The Promise of Institutionalist Theory
Robert O. Keohane; Lisa L. Martin
International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1. (Summer, 1995), pp. 39-51.
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The promise of Robert 0.Keohane
InstitutionalistTheory
and
L i a L, Martin
1 I n his usual direct way,
John J. Mearsheimer has sharpened the theoretical issues dividing realist from
institutionalist theory, and for this service we are grateful. We are also pleased
that he has read the institutionalist literature so thoroughly. He correctlyasserts
that liberal institutionalists treat states as rational egoists operating in a world
in which agreements cannot be hierarchically enforced, and that institutionalists
only expect interstate cooperation to occur if states have significant common
interests. Hence institutionalist theory does not espouse the Wilsonian
concept of collective security-which Charles and Clifford Kupchan refer to as
"ideal collective securityn-critiqued so well by I.L. Claude thirty years ago.'
Nor does institutionalism embrace the aspirations to transform international
relations put forward by some critical theorists. Like realism, institutionalist
theory is utilitarian and rationalistic2
However, Professor Mearsheimer's version of realism has some rather serious
flaws. Among them are its penchant for assertions that turn out to be
incorrect; its propensity to privilege its own viewpoint, so that in the absence
of decisive evidence either way it invariably seems to prevail; its failure to
explicate the conditions for the operation of its generalizations; and its logical
contradictions, escaped only through verbal sleight-of-hand. We will begin by
pointing out such errors from his own recent articles in this journal, then
Robert 0 . Keohane is Stanfield Professor of International Peace, Harvard University, and author of After
Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton University Press,
1984). Lisa L. Martin is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Government, Harvard University, and author
of Coercive Cooperation: Explaining Multilateral Economic Sanctions (Princeton University Press,
1992).
The authors thank Marc Busch, Chris Gelpi, Andrew Moravcsik, and Celeste Wallander for their
valuable comments on an earlier version of this essay.
1. Inis L. Claude, Pozuer and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962).Mearsheimer
relies heavily on Claude's critique in his own discussion of collective security.
2. See Richard K. Ashley, "The Poverty of Neorealism," International Organization, Vol. 38, No. 2
(Spring 1984),pp. 225-286. Ashley included Robert 0.Keohane as one of the "neorealists" whose
"orrery of errors" he rejected. The fact that Mearsheimer criticized institutionalism and critical
theory in the same article should not, therefore, lead readers to believe that there is an intellectual
affinity between these two schools of thought. However, the work of "constructivist" theorists such
as Alexander Wendt eloquently makes a number of arguments that many institutionalists would
accept.
International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995),pp. 39-51 

O 1995by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

39
International Security 20:1 1 40
examine his major claims about institutionalism. We consider the illusory
divide between security and economic issues, the muddled question of "relative
gains," and empirical work (admittedly in its early stages) that provides
evidence of the significance of international institutions. We conclude that
institutions sometimes matter, and that it is a worthy task of social science to
discover how, and under what conditions, this is the case.
The Fallacious Logic of Realism
Five years ago Professor Mearsheimer forecast the imminent decline of NATO:
"It is the Soviet threat that holds NATO together. Take away that offensive
threat and the United States is likely to abandon the Continent, whereupon the
defensive alliance it headed for forty years may di~integrate."~At the same
time, he predicted that "the EC is likely [due to the end of the Cold War] to
grow weaker, not stronger with time."4 Yet now that both NATO and the
European Community, now the European Union (EU), are expanding their
memberships, and hardly in decline, he abandons specificity for the equally
false but more difficult to falsify generalization that "institutions have minimal
influence on state behavior and thus hold little prospect for promoting stability
in a post-Cold War ~ o r l d . " ~
Professor Mearsheimer demands proof that international institutions matter.
