Political Science 585J: International Institutions

Emory University, Spring 2000, Call No. 0652

Section 000, Tarbutton Hall 113

M 9:30a-12:00p

February 4, 2000

Professor: Eric Reinhardt

Office: 333 Tarbutton Hall

Office hours: T 1:00p-3:00p & by appointment

Phone: 404-727-4977

Email: erein@emory.edu

My home page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~erein/

Course home page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~erein/courses/pols585j/

Course Description & Objectives

This is an advanced graduate course on international institutions. The course continues beyond but does not assume prior knowledge of the contents of the international relations field seminar (POLS 510). It does, however, assume a willingness to tackle occasional readings with game theoretic or statistical methods. The course examines mostly formal, governmental institutions, but spends some time more generally on informal and nongovernmental institutions or regimes as well. We ask how institutions are constituted and established, and what makes them evolve and change over time; what effects they have, and how they influence state policy; why they have an impact, if at all; why some institutions are formal and/or public while others are not; how they operate, what their membership and rules are, how they structure decision-making, and what effects those different designs have; and how international institutions affect domestic politics. We begin by examining a variety of competing theoretical perspectives on these questions, and we continue by taking up institutions in specific issue-areas week by week. Our goal is to understand and critique the major approaches to studying international institutions in general, in addition to getting some sense of the empirical variety of such institutions, their forms, and effects.

Requirements

Grades in the course will be based on the following items:

I also suggest you read major news items concerning international institutions or organizations, e.g., from the New York Times (front page and international sections), the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, or the Economist (you might also check out the Far Eastern Economic Review). Many other periodicals in full-text on-line at Lexis-Nexis (http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe). The IMF’s Finance & Development free magazine is often useful.

Course Policies

Late papers and assignments will be penalized. Each day the assignment is late will result in a drop of a half letter grade, e.g., A to A-, etc. Auditing requires permission of the instructor.

Reading Materials

There are no required textbooks for the course. Instead, the readings will be on reserve in the Department of Political Science commons file. We read about 3, sometimes 4, articles or book chapters per week, reflecting my effort to keep the quantity tractable. That means you should prepare yourself, with extensive notes taken while you read, for highly detailed discussions of each reading prior to that class meeting. Some articles, where noted, will be available on-line, from JSTOR or similar sources.

These journals provide the bulk of our readings, and it may be useful to examine keep up with the literature in them:

  1. International Organization [on JSTOR]
  2. World Politics [on JSTOR]
  3. International Studies Quarterly
  4. American Political Science Review [on JSTOR]
  5. American Journal of Political Science [on JSTOR]

Course Outline

The enumerated readings are mandatory. The bulleted (· ) ones are entirely optional, not assigned for class that day.

Jan 24: Introduction. Course administration.

Part I: Theories of International Institutions

Jan 31: Neoliberal, or institutionalist, theory I.

    1. Lisa L. Martin and Beth Simmons, "Theories and Empirical Studies of International Institutions," International Organization 52:4 (Autumn 1998), 729-759.
    2. Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 85-109.
    3. Robert Axelrod and Robert O. Keohane, "Achieving Cooperation under Anarchy: Strategies and Institutions," in Kenneth Oye, ed., Cooperation under Anarchy (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1986), 226-254.

Feb 7: Institutionalist theory II.

    1. Paul Milgrom, Douglass North, and Barry Weingast, "The Role of Institutions in the Revival of Trade," Economics and Politics 2:1 (March 1990), 1-23.
    2. Kenneth A. Shepsle and Barry R. Weingast, "Positive Theories of Congressional Institutions," in Kenneth A. Shepsle and Barry R. Weingast, eds., Positive Theories of Congressional Institutions (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1995), 5-36.
    3. Charles Lipson, "Why Are Some International Agreements Informal?", International Organization 45:4 (Autumn 1991), 495-538.
    4. Dani Rodrik, "Why Is There Multilateral Lending?", NBER Working Paper 5160, June 1995.

Feb 14: Realist theory.

    1. John Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security 19:3 (Winter 1994/1995), 5-49.
    2. George W. Downs, David M. Rocke, and Peter N. Barsoom, "Is the Good News about Compliance Good News about Cooperation?", International Organization 50:3 (Summer 1996), 379-406.
    3. Stephen D. Krasner, "Global Communications and National Power: Life on the Pareto Frontier," World Politics 43:3 (April 1991), 336-366.
    4. James D. Fearon, "Bargaining, Enforcement, and International Cooperation," International Organization 52:2 (Spring 1998), 269-306.

Feb 21: Alternative & constructivist perspectives.

    1. Abram Chayes and Antonia Handler Chayes, "On Compliance," International Organization 47:2 (Spring 1993), 175-205.
    2. Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore, "The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations," International Organization 53:4 (Autumn 1999), 699-732.
    3. Andrew Moravcsik, "A New Statecraft? Supranational Entrepreneurs and International Cooperation," International Organization 53:2 (Spring 1999), 267-306.

Part II: International Security Institutions

Feb 28: Alliances.

