INTRODUCTION TO
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Vocabulary ....................................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction Notes & Questions ......................................................................................................................... 3
Realism Article .................................................................................................................................................. 4
Realism Scenario .............................................................................................................................................. 5
Liberalism Article ............................................................................................................................................... 7
Liberalism VS Realism Venn Diagram ............................................................................................................... 9
Applying Theory to Policy Activity .................................................................................................................... 10
Constructivist Theory ...................................................................................................................................... 11
Constructivist Resolution ................................................................................................................................. 12
International Relations Theories Activity .......................................................................................................... 13
Actors & Interests ............................................................................................................................................ 14
Case Study: Iraq War ...................................................................................................................................... 16
Cooperation & Bargaining................................................................................................................................ 18
Cooperation or Bargaining Letter ..................................................................................................................... 21
Institutions Reading ......................................................................................................................................... 22
WTO Compliance ............................................................................................................................................ 25
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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS VOCABULARY
1. International Relations ___________________________________________________________________________
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2. Realism _______________________________________________________________________________________
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3. Liberalism _____________________________________________________________________________________
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4. Constructivism _________________________________________________________________________________
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5. Actor __________________________________________________________________________________________
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6. Cooperation ___________________________________________________________________________________
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7. Bargaining ____________________________________________________________________________________
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8. Collective Action Problem ________________________________________________________________________
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9. Game Theory __________________________________________________________________________________
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10. National Power ________________________________________________________________________________
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11. Prisoner’s Dilemma _____________________________________________________________________________
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12. Strategic Interaction _____________________________________________________________________________
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INTRODUCTION NOTES
Cues
Notes
Questions
Summary
QUESTIONS
1. What is studied in international relations?
2. What is the purpose of international relations?
3. Video 1 – What topics are central to IR?
4. Video 2 – What is sovereignty? Why is it important to studying IR?
5. Video 3 – What is anarchy? How is this related to IR?
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POLITICAL REALISM
Realism is an approach to the study and practice of international politics. It emphasizes the role of the nation-state and
makes a broad assumption that all nation-states are motivated by national interests, or, at best, national interests
disguised as moral concerns.
At its most fundamental level, the national interest is generic and easy to define: all states seek to preserve their political
autonomy and their territorial integrity. Once these two interests have been secured, however, national interests may take
different forms. Some states may have an interest in securing more resources or land; other states may wish to expand
their own political or economic systems into other areas; some states may merely wish to be left alone.
Generally speaking, however, the national interest must be defined in terms of power. National power has an absolute
meaning since it can be defined in terms of military, economic, political, diplomatic, or even cultural resources. But, for a
realist, power is primarily a relative term: does a state have the ability to defend itself against the power of another state?
Does a state have the ability to coerce another state to change that state's policies?
This emphasis on relative, and not absolute power, derives from the realist conception of the international system which
is, for the realist, an anarchical environment. All states have to rely upon their own resources to secure their interests,
enforce whatever agreements they may have entered into with other states, or to maintain a desirable domestic and
international order. There is no authority over the nation-state, nor, for the realist, should there be. Realists see the
international order as being anarchical and all states acting to serve their self-interests.
The implications of this refusal to recognize greater authority are important to recognize. The political realist fears
centralized authority, unless that authority is derived from the power of his or her own state. The decentralization of the
international system permits greater diversity than would be the case with, say, an empire. Since, however, the natural
tendency of states is to increase their power, the preservation of a decentralized system must be purchased with force.
The use of force to preserve the decentralized system is regulated by a system called the balance of power. Such a
system works only if the major powers agree, at least tacitly, that they agree that the preservation of state autonomy is an
important objective. If the major powers do agree, wars will still occur within the system, but those wars will be constrained
by the limited objectives of each major state. If one major power does not agree with the limited objectives, then wars will
be much larger and more open-ended.
For further information and detailed explanation, visit http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-intl-relations/
MORGENTHAU’S SIX PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL REALISM.
1. Politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature which is
unchanging: therefore it is possible to develop a rational theory that reflects these objective laws.
2. The main signpost of political realism is the concept of interest defined in terms of power which infuses rational order
into the subject matter of politics, and thus makes the theoretical understanding of politics possible. Political realism
stresses the rational, objective and unemotional.
3. Realism assumes that interest defined as power is an objective category which is universally valid but not with a
meaning that is fixed once and for all. Power is the control of man over man.
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4. Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action.
It is also aware of the tension between moral command and the
requirements of successful political action.
FOUNDATIONS OF REALISM
Human Nature: Pessimistic; humans are selfinterested & competitive
5. Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a
particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe. It is the
concept of interest defined in terms of power that saves us from the
moral excess and political folly.
6. The political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere.
He asks "How does this policy affect the power of the nation?" Political
realism is based on a pluralistic conception of human nature. A man
who was nothing but "political man" would be a beast, for he would be
completely lacking in moral restraints. But, in order to develop an
autonomous theory of political behavior, "political man" must be
abstracted from other aspects of human nature.
Core Concepts: Power & Conflict
Conflict in System: Central & inevitable
International System: Anarchical
Main Cause of Conflict: States pursuing
conflicting self-interests
Path to Peace: Achieve balance of power
Key Organizations: States
Policy Prescriptions: Pursue self-interest;
expand/preserve power
HOW WOULD THE REALIST VIEW THIS SCENARIO?
U.S. drone strikes kill al Qaeda militants, Yemen officials say
By Hakim Almasmari, CNN
Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- U.S. drone strikes killed at least nine
suspected members of al Qaeda in Yemen, where clashes intensified Tuesday between the terrorist group and Shia
Houthi rebels, local security officials said.
The three airstrikes in Yemen's Al Baitha province, near Radaa district, targeted al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
vehicles on their way to fight Houthis, the three security officials said. The air component came amid fighting on the
ground in the province that, according to the officials, killed at least 36 fighters from both sides.
Over the years, the Yemeni military, aided by American drone strikes, has failed to beat back AQAP. Yet the Houthis, a
militant group that follows the Zaidi sect of Islam, have managed to defeat al Qaeda on numerous fronts, last week
sweeping its militants from a stronghold in Al Baitha province. This push spurred AQAP to threaten to kill Houthi followers
wherever they are spotted. More than 400 people have been killed from both sides over the past month in ongoing
clashes in Al Baitha and Ibb provinces.