Yet he begins his article by reminding us that major governments recently have
been emphasizing the value of international institutions; he could have added
that they invest significant material and reputational resources in NATO, the
EU, and also in organizations such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT, recently strengthened to create the World Trade Organization)
and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).Not all international
institutions command such resources from governments, but some do. How
are we to account for the willingness of major states to invest resources in
expanding international institutions, if such institutions are lacking in significance?
Mearsheimer suggests that the answer lies in an ideological blindness
of American policymakers, whose hostility toward realism drives them to
the more congenial institutionalist framework (pp. 4749). It is difficult to
3. John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War," International
Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer 1990),p. 52.
4. Tohn J. Mearsheimer, "Correspondence: Back to the Future, Part 11," International Securitq, Vol.A 

1 5 ; ~ o .2 (Fall 19901,p. 199.
5. John J. Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security, Vol.
19,No. 3 (Winter 1994/95), p. 7. Subsequent references to this article are In parentheses In the text.
The Promise of Institutionalist Theory / 41
square this assertion of a collective delusion with the dominant role of realist
theory in policy discussions, or with realism's own precepts about the forces
that drive state behavior. In light of states' investments in international insti--
tutions, it is fair to turn Mearsheimer's question around: could we not legitimately
demand evidence either that leaders of governments are deluded or
that NATO and the EU are designed to deceive unsophisticated observers?
Mearsheimer assumes that his view is privileged, in the sense that we must
accept realism unless overwhelmingly convincing evidence is presented for an
alternative view; but the fact that states invest in international institutions make
this stance quite problematic.
Institutionalism and realism differ in a number of other respects, one of the
most significant of which concerns how they approach social science. A central
fault of Mearsheimer's realism as a scientific theory-rather than as rhetoricis
that the conditions for the operation of its "grim picture of world politics"
(p. 9) typically are not well-specified. Realism is replete with global generalizations,
lacking qualifications about the conditions under which they may be
valid. Let us consider two examples from Mearsheimer's own article. First,
Mearsheimer writes that "states in a realist world . . . must be motivated
primarily by relative gains concerns when considering cooperation" (p. 12,
emphasis added). But he later admits that this proposition may be false when
the threat of aggressive war is low-for instance, when defensive technologies
(such as secure second-strike nuclear forces)are prevalent (pp. 23-25). Second,
in Mearsheimer's realist world, "every state would like to be the most formidable
military power in the system" (p. 12). But since no one thinks that
Switzerland, Argentina, or contemporary Britain actually seeks to become "the
most formidable military power," what Mearsheimer presumably means to
argue is that states with sufficient capabilities always pursue this goal. Even
this statement is often false: for example, the United States during the interwar
period could reasonably have expected to become the most powerful state in
the world, but did not seek such a position. Confronted with such contradictions
and anomalies, realism typically retreats from universal rhetoric to post
hoc and ad hoc qualifications, taking into account geography, history, perceptions,
and domestic politics.
Institutionalism, in contrast, seeks to state in advance the conditions under
which its propositions apply. Our theory may therefore have less appeal to
those who require simple "truths," but purportedly scientific theories should
specify the conditions under which the theory is expected to hold a priori. As
Mearsheimer indicates, when state elites do not foresee self-interested benefits
from cooperation, we do not expect cooperation to occur, nor the institutions
International Security 20:1 / 42
that facilitate cooperation to develop. When states can jointly benefit from
cooperation, on the other hand, we expect governments to attempt to construct
such institutions. Institutions can provide information, reduce transaction
costs, make commitments more credible,establish focalpoints for coordination,
and in general facilitate the operation of reciprocity. By seeking to specify the
conditions under which institutions can have an impact and cooperation can
occur, institutionalist theory shows under what conditions realist propositions
are valid. It is in this sense that institutionalism claims to subsume realism.
