The Importance Of International Cooperation

Institutionalism rejects neorealist claims that the international system is characterized by anarchy. Rather, it is more accurate to think of international system as made up of rational states that exhibit growing interdependence. Interdependence creates incentives for cooperation among states as it offers mutual benefits to all parties engaged. States learn cooperation through reciprocity or are forced to cooperate for sake of securing public goods. Institutionalists also focus on the free riding problem, which assumes that nations will tend to cheat and not do their part in producing public goods. International institutions, such as the United Nations or World Trade Organization, can help in establishing and sustaining cooperation among states by reducing transaction costs, helping with monitoring (free riding problem), and offering third party mediation.

WTO: World Trade Organization deals with the global trading rules between international governments. The overall rules must be predictable enough so that everyone involved isn’t dealing with chaotic sudden changes.

I find support for Hypotheses 1 and 2, showing that high and low monitoring treaties are more likely to occur following domestic political volatility, but differently depending on states' baseline beliefs about the adversary. For states that see one another as having high incentives to cheat on cooperation, recent domestic political volatility is associated with approximately a two-fold increase in the probability of high monitoring treaties. However, volatility does not have the same effect on treaty outcomes for states that see one another as types with low incentives to cheat. For those types states, domestic volatility is associated with a somewhat higher probability of low monitoring treaties. The interaction term between volatility and policy position is significant in nearly all the models estimated (including robustness checks), and is consistent in direction across all measures. This gives strong support for the conditional nature of the effect of volatility on agreement type. The figures presented in this section elaborate on these findings, and the full statistical results are provided in the Appendix.

Globalization through free foreign trade allows for specialized goods to circulate on a global scale. This type of economic integration calls for lower tariffs, creating an economy without borders where more consumers and other markets can be easily accessed. Despite obvious economic benefits of globalization, the expansion of foreign trade clearly harms local and domestic economies. With international agreements and organizations such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), the economies become highly competitive, often disturbing the local agricultural farmers that are unable to compete with better and cheaper goods from abroad. Consequently, without taxation, large businesses are more likely

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a global agency that is dedicated to promoting free trade between member nations. It was founded on the idea that the world can be a better place if everyone works together. Before World War II, countries believed in protecting their domestic productions by implementing tariffs, or taxes against goods that are imported. Tariffs make imported goods cost more than domestic goods, thereby protecting the success of domestic producers. Today, most nations support free trade, which is the exchange of goods across borders without restrictions like quotas or tariffs. The elimination of tariffs is meant to allow trade between nations to occur more freely.

Liberal institutionalism assumes the nature of international system to be cooperative. This theory argues that despite the anarchic nature of international system, states are willing to communicate and cooperate with each other for mutual benefit.1 International institutions and norms are crucial for mitigating hostile tensions between states by creating a platform that allows state to communicate, generate trust and develop peaceful relationship. Additionally, the continued interactions between states increases the likelihood of cooperation.2 In a liberal institutional international

This failure in bargaining is a study on its own. For instance in the process of bargaining many states find it difficult to trust their rivals because of the potential for incomplete information. Often, actors will strategically misrepresent information as a means to extract certain demands when actors cannot reliably trust in who they are bargaining with. This distrust between actors also leads to commitment problems. In situations when there is a potential power shift and goods could potentially be exchanged or divided there is concern over what could possibly alter in the future. Power changes such as this can lead to preventive war or attempts at first strikes which is when one actor might seek action as a means to prevent war or to have an early advantage. Often the neutrality of outside actors is necessary for bargaining to succeed or to prevent one side from future exploits.

