bipolarity multipolarity and free trade recent literature typically attributes the relative scarcity of open international markets to the prisoner s dilemma structure of state preferences with respect to trade i argue that the prisoner s dilemma representation does not reflect the most critical aspect of free trade agreements in an anarchic international system security externalities explicit consideration of these effects suggests that a bipolar international political system has an advantage relative to its multipolar counterpart with respect to the opening of markets among states less credible exit threats and stronger incentives to engage in altruism within its alliances explain the advantage of a two power system the real income gains that motivate free trade are also the source of the security externalities that impede it their ability to internalize these effects makes military alliances the natural basis of agreements to open international markets the evolutionary prospects of alliances vary however ones that are the products of bipolar systems are more likely to evolve into free trade coalitions than are their multipolar counterparts i argue that less credible exit threats and stronger incentives to engage in alliance altruism explain the advantage of a two power system several important limits of the argument should be made clear immediately i argue at the systemic level i attempt to isolate the political and economic incentives for free trade that occur at the level of the international system i do not therefore consider the impact of unitlevel factors on the pursuit of these incentives for example neither the role of special interest groups nor the organization of domestic exchange via hierarchies instead of markets is considered doyle 1986 frieden 1988 ruggie 1982 the conditions i assume are those of standard international trade theory ethier 1983 and illustrative rather than systematic empirical referents are used these restrictions are appropriate given my purpose to demonstrate analytically the advantage of a bipolar international political system with respect to free trade

the international telecommunications regime the political roots of regimes for high technology the international telecommunications regime provided a multilateral framework that reinforced domestic monopolies and bilateral cartel arrangements in the global market the regime s epistemic community believed that telecommunications services and equipment were best supplied by national monopolies and that international communications by telephone telegram and telex should be jointly provided by monopolists strong domestic political incentives reinforced this cognitive framework when technological innovation triggered a successful political attack on the domestic regulation of telecommunications in a few key countries the stage was set for a global challenge to the intellectual and political foundations of the regime two paths to reform have emerged their significance can be assessed by looking at changes in the distribution of benefits from the regime changes in the manner in which governments delegate power to the regime and shifts in the epistemic community associated with the regime

multilateralism bilateralism and exclusion in the nuclear proliferation regime i use the nuclear proliferation regime to show that dyadic diplomacy is not necessarily incompatible with the building of a multilateral regime bilateralism is not the opposite of multilateralism but an efficient component thereof although this point will not be new to most students of institutions no general rationale has so far been offered on the complementarity of bilateral and multilateral diplomacy start ing from a characterization of proliferation as the result of a large number of prisoner s dilemmas played out between states engaged in local dyadic rivalries i demonstrate that it is possible for the superpowers to design an optimal mix of threats and bribes in which states with low compliance costs join the regime on the terms of the multi lateral treaty alone states with intermediate compliance costs need additional cus tomized incentives delivered through bilateral agreements and states with high compliance costs are not only left out of the regime but also punished for nonpartici pation i draw a few comparative statics that i systematically test on nuclear prolif eration treaty npt membership data i discuss the applicability of the model to the currency trade and aid regimes

the system worked global economic governance during the great recession prior to 2008 numerous international relations scholars had predicted a looming crisis in global economic governance policy analysts have only reinforced this perception since the financial crisis declaring that we live in a g zero world this article takes a closer look at the global response to the financial crisis and reveals a more optimistic picture despite initial shocks that were more severe than the 1929 financial crisis global economic governance structures responded quickly and robustly whether one measures results by outcomes outputs or process formal and informal governance structures displayed surprising resiliency multilateral economic institutions performed well in crisis situations to reinforce open economic policies especially in contrast to the 1930s while there are areas where governance has either faltered or failed on the whole the system has worked misperceptions about global economic governance persist because the great recession has disproportionately affected the core economies analysts have conflated national with global governance and the efficacy of past periods of global economic governance has been badly overestimated why the system has worked better than expected remains an open question but we can tentatively conclude that both the power of the united states and the resilience of neoliberal economic ideas were underestimated