While Houthis have been critical of U.S. drone strikes in the past, they have not objected to their use in the last month.
The Houthis swept to power in Yemen after signing a ceasefire deal with the government in September, ending a political
crisis that had halted life in Sanaa and left more than 300 dead in a month.
Soldiers killed
Since 2012, Houthis have exploited Yemen's political vacuum to assert their own regional pull over the country's
highlands while expanding their political traction by establishing Ansar Allah, their new political group. On Saturday, the
Interior Ministry confirmed that al Qaeda attacked a government military facility and killed 19 soldiers in the port province
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of Hodeida. One day later, Houthis sent dozens of fighters there and forced al Qaeda to retreat. Al Qaeda claimed
responsibility for eight attacks against Houthis across Yemen in the past three weeks through its official Twitter account.
Guerrilla tactics
After taking control of Sanaa, hundreds of Houthi fighters created checkpoints inside and surrounding the Yemeni capital.
They have also expanded their reach into most northern Yemeni provinces.
But Houthis are finding it more difficult to crush al Qaeda in Al Baitha, considered one of the network's main strongholds in
central Yemen."Houthis are used to military clashes, while al Qaeda uses guerrilla tactics against its enemies. They hit
and run unexpectedly," said AbdulSalam Mohammed, president of the Sanaa-based Abaad Strategic Center. “Rules of
war are different when fighting al Qaeda," he said.
The Houthis have long complained that they have been marginalized and persecuted by Yemen's Sunni majority, and
have been involved in a series of rebellions since 2004, justifying their actions by claiming self-defense. They are
organized under the leadership of Abdel Malek al Houthi. Adding to an increasingly volatile situation, a secessionist
movement in the south of Yemen, al Hirak, has stepped up protests in Aden, Yemen's chief port and the largest city in the
south.
Analyze the motives of the United States in Yemen from a realist perspective. Use the following terms in your
analysis: power, conflict, anarchy, self-interest, & morals.
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POLITICAL LIBERALISM
Liberalism contends that people and the countries that represent them are capable of finding mutual interests and
cooperating to achieve them, at least in party by working through international organizations and according to international
law. Liberals reject the realists’ contention that politics is inherently and exclusively a struggle for power. Liberals do not
dismiss power as a factor, but they add morality, ideology, emotions, habits of cooperation, and even altruism as factors
that influence the behavior of national leaders and the course of world politics.
Liberalism also holds that international politics can be a non-zero-sum game -
FOUNDATIONS OF LIBERALISM
that it is possible to have win-win situations in which gains of one or more
Human Nature: Optimistic; humans
countries do not have to come at the expense of others. [Realists believe in
capable of enlightened cooperation
zero-sum, in which gain for one state is inevitably a loss for another state].
Liberals are also prone to think that all humans have a common bond that
they can draw on to identify themselves beyond the narrow boundaries of
Core Concepts: Cooperation &
interdependence
their country or group and to identify and forge ties with people around the
Conflict in System: Central but not
world.
inevitable
Like realism, liberalism is not a new approach to world politics. Indeed, part of
International System: Anarchical, but
modern liberalism is resurrected idealism although that label fell into disuse.
growing order
Whatever its label, the approach includes such ideas as the notion that justice
is a basic human right, which dares at least to Mesopotamia around
2500BCE. A sense of universalism has also long prompted efforts to organize
Main Cause of Conflict: Lack of central
processes to regulate competition
internationally for peace. For one, French Official Pierre Dubois proposed in
Path to Peace: Increase
The Recovery of the Holy Land (1306) that the Christian kingdoms ‘create a
interdependence, cooperation, and
league of universal peace’ to settle their disputes. Such views have persisted,
adherence to international law
with the idealism of President Woodrow Wilson and his drive to found the
Key Organizations: States & IGOs
League of Nations as a more recent example.
Also like realism, the reemergence of liberalism was a reflection of the times.
Policy Prescriptions: Cooperate to
achieve mutual interests
Realism had gained strength among scholars during the alarming period
between the outbreak of WWII and the depths of the Cold War in the 1950s
and 1960s. In the 1970s, however, the Cold War began to thaw, the international landscape looked very different, and
liberalism resurged. Reflecting the times, liberals made a number of claims. One was that, especially in a nuclear age, the
assumptions of realism trapped the world into a mind-set of conflict that could literally destroy civilization. This concern
prompted some scholars to pursue a disciplined inquiry into the ways that values like peace and justice can be realized in
global politics. Liberalism stressed the spread of democracy and the work being done on democratic peace theory. This
idea contradicts the core realist assumption that all countries, democratic or not, would struggle with one another. Liberals
also noted the expanding role of the UN, growth of the European Union, and many other examples of global cooperation
and charged that realism could not explain such changes.
Emphasis on Cooperation
Unlike realists, liberals do not believe that acquiring, preserving, and applying power
must be or even always is the essence of international relations. Instead, liberals argue that foreign policy should be and
sometimes is formulated according to the standards of cooperation and even altruism. This does not mean that liberals
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are never willing to use military force or other forms of coercion. Almost all liberals are willing to do so in self-defense or in
response to overt international aggression. Many liberals would also use force, especially if authorized by the UN, to
prevent or halt genocide and other gross violations of human rights. Beyond such cases though, liberals differ. Some
favor assertive liberalism, an approach that led Woodrow Wilson to send American troops to Europe in an effort to make
the world safe for Democracy and led George W Bush to invade Iraq in part to foster democracy there. Proponents of
more passive liberalism argue that using force is often counterproductive and that it also often leads to imperial
domination, even if the initial intentions were lofty.
Liberals also dismiss the realists’ warning that pursuing ethical policy often work against the national interest. The wisest
course, liberals contend, is for countries to recognize that their national interests and the common interests of the world
are inextricably tied. For liberals, this means that improving global economic conditions, human rights, and democracy are
very much in the national interest of the United States and other economically developed and democratic countries. This
was the argument President Bush made in 2005 when he told Americans, “In the long term, the peace we seek will only
be achieved by eliminating the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder. If whole regions of the world
remain in despair and grow in hatred, they will be the recruiting grounds for terror, and that terror will stalk America and
other free nations for decades.” Obviously, the realist camp saw Bush’s actions in the Middle East very differently.
