Rational Theory of International Politics: The Logic of Competition and Cooperation

329 Pages·2010·2.83 MB·English

by  Charles L. Glaser

Rational Theory of International Politics
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Rational Theory of
International Politics
The Logic of Competition
and Cooperation
Charles L. Glaser
P r i n c e to n U n i v e rs i t y P r e s s
P r i n c e to n a n d O x f o r d
Copyright © 2010 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Glaser, Charles L. (Charles Louis), 1954–
Rational theory of international politics : the logic of competition and cooperation /
Charles L. Glaser.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-14371-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-691-14372-
9 (pbk. : alk. paper 1. International relations—Philosophy. 2. Competition,
International. 3. International cooperation. I. Title.
JZ1305.G555 2010
327.101—dc22 2009038211
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Carol and Adam
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Contents
Preface ix
Chapter One
Introduction 1
Chapter Two
Setting Up the Theory 23
Chapter Three
The Theory 51
Chapter Four
Extensions of the Theory 93
Chapter Five
Counterarguments 127
Chapter Six
Placing the Theory in the IR Theory Landscape 148
Chapter Seven
Evaluating the Theory from Within 172
Chapter Eight
Evaluating the Theory—Important Cases and
Useful Comparisons 206
Chapter Nine
Applying the Theory to Arms Races; Testing It
with Counterfactuals 228
Chapter Ten
Summary and Policy Implications 269
Bibliography 283
Index 305
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Preface
The questions that led to this book first puzzled me when I was work-
ing on nuclear strategy and policy in the 1980s. I could not find a satisfac-
tory answer to the basic question, “Is the nuclear arms race dangerous?”
Most of the arguments that saw grave dangers in the Cold War nuclear
competition were internally inconsistent. The arguments on the opposite
side of the debate, which held that the nuclear arms race was necessary to
preserve U.S. security, were even less satisfactory. Especially in need of
development was analysis of the relationship between the military com-
petition and the politics of U.S.–Soviet relations.
Thinking about arms races led me to structural theories of interna-
tional politics, as a means for understanding when states should compete
and when they should cooperate. To evaluate whether arms races are
dangerous, we need to be able to assess the alternatives that were avail-
able to states. Arms races might increase the probability of war, but not
racing might have made war even more likely. The rational theory that I
develop in this book enables us to separate the impact of the interna-
tional environment from the impact of the strategies that states choose;
we can use it to assess whether arms races themselves were dangerous, or
instead whether the international situation facing states was the true
source. More broadly, my theory helps us understand the impact of the
international environment on states’ strategies and argues that interna-
tional anarchy does not generate a general tendency toward competitive
international strategies; under a wide range of material and information
conditions, cooperation is a state’s best option for achieving security.
My work on these questions played out in a series of articles over many
years in International Security and World Politics. The articles were writ-
ten to stand on their own and without the next article in mind. And I did
not set out from the start with the idea of writing a book on grand inter-
national relations theory. When I did decide to write a book that pulled
together and integrated these articles, I imagined that this would be a
rather quick project. In the end, this book took a number of additional
years to write and includes many arguments and chapters that I had not
envisioned at the outset.
My greatest intellectual debt may well be to the University of Chicago,
where I benefited from the scholarly energy and intensity for which the
university is famous. At Chicago, the Program on International Security