POLI 12 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Warsaw Pact, Thomas Hobbes
Lecture 9
The lowest three quizzes will be dropped, the first and the lowest two, or the lowest three.
Bring a bluebook.
International Institutions and War:
1. International Institutions and Security Cooperation
2. Alliances - Contracts between states
3. Collective Security-When a group of countries band together to all protect each other
International institutions and security cooperation:
Cooperation in anarchy, despite anarchy, cooperation is plentiful as the actors have the same
objectives, which is protection. As the international system is anarchic, countries don’t want to be
attacked and so are incentivized to form cooperations.
Alliances:
States commit to security cooperation. The alliance could be symmetric or asymmetric, when one is
more powerful than the other as it may benefit from it in some other way. Alliances are not
ubiquitous as they are costly. You have to allocate resources and they limit your alternatives. About
1% of all pairings in countries are allied, 99% are not allied. The US has many alliances, China has 1
formal one with North Korea. Most countries usually have alliances with one or a handful.
This is a social contract (Hobbesian) formed from an anarchic system and is mutually beneficial. But
it is not always consensual as countries are sometimes conquered and then have alliances imposed on
them, like the Warsaw Pact. But for the most part, they join them of their own volition by looking at
their other alternatives. For example, France in the early 1960s left NATO, it had an arrangement to
cooperate with NATO when it wants to but was not bound to it like other participating countries.
Essentially, alliances serve to redistribute the balance of power in the international system by
collectivizing security. It also changes who is against who. As alliances shift the balance of power, it
alters the bargaining range and hence the likelihood of war changes, it could make war less likely as
the weaker side is even weaker and so they are less likely to fight. On the other hand, the stronger
side is more likely to win and so more likely to win a war. This results in the weaker side being
incentivized to give in to the other side. This can also result in a problem regarding incomplete
information and states may not want to give away that they have alliances and tip off the other side.
If your alliance results in a security imbalance, as it is a military based alliance, you would not want
to give that away.
Collective Security:
It involves a public good, which we all share but is under provided. One of the dilemmas is that
though most of the world wants to be safe and protected, its hard to do that.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The lowest three quizzes will be dropped, the first and the lowest two, or the lowest three. International institutions and war: international institutions and security cooperation, alliances - contracts between states, collective security-when a group of countries band together to all protect each other. Cooperation in anarchy, despite anarchy, cooperation is plentiful as the actors have the same objectives, which is protection. As the international system is anarchic, countries don t want to be attacked and so are incentivized to form cooperations. The alliance could be symmetric or asymmetric, when one is more powerful than the other as it may benefit from it in some other way. Alliances are not ubiquitous as they are costly. You have to allocate resources and they limit your alternatives. 1% of all pairings in countries are allied, 99% are not allied. The us has many alliances, china has 1 formal one with north korea. Most countries usually have alliances with one or a handful.
