Changing structures: Outside in

Stephen D. Krasner1

Department of Political Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6044

Edited by Avinash K. Dixit, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved June 2, 2011 (received for review January 6, 2011) In explaining the development of institutional structures within tions that made it possible for the state to make credible com- states, social science analysis has focused on autochthonous factors mitments to creditors (5). and paid less attention to the way in which external factors, However, neither international relations scholars nor com- especially purposive agent-directed as opposed to more general parativists paid systematic attention to the possibility that external environmental factors, can influence domestic authority structures. actors might consciously attempt to alter the domestic institutional For international relations scholarship, this lacunae is particularly structures of other states. Hobbes’s legacy, reflected in Weber’s troubling or perhaps, just weird. If the international system is definition of the state, has weighed heavily. Our intellectual tra- anarchical, then political leaders can pursue any policy option. In ditions have blinded us to the fact that states might not be auton- some cases, the most attractive option would be conventional omous; their domestic authority structures might be determined state to state interactions, diplomacy, or war. In other instances, not just by autochthonous factors and international environmental however, changing the domestic authority structures of other pressures but also by conscious decisions made by policy makers in states might be more appealing. In some cases, domestic authority other states or more obliquely, social processes that reflect the structures have been influenced through bargaining, and in others values, norms, preferences, and interests of the more powerful. through power. Power may reflect either explicit agent-oriented For international relations scholarship, this lacunae is partic- decisions or social processes that reflect the practices, values, and ularly troubling or perhaps, just weird. If the international system norms of more powerful entities. is anarchical, then political leaders can pursue any policy option (6). In some cases, the most attractive option would be conven- | state building | governance | intervention tional state to state interactions, diplomacy, or war. In other instances, however, changing the domestic authority structures of n 1978, Peter Gourevitch published an article called the “The other states might be more appealing. Although much of the Isecond image reversed: The international sources of domestic focus of scholarship during the Cold War was on relations be- politics” (1). The reference was to Kenneth Waltz’s division of tween the Soviet Union and the United States, many of the ini- international relations theories into first, second, and third tiatives that these two states pursued, including all of the overt images, where the first image referred to individual or psycho- interventions by both countries, were designed to alter the do- logical explanations for war and foreign policy, the second image mestic authority structures of other states. Hungary, Czechoslo- referred to the impact of domestic factors, and the third image vakia, Afghanistan, Korea, and Vietnam, as well as many covert referred to systemic conditions (2). Gourevitch (1) argued that actions, were about promoting or capitalism in target causality did not flow in one direction. The second image could be countries and changing their domestic authority structures. For realism, there is a logical contradiction between the ontological reversed; external factors could influence institutions and politics assumptions of autonomous states and . If there is anar- within states [Waltz (3) himself recognized that the international chy, then some states may not be autonomous (i.e., their authority environment could impact on the character of states through structures may be influenced or controlled by other states). The selection and imitation]. Soviet satellites during the Cold War are one obvious example. During the Cold War and its immediate aftermath, the insight In the last decade, a body of literature has developed that is of Gourevitch (1) languished. The third image, international more attentive to the ways in which external factors, especially interactions, dominated international relations scholarship dur- conscious decisions by leaders in other states, can influence do- ing the Cold War and its immediate aftermath, whether in realist mestic authority structures. At least in part, this attention reflects or neoliberal institutionalist guises. International relations schol- contemporary political challenges. Relations among the world’s ars focused on the bipolar relationship between the United States major powers, their state to state interactions, are more benign and the Soviet Union or after 1990, the problems of market than they have ever been. Why this is so has been contested— failure that could be resolved by international institutions that growing democratization, nuclear weapons, changing interna- were created by agreements among states. tional norms, especially in the North Atlantic community—but Although comparativists were more attentive to the ways in it is uncontestable that it is this way. The major threats to in- which external factors could influence domestic structures, they ternational peace and security now come from badly or malignly emphasized general environmental conditions rather than specific governed states or transnational actors with limited resources initiatives taken by leaders in other states. The three main ways of rather than from those states with the most formidable capacity. understanding political development—modernization theory, in- Foreign policy now often aims not so much at balancing against stitutional capacity, and rational choice institutionalism—all took another power (although the American military is certainly doing account of the international or transnational environment. For this balancing with regard to China) or cutting deals that can modernization theory, transnational technological change was the uncaused cause that accounted for social mobilization and in- dustrialization, developments that led to the creation of a large This paper results from the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences, “Dynamics of Social, Political, and Economic Institutions,” held December 3–4, middle class with values that were conducive to democratic de- 2010, at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences velopment. For institutional capacity, the famous aphorism by and Engineering in Irvine, CA. The complete program and audio files of most presenta- Tilly (4) war makes the state and the state makes war, pointed to tions are available on the NAS Web site at www.nasonline.org/Sackler_Dynamics. the way in which foreign threat prompted the creation of stronger Author contributions: S.D.K. wrote the paper. state institutions. For some versions of rational choice institu- The author declares no conflict of interest. tionalism, external threat was one important driver of the state’s This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. need for more capital, a need that led to self-enforcing institu- 1E-mail: [email protected].

