Global Cooperation & You

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Exam!

One of the course take-aways:• Institutions matter…• The international arena partly depends on

domestic & international institutions.

• What is an institution?– A set of rules

(structures/constraints/mechanisms) that govern the behavior of a given set of actors in a given context.

– (An equilibrium)

What international institutions do

• Cooperation – especially coordinating actors on Pareto superior equilibria in prisoner-dilemma-esque situations

• Commitment

– Hands tying of present government (two level game) – change the payoffs for other veto players

– Hands tying of future governments – LOCK-IN!

– Hands tying of present governments – signaling resolve to foreign and/or domestic audiences

• Laundering / Dirty work

• (A 3rd-party source of information)

Goal: Replace proper nouns & dates with the names of variables!

• Political + Exchange-rate regime• Multi-party dictatorships• Age of democracy• # of checks and balances• Focal point• Precedent on trade policy• Domestic political constraints• Political importance (UNSC)• Alliance (voting at the UNGA)• Economic ties• Regional Organization Membership• Distribution of global economic power• population, GDP/capita, host-country,

Soviet/planned country

• International Institution (the IMF)• CAT membership (Vreeland)• ECHR membership (Moravcsik)• Slow, steady success of EU• International reserve currency (McNamara)

• Choosing NAFTA or WTO (Busch)• China’s internat’l negotiat’n posture (Weiss)

• IMF/WB loans (Dreher et al.)• ADB loans (ADB – Kilby)• Conditionality (Lipscy)• Democracy (Pevehouse)• Global governance• Olympic medals!

Take-home analytical tools from the course

• Time-inconsistent preference problem / Shadow of the future / Commitment problem

• Prisoner’s dilemma / Collective action problem / Free rider problem

• Coordination games• Repeated games• Principal-agent problem• Equilibrium (Nash)• Factors & sectors• Broad & shallow v. narrow & deep

organizations• Veto players • Domestic sources of International

Relations (2-level games)• Audience costs• Laundering• Defining variables

• Coefficient / standard error• Linear regression• Logit, Probit• Survival/hazard models• Thinking dynamically• Non-random selection &

endogeneity• Extreme bounds analysis• 2 triangles…

The Democratic Peace

Democracy

International OrganizationsInternational Trade

PeaceWar

Free Capital Flow

Fixed Exchange Rate Sovereign Monetary Policy

Inconsistent/UnholyTrinity

Or“Trilemma”:

a country can only have 2 out of 3 of these

Main IO take-away from the class:

Narrow and deep Broad and deep

may be more effective than

Broad and shallow Broad and deep

Cooperation for you

• Normative incentives

• Institutional incentives

• Cooperating sacrifice

• Fear the PD “sucker’s payoff”

• Solution?

– COMMITMENT MECHANISMS

One more triangle…

Weighting the exams &Rational expectations

• Rational expectations: the best predictor for future performance is past performance

• Expected final grade = midterm grade

• More precisely:

• Final grade = midterm grade + >shock<

• The shock is unobserved to me

• Still, unless your performance deviates a GREAT deal, you’ll end up with roughly the same grade as the mid-term

• So, for most of you, allowing you to weight the exam will make no difference

Last time:

• Think big about global governance changes

• YOU are part of an ongoing global conversation

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Faith… Distributions

And what you’re doing to shape yours…

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Typical “uniform” or rectangular distribution (histogram)

Fre

quen

cy

Poor Low-income

Lower-middle

Middle Upper-middle

High-income

Rich

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Typical symmetrical distribution (histogram)F

requ

ency

Poor Low-income

Lower-middle

Middle Upper-middle

High-income

Rich

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INCOME? SUCCESS? HAPPINESS?

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What are you doing in college?

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Implicit throughout the class

• Theory– Philosophy (from ancient to modern thinkers)– Logic (game theory)

• Empirics– Data (qualitative, quantitative)

• History• Statistics

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To understand international relations

You need

a broad liberal arts education

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Undergraduate education & the 3 r’s

• readin’

• ’ritin’

• ’rithmetic

• Broad education…

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Skills

• Become well-read

• Learn to write well

• Learn statistics

• Learn a foreign language (fluent!)

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Breadth of undergraduate education & life opportunities

Breadth of undergraduate education

Life

opp

ortu

nitie

s

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Graduate school is different (not harder)

• Fewer hours in class, more hours studying

• Greater opportunity costs

• Grades not important

• Be focused!

• Statement of purpose

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Writing• First sentence – most important!

• Organize your argument into sections– What is the question?– What is your answer (or what is the debate)?– What is your methodology?– What is your evidence?– Why should we care?

• Lay this out in the 1st para

• Return to each in its own section (paper outline):1. Background literature2. Your theory/argument3. Method4. Evidence5. The intro/conclusion should answer the “so what” question 27

Public Speaking

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Public Silence

Relationships

• Letter of recommendation

• Network of friends– @ Georgetown– Amazing

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Next step:

• “What are you going to do when you graduate?”=• “How are you doing?”=• “Hello”

• I.e., well intentioned but vacuous question

• Don’t let it bring you down!

• No one knows @ 22 what life will present them

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What do we know?

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Distribution of opportunities before education

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Distribution of opportunities after education

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You have bright futures

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Is that credible?

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No Woman No Cry

• No, Woman, Don’t Cry

• Multivocality

• “Hope” … “Change”

• Fugees– Killing Me Softly– The Government Yard in BROOKLYN

• So, what IS the song about?

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YOU ARE GEORGETOWN!

• Privilege

• Thank you

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Thank youWE ARE GLOBAL GEORGETOWN!

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