“International cooperation is a subject of manifesting importance for anyone concerned about the prospects for world peace and order” because today cooperation is everywhere: in economics with the WTO, in politics with the UN and even in security issues with the NATO. International cooperation is a “voluntary adjustment by states of their policies so that they manage their differences and reach some mutually beneficial outcome” and it has been influenced by liberal institutionalism ideas since the post war time. Cooperation must be analyzed as a long term engagement with the aim of creating an international regime that can impose rules on states, provide them with standard of behaviors, induce transparency and confidence in the relations and guide or solve problems between them. This liberal development has a more optimistic view on the international system than the theory it challenges: Neo¬realism. Both theories' definitions of the international system are based on the same principles: The anarchy reigning the system – anarchy being the reason for the absence of a central government –makes states the main, unitary and interest maximizing actors. Neo¬realism and liberal institutionalism also focus on solving problems existing in the international system: They study the behavioral regularities in order to explain why the balance of power and the status quo has evolved. However, they still differ in their approach to cooperation and the effect of anarchy on state's willingness to cooperate. Cooperation takes place on different levels of the international life but it also affects many small parts of the world: For instance in the EU, cooperation is pushed way further when compared to the international level of cooperation between states. And therefore, liberals and realists do not focus on the same actors when they study it: While the former has a more global approach by taking the existing international organizations and explaining why they are relevant, the latter starts with a point of view of the state and explains why cooperation is really hard and even impossible. So how does anarchy really affect states' willingness of cooperation? First, one must understand the pessimistic point of view of realists, then analyze the liberal's Utopian idea of globalization. But in this case, both theories stick to their idea so that's why I wish to see if a more realist possibility of cooperation is possible mainly through the analyses of a regionalization of the world.
[...] We have studied three concepts on how states can achieve cooperation in the international system. First, the neorealist one where cooperation is impossible because anarchy forces states to seek for more independence and power, therefore state sovereignty is the most important factor. Neoliberals and regionalist academics base their study on the same ground as the neorealists but with a more optimistic view: They think cooperation is possible (although on different levels) and that anarchy is an emulation for states as it pushes them to organize themselves around interstate institutions. [...]
[...] Since conflict and competition are 'normal' in the international system, cooperation is hard even when states have common interests. Common interests, if they exist, are inhibited by something else: States' worse fear, as unitary actors in the system, is for their survival. A state's first goal is to survive in the system and secure its political independence. This is harder for smaller states as they are always threatened by 'bigger' states. In order to achieve these goals, Switzerland, for instance, at its creation, declared it will always remain neutral. [...]
[...] But after a while of 'conditional cooperation' and the repetition of the Prisoner's Dilemma figure, states become aware of their interests in collaboration and the cooperation becomes 'mutual'. This is possible because states, according to liberals, are rationally egoist. The state holds 'consistent ordered preferences and calculates costs and benefits of alternative courses of action in order to maximize their utility in view of these preferences.' But the biggest risk that states take is to be cheated because if their partners defect, they will end up with less than before the cooperation. [...]
[...] For that reason 'anarchy and mixed interest cause states to suffer the opportunity costs of not achieving an outcome that is mutually more beneficial.' So in a neoliberal point of view, a lost cooperation opportunity is worse than taking the risk of being cheated because all lose. Then again, neoliberalism seems too optimistic: It claims that cooperation is possible for all states. But in that case, why is globalization still not achieving its goal? It seems that cultural, historical, and sociological backgrounds prevent globalization to happen fully and that they push the opening of barriers towards a regionalization of the world. [...]
[...] So cooperating together is playing with fire as one can help another build the capabilities that may destroy the states in the future. In a nutshell, realists do not believe in cooperation because anarchy drives states into cheating and forces them to consider relative gains. From a realist point a view, the existing international organizations are no use to the international system because they are unable to solve the problems caused by anarchy. They do not have enough international recognition and autonomous power to impose rules on states and order on the international scene. [...]
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