Realism's proclivity for bold, unqualified generalizations not only generates
anomalies but gets its proponents into logical difficulties. Mearsheimer holds
that "institutions have no independent effect on state behavior" (p. 7); that
NATO is an institution (p. 13); and that NATO played a role in preventing
World War I11 and helping the West win the Cold War (pp. 13-14). These
propositions sound like a classically fallacious syllogism, until one recognizes
that there is an escape clause: "NATO was basically a manifestation of the
bipolar distribution of power in Europe during the Cold War, and it was that
balance of power, not NATO per se, that provided the key to maintaining
stability on the continent" (p. 14).But liberal institutionalists, who see institutions
as rooted in the realities of power and interest, do not argue that NATO
could have maintained stability under any imaginable conditions. What we
argue is that institutions make a significant difference in conjunction with
power realities. Institutions are important "independently" only in the ordinary
sense used in social science: controlling for the effects of power and
interests, it matters whether they exist. They also have an interactive effect,
meaning that their impact on outcomes varies, depending on the nature of
power and interests. Mearsheimer is forced to admit the truth of institutional
effects with regard to NATO, although for rhetorical purposes he shifts his
ground to attack a view that we do not hold: that institutions can prevent war
regardless of the structure in which they operate.
Hence Mearsheimer's version of realism is replete with analytical problems.
However, it is not our duty here to correct realism's copy-book. In the rest of
this brief response, therefore, we focus on the promise of institutionalist theory,
and the research directions that we hope will help to realize that promise.
Political Economy vs. Security and the Issue of Relative Gains
Although Mearsheimer has provided an admirable summary of several aspects
of institutionalist theory, his version of our argument requires correction on
The Promise of Institutionalist Theory / 43
two major points. First, Mearsheimer asserts that institutionalist theory is based
on "the assumption that international politics can be divided into two realmssecurity
and political economy-and that liberal institutionalism mainly applies
to the latter" (pp. 15-16). Although some institutionalists have made this
assertion, it is not the predominant view of the institutionalist literature, and
we certainly do not accept it. Secondly, in contrast to Mearsheimer's assertion,
our focus is not exclusivelyon "cheating." Situations of coordination, in which
cheating is not a problem but distributional issues are serious, are equally
important, although they were underemphasized (but not absent) in the early
institutionalist literature.
THE PURPORTED SECURITY VS. POLITICAL ECONOMY DIVIDE
Mearsheimer's assertion that institutionalism employs a "neat dividing line"
to separate political economy from security issues is surprising, in view of the
attention that he devotes to the volume edited by Kenneth Oye, Cooperation
Under Anarchy. A major argument of Cooperation Under Anarchy is that institutionalist
theory can be applied to both security and political economy issues.
As Robert Axelrod and Robert 0 . Keohane wrote:
It has often been noted that military-security issues display more of the characteristics
associated with anarchy than do political-economic ones. Charles
Lipson, for instance, has recently observed that political-economicrelationships
are typically more institutionalized than military-security ones. This does not
mean, however, that analysis of these two sets of issues requires two separate
analytical frameworks. Indeed, one of the major purposes of the present collection
is to show that a single framework can throw light on both [emphasis
added].6
We share Mearsheimer's view that there is no clean analytical line between
economic and security issues, although we do not base our view on the
overarching role of relative gains. Institutionalist theory should be highly
applicable to security issues because its argument revolves around the role of
institutions in providing information. This argument is pertinent to realist security
arguments, which often rely on worst-case analysis. Realists contend that
in an uncertain, anarchic world, states must assume the worst, particularly
about others' intentions, when making policy choices. Worst-case analysis
6. Robert Axelrod and Robert 0 . Keohane, "Achieving Cooperation Under Anarchy: Strategies and
Institutions," in Kenneth A. Oye, ed.,'Coopeyation Undev Anavchy (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1986),p. 227.
International Security 20:1 / 44
implies following policies that do not maximize expected utility for the sake
of avoiding terrible outcomes. But if one can secure more information, it may
be possible to follow policies that more nearly maximize ~tility.~Realist writers
from Kautilya on have stressed the significanceof information (intelligence);if
institutions can provide useful information, realists should see them as significant.
The logic of institutionalist theory is directly applicable to security
problems as realists define them.
