Do International Institutions Matter?

Abstract

Locating the Proper Authorities: The Interaction of Domestic and International Institutions. Edited by Daniel W. Drezner. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. 240 pp., $52.50 (ISBN: 0-472-11289-9). Within international relations, interest in the interplay between international and domestic politics dates from at least the 1960s and the development of “across-systems-theory” (Rosenau 1969; Wilkenfield 1973). However, it has only been in the past fifteen years that the field of international relations has placed any real emphasis on including domestic factors in its explanations of international behavior. In the past decade, for example, constructivists have advocated the importance of agents as well as structure in explaining politics, redirecting attention away from purely structural explanations of international politics and opening the door for the analysis of the interaction between the international system and substate actors (Koslowski and Kratochwil 1994; Kubalkova, Onuf, and Kowert 1998; Ruggie 1998). Foreign policy analysts, similarly, have asserted a need to account for both international and domestic politics when explaining the actions of decision makers (Holsti and Rosenau 1988; Karvonen and Sundelius 1990; Anderson, Hermann, and Hermann 1992; Carlsnaes 1992; Hagan 1994; Foyle 1997). To a large degree, this heightened interest in the interaction between domestic and international factors dates from the publication of Robert Putnam's (1988) article “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games.” Putnam argued that the outcomes of international negotiations are determined by decision makers' efforts to reconcile the competing political demands of the international arena and critical domestic constituents. Specifically, the ability to reach an agreement with another state is contingent on a leader's ability to craft a proposal that is not only acceptable to the opposing government but can also be ratified domestically. Although very simple in design, Putnam's model is powerful in that it provides a way to link activities at the international and domestic levels and to account for their interaction. Putnam's work inspired further research on the …