21302–21307 | PNAS | December 27, 2011 | vol. 108 | suppl. 4 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1100244108 Downloaded by guest on September 25, 2021 move parties to the Pareto frontier but rather, at trying to the Table 1. Taxonomy of power alter domestic authority structures in target states. Relational specificity This work makes it clear that states cannot be treated as hard shells whose domestic structures are unaffected by external fac- Power works through Direct Diffuse tors. The external environment does not operate just through fi incentives, economic or military, that prompt political leaders to Interactions of speci c actors Compulsory Institutional alter policies or authority structures. External factors may also Social relations of constitution Structural Productive operate through bargaining or power. In the case of bargaining, From the discussion in ref. 7. national actors might seize on opportunities in the external envi- ronment that allow them to restructure their own domestic po- litical institutions, including giving up autonomy or control over ments create institutions that overcome market failure problems. some policy domains: political leaders use their international legal Most of these deals involve specific policies. States, for instance, sovereignty, their right to enter into contracts, to compromise join military alliances or trade agreements in which they promise to their Westphalian/Vattelian sovereignty, the autonomy of their follow policies contingent on other signatories doing the same. domestic institutions. Power involves situations in which the au- Some agreements, however, involve not just policies but also do- tonomy of a polity is violated through either the conscious policies mestic authority structure. Although benefits might be far from of external actors or the social processes that weaker states cannot equal, no state can be worse off as a result of such voluntary resist. State development, the character of institutional structures arrangements; otherwise, it would not enter into the agreement in within states, is not an autochthonous process. the first place. Contracting that has altered state authority structures has Modalities of Contracting and Power taken a variety of forms. These modalities, arranged from the In an article published in 2005, Barnett and Duvall (7) suggest least to the most intrusive, have included: that power can be distinguished along two dimensions. The first fi Joining international organizations to reinforce particular do- dimension is relational speci city, which can be either direct or mestic authority structures. “ fi diffuse. The second dimension contrasts interactions of speci c Contracting with other states for the provision of core state ” “ ” actors and social relations of constitution (ref. 7, p. 48). The functions such as security. × discussion yields a 2 2 table (Table 1). Creating supranational institutions that have supremacy over Compulsory power involves the direct control of one actor over national authority structures. the existence or behavior of another actor. Institutional power is exercised through institutions that reflect the preferences of more Reinforcing domestic institutions. Voluntary agreements involving powerful actors. These two categories track to the familiar actor- external actors or international organizations can be used to re- oriented logic of most political science analyses. Structural power inforce domestic institutional arrangements. Moravcsik (9) has involves constitutive relations in which one more powerful actor pointed out that Germany was the most enthusiastic supporter of constitutes the identity, preferences, and capabilities of the other the European Convention on Human Rights, which was drafted in actor. Master and slave is the classic example. Productive rela- 1950. This fact, Moravcsik (9) argues, was not because human tions involve the constitution of identities and capacities through rights were deeply embedded in the German polity but just the diffuse social discourse (ref. 7, pp. 48–57). This taxonomy is not opposite. The leaders of the new Federal strongly meant to be mutually exclusive: different kinds of power may be backed the European human rights regime, because they wanted involved in any particular transaction. to lock in the new structures that had been put in place in Ger- Power, even as expansively conceived in the taxonomy of many, structures that were partly the result of the Allied occu- Barnett and Duvall (7), is not the only way in which institutions pation. The level of domestic support for these new institutions can be changed from the outside in. External actors can also in- was uncertain (9). fluence domestic policies and structures through processes of Simmons and Danner (10) have argued that the International collective choice in which agreement is reached through voluntary Criminal Court (ICC) can serve as a commitment mechanism that agreements or contracting. Hence, a conceptual mapping of the can help to resolve civil conflicts in countries with weak domestic way in which the external environment has influenced domestic accountability mechanisms. Joining the ICC involves a loss of authority structures and domestic politics can begin with five sovereign prerogatives. The Rome Statute creating the Court categories. denies sovereign protection