in the shadow of the vote decision making in the european community scholarship on the european community ec focuses particular attention on how formal voting rules and institutional reform condition decision making outcomes the predominant view of ec history holds that decision making remained paralyzed until institutional reforms in 1987 and 1992 restored and expanded adherence to majority voting rules which in turn unblocked and expedited ec legislative efforts in this study i challenge these fundamental assumptions using comprehensive data for 1974 95 and a series of quantitative assessments including event history analysis i show that decision making in the 1970s was anything but paralyzed that the impact of the luxembourg compromise has been greatly overstated that institutional reforms actually encumbered rather than eased the ec legislative process and that institutional effects are mediated by the underlying distribution of member state preferences the findings have important implications for our understanding of the history and future trajectory of european integration and highlight the applicability of standard political science theories and methods to the study of the ec

rational hegemons excludable goods and small groups an epitaph for hegemonic stability theory in defining international free trade as a public good hegemonic stability theory posited early in the 1970s that its reliable supply depended upon a distribution of international power analogous to that within a privileged group more recently however critics have challenged three assumptions fundamental to hegemonic theory its premises of free trade public goods and privileged groups they have concluded that hegemony is not necessary for and indeed may be antithetical to a stable world economy based on market exchange the author argues that the critics overstate their case the assumptions they attack allow hegemonic theory to represent analytically several critically important barriers to free trade among states among these are the existence of strategic interdependence among the actors and the prevalence of informational asymmetries the most significant flaw in hegemonic theory is its neglect of the essence of the domain to which it applies the politics of inter state trade in an anarchic world

an institutional critique of intergovernmentalism most intergovernmentalist analyses of european integration focus on treaty bargaining among european union member governments recent articles also have examined everyday decision making through power index analysis an approach that asserts that a government s ability to influence policy is a function of all possible coalitions in the council of ministers to which it is pivotal this approach suffers from two major weaknesses first it fails to take into account the policy preferences of governments it overestimates the influence of governments holding extreme preferences and underestimates that of more centrist governments second power index analysis fails to consider the important roles of the commission of the european communities and the european parliament in legislative processes today s procedures affect the mix of agenda setting and veto power and this has systematic effects on policy outcomes if intergovernmentalism is to explain choices made during treaty rounds it must take into account these legislative dynamics

voting power in the ec decision making and the consequences of two different enlargements abstract in this paper we study the voting power in the council of ministers of the ec the purpose of this paper is twofold first to evaluate the voting power for the member states of today s community and second to analyse the balance of power after two different enlargements of the community the analysis is based on the shapley shubik and the banzhaf power indices of simple cooperative games the modified version of the shapley shubik index is used to analyse how the sub systems of the ec can change the distribution of power in the decision making process

product quality product price and share dynamics in the german compact car market the present paper examines one of the central elements of evolutionary thinking the replicator dynamics mechanism using data on product characteristics of automobiles sold on the german domestic market over the period 2001 2006 we construct a fitness variable for each car model applying non parametric efficiency measurement techniques better known as data envelopment analysis dea the basic question we intend to answer is whether cars providing a higher quality price ratio for consumers tend to increase their market share compared to variants with lower quality price ratio for consumers the relationship between a car models fitness and its market performance is empirically tested in a regression framework the results show that the principle of growth of the fitter is working as suggested by evolutionary theory in particular we find that car models with considerably lower fitness than the market average lose whereas models with above average fitness gain additional market shares

the efficiency paradox bureaucratic and organizational barriers to profitable energy saving investments abstract the paradox of why profitable energy saving investments are not undertaken continues to provoke debate the underlying phenomenon might be called the efficiency paradox because it represents a case in which business firms which are often presumed or taken axiomatically to be economically efficient make decisions that do not maximize profits new data from one of the us environmental protection agency s voluntary pollution prevention programs enables this paradox to be explored statistically the data show that both the level and variation in returns to lighting upgrade investments cannot be explained by standard economic models substantial gains in energy efficiency can be achieved without sacrificing profitability both economic and organizational factors account for some of the variation in observed returns to these investments but the results suggest a need for improved and more comprehensive theories of the investment behavior of firms and other organizations

lobbying and agricultural trade policy in the united states the authors study whether political campaign contributions influence agricultural protection in the united states in the manner suggested by the political economy model of grossman and helpman 1994 this is the first attempt to test this model using agricultural data the authors test the model using a detailed cross sectional data set of agricultural protection subsidies and political action committee pac contributions in the late 1990s the model is qualitatively affirmed by the data they make a novel attempt to solve a puzzle about the model s quantitative implications also found in recent studies this solution makes the simple model consistent with the complicated decisionmaking process in real world government the results imply the underpinnings of a political economy equilibrium that will be hard to dislodge

