Grieco, Joseph. "Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism". International Organization, Vol.42, No.3 (1988): 485-507.

Grieco, Joseph. "Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism". International Organization, Vol.42, No.3 (1988): 485-507.

• "For realists, international anarchy fosters competition and conflict among states and inhibits their willingness to cooperate even when they share common interests. Realist theory also argues that international institutions are unable to mitigate anarchy's constraining effects on inter-state cooperation" (485).
• Realism consists of five propositions: that states are the primary international actors, that states behave as unitary rational agents because the costs of not doing so are so high, the international relations is shaped by anarchy, that anarchy prioritizes security concerns, and that international institutions can only marginally affect cooperation (488).
• The main challenger of Realist theory has been Liberal Institutionalism, which claims that international institutions and organizations can help reduce the barriers between states and foster international cooperation. The iteration of Liberalism in the 1980s agrees with Realist conceptions of anarchy, but also holds that institutions can change inter-state dynamics (486).
• Liberalism challenges several main tenants of Realist IR theory, claiming that both states and international institutions are primary actors, that states are no longer unitary actors, that the nuclear age and the rise of legitimacy linked to welfare states have lessened the importance of security (489), and that international institutions could make major changes in the ability of states to cooperate (490).
• This is not, however, true of all forms of Liberalism in IR. The most recent form of Liberal Institutionalism accepts states as the sole actors in the international arena, and agrees that they are unitary and rational (492, 494).
• The Liberal school of International Relations [IR] theory claims that states are rational actors who seek to increase their own absolute gains, which can be best achieved through institutions. On the other hand, Realists argue that states care most about relative gains vis-a-vis other states (487, 497, 503).
• The author asserts that while Liberal Institutionalism can solve some barriers to cooperation by protecting states from being exploited by free-riders or cheaters, the solutions proposed by Liberalism cannot solve the issue of differences in relative gain between cooperating countries (487).
• The core issues of IR cannot be solved by international cooperation because ultimately states are not as concerned with their absolute gain, but about their relative gains. The primacy of relative gains exists because states are under constant potential threat and therefore care mostly about the strength of possible aggressors (498).
• Events of the 1970s appeared to disparage many of the tenants of Liberal IR theory, as during this time period foreign policy remained a purely national task, the rise of transnational corporations failed to lessen governmental power, and renewed conflict between the West and East, as well as elsewhere, demonstrated the continued importance of security (490-491).
• However, the continuation of international cooperation even in a climate of increased sectarianism between the West and the Soviet Union reinvigorated the arguments of many Liberal IR theorists (492).
• The benefits of international institutions, according the school of liberal institutionalism, is that they institutional and reward cooperative behavior between states by making interactions iterative, making cooperation easier logistically, and institutionalizing punishments for non-cooperative behavior (495).
• The issue that the Realist school of IR finds with Liberal Institutionalism is that international cooperation is still limited by concerns about relative gains which cannot be solved by institutions. States care more about preventing the relative success of others than about increasing their own absolute success, because those others may attack them in the future (499-500).
• The level to which states are concerned about relative gains will, however, vary based on unique circumstances. States within a security community of shared defense will express less apprehension about unequal gains with an ally than it would about that same gap with an antagonistic state (501).
• The schools of Realism and Liberalism differ in their assumptions about the likelihood of cooperation in a number of different circumstances (505).
•  Liberalism would contend that the longevity of agreements is a primary factor in determining the likelihood of cooperation, whereas Realists would cite the gap in relative gains as the primary determinate (505).
• A smaller number of partners in an agreement would make negotiations less complex and increase the effectiveness of institutional safeguards according to Liberalism, whereas Realism would contend that more partners in an agreement would be beneficial as it decreases the potential for unequal gains from the agreement (506).
• Liberalism would predict that cooperative behaviors with benefits in multiple areas, such as industrial gains which benefit the military, would experience high rates of cooperation because of large absolute gains. Realism, however, would predict low levels of cooperation because the threat of unequal gains is higher (506).