Some Necessary Conditions for International Policy Coordination

Abstract

N-actor cooperative game theory may be a useful body of knowledge for understanding aspects of international policy coalitions. Using a 1974 OPEC decision as an illustrative case, this article demonstrates that game theory is a source of ideas about necessary conditions for international policy coordination and also a means of testing those ideas with empirical data. The article considers three sets of possibly necessary conditions: the imputation, the core, and the convex game. The results of the empirical test are supportive of the core as a set of necessary conditions. The test is not supportive of the convex game, which substantively is a more interesting set of necessary conditions. The article concludes with observations about the policy relevance of knowing necessary conditions.