POL312Y1 Lecture Notes - Collective Security, Unilateralism, Doxa
Document Summary
Part of the post cold war international doxa. Not necessarily true in theory or practice. Long precedence in modern world politics: pre-institutional: spheres of influence, holly alliance, concern of. The concept is multilateralism: thin conceptualization, thick conceptualization. Canadian multilateralism: in theory, in practice, canada and the iraq war. Etymology: multus (many) + lateralus (side, many sides, distinguished from unilateral and bilateral, thin definition: more than 2. Any activity of 2 or more states: thus people have been unsatisfactory about these, they think it is more than about numbers. Advantages: coordinate state politics to reduce suboptimality. Two rational actors with similar interest coming to a bad outcome while working together because one might cheat, so there is a trust exercise: shared costs. If you go alone, you need to pay all by yourself but if you go multilateral you can share the costs: increased gains. Disadvantages: increased transaction costs, coordination problems, incentives to free-ride.
