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Before Hegemony: Generalized Trust and the Creation and Design of International Security Organizations

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  • Rathbun, Brian C.

Abstract

Rationalist accounts of international cooperation maintain that states create international institutions to solve problems of distrust. They rest on a particular notion of trust, a strategic variety in which states trust based on information about others' interests. I seek to overturn this conventional wisdom. Drawing on social psychology, I point to the importance of generalized trust, an ideological belief about the trustworthiness of others in general. Generalized trust precedes institution-building and serves as a form of anarchical social capital, facilitating diffuse reciprocity and allowing state leaders to commit to multilateralism even in cases that rationalists deem inhospitable to cooperation and without the institutional protections that rationalists expect. In case studies of U.S. policy on the creation of the League of Nations and the United Nations, I demonstrate that generalized trust is necessary for explaining the origins of American multilateralism and the design of these organizations.

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  • Rathbun, Brian C., 2011. "Before Hegemony: Generalized Trust and the Creation and Design of International Security Organizations," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(2), pages 243-273, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:intorg:v:65:y:2011:i:02:p:243-273_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Kong, NGUYEN To Hong, 2021. "State-to-state Trust in Post-leadership Change: Case Study of China-Japan Relations, 2009-2019," OSF Preprints hdbcy, Center for Open Science.
    2. Stephanie C. Hofmann, 2021. "Elastic Relations: Looking to both Sides of the Atlantic in the 2020 US Presidential Election Year," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(S1), pages 150-161, September.
    3. Siria Angino & Federico M Ferrara & Stefania Secola, 2022. "The cultural origins of institutional trust: The case of the European Central Bank," European Union Politics, , vol. 23(2), pages 212-235, June.
    4. Cupać, Jelena, 2020. "Orders, purposes, and tasks: How do states act in international security organizations?," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Global Governance SP IV 2020-104, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    5. Dong Wang & Alastair Iain Johnston & Baoyu Wang, 2021. "The Effect of Imagined Social Contact on Chinese Students’ Perceptions of Japanese People," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 65(1), pages 223-251, January.
    6. Dreher, Axel & Minasyan, Anna & Nunnenkamp, Peter, 2015. "Government ideology in donor and recipient countries: Does ideological proximity matter for the effectiveness of aid?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 80-92.
    7. Florian Justwan, 2017. "Trusting Publics," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 61(3), pages 590-614, March.
    8. Jianming Wang & Ninh Nguyen & Xiangzhi Bu, 2020. "Exploring the Roles of Green Food Consumption and Social Trust in the Relationship between Perceived Consumer Effectiveness and Psychological Wellbeing," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-14, June.
    9. Jianming Wang & Tsung Piao Chou & Chia-Pin Chen & Xiangzhi Bu, 2020. "Leaders’ Future Orientation and Public Health Investment Intention: A Moderated Mediation Model of Self-Efficacy and Perceived Social Support," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-15, September.
    10. Florian Justwan & Sarah K. Fisher, 2017. "Generalized Social Trust and International Dispute Settlement," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(5), pages 717-743, September.
    11. Lisa Maria Dellmuth & Jonas Tallberg, 2020. "Why national and international legitimacy beliefs are linked: Social trust as an antecedent factor," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 311-337, April.
    12. Tanja A. Börzel & Thomas Risse, 2016. "Dysfunctional state institutions, trust, and governance in areas of limited statehood," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(2), pages 149-160, June.
    13. Escribano, Gonzalo, 2014. "Fragmentación y cooperación en la gobernanza energética global/Fragmentation and Cooperation in Global Energy Governance," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 32, pages 1021-1042, Septiembr.

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