The
third is the crucial question in analyzing conflicts that we find on the play-
ground as well: “Who started it?”
Chains of Events
As a situation moves through time, each actor finds herself in a situation not
entirely of her choosing, as Marx noted, and in turn passes on a changed sit-
uation to others. What happens at the end may be very different from what
any actor expected or sought at any stage, and while we can trace causation
at numerous points, it is hard to encompass for the entire arc of the interac-
tion. What I have in mind is illustrated by three encounters with the police that
ended in the death of an innocent person. The simpler one was the shooting of
Sean Bell in New York in November 2006. He and his friends were out drinking
in a bar known by the police for illegal activities, and the undercover officers
on the scene witnessed a dispute, believed they heard one of Bell’s companions
say he was going to get a gun, and therefore tried to search the members of
the group when they started to drive away. Bell, not knowing that the person
approaching him with a gun was a policeman, drove his car at him and tried to
escape, leading the police to open fire, killing Bell and seriously wounding one
of his friends.
This closely resembles a security dilemma, and the result was a tragedy
despite—or because of—each person acting sensibly and defensively at each
point in time. Given that the police officer believed that someone in Bell’s
group was armed and looking for trouble, it made sense for him to try to stop
and search them. Bell, confronted with an unfamiliar figure whom he might
reasonably have guessed to be a friend of the person he had quarreled with,
sought safety through first attacking and then trying to escape. But judging
the entire interaction is different from examining each stage, and is difficult.
Several police officers were indicted, but all were acquitted. As leaders in the
police department realized, the problem was less that the officer was wrong
to shoot after he was grazed by Bell’s car than it was that he should not have
been in this position at all. Using undercover agents in bars to quash minor
crimes may be running excessive risks for insufficient gains. To try to search
a car at night when people have been drinking and the officer is not wear-
ing a uniform may be foolhardy and excessively dangerous to all concerned.
Once Bell’s car had struck the officer, shooting was justified, but we must also
look at how this situation arose and who bore responsibility for it. Should it
have been those who established the policies that guided the officers’ behav-
ior who faced the judge instead of or at least in addition to the individual
policemen?29
A case in London shows even more diffused causation and responsibility.
Shortly after the bombings of the London transportation system in July 2005,
a similar attempt failed when the bombs did not go off. In the course of an
all-out effort to find the perpetrators, the police staked out a house, followed
a suspect from it who first took a bus and then entered an Underground sta-
tion, and finally shot him in order to prevent him from setting off his explosives.
Unfortunately, the victim had no explosives, was not a terrorist, and was not the
person the police thought he was. But none of the officers involved were pun-
ished. Given all the errors, at first glance this is hard to understand, or perhaps
is easy to see as an example of people in authority protecting one another. But
it is the very fact that such a chain of errors was involved that makes the lack of
prosecution reasonable, if still debatable.
Because of pressures of time and widespread commitments, no stage of
the operation had sufficient personnel, and the same factors limited coordi-
nation among them. Thus the stakeout team was undermanned (and, in an
unfortunate coincidence, one person had left his post in order to go to the
bathroom), which meant that the officers could not make a clear observa-
tion to determine whether the person leaving the house was the one they
were looking for. But the second team, who picked up the trail on the bus,
was told that the suspect appeared to be the terrorist who had tried to set
off a bomb earlier. Because this person got off one bus and onto another
before heading for the Stockwell Underground station, the third team that
was racing there was told that they were facing a probable terrorist, one who
might well be about to detonate a bomb. In shooting him, they thought that
they were saving countless lives.
Although the results were dreadful, everyone acted appropriately given the
information conveyed to them. But like the children’s game of telephone, dis-
tortions occurred at every point, in part because of the great pressures that
everyone felt. Each individual error was small, but in succession they magni-
fied each other. Perhaps we can say that everyone should be blamed, but given
the costs of another terrorist bombing and the fact that fully adequate surveil-
lance was impossible, even this statement may not be justified. Many observers
were understandably frustrated by the official (and undisputed) account, which
avoiding placing blame.30 The statement that this was a tragedy is trite but true.
Everyone had the best intentions and tried to protect the community and inno-
cent life. The circumstances that led to a very different outcome were largely
unpredictable and uncontrollable, aside from the staffing shortage and the pre-
dictable but uncontrollable propensity for people to process information badly
when they are under great stress. Unlike in the Sean Bell case, it is even hard to
say that those who created the circumstances (other than the bombers) should
be held accountable.
In a third case, responsibility appears to shift as the interaction progresses.
As of this writing ( June 2012) it is clear that George Zimmerman never should
have gotten out of his car to follow Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, on the
night of February 26, 2012, which led to a deadly encounter. Had Zimmerman
abided by police instructions, Martin would still be alive, and so in causal
and I believe moral if not legal terms, he was guilty. The Florida “Stand Your
Ground” statute recognizes this in specifying that the immunity conferred on
those who kill rather than retreat does not apply if the person “initially provokes
the use of force against himself or herself.”31 But what constitutes provocation
may be unclear, and if Zimmerman’s story is to be believed, it was Martin who
not only challenged but assaulted him. Students of international politics know
that fear can lead to aggression, and even if Zimmerman’s account minimizes
his own role and exaggerates Martin’s, it is plausible that the latter initiated the
direct confrontation, threw the first punch, and retained the advantage in the
physical struggle until Zimmerman shot him. Zimmerman had the option of
walking away at the start; Martin had the option of doing so before the fight
started, and it is not clear how Zimmerman could have ended the fight without
shooting. This account does seem like blaming the victim, but just because the
person is a victim does not mean that he is without blame. The phrase “inno-
cent victim” is usually employed in a way that implies a redundancy—victims
are innocent. We are better served by realizing that the term actually points to
the possibility that the wrongheaded behavior of some victims played a role in
bringing on their fate.
Structuration
In cases like these the situation changes over time in a way that no one intends.
This is in contrast to the second category I want to discuss, which is structural
power. Here there is more purposeful action, but again we will be misled by
looking only at the final stages. Thus to return to an example used earlier, the
Bangladeshi peasants caught in the typhoon died by drowning. But how did they
end up living in such a vulnerable place, and whose decisions and policies made
them do so? We can say that they freely chose their location in that Bangladesh
does not limit where people live. Technically true, and let us posit that these
people made the best choices they could. But their choices were structured by
the presence or absence of other opportunities, which in turn stemmed from
patterns of land use and ownership, industrial hiring practices, and national eco-
nomic policies. Similarly, in the nineteenth century, millions of Europeans chose
to move to cities where they lived in overcrowded, unhealthy, and dangerous
housing and worked long hours in hellish factories. They were not compelled
to do so by the explicit use of power; they made decisions to get the best life
they could. But the situation looks one way if country life was stable and the
cities represented a new opportunity, and it appears in a very different light if
conditions in the countryside were badly deteriorating, especially if landlords
(and the government) were changing policies and practices so that living on the
land was more difficult. Our understanding of power and responsibility would
be further changed if we believed that landlords were doing this in order to leave
people no choice but to go to the factories.
In other words, an actor can exercise great power if she can structure the
situation in a way that gives others incentives to act as she wants them to. If a
significant amount of time passes, furthermore, the actor’s role will have disap-
peared from sight, and all we will see is the others making their choices. Lloyd
Gruber, following Krasner’s lead, demonstrates this nicely with Mexico’s decision
to join NAFTA. At first glance, this looks like a free choice made by the leaders
(if not the people) of Mexico in order to gain greater access to the American
market. This is true in that joining NAFTA did look better to Mexico than stay-
ing out, but what Gruber shows is that this neglects the context, which was that
the United States had been changing the trading rules in a way that put Mexico
increasingly at a disadvantage. Mexico made choices within a framework built
by the United States, and maintaining the previous status quo, which might well
have been Mexico’s first choice, was foreclosed by the United States, thus leaving
Mexico with unpalatable options, the best of which was to join.32 My student
was right to ask who created the dilemma for the prisoners.
Many small countries certainly ask this question. The larger ones tell them
that they will thrive if they adopt the best policies. But the set from which they
can choose is structured for them by the history, habits, and rules set by the
great powers that even if not designed to disadvantage them, arguably have had
this effect. When this is the case, looking at the choices actors make and attrib-
uting responsibility to them, so tempting from the perspective of free-market
economics, disguises a great deal—or, rather, accepts the disguise presented
to us by looking at the immediate choices without going further back in time
to see how actors arrived at a situation in which these were the choices that
they had.33 The structuring does not have to be malign. The French prohibi-
tion of head scarves in public schools and burkas in public places seems odd
to Americans who view this as a restriction on individual rights. But the French
argue that given pressures from the local extremist communities and the vul-
nerability of women and girls, the state has the responsibility to structure the
situation so that they can act autonomously.34 One does not have to find this
persuasive to accept the legitimacy of this kind of reasoning. Many laws and
forms of social pressure are designed to create situations that will lead people to
do what is right. In other cases, options may be shaped and foreclosed in a way
that leads to behavior that the powerful abhor. The classic case is when people
without good choices resort to rebellion and violence. Thus in discussing one
of the labor bombings in the early twentieth century, Louis Brandeis asked, “Is
there not a causal connection between the development of these huge, indomi-
table trusts and the horrible crimes now under investigation?”35
Some of the processes of path dependence can be seen in these terms as a
cause that can continue to produce effects indirectly long after it has ceased
operating. The current situation may have deep roots in the past, and sometimes
the participants may no longer be aware of them. Patterns can be set down that
then structure habits, capabilities, and incentives. One does not have to be a
Freudian to believe that at least part of the explanation for how a person behaves
today is what happened to her when she was much younger, and, even leaving
aside the unconscious, people and institutions often become prisoner to deci-
sions made much earlier. We also see that in interpersonal and international life,
rivalries can outlive their initial causes. For example, the short-term effects of
the Austrian ultimatum to Russia before the Crimean War were much less than
the long-term ones,36 and although the Anglo-German naval race was over by
1912, the challenge was part of the reason why Britain aligned with France and
Russia rather than Germany, an alignment that became self-reinforcing and so no
longer required naval competition to sustain it. To turn to current world politics,
the Cold War left the United States with attitudes and armed forces that shaped
its response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Many of the sources
of the American policies are to be found in the experiences of the earlier era.
These processes also mean that we should be careful before attributing causal-
ity to the most recent variables that have changed, since the real impact may be
from factors further in the past. If an army wins victories with a new general or
a new tactic, the reason may be not that these alterations were central, but that
the previous battles had improved the forces or worn down the enemy.
Who Started It
The third and related way in which chronology plays a crucial role in our under-
standing of causation and responsibility for disputes is highlighted by the ques-
tion that is simple—even simpleminded—in formulation but difficult to answer:
“Who started it?” Any parent will find this familiar, but this does not mean that
the question is childish. It gets at crucial issues of how to understand the past
and, if the interaction is a continuing one, how to break out of the cycle in the
future. Just as it is obviously incorrect to say that the state that fired the first
shot caused or is responsible for the ensuing war, so we need to exercise care in
where we start our story.37 Of course where we start may itself be influenced by
our sense of who is responsible, and both processes are at work in the conflicting
analyses on the Cold War. Traditional views are prone to begin with the Yalta
conference in 1944, which focuses attention on the great power agreements and
the subsequent Soviet behavior in East Europe and Iran that contradicted them.
Revisionists tell a different story in part because they have a different starting
point. For some, the conduct of World War II itself is the best place of entry,
with the Soviet Union doing the bulk of the fighting and the Western powers
trying to keep the atomic bomb secret and then dropping it on Japan instead of
allowing the Soviet army to deliver the final stroke. Others start the clock much
earlier, with the attempt by the capitalist powers to strangle the Bolshevik baby
in the cradle, to use the phrase that was common at the time. Subsequent Soviet
hostility, Stalin’s seeming paranoia, and the need to see that the postwar regimes
in Eastern Europe were not closely tied to the West, were not (or at least were
not only) a product of unbridled ambition or Marxist ideology, but the natural
and perhaps appropriate reaction to previous Western hostility.
We can take almost any episode in the Cold War and see smaller-scale argu-
ments that similarly turn on the starting point we select. Disputes over the
responsibility for conflicts between the United States and numerous radical
regimes often involve whether we should (and can) take account of American
covert actions that may have increased if not created hostility on the part of the
leftists. Turning to specific cases, Americans generally analyze the Cuban missile
crisis as beginning with the Soviet placement of missiles in Cuba, as the term
that American scholars use indicates. The Soviets saw a different starting point,
as is indicated by their calling the episode “the Caribbean crisis,” and it predated
and indeed caused the Soviet deployment. In their view, the crisis grew out of
the American unwillingness to accept the Cuban revolution, most dramatically
revealed by the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the emplacement of missiles was a
move late in this game that was designed to end the Caribbean crisis by thwart-
ing the American efforts to overthrow Castro. To start the clock in October
1962 is to ignore what brought the world to this place.38 To take another exam-
ple, Western accounts of the second Berlin crisis start in November 1958 with
Khrushchev’s demand that a new agreement had to be reached by May. If taking
Khrushchev’s ultimatum as an unmoved mover implies aggressive intentions on
his part, asking why Khrushchev made the ultimatum when he did rather than
years earlier or later suggests the possibility that he was reacting to the American
policy of putting nuclear weapons in West German hands.
Many other arguments also turn on the appropriate starting point and “the
details of who did what when,” as Piero Gleijeses puts it in his discussion of the
American, South African, and Cuban interventions in Angola,39 a remark that
applies as well to discussions of the breakdown of the negotiations between the
United States and North Korea.40 The debate over who was responsible for the
War of Attrition between Israel and Egypt in 1970 followed a similar arc, with a
Soviet diplomatic note arguing that “what leaps to one’s eye is that the American
side while so unsparingly accusing [Egypt] of ‘violating’ the terms of cease-fire,
keeps almost completely silent with regard to actual violations made by Israel
from the very first day of the cease-fire.”41 The general rebuttal to the claim that a
given action was an inappropriate escalation is exemplified by what the Canadian
foreign minister said in partial defense of the coup against the democratically
elected government of Honduras in the summer of 2009: “The coup was cer-
tainly an affront to the region, but there is a context in which these events hap-
pened. There has to be an appreciation of the events that led to the coup.”42
In some cases, analysts can point to the character and previous behavior
of the actor who at first glance seemed to be at fault as showing that the real
cause had to be located earlier. This is part of Paul Schroeder’s argument that
Napoleon was an unappeasable aggressor and that the details of which country
broke the peace at various times is less than central.
I find it inexplicable that good historians can simply assert what is techni-
cally true, that Prussia started the war of 1806 or Austria that of 1809, and not
ask themselves what could have induced so timorous and irresolute a king as
Frederic William III, eager only to enjoy further peace and neutrality, to gamble
everything on war against the French? Or what could make so narrow-minded
and fearful a sovereign as Emperor Francis, whose highest ambition was to hang
on to his hereditary estates in peace and who had been thoroughly beaten by
France in three great wars, throw the iron dice again alone and unsupported in
1809? That demands explanation.43
As usual, the Middle East provides numerous examples. When asked to com-
ment about the fighting in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, President Bush
said that it had started “because Hezbollah has been launching rocket attacks
out of Lebanon into Israel, and because Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers.
That’s why we have violence.”44 In parallel, Undersecretary of State Nicholas

