The impact of actor heterogeneity on the provision of international public goods

Abstract

The article formally analyses the conditions under which actor heterogeneity may have positive effects on the likelihood that international public goods will be provided, and when a hegemon chooses to act benevolently versus coercively toward the other actors. Within the theory of international cooperation the game‐theoretic model crucially rests on the key concepts of hegemonic stability theory. It illustrates with Nash equilibria the conditions under which a hegemon, which may act benevolently versus coercively, rationally chooses to give up the unilateral provision of international public goods under which followers rationally switch from free‐riding in their consumption of the public goods to taking part in leading. One implication of the model is that the emergence of joint economic leadership leads to multiple equilibria in the sense of allowing for multiple stable leadership constellations. The actors are in a mixed‐motive or coordination game where they have different preferences for the equilibria, and thus different preferences for which strategies to choose, and for who is to take part in covering the cost of the production of the public goods. This constellation gives rise to a second‐order conflict about which equilibrium to choose.