CH 2 Understanding Interests Interactions Institutions VOCABULARY ACTORS individuals or groups of people with common interests STATE a central authority with the ability to make and enforce laws rules and decisions within a specified territory ANARCHY the absence of a central authority with the ability to make and enforce laws that bind all actors NATIONAL INTERESTS interests attributed to the state itself usually security and power INTERACTIONS the ways in which the choices of two or more actors combine to produce political outcomes COOPERATION an interaction in which two or more actors adopt policies that make at least one actor better off relative to the status quo without making others worse off BARGAINING an interaction in which actors must choose outcomes that make one better off at the expense of another COORDINATION a type of cooperative interactions which actors benefit from all making the same choices and subsequently have no incentive to not comply COLLABORATION a type of cooperative interaction in which actors fain from working together but nonetheless have incentives to not comply with any agreement PUBLIC GOODS individually and socially desirable goods that are nonexcludable and nonrival in consumption COLLECTIVE ACTION PROBLEM obstacles to cooperation that occur when actors have incentive to collaborate but each acts in anticipation that others will pay the costs of cooperation FREE RIDE to fail to contribute to a public good while benefitting from the contributions of others ITERATION repeated interactions with the same partners LINKAGE The linking of cooperation on one issue to interactions on a second issue POWER the ability of Actor A to get Actor B to do something that B would otherwise not do COERCION the threat or imposition of costs on other actors in order to change their behavior OUTSIDE OPPOSITION the alternative to bargaining with a specific actor AGENDA SETTING POWER A first mover advantage that helps an actor to secure a more favorable bargain INSTITUTIONS sets of rules known and shared by the community that structure political interactions in specific ways I Interests what actors want to achieve through political action Who are the actors in world politics o States o Governments o Groups within countries o International organizations o Individuals at times because its easier to group people with same interest What do actors want from politics o Leaders want to retain political office So decisions made are in reference to staying in office What is the national interest o Said to be a mythical concept it s what we want as individuals We can say we have the same national interest of security of the country but we still have variations on how to do this o Its really the interest that the President chooses to do State interests o Serves as a convenient shorthand for sets of national leaders acting in the name of their countries o Might act on behalf of a particular domestic interest group o Alternatively state leaders might act to further their own personal political agenda o Three sets of general interests Power Security Realism Economic Material Welfare Liberalism Ideological Goals Constructivism Interest alone do not tell us what happen II Interactions We make two assumptions when studying interactions o Actors are purposive Individuals are calculating thinking of what maximizes their interests o Each actors strategy or plan of action depends on the anticipated strategy of others aka strategic interaction Game theory has been invented to study strategic intervention Interactions can take various forms but most can be grouped into two broad categories o Cooperation Actors share a common interest and work together to achieve the desired outcome Both actors benefit from working together and can create additional value and be collectively better off Actor A can benefit more than Actor B but Actor B will never be hindered by Actor A s success Type of cooperation interaction In Coordination an actor must simply coordinate their actions and once coordinated there is no potential benefit from defecting Example all drivers drive on the right side no driver would purposely drive on the other side of the road In Collaboration actors gain from working together but unilaterally have the incentive to defect This is often illustrated in Prisoner s Dilemma A specific type of collaboration problem arises in providing public goods o Efforts to produce public goods are bedeviled by collection action problems o Everyone has the incentive to free ride because they don t want to bare the cost of contributing Several factors that facilitate cooperation and resolve collection action problems The smaller the numbers the easier to cooperate Actors involved in multiple repeated interactions Iterations Actors can then withhold cooperation in the future Reciprocal punishment Linkage Actors can also tie cooperation on other dimensions allowing the victims that fail to cooperate on one dimension fail on the other you give me something I want I ll give you something you want Information availability When actors lack info cooperation may fail due to uncertainty and misrepresentation Unlike cooperation that doesn t cause loss or harm to the other actor this type of interaction will cause one actor to lose while the other gains Rather than creating additional value like cooperation it distributes a fixed sum of value between actors Forms of bargaining Negotiate Fight Impose sanctions Bargaining creates a winner and a loser Power helps determine who s who o Bargaining Whoever has more will usually make them the winner When no bargain is reached the outcomes that occur is called the reversion outcome In some cases this is the same thing as going back to how things were or the status quo Whoever is more satisfied about the reversion outcome have more power But their ways to shift the reversion outcome to one s favor Coercion the threat imposition of costs on others through economic sanctions and military force Whoever has better Outside Options alternatives to bargaining with a specific actor can use it to threaten to leave negotiations to get a better deal Unlike the two above Agenda Setting first move takes place prior to or during bargaining o Example In Iraq War the US exercised this by bringing the inspections issue before the UNSC by unilaterally initiating a war against Iraq Most interactions in international relations combine elements of both cooperation and bargaining III
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