Burns explained an Israeli raid into Gaza that destroyed its only energy plant
and seized two dozen Hamas elected officials by saying: “Let’s remember who
started this. It was the outrageous actions of Hamas in violating Israel’s sover-
eignty in taking the soldier hostage.”45 Similar quotations could be supplied for
almost every incident, and the replies are similarly parallel: Hamas, Hezbollah,
or other Palestinians were reacting to the Israeli stranglehold over Gaza, raids
into the West Bank, the assassination of Palestinians, and, most generally, the
illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.
Sometimes the question of the starting point is more specific, and the rel-
evance of the chronology is brought out nicely by the coverage in the New
York Times of the clashes between Uighurs and Han Chinese in the summer
of 2009. The first reports concentrated on the major riot in Urumqi, in which
the Uighurs appeared to have been the aggressors, and only several days later
did the Times tell of the riot in another city two weeks earlier that had started
with attacks on Uighurs (in response to rumors that six Uighur men had raped
two Han women), which was the violence that triggered the Uighur response in
Urumqi.46 Of course the entire interaction is part of a larger pattern “in which
victims and perpetrators change places.”47
As these examples show, actors in a conflict often claim to be “merely”
responding to what others have done. “We were provoked, our position was
being undermined, we had to defend ourselves” is the essential claim being
made. “The onus is on the other side, which made the first hostile moves. Those
actions cannot be seen as a reaction to what we did, but instead are a reflection
of the other’s hostile impulses.” The plausibility of these claims is closely linked
to where we begin the story, which significantly influences how we see subse-
quent causation. Actors similarly often tell others that whether relations will be
good or bad is up to them. The actor will respond appropriately; the cause of
any change in relations—especially for the worse—will be the other’s behavior;
the other side will be responsible for any problems that ensue.48 The same ques-
tion of the appropriate starting point comes up in conflicts between individuals,
and many of us are amazed at how “good” our spouses’ memories are when it
comes to recalling ancient slights and failures to do the dishes. The stakes are
higher in judgments concerning interactions with police officers, who were cor-
rect to complain that the portion of the video clip of the horrifying beating of
Rodney King in Los Angeles in March 1991 that was endlessly shown on TV
not only started in the middle of the tape, but could not catch the previous his-
tory in which King had led the police on a long and dangerous car chase.49
This is not to say that an understanding of the causes of all hostile encoun-
ters turns on the starting point. Thus it can be argued that the details of timing
give little insight into the fundamental causes of the Cold War, which for some
analysts reside in the bipolar structure of the international system and for others
are to be found in the clash of ideologies and social systems. On a smaller scale,
timing may not be crucial when there are ready functional substitutes for spe-
cific actions in the way I discussed earlier. The argument about whether the
introduction of American combat troops into Vietnam preceded or followed the
North’s sending its regular army into the battle is less than central because both
the North and the United States were willing to escalate rather than lose.
A focus on who moved first also can distract us from other measures of causa-
tion and responsibility. For both explanatory and normative purposes, it may be
at least as important to ask who was more powerful, who had reasonable alterna-
tives, and who had the last clear chance to avoid major conflict (and these may
not be the same). To return to the Cold War as an example, it can be argued
that even if the USSR was the first to break its agreements and that its imposi-
tion of puppet regimes in Eastern Europe was largely unprovoked, the fact that
the United States was so much more powerful means that it could have safely
behaved less belligerently and so bears the bulk of the responsibility for the sub-
sequent conflict. On the other hand, the transformation from tensions and hostil-
ity to the Cold War of large standing armies and limited wars occurred only after
Stalin authorized the Korean War. Thus it may have been the USSR that had the
last clear chance to keep the conflict to a significantly lower level.50
Summary
We all know that isolating causation and assigning responsibility are linked
and extremely difficult. The point of this chapter is to show that much can be
learned through an appreciation of the complexities created by necessary and
sufficient causes, the convoluted and sometimes nonlinear ways in which vari-
ables interact, and thorny problems of chronology. Choices that at first look like
the key sites for causation and responsibility often need to be seen in a broader
and deeper context. The ample room for disagreement in this kind of analysis
is magnified and colored by the linkages between causation and responsibil-
ity. Since our conclusions about what acts and actors caused various outcomes
almost immediately lead to attributions of credit and blame, they become politi-
cally and emotionally charged. It is then not surprising that many debates grow
heated and that conclusions are strongly influenced by observers’ general world-
views and ideologies.
Notes
1. Krasner 1985. This approach was used to good effect by Krasner’s student Lloyd Gruber,
in Gruber 2000.
2. Tracking these kinds of influences is particularly difficult because even the most sincere
self-reports are likely to be inaccurate. Modern cognitive psychology has confirmed the
basic insight of much earlier figures that we lack access to many of our mental processes
and so are not able to know what influences us in many areas; see Wilson 2002.
3. Marx 1952/1969, 15.
4. For good general discussion of intricate combinations of necessary and sufficient con-
ditions, see Mackie 1965, 245–264; Most and Starr 1984, 383–406; Mahoney 2008,
412–436; Mahoney, Kimball, and Koivu 2009, 114–146. Also see Alexander George’s
discussion of equifinality in George 2006, 60–61. For discussions of similar points in
biology, see Jenkins 2004, 113–115; Hilborn and Stearns 1982, 145–164; Gannett 1999,
347–374.
5. Blaker 1977.
6. For a good analysis of causation and law, see Hart and Honoré 1985. A somewhat sim-
ilar question arises with attributing causality in collective-goods problems. When they
are undersupplied, each individual who attempted to free ride is in some sense responsi-
ble, but the outcome would not have been different had that individual contributed. Of
course, that is what makes these situations so frustrating for policy and human welfare,
and the same characteristics make them frustrating for our standard notions of power,
causation, and blame.
7. US vs. John Reid Edwards, Final Jury Instructions, 2012, 8.
8. A possible exception is the American decision to refrain from using poison gas against
the entrenched and fanatical Japanese troops on Okinawa near the end of World War II.
9. The quotation marks are necessary because thanks to his extensive spy network, Stalin
was quite well informed about the Manhattan Project.
10. The United States and Britain did, but only under the extreme exigency of World War
II, and even here the United States withheld information during the war for bargaining
purposes and, in contradiction to its wartime promise, ended cooperation later.
11. See the parallel discussion of “actor indispensablity” and “action indispensability” in
Greenstein 1969, 1–32.
12. Hoopes 1969, 30.
13. Organski and Kugler 1980, 13–61.
14. For the general argument that theories of war, if believed by decision makers, will reduce
the empirical support for them, see Gartzke 1999, 567–587.
15. The literature is very large. Particularly helpful in this context are Fearon 1991; Tetlock
and Belkin 1996; Lebow 2010; Martin 2011, 37–73.
16. Ironically, one can argue that the American responsibility for the overthrow of Allende
on September 11, 1973, was greater despite the fact that it did not have a hand in the
coup itself because it had done so much to weaken the regime and cultivate the con-
ditions that made the coup possible. But here too we should not exaggerate Allende’s
domestic support (he was elected with only slightly more than one-third of the votes)
or underestimate the extent to which his policies and behavior were responsible for his
downfall; see Haslam 2005.
17. Ian Lustick is more explicit about why he believes that the Middle East would have
become more peaceful and prosperous without Western interference; see Lustick 1997,
653–683.
18. Quoted in Burns and Cowell 2010.
19. This section draws on Jervis 1979, 3–28. See also the way causal processes are traced in
the literature on “normal accidents”: Perrow 1984; Vaughan 1996; Snook 2000; Sagan
1993.
20. See Van Valen 1973, 1–30; Dawkins and Krebs 1979, 489–511; Dieckmann, Marrow,
and Law 1995, 91–102.
21. Smith 2010.
22. See, for example, Thies 1980; George, Hall, and Simons 1971; George and Simons 1994;
Art and Cronin 2003.
23. Peden 2007, 92.
24. Roche and Watts 1991, 165–209; for analysis of the same kind of effect on the tactical
level, see Gooderson 1991, 210–231.
25. Bastiat 1850/1985.
26. Roche and Watts 1991, 186–187. If we view the Japanese response as a mistake from
their standpoint, as I think many military historians do, then the American success
depended on the adversary behaving foolishly (it is beyond the scope of this chapter
to explore the broader question of what it means to behave rationally in the face of an
irrational adversary).
27. For further discussion, see Jervis 2006, 206–208.
28. For a further discussion of the relative neglect of time on the part of IR scholars, see
Jervis 2009.
29. This made sense to some but not all authorities in a later case; see Robbins 2011; Baker
2011. In this case “the question of whether an officer was justified in shooting because
she feared death or serious injury . . . was judged separately from whether the officer, in
her conduct leading up to the fatal firing of the gun, made mistakes of judgment or tac-
tics that might have helped lead to the deadly outcome . . . , but some law enforcement
analysts said it was hard to see how the department could determine that a deadly shoot-
ing was justified if it also sent the message that had proper procedures been followed, the
shooting might not have been required at all” (Baker 2011).
30. See the official report: Independent Police Complaints Commission 2007.
31. Florida Statutes, Chapter 776.012.
32. Gruber 2000. In much the same way, in many instances American Indians sold their land
to European and later American settlers, but the alternatives they faced were shaped by
the settlers’ power; see Banner 2005. Foundational to this kind of analysis are Hirschman
1945; Baumgartner, Buckley, and Burns 1975, 49–47; Baumgartner and Burns 1975,
126–59; Schattschneider 1960. Also see James and Lake 1989, 1–29, and Barnett and
Duval 2005, 39–76. Pushed further, this discussion leads to the topics of socialization
and false (and perhaps not so false) consciousness.
33. For an argument that while tendentious in its attacks on others raises important ques-
tions that bridge the discussion in this section and the subsequent one, see Cumings
1993; also see Cumings 2007. Actors often condemn “unprovoked aggression,” but schol-
ars should be sensitive to the possibility of provoked aggression. As Paul Schroeder notes,
“the answer to ‘Who started the war?’ does not constitute an answer to ‘What caused
the war?’”; see Schroeder 2000, 206. For a good example see Gause 2002, 47–70.
34. For the critical but empathetic discussion, see Bowen 2007.
35. Quoted in Gage 2009, 92.
36. Trager 2012.
37. Diplomats at the time as well as later scholars may differ in their diagnosis of a con-
flict with another country in these terms. The classic case is the debate between Eyre
Crowe, permanent undersecretary at the British Foreign Office, and his predecessor,
Thomas Sanderson, about German intensions and the extent to which British behavior
was responsible for the deterioration of Anglo-German relations in the first years of the
twentieth century; see Crowe 1928, 397–420; Sanderson 1928, 420–421.
38. There are significant non-chronological ways of dealing with the argument. The Soviet
version implies that the main motive was to protect Castro, but skeptics can point out
that Castro did not ask for these weapons or see them as useful for this purpose and that
Soviet documents and related behavior indicate that the main motive was to even the
nuclear balance and allow Khrushchev to exact concessions from the West over Berlin.
Indeed, Castro went even further back in time and argued that one needed to start with
the history of unequal relations between the United States and Cuba that predated the
Cold War; see Laffey and Weldes 2008, 566.
39. Gleijeses 2002, 347.
40. For the latter case, see Sigal 1998; Pritchard 2007; Chinoy 2008; Cha 2012. The conflict
between England and Spain culminating in the Spanish Armada can be seen similarly;
see McDermott 2005.
41. United States Department of State 2006, 686.
42. Quoted in Lacey and Thompson 2009.
43. Schroeder 2004, 28. Also see Schroeder 2007, 21–22, and the perceptive if one-sided
analysis by a British diplomat: Headlam-Morley 1921, 333–46.
44. Quoted in Myre 2006.
45. Quoted in “Lawless in Gaza” 2006, 4.
46. Wong 2009a, (also see Wong 2009b); Jacobs 2009. It is not surprising that statements
by the Chinese government refer only to the violence in Urumqi, ignoring the previous
incident; see Jacobs and Fackler 2009.
47. Horowitz 2001, 530.
48. Note, however, that to claim that the actor is merely responding is to rob it of agency,
and it is striking that much radical analysis of terrorism and strife in the Third World
traces the fundamental cause to previous Western behavior and yet also seeks to portray
the people and groups involved as autonomous.
49. For a case in which it was the person under indictment rather than the police who
argued for starting the clock earlier, see McKinley 2009.
50. Similar but perhaps even more disturbing questions arise when an actor knows that its
adversary is unreasonable. If conflict is to be minimized, it will have to be accommo-
dating, although this may have a significant cost and be unfair. If it acts normally, later
scholars may with some validity blame it for the heightened conflict. Thus one can argue
that given unreasonable but known American sensitivities to the Soviet deployment of
forces in the Third World, Brezhnev and his colleagues should have known that sending
even limited forces to Ethiopia in response to Somalia’s attack would inflict a grievous
wound on détente. Of course the Soviets with some reason saw this as blaming the vic-
tim; but if American attitudes could not be modified, the Soviets had the choice between
being restrained and producing a situation that neither side wanted. One could perhaps
say that the Soviets bore the final, but not the ultimate, responsibility for the heightened
tensions.
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15
New Terrains: Sovereignty and Alternative

Conceptions of Power
Stephen D. Krasner
An April 15, 2011, story in the Washington Post opened with the following
paragraph: “Less than a month into the Libyan conflict, NATO is running
short of precision bombs, highlighting the limitations of Britain, France, and
other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action
over an extended period of time, according to senior NATO and U.S. officials.”1
For any scholar like myself with a lingering affection for and identification
with realism, it was a reassuring if short-lived moment. Power is what really
counts. Power is the ability to get someone to do something that they would
not otherwise do. The underlying material capability, hard power, that gener-
ates leverage is straightforward: in this case weapons. It is not hard to measure
these capabilities. If you don’t have the bombs, you don’t have the power. The
United States had a lot; Britain, France, and the other European powers had
less; Libya had least: attacking France, the UK, or the United States was not
an option for Libya.
Alas, this neat realist narrative unravels after a bit of reflection. States are
not the only players. International organizations, the UN and NATO, were also
involved. The attacks against Libya would not have taken place without the
Security Council approval of Resolution 1973, which authorized the establish-
ment of a no-fly zone over Libya and the protection of civilians. The United
States might not have been able to extricate itself from the lead role in Libya,
and therefore might not have participated in the first place, were it not for
another international organization, NATO, which offered a plausible alternative
structure under which to conduct attacks. The goals of military operations were
not clear: were they designed to protect civilians, support the rebels, remove
Qaddafi, kill Qaddafi, establish a more democratic regime, assure oil and gas
exports, or something else? The air strikes were not, however, designed to
achieve the most obvious goal of war in a realist world: to defeat the enemy
regime, occupy its territory, and support a government that would favor the
policies of the occupying power. The Americans and the Europeans engaged in
339
air strikes without having confidence in, or much knowledge about, the nature
of the Libyan opposition. Nothing that happens in Libya will change the inter-
national balance of power.
The contemporary international environment, of which Libya is but one
example, defies the verities of the past. At any point between, say, 1800 and
1945, it was plausible (although some scholars would say not necessarily useful)
to assume that the international environment was populated by autonomous,
unified, and rational states whose power, the ability to influence others, was
closely tied to their underlying material capabilities. Agreements were negotiated
in the shadow of war; they reflected the distribution of power. These assump-
tions are less plausible in the contemporary world. Here are some big changes
that have taken place since 1945:
• States do not die.2

