Changes

So can the international environment be remade?  If it were to be re-made, how might that happen.  Does complete globalization make sense?  Can states ever successfully integrate?  These are all great questions that are brought up for discussion this week.  Personally, I think that global cooperation is a good idea, but complete globalization does not seem to me to be plausible.  Some international organizations are able to function well within the parameters that they are defined, but if any international organization were to be totally effective, they would need to be able to use coercive force.  Or at least have some kind of coercion they could use in order to get states to do things when the states really don't want to do them.  The international stage is constantly changing as states gain and lose power, but a major restructuring of the international environment itself seems unlikely without some kind of outside catastrophe being the catalyst of such dramatic change. 

In thinking about international institutions, a part of the literature seems to sum them up perfectly.  In the Koremenos, Lipson and Snidal article, they state the presumption that states construct and shape institutions to advance their goal.  I think this presumption is correct because no state will willingly give an international institution more power than the state itself perceives that it wields.  And if the institution is perceived to be less beneficial to a state, they simply will not join it.  The incentives HAVE to outweigh the cost.  I think we see this not only in the international realm, but also in our personal lives.  I'm slowly coming around to the Hobbesian idea that the international stage is one of anarchy and each state trying to advance it's own interests (or at least the interests of those in power).  I still disagree with his view of the "natural" state of man, because I think it's very simplistic, but when taking his views and expanding them to countries, it makes sense.