to heads of state. The ICC Prosecutor can initiate action against individuals in a member state without i) Voluntary contracting that alters domestic policies or au- the permission of that state. The state cannot pick and choose thority structures. over which issues the Court might have jurisdiction. The kinds of ii) Compulsory power, which can involve either direct coercion countries that have been most likely to join the court, Simmons or coercive bargaining (the ability of an actor with go it and Danner find (10), are principled, highly accountable peaceful alone power to alter the opportunity set facing weaker play- states and violent states that have weak domestic accountability ers) (8). structures. For the former, there is no cost to joining the ICC. iii) Institutional power in which more powerful states set the Their citizens will never be prosecuted: the Court must operate rules of the game by which other actors must play. according to the principle of complementarity; it must defer to iv) Constitutive power in which more powerful actors establish national courts if those courts are functioning effectively. For the the basic character—the capabilities and identities—of units latter, the ICC can serve as a commitment mechanism for a po- that operate in the international system. litical leader that wants to end civil strife. Joining is a signal that v) Productive power in which discourse alters the identities and the intends to constrain the level of violence, because capabilities of actors. if it fails to do so, its leaders would be subject to prosecution by the Court. By raising the ex post cost of defection, political Bargaining and Contracting. Liberal institutionalist arguments leaders can send a costly signal to their own followers and their about collective choice dominate contemporary analyses of in- adversaries that they do intend to terminate hostilities. Simmons ternational politics. States enter into agreements that allow them and Danner (10) find that accountable that have to move toward the Pareto frontier. In some cases, these agree- experienced civil wars are much less likely to join the Court. Their

Krasner PNAS | December 27, 2011 | vol. 108 | suppl. 4 | 21303 Downloaded by guest on September 25, 2021 own domestic institutions provide them with the opportunity to the Solomon Islands saw that they were about to lose power. They make credible commitments without sacrificing the sovereign asked Australia and other Pacific countries for assistance. Acting prerogatives that membership in the ICC entails. Thus, counter- under a Chapter VI United Nations resolution, legislation passed intuitively, governments in violent states with weak institutions by the Solomon Islands, and the endorsement of the Pacific Islands join the ICC to lessen the likelihood that domestic institutions Forum, a consortium of states led by Australia, took control of key will crumble completely (10). financial activities, including the auditor general’soffice and parts Pevehouse (11) has found that democratic consolidation more of the police and judicial systems. Australia sent 2,000 troops to generally can be facilitated by membership in international the Solomon Islands to restore order. The Participating Police organizations. Political leaders in newly democratizing states Force can act without approval from the Islands’ authorities. have credibility problems. They may not be able to convince their Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands personnel are constituents that they are committed to democratic institutions: exempt from civil and criminal law while performing their duties. new institutions may be weak, and populist or other temptations The cost for Australia has been substantial, about $200 million/y to defect may be all too apparent. Membership in international (15, 16). The leaders of the Solomon Islands would have preferred organizations can ameliorate commitment problems by raising the status quo ante in which they were able to govern (or exploit) the cost of defection. International organizations create lock in without ceding authority to external actors. However, after the by providing information, increasing the cost of violating prop- government’s de facto control crumbled, sharing sovereignty was erty rights, credibly threatening sanctions against military coups, thenextbestoutcome. and creating a reputational cost for withdrawal. Mansfield and Supranational institutions. The European Union (EU) is the most Pevehouse (12) find that democratizing states are more likely to dramatic example in the contemporary international environment join international organizations, especially those states whose of the use of voluntary contracting to alter domestic authority members are democratic, than other states (11, 12). structures. The member states of the EU have used their in- Some preferential trade agreements provide for international ternational legal sovereignty, their right to enter into treaties, to arbitration of disputes or have been designed to create or strengthen compromise their Westphalian/Vattelian sovereignty by creating particular institutional structures in partner countries, not simply to supranational institutions and subjecting themselves to qualified reduce trade barriers. The trade and investment treaties signed majority voting. The rulings of the European Court of