• Underlying differences in material capability between the strongest and the
weakest states have increased dramatically.
• Nuclear weapons have removed any ambiguity about the cost of war.
• The longest recorded period for peace among major powers began in 1945,
and the clock is still ticking.
• In 1990 the number of democracies exceeded the number of autocracies and
anocracies for the first time.3
• The number of conventional international organizations increased from 123
in 1951 to 251 in 1999.
• The number of conventional nongovernmental organizations increased from
832 in 1951 to 5,825 in 1999.4
• Especially, but not exclusively, because of the proliferation of nuclear and bio-
logical weapons, the ability to do harm and underlying capabilities such as
GDP or total government revenue have become disconnected.
• The Soviet Union, one of the two poles in the bipolar world, collapsed with-
out an international armed conflict.
• NATO, the premier balancing alliance against the Soviet Union, did not dis-
band, despite the predictions of many realists, even though the Soviet Union
no longer existed.
In conventional power-based arguments the actors are unified, calculating, states;

power is a reflection of underlying capabilities measured, for instance, by the six
indicators used by the correlates of war project: military expenditure, military
personnel, energy consumption, iron and steel production, urban population,
and total population; and power is used to change the policies of other states
through coercion. This conventional analytic perspective is not analytically use-
less for understanding the major challenges of the contemporary world, but it is
not fully adequate either.
New Terrains: Sovereig nt y and Alternative Conceptions of Power 341
The essays in this volume demonstrate that even if conventional approaches

to power are sometimes useful, they are incomplete. Power may manifest itself
in ways that cannot be understood by purely material factors. Actors may focus
not on changing the policies of their counterparts in other countries but on
altering the domestic authority structures within which these counterparts are
embedded. Power may operate through social relations rather than through the
purposive actions of agents.
The essays in this volume reflect a variety of understandings of power. Daniel
Drezner and Benjamin Cohen both show that power, conventionally understood,
still matters. Drezner points out that the critical issue with regard to the salience
of institutions is what he terms their viscosity. Do institutions assume a life of
their own, or do they simply reflect the preferences of the powerful? Do institu-
tions persist even when the distribution of power changes? Drezner argues that
even if institutions persist and multiply, they may not be constraining. Drezner
focuses his critique on the widely accepted conclusions of the rational institutional
design school: institutionalization (viscosity) is higher when there is more legaliza-
tion, norm coherence, and rule adherence. He chooses two issue areas, the TRIPS
provisions associated with pharmaceuticals and the Law of the Seas rules regard-
ing the interdiction of ships on the high seas. Both of these ought to be highly
institutionalized, viscous, according to the criteria of the rational design school.
Drezner concludes, however, that even these regimes have had limited ability
to constrain more powerful states. Powerful states are often able to get what they
want, sometimes by creating new rules and institutions that are in tension with
extant ones. The United States created the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)
in 2003 to facilitate intercepting ships that were suspected of carrying WMD.
The PSI was then legitimated by a UN Security Council Resolution and a new
protocol adopted by the International Maritime Organization. The PSI has more
permissive rules for boarding ships than existed under the existing Law of the
Seas regime. The TRIPS regime for intellectual property rights, agreed to as
part of the WTO agreement, favored the industrialized countries. Its provisions
regarding pharmaceuticals were loosened by the Doha Declaration in 2001, but
intellectual property rights provisions in subsequent bilateral agreements were
often, Drezner points out, more restrictive.
Drezner is not offering a crude power argument. He does not dismiss the
importance of institutions but points out that rather than ignoring existing
rules, more powerful states created new ones. As the number of rules increases,
rule-based behavior decreases. States, especially powerful states with bureau-
cratic and legal resources, are able to forum shop. With more rules, previously
established focal points become less salient. Overlapping and inconsistent rules
increase the cost of monitoring; opportunistic behavior becomes more tempting.
The costs, administrative and financial, of complying with an ever larger number
of mandates may be prohibitive for states with limited resources.
Benjamin Cohen’s analysis of the relationship between money and power is

also, like Drezner’s discussion, firmly rooted in an actor-oriented world in which
material capacity is the most important determinant of outcomes. In contrast,
though, with conventional power-based arguments, Cohen does not focus on
getting others to do what they would otherwise not do, but rather on the way
in which monetary power can provide a state with autonomy, the ability not
to have to make adjustments. As the both the Asian monetary crisis in the late
1990s and the European monetary crisis of 2011–2012 have demonstrated,
adjustment can be extremely costly.
If a currency serves as an international currency, a reserve currency, and
trade currency, then it can provide a state with autonomy, with the ability not
to adjust. In the contemporary world there is only one top currency, the dollar,
two patrician currencies, the euro and the yen, and a small number of what he
calls elite currencies, including the British pound and the Canadian dollar. A
large percentage of international bonds and international reserves are denomi-
nated in dollars. The dollar is also the most important trading currency. The
willingness of other countries to hold dollars provides the United States with
a degree of autonomy that it would not otherwise have. Power in the monetary
arena is the ability not to have to adjust.
The chapters by Drezner and Cohen are exemplars of the way in which
conventional conceptions of power can inform our understanding of critical
issues. States are the key actors. They are rational utility maximizers. They are
constrained to some extent by international institutions, but not all that much.
Relative capabilities rather than domestic structures explain outcomes.
The chapters by Stein, Gourevitch, Solingen, and Katzenstein put much more
weight on the domestic characteristics of states, not just their relative material
capabilities. For all these authors, the foreign policy of states cannot be explained
without reference to their domestic political structures. Knowing their position
in the international distribution of power is not enough. This is the conventional
arena of foreign policy analysis. Gruber, in contrast, investigates one manifesta-
tion of what Peter Gourevitch called, in 1977, the second image reversed, the
impact of the international system on domestic structures and politics rather
than the other way around.5
Arthur Stein argues that the reaction of the United States to the perceived
threat from failed states cannot be explained by conventional realist factors.
It is not the distribution of power, nor the level of the threat, that has driven
American behavior. Al Qaeda and transnational terrorism are a secondary,
not a primary, threat to the security of the United States. Terrorist camps
could be located anywhere in the world, not just in failed states. What has
driven the American response is a combination of the exceptional resources
possessed by the United States, a realist consideration, and public pressure
on politicians, which had nothing to do with the international distribution
of power. It is the domestic, not the international, dynamics that have driven
American policy.
Peter Gourevitch argues that what happens within countries is the major deter-
minant of what happens between them. The financial crisis was a result of politi-
cal choices made within individual states. These political choices were driven by
ideology, and the interests of key societal actors, especially the financial sector.
How states behaved before and during the crisis was mainly determined by their
domestic politics, not their place in the international distribution of power.
Etel Solingen investigates the trade-off between internationalizing and
inward-looking coalitions within states. These coalitions are not determined
by realist considerations, by the distribution of power in the international sys-
tem. Within states dominance can shift from inward-looking to internation-
alizing coalitions. Under Mao, Solingen notes, China was dominated by an
inward-looking coalition. Over the last several decades dominance has shifted
to an internationalizing coalition. This coalition has had more external power,
more ability to influence developments in the global system, but this has come
at the sacrifice of some degree of domestic autonomy. For instance, China had
to legislate new domestic rules to become a member of the WTO and to accept
IAEA inspections when it joined the NPT. Despite China’s continued rhetorical
endorsement of nonintervention, Solingen points out, it has endorsed sanctions
several times since 2006.
Peter Katzenstein examines the way in which the United States has created a
civilization empire. This empire is territorial (for instance, military bases around
the world); economic (for instance, the governing mechanisms for international
markets); and cultural (for instance, the influence of American dress and music).
It unites many different ethnic groups under one language and culture. Relations
within the empire are hierarchical, not horizontal; the United States concludes
deals, directly and indirectly, with subordinate states. Like other civilizational
empires, its geographic reach and the scope of its activities are prodigious. It
will leave a mark on history even after the power of the United States fades. The
American imperium, Katzenstein argues, is a manifestation of ideas and values,
not just material power. The end of legally sanctioned racism was the necessary
condition for the American imperium. So long as the state defended differential
treatment of citizens within the United States, it could not realize its assimila-
tory power in the international system.
Lloyd Gruber’s discussion of globalization on the character of domestic poli-
tics offers an example of the second image reversed, the way in which the inter-
national system can impact domestic politics. While globalization may increase
the overall wealth of a society, it can also increase income disparities. If these dis-
parities are concentrated in specific geographic areas, politics can become more
polarized. Gruber argues that these disparities and their political consequences
are becoming evident in both the developing and the industrialized world.
Thomas Risse focuses not on domestic politics but on the lack of domes-
tic sovereignty, on the inability of some states to control and regulate activities
within and across their borders. He refers to this situation as limited statehood.
Limited statehood can involve both issues and space, activities or parts of the
country that central authority structures cannot control. States with areas of
limited statehood have international legal sovereignty; they are recognized by
other states. They may enjoy Westphalian/Vattelian sovereignty and be free of
any external influence on their domestic authority structures, feeble though
these structures might be. Weak domestic sovereignty, however, makes it more
likely that Westphalian/Vattelian sovereignty will also be compromised. In areas
of limited statehood, Risse notes, governance and the provision of services may
come from a variety of different actors, including international organizations,
nongovernmental organizations, and public-private partnerships. The activities
of these actors can weaken as well as strengthen the authority and the capac-
ity of the state. External actors may operate in a shadow of hierarchy cast by,
for instance, legal regulations or public concerns about environmental or labor
practices in their home countries. For Risse, power matter, states with areas of
limited statehood are the targets, not initiators, of activity, but power involves
legitimacy as well as material capabilities.
Finally, Robert Keohane and David Lake explore two concepts that have
been under-theorized. Keohane examines persuasion; Lake, authority. Keohane
writes: “Persuasion can be defined as the use of argument by one or more per-
sons to influence the actions of one or more other people, without using or
threatening force, or providing incentives.” Persuasion can be direct or indirect.
Direct persuasion can attempt to alter policy makers’ preferences over strategies
or preferences over outcomes. This may be accomplished by providing informa-
tion or appealing to norms or identities. Indirect persuasion involves appealing
to audiences that might affect policy makers. These appeals are not strategic; no
one individual can affect the behavior of another, but together they can change
the actions of elites. Indirect appeals are often made through emotion; some-
times by deploying compelling narratives such as Martin Luther King’s “I Have
a Dream” speech or Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Lake emphasizes the importance of authority in the international system.
Power is multifaceted. It does not just involve coercion, the use of material capa-
bilities to get another state to do something that it would not otherwise do. Power
can also involve authority. Authority relations are hierarchical. Subordinates rec-
ognize the right of superiors to issue commands; they feel an obligation to obey
these commands. Authority is socially constructed. It depends on the shared
understandings of the actors involved, not directly on material resources. Lake
demonstrates in his essay in this volume and other writings that authority is con-
sequential in many different issue areas.6 Some states have recognized that oth-
ers have authority over their defense policies. The New International Economic
Order, proposed by Third World countries in the 1970s and 1980s, was an effort
to weaken the authority of the postwar neoliberal regime created by the United
States. Neo-trusteeships, he argues, cannot be successfully established in failed
states unless they authority of the trustee is accepted.
The extent to which power, conventionally understood as grounded in
the material resources of states, is foregrounded varies across these chapters.
Sometimes, as in Gruber’s discussion, it hardly makes any appearance at all. The
large and small, rich and poor, are all affected by the potentially politically polar-
izing impact of globalization. For Gourevitch and Solingen, domestic politics,
not the international distribution of power, determines state policy, but, obvi-
ously, large states would have more of an impact on the international system
than small ones. China’s shift from an inward-looking to an internationalizing
coalition was very consequential for the global system, as were American deci-
sions about bank regulation and interest policy. If the dominant coalitions in
Arab states changed from inward to internationalizing, the global impact would
be less. For Stein, power gave American decision makers the luxury of respond-
ing in an excessive way to 9/11, but the content of that response was driven by
domestic politics. For Cohen and Drezner, power is very much in the foreground,
determined by a state’s ability to forum shop or resist external pressure.
Katzenstein, Risse, Lake, and Keohane offer more-complex concepts of the
foundations of power. Power, the ability to change the behavior of others, does
not just depend on material capabilities. Katzenstein points out that interna-
tional relations scholars have generally thought of power as working through
specific actors rather than constitutive social relations and as being direct rather
than diffuse. This fails, as he notes, to provide an adequate understanding of
the American imperium, which has functioned through institutions, not just
actors, and through diffuse as well as direct mechanisms. Both Risse and Lake
emphasize the importance of authority, not only for explaining the success of
state-to-state policies, such as the creation of security regimes, but also for state
building in which external actors attempt to provide governance structures in
areas of limited statehood. Keohane notes that power has multiple manifesta-
tions and has been defined in different ways. It is not, however the different
definitions that are most analytically consequential, he argues, but rather what
he calls the “four i’s—institutions, information, ideas, and identity.” Indirect
persuasion involves power, asymmetrical capabilities that can change the behav-
ior of actors, but these capabilities involve information, ideas, and identity, not
material capabilities.
In sum, the authors in this volume demonstrate that the traditional interna-
tional relations concept of power, in which the ability of one state to change the
behavior of another is based on material capabilities, is not irrelevant or analyti-
cally useless, but it is impoverished. Power depends on nonmaterial as well as
material factors. Power can be used to change the domestic authority structures
of target states, not just their foreign policies. States are not the only actors or
targets of action in the international system.
One, Two, Three, Four Kinds of Power

As Keohane notes, there have been a number of efforts to conceptualize power
that begin with Dahl’s work in the 1950s, including Bachrach and Baratz’s cri-
tique of Dahl, Lukes’s later, more socially constructed conception, and more
recently, the four types of power discussed by Barnett and Duvall in their 2005
article in International Organization. Barnett and Duvall, in particular, provide a
logically exhaustive taxonomy that can inform analyses of a number of different
issue areas in international politics, including the questions involving the core
ontological building block of international relations, the sovereign state.
In “The Concept of Power” published in 1957, Robert Dahl wrote that “A has
power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not
otherwise do.”7 Dahl went on to argue that an analysis of power would require
knowledge of the basis of power (underlying capabilities, which could refer to
material resources, official position, popularity with the electorate, or other fac-
tors); the “means” used to deploy resources; the amount of power (the probabil-
ity that the target or respondent in Dahl’s terminology would change); and the
scope of power (the domain over which such influence cold occur). He noted
that power varies across domains; that he, as a professor, could compel his stu-
dents to take a test on Friday afternoon by threatening to fail them, but could
not give them a ticket for exceeding the parking limits in front of his office. The
first sentence of Dahl’s paper, “That some people have more power than others
is one of the most palpable facts for human existence,”8 makes it clear that he
is interested in the behavior of conscious agents. Dahl is interested in studying
power in terms of its impact, its ability to get “B to do something that B would
not otherwise do.”9
In 1962, a year after the publication of Dahl’s classic Who Governs, Bachrach
and Baratz argued that Dahl had missed the point, or at least missed half of
the point. Dahl had understood one face of power, but not the other. Bachrach
and Baratz argued that Dahl, and the pluralists more generally, had ignored the
possibility of non-decisions, the second face of power. “The pluralists concen-
trate their attention, not upon the sources of power, but its exercise.”10 Power
can be used to alter behavior, but it can also be used to prevent an issue from
ever appearing on the political agenda. Values, rituals, and institutional struc-
tures limit the range of questions that are considered. In more contemporary
parlance, Bachrach and Baratz argued that Dahl was blind to decisions that were
off the equilibrium path, decisions that are never made because the underlying
structure of the game prevents them from ever being considered.11
In Power: A Radical View, Steven Lukes pointed to a third face of power.