the industrial organization of congress or why legislatures like firms are not organized as markets this paper provides a theory of legislative institutions that parallels the theory of the firm and the theory of contractual institutions like market institutions legislative institutions reflect two key components the goals or preferences of individuals here representatives seeking reelection and the relevant transactions costs we present three conclusions first we show how the legislative institutions enforce bargains among legislators second we explain why given the peculiar form of bargaining problems found in legislatures specific forms of nonmarket exchange prove superior to market exchange third our approach shows how the committee system limits the types of coalitions that may form on a particular issue

cooperation in the liberalization of international trade after hegemony what nations dwell in perpetual anarchy for no central authority imposes limits on the pursuits of sovereign interests because as states they cannot cede ultimate control over their conduct to an supranational sovereign they cannot guarantee that they will adhere to their promises the possibility of a breach of promise can impede cooperation even when cooperation would leave all better off yet at other times states do realize common goals through cooperation under anarchy

sharing the burden of collective security in the european union this article compares european union eu burden sharing in secu rity governance distinguishing between assurance prevention protection and com pellence policies we employ joint product models and examine the variation in the level of publicness the asymmetry of the distribution of costs and benefits and aggre gation technologies in each policy domain joint product models predict equal burden sharing for protection and assurance because of their respective weakest link and summation aggregation technologies with symmetric costs prevention is also char acterized by the technology of summation but asymmetry of costs implies uneven burden sharing uneven burden sharing is predicted for compellence because it has the largest asymmetry of costs and a best shot aggregation technology evaluating burden sharing relative to a country s ability to contribute kendall tau tests exam ine the rank correlation between security burden and the capacity of eu member states these tests show that the smaller eu members disproportionately shoulder the costs of assurance and protection wealthier eu members carry a somewhat dis proportionate burden in the provision of prevention and larger eu members in the provision of compellence when analyzing contributions relative to expected ben efits asymmetric marginal costs can largely explain uneven burden sharing the main conclusion is that the aggregated burden of collective security governance in the eu is shared quite evenly

bargaining enforcement and international cooperation neoliberals and their neorealist critics have debated the relative importance of two main obstacles to international cooperation problems of cheating and enforcement and problems of relative gains by contrast i argue that problems of international cooperation have a common strategic structure in which a third distinct obstacle plays a crucial role almost regardless of the issue area states must first resolve the bargaining problem of agreeing on terms before they can implement and begin to enforce an agreement furthermore the bargaining and enforcement problems interact using a game model i show that if states must bargain to determine the deal to be enforced the shadow of the future cuts two ways a high expectation of continued interactions may make enforcing the agreement easier but it can also give states an incentive to bargain harder delaying agreement in hopes of getting a better deal empirical evidence from trade and arms control negotiations suggests that this mechanism may help to explain the costly standoffs that are often observed in international politics and are problematic for received neoliberal theories

the balance of power in the balance this article reviews four recent books on balancing and the balance of power both in isolation and when taken together they provide strong analytical and empirical warrants against the proposition that balance of power equilibria represent the normal condition or natural tendency of international relations they also reflect the growing dissensus among realists concerning how to conceptualize and operationalize the key concept of balancing the author argues that their analysis implies a tripartite distinction between balance of power theory theories of power balances and theories of balancing recognizing this distinction undermines many objections to expanding the concept of balancing to include nontraditional variants but it also helps elucidate why we should eschew describing nontraditional balancing through the language of hard and soft balancing even a more expansive conception of balancing however fails to insulate balance of power theory against mounting disconfirming evidence while one might be able to salvage a weak variant of balance of power theory realists are probably better off adopting a more nuanced and comprehensive approach to power political competition the entire field would benefit from treating balancing and the balance of power as objects of inquiry in their own right rather than as the province of realist theory

interests power and multilateralism multilateralism characterizes to varying degrees patterns of interaction among states and the formal organizations they construct the utility of multilateral norms or organizations varies with the type of cooperation problem states confront thus the functional logic of international cooperation leads to hypotheses about the conditions under which the institution of multilateralism may be a feasible and efficient solution as in coordination problems and those under which it will not as in collaboration problems within these constraints powerful states choose institutions that will serve their interests with multilateral arrangements becoming more attractive as the future is valued more highly multilateral institutions should be stable in circumstances of changing distributions of power relative to more hierarchical institutions the vulnerability of patterns of international cooperation to various exogenous changes depends on the type of strategic interaction underlying state behavior

