Monday, June 2, 2014

Rational Design of International Institutions

The main argument that Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal make in their article The Rational Design of International Institutions “is that states use international institutions to further their own goals and design institutions accordingly” (762). This is their explanation for why we can observe differences in international institutions.

 I found this to be a really interesting article that they laid out and something that we could have used when we had our projects about international institutions and the ideas of coercion or reason. They referred to the EU for a lot of examples, so I would like to try address the key ways that institutions vary with another international institution that one of our groups talked about, NATO. 

Membership for NATO comes from North America and Europe. NATO focuses on the ideas and interests of its member countries with diplomatic and military capabilities. NATO’s power is centralized in its member countries, with a council that has permanent and rotating members. NATO has control over protecting the security of its member states; the control is enforced by the agreement to participate and negotiate by its member states. NATO has the ability to be flexible when new outcomes and problems arise, but it is not always flexible in new situations NATO was an international organization created to protect the interests of its members through political and military means. 

The reason for this organization’s existence, is why it is different than say, the EU or the UN; it has a different focus, though they may be similar in some regards. Do you believe the design of the institution is created to further the state’s own goals? How does agency relate to and affect these differences?


·         Information on NATO: http://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html#basic

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