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Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin.

The Promise of Institutionalist Theory


International Security 20(1), Summer 1995, pp.39-51
General argument: Keohane and Martin respond to Mearsheimer.
 Major states have willingly invested resources in international institutions
instead of asking why they are mistaken, which assumes institutions have no
value, ask why they matter.
 Institutions are not the only independent variable, they exist along with power and
interests and interact with them.
Institutions:
1. Provide information (thus applies to security, not just economic issues)
2. Reduce transaction costs
3. Make commitments more credible
4. Establish focal points for coordination (to help solve multiple equilibrium games)
 Contra-Mearsheimer, states do not always seek relative gain. Their importance is
conditional on factors such as the number of major actors in the system and
whether military advantage favors offense or defense.
o Snidal: If potential absolute gains are substantial, or if there are more than
two states, relative gains wont be important to cooperation
 Even when relative gains are what states seek, information can alleviate fears of
unequal gains by revealing things like military expenditures of alliance members
 Distribution conflicts make institutions even more important, as games with
multiple equilibria need focal points to enable cooperation
 Institutions do respond to changing state interests, but also act independently and
interactively on outcomes.
 To test whether or not institutions matter, search for instances in which
underlying conditions have changed rapidly while institutions have remained
constant, or where similar structural changes confront regions that have different
institutional endowments, or consider institutional variation itself.
Assumptions: States are rational actors constrained by the structural environment.
Institutions constrain actors (part of the structural world).
Empirics: Theoretical article. Cites others work on institutions to back up claims.
Ex. John Duffields examination of NATO it made an independent contribution to
peace in Europe by drawing boundaries, demonstrating U.S. commitments and making
them credible, and facilitating the augmentations of NATO allies military capabilities.
The stable norms and rules of NATO led to stability in levels of conventional forces
within the regime that cant be explained by structural theories.
Critiques:
Suggested by the authors themselves, institutional theory needs to outline the conditions
under which institutions can provide the information necessary to solve distributional
problems. (When will institutions induce states to disclose information that will result in
greater trust and mitigation of relative gains concerns?)

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