    1. Celeste A. Wallander and Robert O. Keohane, "Risk, Threat, and Security Institutions," in Helga Haftendorn, Robert O. Keohane, and Celeste Wallander, eds., Imperfect Unions: Security Institutions over Time and Space (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999), 21-47.
    2. James D. Morrow, "Alliances, Credibility, and Peacetime Costs," Journal of Conflict Resolution 38 (June 1994), 270-297.
    3. Brett Ashley Leeds, "Contracting and Commitment: The Design of Military Alliances," prepared for delivery at the 1999 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, GA.

Mar 6: Collective security.

    1. Charles A. Kupchan and Clifford A. Kupchan, "Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe," International Security 16:1 (Summer 1991), 114-161.
    2. Richard K. Betts, "Systems for Peace or Causes of War? Collective Security, Arms Control, and the New Europe," International Security 17:1 (Summer 1992), 5-44.
    3. Lisa L. Martin, "Credibility, Costs, and Institutions: Cooperation on Economic Sanctions," World Politics 45:3 (April 1993), 406-432.

Mar 13: Spring break.

Mar 20: Peace settlements. Literature review paper due.

    1. Virginia Page Fortna, "Scraps of Paper? Agreements and the Durability of Peace," typescript, Columbia University, January 2000.
    2. Christopher Gelpi, "Crime and Punishment: The Role of Norms in Crisis Bargaining," American Political Science Review 91 (1997), 339-360.
    3. Suzanne Werner, "The Precarious Nature of Peace: Resolving the Issues, Enforcing the Settlement, and Renegotiating the Terms," American Journal of Political Science 43:3 (July 1999), 912-934.

Mar 27: The rules of war.

    1. James D. Morrow, "The Institutional Features of the Prisoners of War Treaties," prepared for delivery at the 1998 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA.
    2. Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1996), 69-88.
    3. Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald, "Norms and Deterrence: The Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboos," in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1996), 114-152.
    4. Jeffrey W. Legro, "Which Norms Matter? Revisiting the ‘Failure’ of Internationalism," International Organization 51:1 (Winter 1997), 31-63.

Part III: Institutions in International Political Economy

Apr 3: Multilateral trade institutions: GATT & WTO.

    1. Jock A. Finlayson and Mark W. Zacher, "The GATT and the Regulation of Trade Barriers: Regime Dynamics and Functions," in Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), 273-314.
    2. Kyle Bagwell and Robert W. Staiger, "An Economic Theory of GATT," NBER Working Paper 6049, May 1997.
    3. Robert W. Staiger, "International Rules and Institutions for Trade Policy," in Gene M. Grossman and Kenneth Rogoff, eds., Handbook of International Economics, vol. III (New York: Elsevier, 1995), 1495-1551.

Apr 10: Regional economic institutions: the European Union (EU).

    1. Anne-Marie Burley and Walter Mattli, "Europe before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration," International Organization 47:1 (Winter 1993), 41-76.
    2. Geoffrey Garrett, R. Daniel Kelemen, and Heiner Schulz, "The European Court of Justice, National Governments, and Legal Integration in the European Union," International Organization 52:1 (Winter 1998), 149-176.
    3. Karen J. Alter, "Who Are the ‘Masters of the Treaty’? European Governments and the European Court of Justice," International Organization 52:1 (Winter 1998), 121-148.

Apr 17: Multilateral financial institutions: IMF & World Bank.

    1. (re-read) Dani Rodrik, "Why Is There Multilateral Lending?", NBER Working Paper 5160, June 1995.
    2. Stanley Fischer, "The Asian Crisis and the Changing Role of the IMF," Finance & Development 35:2 (June 1998), 2-5.
    3. Jeffrey Sachs, "The IMF and the Asian Flu," American Prospect (March-April 1998), 16+.
    4. Tony Killick, "Principals, Agents, and the Limitations of IMF Conditionality," World Economy 19:2 (March 1996), 211-229.
    5. Graham Bird, "The International Monetary Fund and Developing Countries: A Review of the Evidence and Policy Options," International Organization 50:3 (Summer 1996), 477-511.

Apr 24: International environmental institutions.

    1. Elinor Ostrom and Roy Gardner, "Coping with Asymmetries in the Commons: Self-Governing Irrigation Systems Can Work," Journal of Economic Perspectives 7:4 (Fall 1993), 93-112.
    2. Peter Haas, "Do Regimes Matter? Epistemic Communities and Mediterranean Pollution Control," International Organization 43:3 (1989), 377-405.
    3. M. J. Peterson, "International Fisheries Management," in Peter Haas, Marc A. Levy, and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Institutions for the Earth: Sources of Effective International Environmental Protection (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994).

May 1: Human rights institutions.

    1. Martha Finnemore, "Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention," in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1996), 153-185.
    2. Jack Donnelly, "International Human Rights: A Regime Analysis," International Organization 40:3 (Summer 1986), 599-643.
    3. Rachel Brett, "Human Rights and the OSCE," Human Rights Quarterly 18 (August 1996), 668-693.
    4. "A World Court for Criminals," Economist 353 (October 9, 1999), 19-20.

May 3 (Wed): Research design paper due, 4pm, Prof. Reinhardt’s office. (No class.)

Other Interesting Topics We Won’t Cover

Regional Trade Institutions

International Dispute Settlement Institutions

Exchange Rate Regimes

European Monetary Integration

Domestic Politics and International Institutions

Dueling Institutions