CONSTITUTIVE NEOLIBERAL INSTITUTIONALISM, CRITICAL THEORY AND DOMESTIC POLITICS APPROACHES

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CONSTITUTIVE NEOLIBERAL INSTITUTIONALISM,
CRITICAL THEORY AND DOMESTIC POLITICS APPROACHES

• GV516 week 19

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Introduction

• Rational choice models of international
  cooperation take interests and the available
  options open to any actor as given and
  investigate the likelihood of cooperation
  starting from those assumptions subject to some
  constraints. Rational actors will pick the
  option that maximises their utility.
• Realism goes one step further and determines what
  actors (i.e. states) maximise their security and
  as a result of that they either maximise or at
  least defend their power position in the system.
• Both approaches assume that states are unitary
  actors.
• Variation in behaviour and / or outcomes is for
  realists linked with changes in the power
  structure and for rational choice scholars
  usually with changes in interests, information
  (about other actors interests or actions) or the
  constraints or conditions that determined the
  game (i.e. the rules of the game) or the
  institutional structure.
• Today we are going to look at
• theoretical approaches that Hasenclever, Mayer
  and Rittberger call cognitivist approaches and
  which Young labels as the constitutive neoliberal
  institutionalism. These approaches hold that
  realism as well as contractarian neoliberal
  institutionalsim ignore an important reason for
  variation in action and outcomes in the
  international system cognitive processes and
  with them ideas, beliefs, knowledge, learning,
  identity formation etc.
• Domestic politics approaches which hold that
  international outcomes cannot be understood
  without theorising either domestic actors or
  characteristics of the state.

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Weak and strong cognitivism

• There are aspects to social relationships, such
  as knowledge, that cannot be reduced back to
  material structures.
• If we try to summarise weak cognitivism with
  respect to cooperation and international regimes
  we could say that it holds that the need for such
  regimes is related to actors causal and
  normative beliefs which shape their perceptions
  of international problems. Beliefs are related to
  actors knowledge and the latter is not totally
  reducible to material conditions and structures.
  States might attempt to maximise their utility,
  but knowledge is an autonomous variable and not
  just an intervening variable.
• For strong cognitivists knowledge and
  international institutions have a different
  meaning. Strong cognitivism holds that there
  exists an international society that is in fact
  structured by institutions, whereby institutions
  can be seen as mutual expectations, beliefs
  about appropriate and inappropriate behaviour
  (Hasenclever et al p. 138). The very fact that a
  state is a state and can engage in certain
  behaviour is itself based on an institutional
  structure. Thus, according to strong cognitivism,
  knowledge and cognitive processes affect the very
  basic dispositions of the state (Hasenclever
  et al p. 138).
• We look at weak cognitivism only.

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Weak cognitivism basic assumptions

• Cognitivists hold that we should not treat
  interests as just exogenously given as the
  rational choice approach does. The first central
  assumption is that interpretation intervenes
  between the international structure and actors
  preferences. Interpretation is dependent on
  knowledge. Knowledge shapes states perceptions
  and basically defines what cause -effect
  relationships actors subscribe to. Beyond that
  knowledge and perceptions also determine which
  means are seen as suitable to achieve certain
  ends.
• Cognitivists point out that under complex
  interdependence decision-makers are often lost
  for information. The problem is not mainly, as in
  the case of rational choice theory, that states
  are uncertain about other states preferences or
  intentions (and thus about the consequences of
  strategic choices), rather, decision-makers do
  not know the causal relationship between actions
  and consequences of their actions in an issue
  area. This also creates an enormous window for
  experts to have influence on decision making.
• The third basic assumption is that
  intersubjectively shared meanings are of
  importance. There has to be a minimum of common
  and shared understanding of an issue area before
  actors can proceed to build regimes with norms
  and rules.

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How ideas matter

• One of the research programmes of weak
  cognitivism is related to the importance of the
  cognitive variable of ideas.
• In the volume Ideas and Foreign Policy (edited
  by Goldstein and Keohane) the contributors look
  at a number of case studies in order to determine
  whether and how ideas matter. In the conceptual
  framework for that volume Goldstein and Keohane
  basically argue that if actors make different
  choices under identical or similar material
  conditions there must be a variable outside the
  realist / rationalist research programme that
  needs investigating.
• In order to investigate this problem they
  formulate the null hypothesis that
• a) actions can be understood purely by applying
  theories of egoistic rational utility
  maximisers facing certain power realities and
• b) variations in interests are not based on
  variations in ideas
• The case studies reject this null hypothesis and
  make thus an argument for the inclusion of ideas
  into theories of international regimes.
• There are at least three ways in which we can
  think of ideas / beliefs as influential road
  maps, focal points, and institutions. Let us
  consider those in turn.

