Live-Wire Posted March 22, 2004 Report Posted March 22, 2004 My latest. I'll have another for you tommorow. As always, enjoy. This one is pretty basic; the next will be a little more in depth about how international cooperation is dictated by domestic politics. I glaze over some important topics because they're too basic to go into depth with ... (translation: omg i r teh l33t smart hax0r). -------- Even if all countries share similar interests and want cooperation, sometimes cooperation fails. What are the main impediments to cooperation? How can these issues be overcome? Cooperation that would be beneficial to all parties does not always succeed – collective action problems arise involving the problem of public goods and informational asymmetry, distorting the similar interests of the countries involved. (Domestic politics and defection strategies also can prevent cooperation, but are not covered within). Collective action problems often emerge when the cooperation deals with a “public good†– that is, when a potential cooperator will receive the same payoff even if they do not cooperate. This results in the public good being underprovided – since although everyone might want the same thing, each hopes another will pay the cost for it. Informational asymmetries are the imperfection of intelligence for each potential cooperator, a problem that has a negative effect on one or both parties. However, there is a solution to each of these problems; using difficultly constructed international ins!@#$%^&*utions. Olson describes a collection action problem as participants having a common interest in the collective benefit with no common interest in paying the cost of the common good (pp. 21). That is to say, the worst outcome is if nobody pays the cost, but each party would be better off if the other paid the entire cost. It is the prisoner’s dilemma; both parties would be well off cooperating, would be best off if they defect and the other cooperates, and would be worst off if both parties defected. If two countries have trade barriers on each other’s exports, they would each be better off by dropping the tariffs, but whoever does so first loses their bargaining chip. The question to international cooperation then becomes – “does this cost of cooperation ever get paid?†Public goods are at the root of this problem according to Gowa. A public good is “non-rival†in that one party’s consumption does not interfere with another party’s consumption, and “non-excludable†in that anyone can reap the benefit of the good, once the cost has been paid, regardless of whether they paid the cost or not. In small groups, it is easy to watch who pays for the good and who uses it, but the same does not hold for large groups (like the international domain). This leads to the “free-rider†problem, where anyone can benefit from the good without paying the cost, and often without anyone knowing they are receiving the benefit. An obvious problem arises; who will pay the cost if they will be able to reap the same benefit, regardless? International Organizations provide a mechanism for dealing with the political public good problem. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a good example to walk through; it keeps troubled nations afloat in the interest of the world economy. The outcome of a strong world economy is beneficial to the entire world, but the actual donation of resources towards keeping troubled economies from collapsing is a public good. The IMF solves this by giving voting power within the ins!@#$%^&*ution based on funds allocated to the ins!@#$%^&*ution. The benefit to nations on the giving end of IMF funds is manifest through their right to argue and vote for what to do with those funds. The ins!@#$%^&*ution insures that the common good is usually advanced. Informational asymmetry also prevents cooperation in otherwise ideal situations. The market for lemons (meaning bad used cars) is the perfect example. If one out of every ten cars is a lemon (worthless), but the only way to judge the worth of a car is to ask the seller (who will always say his is the best car on the market), what will happen to the market for used cars? A seller might want to sell his car for $10,000, but to hedge against the chance that it is a lemon, the buyer will only want to pay $9,000 for it. For the nine sellers who know their car is in good shape, they will refuse to sell for less than the real price, so the only people who actually buy cars will be getting lemons. This information asymmetry causes a market in which there is an unsatisfied demand. Nine out of ten sellers, and all buyers, would be better off if there was a credible way to signal that a car was not a lemon. In this particular example, the way to credibly signal, and eliminate informational asymmetry, is to build an ins!