the third leg of the kantian tripod for peace international organizations and militarized disputes 1950 85 immanuel kant believed that democracy economic interdependence and international law and organizations could establish the foundations for perpetual peace our analyses of politically relevant dyads show that each of the three elements of the kantian peace makes a statistically significant independent contribution to peaceful interstate relations these benefits are evident even when the influence of other theoretically interesting factors such as relative power alliances geographic contiguity and economic growth is held constant increasing the number of shared memberships in intergovernmental organizations igos by one standard deviation reduces the incidence of militarized disputes by about 23 percent from the baseline rate for a typical pair of bordering states if both members of a dyad are democratic conflict is 35 percent less likely than the baseline increasing both the dyadic trade gdp ratio and the trend in trade by a standard deviation reduces the chance of conflict by 38 percent together all the kantian variables lower the probability of a dispute by 72 percent we check for reverse causation and find reason to believe that a feedback system is at work with igos reducing conflict and low conflict dyads joining igos democracies and interdependent states are more likely to join igos with one another bringing together the three elements of a system for kantian peace

beyond replicator dynamics innovation selection dynamics and optimal diversity we propose a new evolutionary approach to model technological change based on an extension of replicator dynamics with recombination and mutation it gives rise to interactive innovation selection dynamics the model allows studying the combined effects of selection and variety generation on evolutionary economic change the developed framework describes a population of boundedly rational entrepreneurs who decide each period on the allocation of investments in different production technologies they tend to invest in belowaverage cost technologies just as under replicator dynamics in addition they spend a constant fraction of investments captured by mutation and recombination rates on alternative technologies and research on recombinant innovation as opposed to most previous studies mutation and recombination are here conceptual variables with a concrete behavioral interpretation namely describing the decision rules heuristics of investors we compare the dynamics of shares of investments in various technologies for three cases with constant costs of capital with costs decreasing steadily and exogenously over time and with costs depending on the level of cumulative investments for each model version we examine under which conditions the coexistence of technological options is feasible and optimal in terms of minimising the average cost of investments authors abstract

explaining institutional change policy areas outside options and the bretton woods institutions i propose and test a theoretical framework that explains institutional change in international relations like firms in markets international institutions are affected by the underlying characteristics of their policy areas some policy areas are prone to produce institutions facing relatively little competition limiting the outside options of member states and impeding redistributive change in comparison institutions facing severe competition will quickly reflect changes in underlying state interests and power to test the theory empirically i exploit common features of the bretton woods institutions the international monetary fund and world bank to isolate the effect of variation in policy area characteristics the empirical tests show that despite having identical membership and internal rules bargaining outcomes in the bretton woods institutions have diverged sharply and in accordance with the theory

extension of the portfolio allocation model to surplus majority governments a fuzzy approach scholars have long studied the conditions under which the cabinet making process will result in minority surplus majority or minimum winning governing coalitions in parliamentary systems since riker a good number of these attempts have been based on rational choice assumptions among formal approaches in this vein laver and shepsle s making and breaking governments cabinets and legislatures in parliamentary governments 1996 portfolio allocation model argues that parties centrally located in policy space have a greater potential for being part of any governing coalition and that parties located at the issue by issue median have a high likelihood of forming a minority government however the model predicts that surplus majority coalitions will only form when the number of salient policy dimensions in the political system is greater than two we incorporate fuzzy set theory in the portfolio allocation model permitting us to model ambiguity in parties policy preferences the reformulated model accounts for the formation of surplus majority coalitions in two dimensional policy space we illustrate the model s conclusions with a case study of the 1996 surplus majority coalition in the lithuanian seimas

the international politics of harmonization the case of capital market regulation the internationalization and globalization of capital markets greatly complicates the tasks of national financial regulators it is becoming increasingly difficult if not impossible to regulate the activities of banking and securities firms and the broad range of transactions in which they engage on a national level in this article i explore the process of international regulatory harmonization in capital markets focusing especially on the mechanisms political pressure market pressure and institutional arrangements that facilitate this process i argue that the united states and the united kingdom are dominant players in the capital market and that the factors most relevant for understanding harmonization processes are 1 whether other jurisdictions have incentives to emulate the regulatory innovations of the dominant financial centers and 2 whether the dominant centers experience negative externalities in the process these two factors shed considerable light on whether harmonization will be spurred primarily by market forces or by politics they also suggest the likely role of international institutions in the process of regulatory harmonization the argument is illustrated using four issue areas capital adequacy requirements for banks anti money laundering rules accounting standards and information sharing among securities regulators

