A Realist Reply

Abstract

The central question raised in False Promise is straightforward and widely recognized in the international relations literature: can international institutions prevent war by changing state behavior? Specifically, can institutions push states away from war by getting them to eschew balance-of-power logic, and to refrain from calculating each important move according to how it affects their relative power position? Realists answer no. They believe that institutions cannot get states to stop behaving as short-term power maximizers. For realists, institutions reflect state calculations of self-interest based primarily on concerns about relative power; as a result, institutional outcomes invariably reflect the balance of power. Institutions, realists maintain, do not have significant independent effects on state behavior. However, realists recognize that great powers sometimes find institutions-especially alliances-useful for maintaining or even increasing their share of world power. For example, it was more efficient for the United States and its allies to balance against the Soviets through NATO than through a less formal and more ad hoc alliance. But NATO did not force its member states to behave contrary to balance-of-power logic. Institutionalists answer yes. They believe that institutions can independently change state behavior. Institutions can cause peace, so the argument goes, by convincing states to reject power-maximizing behavior, and to accept outcomes that might weaken their relative power position. In short, the debate between the institutionalists and me is about whether institutions can have an independent effect on state behavior, or whether instead institutional outcomes