Eliciting collaboration from “risky” states: The limits of conventional multilateralism in security affairs

Abstract

The emergence of an increasing number of states with a high conflict propensity constitutes a major challenge to international relations theory. While realist approaches dismiss the capacity of international governmental organisations to deal with risky states, liberal approaches largely focus on the successful multilateral management of peace. In this article, we examine how international institutions can counter the threats posed by risky states. Our analysis shows that current scholarship on multilateralism does not pay sufficient attention to the wider strategic context of international co-operation in security affairs. In particular, we argue that liberal approaches underestimate the ability of actors external to an institution to disrupt the collective attempts to elicit co-operation from risky states. The article offers a model-based typology of multilateral mechanisms and discusses the limits of current strategies from the viewpoint of non-co-operative game theory.