global communications and national power life on the pareto frontier regime analysis has focused on issues of market failure the resolution of which depends upon knowledge and institution building global communications regimes however have been concerned either with issues of pure coordination or with coordination problems with distributional consequences outcomes have been decided by the underlying distribution of national power in those areas where power was asymmetrically distributed and there was no agreement on basic principles and norms radio broadcasting and remote sensing no regime was formed in those areas where distributional issues could not be unilaterally resolved allocation of the radio spectrum and telecommunications regimes were created although both principles and rules changed with alterations in national power capabilities

industrial excess heat deliveries to swedish district heating networks drop it like it s hot using industrial excess heat in district heating dh networks reduces the need for primary energy and is considered efficient resource use the conditions of swedish dh markets are under political discussion in the third party access tpa proposal which would facilitate the delivery of firms industrial excess heat to dh networks this paper estimates and discusses the untapped potential for excess heat deliveries to dh networks and considers whether the realization of this potential would be affected by altered dh market conditions the results identify untapped potential for industrial excess heat deliveries and calculations based on estimated investment costs and revenues indicate that realizing the tpa proposal could enable profitable excess heat investments

coordination versus prisoners dilemma implications for international cooperation and regimes the study of political institutions in general and international cooperation in particular has been beneficially influenced by the prisoners dilemma pd game model but there is a mistaken tendency to treat pd as representing the singular problem of collective action and cooperation by relaxing the assumptions of 2 2 games and developing an alternate model of the coordination game i show how some cooperation problems have very different properties from those found in pd the analytical results of the two games are compared across several important dimensions number of strategies available number of iterations of the game numbers of players and the distribution of power among them the discussion is illustrated with specific problems of international cooperation and the implications of alternative cooperation problems for the formation and performance of international regimes are explored the basic solutions for pd and coordination have divergent ramifications for the institutionalization stability and adaptability of regimes and for the role of hegemony in the international system however the coordination model does not replace the pd model but complements and supplements it as a way to understand the diversity of political institutions these results are widely applicable to areas of politics beyond international relations

institutional assets and adaptability nato after the cold war the puzzle of nato s persistence is best addressed as part of a larger inquiry into institutional change institutions persist because they are costly to create and less costly to maintain but this institutionalist argument is incomplete whether institutions adapt to change depends on whether their norms rules and procedures are specific or general assets and on whether the asset mix matches the kinds of security problems faced by their members assets specific to coping with external threats will not be useful for coping with problems of instability and mistrust so alliances with only the former will disappear when threats disappear alliances that have specific institutional assets for dealing with instability and mistrust and general institutional assets will be adaptable to environments that lack threats i assess these hypotheses in a test case of nato s institutional assets during and after the cold war

sanctions in networks abstract in this paper we contribute to the sender target models of sanctions by explicitly incorporating the linkages social political or economic that bind the sender and target to other agents given any network model and architecture we draw attention to two factors that play a key role in determining the efficacy of sanctions in reducing the frequency of violations these are respectively strategic complementaritiesbetween the sanctioning action deleting link with target and number of direct links of the sender and the externalities imposed on the sender by third parties we examine the role played by these factors both in the short run when links can only be deleted and the long run when links can also be added as well as when sanctions are unilateral the sender can only delete own links or multilateral the sender can impose on common allies to sever links to the target our analysis allows an active role to the target to build an opposing coalition to deflect sanctions and to third parties to engage in sanction busting it also extends to multiple senders and targets existence of interest groups within sender and target with dissimilar objectives and signed networks allowing both antagonistic and cordial bilateral relationships

multilateralism with small and large numbers multilateralism international governance of the many was defined by the united states after 1945 in terms of certain principles particularly opposition to bilateral and discriminatory arrangements that were believed to enhance the leverage of the powerful over the weak and to increase international conflict postwar multilateralism also expressed an impulse to universality john ruggie s generalized organizing principles that implied relatively low barriers to participation in these arrangements a ticket of admission was always required whether acceding to the general agreement on tariffs and trade gatt or joining the international monetary fund imf and the world bank nevertheless the price of that ticket was not set so high that less powerful or less wealthy states could not hope to participate