@#$%^&*ution that inspects cars. This example transposes onto the international level. Countries are best off with a small win set, because then other countries will have to be the ones who compromise to make their own win set overlap. Sometimes, countries really do have small win sets, especially democracies, but more often they pretend that the win sets are smaller than they really are. Politicians benefit by claiming that too much compromise on their part is impossible because of domestic politics. Because of this, in the international world, an information asymmetry makes it difficult to bargain between nations. If two nations have win sets that really overlap (but each is pretending their win set is smaller, and therefore doesn’t overlap), and neither is willing to compromise, a mutually beneficial outcome may not occur. International ins!@#$%^&*utions can correct these asymmetries through public opinion polls, like the Eurobarometer. When such public opinion polls are available internationally, it enables countries to negotiate without informational asymmetries about domestic politics. This isn’t the only kind of information provided; international ins!@#$%^&*utions also provide a set of norms and standards for international negotiation. With these standards, two countries enter negotiation knowing what to expect. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is currently the predominant international organization that attempts to correct these informational asymmetries. For domestic reasons, the United States likes to protect steel. The reason (which is complex, but for our purposes, will be “domestic popularityâ€) is not acceptable to other countries. Steel tariffs are beneficial to only a small steel producing group in the United States, but are bad for US consumers of anything that requires steel as an input, as well as producers of steel in the World Market. If there were no steel tariffs, it would be best for the common good. The WTO is the organization that insures this common good is advanced, by preventing unfair trade practices. Without this organization, one of two outcomes might occur; first, the other countries could roll over and let the US continue with unfair trade policies that hurt the “common good†or, secondly, a trade war might ensue that eliminates free trade and again results in hurting the “common good.†The WTO, ruling to eliminate unfair trade practices, so far has been important enough to the countries involved that they respect the rulings. As long as countries continue to care about the long-term “game,†they will likely tolerate the short term loss from losing a WTO ruling. Even though we have accepted that all states want the same thing, and we have rationalized how cooperation can fail anyway, is it believable? What real-world examples show this fundamental egoist problem in advancing the common good? Simmons provides a striking example while discussing the gold-standard in the interwar period. A gold-standard implies that there is a “world money supply.†Certain rules, imposed internationally, were intended to promote the common good of a recovering world economy. But domestic implications affected the ability for the common good to be advanced. Central banks were simply unable to collectively act in the common good while also advancing domestic concerns, despite the common interest in maintaining the world economy. Why is this collective action so difficult? Olson seems to capture the reason when he states that “if the firms in an industry are maximizing profits, the profits for the industry as a whole will be less than they otherwise might be.†(pp. 10). But are countries like firms? Firms are profit maximizing, and in most cases their wealth is absolute; that is to say, their well-being is not relative to the well-being of their compe!@#$%^&*ors. We can not assume the same holds true for countries. Power, from a realist perspective, is relative to the compe!@#$%^&*ion. A particular trade policy might make the U.S. a little better off, but make China much better off; there is not a definite way to evaluate whether this policy is “good†or “bad.†This raises concerns for me about whether the arena of international cooperation is captured in the theory of collection action problems, which !@#$%^&*umes there exists some common good. Yet, this by no means indicates that studying the issues of collective action problems involving public goods and information asymmetry is worthless. The advancement of a theoretical common good can be the byproduct of a selfish egoist hegemon, of a benevolent world hegemon, or of a seemingly problematic international ins!@#$%^&*ution. It does not matter how the collective action problem is solved, which is how cooperation (or the lack thereof) can be understood in the real world. !@#$%^&*uming there exists a common good that all states want, cooperation is impeded by collective action problems of underprovided public goods and informational asymmetry which can potentially be solved by international ins!@#$%^&*utions of sufficient import that states are willing to abide by its rulings in an iterated game.