Cooperative Future
Liberals believe that humanity is struggling toward a more orderly and peaceful international
system and can and must succeed in that goal. All theories recognize the importance of the state in world politics, but
whereas realists focus almost exclusively on the state, liberals put a great deal of emphasis on the UN and other IGOS as
both evidence and promoters of greater cooperation. Liberals are divided, however, over how far cooperation can and
should go. Classic liberals believe that just as humans learned to form cooperative societies without giving up their
individuality, so too can states learn to cooperate without surrendering their independence. These liberals believe that the
growth of international economic interdependence and the spread of global culture will create much greater spirit of
cooperation among the world countries. Neoliberals are more dubious about a world in which countries retain full
sovereignty. These analysts believe that countries will have to surrender some of their sovereignty to international
organizations in order to promote greater cooperation and enforce good behavior.
As for the future, liberals are encouraged by some recent trends. One of these is the willingness of countries to surrender
some of their sovereignty and improve themselves. The EU, for instance, now exercises considerable economic and
political authority over its member countries; member countries were not forced into the EU, rather, they joined it freely.
Liberals are further buoyed by the spread of democracy and economic interdependence. They believe that both tend to
lessen the chances of conflict among states, and research shows that there is validity to this notion/ liberals also condemn
the practice of realpolitik. They charge that power politics leads to an unending cycle of conflict and misery in which safety
is temporary at best.
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Realism
Liberalism
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APPLYING THEORY TO POLICY
Although national leaders seldom talk in terms of international relations theory, they do apply it. This was clear in late
2006 when a committee of former top US officials headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton sent President Bush a report
that began, “The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating,” and recommended a series of pragmatic steps designed to,
“enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly.”
The Washington Post termed the report “The Realist Manifesto.” Similarly, Time greeted the report and the replacement of
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by Robert Gates with a column entitled ”The Return of the Realists.” The
columnist Walter Isaacson linked the neo-conservatism of Rumsfeld and others in the administration to the idealism of
Woodrow Wilson waging WWI to make the safe world for democracy, and characterized the invasions of Iraq in 2003 as a
neo-Wilsonian mission of spreading democracy.
Describing realism and liberalism ads competing strands of American foreign policy, Isaacson characterized realism as a
hard-nosed focus on clearly defined national interests, pursued with a pragmatic calculation of commitments and
resources, and idealism as emphasizing moral values and ideals in formulating US foreign policy. As for the argument
some make that US pragmatic interests and moral values are synonymous, Isaacson dismissed that conjecture as not
always true in a messy world.
Which standard should Americans follow? Isaacson hedged, writing that while, “welcoming the return of some realism,
let’s not forget that America’s strength comes from its values.” To help determine whether you would write the future
policy script with a realist or liberal theme, or perhaps both, or neither, consider the following scenarios .assume that you
are US president, and that for each scenario your maximum cost will be 5,000 US troops killed and $500 billion. Then
decide for each scenario whether you are willing to order US forces into action and pay the price.
1. Retaking the US territory of Guam after it has been seized by another country
2. Stopping a genocidal slaughter that has already killed 200,000 people in a distant country
3. Preventing a clearly hostile country from acquiring nuclear arms and long-range missiles
4. Ousting a dictator who has ended democracy in a distant country and is ruling by terror
5. Toppling a government that is supplying a terrorist group that is threatening you
6. Liberating a country of no strategic importance that has been invaded by a neighbor
7. Defeating a country that dominates the Middle East and has cut off US oil supplies
8. Forcing a country harboring war criminals to surrender them to the International Criminal Court
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CONSTRUCTIVIST THEORY
As the realists and liberals battled it out intellectually, other scholars rejected all or parts of both theories and sought new
ways of thinking. Among other influences, the views of postmodernist, feminist, and other scholars on the subjectivity of
much of what we assume is real led in the mid-1980s to the formulation of constructivist theory. Constructivism views the
course of international relations as an interactive process in which the ideas of and communications among agents
(actors, individuals, groups, social structures, states) serve to create structures (treaties, laws, international organizations,
etc.). These structures, in turn, influence the ideas and communications of the agents. This definition, like constructivist
theory itself, is difficult to understand because it takes most readers into unfamiliar worlds.
FOUNDATIONS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM
Nature of Politics
The view begins with a rejection of what they
claim is the assumption by realists and liberals that most actors of world
Human Nature: Neutral/no assumptions
politics, such as states, and structures, such as the anarchistic
Core Concepts: Ideas, communication, &
international system, are a stable given. Constructivists read all such
language
‘knowledge’ as much more fluid than do realists and liberals. It is not that
Conflict in System: Central but not inevitable
constructivists do not recognize that countries exist; it is that
constructivists see them as primarily structures that are fluidly based on
International System: Anarchical because it’s
the willingness of agents (citizens) to define themselves politically in terms
assumed to be
of the state (national political identity) and behave in ways (fighting for it,
Main Cause of Conflict: Assumptions of conflict
and hostility
paying taxes) that support it. Such political identities are mental pictures of
who we are and both they and the political structures that rest on them are
more ethereal than you might assume. For example, in 1991 there was no
Path to Peace: Communicate to find common
doubt that the Soviet Union existed. It was the world’s largest country with
goals & ways to achieve them
a complex governmental structure and a vast military inventory. Indeed,
Key Organizations: States, NGOs, & IGOs
the Soviet Union was one of the world’s two superpowers. Yet as the
Policy Prescriptions: Shape ideas and
language to promote preferred reality
clock struck midnight on December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union
disappeared. Why? That will be debated for a long time, but
constructivists would argue that the Soviet Union had been constructed in
part in the minds of those within its borders. When they shifted their
political identities to being Russians, Ukrainians, and Kazaks, rather than Soviets, these people ‘constructed’ new
sovereign states and ‘deconstructed’ the Soviet Union, which was then disbanded by Russia and its other constituent
republics.
Constructivists also differ from liberals and realists in what they see as the goals of the agents. Liberals and realists hold
different views no how to best achieve goals, but they tend to see them in relatively concrete terms such as physical
safety and material-wellbeing. By contrast, constructivists believe that an important role is played by nonmaterial factors
such as ideology, morality, and other cultural outlooks and values. This stress on societal values makes constructivists
place considerable emphasis on the internal political processes of countries and how those dynamics shape a country’s
perceptions of the world and interactions with it. Historians of American foreign policy, for example, have found a religious
component in American culture that disposes it to see the ‘American way’ as god-given, which promotes a missionary zeal
to carry its blessing to others. This messianic tendency in American culture helps explain from a constructivist point of
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view the determination to spread democracy to the Middle East and elsewhere. Factoring in values also helps understand
policy choices.
