Plan for Today: Neoliberal Institutionalism & Concluding Liberalism

1. Plan for Today:Neoliberal Institutionalism& Concluding Liberalism Complete group activity reporting. Survey neoliberal solutions to the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Compare neorealist and neoliberal views on likelihood of cooperation. Evaluate liberalism as theory.

2. Small Group Discussion • Think as a group of 2-3 ideas of modifications to the PD game that might lead to greater cooperation. (5 minutes) • But still keep: • Actors as selfish utility-maximizers. • Players simultaneously deciding, so each can’t know what other will choose. • Payoff values for each possible outcome. • Leader report group proposals to class.

3. Prisoner’s DilemmaNumerical Payoffs(refer to Lipson for more details)

4. Neoliberal Institutionalism • Institutional Modifications to Increase Cooperation (Lipson, Axelrod): • Repeated interactions. • Critical mass of “nice” players who start by cooperating and use “tit-for-tat” strategy  cooperation. • Reputation becomes important.

5. Neoliberal Institutionalism • Institutional Modifications to Increase Cooperation (Lipson, Axelrod): • Monitoring. • Agency that monitors who cooperates and who defects over time.

6. Neoliberal Institutionalism • Institutional Modifications to Increase Cooperation (Lipson, Axelrod): • Number of Players. • Fewer players  easier monitoring and punishment.

7. Neoliberalism • Institutional Modifications to Increase Cooperation (Lipson, Axelrod): • Interdependent Issues. • Cooperation can evolve if players meet repeatedly in varying kinds of issues.

8. Comparing Realists and Neoliberals on Cooperation • Focus on different issues. • Neoliberals tend to focus on economic issues. • Realists tend to focus on security issues.

9. PD in a Security World • Likely payoffs entirely different. • “Sucker’s payoff” = steeper loss and more immediate (i.e. battle loss or nuclear annihilation).

10. PD in a Security World • Likely payoffs entirely different. • “Sucker’s payoff” = steeper loss and more immediate (i.e. battle loss or nuclear annihilation).

11. Comparing Realists and Neoliberals on Cooperation • Relative Gains vs. Absolute Gains. • Neoliberals: states concerned with how much they can gain in absolute terms. • Neorealists: states concerned with how much they gain relative to other states.

12. Comparing Realists and Neoliberals on Cooperation • Fungibility of power. • Neorealists must believe economic power easily fungible (convertible) into military power. • Neoliberals must believe economic power not so fungible.

13. Summary: Neoliberal Institutionalism Accepts realists’ assumptions about states-as-actors and their interests. Focuses on opportunities to build regimes or institutions to overcome instances of market failure. PD as illustration of market failure – introduces simple mechanisms for changing game to encourage more cooperation. Disagreements between neorealists and neoliberals on cooperation: areas of focus, absolute vs. relative gains, fungibility of power.

14. Evaluating Liberalism as a Theory • Explanatory power: • Tells us a lot about how, when, why cooperation emerges. • Better in economic issues than security. • Loses explanatory efficiency (“parsimony”) by including far more actors. (except neoliberal)

15. Evaluating Liberalism as a Theory • Predictive power: • Better than realism at predicting institutional change. • Liberal interdependence: virtually no predictive power. • Too many actors with an infinite number of interests.

16. Evaluating Liberalism as a Theory • Intellectual consistency and coherence: • Neoliberals: Again, can we assume self-help from anarchy? • Other liberalism: Can’t be evaluated easily in terms of logical consistency as logic often not strictly specified.

17. Evaluating Liberalism as a Theory • Scope: Good. • Liberal interdependence: can say a lot more about more kinds of actors than realism. • E.g. How can realists explain international campaign to ban land mines?

18. Evaluating Liberalism as a Theory • Self-reflection and engagement with other theories: OK. • Neoliberal institutionalism itself came as response to identified weaknesses in liberalism. • Liberals have adopted some new constructivist lines of argument.