Live-Wire Posted March 22, 2004 Author Report Posted March 22, 2004 I lied. Here is the second one now. This one is about whether or not domestic ins!@#$%^&*utions matter in international cooperation.----- The common !@#$%^&*umption that states are unitary actors is wrong - international cooperation is a two-level game in which domestic politics matters. At the core of this argument is the realization that negotiators must balance credible commitments with positive outcomes. That is to say, in international negotiation, a country has to “win†the first level of the game by striking a deal, and the second level of the game by striking a good deal. The definition of a “good†deal varies between politicians, but invariably involves an increase in either their domestic popularity or their grasp on power (which is, in a democracy, nearly synonymous). A win set is the group of outcomes that are satisfactory to the negotiator surrounding the “ideal point†at the center of the set. A win set must be sufficiently large so that it overlaps the win set of the other international negotiating party, insuring that a deal is made and the first level of the game is won. A win set must be sufficiently small so that the resulting outcome is close enough to the ideal point to satisfy the negotiators desire for domestic popularity.Because the second influence on the size of a win set exists, by inference, domestic politics and ins!@#$%^&*utions must matter in international negotiation and cooperation. To further understand why domestic politics matter, we must understand a negotiator’s incentives, their real win set, and the win set they want others to perceive. Once we establish that domestic politics matter, we can begin to understand what the affect of these domestic politics are on international cooperation. In international negotiation, under the !@#$%^&*umption that cooperation is mutually beneficial, each party is harmed if no agreement is reached. Each party wants an outcome as close to their ideal point as possible, but there is an implicit !@#$%^&*umption that someone, somewhere, must compromise, unless the two negotiating parties want exactly the same thing. If one party claims that there is only one point at which a deal can be reached, the other party will realize that for any deal to be made, the deal must be at exactly that point, and will submit. This creates the incentive to lie about your win set. But this incentive is no secret – it holds true for every negotiating party. Even parties who truly have only one point at which they can reach an agreement will be perceived as lying, since “talk is cheap.†Anyone can claim to know how to cure an ailment, but we only trust people who have proven themselves by getting a doctorate of medicine. This is a credible signal – a way of !@#$%^&*uring that you are not bluffing. A signal is not credible if it is cheap; if doctors only went to school for a week, the signal would not be credible. However, doctors are schooled for at least 8 years, credibly signaling that they know what they are doing. How can a signal be credible in the arena of international negotiation? In a democracy, specifically one with a vocal and free populace, if public opinion is vastly for or against an international agreement, it credibly signals that the negotiating politician’s outcome must coincide with popular opinion, or he will lose the next election. The same may or may not hold true for non-democratic governments, but regardless, the signal is less credible if it is remotely possible to maintain power despite public opinion (as in a dictatorship). The result is that democracies can credibly signal that their win set is small, and therefore achieve an outcome closer to their ideal point than otherwise. Without the domestic political ins!@#$%^&*ution of elections, this signal is only “cheap talk.†Using the example of the game of chicken – throw your steering wheel out the window and your opponent knows he has to be the one to swerve. Understanding costs to politicians is essential in the process of international cooperation. Democratic politicians use domestic ins!@#$%^&*utions to generate audience costs – the loss of “face†or popularity in the domestic arena if they are forced to back down from their position on the negotiating table. The President of the United States has a potentially more powerful bargaining chip if he claims in his State of the Union address his position in an international negotiation, and !@#$%^&*ures the American people that he will get this exact outcome. It appears counterintuitive to generate costs for yourself if you do not achieve your lofty goal, but the subtlety is your signal to the negotiator on the other side of the table that you have no choice but to achieve this goal, or you will lose the next election. Generating costs for yourself is a political tool to credible signal that your win set is small. It is a credible commitment, a costly change in the negotiators actions to prove that he is committed to his position. Generating these costs show that under no cir-*BAD WORD*-stance will the negotiator back down. In a unitary state actor model, negotiators operate under the !@#$%^&*umption that what is beneficial for the nation is beneficial for the negotiator. This !@#$%^&*umption does not work if we are under the !@#$%^&*umption that individual politicians/negotiators are primarily concerned with re-election or, in a non-democratic state, with maintaining power. The latter !@#$%^&*umption is more believable. While evidence is abundant, a shining example is the United States’ political parties shifting platforms to capture popularity that has led them to the complete opposite from their original positions in the 19th century. If we can believe that politicians are motivated by maintaining power, we can not also believe that domestic politics do not matter in the international arena. If imposing tariffs on imported steel wins a politician several key votes for reelection, while not simultaneously losing any other votes from international backlash in the form of other tariffs (perhaps because public perception is that it is not the politician’s fault), that politician will take (and as recent history shows, has taken) a negotiating stance both unbeneficial and unpopular to the nation as a whole. If domestic politics does not matter, this situation is unachievable and illogical for the politician. In the United States system of winner-take-all elections, overemphasis is given to the swing votes in negotiation. In a system of partial representation, negotiation has no bias – there are no swing votes. Although their involvement may not always be direct, legislatures/parliaments (domestic ins!@#$%^&*utions) have an important effect on international cooperation. Legislatures are “picky†– the representatives of Pittsburg are unhappy when steel tariffs are lowered, even if the representatives of two other states are better off because of it. Because passing something by a legislature involves so much compromise, the deal needs to be “sweet†to begin with. Having a picky legislature is a credible signal that the negotiator needs a deal that may actually be passed by his legislature. In effect, it proves that the win set is small. The pickier the legislature, the smaller the win set, the better the deal the country will get on the negotiating table. Because international cooperation is about achieving the result closest to the ideal point of the negotiator, all negotiators have the incentive to show that the set of possible outcomes that they can credibly commit to domestically must be small. Indicating that this win set is small is cheap talk unless there is some credible signal, and domestic politics dictates the credibility of this signal. Elections, generated audience costs, and legislatures credibly signal that win sets are small. As such, democracies tend to have a smaller win set the pickier they are. Weak domestic ins!@#$%^&*utions incapable of ratifying deals unless they are extremely beneficial can actually translate to a powerful international presence on the negotiating table. The true win set of a negotiator is irrelevant if they can get others to perceive their win set as smaller than it is, but this is impossible without some tool to credibly signal that the perceived win set is real. Domestic ins!@#$%^&*utions are this tool, and as such, extremely important in international cooperation. ٱ
Aileron Posted March 22, 2004 Report Posted March 22, 2004 Sorry, but I think the problem was identified a false premise I found in your first sentence. As it currently stands, not all nations in the world have the same interests. Thus, cooperation is impossible.
