Anarchy and the limits of cooperation: a realist critique of the newest liberal institutionalism
1988/01/01 by Joseph M. Grieco · 1,637 citations
Social Sciences · #Argument (complex analysis) #Economics #Epistemology #Institutionalism #International Relations and Foreign Policy #Law #Law and economics #Liberalism #Neoclassical economics #New institutionalism #Philosophy #Political Philosophy and Ethics #Political science #Politics #Proposition #Realism #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1017/s0020818300027715
published in International Organization 42(3), 485-507 (University of Cambridge)
openalex publication_date 1988/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Abstract
The newest liberal institutionalism asserts that, although it accepts a major realist proposition that international anarchy impedes cooperation among states, it can nevertheless affirm the central tenets of the liberal institutionalist tradition that states can achieve cooperation and that international institutions can help them work together. However, this essay's principal argument is that neoliberal institutionalism misconstrues the realist analysis of international anarchy and therefore it misunderstands realism's analysis of the inhibiting effects of anarchy on the willingness of states to cooperate. This essay highlights the profound divergences between realism and the newest liberal institutionalism. It also argues that the former is likely to be proven analytically superior to the latter.
Citations
Cited by
- Anarchy and identity
- Relative Gains in the Shadow of a Trade War
- Managing domestic differences in international negotiations: the strategic use of internal side-payments
- Whose trade follows the flag? Institutional constraints and economic responses to bilateral relations
- Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach
- What’s Fair in International Politics? Equity, Equality, and Foreign Policy Attitudes
- Great-Power Cooperation under Conditions of Limited Reciprocity: From Empirical to Formal Analysis
- Uncertain about Uncertainty: Understanding the Multiple Meanings of a Crucial Concept in International Relations Theory
- International Relations and the Psychology of Time Horizons1
- Win-Win Deescalation
- The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise
- States in Mind: Evolution, Coalitional Psychology, and International Politics
- Bandwagoning for Profit: Bringing the Revisionist State Back In
- Neorealism's status‐quo bias: What security dilemma?
- Soft Balancing against the United States
- The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The Coming End of the United States' Unipolar Moment
- Defying Beijing: Societal Resistance to the Belt and Road in Myanmar
- Entre a teoria e a história: a política comercial dos Estados Unidos na década de 1980
- The Inscrutable Intentions of Great Powers
- Relative Gains and the Pattern of International Cooperation
- The Relative-Gains Problem for International Cooperation
- Global Monetary Order and the Liberal Order Debate
- The Gilded Wage: Profit-Sharing Institutions and the Political Economy of Trade
- Death of international organizations. The organizational ecology of intergovernmental organizations, 1815–2015
- The Rationality of Rational Choice Theory
- Institutions and Cooperation: Sanctions during the Falkland Islands Conflict
- México y Hungría: Relaciones Políticas, Diplomáticas, Económicas y Culturales
- Worldviews in Foreign Policy: Realism, Liberalism, and External Conflict
- Candidate gender quotas: A framework for analysis
- Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Persistence of American Postwar Order
- Liberalism
- Opposites Do Not Attract: The Impact of Domestic Institutions, Power, and Prior Commitments on Alignment Choices
- The new international tax regime: analysis from a power-basis perspective. [europepmc]
Related