Justice have between the United States and Europe on the one hand and de- supremacy and direct effect in the courts of the member states. veloping countries on the other hand have usually included provi- For those countries in the Euro zone, the European Central Bank sions for institutional reform. Developing countries sign not just sets monetary policy. The members of the EU take many deci- because they want access to American or European markets but sions by qualified majority voting, a practice inconsistent with the also because the agreements serve as a commitment mechanism. conventional notion of sovereignty. Candidate states must accept Changes in domestic laws or regulations alone may not be very literally tens of thousands of acquis before they become members, convincing for potential foreign investors, because such actions can not that these acquis are all necessarily honored. be reversed. Changes instituted as a result of preferential trade In sum, state structures can be strengthened or created from the agreements are more likely to be enduring, because if the signatory outside in through voluntary agreements in which states alter their country reneges, it would also lose export markets (13). own domestic authority structures through agreements with ex- Contracting with other states or official international entities for the ternal actors. In some cases, these agreements have had a conse- provision of core state functions. In Hierarchy in International Rela- quential impact, such as using external providers for the delivery of tions, Lake (14) argues that hierarchical bargaining and contract- public services. In other cases they have even more deeply in- ing is a common feature of the international system, a phenomenon truded into domestic authority structures, with the EU being the that has been largely ignored because of the hold that legal con- most dramatic example. cepts of sovereignty have had on international relations scholars (ref. 14, pp. 45–51). Lake (14) points to a number of examples Power. Domestic authority structures have been changed not just in which states have delegated, through contracting, core state through voluntary agreements but also through power. Following functions. The dominant state provides public goods for the sub- Barnett and Duvall (7), power can take several different forms: ordinate state. The subordinate state, in turn, makes commit- compulsory, institutional, structural, and productive. ments with regard to not only policies, such as bandwagoning with Compulsory power. The clearest instances of power involve the use rather than balancing against the dominant power, but also au- of military force and occupation, which is one example of what thority structures. The most dramatic examples are cases where Barnett and Duvall (7) call compulsory power. Compulsory states have entirely contracted out the provision of international power has been used, with some frequency, to not just defeat security. In the 19th century, these entities would have been other states in war, sometimes seizing some of their territory, but termed . In the contemporary environment, states also to change domestic authority structures. The transformation that rely on others for the provision of their external security enjoy of Germany and Japan after the Second World War were not full international legal sovereignty and recognition. Examples isolated cases. Between 1555 and 2000, Owen (17) has identified include The Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of 198 cases of what he calls “forcible domestic institutional pro- the Marshall Islands, which have formally contracted with the motion.” States that do intervene with others do so repeatedly. United States for the provision of security (ref. 14, chapter 3). They promote institutions that are similar to their own institu- When contracts are with other official entities, states, or per- tions in other countries. The targets of intervention, Owen (17) manent or ad hoc international organizations, such treaties may argues, have been strategically important but unstable states. involve full delegation or partial delegation. Full delegation Interventions have occurred most frequently when the in- involves arrangements in which the external actor exercises state ternational environment has been characterized by high in- functions such as policing and is exempt from domestic law. In security and deep transnational ideological divisions. Owen (17) partial delegation, external actors are directed by both their home identifies the Reformation and Counter-Reformation from 1550 and host countries; they are not exempt from national law (15). to 1648, the French Revolution and the conservative reaction The Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands offers from 1789 to 1849, and the 20th century from 1917 to 1991 as the an example of voluntary contracting of core government functions three periods during which the rate of intervention was highest. with full delegation. In 2003, the Solomon Islands government was For the United States, Lake (14) has identified 22 instances of on the verge of collapse. Gangs had seized weapons from armories militarized disputes between 1900 and 2009 in which the objective in the capital and even robbed the treasury. The political leaders in was to change the regime or government of the target state.