Power could not, he maintained, be understood solely from an agent-oriented
perspective, such as that of the pluralists or even Bachrach and Baratz. Power
involved more than getting B to do something that B would not otherwise do,
or even keeping an issue off the agenda. Power involved a set of socially con-
structed relationships. These social constructs constituted actors, defined their
interests and their capabilities. “The bias of the system is not simply maintained
by a series of individually chosen acts, but also, more importantly, by the socially
structured and culturally patterned behavior of groups, and practices of institu-
tions which may indeed by manifested by individuals’ inaction.”12
In an article published in International Organization in 2005, Barnett and
Duvall develop a heuristically powerful taxonomy of power, one that incorpo-
rates these earlier discussions. They argue that power can be distinguished along
two dimensions. The first is relational specificity, which can be either direct or
diffuse. The second contrasts “interactions of specific actors” and “social rela-
tions of constitution.”13 The discussion yields the following two-by-two table.
Relational specificity is
Direct Diffuse
Power works through Interactions of specific Compulsory Institutional
actors
Social relations of Structural Productive
constitution
Source: Barnett and Duvall 2005, 48.
To summarize their argument briefly: Compulsory power involves the direct

control of one actor over the existence or behavior of another. Institutional
power is exercised through institutions that reflect the preferences of more pow-
erful actors. These two categories track on to the familiar actor-oriented logic of
most political science analyses. Structural power involves constitutive relations
in which one usually more powerful actor constitutes the identity, the prefer-
ences and capabilities, of the other. Master and slave is the classic example.
Productive relations involve the constitution of identities and capacities through
diffuse social discourse.14 This taxonomy is not meant to be mutually exclusive:
different kinds of power may be involved in any particular transaction. Barnett
and Duvall observe that this approach allows power to escape from the clutches
of realism. Scholars working from other perspectives, notably constructivism,
can invoke power as well; it is just not materially based power.
Barnett and Duvall’s taxonomy captures several decades of discussion about
power. The behaviorists, whether pluralists in American domestic politics, or
realists or liberal institutionalists in international politics, were interested in
interactions among actors. For realists, these interactions were among auton-
omous states that were differentiated according to their underlying material
capacities. For liberal institutionalists, there was a wider variety of actors,
including international organizations, transnational organizations, and groups
within states. For some realists, institutions were epiphenomenal; for others,
institutions might matter as focal points or as mechanisms for reducing trans-
actions costs, but they would not persist if the underlying power distribu-
tion, during which they were initially created, changed. For liberals, many of
the key problems in the international system involved market failures rather
than distributional conflicts. Institutions were more consequential and more
independent of underlying power configurations than they were for realists.
Institutions could persist even if the distribution of power changed, if only
because of the high transaction costs of creating new structures. Institutional
viscosity, in Drezner’s terminology, was high. Regardless of the particular
“ism” label, what is clear is that actor-oriented approaches have dominated the
study of international politics. Dahl’s discussion of the basis, means, amount,
and scope of power is still relevant. In Barnett and Duvall’s typology, many of
Dahl’s interactions sit either in the compulsory power box or can be character-
ized as a form of bargaining.
Bachrach and Baratz’s second face of power manifests itself through insti-
tutional power. Institutions determine what kind of issues can be addressed.
Institutional rules preclude some questions from ever being considered.
Institutions may reduce transaction costs, but one of the ways in which they do
this is by making some issues non-decisions—questions that are never consid-
ered at all.
Lukes is concerned primarily with structural power. Entities cannot be treated
as exogenous. Rather, they are a product of social relations. These social rela-
tions constitute actors; they define their capacities and interests. More deeply
than the second face of power, some issues are never considered at all because
socially constructed entities cannot even conceive of them as questions that
must be addressed. In a fully effective system of slavery, the slave not only does
not try to escape but is not even able to conceive of a reality in which the insti-
tution of slavery does not exist.
Power and State-Building: Transforming Domestic

Authority Structures
Both the end of the Cold War and 9/11 focused more scholarly attention on
the domestic authority structures of states as opposed to state-to-state rela-
tions or foreign policies. There is a growing body of literature that has aban-
doned the assumption of states as autonomous actors. In this volume the
contributions of Katzenstein, Risse, Lake, and Keohane reflect this probléma-

tique. Domestic authority structures may be changed through both power and
bargaining. The following section provides some examples of the way in which
Barnett and Duvall’s taxonomy of power can be used to illuminate the ways in
which domestic authority structures have been altered by both external actors
and the external environment. Bargaining and contracting, which may be more
effective mechanisms for altering domestic authority structures, are not exam-
ined in this survey.
Compulsory Power
The clearest instances of the use of power to change domestic authority struc-
tures involve compulsory power, the use of military force and occupation.
Foreign-imposed regime change has always been an option for political lead-
ers. It is costly. It has been used infrequently. Less than 5 percent of the cases
in the MID data set are coded as involving demands for regime change.15 But
for the powerful, it is always available, sometimes inescapable. The transforma-
tion of domestic authority structures in Germany and Japan was a fundamen-
tal objective of the Second World War. Between 1555 and 2010, John Owen
has identified 209 cases of what he calls “forcible domestic institutional pro-
motion.”16 He finds that states that do intervene, do so repeatedly. They pro-
mote in other countries institutions that are similar to their own. The targets
of intervention, Owen argues, have been strategically important but unstable
states. Interventions have occurred most frequently when the international
environment has been characterized by high insecurity and deep ideological
divisions. Owen identifies the Reformation Counter-Reformation, 1550–1648;
the French Revolution and the conservative reaction, 1789–1849, and the
twentieth century, 1917–1991, as the three periods during which the rate of
intervention was highest.17
For the United States, David Lake has identified twenty-two instances of
militarized disputes between 1900 and 2009 in which the objective was to
change the regime or government of the target state. Seventeen of these dis-
putes occurred in the Caribbean littoral. Before the Second World War, the most
important motivation for American interventions was anxiety about European
involvement in bankrupt states close to the American border. After the Second
World War, the most important motivation for American action was the fear
that a state would leave the informal American empire and ally with the Soviet
Union.18
Efforts to alter regime characteristics through compulsory power can also
involve go-it-alone power, not just the use of force. Go-it-alone power is the
ability to take the status quo off the table, leaving other actors with constrained
opportunity sets. These other actors would have preferred the status quo ante,
but it is no longer available. They may then enter into a voluntary agreement;
there is no direct coercion or imposition. This agreement leaves them worse off
than they were initially, but better off than they would be without an agreement.
The ability to alter the status quo and thereby constrain the possibilities open
to other actors can be understood as a form of compulsory power. Unlike vol-
untary contracting, in which all actors move toward the Pareto frontier, even
though some may move further than others, with go-it-alone power the stronger
actor can make the weaker actor worse off.19
The relationship of the government of Liberia with foreign donors after the
end of the civil war in 2003 offers an example of go-it-alone power involving
external control of domestic authority structures. In 2005, the government
of Liberia signed a contract with the International Contact Group of Liberia,
whose members included the EU, AU, ECOWAS, the UN, the United States,
and the World Bank, to create the Governance and Economic Management
Assistance Program. GEMAP gave outside experts cosigning authority in a
number of state-owned enterprises and ministries, provided for the creation
of an anti-corruption commission, gave customs collection to an external con-
tractor, and placed an international administrator as head of the central bank.
A World Bank and UN study concluded that “GEMAP stands out in terms of
the scope and intrusiveness of multilateral international engagement in public
finance management in a sovereign country. It targets the collection of revenues
and the management of expenditure but also addresses government procure-
ment and concessions practices, judicial processes, transparency and account-
ability of key government institutions and state-owned enterprises, and local
capacity-building.”20
GEMAP was created as a result of initiatives taken by external donors who
feared that government corruption was so extensive that it would destroy the
peace-building process that began in 2003. Government officials in Liberia would
have preferred the status quo, which allowed them ample opportunity to pilfer.
They campaigned against the proposed arrangement, arguing that it imposed
a de facto trusteeship on Liberia. Liberian officials proposed their own plan,
which rejected cosigning authority and called for an audit of donor activities.
Foreign donors—the IMF, World Bank, EC, and the United States—however,
took the status quo off the table. They threatened to withdraw aid if Liberian
officials refused to sign the agreement, and to impose a travel ban on the head
of the government, threats that were credible because the donors were better off
not giving aid at all than giving aid much of which was being stolen.21 External
donors could force Liberian officials to take a deal that left them worse off than
in the status quo ante.
To this point, the literature on compulsory power and institutional change
offers a mixed picture of outcomes. Powerful external actors can depose regimes.
They can put in place successor governments whose leaders are subservient to
their foreign policy preferences. For instance, with the exception of Cuba, the
United States has been able to depose overtly hostile regimes in Central America
and the Caribbean. External actors, however, have been less successful in creat-
ing their preferred regime type, at least their rhetorically preferred regime type,
especially democracy, as opposed to bolstering compliant leaders.
There are two impediments to establishing democratic regimes through
compulsory power. First, it may be easier to manipulate autocratic leaders than
democratic ones. When foreign policy preferences and democratization clash, a
democratic intervener may prefer a compliant autocrat to a defiant democrat.22
Second, it is easier to establish a democratic regime when, as is suggested by
modernization theory, the target state is more developed. The United States was
successful in establishing democratic regimes in Germany and Japan after the
Second World War, but these countries were already developed, had high liter-
acy rates, a middle class, and some experience with democracy. Boix has recently
shown that during the Cold War the usually positive relationship between devel-
opment and democracy was attenuated by a development he attributes to the
extraordinary focus of American leaders on supporting compliant regime leaders
even if this meant opposing democracy. With the end of the Cold War, consis-
tent with modernization theory, the positive association between development
and democracy has returned.23
Institutional Power
Domestic authority structures can also be influenced by institutional power,
situations where power is exercised by agents, but through institutions rather
than directly. These institutions reflect the preferences of those agents with
greater power. In most instances institutional power is aimed at changes in pol-
icy. In some cases, however, it may also involve changes in domestic authority
structures.
The transition from the GATT to the WTO offers an example of institutional
power. Under GATT, developing countries could pick and choose among obli-
gations. With the WTO they were offered an all-or-nothing deal. All countries
joining the WTO had to accept not only the GATT, which was related to trade
in goods, but also about sixty other trade-related agreements. There was no
opportunity for opting out of specific agreements. The most important WTO
agreements aside from the GATT are the Agreement on Agriculture, the General
Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the Agreement on Trade-Related
Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary
Measures Agreement, and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. If there
had been an opt-out provision, developing countries would have rejected some
of these. The GATS and the agreement related to intellectual property rights
were particularly problematic. Few developing countries have service sectors that
can compete internationally. Joining the GATS makes any equivalent of infant
industry protection more challenging. This might, of course, be beneficial for
the consumers of services, but the GATS was not welcomed by nascent service
industries and their political allies. In intellectual property rights the interests
of industrialized and developing states are at odds. Developing countries would
prefer weaker intellectual property rights; the generators of intellectual property
stronger ones. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights reflects the preferences of those countries that generate intellectual prop-
erty. TRIPS coverage is extensive, including copyright for computer code, cine-
matographic work, performances, trademarks, and geographical indicators (with
special provisions for wines and spirits), and industrial designs. Patents must be
issued for at least twenty years. TRIPS requires that signatories treat foreign and
national entities in the same way. In some cases TRIPS required the creation of
new institutions, not just changes in law. China, for instance, established special
intellectual property rights tribunals in 1993 in anticipation of membership in
the WTO. Although, as Drezner points out in his essay in the volume, some of
the provisions of the TRIPS were weakened during Doha round negotiations,
intellectual property rights were strengthened through subsequent bilateral trade
agreements.
Structural Power
For most American students of international politics, structural power is a more
elusive concept than compulsory or institutional power, both of which operate
through identifiable agents. Structural power refers to the mutual constitution
of actors. Actor constitution involves defining and instantiating roles and identi-
ties. Structural power is enabling as well as constraining. It makes it possible for
social entities to act in specific, albeit limiting, ways.24
In recent history, the most important example of structural power in the
international system is the universal embrace of sovereign statehood as the only
legitimate form of political organization. The many different political forms that
were recognized before the twentieth century—empires, tributary states, protec-
torates, dominions, colonies, tribes—have disappeared. Even though sovereignty
is characterized by organized hypocrisy, and its principles and norms are fre-
quently violated, especially those associated with Westphalian/Vattelian sover-
eignty, there are no recognized alternatives.25
The universal embrace of sovereignty is a manifestation of the triumph of
the West—Europe and North America—over other areas of the world. East
Asia offers a particularly clear example of a collision of civilizations that ended
with the disappearance of a political order that had existed for a millennia. The
Sino-centric world was radically different from the sovereign state system that
had evolved in Europe over several centuries. The Chinese-centered system was
based on hierarchy rather than formal state equality. China was not one political
entity among many, it was the apex of civilization. The emperor was a sacred fig-
ure, the mediator between heaven and earth, as well as a temporal ruler. Lesser
polities were tributary states offering symbolic obeisance and material tribute to
the emperor. China encouraged the tributary relationship, even though it often
imposed financial burdens on the imperial treasury because external relations
legitimated the internal position of the emperor.26
The Confucian order placed great emphasis on appropriate rites and ceremo-
nies, such as the kowtow to the emperor, which embodied and validated this
hierarchical order. These rites and ceremonies were in conflict with the norms
and practices of the sovereign state system, especially with its core principle of
equality among sovereigns. Alain Peyrefitte’s The Collision of Two Civilizations
provides a fascinating account of how these two different constitutive orders
came into conflict during the 1792–1794 British mission to China led by
George Macartney. Macartney’s goal was to open diplomatic and trade relations
with China, which had limited Western activities to a few cities in the south.
The Chinese were anxious about British power, which they did not fully grasp,
but desperate to demonstrate that alien Western powers, like tributary states
on China’s periphery, would accept the Chinese hierarchical order. One focus
of concern was whether Macartney would kowtow to the emperor. Macartney
refused, offering rather to pay the same homage that he would to his own king,
a bow of the head. The official records of the empire, however, stated that
Macartney had performed the kowtow. In the end, this artful duplicity would
fail in the face of Western military supremacy.27
By the beginning of the twentieth century the political entities in East Asia
resembled those in other parts of a globe. China’s tributary states had become
colonies of the European powers or Japan; by 1960 they would be independent
states. Japan, after the Meiji restoration, had embraced Western institutional
forms both internal and external, as the path to a modernity that could pre-
vent subjugation. China itself had become an international legal sovereign with
embassies, ambassadors, and international treaties, all institutional forms totally
alien to the traditional Sino-centric world.
China’s conception of its own interests have been transformed. In 1793 the
court of the Qianlong Emperor was obsessed with whether the British emissary
would follow the rituals of court. The emperor rejected British requests for a
permanent embassy in Beijing and described the idea of Chinese representatives
in Europe as “utterly impractical.”28 Today, China is the staunchest major power
defender of the conventional rules of sovereignty.
The spread of the sovereign state system over the last two centuries is a compel-
ling example of structural power. A set of practices that had evolved in the West
over several hundred years has been globally embraced even in places where it is far
from clear that sovereignty offers the most stable or effective form of governance.
Productive Power
Productive power constitutes actors, their interests, capacities, and
self-understanding, through indirect and networked discourses. These dis-
courses make certain kinds of actions and behavior acceptable and others
almost unthinkable. “In general,” Barnett and Duvall argue, “the bases and
workings of productive power are the socially existing and, hence, historically
contingent and changing understandings, meanings, norms, customs, and social
identities that make possible, limit, and are drawn on for action.”29
One body of literature that demonstrates the consequences of productive
power is world polity institutionalism. World polity institutionalism holds that
states are embedded in a global network that defines proper state identity.
International organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, and
professional organizations propagate concepts of appropriate state organization
and behavior. For many functions, all states claim to do more or less the same
thing. There is surprising uniformity in the way in which states are organized.
Virtually every state has an education ministry, a health ministry, a national sci-
ence foundation—even states with no scientists.30 Virtually all states have man-
dates for social safety nets and minimal levels of education.31
The existence of these globally legitimated goals and authority structures is
not necessarily translated into actual behavior. Enunciated goals, legal obligations,
and formal organizations can be decoupled from actual behavior. Having an edu-
cation ministry does not mean that children will be educated or even that there
will be schools or teachers; a social security law does not mean that social secu-
rity will actually be provided. The scope of state authority around the world is
surprisingly uniform and ambitious; the actual ability of states to carry out the
functions that they themselves have assumed varies widely. In the wealthier devel-
oping world, state responsibilities and accompanying authority structures grew up
for the most part autochthonously from either demands made by electorates in
democratic states or command decision taken in autocratic ones. In the develop-
ing world, in contrast, state responsibilities reflect a globally legitimated logic of
appropriateness. States have assumed responsibilities that they cannot fulfill.32
A global discourse led by international organizations, international nongov-
ernmental organizations, and national aid agencies has legitimated certain forms
of state authority and delegitimated others. States must have a ministry of health
but not a ministry of eugenics. States must have an army, an air force, and a navy
(sometimes even states like Bolivia, with no seacoast), but they do not necessar-
ily have a heavily armed police force like the Italian carabinieri. The scope of
authority appropriate for a modern state is defined by a discourse that makes
no distinctions among states. The extent to which this discourse is accepted by
a particular state depends on how much it is embedded in a network of global
discourse: North Korea hardly at all; South Korea deeply.33
Public statements after the election of Mohammed Morsi, the first Egyptian
president representing an Islamic party, illustrate how much the terms of dis-
course are set by the industrialized West. Morsi, in his first major speech, stated,
“We are not exporting revolution, and we do not interfere with the affairs of
others, or allow interference in our own affairs.”34 Noninterference in the inter-
nal affairs of other states is the core principle of Westphalian/Vattelian sover-
eignty. He did not invoke international norms associated with Islamic principles.
The English-language spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood condemned Israel
on CNN as a violator of human rights, not a violator of sharia law.
In sum, power understood in its multiple manifestations has not just been an
instrument that states or central decision makers have used to influence the for-
eign policies of other states. Power has also been used to alter domestic author-
ity structures as well. Power, especially compulsory power, is not, however, the
ideal instrument for accomplishing such an ambitious objective. For compulsory,
institutional, or structural power to be effective, differences in underlying capa-
bilities, material as well as ideational, must be very large. States must be willing
to commit substantial resources to engage in war and rebuild state structures, or
to establish and support international institutions that can so change the incen-
tives facing weaker states that they restructure their domestic institutions, or to
so transform the international environment that leaders in weaker polities have
no choice but to reconceptualize their understanding of how political life should
be ordered. Bargaining, which is not the focus of this volume, has been a more
effective mechanism for initiating and sustaining changes in domestic authority
structure.
Conclusion
The end of the Cold War and 9/11 altered the terrain of international relations
and international relations scholarship. Weak states, which had gotten limited
attention from academics before 1990, have now become subjects of intense
study because they can threaten the core security interests of states with much
greater capacity. The spread of WMD has de-linked the tie between the under-
lying material capabilities of state and non-state actors and the ability to do
harm. The GDP of North Korea is a small fraction that of Russia, China, South
Korea, and Japan, but North Korea could kill millions of people in all of these
countries, which are within range of its ballistic missiles. Numerous terrorist
attacks against the most powerful states in the world have been planned and
launched from Pakistan and Afghanistan, the latter one of the poorest countries
in the world.
A multifaceted understanding of power provides some traction in understand-
ing interactions between the weak and the strong. Traditional realist approaches,
which emphasize compulsory power, illuminate some interactions but obscure

