POLI 244 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Utility, Neoliberalism, Rationality

• School: McGill University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 244
• Professor: Daniel Douek

Document Summary

Liberal paradigm: reaction to neorealism, the puzzle of international cooperation. Institutions (international regimes) (cid:862)pri(cid:374)ciples, (cid:374)or(cid:373)s, rules a(cid:374)d decisio(cid:374)-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area(cid:863) Interdependence opportunities for cooperation (common interests: realism and the puzzle of increasing cooperation, cooperation problems and strategies to overcome them international regimes. Positional or atomistic states? or both: only relative gains matter (purely positional, only absolute gains matter (purely atomistic, both absolute and relative gains matter. Neither absolute not relative gains dominate: absolute gains minus relative losses. Absolute gains may outweigh relative losses cooperation. Relative losses may outweigh absolute gains deadlock: relative gains minus absolute losses. Absolute losses may outweigh relative gains deadlock. Relative gains may outweigh absolute losses cooperation. Sensitivity to payoff gaps: u=v-k (w-v, u= v+k (v-w) If k=8 then u=v-8 (w-v) (even more positional) Both absolute and relative gains matter but how much: how sensitive are states to payoff gaps? (k=?) Realism anarchy forces them to be very sensitive.