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Road maps

• Actors have to choose appropriate actions out of
  an infinity of possible choices. They do not
  necessarily choose the objectively best course
  of action, rather their choice is determined by
  their causal beliefs.
• Additionally the argument holds that actors will
  choose courses of action that are also close to
  their normative principles. These principled
  beliefs partially determine an actors
  preferences, while the causal beliefs define
  which means best lead to the preferred end.
• It is probably worth noting that the idea of road
  maps does not contradict the rational choice
  approach, because rational choice approaches have
  neither a theory of what available choices states
  have nor what exactly their interests are.
  Traditionally it has been assumed that states try
  to maximise their economic well-being since most
  of neoliberal theory was developed with economic
  issues in mind.

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Ideas as focal points

• The infinitely repeated Prisoners Dilemma has an
  infinite number of possible equilibria. It also
  has multiple Pareto-efficient equilibria (on the
  thick lines). We can also think back to week 4
  when we were discussing different types of games
  such as Chicken, which has two Pareto-efficient
  equilibria. How would rational actors choose
  between these equilibria?
• The aspect of focal points becomes of crucial
  importance whenever a coordination device is
  necessary to decide on equilibrium selection.
  Ideas, shared beliefs and common understanding
  can provide such a coordination device (but note
  so can power!)
• Regimes do not only reflect ideas in their
  content, but come often only into existence if
  such focal points exist.

• Ward 1996

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Institutions

• Ideas can often become stronger and resistant to
  change if they are incorporated into institutions
  or if institutions reflect certain ideas. Once
  embedded in institutions ideas constrain decision
  making and policies as long as they are believed
  to be valid and correct, i.e. as long as they are
  not undermined by either new principled beliefs
  in the form of new normative developments or
  scientific discovery changing causal beliefs.

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Ontology of weak cognitivism

• From Hasenclever at al

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Domestic Politics
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Introduction

• There are many different approaches to domestic
  politics.
• The problem with domestic politics arguments is
  that many of them are
• either specific to a subset of cases (e.g. trade,
  environment)
• or worse specific to a case
• additionally such approaches are often not
  particularly parsimonious
• and a number of theories are reductionist in
  nature
• We will take a short look at a number of domestic
  politics approaches including Two-level Games and
  regime type.

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Two level games

• Assume that there are two negotiators negotiating
  on behalf of their state. Any agreement reached
  must be ratified in both states domestically. We
  assume that the negotiator does not have any
  preferences herself, but is only interested in
  the most favourable deal for her constituency.
• Then there are two levels to consider
• Level I is the international bargaining level at
  which an agreement is reached.
• Level II is the domestic level. Each state needs
  to ratify the agreement without amendments for it
  to be adopted.
• A win-set for a domestic constituency (Level II)
  is defined as the set of all possible Level I
  agreements (p. 437) that can be ratified in the
  domestic constituency under consideration.
• Agreements can only be reached and implemented
  when the win-sets overlap.

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Implications of win-set size

• The size of win-sets is important for two
  reasons
• The larger the win-set the more likely is an
  agreement on Level I ceteris paribus
• The larger the win-set the less bargaining
  leverage a negotiator has. Conversely, the
  smaller the win-set the more bargaining-leverage
  a negotiator has c.p.

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What influences win-sets?

• Distribution of power, interests and feasible
  coalitions
• The lower the cost of no-agreements the smaller
  the win-set
• The distribution of interests of ratifiers
• Number of issues considered multi-issue
  trade-offs
• Synergistic linkages
• International cooperation can create a possible
  trade-off which is not achievable on the domestic
  front. (e.g Global warming reduction policies may
  create markets for environmentally friendly
  products which could lead to growth in that
  industry. If a constituency has advantages in
  that industry, it might vote for a treaty rather
  than against it (i.e. trade off its stance on
  emission reduction against new jobs.)
• Influence of institutions
• Differences in simple vs. qualified majority rule
• Autonomy of central decision maker
• Strategy of negotiator
• Side payments increase win-sets
• Chief negotiators political standing increases
  win-set

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Sources of gains from restricting trade

• Rent seeking
• Gain to dom. firms that face import competition
• Loss to consumer (and foreign firms)
• Campaign contributions influence legislative
  behaviour
• Concentrated and well organised industries should
  be more protected than others
• Campaign contributions should influence voting
  behaviour
• Some evidence for this perspective
• Sectoral approach

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Regime types and international outcomes

• Some areas of research in international relations
  rely heavily on the idea that the domestic regime
  type (second image) has a strong influence on
  international outcomes. A prime example is the
  Democratic Peace literature.
• Some authors have attempted to explain
  international cooperation by looking at the
  foreign policy type. Such foreign policy types
  can sometimes be derived from domestic
  characteristics and the position in the
  international system.
• Zürn for example argues that identifying a
  foreign policy type can be a proxy for
  identifying states interest profiles (which are
  influenced by amongst others domestic
  characteristics)

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According to Zürn (1992)

• Positional Characteristics Interest Profile of
  the State
• (power position, economic
• strength)
• Foreign Policy Type
• Non-Positional Characterisitics International
  Regime
• (culture, economic structure,
• political regime etc.)