others. Weaker states, not only in the contemporary environment but also over
the last several centuries, have been subject not only to compulsory, but also to
institutional, structural, and productive power as well. The weak have been at
the receiving end of invasions, asymmetrical bargaining, pressure from interna-
tional institutions, and global discourses dominated by entities from advanced
industrialized states. The very fact that these weak states exist in the first place
reflects the structural power of the West, the extent to which sovereignty is the
only universally recognized way to organize political life.35
Notes
1. DeYoung and Jaffe 2011.
2. Fazal 2007.
3. Marshall and Cole 2009, 11.
4. Union of International Associations 2012, table 2.
5. Gourevitch 1978.
6. Lake 2009.
7. Dahl 1957, 202–203.
8. Ibid., 201.
9. Dahl 1957.
10. Bachrach and Baratz 1962, 948.
12. Lukes 1974, 23.
13. Barnett and Duvall 2005, 48.
14. Ibid., 48–57.
15. Downes and Monten 2011.
16. Owen 2010, 2.
17. Owen 2010.
18. Lake 2009, 174.
19. Gruber 2000, 7–10.
20. Dwan and Bailey 2006, 17.
21. Ibid., 11–13, 21.
22. Downes 2011; Pickering and Peceny 2006.
23. Boix 2011.
25. Krasner 1999.
26. Wang 1968, 60.
27. Peyrefitte 1993.
28. Qianlong Emperor 1793.
30. Finnemore 1993.
31. Meyer et al. 1997.
32. Fukuyama 2004, 8–17, 23–30.
33. Koo and Ramirez 2009.
34. Kirkpatrick 2012.
35. Jackson and Rosberg 1982.
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INDEX
Abbott, Frederick, 294, 295 Angola, 330

Abu Ghraib, 150 Annan, Kofi, 291, 298
actors. See political actors Aoki, Masahiko, 200
Afghanistan APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic
establishment of democracy, 7, 274n49 Cooperation), 119
non-state governance, 15, 85, 86 Arab Collective Security Pact, 117
as terrorist refuge, 226–27, 230–31, 355 Arab-Iranian conflicts, 114, 118
US authority in, 7, 36 Arab-Israeli relations, 114, 118, 130, 132n51,
US invasion of, 48n52, 125, 150, 203, 331, 355
226–27, 239n22, 240n54 Arab League, 118, 119, 131n18, 132n59
Westphalian sovereignty, 86, 91 Arab Spring, 121, 122
Africa Arbenz Guzmán, Jacobo, 319
currency, 172 Argentina
limited governance, 87–88 limited statehood, 81
regional fissures, 264 trade, 182–83, 185, 188
trade, 185, 188 Asad, Hafiz al, 118, 119
See also specific countries ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian
African Growth and Opportunity Act, 188 Nations), 119, 300
Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 122 Ashley, Richard K., 47n7
Alesina, Alberto, 265 Asia
Al-Jazeera, 118 financial crisis of 1997, 120, 202, 299–300,
Allende, Salvador, 333n16 342
Al Qaeda and Great Recession of 2008, 120, 206
power strategies of, 14, 227–28, 229, 232, See also East Asia; Northeast Asia; Southeast
236, 238n13, 239n19 Asia; specific countries
refuges and training camps, 226–27, 230–31, Asian Bond Markets Initiative, 300
241n60–61 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC),
role of hope for, 17n2, 236 119, 184
targeting of US by, 222, 238n13, 239n19, Athens, ancient, 6, 36, 236, 237
242n71 Australia
and US cost tolerance, 228, 240n51 currency, 165, 173–74
See also 9/11 attack; terrorism on failed states, 227
anarchy G–20 membership, 121
and authority, 59, 60, 69, 71–72 settler colonies, 144
classic model of, 34 Australian Agency for International
Krasner on, 19, 34 Development (AUSAID), 184
and state actions, 10, 11, 19 authority
Andalusia, 232 charismatic, 58
Andrews, David, 161 definitions, 34–35, 56–57
359
360 Inde x
authority (Cont.) Boix, Carles, 351

and dissent, 66–68 Bolivia, 190, 269, 354
distinguishing from coercion, 55, 57–58, 60, Bolton, John, 296
72n16, 344 Bosnia, 91, 193n34
dominant-subordinate behaviors, 35, 57–58, Bo, Xilai, 114
59, 60–63, 64–65, 66–67, 68, 72 BP oil spill, 321
enforcing, 57–58, 61–62, 64, 72n15 Brandeis, Louis, 328
and expertise, 58, 73n18 Brazil
formal-legal, 59, 60 economic growth, 197
forms of, 58–60 limited statehood, 81
of hegemons, 20, 21, 31, 60, 63–66 nuclear weapons, 125, 134n89
and hierarchy, 16 trade, 182–83, 185, 186, 188, 197
and international trade, 16, 60, 63–66 See also BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China)
in IR scholarship, 16 Bretton Woods system, 64, 169, 288, 300
Krasner on, 34–35, 40, 47 BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China)
and legitimacy, 35–36, 57, 58, 62, 73n17 Chinese membership, 110, 128, 299
of non-state actors, 16 and economic growth, 197
as power, 10, 16, 35–36, 55, 56–61, 63, Britain
71–72, 80, 344–45 and Al Qaeda, 231
in realist theory, 55, 60, 71–72 colonialism, 191
regulatory, 35 currency, 163–64, 165, 174, 342
relational, 59, 60, 62 and hegemonic stability theory, 63, 64
religious, 58 material resources, 3
role in sovereignty, 55, 61–63, 80 political power, 3, 64
sharing, 68–72 terrorist attacks on, 239n19, 325–26
and social mobilization, 36 and trade, 63
traditional, 58 and UAE independence, 122
and Westphalian sovereignty, 16, 35 Brunsson, Nils, 24
autonomy Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan, 242n69, 242n73
as form of sovereignty, 12, 15, 24, 140 Bundy, McGeorge, 317
See also international currencies; sovereignty Burns, Nicholas, 331
compromises Bush (George W.) administration
on failed states, 225–26, 240n30
Bachrach, Peter, 8, 29, 346, 347, 348 forum shopping, 290
Baghdad Pact, 117 and high seas interdictions, 295–98
Bahrain, 119, 121, 133n73 ideology, 38, 48n52
Baldwin, David, 8, 29 Krasner’s role in, 24, 235
Balkan Wars, 292 military spending, 203
Baratz, Morten S., 8, 29, 346, 347, 348 and mortgages, 205
Barnett, Michael, 8–9, 140, 152, 346, 347–48, and 9/11 attack, 223, 225, 238n18, 240n54
349, 354 tax cuts, 204
Bastiat, Frédéric, 323 on trade, 185
Beblawi, Hazem, 116 “war on terror,” 189, 190, 238n18, 304n105
Becker, Gary, 141 See also Afghanistan; Iraq War
Belgium, 231, 264
Bell, Sean, 324–25, 334n29 Canada
Benvenisti, Eyal, 288 currency, 165, 173–74, 342
Berger, Sandy, 225 economic policy, 207
Bernanke, Ben, 210 on failed states, 227
Betts, Richard K., 124 regional fissures, 264
Bhagwati, Jagdish, 300 settler colonies, 144
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 85, 89 Caribbean, 185, 351
Biological Weapons Convention, 109 Carr, E.H., 6, 19, 139
Blair, Tony, 319–20 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, 286
Blaker, Michael, 315 Carville, James, 209
Blau, Peter, 57 Castro, Fidel, 242n77, 319, 330, 334n38
Inde x 361
Caucasus, 87–88 relationship with Japan, 109, 113

causation relationship with North Korea, 110–13, 114,
and context, 314–15 126, 129, 131n22–23, 131n27–29,
counterfactuals, 318–20 133n86
interactions, 320–24 sovereignty compromises, 12, 105–14, 126,
and law, 316, 333n6 127, 128, 129, 130n7–8
multiple sufficient, 315–17 sovereignty norms, 119
necessary conditions, 318 state power, 148, 151
power as form of, 313 Tiananmen Square, 109
responsibility and chronology, 324–26, and Tibet, 113, 131n35
329–32 trade, 12, 68, 108, 110–11, 114, 128, 131n22,
structuration, 327–29 188, 197, 199, 200–201
and “who started it,” 329–32 Westphalian/Vattelian sovereignty, 12,
Chad, 11 107–08, 110, 113, 126, 127, 128, 129
charismatic authority, 58 See also BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China);
Chatelus, Michel, 116 Taiwan
Chayes, Abram, 49n53 Chinn, Menzie, 203
Chayes, Antonia, 49n53 Christie, Agatha, 316
Cheung, Tai Ming, 133n86 civil rights movement, 45–46
Chiang Mai Initiative, 300 Clinton, Bill, 204, 209, 225, 290
China coercion
currency, 165 definitions, 35, 41, 56
economic growth, 12, 68, 108, 113–14, 128, distinguishing from authority, 55, 57–58, 60,
197, 199, 323–24 72n16, 344
economic policy, 31, 207, 212 as form of power, 35, 55, 56, 71, 80, 180,
economic privileges to Soviet Union, 130n6 227, 240n47
embrace of sovereignty, 352–53 by hegemons, 64, 124, 180
ethnic tensions, 331 Krasner on, 180
and Great Recession of 2008, 113–14, 199, and organized hypocrisy, 61–62
200–201 over failed states, 68–69
on high seas interdictions, 297–98 in realist theory, 55, 60
interdependence sovereignty, 12, 107–08, as social influence, 41
110, 113, 126, 128 and sovereignty, 61–62, 108, 124, 127
internal migrations, 262 and sovereignty compromises, 108, 111, 123,
international legal sovereignty, 126 124, 126, 127
international standing, 113, 125, 126, 127, coffee cartel, 22
128, 131n33 Cohen, Benjamin, 8, 10, 341, 342, 345
limited statehood of, 81 Cold War
Mao’s inward-looking strategy, 108–09, 110, and bipolar international system, 221, 238n6
127, 130n6, 343, 345 and causation, 316–17, 329–30, 331–32,
membership in G–20 and BRIC, 110, 121, 333n9
128, 299 and Soviet Union, 36, 64, 150, 221, 238n6,
membership in UNSC, 126, 128 316–17, 329–30, 332
membership in WTO, 108, 109, 126, 182, and US ideology, 37, 143, 221, 328, 332,
185, 343 349, 351
models of political survival, 108, 109–10, and US relationships, 62, 64, 221
113–14, 125, 130n6 colonialism, 115, 116, 132n40
nuclear weapons diplomacy, 110–13, 126, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
130n14, 131n18, 131n22–23, 131n33, (CTBT), 109, 126, 131n33
343 Congo, 3, 15, 81, 189–90
nuclear weapons program, 12, 108–10, 114, consolidated statehood
123, 124, 126, 131n33 domestic sovereignty in, 97n14
as polity, 149 governance under, 84, 88–89
raw materials imports, 200, 212 “shadow of hierarchy” in, 86, 88–89, 96
regional tensions, 263 See also Western nation-states
relationship with Iran, 110–11, 112, 129 Construction of Social Reality, The (Searle), 39
362 Inde x
constructivism Doran, Charles F., 238n12

approaches to power, 29 Downs, George, 288
Krasner’s engagement with, 21, 24, 28, 32, Drezner, Daniel, 10, 13, 341, 342, 345, 348
36–40, 47 Duvall, Raymond, 8–9, 140, 152, 346, 347–48,
control 349, 354
Krasner on, 34, 35, 80
See also authority; coercion East Asia
cooperation colonialism, 116, 132n40
by hegemons, 19, 20–22 cross-border intrusions on sovereignty, 117
and institutions, 33 developmental states of, 116, 132n42, 143–44
Krasner on, 19, 20–22, 78 economic growth, 120–21, 127, 128, 201
role in international politics, 19, 20–22 financial crises, 120
Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs), 200, institution building, 299–300
212 interdependence sovereignty, 119, 126–27,
corporations 128
embedded in states, 11 international standing, 128
as political actors, 10 political survival models, 120, 127
social responsibility of, 93 reserve currency, 172
under limited statehood, 85–86, 88, 89, 90, sovereignty compromises, 105–07, 114–17,
91–92, 95 119–22, 126–27, 128
cost tolerance, 228, 240n50–52 sovereignty-upholding regionalism, 119, 120,
Cuba, 62, 64, 274n49, 319, 329–30, 334n38, 133n68, 352
351 trade, 119, 120, 127
Czechoslovakia, 274n50 Vattelian sovereignty, 119, 126–27, 128
See also China; Japan; North Korea; South
Dahl, Robert Korea; Taiwan
conceptions of power, 8, 9, 29, 55, 229, 346, East Asia Summit, 300
348 economic policy. See Great Recession of 2008;
on US finance, 209 international currencies; international
David and Goliath, 229 economy; international trade law;
Defending the National Interest (Krasner), 23, 31, markets
34, 37–38, 40, 48n52 Edwards, John, 316
democracy Egypt, 115, 117, 330, 355
establishment/restoration of, 7, 274n49, 351 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 319
and legitimacy, 36 Elbadawi, Ibrahim A., 115
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). See Ellickson, Robert, 49n53
Congo Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 49n59
Deng, Xiaoping, 108, 130n8 empires
Deudney, Daniel, 149 American imperium, 149–51, 152–53, 237,
developmental states, 116, 132n42, 143–44 238n12, 243n91–92, 343, 345
Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute, 113, 119 civilizational, 152
Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, 207 as institutional context for rulers, 149–51
dollar, US, 163–64, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, Soviet Union as, 150, 152
172, 174, 342 traditional European, 149, 150, 197
domestic politics emulation
intertwined with international politics, 30 definition, 41
See also domestic sovereignty as “soft” power, 35
domestic society, thick norms of, 24 euro, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 172, 202, 342
domestic sovereignty Europe
in consolidated statehood, 97n14 and Cold War, 62, 221
definition, 35, 78, 80, 130n1 economic growth, 197
in European Union, 97n2 finance, 209
in failed statehood, 80 and hegemonic stability theory, 64
Krasner on, 12, 35, 78, 80 limited statehood in, 81–83, 86
in limited statehood, 80–81, 83, 88, 95, 344 and New International Economic Order, 67
Doolin, Joel, 298 and nineteenth century power structures, 61
Inde x 363
as polity, 149, 151 nuclear weapons program, 123

