Regimes and Co-ordination

As it stands, the realist account of regimes is incom­plete, because it fails to explain why states adhere to the principles and norms underlying a regime which they oppose. In accounting for this anomaly, realists, like liberal institutionalists, resort to game theory. Realists insist, however, that states wishing to form a regime confront the problem of co-ordi­nation, as illustrated by the Battle of the Sexes (see Box 12.5), not collaboration, as illustrated by the Prisoners' Dilemma. Here the problem is not asso­ciated with the danger of defection to a competitive strategy, but the possibility of failing to co-ordinate strategies, with the consequence that a mutually desired goal is unintentionally missed.

Co-ordination problems are very familiar to strategic thinkers. Schelling (1960) illustrates the problem with the example of a couple getting sepa­rated in a department store. Both wish to get back together again, but there is a danger that they will wait for each other in different places; situations of this kind generate a co-ordination problem. In the absence of communication, solving co-ordination problems can be difficult, even impossible. But with the aid of communication, a solution can be very straightforward and uncontroversial. For example, while communication between ah aircraft and an air traffic control centre can occur in any mutually agreed language, it is obviously unacceptable for the pilot and the air traffic controller not to be able to speak a common language. Under the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization, every international pilot and some personnel in every air traffic control centre must be able to speak English. This is a highly stable equilibrium and the rule undoubtedly contributes to air safety. But it is only one of a large body of rules which form the regime that regulates international civil aviation. It has major training implications and it is not an issue which can be constantly renegotiated. It needs to be embodied in a stable regime which all the involved parties can treat as a constant.

The decision to choose English under these cir­cumstances may have been relatively uncontrover­sial, but it does not follow that a common aversion to certain outcomes (a pilot speaking only German and the air traffic controller speaking only Japanese) will necessarily generate a common inter­est in a particular outcome (everyone speaking English). There is little doubt that the French would have preferred their language to English; and, of course, English has no intrinsic merit over French in this context. And this is the main lesson to be learned from the Battle of the Sexes game—there can be more than one outcome reflecting a Pareto optimum. Indeed, there can be many positions that represent a Pareto optimum and they can then be located on what is referred to as the Pareto frontier (see Box 12.5). So in the context of civil aviation, every spoken language can be located on the fron­tier because, in principle, any language could be chosen, provided that everyone spoke it. And the use of any common language is preferable to the alternative which would arise in the event of a fail­ure to co-ordinate and identify a common lan­guage.

Realists argue that this line of analysis helps us to understand why states might conform to a regime while wishing to change the underlying principles. The explanation is that the states are already oper­ating on the Pareto frontier. They observe the regime because they are operating in a co­ordination situation, and a failure to co-ordinate will move them into a less advantageous situation. The French can rail against the use of English in the civil aviation context, but they have no alternative but to persist with the policy. The same argument applies to Third World states; they wish to trade with the West, while preferring to do so on more advantageous terms. The application of new trade principles would represent another point on the Pareto frontier. But, as yet, because the balance of power continues to favour the West, there are few signs that new economic principles more favourable to the Third World are likely to emerge.

The situation is somewhat different in the area of communication regimes. All forms of electronic communication use electromagnetic waves which are emitted along an electromagnetic spectrum. Co-ordination here is essential, because interfer­ence occurs if more than one user adopts the same frequency of the spectrum at the same time over the same area. It is not possible, therefore, for states to operate on a unilateral basis and the establishment of a regime was essential. Moreover, because the electromagnetic spectrum is a limited resource, principles and rules for partitioning the resource had to be determined. In the first instance, states agreed that the spectrum should be allocated on the basis of need. But by 1980 this principle had resulted in the Soviet Union and the United States claiming half of the available frequencies and 90 per cent of the spectrum was allocated to provide benefits for 10 per cent of the world's population (Krasner 1985). it is unsurprising to find this out-come being challenged by developing states which argued that part of the spectrum should be reserved for future use. More surprisingly, this new principle has been accepted. But realists argue that this is not the result of altruism on the part of the developed world. It is a consequence of the fact that develop­ing states can interfere with the signals of neigh­bouring countries. This gave them access to a power lever which they otherwise would not have pos­sessed (Krasner 1991). Through the use of power, the developing states have managed to move in a more favourable direction along the Pareto frontier. By contrast, they have had little say over the alloca­tion of geosynchronous orbits which are the most efficient locations for broadcasting satellites. Here too co-ordination is required, but only amongst those states already in a position to launch the satel­lite. So a different balance of power is involved.

Box 12.5. The Battle of the Sexes and Pareto's Frontier

The Battle of the Sexes

The scenario of this game envisages a couple who have just fallen in love and decide to go on holiday together. The problem is that one wants to go hiking in the moun­tains and the other wants to visit art galleries and muse­ums in the city. But both much prefer to be with their partner than to go on holiday alone. When mapped onto a matrix, two stable equilibriums emerge from the scen­ario.

		A (male)
		Holiday in city	Holiday in mountains
B (female)	Holiday in city	4, 3 *	1, 2
	Holiday in mountains	2, 1	3, 4 *

In this figure, cell numerals refer to ordinally ranked pref­erences: 4 = best, 1 = worst. The first number in each cell refers to A's preference and the second number refers to B's preference.

* Denotes an equilibrium outcome and a Pareto optimal strat­egy.

The Pareto Frontier

Wishing to reach a compromise, the couple might decide to split their week's holiday, spending time in the city and and in the mountains. Since the two extreme positions represent a Pareto optimum, so too must all the possible combinations and these can be mapped to form a Pareto frontier.