21304 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1100244108 Krasner Downloaded by guest on September 25, 2021 Peceny (18), using a different dataset, identifies 33 interventions The relationship of the government of Liberia with foreign for the period 1898–1996 where the United States explicitly pro- donors after the end of the civil war in 2003 offers an example of go moted democratization. A majority of these interventions oc- it alone power involving external control of domestic authority curred in the Caribbean littoral. Before the Second World War, structures. In 2005, the government of Liberia signed a contract the most important motivation for American interventions was with the International Contact Group of Liberia, whose members anxiety about European involvement in bankrupt states close to included the European Union (EU), the African Union (AU), the the American border. After the Second World War, the most Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the important motivation for American action was the fear that a state United Nations, the United States, and the World Bank, to create would leave the informal American and ally with the the Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program Soviet Union (14, 18). In most instances, the push for democ- (GEMAP). GEMAP gave outside experts cosigning authority in ratization came from the president, especially, Peceny (18) argues, key government ministries and state-owned enterprises, provided if the international environment was relatively benign, American for the creation of an Anti-Corruption Commission, gave customs leverage was high, and conditions in the target state were prom- collection to an external contractor, and placed an international ising. If the president did not initially identify democratization as administrator as head of the Central Bank. A World Bank and a target, he might succumb to pressure from Congress to maintain United Nations study concluded that “GEMAP stands out in terms a supportive domestic coalition (ref. 18, p. 4). Consistent with of the scope and intrusiveness of multilateral international en- the finding of Owen (17), ideology can motivate the specific goals gagement in public finance management in a sovereign country. It of intervention, especially the desire to make the domestic au- targets the collection of revenues and the management of expen- thority structures in target states look more like the structures of diture but also addresses government procurement and concessions the intervener. practices, judicial processes, transparency and accountability of Foreign imposed regime changes can be consequential, al- key government institutions and state-owned enterprises, and though not always in the way that the intervener intended. Efforts local capacity-building” (ref. 23, p. 17). to create stable democratic regimes through foreign intervention GEMAP was created as a result of initiatives taken by external have been challenging. donors who feared that government corruption was so extensive Interveners do not always have an incentive to create such and deep that it would destroy the peace-building process that had regimes regardless of their rhetoric, because they have less le- begun in 2003. Government officials in Liberia would have pre- verage over a truly democratically elected leadership (19). Ex- ferred the status quo, which allowed them ample opportunity to ternal actors may have limited ability to create the array of pilfer. Foreign donors—the International Monetary Fund, World nonstate structures—free press and civil society organizations— Bank, EC, and the United States—however, took the status quo that underpin full-fledged liberal . Empirically, the off the table. They threatened to withdraw aid if Liberian officials number of cases in which democratization has been associated refused to sign the agreement and impose a travel ban on the head with external coercive intervention is small. For military inter- of the government, threats that were credible because the donors ventions occurring between 1946 and 1996, one study identified were better off not giving aid at all than giving aid, much of which five cases of United Nations intervention associated with de- was being stolen (ref. 23, pp. 11–13 and 20). mocratization and three cases of United States intervention as- Institutional power. Domestic authority structures can also be sociated with democratization (20). influenced by institutional power, situations where power is ex- There is evidence that foreign imposed regime change can ercised by agents but through institutions rather than directly. reduce the likelihood of a recurrence of international conflict. These institutions reflect the preferences of those agents with Changing militaristic leaders, breaking up industrial cartels, re- greater capacity. The institutions, however, are not epiphenome- writing educational curricula, supporting domestic leaders with nal. More powerful states cannot change rules at will. The trans- desirable preferences, insisting on constitutional change, limiting actions costs for renegotiating rules can be high. Institutions are, in the size of the military, and in some cases, imposing democratic the first instance, the result of compromise among relevant parties. institutions can alter both the institutions and