regional fissures, 264 trade, 180
sovereignty compromises, 114 Franzese, Robert J., 207
state power, 148 free trade areas (FTAs), 185, 189, 293, 327–28
territorial empires of, 149, 150, 197 French Revolution, 349
trade, 197 Freud, Sigmund, 144, 328
See also euro; specific countries Frieden, Jeffry, 37, 203, 249
European Commission (EC), 179, 184, 188, Fujita, Masahisa, 262
293, 299 Fukuyama, Francis, 290
European Free Trade Area, 293 functionalist persuasion theory, 41
European Union See also persuasion
and genetically-modified food, 286
and Great Recession of 2008, 199, 202 G–7, 290
humanitarian aid, 85 G–20
as polity, 149, 151 East Asian membership, 110, 120–21, 128
sovereign-debt problems, 165 economic growth, 197
sovereignty types in, 97n2 game theory, ix, 39, 41
strategic assessment of terrorism, 233–34 GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and
See also euro; international trade law Trade)
origins of, 9, 178–80
failed states See also GATT/WTO trade rules;
coercion of, 68–69 international trade law
governance under, 84–85, 95 GATT/WTO trade rules
impact on international realm, 20, 196 Cotonou Agreement, 185, 189
international concern about, 225–27, 234–35, dimensions of state transformation, 186–87,
239n26–27, 239n29, 240n30 193n34
Krasner on, ix, 20, 25, 72n1 Doha Round, 182, 271n11, 282, 292–95, 341
and nuclear weapons, 231, 241n64 free trade areas, 185, 189
rebuilding of, 15, 24, 68–72, 74n64 on genetically-modified food, 286, 287
sovereignty of, 11–12 impact on international economy, 262,
and terrorism, 68, 224–27, 230–31, 241n61 351–52
See also limited statehood intellectual property rights, 292, 352
fear Lomé Convention, 67, 185, 189
in realist theory, 6 molding mechanisms intrinsic to, 180–86,
as terrorist weapon/power, 9, 14–15, 223, 191
232 Preferential Trade Agreements, 184–85, 189,
Fearon, James, 291 191
Ferguson, Niall, 238n12 Tokyo Round, 180, 182
Ferguson, Yale H., 149 transformation in poor countries, 187–90
financial crisis (2008). See Great Recession of Uruguay Round, 179, 180, 184
2008 US and EU influence on, 9, 178–81, 191,
Financial Stability Forum, 290 192n11
Finnemore, Martha, 47n7, 49n53, 115, 125, 129 Western states as basis for, 178–81, 191
Flathman, Richard, 57, 73n18 See also international trade law
Fleischer, Ari, 295–96 Gaulle, Charles de, 174
Flohr, Annegret, 93 Gaza strip, 86
formal-legal authority, 59, 60 Geithner, Timothy, 210
Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, 299 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. See
Foucault, Michel, 8 GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs
fragile states, 79–80, 95 and Trade)
See also limited statehood; weak states genetically modified food, 286, 287
France Germany
Al Qaeda bases, 231 Al Qaeda bases, 231
finance, 210 and democracy, 351
and Great Recession of 2008, 206 during Cold War, 62
head scarf controversy, 328 economic growth, 197
364 Inde x
Germany (Cont.) crisis of 2010, 198

economic policy, 199, 207 euro crisis, 202
euro crisis, 202 finance, 212
fascism, 132n57 and Great Recession of 2008, 206
and Great Recession of 2008, 201, 206, 207 Greene, Graham, 143
nuclear weapons, 125 Greenspan, Alan, 204, 205, 207, 210–11
and World War II, 322–23, 349, 351 Grenada, 70
Ghana, 184, 185, 190 Grobe, Christian, 41, 50n71
Giffords, Gabrielle, 314 Group of 77, 67
Gilpin, Robert, 31, 64, 139, 238n12 See also New International Economic Order
Glass-Steagall Act of 1934, 205–06, 211–12 (NIEO)
Gleijeses, Piero, 330 Gruber, Lloyd, 9, 10, 13, 26n14, 327, 342, 343,
globalization 345
and antiglobalization movement, 68 Guantanamo Bay, 150
and cultural divisions, 255, 273n37 Guatemala, 319
definition, 273n35 Guilfoyle, Douglas, 296, 298
domestic conflict vs. secession, 265–68, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
273n28, 274n48–51, 274n53 and Bahrain, 119, 121
impact on state power, 10, 13, 148–49, international standing, 134n88
252–54 membership, 133n73
and inequality, 13, 254–60, 271nn14–15, sovereignty compromises by, 121–22
272n16, 272n19–20, 343 Gulf War, 228, 240n53
long-run costs and benefits, 249–52, 269–70,
271n5, 274n54 Haass, Richard, 235
and political conflict, 255–60, 271n11, Habermas, Jurgen, 49n66
271n12 Hafner-Burton, Emilie, 288
and spatial segregation, 13, 260–64, 265, Haiti, 11, 274n49
271n4, 272n21–22, 272n27, 273n28, Halliday, Fred, 117
273n37, 273n42 Hall, Peter A., 207
and trade, 63 Hamas, 86, 331
gold, 170 Hamilton, Alexander, 146
Goldman Sachs, 210 Hanson, Gordon, 260–61
Goldstein, Judith, 47n7, 115, 125, 129 Hariri, Rafiq, 118
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 36 Hartz, Louis, 140, 142–46
Gore, Al, 239n29 Havana Charter, 179
Gourevitch, Peter, 10, 14, 200, 342, 343, 345 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 144
Governance and Economic Management hegemons
Assistance Program (GEMAP), 350 and authority, 20, 21, 31, 60, 63–66
Gramm, Phil, 210 and coercion, 64, 124, 180
Great Britain. See Britain and cooperation, 19, 20–22
Great Depression of 1929, 197, 198, 203 hegemonic stability theory, 63–66, 201
Great Recession of 2008 liberal states as, 65
calls for new regimes, 280 and private economic actors, 10
comparison with earlier crises, 66, 197–98 and trade, 20, 21, 31, 60, 63–66
global imbalances underlying, 14, 199–202 Hezbollah, 86, 118, 330–31
macro vs. micro choices in, 202–07, 212–13, hierarchies
343 and authority, 16
role of politics, 207–12 and hegemony, 64
role of states, 14, 198–201, 343 See also “shadow of hierarchy”; sovereignty
and US dollar, 164 Hilferding, Rudolf, 208
See also specific countries Hirschman, Albert, 19, 21, 117
Greece, ancient HIV/AIDS, 85, 86, 89, 90
Melian Dialogue, 236, 237, 243n88 Hobbes, Thomas/Hobbesian order, 57, 71–72,
oratory, 46 139, 140, 147, 151, 283, 300
Trojan War, 228–29 Holland, John, 49n68
See also Athens, ancient; Sparta Holyoak, Keith, 49n68
Greece, modern Honduras, 330
Inde x 365
Hu, Jintao, 130n8 legal and technical costs, 286–90, 302n52,

humanitarian aid, 85, 225, 229 302n62, 341
human rights, 288 and legitimacy, 291–92, 303n75, 303n77,
Huntington, Samuel, 142 303n81
Hunt, Michael, 146 and organized hypocrisy, 300
Hurricane Katrina, 15, 80 proliferation of, 280–82, 283–90, 300
Hussein, King of Jordan, 117 regime complexes, 280, 281, 284–86
Hussein, Saddam, 118, 319–20 and TRIPS provisions, 281, 292–95, 341
hypocrisy, organized. See organized hypocrisy viscosity of, 13–14, 281, 282, 290, 291, 292,
300, 341, 348
Iceland, 212 Integrated Framework for Technical Assistance
ideology/ideological goals (IF), 183–84, 189
Krasner on, 23, 24, 26n17, 37–38, 40, 47 intellectual property rights (IPR), 292, 352
role in power politics, 23, 24, 29–30, 37–38 See also Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Weber on, 207 Property Rights (TRIPS)
See also Bush (George W.) administration; interdependence sovereignty
Cold War; Iraq War; United States; definition, 35, 78, 129n1
Vietnam War Krasner on, 12, 35, 78
IGOs (international governmental See also China; East Asia; Middle East
organizations) interdictions, high seas, 282, 295–98, 299
as governance in limited statehood, 15, 86 interests. See state interests
and legitimacy, 291–92, 303n75, 303n77 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
Ikenberry, John, 285 109, 110, 112, 123
India International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 3
colonialism, 191 International Court of Justice, 287
economic growth, 68, 197 international currencies
nuclear weapons program, 109, 123, 124, and autonomy, 160–61, 162, 163, 166, 168,
126, 130n14, 298 169, 170–71, 173, 342
regional fissures, 263 impact on state power, 159–75
state power, 148 interdependencies, 171–73
trade, 68, 182–83, 188, 197 roles of, 164–73
See also BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) as exchange-rate anchor, 168–69
Indonesia in financial markets, 166, 167–68, 171–72,
domestic sovereignty, 119 173, 174
G–20 membership, 121 in foreign-exchange trading, 165–66
limited statehood, 81 as intervention currency, 168–70
regional fissures, 263 as reserve currency, 169, 170–71, 173, 174
trade, 182–83, 185, 188 in trade invoicing and settlement, 165–66,
inequality 167, 171, 172, 174–75
NIEO challenge to global liberalism, 66–68, Special Drawing Rights, 170
345 See also dollar, US; euro; gold; pound
See also globalization sterling; yen
influence, social. See social influence international economy
institutionalist theory liberalization of, 9, 66, 68, 197
and Krasner, 28, 32–36, 37 money as power in, 159–75
neoliberal, 282 New International Economic Order, 66–68,
institutions 345
embedding of states within, 9–11, 13, 23–24, role of states and state choices, 196–99
147–51 shifts over last several decades, 196–97
forum shopping, 13, 280, 281, 286, 290–92, Washington consensus, 66, 68
295, 299, 300, 341, 345 See also globalization; Great Recession
and high seas interdictions, 282, 295–98, of 2008; international currencies;
299, 341 international trade law
impact on world politics, 13, 30, 32–33, internationalizing models. See political survival
282–83, 298–300 strategies
and information provision, 32–33, 291 International Labor Organization (ILO), 3,
Krasner on, 22, 29, 32–36, 47, 282 17n1
366 Inde x
international law international standing, 127

and consent, 190 inward-looking strategy, 122
as consequential, 177–78, 190–92 Iran-Iraq War, 240n52
fragmentation of, 286–87 Mossadeq regime, 319
hard vs. soft, 287 nuclear weapons program, 110–11, 112, 121,
Krasner on, 177, 190–91 123, 124, 127, 131n18
pacta sunt servanda, 286 relationship with China, 110–11, 112, 129
and power, 178 Iran-Iraq War, 240n52
See also international trade law Iraq
international legal sovereignty defiance of US authority, 7, 68
definition, 35, 78, 130n1 Gulf War, 228, 240n53
in European Union, 97n2 inter-Arab conflict, 117, 118–19, 132n59
Krasner on, 12, 35, 78 international standing, 127
International Maritime Organization, 297, 341 inward-looking strategy, 122
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Iran-Iraq War, 240n52
and China, 108 NGOs in, 85
development of, 201 nuclear weapons program, 123, 127
and financial crises of 1990s, 290 provision of services, 85
and GATT/WTO, 183, 189, 191 restoring democracy, 274n49
International Organization (journal), 22, 33, See also Iraq War
346, 347 Iraq War
International Red Cross, 85 asymmetric warfare, 238n14
international relations (IR) scholarship insurgents, 238n14, 239n22
advantages of capacious concepts, 141–42, international opposition to, 238n10, 303n81
151–53 rationales for, 48n52, 70, 150–51, 240n54
centrality of power in, 5–6, 18, 19, 20–21, UN Security Council on, 303n81
24, 26, 28, 29–30, 31–32, 55–56, and US authority, 65, 70–71, 303n81
71–72, 140, 221, 237n3 US casualties, 228, 240n53
leaders/rulers as basic unit in, 20, 140, 141, and US ideology, 143, 150, 153n9, 240n54
147–51 US military spending, 203
pursuit of grand theory, 6–7 Ireland, 206, 239n19, 264
state power and interests as building blocks, Islamic global umma
18, 19, 23, 199 and 9/11 attack, 232
states as basic unit in, 20, 140, 147 as polity, 149, 151
See also failed states; international economy; state power, 148
Krasner, Stephen; Morgenthau, Hans; Islamic Human Rights Commission, 85
power politics; realist theory; state Israel
power; states Arab-Israeli relations, 114, 118, 130, 132n51,
International Trade Centre (ITC), 183 331, 355
international trade law nuclear weapons program, 123, 124, 126
and power, 178–79, 190–92 OECD membership, 121
and realist theory, 191 Italy, 231, 264, 354
US and EU influence on, 178–81, 191, Iversen, Torben, 207
192n11 Ivory Coast, 190
See also GATT/WTO trade rules;
international law Japan
international trusteeships and Cold War, 62, 221
Krasner on, 72n1 and colonialism, 132n40
neo-trusteeships, 70–71, 86, 345 currency, 165, 166, 170, 342
US establishment of, 68–72 deflation of 1990s, 198
International Whaling Commission, 32 and democracy, 351
inward-looking models. See political survival economic aid to China, 109
strategies economic growth, 197
Iran finance, 203, 207–08, 210
defiance of US authority, 68 G–20 membership, 121
hegemonic ambitions, 121–22 Great Recession of 2008, 206, 207–08
inter-Arab conflicts, 118 international negotiations, 315
Inde x 367
material resources, 3 on organized hypocrisy. See organized

and nuclear weapons, 125, 128 hypocrisy
and organized hypocrisy, 148 personal life, 48n25, 141
and sovereignty, 353 on persuasion, 40–41, 47
state power, 3, 148 political career, 24, 25, 235
trade, 179, 180, 182–83, 197 on power, ix, 5, 8–9, 18–26, 31–32, 47, 96,
and World War II, 241n54, 316, 323, 333n8, 130n2, 139, 313, 339–41
334n26, 349, 351 and realist theory, ix, 18–20, 25, 28, 31–32,
Jefferson, Thomas, 146 139–40, 339
Jepperson, Ron, 49n53 on regimes, 21–22, 33–34, 40, 66, 133n78,
Jervis, Robert, 187, 198 177, 190, 199, 282
Jiang, Zemin, 130n8 scholarly influences, 19, 139, 142, 143
Johnson, Lyndon B., 46, 204, 317 scholarly trajectory, 18–26
Johnson, Simon, 200, 205 on social norms, 38–39, 47
Jordan, 117, 118 on sovereignty. See sovereignty
Jupille, Joseph, 284 on sovereignty compromises, 105, 114, 118,
123, 124, 129, 140
Kagan, Robert, 153n9 on state power, ix, 19, 20–23, 139, 250–51
Kahneman, Daniel, 42 on states and markets, 20, 21, 22–23, 31, 175
Katzenstein, Peter, 8, 12, 47n7, 49n53, 342, 343, as subversive realist, 28, 32, 40, 46–47
345, 349 on Tibet, 131n35
Kennan, George F., 139 on US liberalism, 139
Kennedy, John F., 46 See also Defending the National Interest
Keohane, Robert, 19, 25, 26n7, 72n7, 113, 282, (Krasner); Sovereignty: Organized
344, 345, 346, 349 Hypocrisy (Krasner); Structural Conflict
Khrushchev, Nikita, 330, 334n38 (Krasner)
Kim, Jong-Il, 112, 131n27–28 Krugman, Paul, 163–64, 262
Kindleberger, Charles, 19, 21, 159, 198, 201 Kugler, Jacek, 318
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 45–46, 344 Kuwait, 133n73
Kingma, Wepke, 225 Kwak, James, 200
King, Rodney, 331
Kirshner, Jonathan, 159 Lake, David
Korea on authority, 8, 10, 12, 16, 35, 72n16,
Korean War, 332 344–45, 349
trade, 179, 182–83, 185 on hegemony, 191, 192n9
See also North Korea; South Korea Latin America
Kosovo, 86 reserve currency, 172
Krasner, Stephen settler colonies, 144
on anarchy, 19, 34 and US relations, 61–62
on authority, 34–35, 40, 47 See also specific countries
on coercion, 180 Law of the Sea Treaty, 281, 296, 298
and constructivist theory, 21, 24, 28, 32, leaders/rulers
36–40, 47 as basic unit in international politics, 20, 140,
on control, 34, 35, 80 141, 147–51
on cooperation, 19, 20–22, 78 institutional contexts for, 148–50
on failed states, ix, 20, 25, 72n1 Krasner on, 20, 25, 47, 140, 141, 147–48
on ideology/ideological goals, 23, 24, 26n17, See also states
37–38, 40, 47 League of Nations, 70
and institutionalist theory, 28, Lebanon, 86, 117–18, 228, 330–31
32–36, 37 Lee, Kuan Yew, 300
on institutions, 22, 29, 32–36, 47, 282 Leff, Carol Skalnik, 274n50
on international law, 177, 190–91 legitimacy
on leaders/rulers, 20, 25, 47, 140, 141, of authority, 35–36, 57, 58, 62, 73n17
147–48 of democracy, 36
on material interests of states, 23, 26n17, of institutions, 291–92, 303n75, 303n77,
139, 199 303n81
on non-state actors, 20 of social norms, 58
368 Inde x
Lesotho, 185, 189–90 Mann, Michael, 148–49

