Robert O. Keohane

Power and interdependence : world politics in transition

In this chapter, Keohene & Nye begin by applying the economic process model of regime change to oceans (the international regime of the sea) and money (international economic relations). This model predicts that “regimes will be established by technological and economic change, and that regimes will be established or reestablished to ensure the welfare benefits of interdependence” (131). While such a model does not provide a “sufficient explanation of any change” and may both over and under predict change, it must at the very least be considered.

International Institutions: Two Approaches

Contemporary world politics is a matter of wealth and poverty, life and death. The members of this Association have chosen to study it because it is so important to lives and those of other people — not because it is either aesthetically attractive or amenable to successful theory-formulation and testing. Indeed, we would be foolish if we studied world politics in search of beauty or lasting truth. Beauty is absent because much that we observe is horrible, and many of the issues that we study involve dilemmas whose contemplation no sane person would find pleasing. Deterministic laws elude us, since we are studying the purposive behavior of relatively small numbers of actors engaged in strategic bargaining. In situations involving strategic bargaining, even formal theories, with highly restrictive assumptions, fail to specify which of many possible equilibrium outcomes will emerge (Kreps 1984:16). This suggests that no general theory of international politics may be feasible. It makes sense to seek to develop cumulative verifiable knowledge, but we must understand that we can aspire only to formulate conditional, context-specific generalizations rather than to discover universal laws, and that our understanding of world poltitics will always be incomplete.

Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics

Debates about globalization have centered on calls to improve accountability to limit abuses of power in world politics. How should we think about global accountability in the absence of global democracy? Who should hold whom to account and according to what standards? Thinking clearly about these questions requires recognizing a distinction, evident in theories of accountability at the nation-state level, between “participation” and “delegation” models of accountability. The distinction helps to explain why accountability is so problematic at the global level and to clarify alternative possibilities for pragmatic improvements in accountability mechanisms globally. We identify seven types of accountability mechanisms and consider their applicability to states, NGOs, multilateral organizations, multinational corporations, and transgovernmental networks. By disaggregating the problem in this way, we hope to identify opportunities for improving protections against abuses of power at the global level.

The Concept of Legalization

We develop an empirically based conception of international legalization to show how law and politics are intertwined across a wide range of institutional forms and to frame the analytic and empirical articles that follow in this volume. International legalization is a form of institutionalization characterized by three dimensions: obligation, precision, and delegation. Obligation means that states are legally bound by rules or commitments and therefore subject to the general rules and procedures of international law. Precision means that the rules are definite, unambiguously defining the conduct they require, authorize, or proscribe. Delegation grants authority to third parties for the implementation of rules, including their interpretation and application, dispute settlement, and (possibly) further rule making. These dimensions are conceptually independent, and each is a matter of degree and gradation. Their various combinations produce a remarkable variety of international legalization. We illustrate a continuum ranging from “hard†legalization (characteristically associated with domestic legal systems) through various forms of “soft†legalization to situations where law is largely absent. Most international legalization lies between the extremes, where actors combine and invoke varying degrees of obligation, precision, and delegation to create subtle blends of politics and law.

The Regime Complex for Climate Change

There is no integrated regime governing efforts to limit the extent of climate change. Instead, there is a regime complex: a loosely coupled set of specific regimes. We describe the regime complex for climate change and seek to explain it, using functional, strategic, and organizational arguments. This institutional form is likely to persist; efforts to build a comprehensive regime are unlikely to succeed, but narrower institutions focused on particular aspects of the climate change problem are already thriving. Building on this analysis, we argue that a climate change regime complex, if it meets specified criteria, has advantages over any politically feasible comprehensive regime, particularly with respect to adaptability and flexibility. Adaptability and flexibility are particularly important in a setting, such as climate change policy, in which the most demanding international commitments are interdependent yet governments vary widely in their interest and ability to implement them.