Course of World Politics
Because constructivism contends that to a great degree, the world is what we make of it,
most of its adherents do not share the pessimism of realists about the possibilities of escaping global competition and
conflict. Even more broadly, the future rests on the ways in which we communicate and think about the world and our
place in it. They believe that language calls things into existence. For then, choosing one label over another (foreigner vs.
fellow human), then attaching certain values to that label is profoundly important politically because we act on the basis of
what things meant o us. Constructivists believe we should reject traditional meanings because they have led to division
and conflict. They do not believe that the anarchical condition of the international system forces states to take certain
actions like being armed. Instead, they think that how we conceive of the lack of central authority is what determines
interactions. From this point of view, conflict is not the result of structural power politics, rather it stems from the discordant
worldviews and the inability of people to communicate in ways that would construct a mutually beneficial vision and create
structures to accomplish that visions. If values and perceptions change, then so too can relations, structural realities, and
other aspects of the international system.
Resolve the dispute over immigration from Latin America to the United States using Constructivist Theory.
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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORIES ACTIVITY
Categorizing – Determine if the statement refers to Realist, Liberal, or Constructivist theory; write an R, L, or C on the line
to indicate your answer.
1. _____ Sovereign states exist in anarchy, incapable of order
2. _____ National characteristics of states influence their actions
3. _____ States act solely based on their self-interest
4. _____ States, NGOs, and IGOs all play a role in international relations
5. _____ Language is a determinant of conflict
6. _____ States are configurations of individual and group interests
7. _____ Ideology, morality, and values of individual states have a critical role in international relations
8. _____ The goal of states is to expand or sustain their power
9. _____ Cooperation & interdependence will achieve peace
Multiple Perspectives – Read the scenario, then answer the questions from realist, liberal, and constructivist views.
Nation X and Nation Y have had a long history of conflict, but are now trying to come to terms with one another. In the
1950s, Nation X’s government helped overthrow the democratically elected leader of Nation Y – an obvious start to a
complicated relationship. A few decades later, Nation Y forced the leader supported by Nation X from the country and
installed a leader whose religious background matched with that of the nation, but was different from the religion
prominent in Nation X. Things were further complicated only a few years later when hostages were held from Nation X in
Nation Y for over a year, and several lost their lives. By this time, it is clear to both sides that Nation X and Nation Y are
not on good terms, perhaps even enemies. Despite this, Nation X secretly shipped weapons to Nation Y, allegedly in
exchange for help in freeing Nation X hostages held in another country nearby, causing great controversy within Nation X.
Shortly thereafter, a passenger airplane of Nation Y was shot down by Nation X military; the relationship was quite hostile
for the next decade. In the mid-1990s, a new leader in Nation Y suggested starting conversations with Nation X, but this
was not accomplished and indeed shut down in the 2000s when the leader of Nation X suggested that Nation Y was part
of a larger, “evil” alliance, which clearly outraged Nation Y. Since then, sanctions were imposed on Nation Y to prevent the
state from further developing nuclear weapons – weapons commonly held by Nation X. Although leaders butted heads
throughout the 2000s, their current rulers did engage in discussion over the nuclear issue in 2013, marking the first time
Nation X and Nation Y’s heads of state conversed in 30 years.
10. Why have Nation X and Nation Y had such a poor relationship over the past 60 years?

R–

L–

C–
11. Why would Nation X and Nation Y begin discussion over the nuclear issue now?

R–

L–

C–
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ACTORS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Actors are those that make binding decisions in international relations. The two primary categories are states and nonstate actors. Realism focuses solely on states as actors, whereas liberalism and constructivism acknowledge the
influence of international intergovernmental organizations and international non-governmental organizations.
Interests are what actors want to achieve through political action. For example, we often assume that states have an
interest in security, specifically in preventing attacks. This interest prompts states to take steps to suppress potential
enemies and protect allies whose security is linked to their own. More precisely, interests are the preferences of actors
over the possible outcomes that might result from their political choices. Interests determine how actors rank the
desirability of different outcomes, from most to least preferred. An actor motivated by an interest in money prefers
outcomes in which it receives more money to those in which it receives less. A state interested in security prefers
outcomes that strengthen it and weaken its adversaries over outcomes that have the opposite effect. In identifying the
interests of an actor, analysts draw on prior theories of human nature or behavior, statements or actions of the actors
themselves, and sometimes assume that actors have particular interests. At the most general level, analysts group
interests into three categories: power or security, economic or material welfare, and ideological goals. These categories
somewhat align with realism, liberalism, and constructivism, but all theories can be applied to analyzing the interests and
actions of actors.
Nation-States
Nations are communities who think they are different from others in terms of
history, ethnicity, language, or religion. State refers to either the present condition of a system or entity, or to a governed
entity (country) or sub-entity (province). Nation-state scan be largely defined as autonomous geopolitical entities inhabited
by citizens sharing the same language, history, and ethnicity. Nation-states have several characteristics, notably a
geographically-defined territory, sovereignty, government, nationalism, and obedience and loyalty of a population. In
international relations, nation-states make political, economic, social, and cultural decisions that impact both domestic and
international spheres. Weak states tend to be former colonial holdings that never made the transition to viable nationstates, such as Somalia, Lebanon, Congo, and Afghanistan. Modernizing states, encompassing about 80% of the world’s
population, remain entrenched in the classic state system; this includes Brazil, India, Russia, and China. Developed or
post-industrial states have moved beyond the absolutist model of state sovereignty found among modernizing states, like
member states of the European Union.
Non-State Actors
Non-state actors are non-sovereign entities that exercise significant economic,
political, and social power. They have influence at a national or international level. There is no consensus on the members
of this category, and some definitions include trade unions, community organizations, religious institutions, ethnic groups,
and even universities. The impact of non-state actors is context-dependent, meaning the roles they play and influence
they exert depends upon political, economic, and social context.
International Intergovernmental Organizations
These voluntary associations of sovereign states are created by treaties
and negotiations to pursue the objectives of states.
