Lectures Global & European
Governance
Videos lecture 1
Intro
In this video: basic concepts we will work with in the course.
- States
- Anarchy
States
Fundamental players. Why do we talk about states instead of other actors:
- 1648 Peace of Westphalia, birth of the international system as we know it
- End of 80 years war
- End of upheaval period in europe
- Consequence: recognition of exclusive sovereignty → states agree not to
meddle in each others rights and matters
Exclusive sovereignty
- Internal sovereignty: back to roman times, state is free to decide rules within borders.
- External sovereignty: no outside interference within state borders.
- Rule is geographically limited
- Outside intervention is possible only if rulers permit it
- Today, the state is very much present in our lives! In all kinds of different ways, but
f.i. possession of a passport.
Is it the default that states have survived and our world is organized in states? Not the case.
Why did states survive (compared to empires and leagues)
- Advantages of states
- Empires lack written codes, customary proceedings, legal climate for trade,
high transactions costs
- Leagues lack territorial contiguity, fixed borders, clear rules, internal
hierarchy.
Stats in international politics
- States-as-actors: unitary actors that represent that actors within the states, traditional
way of thinking about states.
Anarchy
If you have states that are internally and externally sovereign, the consequence is no higher
authority than the state, no one can interfere legitimately. This situation is the starting point
of Anarchy.
, - Anarchy is the main and most basic assumptions of the study international
governance
- Different from domestic society (where there is a clear hierarchy of rules and
consequences if you violate them
- Anarchy is NOT lack of order (or rules)
- Anarchy is lack of higher authority
- Leads to the “911” problem: issue that if you have a problem in international politics,
there is no police or something you can call to save you.
- Consequences?
Game theory
Non-technical introduction to game theory and exactly how much game theory you need.
Terminology
You need:
- Players (people, companies, states, etc) at least 2 or more
- Rational: they have preferences they pursue
- Informed: about their and other’s choices and options
- Strategies (a choice thereof)
- Preferences (exist and are transitive, meaning A>B and B>C so A>C
- Solution (final point)
→ We will only talk about 2-players 2-strategies games (simplest) and only 2 of then (there’s
27 basic models, we don’t need them all).
Prisoner’s dilemma (situation 1)
Aka cooperation game
- Traditional: 2 robbers are arrested and held separate. Both are more concerned
about individual freedom than of the other. The police makes an offer to confess or
remain silent. If they confess and the other doesn’t, the charges are dropped and he
goes free but the other jail. But this also goes the other way for you. If both confess
there is prison for both but a shorter time, if both are silent then the shortest time.
-
A cooperates (is silent) A confess to police
B Cooperates (is silent) Shortest sentence both A free, B prison (4)
(3)
B Confess to police. A prison, B free (1) medium sentence both
(2)
- For A preferred options are: 4>3>2>1
- For b the options are reversed
- Both can improve position by confessing: defection thus becomes dominant strategy
for both, and so they end up in situation 2 (nash equilibrium: no position can gain or
improve of actor if unilateral strategy of other actors remains the same)
- Sucker’s pay-off: worst off, you’re taken for a sucker and the other is better off.
- But: lower chance of punishment, higher chance actors stick to the agreement.
,Why worst fear?
- Represents fear of being exploited
- Exemplifies the security dilemma
Examples:
- Negotiations of peace or disarmament, etc. (if the other party doesn’t stick to
agreement to disarm, then you gain unilateral agreement and benefit to not stick).
Battle of the sexes
aka coordination game
- Traditional: husband and wife want to spend evening together. Husband prefers
boxing match, wife prefers to go to the opera.
- 4>3>2>1
H opera H boxing
W opera H3 W4 H2 W2
W boxing H1 W1 H4 W3
- Best situation husband: boxing, second best is opera, because they want to go
together, worst is he is at opera and wife boxing
- Reverse for wife
- It’s better to at least be together
This situation is different: no motivation to defect. Once you stick to an agreement, there is
no additional benefit in defecting. Motivation is to find a solution, but that can be difficult
when someone gains more from another option.
How do you induce cooperation?
- Threat (cost of threat must be proportional)
- Bribe
- Package deal (this week this, next week that)
- Pre-emptive action (honey i got us tickets for …)
Real world differences
- Cooperation game
- Cooperation risks cheating
- Benefits from cheating are higher than benefits from sticking
- Coordination problem
- Difficult to find a common course
- But no difficulty to stick to it, no motivation to deflect.
Lecture 1 5-1-21 Onderco
Questions
- Spruyt: last 3 paragraphs talk about incentive structures that lie to creation of states,
1) dispersion political authority; 2) changing demographic patterns; 3) best interest in
rulers in their economies. Because of this particular organization of society
, developed in states in europe different from other forms of organization emerging
elsewhere like more authoritarian.
- Spruyt: anarchy is not historically given. You cannot talk about anarchy without some
system of competing claims of authority, because there is authority beyond a state.
Anarchy is situation with lack of higher authority and it’s difficult to talk about anarchy
before emergence of the state.
- Spruyt: is he critical of realism? Is he liberal institutionalist?
- Onderco doesn’t agree with first part being critical about realism, he at the
end of the day says that realist use of international relations remains valid,
even though there is lots of realism.
- Liberal institutionalist explanation: it is in neo liberal institutionalism.
- Difference between states and empires: Spruyt also talks about this. Empires often
universalistic, important is that they don’t have fixed borders but overlapping areas of
authority. And within empires multiple authority structures. And being king of empire
is a personal property, and subjects are property of the king. In state the ruler is a
public office and subjects not property. There are legal contracts in states.
- About the 911 problem: is it strictly theoretical? Is there no UN help in the real world?
→ There is no NATO or EU or UN army. It’s composed of national member states.
Governments only send troops if they agree. See f.i. case between russia and
ukraine
- WHy do we need the belief in rationality in game theory? Rational is acors have
preferences they pursue and they try to maximize their well-being, preferences are
transitive → otherwise we cannot model human behaviour. These assumptions are
traditionally used.
- Differences cooperation and coordination in real world: in cooperation you benefit
from defecting (cheating), not in coordination game.
Play evolution of trust game for yourself
Videos lecture 2
Realism
Return to Isle of Ted
Especially first 2 (private) rounds and no communication: people would often not fulfill
promises, this closely resembles anarchy.
- A system with uncertainty about whether or not other party reciprocates or not, this
uncertainty in global governance is closely reflected in the concept of security
dilemma, at the heart of realist theorizing in global political relations
The security dilemma
John Herz
Combination of 2 lemmas:
- Dilemma of interpretation: refers to fact that states as actors need to interpret actions
of another country