Hence, if Mearsheimer meant to offer us a "loophole" through which to
escape his criticism-that institutionalist theory is only applicable to non-security
issues-we emphatically refuse to avail ourselves of his generosity. On the
contrary, we hope that, to use Axelrod's phrase, institutionalist theory will
gradually "invade" the study of security issues, helping to explain variation in
institutional form without denying the validity of many realist insights into
power and interests.
RELATIVE GAINS AND INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
The conclusions we draw from the "relative gains" debate are different from
those of Professor Mearsheimer. It is true that when only two states exist and
they have perfectly conflictinginterests, institutions will not be significant, but
this point is obvious. Two issues are more significant: 1)the conditions under
which relative gains are important; and 2) the role of institutions when distributional
issues are significant-that is, when relative gains are at stake.
It is important to understand the great variation in the extent to which
relative gains matter. The major lesson of the recent debate on relative gains is
that their importance is conditional on factors such as the number of major
actors in the system and whether military advantage favors offenseor defen~e.~
Duncan Snidal has shown that relative gains are unlikely to have much impact
on cooperation if the potential absolute gains from cooperation are substantial,
or in any context involving more than two state^.^ A valuable aspect of the
relative gains debate is that it has made distributional and bargaining issues
7. See Celeste A. Wallander, "Balance and Institutions in German-Russian Security Relations after
the Cold War," manuscript, Harvard University, 1994;Celeste A. Wallander and Robert 0.Keohane,
"Toward an Institutional Theory of Alliances," paper prepared for delivery at the Annual Meeting
of the International Studies Association, Chicago, Illinois, February 22-25, 1995.
8. See David A. Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 323, especially chapters by Joseph Grieco, Duncan Snidal,
Robert Powell, and Robert 0.Keohane.
9. Duncan Snidal, "Relative Gains and'the Pattern of International Cooperation," American Political
Science Review, Vol. 85, No. 3 (September 1991),pp. 701-726.
The Promise of Institutionalist Theoly ( 45
more salient than they were in early neoliberal thinking,10but if the debate
becomes one of "whether" relative gains matter, that value will be dissipated.
We need instead to ask under what conditions such distributional conflicts are
severe.
What is the role of institutions when distributional issues are important?
Contrary to the assertion that institutionalist theory is irrelevant to distributional
issues, we argue that distributional conflict may render institutions more
important. To understand this point, it is essential to distinguish between two
problems that states face when they attempt to cooperate. They often worry
about the potential for others to cheat, as in a Prisoners' Dilemma. But they
also face the problem of coordinating their actions on a particular stable
cooperative outcome (solving the problem of multiple equilibria, in gametheoretic
terminology).Usually more than one cooperative outcome exists. The
states involved may not agree on which of these outcomes is preferred, as each
has different distributional implications. Disagreement about the specific form
of cooperation is the principal barrier to cooperation in such coordination
games. Unless some coordinating mechanism exists, states may fail to capture
the potential gains from cooperation. Institutions do not provide the only
possible coordinating mechanism." However, in complex situations involving
many states, international institutions can step in to provide "constructed focal
points" that make particular cooperative outcomes prominent.
Realists interpret the relative-gains logic as showing that states will not
cooperate with one another if each suspects that its potential partners are
gaining more from cooperation than it is. However, just as institutions can
mitigate fears of cheating and so allow cooperation to emerge, so can they
alleviate fears of unequal gains from cooperation. Liberal theory argues that
institutions provide valuable information, and information about the distribution
of gains from cooperation may be especially valuable if the relative-gains
logic is correct. Institutions can facilitate cooperation by helping to settle distributional
conflicts and by assuring states that gains are evenly divided over
10. For development of arguments about the relationship between international regimes and
distributional problems, see James D. Morrow, "Modeling the Forms of International Cooperation:
Distribution versus Information," International Organization,Vol. 48, No. 3 (Summer 19941,pp. 387-
423; and James Fearon, "Cooperation and Bargaining Under Anarchy," manuscript, University of
Chicago, 1993.