Nongovernmental Organizations
NGOs are private, self-governing, voluntary, non-profit and task-oriented
advocacy organizations. Within these parameters, there is a high degree of diversity in terms of unifying principles;
independence from the government, big business, and outside influences; operating procedures; sources of funding;
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international reach; and size. They can implement projects, provide services, promote causes, or seek to influence policy.
The most common advocacy NGOs today work transnational issues like the environment, public health, migration and
displacement, and other social issues.
Multinational Corporations
These enterprises manage production or deliver services in at least two
countries. The traditional multinational is a private company headquartered in one country with subsidiaries in others, all
operating in accordance with a coordinated global strategy to win market share and achieve cost efficiencies. Today, a
growing number of multinationals are based in emerging market countries – particularly China, India, Russia, Brazil,
Mexico, and Turkey. This has been instrumental in shifting corporate power away from the OECD countries. For example,
the bulk of the world’s gas and oil reserves is now controlled by emerging market-based multinationals owned by or in
alignment with their home governments.
Actor
Commonly Ascribed Interests
States
Security, power, wealth, & ideology
Politicians
Reelection, ideology, & political
Examples
United States, United Kingdom, Iran, Iraq
President Obama, David Cameron
goals
Industries or
Wealth & profit
General Motors, pharmaceutical industry
Business
Associations
Bureaucracies
Budget maximization, influence,
policy preferences
International
Composites of states = reflect
Organizations
interests of member states
NGOs
Normative, ideological, or policy
goals; human rights, environment
Dept of Defense, National Security Council, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs
United Nations, IMF, Organization for Economic
Cooperation & Development
Red Cross, Amnesty International , Greenpeace, Catholic
Church
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INTERACTIONS: WHY CAN’T AN ACTOR ALWAYS GET WHAT IT WANTS?
Actors make choices in order to further their interests, yet political outcomes depend not just on the choices of one actor,
but on the choices of others as well. Interests are essential in analyzing any event in international relations because they
represent how actors rank alternative outcomes. But to account for outcomes, we must examine the choices of all the
relevant actors and how their choices interact to produce a particular result. When outcomes re the product of an
interaction, actors have to anticipate the likely choices of others and take those choices into account when making their
own decisions. Strategic interactions earn their name as each actor’s strategy, or plan of action, depends on the
anticipated strategy of others.
We make two assumptions in studying interactions. First, we assume that actors are purposive, that they behave with the
intention of producing a desired result. That is, actors are assumed to choose among available options with due regard for
their consequences and with the aim of bringing about outcomes they prefer. Second, in cases of strategic interaction, we
assume that actors adopt strategies to obtain desired outcomes given what they believe to be the interests and likely
actions of others. That is, actors develop strategies that they believe are a best response to the anticipated strategies of
others. A best response strategy is the actor’s plan to do as well as possible, in light of the interests and likely strategies
of other actors. Together, these assumptions link interests to choices and, through the interactions of choices, to
outcomes.
Formulating a strategy as a best response, of course, does not guarantee that the actor will obtain its most preferred or
even a positively valued outcome. Sometimes, the choices made by others leave actors facing a highly undesirable
outcome, one that may leave them far worse off than the status quo. If one state choose to initiate a war, for instance, the
other state must respond by either capitulating to its demands or fighting back, and both options may leave the second
state less well off than before the attack. A strategy is a plan to do as well as possible given one’s expectations about the
interests and actions of others; it is not a guarantee that one will obtain the most preferred result.
CASE STUDY: IRAQ WAR
Interests
One primary interest of the United States is security. In the showdown with Iraq, such an interest might
explain the US government’s desire to remove a regime that threatened American allies in the region and was suspected
of developing weapons of mass destruction and to install a friendly regime in a part of the world that harbors great hostility
toward the West. Given the US’s general interest in security, it might prefer a democratic Iraq that is friendly toward
American allies and encourages the democratization of other states in the Middle East. If this best outcome were to prove
impossible, the United States’ second-best result might be a pro-Western dictator in Iraq. This would be preferable to an
anti-American Islamist government, which, in turn, would be preferable to widespread instability and chaos in Iraq and the
region more generally. Furthermore, the Iraq War tapped into a longstanding debate in the US over whether foreign policy
should be narrowly defined to meet security threats or should also seek to undermine repressive regimes and promote the
spread of democracy.
Interactions
In March 2003, Saddam Hussein’s interests in his personal wellbeing might have led to the following
order of possible outcomes: 1) stay in power and continue present policies; 2) go into exile in some friendly state; 3) fight
and lose a war with the United States. Hussein’s only chance at getting his best possible outcome required that he resist
US demands to step down, but this risked bringing about his worst possible outcome: war. Whether resisting would lead
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to his best or worst outcome depended on what the United States would do in response. Would Bush carry out his threat
to attack, or would he back down? Whether it made sense for Hussein to resist or step down depended crucially on the
answer to this question. If he expected Bush to back down, then resisting US demands would get him his bets outcome; if
Hussein expected Bush to carry out his threat, then resistance would lead to his worst outcome, and it would have been
better to step down. Hence, in making his choice, Hussein had to consider not only what he himself wanted but also what
he expected Bush to do. In this case, there is evidence suggesting that Hussein expected opposition on the part of other
states, especially Russia and France, to prevent Bush from carrying out his threat – an erroneous expectation that led him
to resist. When combined with Bush’s determination to invade, this choice ensured a war. Had Hussein been certain that
Bush would act as he did, bringing about his eventual execution, he might have chosen differently even though his
underlying interests would have been the same. We call such situations strategic interactions because each actor’s
strategy, of plan of action, depends on the anticipated strategy of others.
1. List the actors evident in this scenario.
2. Identify the interests explained in the Iraq War case.
3. Use this example to explain how interests and actors are involved in international relations.
4. Use this example to explain strategic interactions.
5. What is the relationship in this case between national sovereignty and global interests, such as promoting democracy
or security?
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COOPERATION & BARGAINING
Interactions can take various forms, but most can be grouped into two
broad categories: cooperation and bargaining. Political interactions
usually involve both in varying degrees.
CASE STUDY: IRAQ WAR
Cooperation: A number of states in the
Interactions are cooperative when actors have a shared
international community loathed or feared
interest in achieving an outcome and must work together to do so.
