Trust in International Cooperation: International Security Institutions, Domestic Politics and American Multilateralism [Paperback]

Challenges conventional wisdoms concerning the role of trust in the origins of international cooperation and bipartisanship in US foreign policy.Challenging conventional views in the field, Rathbun argues that trust is fundamental to international cooperation, international organizations and American multilateralism. Arguing that liberals and conservatives trust to different degrees, he suggests that this difference explains domestic political debates over foreign policy in US politics.Challenging conventional views in the field, Rathbun argues that trust is fundamental to international cooperation, international organizations and American multilateralism. Arguing that liberals and conservatives trust to different degrees, he suggests that this difference explains domestic political debates over foreign policy in US politics.Trust in International Cooperation challenges conventional wisdoms concerning the part which trust plays in international cooperation and the origins of American multilateralism. Rathbun questions rational institutionalist arguments, demonstrating that trust precedes rather than follows the creation of international organizations. Drawing on social psychology, he shows that individuals placed in the same structural circumstances show markedly different propensities to cooperate based on their beliefs about the trustworthiness of others. Linking this finding to political psychology, Rathbun explains why liberals generally pursue a more multilateral foreign policy than conservatives, evident in the Democratic Party's greater support for a genuinely multilateral League of Nations, United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Rathbun argues that the post-Second World War bipartisan consensus on multilateralism is a myth, and differences between the parties are growing continually starker.1. Circles of trust: reciprocity, community and multilateralism; 2. Anarchical social capital: a social psychological theory of trust, international coopel3æ