11. For example, Stephen Krasner has argued that coordination problems can be solved by the
unilateral exercise of power by the strongest state. Stephen D. Krasner, "Global Communications
and National Power: Life on the PBreto Frontier," World Politics, Vol. 43, No. 3 (April 19911,
pp. 336-366.
International Security 20:l 1 46
time, for example by disclosing information about the military expenditures
and capacities of alliance members.
In our view the successful functioning of institutions depends heavily on the
operation of reciprocity, both specific and diffuse.12States using strategies of
reciprocity are engaged in exchange with one another and so require information
about the value of their exchanges. Institutionalized reciprocity and distributional
concerns are simply two sides of the same coin, reflecting the
difficulties of cooperating in a system lacking centralized enforcement and
pointing to the need for reliable sources of information if states are to achieve
gains from cooperation. Far from leading to the conclusion that institutions are
not significant in world politics, the relative-gains debate has led us to understand
yet another pathway through which they substantially influence the
course of international relations. A crucial step in the institutionalist research
program will be to understand the conditions under which institutions can
provide the information necessary to serve as reliable solutions to distributional
problems.
Empirical Work on the Impact of Institutions
We agree with John Mearsheimer that "more empirical work is needed before
a final judgment is rendered on the explanatory power of liberal institutionalism"
(p. 26). The point of a new theory is to generate testable hypotheses:
liberal institutionalism, like any other theory, only has value insofar as it
generates propositions that can be tested against real evidence.
Institutionalist theory conceptualizes institutions both as independent and
dependent variables: "institutions change as a result of human action, and the
changes in expectations and process that result can exert profound effects on
state behavior."13 Institutional theory has a coherent account of both the creation
of institutions and their effects: institutions are created by states because of
their anticipated effects on patterns of behavior. Early research by institutionalists
focused on institutions as dependent variables, examining the conditions
under which they are created. Recent research has sought more systematically
12. Robert 0.Keohane, "Reciprocity in International Relations," International Organization, Vol. 40,
No. 1 (Winter 1986),pp. 1-27.
13. Robert 0.Keohane, International Institutions and State Power (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1989),
p. 10.
The Promise of Institutionalist Theory / 47
to demonstrate that institutions are sometimes significant for political outcomes,
and to determine the conditions under which this is the case.I4
In view of this research program, it should be clear that evidence that
institutions change in response to underlying conditions is hardly a blow
against institutionalist theory. That theory, after all, posits that international
institutions are created in response to state interests, and that their character is
structured by the prevailing distribution of capabilities.The real empirical issue
is how to distinguish the effects of underlying conditions from those of the
institutions themselves. One result of the interdependencebetween institutions
and underlying forces is that research designed to isolate the impact of institutions
is difficult to design and execute. Rarely, if ever, will institutions vary
while the "rest of the world" is held constant. Thus finding the ideal quasiexperimental
situation to test the impact of institutions is not possible.
However, these difficulties do not make it impossible to test the argument
that institutions matter, since changes in underlying conditions and in institutions
are not perfectly correlated. Hence it may be worthwhile to search for
instances in which underlying conditions have changed rapidly while institutions
have remained relatively constant, or where similar structural changes
confront regions that have different institutional endowments. Another tactic
may be to consider the level of institutional variation itself. The institutionalist
perspective leads us to expect patterned variation in the types of institutions
states construct, since they anticipate that institutions so constructed will constrain
them. Analysis of institutional form, such as variations in the institutionalization
of alliances or in the legalization of the international trading system,
should therefore provide valuable evidence for evaluating institutionalist
theory.
Realism's insistence that institutions have only marginal effects renders its
account of institutional creation incomplete and logically unsound, and leaves
it without a plausible account of the investments that states have made in such
international institutions as the EU, NATO, GATT, and regional trading organizations.