Internationalization and domestic politics

Part I. Theoretical Framework: 1. Internationalization and domestic politics: an introduction Helen V. Milner and Robert O. Keohane 2. The impact of the international economy on national policies Jeffrey A. Friedan and Ronald Rogowski 3. Internationalization, institutions, and political change Geoffrey Garrett and Peter Lange Part II. The Industrialized Democracies: 4. Capital mobility, trade and the domestic politics of economic policy Geoffrey Garrett 5. Economic integration and the politics of monetary policy in the United States Jeffrey A. Friedan 6. Internationalization and electoral politics in Japan Frances McCall Rosenbluth Part III. Internationalization and Socialism: 7. Stalins revenge: institutional barriers to internationalization in the Soviet Union Matthew Evangelista 8. Internationalization and Chinas economic reforms Susan Shirk Part IV. International Economic Crisis and Developing Countries: 9. The political economy of financial internationalization in the developing world Stephan Haggard and Sylvia Maxfield Part V. Conclusion: 10. Internationalization and domestic politics: a conclusion Helen V. Milner and Robert O. Keohane.

Reciprocity in international relations

World politics is commonly referred to as anarchic, meaning that it lacks a common government. Yet a Hobbesian “war of all against all†does not usually ensue: even sovereign governments that recognize no common authority may engage in limited cooperation. The anarchic structure of world politics does mean, however, that the achievement of cooperation can depend neither on deference to hierarchical authority nor on centralized enforcement. On the contrary, if cooperation is to emerge, whatever produces it must be consistent with the principles of sovereignty and self-help.

The demand for international regimes

International regimes can be understood as results of rational behavior by the actors—principally states—that create them. Regimes are demanded in part because they facilitate the making of agreements, by providing information and reducing transactions costs in world politics. Increased interdependence among issues—greater ‘issue density’—will lead to increased demand for regimes. Insofar as regimes succeed in providing high quality information, through such processes as the construction of generally accepted norms or the development of transgovernmental relations, they create demand for their own continuance, even if the structural conditions (such as hegemony) under which they were first supplied, change. Analysis of the demand for international regimes thus helps us to understand lags between structural change and regime change, as well as to assess the significance of transgovernmental policy networks. Several assertions of structural theory seem problematic in light of this analysis. Hegemony may not be a necessary condition for stable international regimes; past patterns of institutionalized cooperation may be able to compensate, to some extent, for increasing fragmentation of power.

Legalized Dispute Resolution: Interstate and Transnational

We identify two ideal types of international third-party dispute resolution: interstate and transnational. Under interstate dispute resolution, states closely control selection of, access to, and compliance with international courts and tribunals. Under transnational dispute resolution, by contrast, individuals and nongovernmental entities have significant influence over selection, access, and implementation. This distinction helps to explain the politics of international legalization—in particular, the initiation of cases, the tendency of courts to challenge national governments, the extent of compliance with judgments, and the long-term evolution of norms within legalized international regimes. By reducing the transaction costs of setting the process in motion and establishing new constituencies, transnational dispute resolution is more likely than interstate dispute resolution to generate a large number of cases. The types of cases brought under transnational dispute resolution lead more readily to challenges of state actions by international courts. Transnational dispute resolution tends to be associated with greater compliance with international legal judgments, particularly when autonomous domestic institutions such as the judiciary mediate between individuals and the international institutions. Overall, transnational dispute resolution enhances the prospects for long-term deepening and widening of international legalization.

Introduction: Legalization and World Politics

In many issue-areas, the world is witnessing a move to law. As the century turned, governments and individuals faced the following international legal actions. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Britains ban on homosexuals in the armed forces violates the right to privacy, contravening Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic during a NATO bombing campaign to force Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo. Milosevic remains in place in Belgrade, but Austrian police, bearing a secret indictment from the International Criminal Tribunal, arrested a Bosnian Serb general who was attending a conference in Vienna. In economic affairs the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body found in favor of the United States and against the European Union (EU) regarding European discrimination against certain Latin American banana exporters. A U.S. district court upheld the constitutionality of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) against claims that its dispute-resolution provisions violated U. S. sovereignty. In a notable environmental judgment, the new Law of the Sea Tribunal ordered the Japanese to cease all fishing for southern bluefin tuna for the rest of the year.