Summary of “Achieving Cooperation Under Anarchy” by Robert Axelrod and Robert O. Keohane

Summary of “Achieving Cooperation Under Anarchy” by Robert Axelrod and Robert O. Keohane

 

Even without an central governmental or police power, states often cooperate with each other, sometimes to get what they want and sometimes to get away from what they do not want to face. Cooperative condition is certainly different from harmonized one, so it naturally contains adjustment and bargaining. Under anarchical international system, even though it is hard to achieve strongly bonded cooperation, states and other actors such as international economy subjects shed light to possibility of constructing decent collaboration and of avoiding a collision.

 

  First section of the article deals with the effects of structure on cooperation. According to authors, payoff structure, the shadow of the future, and the number of actors affect the disposition of actors to work together. It is not just applicable to cooperation between states, but also to general actors who have capability and necessity to cooperate.

 

  Payoff structure for a game determines the cooperative degree. There are four types of game depending on perceptions of actors, which are called Prisoner’s Dilemma, Stag Hunt, Chicken, and Deadlock. Prisoner’s Dilemma is a game that each player has a strong incentive to defect, because a player always takes advantage in betraying whatever counterpart chooses. (DC>CC, DD>CD) Stag Hunt is different from Prisoner’s Dilemma since the player has to consider the choice that the other would make. (CC>DC, DD>CD) In case of Deadlock, players believe mutual defection is better than mutual cooperation, (DD>CC) so bilateral betrayal always happens. (Chicken game is not mentioned explicitly in the article, but DC>CC>CD>DD is known for its preference order.) Oye provided an example of shift from Prisoner’s Dilemma to Deadlock on monetary diplomacy in the 1930s, the age when states prefer to act independently. Arms races are considered as a games of Deadlock, and offensive superpowers in early 20th century exceedingly sacrificed themselves for a proper instance.

 

  As the second dimensional factor, the Shadow of Future affects a lot, especially in Prisoner’s Dilemma. If relation between actors continues for a long time and feedback is possible, defection can bring revenge afterward. To specify, considering some detailed factors will be needed: Long time horizons, regularity of stakes, reliability of information about the others’ actions, and quick feedback about changes in the others’ actions. Due to their distinct characteristics, international political economy and international security shows dissimilar behavior sometimes. Those factorsoffer good explanation about the difference shown in the case of 1914 and contemporary international debt negotiation. In terms of military security, long time horizons were almost impossible then since German executives were so enchanted by offensive advantage that precluding enemy countries from retaliation seems possible. Conversely, banks and debtor countries’ deals were easily expected to renewal and the sector places a premium on reputation shaped from former contributions. Therefore, far-sighted concept could be made by actors in games. For another factor, credibility of information about others’ behavior and quick feedback are also essential to maintain long time horizon cooperation. In this case, since political-economy realm may keep its own secrecy in pocket while military-security information is opened to public, cheating happens often in political-economic actions.

 

  When the number of actor increases, to identify defectors would be difficult, to focus retaliation on betrayer might be faced with an obstacle, and to have enough long-run incentives to chastise cannot be achieved. A sense of responsibility will be decreased hence the free rider. If adequate and mighty monitoring system and credible informational source are not equipped, sanctioning problems easily happens since searching for defectors becomes formidable, as we can see in evasive follow-up measures after 1983 U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. Also, wrong targeted retaliation could provoke serious conflict like Anglo-Hanse trade wars. 

 

  In comparison to international political economy, international military-security issues are more vulnerable to sanctioning problem, because of the high expense of punishing, the difficulties of supervising, and the stringent demands for information that are inflicted when fruitful betrayal may curtail the shadow of future. The context of interaction also have an impact to enabling cooperation between actors as much as three game-theoric dimensions. In the second section of the article’s body, in this manner, issue linkage, domestic-international connections, and incompatibilities between games among different sets of actors work in multi-level games are discussed.