Saddam Hussein’s regime, and they may
Cooperation occurs when two or more actors adopt policies that make at
have seen his removal as preferable to the
least one actor better off than it would otherwise be. Opportunities for
status quo. Some of these – United States
cooperation arise all the time in social and political life. A group of friends
and Great Britain – chose to cooperate in a
Cooperation
may want to throw a party, but none of them can spare the time or
money to do so alone. If they all contribute a little, then they can all enjoy
the benefits of the party. The members of a community would all benefit
if there were good roads to drive on and clean water to drink, but again,
no individual may be able to provide these on her own. If they all agree
to pay taxes to some central agency that will provide roads and water,
military effort to oust Hussein’s regime. Both
contributed significant military forces and
other resources in the expectation that joint
action would make them better off relative to
either maintaining the status quo or acting
then they can all be better off. In the international system, states may
alone.
have opportunities to cooperate to defend one another from attack, to
Bargaining: The US and Iraq were not
further a shared interest in free trade or stable monetary relations, to
protect the global environment, or to uphold human rights.
Cooperation is defined from the perspectives of the two or more actors
who are interacting. Even though their cooperation may make those
actors better off, it may hurt other parties. The friends throwing a party
may disrupt neighbors. Indeed, cooperation is not always an unmitigated
good; its benefits exist only for those who become better off by adjusting
cooperating, but bargaining over the latter’s
WMD programs and ultimately its regime.
Both: Even as the US, Britain, and other
states had interests in cooperating to defeat
Iraq, they bargained over how much each
would contribute to the effort.
their policies to bring about an outcome they prefer.
Bargaining
Whereas cooperative interactions involve the potential for mutual gain, bargaining describes an
interaction in which actors must choose outcomes that make one better off at the expense of another. For example, two
states may want the same piece of territory. Bargaining describes the process by which they come to divide the territory.
They may negotiate, impose sanctions on one another, or fight. All these tactics are different forms of bargaining. Given
the nature of the situation, the more territory one side gets, the less the other gets. When actors bargain, the improvement
in one actor’s welfare comes at the expense of the other actor’s welfare. For this reason, bargaining is sometimes called a
zero-sum game because the gains for one side perfectly match the losses of the other. Bargaining is purely redistributive;
that is, rather than creating additional value, as in the case of cooperation, it only allocates a fixed sum of value between
two actors. Typically, war is a bargaining interaction.
A Mix
Most interactions in international relations combine elements of both cooperation and bargaining. In many
interactions, actors cooperate and bargain simultaneously, and the outcomes of both interactions are linked. Successful
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cooperation generates gains worth bargaining over. And if actors cannot reach a bargain over the division of gains, they
may end up failing to cooperate.
Success & Failure of Cooperation
Cooperation and bargaining can succeed or fail for many reasons. Just because
actors might benefit from cooperation does not mean they will actually change their policies to realize the possible gains.
And even though bargaining might seem doomed to fail – after all, why would one actor agree to reduce its welfare? –
actors often do succeed in redistributing valuable goods between themselves.
The most important factor lies in each actor’s interests. Even when actors have a collective interest in cooperating, there
are situations in which their individual interests lead them to defect – to adopt an uncooperative strategy that undermines
the collective goal. Consider the easiest kind of cooperative interaction – a problem of coordination. This kind of situation
arises when actors simply must coordinate their actions with one another, and once their actions are coordinated, there is
no potential benefit from defecting. In short, there is no incentive to defect from the coordinated arrangement. In the
international economy, firms, industries, and governments face coordination problems all the time. There are many ways
to encode information on a CD, for example, but all firms producing CD-based products are better off coordinating on a
single format so their products are interchangeable. In coordination situations, cooperation is self-sustaining because
once coordination is achieved, no one can benefit by unilaterally defecting.
A more serious barrier to cooperation arises if the actors have an individual incentive to defect. These are called problems
of collaboration; this is the kind of problem often illustrated by the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Imagine that two criminals have
robbed a bank and stashed the loot in a secret location. The two are caught by police, but the DA does not have enough
evidence to convict them. She puts the prisoners in separate rooms and presents them with the following offer: “If you
provide evidence against your accomplice, I will let you go and put him in jail for 10 years; however, I am making the
same offer to your accomplice, and if he provides evidence against you, you will be the one behind bars. If you both
squeal, then you’ll both end up in prison.” Collectively, the prisoners would do best by cooperating
with each other and staying silent. In that case, the DA has to release them and they get to split the
loot. Unfortunately, each prisoner has an incentive to rat out his accomplice. Each prisoner reasons
as follows: “If my partner stays quiet, I can likewise and we will split the loot, or I can provide evidence
against him, in which case he goes to prison, and I get to enjoy the loot myself.” Assuming the
prisoner cares only about money, then defection is the best response in the event that the accomplice
Curious about
the Prisoner’s
Dilemma? See
the episode on
Game Theory
101 [YouTube]
stays quiet. Defection is also the best response if the accomplice defects, since the worst outcome is
to go to prison while one’s accomplice goes free and gets the loot. Since both prisoners will reason the same way, both
will end up providing evidence against the other. Both will go to jail, and they will split the loot when they get out. This
outcome, of course, is worse for both of them than the outcome they could have gotten by cooperating with each other.
The dilemma is that each individual’s incentive to defect undermines their collective interest in cooperation.
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Additional Factors

Efforts to produce public goods are bedeviled by collective action problems; each aims to benefit from the
contributions of others without bearing the costs itself

Institutions can provide incentives to alter actors’ interests to line up with collective interests

It is easier for a smaller number of actors to cooperate

Cooperation is more likely to occur when actors have opportunities to cooperate over time and across issues.
Iteration refers to repeated interactions with the same partners, usually through trade or other agreements.

Related to iteration is linkage, which ties cooperation on one policy dimension to cooperation on other
dimensions.

Availability of information affects the likelihood of cooperation. Cooperation may fail due to uncertainty and
misperception.
Winners & Losers in Bargaining
While cooperation has the opportunity to make actors collectively better off,
bargaining creates winners and losers. It is impossible for all actors to get their best possible outcome at the same time.
To understand why a bargain would ever be successful, we must understand power. Power is the ability of one actor to
get another to do something it would otherwise not do. Bargaining power belongs to those actors most satisfied with, or
most willing to endure, the reversion outcome (outcome that occurs when no bargain is reached. Because bargaining
outcomes are largely determined by how each actor evaluates the reversion outcome, power derives from the ability to
make the reversion outcome better for oneself and worse for the other side.
