George W. Downs - Böcker

When most people, including social scientists, reflect on the ways that nations resolve their differences, they tend to think in terms of polar alternatives: war versus negotiation. This perspective ignores a third path: tacit bargaining, which is applicable, as this book shows, to a wide variety of international issues and is especially germane to the problem of treaty maintenance.

"Domestic politics matters" has become a rallying cry for international relations scholars over the past decade, yet the question still remains: Just how does it matter? In this book, George Downs and David Rocke argue that an important part of the international impact of domestic politics springs from the institutional responses to its many uncertainties. This impact is due not so much to the errors in judgment these uncertainties can cause as to the strategic and institutional consequences of knowing that such errors are possible. The heart of the book is its formal analysis of how three kinds of domestic uncertainty have shaped international relations through their influence on three very different institutions. One chapter deals with the decision rules that citizens create to cope with uncertainty about the quality of their representation, and how these can lead to the paradoxical "gambling for resurrection" effect. Another chapter describes the extent to which the weak enforcement provisions of GATT can be understood as a mechanism to cope with uncertain but intermittent interest group demands for protection.The third chapter looks at the impact of uncertainty on the creation, survival, and membership of multilateral regulatory institutions, such as the Montreal Protocol and EU, when some states question the capacity of other states to meet their treaty obligations.

Between Fragmentation and Democracy explores the phenomenon of the fragmentation of international law and global governance following the proliferation of international institutions with overlapping jurisdictions and ambiguous boundaries. The authors argue that this problem has the potential to sabotage the evolution of a more democratic and egalitarian system and identify the structural reasons for the failure of global institutions to protect the interests of politically weaker constituencies. This book offers a comprehensive understanding of how new global sources of democratic deficits increasingly deprive individuals and collectives of the capacity to protect their interests and shape their opportunities. It also considers the role of the courts in mitigating the effects of globalization and the struggle to define and redefine institutions and entitlements. This book is an important resource for scholars of international law and international politics, as well as for public lawyers, political scientists, and those interested in judicial reform.