State Reputation as a Public GoodWilliam Phelan The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series from IIIS Abstract: A state’s concern for its reputation is widely considered the most powerful mechanism for inducing rational egoist states to comply with costly commitments. A state with a diversity of interests will accept costs on organised groups in the expectation of future benefits derived from a reputation for meeting its international commitments. Although the scope of the effectiveness of this argument has been qualified by subsequent scholarship, reputational incentives remain a central causal mechanism in institutionalist approaches to international relations. This paper introduces a new, more fundamental criticism: a state’s reputation for complying with international obligations is a public good so far as diverse politically influential domestic constituents are concerned: each constituent has an incentive not to accept costs towards the maintenance of a states’ overall reputation for fulfilling its obligations. We should therefore expect that states will not, in general, fulfil costly obligations out of respect for their reputation, unless gains from reputation can be reliably internalised in the form of private goods or where domestic politics provides reliable solutions to the relevant domestic collective action problems. New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp275 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series from IIIS |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
Swedish Business School at Örebro University.