According to the precepts of realist theory, states act rationally when
they construct institutions, although they know that these institutions will have
14. Since institutionalists do not claim that institutions always have a major impact on outcomes,
finding weak institutions hardly constitutes a refutation of institutionalist theory Hence the
weakness of the International Energy Agency during the 1979 oil crisis, described by Keohane in
After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Econotny (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1984),is hardly the damning evidence that Mearsheimer claims.
International Security 20:1 1 48
no impact on patterns of cooperation. But what could be the rationale behind
devoting resources to structures that will make no difference? Rather than
asserting that institutions have no impact, realists must mean that institutions
have some effect other than that assumed by liberal institutionalists. Perhaps
institutions satisfy the ideological demands of statesmen, or help to pacify
inattentive publics. Whatever the rationale, we challenge realists to construct
an account of institutional variation and effects that can be tested against the
institutionalist alternative. The difference between realism and liberal institutionalism
does not lie in whether institutions are independent or dependent
variables; it lies in contrasting understandings of why institutions are created
and how they exert their effects.
A number of recent studies establish institutional effects through careful
empirical research, guided by institutionalist theory and recognizing potential
problems of endogeneity and omitted-variable bias.I5Ronald B. Mitchell shows
that on three different issues involving oil pollution at sea, whether states
complied with institutional regulations depended on the nature of the rules.
"Clear causal links unambiguously demonstrate that treaty rules independently
influenced behavior, with other plausible factors controlled for or
absent."16 New rules on the kinds of tanks that ships are allowed to use, for
example, have had a dramatic impact on intentional discharge of oil into the
oceans.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ)has also proven a fruitful ground for
the study of institutional influence. Anne-Marie Slaughter Burley and Walter
Mattli show how the ECJ has had an unexpectedly large impact on the politics
of European integration, transforming political into legal issues with the aid of
transnational networks of lawyers and judges.17 The ECJ has gone far to
convert the Treaties of Rome into a constitution for the EU, with the result that
EU law now reaches deeply into the domestic law of member states. Geoffrey
Garrett and Barry Weingast, in another study of the ECJ, show how it resolved
problems of multiple equilibria for EU member states by providing constructed
15. On such issues see Gary King, Robert 0.Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry:
Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
16. Ronald B. Mitchell, Intentional Oil Pollution at Sea: Environmental Policy and Treaty Compliance
(Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1994).See also Ronald B. Mitchell, "Regime Design Matters:
Intentional Oil Pollution and Treaty Compliance," International Organization,Vol. 48, No. 3 (Summer
1994),p p 425458.
17. Anne-Marie Burley and Walter Mattli, "Europe before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal
Integration," International Organization, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Winter 1993),pp. 41-76. (Anne-Marie Burley
now goes by the name Anne-Marie Slaughter.)
The Promise of Institutionalist Tkeoy 1 49
focal points in coordination problems.18These studies show that institutions
have the wide range of effects attributed to them by liberal institutionalists.
They change the incentives for states to cheat; they also reduce transaction
costs, link issues, and provide focal points for cooperation.
The institutionalist perspective has also been applied with success to the
analysis of security regimes. John Duffield has considered NATO as a regional
security regime. He finds that NATO made an independent contribution to the
"Long Peace" in Europe by drawing boundaries, demonstrating U.S. commitments
and making them credible, and facilitating the augmentation of NATO
allies' military capabilities.19He also finds that the stable norms and rules of
NATO led to stability in levels of conventional forces within the regime that
cannot be explained by structural theories."