preferences of The transition from the General Agreement on Tariffs and political leaders in target states (21). The individuals and insti- Trade (GATT) to the World Trade Organization (WTO) offers tutions that supported belligerent activity can be eliminated. At an example of institutional power. The problem confronting de- the same time, foreign-imposed regime change seems to make veloping countries with regard to the renegotiation of the in- civil wars more likely. The common underlying cause may be that ternational trade regime in the 1990s is an exemplary case of war and the imposition of a new regime weaken the state’s Gruber’s (8) go it alone power, here exercised through institu- infrastructural power or domestic sovereignty and its ability to tions. Under GATT, developing countries could pick and choose extract resources and regulate domestic activity, making it more among obligations. With the WTO, they were offered an all or difficult to confront foreign opponents but at the same time, more nothing deal. All countries joining the WTO had to accept not likely that domestic dissidents can challenge the regime (22). only the GATT, which was related to trade in goods, but also Efforts to alter regime characteristic through compulsory about 60 other WTO agreements. There was no opportunity for power can involve coercive bargaining and not just the use of opting out of specific agreements. The most important WTO force. Coercive bargaining occurs when a state or group of states agreements aside from the GATT are the Agreement on Agri- has go it alone power, the ability to take the status quo off the culture, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), table to leave other actors with a newly constrained opportunity the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Prop- set. These other actors would have preferred the status quo ante, erty Rights (TRIPS), the Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Measures but it is no longer available. They may then enter into a voluntary Agreement, and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. If agreement. This agreement leaves them worse off than they were there had been an opt out provision, development countries initially but better off than they would be without an agreement. would have rejected some of these agreements. The GATS and In conventional bargaining, even when the payoffs are asym- the agreement related to intellectual property rights were par- metrical, all actors move to the Pareto frontier, although some ticularly problematic. Few developing countries have service may move more than others. With coercive bargaining, some sectors that can compete internationally. Joining the GATS actors are worse off than they were in the status quo ante. The makes any equivalent of infant industry protection more chal- ability to take the status quo off the table and thereby, constrain lenging. This problem might, of course, be beneficial for the the possibilities that are open to other actors can be understood consumers of services but would not be welcomed by nascent as a form of compulsory power (8). service industries and their political allies. In intellectual property

Krasner PNAS | December 27, 2011 | vol. 108 | suppl. 4 | 21305 Downloaded by guest on September 25, 2021 rights, the interests of industrialized and developing states are at burdens on the imperial treasury), because external relations le- odds. Developing countries would prefer weaker intellectual gitimated the internal position of the emperor (24–26). property rights; the generators of intellectual property stronger The sovereign state system, which originated in Europe, and the rights. TRIPS reflects the preferences of those countries that East Asian Confucian system had different norms and rules for generate intellectual property. TRIPS coverage is extensive, in- governing external relations: formal equality for the West and cluding copyright for computer code, cinematographic work, and hierarchy for the East, independent states for the West and trib- performances, trademarks, geographical indicators, with special utary states and an imperial center for the East, and embassies provisions for wines and spirits, and industrial designs. Patents and ambassadors for the West and missions without per- must be issued for at least 20 y, although there are exceptions for manent representation for the East. Although there had been public order, morality, and medical procedures. TRIPS requires ongoing contact between and Europe since the 16th that signatories treat foreign and national entities in the same way. century, these two cultures only began to clash in a sustained way These arrangements are not arrangements that the developing during the 19th century when the West had accumulated enough countries would have accepted had the status quo ante, the right military and economic power to challenge China. The outcome of to sign up to each agreement individually as opposed to the all of this clash was the end of the Sinocentric system. nothing option of the WTO, still been available. By the beginning of the 20th century, the political entities in Structural power. For most American students of international east Asia had come to resemble those entities in other parts of politics, structural power is a more elusive concept than compul- a