The most obvious strategy for exercising power is coercion. Coercion is the threat or imposition of costs on others to
reduce the value of the reversion outcome and thus change their behavior. Thus, states can use their ability to impose
costs on others to demand more favorable bargain than they would otherwise receive. Means of international coercion
include military force and economic sanctions. The balance of such capabilities among states is a strong predictor of who
wins and who loses. Other factors can be sources of power in coercive bargaining. Since the use of force is costly and
risky, an actor’s willingness to absorb costs and take risks can also generate an advantage. Thomas Schelling famously
described international crises as competitions in risk-taking likely to be ‘won’ by the side that blinks second; this helps
explain why weak states can at times defeat great powers. Actors also get a better deal when they have attractive outside
options, or alternatives to reaching a bargain with a particular partner that are more attractive than the status quo. This
actor can walk away from the bargaining table more easily than the actor without such an option.
Actors might gain leverage in bargaining through agenda-setting power. Whereas an outside option is exercised in the
event bargaining fails, agenda-setting involves actions taken prior to or during bargaining that make the reversion
outcome more favorable for one party. A party that can act first to set the agenda transforms the choices available to
others. In the Iraq War, the US used its agenda setting power by bringing the inspections issue before the UNSC and y
unilaterally initiating a war against Iraq, to which other countries were then forced to respond.
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Even though bargaining creates winners and losers, bargains can be made as long as they give all parties more than they
can expect to get in the reversion outcome. In other words, actors consent to painful concessions when the consequences
of not agreeing are even more painful. There are a host of problems that can prevent actors from finding or agreeing to
mutually beneficial deals. For example, uncertainty about how each side evaluates its prospects in a war can make ti hard
to know which bargains are preferable to war. There may also be situations in which states cannot credibly promise to
abide by an agreement that has already been made. Bargaining may also be complicated if the good being bargained
over is hard to divide.
Write a letter explaining whether cooperation or bargaining works best in world politics.
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INSTITUTIONS
Institutions play a major role in social and political life, domestically and internationally. We typically define institutions as
sets of rules, known and shared by the relevant community, that structure political interactions in specific ways. Many
institutions are embodied in laws or organizations. The US Congress has rules that determine who gets elected to it and
how it passes laws. Further rules determine how Congress deals with other American political institutions, such as the
presidency and courts. The United Nations is an institution in which states make collective decisions about military actions
or economic sanctions; the UN has rules that determine which states have a say over these matters and how their votes
are counted. International economic institutions include the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization,
and the World Bank. Other institutions are more informal and exist only as shared understandings of principles and
norms. These institutions, like the widespread international norm against slavery, can be very important.
Institutions generally serve to facilitate cooperation among their members. Even when actors have common interests,
there may be factors that make cooperation more difficult. Cooperation can flounder if the problems identified – incentives
to defect, large numbers of actors, non-repeated interactions, and imperfect information – are not successfully resolved.
Institutions can provide solutions to these problems. It is precisely to facilitate cooperation that actors first create and
subsequently comply with the rules embodied in institutions.
Affecting Cooperation
The primary way that institutions promote cooperation is through
enforcement, or the imposing of punishments on actors that fail to cooperate. Imagine, for example, that the prisoners in
the Prisoner’s Dilemma game were both members of an organized crime group, and it was understood that members who
rat each other out will find themselves at the bottom of a river wearing cement shoes. In that case, the prisoners no longer
have an individual incentive to defect on each other; the external enforcement by the organization changes the way they
rank-order the possible outcomes, and cooperation between them now makes sense both individually and collectively.
Similarly, governments provide public goods by compelling individuals to pay for them via taxes; the threat of fines or jail
time for failing to pay weakens the incentive to free ride on the contributions of others. Cooperation among private actors
within a country may also be enforced by institutions. A sales contract between a customer and a firm can be enforced by
courts, whose rulings are backed by the police powers of the state. In short, when institutions have means of imposing
punishments for defection, they can effectively enforce cooperation.
Institutions at the international level generally lack the capacity to impose punishments on states. The international system
is characterized by anarchy, a term that in this context refers to the absence of formal government. Whereas most
countries are governed by states, there is no such central authority at the international level. Some people think the UN is
a world government, but this is not the case. Even poor, weak states have more enforcement power over their citizens
than the UN has over actors in the global system. It cannot tax, raise its own military, or field its own police force.
The condition of anarchy means that international institutions do not generally enforce cooperation among members.
Cooperation has to be self-enforcing: that is, the members have to police themselves and assume responsibility for
punishing defectors. The fact that countries are largely dependent on self-help does not mean that international
institutions are useless, but it does shape our understanding of the role they play. They facilitate cooperation by making
self-enforcement easier in at least four ways: by setting standards of behavior, verifying compliance, reducing the costs of
joint decision-making, and resolving disputes.
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Setting Standards of Behavior
Clear standards of behavior reduce ambiguity and enhance cooperation.
International institutions set standards of behavior in similar ways. The North American Free Trade Agreement among the
US< Mexico, and Canada contains 22 chapters and 7 annexes of detailed rules governing trade and investment, as well
as exceptions to general rules for particular practices and industries. Clear standards of behavior allow others to
determine whether or not an actor is violating an agreement. The aggrieved parties can call violators to account; and if
violations are not correct, such parties can withdraw from cooperation entirely or impose sanctions. Clear standards are
especially important for international agreements, which must be enforced by participants. Although disputes occur, clear
standards help support cooperation by identifying violations and allowing enforcement procedures to function.
Verifying Compliance
Institutions provide ways to acquire information on compliance. In many
international institutions, self-reporting is common practice: countries are required to submit reports verifying their
compliance. It allows other parties to the agreement to inspect the self-reporting of others, assess those reports against
their private knowledge of others’ compliance, and publicize and criticize any inconsistencies. Discrepancies between selfreports and verified accounts open the country to further disrepute and possible sanctions. For example, in the fall of
2002, the United States asked the UNSC to demand of Iraq a detailed accounting of its WMD programs, and the US
highlighted inconsistencies within the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, between the documents and past
inspection reports, and between the documents and its own intelligence estimates.
Reducing Costs of Joint Decision-Making
Institutions make it easier for actors to make decisions collectively. In the
absence of some agreed-upon rules of collective decision-making, the costs of any policy initiative would be enormous.