 

  Although the games are being played on different issues, each game can affect one another. That is the point issue-linkage starts. Linkage may be gainful to both actors when negotiating and can open the door to consent between seemingly uncompromisable issues. Egyptian’s political support to America and American economic aid to Egypt. In addition, like a log-rolling game, even if there are not common profits, deliberately made linkage can work successfully. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 shows the most appropriate instance. As Oye pointed out, two types of issue-linkage, “backscratching” and “blackmailing”, exist. Backscratcing brings about promise and blackmailing, in contrary, involves a threat. Albeit to make a distinction between backscratching and blackmailing is not a simple task, it is needed to be done because issue-linkages are not only beneficial also hazardous. (Henry Kissinger was criticized in this term, due to his diplomatic attitude toward Soviets.) Meanwhile, “contextual” issue-linkage shows that this form can often work to lessen trouble even without changing the inclination of the actors on the issues. International monetary reform in 1936 was possible thanks to fear of Nazi Germany, and Anglo-French naval arms race in 1852 eased thanks to aggressive Russia.

 

  Next, it is well-known that states’ international behaviors have been strongly influenced by domestic politics. Some issues are especially sensitive to domestic voice so that countries can not make rational decision as american government could not overcome unreasonable respect for General MacArthur. Besides, this mechanism can be exploited as a strategy, by meddling in other states’ domestic situation.

 

  Various games in international stage are sometimes compatible and sometimes incompatible. America after World War II was strong enough to dominate all other allies and urge them to cooperate, unlike nineteenth century’s Britain. In the case of 1914, constantly mentioned, there emerged a loyalty between military ally’s participants and this league became too strong to be changed into flexible linkage. It was unavoidable to get mixed up with incompatibility. (Of course, political-economy sector could resolve the problem then, thanks to its compatibility.)

 

  How to promote positive reciprocal attitude is undoubtedly an essential matter in cooperation. Axelrod designed an experiment and it showed that group of purely selfish performers even can cooperate if initial possibility is suggested. In this manner, states, innately self-centered, also can be motivated to perform reciprocity when payoff structures are those of Prisoner’s Dilemma. In other structures, such as Chicken Game and Stag Hunt, this explanation can not be perfectly applied, because TIT-for-TAT(equivalent retaliation)’s echo effect can solidify conflicts, as detente between America and Soviet failed. Also, reciprocity easily becomes deadlock despite actors’ common interests and rationality. Lastly, issue interdependent problem emerges and orders between agreements get chaotic. Still, it is the most probable solution to tide over deadlock, ironically. Lipson argued that reciprocity can be institutionalized in an N-person game, by splitting the multilateral game into bilateral game and by emphasizing reciprocity at a different level.

 

  With suggested diverse cases, importance of the way the actor perceives things is utterly self-evident. States are usually poor at estimating neighbor states’ intention or reaction. Those misperception between countries provoke conflicts worth recording like World War I and Cuban Crisis. To be a better perceiver and to prevent another catastrophe, advanced institutions and norms are needed.

 

  There might be some solutions like constructing hierarchy or establishing international regimes. Building an hierarchy has an example from inter-bank networks to give an impetus to rescheduling of Third World’s debts. Though international regimes can not be substitution for reciprocity, it can offer reinforcing and institutionalizing the reciprocal concepts. But these efforts are idealistic rather practical, so detecting the real factors of cooperation failure would be helpful.

 

  First, efforts to recompose the relationships may never progress favorably since most issues on the table are strongly arguable. Secondly, some agreements are established, but later, may turn out to contradict the actor itself. For the third, even successful adjustments are apt to spoil due to some loopholes. Lastly, sometimes there are irrelevant changes with the arrangements make them useless. It is not weird that skepticism about institution may arise under the circumstance of steadily failing cooperation between the actors. But everybody knows that the more states become cooperative the better results can be yielded, as we have seen from the former experience.