liberalism Mansbach, Richard W., 149
Hartzian, 140, 142–46 Mao, Zedong, 108–09, 110, 127, 130n6, 343
Krasner on, 139, 140–41, 142–43, 146 March, James, 29, 42
Lockean, 37, 142, 143 markets
NIEO challenge to global, 66–68, 345 impact on state power, 20, 22–23
of US politics, 139, 140–41, 142–47, 153n9 Krasner on, 20, 21, 22–23, 31, 34, 175
Liberal Market Economies (LMEs), 200, 201, and urbanization, 261–62
212 See also international trade law
liberal-peace theory, 253 Martin, Lisa, 282
Liberia, 350 Martin, Trayvon, 326
Libya Marxism, 139, 142–43, 153n2, 209, 254,
domestic sovereignty, 127 274n51
interventions by, 118 Marx, Karl, 314, 324
limited statehood, 81 mass opinion
nuclear weapons program, 123, 127, 297 and persuasion, 43–45
2011 conflict, 119, 339–40 as source of power, 6, 17n4
Lieven, Anatol, 152 material resources/interests
limited statehood Krasner on, 23, 26n17, 139, 199
definition, 80, 344 and organized hypocrisy, 62
distinguishing from consolidated statehood, raw materials policy, 23, 139
84, 97n14 relationship to power, 3, 29, 71, 128, 129
distinguishing from failed statehood, 79–80 state pursuit of, 8, 18, 20, 23, 24, 26n17
domestic sovereignty in, 80–81, 83, 88, 95, US pursuit of, 23, 37, 62
344 Mayor, Adrienne, 36
incidence of, 80–83, 95 Mead, Walter Russell, 146
modes of governance, 12, 78–79, 83–89, Mexico
95–96, 97n6, 97n24, 344, 345 financial crisis of 1980s, 202
modes of steering, 86–87, 88–89 limited statehood, 81
non-state actors in, 12, 15, 79, 85–94, 95–96, and NAFTA, 327–28
97n6, 344 regional fissures, 264
“shadow of hierarchy” equivalents, 12, trade, 185, 188
89–94, 95, 344 and WTO, 185
“shadow of hierarchy” problem, 88–89, 95, Meyer, John, 24, 149
96 Middle East
Westphalian sovereignty of, 24, 83, 86, 87, and colonialism, 116, 117, 122, 132n40
91, 92, 344 cross-border intrusions on sovereignty,
See also failed states 117–19, 132n51, 132n57, 133n75
Limongi, Fernando, 253 economic growth, 120–21, 133n73
Lincoln, Abraham, 46, 344 G–20 membership, 121
Lindblom, Charles, 209, 211, 274n51 interdependence sovereignty, 115, 127
Lipset, Seymour Martin, 253 international standing, 121, 122, 127, 134n88
Lockean liberalism, 37, 142, 143, 300 models of political survival, 120, 345
logic of appropriateness, 32, 39, 42, 89, 90, 92, nuclear weapons programs, 127
93, 112, 124, 141, 147, 354 organized hypocrisy in, 117
logic of consequences, 32, 39, 45, 89, 93, 112, predatory states of, 116, 132n42
141, 147 reserve currency, 172
Lomé Convention, 67, 185, 189 sovereignty compromises, 105–07, 114–22,
Loughner, Jared, 314 127
Luciani, Giacomo, 116 trade, 116–17, 120, 121, 133n71
Lukes, Steven, 8, 9, 29–30, 346, 347, 348 Westphalian/Vattelian sovereignty, 115, 117,
118, 121, 127
Macartney, George, 353 See also Arab Spring; specific countries
Machiavelli, Niccolò, 5, 6, 139, 140, 147, 151, Mithradates, 36
177 Mobil Oil, 209
Malaysia, trade, 188 Modelski, George, 238n12
Inde x 369
monetary policy. See international economy Non-Proliferation Regime (NPR)

Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, 300 and coercion, 124
Montreal Protocol, 32 sovereignty compromises, 105–07, 122–26,
Morgenthau, Hans 127, 133n81
as influence on Krasner, 18, 19, 20, 139 and Vattelian sovereignty, 123
on international law, 177, 190 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
realism approach to IR, 6, 7, 18, 26n1 and China, 108–09, 343
on state power and interests, 16, 18, 20, 25, and North Korea, 111–12
26, 37, 71, 74n80 nuclear vs. non-nuclear weapons states,
Morocco, 190, 293 123–24, 125–26
Morsi, Mohammed, 355 ratification, 123
Mossadeq, Mohammad, 319 violations of, 123
Mozambique non-state actors
limited statehood, 81 and authority, 16
trade, 184, 185, 189, 190 and home-country regulations, 92, 95
Mundell, Robert, 162 Krasner on, 20
Murder on the Orient Express (Christie), 316 local, 86
power in international politics, 4, 11, 20
NAFTA (North Atlantic Free Trade under limited statehood, 12, 15, 79, 85–94,
Agreement), 185, 327–28 95–96, 97n6, 344
Napoleon, Emperor of the French, 191, 330 violent, 222–23, 238n13
Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 117, 118 See also IGOs (international governmental
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) organizations); NGOs (non-
Libyan intervention, 119, 339–40 governmental organizations); public-
role in world politics, 32 private partnerships (PPPs); terrorist
and Serbia, 291–92, 303n81 groups
on terrorism, 226 norms. See social norms
Nau, Henry, 146 North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement. See
neo-trusteeships, 70–71, 86, 345 NAFTA (North Atlantic Free Trade
See also international trusteeships Agreement)
Netherlands, 271n11 North, Douglas, 35–36
New International Economic Order (NIEO), Northeast Asia
66–68, 345 and hegemonic stability theory, 64
Newman, Abraham, 35 and New International Economic Order, 67
New Orleans, La., 15, 80 sovereignty-upholding regionalism, 120
NGOs (non-governmental organizations) US involvement in, 111
and humanitarian aid, 85 See also East Asia; Japan; North Korea; South
as political actors, 3, 10 Korea
as service providers in limited statehood, 15, North Korea
85–86, 95 defiance of US authority, 68
Niebuhr, Reinhold, 139 dynastic succession, 112, 131n28
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 144 international standing, 125, 127
Nigeria, 85, 94 nuclear weapons program, 25, 110, 111–13,
Nike, 93 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 131n22,
9/11 attack 131n29, 296, 355
link to Cold War, 328 and regional diplomatic relations, 119
motives for, 232–33, 242n71 relationship with China, 110–13, 114, 126,
as shift in terrorist strategy, 223–24, 232, 129, 131n22–23, 131n27–29, 133n86
239n19 relationship with South Korea, 112, 119
and US cost tolerance, 228 North Vietnam. See Vietnam; Vietnam War
US response to, 228, 345 Norway, 212
Nisbet, Richard, 49n68 Nuclear Suppliers Group, 109
Nixon, Richard M., 65 nuclear weapons
Noble, Paul, 117 and cost of war, 340
non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS), 123–24, non-nuclear weapons states, 123–24, 125–26
125–26 nuclear weapons states, 123, 125–26
370 Inde x
nuclear weapons (Cont.) Parsons, Wes, 238n12

and organized hypocrisy, 123 Paulson, Henry, 210
as source of power, 125 Pax Americana, 64, 67
and terrorist groups, 230–31, 241n64, Pax Britannica, 64
241n66 Peace of Westphalia. See Treaty of Westphalia
of Third World countries, 231, 241n64, Peloponnesian War, 6
241n66 People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 113–14
transfers of, 231, 241n64, 241n66 People’s Republic of China. See China
See also Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Persian Gulf, 63
Treaty (CTBT); Non-Proliferation persuasion
Regime (NPR); specific countries definitions, 41, 49n60, 344
nuclear weapons states (NWS), 123, 125–26 direct, 41–43, 49n68, 49n70, 344
Nye, Joseph S., 26n7, 29, 41, 58 as form of power, 35, 72n7, 344, 345
indirect, 43–46, 344
Obama, Barack, 209–10, 238n18, 290 Krasner on, 40–41, 47
OECD. See Organization for Economic political, 28, 41–47, 49n70
Cooperation and Development Peyrefitte, Alain, 353
(OECD) pharmaceuticals, 292–95, 341
Olsen, Johan, 42 Philippines, 119
Oman, 133n73 political actors
OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum authority as power among, 10, 16, 35–36, 55,
Exporting Countries), 66, 67 56–61, 63, 71–72, 80, 344–45
Organization for Economic Cooperation and See also corporations; NGOs (non-
Development (OECD) governmental organizations); non-state
on fragile states, 79–80, 227 actors; terrorist groups; warlords
membership, 121 political survival strategies
and trade, 184 internationalizing, 106, 107, 108, 109–10,
organized hypocrisy 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 119, 121, 122,
in China, 130n7 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 343
in institutions, 300 inward-looking, 106–07, 112, 113, 115,
Krasner on, 24, 34, 35, 38, 39, 47, 61–62, 95, 116–17, 119–20, 122, 124, 126–27,
147, 148 128, 133n87, 343, 345
in Middle East, 117 models of, 106–07, 113, 126, 130n4–5
and nuclear proliferation, 123 Politics and Markets (Lindblom), 209
outside of sovereignty politics, 148 polities, 149
sovereignty as, 24, 34, 35, 38, 39, 47, 61–62, Polk, James K., 146
70, 95, 105, 147, 148, 352 Pontusson, Jonas, 207
in sovereignty compromises, 105, 114, 117, pound sterling, 163–64, 165, 174, 342
118, 123, 124, 129n1, 130n7, 352 Powell, Colin, 242n77
in United Nations, 300 Power: A Radical View (Lukes), 347
in Westphalian sovereignty, 140 power
See also Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy asymmetries in, 14, 16, 26, 130n2, 219, 223,
(Krasner) 236, 237
Organski, A.F.K., 238n12, 318 authority as form of, 10, 16, 35–36, 55,
Owen, John, 349 56–61, 63, 71–72, 80, 344–45
Bachrach and Baratz on, 8, 29, 346,
Pacific Rim, 185, 299–300 347, 348
See also East Asia Baldwin’s definition, 8, 29
Pakistan Barnett and Duvall’s typology, 8–9, 140, 152,
international standing, 127 346, 347–48, 349, 354
nuclear weapons program, 109, 123, 124, centrality in international politics, 4–6, 18,
125, 126, 127, 130n14 19, 20–21, 26, 28, 29–30, 31–32,
and terrorism, 355 55–56, 71–72, 140, 221, 235–37, 237n3
and US authority, 36 coercion as form of, 35, 55, 56, 71, 80, 180,
Palestine, 232, 331 227, 240n47
Panic of 1907, 198 compulsory, 9, 140, 349–51, 355, 356
Inde x 371
Dahl’s conceptions of, 8, 9, 29, 55, 229, 346, and China, 200, 212
348 Krasner on, 23, 139
“hard,” 35 See also material resources/interests
and ideology, 23, 24, 29–30, 37–38, 38 Reagan, Ronald, 146, 203, 204, 296
institutional, 9, 140, 351–52, 355, 356 realist theory
link to sovereignty, 4, 105–07, 128–29 on authority, 55, 60, 71–72
Lukes’ three faces of, 29–30, 346, 347, 348 on coercion, 55, 60
March’s “basic force” model of, 29 emotion central to, 6
and outcomes, 3–4, 14–15, 20 on regimes, 21–22, 33, 133n78
productive, 9, 140, 354–55, 356 on state power, 5–7
resources as form of, 3, 29, 71 as tool in IR scholarship, ix, 5–7, 18–19,
and social mobilization, 36 26n1
“soft” . See soft power See also international relations (IR)
state-centric vs. non-state actors, 15–16 scholarship; Krasner, Stephen;
and strategy, 14, 228–29, 241n55–56 Morgenthau, Hans; power politics
structural, 9, 140, 352–53, 355, 356 recessions
and US unipolarity, 220–23, 238n6, 238n10, of 1873–1893, 198
238n12 See also Great Depression of 1929; Great
See also causation; international trade law; Recession of 2008
power politics; state power; terrorism Red Cross, 85
power politics Reformation Counter-Reformation, 349
centrality in IR scholarship, ix-x, 3–8, 18–19, regimes
26, 235–37, 242n85, 345–46 altering through compulsory power, 9, 140,
Krasner on, ix, 5, 8–9, 18–26, 31–32, 47, 96, 349–51, 355, 356
130n2, 139, 313, 339–41 altering through institutional power, 9, 140,
Morgenthau on, 16, 18, 20, 25, 26, 37, 71, 351–52, 355, 356
74n80 altering through productive power, 9, 140,
and realist theory, 5–6, 18, 19, 20–21, 28, 354–55, 356
29–30, 31–32, 55, 71, 237n3, 348, altering through structural power, 9, 140,
355–56 352–53, 355, 356
scholarly origins, 18–19 definitions, 21
See also international relations (IR) Gruber on, 26n14
scholarship; power Krasner on, 21–22, 33–34, 40, 66, 133n78,
predatory states, 116, 132n42 177, 190, 199, 282
Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs), 184–85, and realist theory, 21–22, 33, 133n78
189, 191, 288, 300 “rogue,” 68
Prentice, Deborah, 49n53 See also institutions; Non-Proliferation
problematic sovereigns, 4, 11–12, 78–79, 95 Regime (NPR)
See also failed states; fragile states; limited “Regimes and the Limits of Realism: Regimes
statehood; weak states as Autonomous Variables” (Krasner),
Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), 112, 33
296–98, 341 regionalism
Przeworski, Adam, 253, 273n28, 274n51 power and sovereignty in, 105–07
public opinion. See mass opinion See also East Asia
public-private partnerships (PPPs), 85, 87–88, Reinhart, Carmen M., 203
91 resources. See material resources/interests
Pye, Lucian, 151 Rice, Condoleezza, 226
Riley, Patrick, 144
Qaddafi, Muammar, 118, 339 Risse, Thomas, 12, 15, 49n70, 344, 345, 349
Qatar, 111, 119, 133n73 Rodrik, Dani, 253
Quiet American, The (Greene), 143 Rogoff, Kenneth S., 203
Rogowski, Ronald, 249
Rajan, Raghuram, 200 Rohani, Hassan, 110
Rand, Ayn, 210–11 Rome, ancient, 36, 191
Raustiala, Kal, 284, 287 Romer, Paul M., 253, 254
raw materials Roosevelt, Franklin D., 146
372 Inde x
Roosevelt, Theodore, 146 as failed state, 11, 69, 70, 81