These might be so large, in fact, that no policy would ever generate sufficient benefits to offset the costs of enacting that
policy. Nothing would ever get done. As a result, societies create political institutions –rules of the game- that define how
joint political decisions will be made. An example of this is the United Nations. It was formed as a permanent forum in
which countries could come together to deliberate and attempt to resolve disagreements. Since its founding, the UN and
its associated agencies have undertaken 61 peace-keeping operations, fought the Korean War, authorized the 1991
Persian Gulf War, rewritten the law of the sea, managed refugee problems worldwide, fed people displaced by conflict or
famine, helped eliminate smallpox, and undertaken a host of other activities. There is a relatively clear set of rules on
which issues get referred to the General Assembly and which to the Security Council, as well as specific voting rules for
each body. These rules reduce the costs of joint decision-making among member states just as they do in other social
settings.
Resolving Disputes
International institutions provide mechanisms for resolving disputes.
When parties disagree about whether one or more of them have violated an agreement or how to interpret the terms fo an
agreement, it can be helpful to have prior agreement on how to handle such differences. Domestically, disputes are
routinely referred to courts for authoritative resolution; in fact, courts are the default forum for dispute resolution unless the
parties to an agreement specifically agreed to other provisions, such as arbitration. Most international agreements,
however, do not contain explicit dispute resolution procedures, and each party may seek to interpret the agreement
according to its own interests and be limited only by its desire for a reputation as a ‘good partner.’ By creating
mechanisms to resolve disputes, actors increase their expectations that others will uphold their commitments, prevent
retaliation from escalating out of control, resolve ambiguities in their agreements, and allow mutually beneficial
cooperation to occur. This does not hinge on the dispute resolution body itself enforcing the rules by punishing violators.
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Rather, by interpreting the rules when they are ambiguous or subject to conflicting interpretations, dispute settlement
bodies help identify violator and victim, permit actors to employ self-help sanctions more efficiently, and potentially keep
disputes from escalating.
Benefits of Institutions
Institutions may help states cooperate, and in that sense they can make all their
members better off. But institutions rarely benefit everyone equally. Institutions are themselves a product of the
cooperation and bargaining that brought them into being. They reflect past political bargains, with the winners getting to
write the rules, or having a disproportionate say over the rules. As a result, the rules are never neutral; instead, they
embody the bargaining strength of the actors at the time the rules were written or amended. Thus, all institutions contain a
policy bias.
International institutions differ widely in their rules and in their policy bias. Many, including the General Assembly of the
UN, have a one country – one vote rule, with China having the same official weight as Tuvalu, despite vast differences in
population. The UNSC, by contrast has voting rules that privilege five particular states, the US, Great Britain, France,
Russia, and China, by giving them a veto over any action the UNSC might take. This means that even fi a majority of
states on the UNSC, or around the world, want the UN to enact a particular policy, it can nevertheless be blocked by any
of these states. Why these states? They were the five major victors of WWII, and hence were in a position to write the
rules when the UN was created in the aftermath of the war. The privileged position of these states helps explain why
French and Russian opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq was so consequential – without their support, the UNSC
could not authorize the use of force. Other institutions have weighted voting rules, which give the largest contributors the
most influence; the IMF is an example with this, as the US contributes 17% and gets 17% of the votes consequentially,
more than any other share of an individual country.
Because institutions matter and bias policy in consequential ways, states struggle over their rules. Institutions are both the
shapers of politics and the products of political action.
Why Comply?
Why do actors follow the rules? If they have incentives to defect, why do they not
always do so? Actors comply with institutions for two reasons. First, since many problems in international relations
combine both cooperation and bargaining, actors may agree to comply with the rules for the cooperation they facilitate
even though the outcome of the rules is biased against them. In these situations, the value of cooperation outweighs the
costs of a relatively disadvantageous bargain. For examples, states observe the rules of the WTO not just because other
countries could punish them for violations, but because the system of free trade the WTO supports is of great benefit to
them. Second, actors comply with institutions because they are already in place and cheaper to use, even if biased, than
are the costs of creating a brand new institution that might more fully reflect their interests. In the case of an existing
institution, the cost of creating that set of rules have already been paid, but the costs of any new institution would have to
be paid anew.
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COSTA RICAN UNDERWEAR: A TALE OF WTO COMPLIANCE
On December 22, 1995, Costa Rica bought a suit against the United States brought he World Trade Organization’s
dispute settlement process. Six months earlier, the US had imposed restrictions on the import of cotton and synthetic fiber
underwear from Costa Rica and several other countries. The US government claimed that these import restrictions were
needed to prevent serious damage to its domestic underwear industry. Costa Rica claimed that these restrictions violated
the rules of the WTO because the US had actually unilaterally and without proof determined that its domestic industry was
actually in danger. In bringing the case before the WTO, Costa Rica became the first small developing country to initiate a
dispute settlement action against the United States, the world’s largest trader and military power. The following year, the
panel that was appointed to adjudicate the case ruled in Costa Rica’s favor. The US appealed the decision, but on
February 10, 1997, the WTO’s appellate body confirmed the ruling. The US subsequently allowed its import restrictions to
expire, bringing its trade policy into compliance with the ruling.
Why would the US comply in a case like this? After all, the WTO cannot punish a country for noncompliance. Instead,
enforcement is left to the aggrieved states. But it is implausible that Costa Rica - with a far smaller economy and no
military to speak of – could force the US to comply. So why would the US government override the demands of its
domestic underwear producers and lift their protections from imports?
States have incentives to comply with institutional rules, even if inconvenient, if they value the benefits from the institution
as a whole. The short-term incentive to disobey the rules can be outweighed by the long-term benefits provided by the
institution. In this case, the WTO benefits the US by helping to open other countries’ markets to US exports, and the US is
a frequent user of the dispute settlement mechanism. As of November 2007, the US had been the complaining party in 84
cases brought before the WTO. It prevailed in 55 of these cases and lost only 4; the remaining cases were in progress or
had been dropped. Even though Costa Rica could not punish the US for noncompliance, the incentive for the US to not
comply in this one instance was tempered by the long-term advantages of having a system of rules that is generally
respected. Protecting US underwear manufacturers was not worth the risk that noncompliance would jeopardize those
rules and benefits they bring.
1. Why did Costa Rica bring a suit against the US to the WTO?
2. Why could the US have not complied with the WTO ruling?
3. Why did the US comply?
4. If you were in charge, would you have complied with the ruling? Why?
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