probabilistic voting power in the eu council the cases of trade policy and social regulation the distribution of voting power in the european union council of ministers is studied in regard to trade policy and social regulation member states are divided into three groups according to their attitudes toward the policy issues under consideration the objectives are to evaluate member countries voting power as compared to situations where predetermined coalitions do not exist analyze the kinds of decisions the council can and probably will make concerning these policy issues and examine whether an expansion of the european union by the efta countries will change the direction of policymaking copyright 1995 by the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics

explaining government preferences for institutional change in eu foreign and security policy some member states of the european union eu want a supranational foreign and security policy while other member states oppose any significant limitation of national sovereignty in this domain what explains this variation answering this question could help us to better understand not only the trajectory of european unification but also the conditions and prospects of consensual political integration in other regional contexts and territorial scales the main research traditions in international relations theory suggest different explanations i examine the roles of relative power capabilities foreign policy interests europeanized identities and domestic multilevel governance in determining the preferences of the fifteen eu member governments concerning the institutional depth of their foreign and security policy cooperation i find that power capabilities and collective identities have a significant influence but the effect of ideas about the nature and locus of sovereignty as reflected in the domestic constitution of each country is particularly remarkable a previous version of this article was presented at the 4th ecpr pan european international relations conference canterbury 8 10 september 2001 for their valuable comments i would like to thank filippo andreatta daniele archibugi simone borra nicola dunbar fabio franchino alkuin kolliker leonardo morlino angelo panebianco eiko thielemann ben tonra the editors of io and three anonymous reviewers i am responsible for any mistakes

negotiation arithmetic adding and subtracting issues and parties students of international negotiations often examine strategic interactions among a given set of parties dealing with a specified group of issues the issues and parties themselves are often choice variables whose ultimate configuration can have decisive effects on a bargain s outcome using a variety of international cases i investigate the properties of several classes of moves that are intended to alter the issues and parties of an original negotiation a unified approach to the analysis of such situations suggests numerous distinct means by which the addition or subtraction of issues can yield one sided gains to the use of power can yield joint gains that create or enhance a zone of possible agreement and can reduce or destroy a zone of possible agreement the effects of adding or subtracting parties are similarly analyzed however unintended complexity unforeseen interrelationships organizational considerations transactions costs and informational requirements may alter the analysis of such moves

redistributive cooperation market failure wealth transfers and the basle accord indecember1987 policymakersbelongingtothegroupoften g 10 signeda far reaching agreement on international nancial regulation the basle accord ontheinternational convergence of capital measuresand capital standards underthetermsof thisagreement g 10 policymakersimplemented uniform risk based capitalrequirements on commercial banks the origins of the basle accord according tokapstein lay in the consequencesof international nancial integration international nancial integration by raising systemic risk and eroding regulators capacity toensure the soundness of national banking systems generated a market failure evi denced by thedebt crisis commercial bankshad accepted ariskier portfolioofloansthan society considered optimal and were now unwilling to bear the full costs of thislending behavior financial market failurecreated a demand for international regula tiontowhichpolicymakersrespondedby supplying thebasleaccord to theextentthat the payments system had the characterof apublic good it wasreasonable to askevery state to contribute to its maintenance bank supervisors responded to theneed for greater oversight by negotiating the basleaccord

the limits of rational design the rational design of international institutions special issue of io autumn 2001 makes a significant contribution to the theoretical literature on international institutions it is important however to recognize the limits of both the rational design project in its current form and the conclusions that can be drawn from the special issue about the project s usefulness and validity this article evaluates the project on its own terms as a rationalist attempt to explain variation in international institutions i identify three significant sets of limitations those of the scope of the project those of the analytical framework and those of the efforts that are made to evaluate the framework through empirical analysis although the first set of limitations is largely a matter of choice the last two raise questions about how much of an advance the special issue in fact represents nevertheless these shortcomings are not absolute they can be remedied through further theoretical and empirical research

modeling the forms of international cooperation distribution versus information the problems of distribution and information impede international cooperation they arise when actors select how they will cooperate an exploration of the interaction between these problems using a limited information model of cooperation leads to six conclusions first leadership solutions to coordination problems always exist but leadership here is very different from hegemonic provision of public goods second actors can cooperate in the face of anarchy even without a shadow of the future third diffuse reciprocal strategies arise naturally in coordination problems fourth norms and institutions are intertwined within successful cooperation fifth the form of cooperation on an issue varies with the relative importance of distribution and information finally and most important distributional and informational problems interfere with each other arrangements to cooperate can successfully address one but not both of these problems