world system that were dominated by the West. China’s tributary sory or institutional power, both of which operate through iden- states had become of the European powers or Japan; by tified agents. Structural power refers to the mutual constitution of 1960, they would be independent states. Japan, after the Meiji actors, which occurs sometimes in a symmetrical relationship but restoration, had embraced Western institutional forms both in- more often in a hierarchical one. Actor constitution involves in- ternally and externally to prevent subjugation. China itself had stantiating capacities, interests, and self-understanding. Rather become an international legal sovereign with embassies, ambas- than the constraints that might be imposed by compulsory or in- sadors, and international treaties, all institutional forms totally stitutional power, structural power is enabling. It makes it possible alien to the traditional Sinocentric world. for social entities to act in specific, albeit it sometimes limiting, China’s conception of its own interests has been transformed. ways. Slaves have a defined but constrained role (ref. 7, p. 53). In 1793 the court of the Emperor Qian Long was obsessed with The most important example of structural power in the in- whether the British emissary, Macartney, would follow estab- ternational system is the universal embrace of sovereign statehood lished ritual practices. Macartney wanted to describe the goods as the only legitimate form of political organization. Although that he was bringing as gifts; the Chinese wanted to describe them sovereignty has always been characterized by organized hypocrisy— as tribute. The Chinese wanted Macartney to kowtow to the this essay shows that nonintervention, the basic rule of West- Emperor. The Chinese records claim that Macartney did kow- phalian/Vattelian sovereignty, has frequently been violated— tow; Macartney claimed that he did not, bowing to the Emperor there is no accepted alternative to sovereignty (ref. 6, p. 99). The as he would to the British king. The Emperor rejected British many different political forms that were recognized before the requests for a permanent embassy in Beijing and described the 20th century—, tributary states, protectorates, domin- idea of Chinese representatives in Europe as “utterly impracti- ions, colonies, and tribes—no longer have formal standing in the cal” (27, 28). international system. All states are recognized as being equal. Today, China is the staunchest major power defender of the Ultimate formal juridical authority rests with the state even if the conventional rules of sovereignty. China has made nonin- de facto authority of nonstate actors is more significant. Protec- tervention in the internal affairs of other states one of the cor- torates such as the Marshall Islands exist in fact but not in name. nerstones of its international diplomacy. It has been more Unlike classic empires with variegated authority claims over reluctant than any other state, perhaps save Russia, to support sometimes ill-defined territory, all states have either well-defined UN resolutions authorizing the use of force. boundaries or well-defined territorial disputes (the islands in the The spread of the sovereign state system over the last two South China Sea or the Durand Line between Pakistan and centuries is a compelling example of structural power. A set of Afghanistan) and formally claim the exclusive authority to regu- practices that had evolved in the West over several hundred years late activities within these borders. has been globally embraced even in places where it is far from The universal embrace of sovereignty is a manifestation of the clear that sovereignty offers the most stable or effective form of triumph of the West—Europe and North America—over other governance. areas of the world. East Asia offers a particularly clear example of Productive power. Productive power constitutes actors, their inter- a collision of civilizations that ended with the disappearance of ests, capacities, and self-understanding through indirect and a political order that had existed for millennia. The Sinocentric networked discourse. These discourses make certain kinds of world, which the West encountered at the beginning of the 19th actions and behavior acceptable and others almost unthinkable. century, was radically different from the sovereign state system “In general,” Barnett and Duvall (7) argue, “the bases and that had been evolving in Europe over several centuries. The workings of productive power are the socially existing and, hence, Chinese centered system was based on hierarchy rather than historically contingent and changing understandings, meanings, formal state equality. China was not one political entity among norms, customs, and social identities that make possible, limit, many entities; it was the apex of civilization. Other polities were and are drawn on for action” (ref. 7, p. 56). tributary states, offering symbolic obeisance and material tribute One body of literature that shows how productive power can to the emperor. Relations among political entities within the reverse the second image (how the global environment can alter Sinocentric world were governed by customs, rules, and rituals domestic authority structures) is world polity institutionalism. and not by agreements among