Trusters Cooperate, Except When They Don't

Abstract

Trust in International Cooperation: International Security Institutions, Domestic Politics and American Multilateralism. By Brian C. Rathbun. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 253 pp., $95.00 hardback (ISBN-13: 978-1-107-01471-8). Brian Rathbun takes on the task of explaining why American planners opted for multilateral solutions to international security problems in the twentieth century. Although this is a subject that many have taken up before (Caporaso 1992; Ruggie 1993) and have even discussed in reference to American domestic politics (Burley 1993; Cowhey 1993), Rathbun proposes a new explanation that borrows from the social psychology literature on generalized trust. Rathbun argues “that multilateralism is the expression of trust. In the context of strategic interdependence, trust is belief that cooperation will be reciprocated” (p. 2), and generalized trust is “a broad belief that others are largely trustworthy” (p. 3). His goal is to “import fresh insights from another discipline to upend certain conventional wisdoms regarding international cooperation and organizations” (p. 5). Rathbun's key theme is that trust doesn't follow cooperation, as liberal institutionalists claim, but that cooperation follows trust . Rathbun is prompted by the unilateralism of the George W. Bush administration and what this might suggest for the future of American multilateralism. The quick take-away answer is that American commitment to multilateralism will come and go depending on who controls the White House. Voters who value international cooperation (and Rathbun actively assumes that reasonable people do) can rectify this by voting for candidates who have a disposition to or inclination for international cooperation (pp. 226–227), and social psychology tells us that liberal Democrats are so disposed and conservative Republicans are not. But before Rathbun goes there, he takes us back through the history of thwarted American efforts to construct and join the League of Nations and the more successful efforts to build the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). With its very first words, the preface sets a tone that some readers might have trouble overlooking: “This …