the unconditional most favored nation clause and the maintenance of the liberal trade regime in the postwar 1870s international institutions within the past thirty years become the subject of renewed interest as scholars vigorously dispute their utility neorealists draw on the post world war ii era to advance sweeping general claims of institutional inefficacy this study by contrast deploys the same hard test method grieco applied to the 1970s tokyo round negotiations to the crisis rife 1870s to construct a unique methodological objective a rigorous hard test of nineteenth century institutional autonomy three principal findings emerged first the maintenance of a liberal world economy in the turbulent 1870s is explained by an unlikely commercial instrument and the unprecedented regime design of an unexplored international institution respectively the unconditional most favored nation mfn clause and the informal conventional tariff system cts regime it underpinned not british hegemony second the international trade regime was not a public good unilaterally provisioned by hegemonic britain via the 1846 corn laws repeal the regime was instead a private good that was collectively provisioned by all its constituent member states via the unprecedented interstate practices institutionalized in the 1860 cobden chevalier treaty and then autonomously maintained by a negarchical and self enforcing sanctioning mechanism finally the informal cts regime s enforcement mechanism autonomously altered the interests and behaviors of states in directions incongruent with executive preferences solely through the brute force of rational calculations imposed by decentralized international institutional constraints both the french and british executives in the 1870s believed the regime was normatively inappropriate and unsuccessfully attempted to exit amid eight system threatening crises nonetheless the mfn based regime s self enforcing sanctioning mechanism autonomously induced compliance conceptualized as unitary states behavior deviating from executives first order preference the extraordinarily turbulent 1870s therefore provide an unexplored historical vantage point to make strong institutionalist claims in an era issue area and under conditions that they are least likely to be validated

international technology oriented agreements to address climate change much discussion has surrounded possible alternatives for international agreements on climate change particularly post 2012 among these alternatives technology oriented agreements toas are perhaps the least well defined we explore what toas may consist of why they might be sensible which toas already exist in international energy and environmental governance and whether they could make a valuable contribution to addressing climate change we find that toas aimed at knowledge sharing and coordination research development or demonstration could increase the overall efficiency and effectiveness of international climate cooperation but are likely to have limited environmental effectiveness on their own technology transfer agreements are likely to have similar properties unless the level of resources expended is large in which case they could be environmentally significant technology specific mandates or incentives could be environmentally effective within the applicable sector but are more likely to make a cost effective contribution when viewed as a complement to rather than a substitute for flexible emissions based policies these results indicate that toas could potentially provide a valuable contribution to the global response to climate change the success of specific toas will depend on their design implementation and the role they are expected to play relative to other components of the policy portfolio

energy management practices in swedish energy intensive industries previous studies point out a large untapped potential for energy efficiency in industry through the adoption of energy management practices the aim of this paper is to describe and analyze energ

market innovation competition an evolutionary model of industrial dynamics abstract a model is presented of the behavior of a number of competing firms producing functionally similar products each firm searches for new routines and new combinations of the routines i e technical and organizational ideas and skills associated with a particular economic context decisions of a firm related to investment modernization of production price etc are based on the firm s evaluation of the behavior of other competing firms and the expected response of the market firms search for new combinations of routines in order to minimize the unit cost of production maximize the productivity of capital and maximize the competitiveness of their products in the market results of simulation of the model concerning investigation of price setting procedures and long and short term firms objectives are presented

abiding by the vote between groups conflict in international collective action we analyze institutional solutions to international cooperation when actors have heterogeneous preferences over the desirability of the action and split into supporters and opponents all of whom can spend resources toward their preferred outcome we study how actors can communicate their preferences through voting when they are not bound either by their own vote or the outcome of the collective vote we identify two organizational types with endogenous coercive enforcement and find that neither is unambiguously preferable like the solutions to the traditional prisoners dilemma these forms require long shadows of the future to sustain we then show that cooperation can be sustained through a noncoercive organization where actors delegate execution to an agent even though this institution is costlier it does not require any expertise by the agent and is independent of the shadow of the future and thus is implementable when the others are not