equals. Tributary states had to World polity institutionalism holds that states are embedded in adopt the Chinese calendar and send tribute missions to China at a global network that defines proper state identity. International regular intervals. Aside from tributary payments and associated organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, and commercial transactions, the tributary system also provided for professional organizations propagate concepts of appropriate state the investiture of the tributary state ruler by representatives of the organization and behavior. For many functions, all states claim to emperor. Such ceremonies legitimated the local ruler. From the do more or less the same thing. States want to be modern, and in Han to the Qing dynasties, for 1,500 y, China encouraged these the contemporary world polity modernity is associated with a spe- tributary relationships (although they often imposed financial cific set of activities. There is surprising uniformity in the way in

21306 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1100244108 Krasner Downloaded by guest on September 25, 2021 which states are organized. Virtually every state has an education . There is also some evidence that the professional military ministry, a health ministry, and a national science foundation (even training programs conducted by the United States make partic- states with no scientists) (29). Virtually all states have mandates for ipants not only more sympathetic to democratic values but also social safety nets and minimal levels of education. The network provide them with a new understanding of their role as pro- generates notions of appropriate state behavior through discourse. fessional military officers (ref. 12, p. 528 and ref. 32, p. 340). States that are more embedded in these networks are more likely to adopt generally accepted institutional forms (30, 31). Conclusion A global discourse led by international organizations, inter- Institutions are key elements of all human societies. Most of our national nongovernmental organizations, and national aid agencies approaches to understanding persistence and change in institu- has legitimated certain forms of state authority and delegitimized tions are based on voluntary choices, determined either by values others. States must have a ministry of health but not a ministry or material interests. The actors making these choices are them- of eugenics. States must have an army, a navy, and an air force selves subject to these institutions. In political science, more at- (sometimes even states like Bolivia with no seacoast), but they do tention has been given to the impact of coercion and power, but not necessarily have a heavily armed police force like the Italian attention to the impact of external actors on state structures has, carabinieri. The scope of authority appropriate for a modern state fi until the last decade or so, been modest. This conventional as- is de ned by a discourse that makes no distinctions among states. sumption of state autonomy is problematic. States may bargain The extent to which this discourse is accepted by a particular state over their domestic authority structures and not just policies. In depends on how much it is embedded in a network of global dis- addition, weaker states have been subject to compulsory, in- course: North Korea is hardly at all embedded, whereas South stitutional, structural, and productive power. Weaker states have Korea is deeply embedded. Productive power can also operate in regional and bilateral been at the receiving end of invasions, asymmetrical bargaining, contexts. The EU has offered potential members not only the pressure from international organizations, and global discourses fi dominated by entities from modern industrialized states. The very prospects of greater trade and investment, nancial assistance, and fi fl higher economic growth but also a different identity, a European fact that these weak states exist in the rst place re ects the identity that would be available to their citizens. The EU flag, structural power of the West, the extent to which sovereignty is the along with those of France and Germany, flies over the memorial only universally recognized way to organize political life (33). Lake “ at the Verdun battlefield where more than 300,000 soldiers died in (14) has argued that the assumption that sovereignty is indivisible 1916, a symbolic statement that would have been unimaginable in is not warranted. By preventing analysts from seeing hierarchy say the late 1930s or even the late 1940s. Even more specifically, between states, it actually has a pernicious effect on the study of engagement with other states can change the self conception of international relations” (ref. 14, p. 50). That effect is weakening. actors within a state, including the military. In Europe, NATO Four different ways of thinking about power—compulsory, in- membership not only required that the military be subject to ci- stitutional, structural, and productive—as well as bargaining offer vilian rule but also offered a model that helped to soften the re- a typology for classifying how external actors might influence do- sistance of militaries in some southern European states, notably mestic authority structures in target states.

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