Himura Kenshin Posted March 22, 2004 Report Posted March 22, 2004 umm wow 5$ to first person to summerize it in under 20 lines
Yupa Posted March 23, 2004 Report Posted March 23, 2004 I can summarize it in three words: stupid people exist
Live-Wire Posted March 23, 2004 Author Report Posted March 23, 2004 Sorry, but I think the problem was identified a false premise I found in your first sentence. As it currently stands, not all nations in the world have the same interests. Thus, cooperation is impossible.It means "operating under the !@#$%^&*umption that". You can't talk about anything if you don't make !@#$%^&*umptions. I just happen to be nice enough to define mine.
Mr Ekted Posted March 23, 2004 Report Posted March 23, 2004 The "us vs them" at!@#$%^&*ude exists at every level of human society. In our homes, at school, at work, in our cities, states, and countries. When we refer to it in a negative way, we call it things like: racism, sexism, anti-semitism, bigotry, cliques, gangs, sexual harr!@#$%^&*ment, bullying, etc. When we refer to it in a positive way, we refer to it as: family, friends, nationalism, patriotism, capitolism, etc. It's all just a big euphemism for "us vs them".
Sgt. Bountage Posted March 23, 2004 Report Posted March 23, 2004 no offence to the Americans, but Bush and his presidency thinks he can rule the world with his father... I think thats dumb. Its one thing to attack innocent citizens... but trying to take over the globe is pretty bad.
SVS Posted March 23, 2004 Report Posted March 23, 2004 ... You just lost your speaking privlidges Sgt. Bountage.
Tipme Posted March 23, 2004 Report Posted March 23, 2004 americans are hypicrits takin away our nuclear missiles when they can have a million
SVS Posted March 23, 2004 Report Posted March 23, 2004 You lose your speaking privlidges as well. Both of you, stop making generalized statements that have no factual basis. You ruined a perfectly good thread with your thoughtless ramblings.
Live-Wire Posted March 23, 2004 Author Report Posted March 23, 2004 Its perfectly logical that the United States have nuclear weapons and no one else have them. Read the second post - the US is a democracy held back by its own domestic complexities. The way the government works is open enough that it becomes believable that it is safe for the US to have nukes. Not that they should, but it'd be a more dangerous world if the US didn't.
Aileron Posted March 23, 2004 Report Posted March 23, 2004 Sorry, but I think the problem was identified a false premise I found in your first sentence. As it currently stands, not all nations in the world have the same interests. Thus, cooperation is impossible.It means "operating under the !@#$%^&*umption that". You can't talk about anything if you don't make !@#$%^&*umptions. I just happen to be nice enough to define mine. true. I will thank you for making scientific judgements. It is good to see somebody use the scientific method for their judgements. I just must have gotten used to all the emotional ranting that occurs on this topic. Well, disarming nukes is going to take time, and I'm not talking about the time to physically do the job. All parties must ensure that everyone else disarms as well. This takes trust, and it is difficult given what we are dealing with. If one nation manages to hide a few with everyone else disarming; that nation gets to dictate their policy on the rest of the world for about the next 10,000 years. I know the first thing the next reader is going to do is say that the US is the biggest candidate for that position, but let me emphasis that it could be done by ANYONE. Therefore, we need to take our time. This was probably mentioned in Live-Wire's post; I'm just curtailing it.