In Coercive Cooperation, Lisa Martin showed that the involvement of international
organizations in economic sanctions is strongly correlated with high
levels of cooperation." Since such a correlation does not establish causality, she
also did qualitative work on several cases involving sanctions, including EC
sanctions against Argentina during the Falklands War. Mearsheimer considers
the Falklands case in isolation from the rest of this research, and dismisses it
as "less than a ringing endorsement for liberal institutionalism" on the grounds
that concerns about cheating were not involved (p. 25). In fact, Martin does
find evidence that states used the EC framework to reduce fears of cheating,
in the form of taking advantage of the situation to profit from trade with
~r~entina."However, the major effect of institutions came through institutionalized
linkages that would otherwise have been nonexistent: a linkage between
EC budget contributions and the sanctions issue. Prevention of cheating is not
the only mechanism by which institutions facilitate cooperation. By creating
issue linkages, they allow for more effective retaliation against cheaters and
also create scope for mutually-beneficial exchanges. Further evidence for the
18. Geoffrey Garrett and Barry R. Weingast, "Ideas, Interests, and Institutions: Constructing the
European Community's Internal Market," in Judith Goldstein and Robert 0.Keohane, eds., Ideas
and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
1993),p p 173-206.
19. John S. Duffield, "Explaining the Long Peace in Europe: The Contributions of Regional Security
Regimes," Review of International Studies, Vol. 20, No. 4 (October 1994),pp. 369-388.
20. John S. Duffield, "International Regimes and Alliance Behavior: Explaining NATO Conventional
Force Levels," International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Fall 19921, pp. 819-855.
21. Lisa L. Martin, Coercive Cooperation: Explaining Multilateral Economic Sanctions (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1992).
22. bid., p. 143.
International Security 20:1 / 50
EC's role in coordinating sanctions comes from the fact that outside the EC,
the only other significant support Britain received came from Commonwealth
nations and the United States. In the U.S. case, support was delayed until after
the outbreak of war, in distinct contrast to the behavior of EC members.23
Mearsheimer's dismissal of international institutions implies that linkages are
easy to forge when a state desires cooperation, and that cooperation is easy to
coordinate even without institutions, yet Britain did not find either to be the
case. Even in isolation from the robust statistical results and other case studies
reported in Coercive Cooperation, the Falklands case illustrates the central role
of formal international institutions in enabling states to cooperate to impose
multilateral economic sanctions.24
Institutions sometimes matter for state policy, but we do not adequately
understand in what domains they matter most, under what conditions, and
how their effects are exerted. More research on this subject, by students of
world politics criticalof institutionalist theory as well as by those working from
it, is essential, and will be most welcome.
Conclusion
Far from demonstrating the irrelevance of international institutions, Mearsheimer's
characterization of conflict in world politics makes institutions appear
essential if states are to have any hope of sustained cooperation, and of
reaping its benefits. This necessity for institutions does not mean that they are
always valuable, much less that they operate without respect to power and
interests, constitute a panacea for violent conflict, or always reduce the likelihood
of war. Claiming too much for international institutions would indeed be
a "false promise." But in a world politics constrained by state power and
divergent interests, and unlikely to experience effective hierarchical governance,
international institutions operating on the basis of reciprocity will be
components of any lasting peace.
23. Japan initially refused British pleas to impose sanctions, and took only minor steps following
U.S. imposition of sanctions, much later than EC members.
24. The Falklands case cannot be dismissed on grounds that, as Mearsheimer claims, striking a
deal was "not difficult." The historical record shows intense conflict, including public protests in
some countries and challenges to the sitting government in others. The Thatcher government
believed that its survival was at stake in the Falklands War. While perhaps not a "core interest"
by realist standards, government survival is surely a fundamental concern of policymakers that
could impede cooperation.
The Promise of Institutionalist Theoy 1 51
The institutionalist research program in international relations is a promising
one. The logic of institutionalist theory, with its focus on the informational role
of institutions, appears solid. Institutionalists should respond to Mearsheimer's
criticismsby better integrating distributional considerations into their models,
further specifying the causal mechanisms by which institutions exercise
influence,and building on existing empirical work to provide more convincing
evidence of institutional effects. Both the questions raised and the provisional
answers given by institutionalists, during the relatively short life of this research
program, indicate that these tasks may be rewarding. In comparison
with the extant alternatives, the promise of institutionalist theory seems bright.