IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v38y1994i2p326-352.html

Multilateral Cooperation in an Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Pahre

    (University of Michigan)

Abstract

There is a remarkable consensus among scholars of international relations that bilateral cooperation is easier to achieve than multilateral cooperation. This essay proposes a formal model to show that this is incorrect, because a multilateral agreement may achieve what an equivalent series of bilateral agreements cannot. The author explores formally several different enforcement mechanisms, suggesting that the argument is robust. Throughout the essay, the author uses examples from the Marshall Plan to illustrate the logic of this result. The argument has implications for other substantive topics, such as most-favored-nation clauses in trade agreements, the theory of hegemonic stability, analysis of the European Economic Community, the politics of linkage, and the study of multilateralist norms.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Pahre, 1994. "Multilateral Cooperation in an Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 38(2), pages 326-352, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:38:y:1994:i:2:p:326-352
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002794038002007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002794038002007
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002794038002007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:kyklos:v:38:y:1985:i:3:p:348-64 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Hansen, John Mark, 1985. "The Political Economy of Group Membership," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(1), pages 79-96, March.
    3. Bureau, Dominique & Champsaur, Paul, 1992. "Fiscal Federalism and European Economic Unification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 88-92, May.
    4. repec:bla:econom:v:54:y:1987:i:213:p:1-19 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    6. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    7. Martin, Lisa L., 1992. "Interests, power, and multilateralism," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(4), pages 765-792, October.
    8. Winters, L Alan, 1990. "The Road to Uruguay," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(403), pages 1288-1303, December.
    9. Weingast, Barry R & Marshall, William J, 1988. "The Industrial Organization of Congress; or, Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(1), pages 132-163, February.
    10. Ruggie, John Gerard, 1972. "Collective Goods and Future International Collaboration," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(3), pages 874-893, September.
    11. Bulow, Jeremy & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1989. "A Constant Recontracting Model of Sovereign Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 155-178, February.
    12. Snidal, Duncan, 1985. "The limits of hegemonic stability theory," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 579-614, October.
    13. Ruggie, John Gerard, 1992. "Multilateralism: the anatomy of an institution," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 561-598, July.
    14. John Kennan & Raymond Riezman, 2013. "Optimal Tariff Equilibria with Customs Unions," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 5, pages 53-66, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    15. Kahler, Miles, 1992. "Multilateralism with small and large numbers," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 681-708, July.
    16. Drew Fudenberg & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem In Repeated Games With Discounting Or With Incomplete Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 11, pages 209-230, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Alan V. Deardorff & Robert M. Stern, 2009. "Multilateral Trade Negotiations and Preferential Trading Arrangements," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization And International Trade Policies, chapter 6, pages 153-210, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. repec:fth:michin:307 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Sebenius, James K., 1983. "Negotiation arithmetic: adding and subtracting issues and parties," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(2), pages 281-316, April.
    20. Weber, Steve, 1992. "Shaping the postwar balance of power: multilateralism in NATO," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 633-680, July.
    21. de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno, 1990. "Multilateral negotiations: a spatial analysis of the Arab–Israeli dispute," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(3), pages 317-340, July.
    22. Tollison, Robert D. & Willett, Thomas D., 1979. "An economic theory of mutually advantageous issue linkages in international negotiations," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(4), pages 425-449, October.
    23. Beth V. Yarbrough & Robert M. Yarbrough, 1985. "Free Trade, Hegemony, and the Theory of Agency," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 348-364, August.
    24. Caporaso, James A., 1992. "International relations theory and multilateralism: the search for foundations," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 599-632, July.
    25. Alt, James E. & Calvert, Randall L. & Humes, Brian D., 1988. "Reputation and Hegemonic Stability: A Game-Theoretic Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(2), pages 445-466, June.
    26. Bhagwati, Jagdish, 1990. "Departures from Multilateralism: Regionalism and Aggressive Unilateralism," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(403), pages 1304-1317, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lisa L. Martin, 1994. "4. Heterogeneity, Linkage and Commons Problems," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 6(4), pages 473-493, October.
    2. John Ravenhill, 2012. "The Numbers Game in Asia-Pacific Cooperation," Chapters, in: Christopher M. Dent & Jörn Dosch (ed.), The Asia-Pacific, Regionalism and the Global System, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Jones, Michael, 1995. "Bilateralism on balance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 37-56.
    4. Kroszner, Randall S & Stratmann, Thomas, 2005. "Corporate Campaign Contributions, Repeat Giving, and the Rewards to Legislator Reputation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 41-71, April.
    5. Susanne Lohmann, 1997. "Linkage Politics," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 41(1), pages 38-67, February.
    6. Dirk Schindler & Guttorm Schjelderup, 2006. "Company Tax Reform in Europe and its Effect on Collusive Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 1702, CESifo.
    7. Janvier D. Nkurunziza, 2005. "Reputation and Credit without Collateral in Africa`s Formal Banking," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2005-02, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    9. Thomas Kuhn & Radomir Pestow & Anja Zenker, 2018. "Endogenous Climate Coalitions and Free Trade - Building the Missing Link," Chemnitz Economic Papers 018, Department of Economics, Chemnitz University of Technology.
    10. Roland Vaubel, 1986. "A public choice approach to international organization," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 39-57, January.
    11. Eric Tremolada Álvarez, 2018. "La Cooperación Internacional como alternativa a los unilateralismos. colección Ius Cogens n.° 6," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, number 1037.
    12. Abdul Rahman, Nazira, 2014. "Multilateralism in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 232-238.
    13. Jacob D. Petersen-Perlman & Itay Fischhendler, 2018. "The weakness of the strong: re-examining power in transboundary water dynamics," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 275-294, April.
    14. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:47:y:2009:i::p:483-506 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Paul Poast, 2013. "Issue linkage and international cooperation: An empirical investigation," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(3), pages 286-303, July.
    16. Scharpf, Fritz W., 1991. "Koordination durch Verhandlungssysteme: Analytische Konzepte und institutionelle Lösungen am Beispiel der Zusammenarbeit zwischen zwei Bundesländern," MPIfG Discussion Paper 91/4, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    17. Phillip M. Hannam & Vítor V. Vasconcelos & Simon A. Levin & Jorge M. Pacheco, 2017. "Incomplete cooperation and co-benefits: deepening climate cooperation with a proliferation of small agreements," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 65-79, September.
    18. D. Fudenberg & D. K. Levine, 2017. "Whither game theory? Towards a theory oflearning in games," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 5.
    19. Lee Rivers Mobley, 1996. "Tacit collusion among hospitals in price competitive markets," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(3), pages 183-193, May.
    20. Ivaldi, Marc & Jullien, Bruno & Rey, Patrick & Seabright, Paul & Tirole, Jean, 2003. "The Economics of Tacit Collusion," IDEI Working Papers 186, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    21. Borgen, Svein Ole, 2004. "Rethinking incentive problems in cooperative organizations," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 383-393, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:38:y:1994:i:2:p:326-352. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.