Dav Posted March 23, 2004 Report Posted March 23, 2004 i think that nations will only cooperate if they are directly benifited. Israil is a ver good example of this. Israil will not cooperate with the palistinian people because doing so would mean a great loss of land and leave them more prone to attack. The palistininas will not cooperate because they know israil will never give them what they want. When it cones to action by the UN the US always vitos it and cooperates with israil to help them fight the palistinians. They do this because the fighting requires millatary hardware which the US can sell israil. Israil benifits because they can keep the occupied areas and the US benifits because they make alot of money. I do think that there will be complete cooperation in the end but it will take a long time. The reason is that eventually people will be able to help eachother and that working as a team benifits everyone as nations can help each other when problems arise.
Aileron Posted March 23, 2004 Report Posted March 23, 2004 I think we should just let them kill each other until one group is all dead. Maybe sell them weapons so that we get something out of it.
SVS Posted March 23, 2004 Report Posted March 23, 2004 The thing to worry about is not forcing established nuclear powers to disarm their weapons but having those same weapons being bought up or developed in smaller, less advanced nations. Nations who do not have the same understanding of the result of the use of those weapons or nations that just don't care.
Sgt. Bountage Posted March 24, 2004 Report Posted March 24, 2004 ... You just lost your speaking privlidges Sgt. Bountage.what'd i do know??
Aileron Posted March 24, 2004 Report Posted March 24, 2004 flaming Bush/US Really, it gets old after a while. If you think the US is so evil, then quit using moralistic arguements.
Dav Posted March 25, 2004 Report Posted March 25, 2004 The thing to worry about is not forcing established nuclear powers to disarm their weapons but having those same weapons being bought up or developed in smaller, less advanced nations. Nations who do not have the same understanding of the result of the use of those weapons or nations that just don't care.the people in charge of the weapons and the government know exactly the effects, just because they are poorer doesnt mean the scientists and govenment are less educated. The thing to worry about is that some of these nations may have motives to use them but to be honest i think they make them so people will listen to them once in a while.
Aileron Posted March 26, 2004 Report Posted March 26, 2004 It is correct that they do it to get their voices heard. The problem is that in many cases they do not deserve a voice. When you weigh the needs of a few hundred extremists verses the need of the 5 billion people in the world, there voice is and should be drowned out.
Sgt. Bountage Posted March 29, 2004 Report Posted March 29, 2004 dunno if this was already posted (sorry if it was) but didnt the US try to kill everyone in Iraq cuz they thought they had nukes? But when they got there, they were harmless... except for the fact of a certain amount of people dying...
MonteZuma Posted March 29, 2004 Report Posted March 29, 2004 It is correct that they do it to get their voices heard. The problem is that in many cases they do not deserve a voice. When you weigh the needs of a few hundred extremists verses the need of the 5 billion people in the world, there voice is and should be drowned out.Clearly the muslim extremists represent more than just a few hundred people. I think they represent millions of muslims, mainly from poor backgrounds, who feel, rightly or wrongly, that they aren't in control of their own destiny. Democracy as it is practiced in modern, western civilisation is not simply a case of "majority rules". Modern democracy is about representation, equality and individual rights as much as it is about "majority rules". Self-determination is the key issue I think. Is the US/coalition delivering "self-determination"? Probably not. Whatever the truth is, I think many people of the region see what is happening in Iraq as the installation of western influence and values and not an opportunity to express their own values in their own way. Saying that the needs of the few need to be drowned out by the needs of the many is the sort of thing that landed us in this mess. It is the sort of thing that isolates individuals and groups and breeds disaffection, anger and hate.
SVS Posted March 29, 2004 Report Posted March 29, 2004 The entire muslim population does not agree with the extremists.
MonteZuma Posted March 29, 2004 Report Posted March 29, 2004 Obviously not. But millions of muslims empathise with them or support them in principle. They have huge amounts of support in the middle east and southeast Asia (especially Indonesia).
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