The World Trade Organization was developed in 1995 out of what was known as the Uruguay Round. Although GATT set rules they mostly dealt with issues just involving simple trade of goods and the distribution of tariffs. The WTO has a broader job than the GATT; “…it oversees multilateral agreements relating not just to good, but also to services, investment and intellectual property.” (Douglas Irwin, 186) The World Trade Organization is an independent organization and decisions are made out of consensus of the member countries involved, not from the World Trade Organization itself. When a country complains about another country and the way they run things that could affect their home country, the WTO must make a decision on what must be done. Once a ruling has been made the losing country must implement one of three strategies:

Because of these relationships that are connected between countries, they must not be tampered with in order to stabilize growing infrastructures. The United States, one of the most powerful countries in the world, offers its fair share of keeping international matters in balanced proportions. Author Michael Froman of “The Strategic Logic of Trade” introduces the United States in means of liberalism and his central argument is that without cooperation and partnerships countries cannot thrive and live properly. The United States wants to ensure that all countries are equally balanced and in times of conflict the World Trade Organization, an intergovernmental organization, plays a role in preventing unfair advantages within other counties. An example of this would be Obama’s act to initiate rules along the road of trade with the Trans-Pacific Partnership which is a trade agreement settles between eleven countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Within this treaty there are proposals that the United States draws upon such as addressing forced labor, child labor, proper working conditions, wildlife trafficking, illegal forms of logging and components that generate unsafe overfishing. This treaty also takes a bigger liberal approach for small and medium-size business located in various parts of the world to obtain access within the global market by preventing any abuse towards unrestricted internet access. Reflecting as far back as World War II, anybody can learn that the United States used trade as a tool and an advantage to form

Integration encourages a stable international arena by developing state economies and encouraging foreign trade. Karl Deutsch, a political scientist, states, “Integration means that a ‘sense of community’ has been achieved; people have come to agree that their conflicts and problems can be resolved ‘without resort to large-scale physical force’” (Jackson and Sørensen 103). The transnational ties lead to a secure community, which means a group of people have become integrated. Once integration is reached and the sense of community is formed, that group of people can handle the conflict and problems on their own rather than needing a lot of outside help to resolve the issue. This allows for, “Interdependency and collaboration transfer loyalty from the state to the transnational organization leading to economic interdependency” (Class notes 9/28). Since one state has economic interests in another state it facilitates greater trust and cooperation because that one state would not go to war with the other state

The topic of interdependence has been an issue since the inception of the state system and more prominently after the Cold War. Political scientists have debated its significance and vitality in a realism dominated discourse for years. However many alternative theories have surfaced supplying theorists with new material to analyze the question of conflict and interdependence. Interdependence does reduce the likelihood of conflict.

The international relations theory attempts to provide a conceptual model upon which are analyzed international relations , its implications and how you study and understand the participation of stakeholders and their influence in the international system . Each theory helps to understand the birth of International Relations as an independent disciplinary area within political science , and its deep changes and reflections until today. Each is reductive and essentialist to different degrees, respectively based on different sets of assumptions.

Finally, Waltz depicts the international-system level of international institutions, principles, and systems as perpetually anarchic, or without a central enforcement mechanism (Waltz, 1988, pg. 618). Waltz contends multilateralism is a root of conflict because international systems are comprised of states at their core level, thus the response to wayward actors depends upon another state’s desire/need to confront the actor.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a global organization that helps countries and producers of goods deal fairly and smoothly with conducting their business across international borders. It mainly does this through WTO agreements, which are negotiated and signed by a large majority of the trading nations in the world. The purpose of the WTO is to ensure that global trade commences freely, smoothly and predictably while also aiming to create economic peace and stability in the world through a multilateral system. This is based and applied to member states, currently 162 countries, that have consented and ratified the rules of the WTO in their individual countries. Simply put, these documents act as contracts that provide the legal framework for conducting business among nations, integrating into a country 's domestic legal system, therefore, applying to local companies and nationals in the conduct of business internationally. For instance, if a company were to open an office or business in a foreign country, the rules of the WTO dictates how that can be done.1

     The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business. The World Trade Organization came into being in 1995. One of the youngest of the international organizations, the WTO is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in the wake of the Second World War. The World Trade Organization exists to ensure that trade between nations flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible. It provides and regulates the legal issues which governs world trade now .