Rubin, Robert, 209, 210 governance in, 84
Ruggie, John, 21 limited statehood of, 80, 81, 84
rulers. See leaders/rulers US involvement in, 228, 229
Russia Somaliland, 84, 86
economic growth, 197 Soskice, David, 207
limited statehood, 81 South Africa
nuclear weapons program, 123 corporate governance, 86, 89, 90, 94
and Syria, 131n18 HIV/AIDS, 86, 89, 90
trade, 197 limited statehood of, 81, 86, 89
See also BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) mining industry, 94
settler colonies, 144
Saudi Arabia Southeast Asia
G–20 membership, 121 failure of US policy in, 18
GCC membership, 133n73 growth, 119
hegemonic ambitions, 121 sovereignty-upholding regionalism, 120
inter-Arab conflict, 117, 119 See also East Asia; Vietnam War; specific
inward-looking strategy, 122 countries
relationship with China, 110, 111, 131n18 Southern African Development Community,
Schelling, Thomas C., 56, 286 185
Schroeder, Paul, 330 South Korea
Schurmann, Franz, 23 G–20 membership, 121
Scowcroft, Brent, 225 and nuclear weapons, 125, 128
Searle, John, 39 relationship with North Korea, 112, 119
Securities and Exchange Commission, 212 trade, 188
Serbia, 291–92, 303n81 South Pacific, 62
“shadow of hierarchy” Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Krasner), 31,
in consolidated states, 86, 88–89, 96 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39–40, 130n2
See also limited statehood sovereignty
Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 299 and authority, 55, 61–63, 80
Shell Oil Company, 85, 94 and autonomy, 12, 15, 24, 140
Sikkink, Kathryn, 47n7 bias toward Western model of, 78, 79, 80
Singapore, 3, 128 and coercion, 61–62, 108, 124, 127
Skowronek, Stephen, 146 Krasner on, ix, 12, 20, 23–25, 31, 35, 38–40,
Slaughter, Anne-Marie, 285 47, 61–62, 66, 70, 78, 96, 97n2, 147,
Smith, Rogers, 145 190, 199
Snidal, Duncan, 283, 284 Krasner’s types of, 78, 129n1
social influence norms of, 38–39
four types of, 41 as organized hypocrisy, 24, 34, 35, 38, 39, 47,
See also coercion; emulation 61–62, 70, 95, 105, 147, 148, 352
social mobilization, 36 and power, 4, 105–07, 128–29
social norms problematic, 4, 11–12, 78–79, 95
definitions, 49n53 tension with strategy, 37, 39
in domestic society, 24 three primary assumptions of, 61
in international environment, 24 See also domestic sovereignty;
Krasner on, 38–39, 47 interdependence sovereignty;
legitimacy of, 58 international legal sovereignty;
of sovereignty, 38–39, 83–84, 119, 355 sovereignty compromises; Westphalian/
soft power Vattelian sovereignty
definition, 35, 36 sovereignty compromises
Newman on, 35 and autonomy, 65, 72, 108, 129, 140
Nye on, 29, 41, 58 in China, 12, 105–14, 126, 128, 129,
and reputation, 163 130n7–8
and social mobilization, 36 and coercion, 108, 111, 123, 124, 126, 127
Solingen, Etel, 12, 15, 130n4, 342, 343, 345 in East Asia, 105–07, 114–17, 119–22,
Somalia 126–27, 128
Inde x 373
in Europe, 114 “State Power and the Structure of International

by internationalizing coalitions, 106, 107, Trade” (Krasner), 31
108, 109–10, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, states
119, 121, 122, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, embedded in larger contexts, 9–11, 13, 18,
343 23–24, 147–51
by inward-looking coalitions, 106–07, 112, in IR scholarship, 5–16, 20–25
113, 115, 116–17, 119–20, 122, 124, as key actors in world politics, 9–10, 11,
126–27, 128, 133n87, 343, 345 15–16, 56, 342
Krasner on, 105, 114, 118, 123, 124, 129, problematic, 4, 11–12, 78–79, 95
140 strong, 196
in Middle East, 105–07, 114–22, 127 See also consolidated statehood; failed states;
motives for, 15, 105–07, 126–29 globalization; ideology/ideological
as organized hypocrisy, 105, 114, 117, 118, goals; international economy; Krasner,
123, 124, 129n1, 130n7, 140 Stephen; limited statehood; non-state
under Non-Proliferation Regime, 105–07, actors; sovereignty; state-building;
122–26, 127, 133n81 statehood; state power
See also China; East Asia; Middle East; Non- Stein, Arthur, 9, 14–15, 17n2, 342, 345
Proliferation Regime (NPR) Steinberg, Richard, 9, 10, 16
Soviet Union Stolper-Samuelson theorem, 272n22
collapse, 179, 221, 238n6, 242n84, 340 Strange, Susan, 159, 162, 164
as empire, 150, 152 strategy
nuclear weapons diplomacy, 109 concept of, 37
nuclear weapons program, 125 and game theory, 39
trade, 130n6 impact on power, 14, 228–29, 241n55–56
and World War II, 316 and sovereignty, 37, 39
See also Cold War; Russia See also political survival strategies; terrorism
Spain Straw, Jack, 227
finance, 212 strong states, 196
regional fissures, 264 See also consolidated statehood
and terrorism, 231, 241n68 Structural Conflict (Krasner), 31, 33–34, 40
Spanish-American War, 153n9 Suez Crisis, 64
Sparta, 6 Sweden, 148, 212
Stalin, Joseph, 317, 332, 333n9 Switzerland, 165, 173–74
state-building Syria
of failed states, 15, 24, 68–72, 74n64 inter-Arab conflicts, 117, 118, 119
and US foreign policy, 24, 25, 68–72 international standing, 127
and Westphalian sovereignty, 24 nuclear weapons program, 123, 127
statehood and Russia, 131n18
consolidated, 97n14
definition of, 80 Taiwan
degrees of, 81, 82, 97n15 and nuclear weapons, 125, 128
fragile, 79–80, 95 and unresolved sovereignty claims, 113, 114,
neoliberal, 81 119, 127, 131n35, 133n68, 242n76
See also consolidated statehood; limited terrorism
statehood; sovereignty; states and asymmetric warfare, 223, 238n14
state interests Bush war on, 189, 190, 238n18, 304n105
in IR scholarship, 18–19, 23, 199 and cost tolerance, 228
See also power politics; state power early modern, 223, 238n16
state power extraterritorial, 223–24, 231–33, 238n18,
conflation with state interests, 18 239nn19–20
definitions, 4, 8–9, 281, 300 and failed states, 68, 224–27, 230–31,
in IR scholarship, 4, 5–9, 12–16, 19 241n61
many faces of, 8–9 fear as power in, 9, 14–15, 223, 232
and realist theory, 5–7 incomplete-information models of, 233,
See also Krasner, Stephen; power; power 242n73
politics; states and indifference, 229–30
374 Inde x
terrorism (Cont.) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property

by nationalist movements, 239n19 Rights (TRIPS), 181, 281, 292–95,
neighborhood effects, 230 351, 352
and nuclear weapons, 230–31, 241n64, Treaty of Westphalia, 39, 97n3
241n66 Truman, Harry S., 146, 316–17
propaganda by the deed and terrorist trusteeships. See international trusteeships; neo-
audiences, 231–33, 241n68, 242n69, trusteeships
242n71–73 Tunisia, 293, 314
response of great powers to, 14–15, 219, Turkey
224–27, 228, 233–35, 237, 342–43 economic growth, 197
as strategy of weak against strong, 14–15, G–20 membership, 121, 197
25, 219, 222–24, 227, 228–30, 231–33, inter-Arab conflicts, 118
237, 239n21, 241n55–56, 242n72 OECD membership, 121
weaponry, 223, 224, 239n22 Tversky, Amos, 42
See also Afghanistan; Al Qaeda; 9/11 attack; Twain, Mark, 48n52
Pakistan; terrorist groups Twenty Years’ Crisis, The (Carr), 6
terrorist groups
link to states, 11 United Arab Emirates (UAE), 111, 122, 133n73,
as political actors, 10, 86 133n76
See also Al Qaeda; terrorism United Arab Republic, 117
Thailand, 119 United Kingdom
Third World Al Qaeda bases, 231
and authority, 34, 40 economy, 197, 199
Krasner on, 31, 34, 40 finance, 208–09, 212
and “ meta-power behavior,” 31 and Great Recession of 2008, 199,
NIEO challenge to global liberalism, 66–68, 206, 208
345 nuclear weapons program, 123
and nuclear weapons, 231, 241n64, 241n66 regional fissures, 264
post-Cold War views of, 221, 225, 239n25 on terrorism, 226–27, 234
and trade, 180–86 See also Britain
and vulnerability, 31 United Kingdom Department for International
This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Development (DFID), 184
Folly (Reinhart and Rogoff ), 203 United Nations
Thucydides, 6, 17n2, 36, 177 humanitarian projects, 85
Tibet, 113, 131n35 organized hypocrisy of, 300
Tilly, Charles, 117 origins, 201
trade regulatory function, 70
and East Asia, 119, 120, 127 See also United Nations Security Council
and globalization, 63 (UNSC)
and hegemonic authority, 20, 21, 31, 60, United Nations Conference on Trade and
63–66 Development (UNCTAD), 183
impact on states, 16 United Nations Convention of the Law of the
liberalization of, 196 Sea (UNCLOS), 296
and Third World, 180–86 United Nations Development Programme
See also GATT/WTO trade rules; (UNDP), 183, 184
globalization; international economy; United Nations Millennium Development
international trade law; markets; trade Goals, 85, 91
agreements; Trade-Related Aspects of United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS); Chinese membership, 126, 128
World Trade Organization (WTO); interdiction resolutions, 297
specific countries and Libyan conflict, 339
trade agreements and neo-trusteeships, 70
and human rights, 288 nuclear weapons resolutions, 109, 110,
overlapping, 300 111, 112, 123, 126, 131n18, 131n22,
and pharmaceuticals, 292–95, 341 133n80, 133n81
See also free trade areas (FTAs); Preferential on Operation Iraqi Freedom, 303n81
Trade Agreements (PTAs) role in world politics, 32
Inde x 375
United States Walter, Barbara F., 69

Al Qaeda bases, 231, 241n60 Waltz, Kenneth, 6–7, 10, 11, 35, 59, 124, 139,
authority of, 7, 36, 60, 62–63, 64, 65, 66–68 177
and cooperation, 19 Wang, Guangya, 131n18
cost tolerance, 228, 240n50–51 warfare
economic policy, 9, 66, 197 asymmetric, 223, 238n14
as empire/imperium, 149–51, 152–53, 237, and cost tolerance, 228, 240n50–52
238n12, 243n91–92, 343, 345 warlords, 86, 95
finance, 207–12 Washington consensus, 66, 68
and globalization, 268–69 weak states
Great Depression of 1929, 197, 198, 203 international focus on, 15–16, 355, 356
Great Recession of 2008, 199, 200–201, Krasner on, 24–25
202–12 and terrorism, 241n61
and hegemonic stability theory, 63, 64, 65, 66 See also failed states; fragile states
liberal ideology, 9, 37, 139, 140–41, 142–47, weapons of mass destruction, 295–98, 355
153n9 Weber, Max, 69, 80, 116, 130n4, 141, 207, 211,
military spending, 224 281
nuclear weapons diplomacy, 109 Wendt, Alexander,, 49n53
nuclear weapons program, 64, 123, 125 Wen, Jiabao, 108, 111
Pax Americana, 64, 67 West African Economic and Monetary Union,
power relationships with Arab world, 14–15 185
power types, 9, 221 Western nation-states
pursuit of material resources, 23, 37, 62 norms of governance, 83–84
and race, 142, 145–46, 147, 152, 343 scholarly bias toward, 78, 79, 80
regional fissures, 264, 273n42 Westphalian/Vattelian sovereignty
state building by, 24, 25, 68–72 assertion by most states, 61, 83
unipolarity, 220–23, 238n6, 238n10, 238n12 and authority, 16, 35
See also Cold War; dollar, US; international definition, 78, 130n1
trade law; Iraq War; terrorism; Vietnam in European Union, 97n2
War and failed states, 70
urbanization, and markets, 261–62 Krasner on, 12, 31, 35, 38, 39, 78, 97n3
US Agency for International Development and non-interference norms, 355
(USAID), 184, 185 and organized hypocrisy, 140
US Federal Reserve, 204, 207, 211–12 relationship to Treaty of Westphalia, 39, 97n3
social norm of, 38
Venables, Anthony J., 262 and state-building, 24
Venezuela under limited statehood, 24, 83, 86, 87, 91,
defiance of US authority, 68 92
protectionism, 269 See also China; East Asia; Middle East
resource curse, 3 Who Governs (Dahl), 346
Victor, David, 284, 287 Wilson, Woodrow, 146
Vietnam World Bank
and colonialism, 132n40 and China, 108
regional fissures, 263 development of, 201
See also Vietnam War and fragile states, 227
Vietnam War and GATT/WTO, 183, 184, 189, 191
and causation, 317, 332 World Health Organization (WHO), 85
military spending, 204 World Politics (journal), 22, 33, 34
and nuclear weapons, 125 World Trade Organization (WTO)
and US cost tolerance, 228 and authority, 16
and US ideology, 18, 23, 26n2, 48n52, 139, budget, 3, 17n1
143, 150, 153n9 impact on world politics, 3, 16, 32, 283, 289
and intellectual property rights, 292
Wallerstein, Michael, 274n51 and legal disputes, 287, 289
Wall Street as successor to GATT, 178, 351
bombing of, 238n16 See also China; GATT/WTO trade rules;
influence on government, 208, 210 international trade law
376 Inde x
World War I, 322 Yemen, 117, 119, 127, 295–96

World War II yen, 165, 166, 170, 342
atomic weapons, 316, 333n9–10
bombing of Germany, 322–23 Zangger Committee, 109
bombing of Tokyo, 323, 334n26 Zhou, Yongkang, 131n28
objectives, 349 Zhu Feng, 131n27
See also Germany; Japan Zimmerman, George, 326
Zoellick, Robert, 295
Xinjiang, 113

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Back To Basics State Power in A Contemporary World PDF

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Back to Basics

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Oxford New York

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

PART ONE POWER AND RE ALISM A S AN

1. Puzzles about Power 3

2. Power Politics in the Contemporary World: Lessons from

3. Stephen Krasner: Subversive Realist 28

PART T WO THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS ON POWER ,

4. Authority, Coercion, and Power in International Relations 55

5. Governance under Limited Sovereignty 78

6. Three Scenes of Sovereignty and Power 105

7. States and Power as Ur-Force: Domestic Traditions and

PART THREE STATE POWER AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

8. Currency and State Power 159

9. International Trade Law as a Mechanism for State Transformation 177

10. Choice and Constraint in the Great Recession of 2008 196

PART FOUR THE SUBVER SIVE EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZ ATION

11. Power Politics and the Powerless 219

12. Globalization and Welfare: Would a Rational Hegemon Still

13. The Tragedy of the Global Institutional Commons 280

PART FIVE SOVEREIGNT Y AND POWER IN

14. Causation and Responsibility in a Complex World 313

15. New Terrains: Sovereignty and Alternative Conceptions of Power 339

Martha Finnemore and Judith Goldstein

Benjamin J. Cohen is the Louis G. Lancaster Professor of International Political

Thomas Risse is Professor of International Relations at Freie Universität,

POWER AND REALISM AS AN

Puzzles about Power

contribution is less to offer a new approach or a definitive answer to how

States, Power, and State Power

no means exhaustive. Diverse understandings of how power is expressed today

The Many Faces of State Power

What Kind of World Do States Live In?

of states with their environment. Corporations, transnational interest groups,

What Happens When States Become

dimensions, notably under international law. They have “juridical sovereignty,” or

States and Power in the Twenty-First Century

Viscosity may also be an appropriate description for the constraints nations

Power Politics in the

When Hans Morgenthau reformulated realism for modern scholars in 1948, he

wrestled with realism’s promises and limitations. He reinvigorated concepts of

Power and Realism in a Changing World

State Power, Hegemony, and Cooperation Theory

States and Markets: Explaining Foreign Economic Policy

The Status of Nation States

Stephen Krasner: Subversive Realist

Stephen Krasner is conventionally seen as a highly intelligent and articulate

1. Power in World Politics

2. Stephen Krasner as a Realist

Finally, in Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, Krasner directly takes on con-

3. Krasner as Institutional Theorist

contends, institutions perform important functions for states. Institutionalism

authority would be as a capacity for influence that reflects the relationship

obedience to the commands of the government.39 The same is true for

4. Krasner as Constructivist Theorist

In his discussion of the norms of sovereignty, Krasner grasps a crucial point

5. A Missing Concept: Persuasion