Why the European Union Strengthens the State: Domestic Politics and International Cooperation. CES Working Paper, no. 52, 1994

Most contemporary theories of international cooperation treat states as unitary actors and, therefore, focus primarily on the functional benefits of cooperation or the collective action problems states confront in realizing it.1 Less attention is paid to the impact of international negotiations and institutions on domestic politics, or to the consequences for international cooperation. This essay offers a theory of when and how international cooperation redistributes domestic power resources between state and society. Redistribution, it is argued, generally empowers national executives, permitting them to loosen domestic constraints imposed by legislatures, interest groups, and other societal actors. These shifts in domestic 'influence have important consequences for the nature of international cooperation. More specifically, I advance three arguments, each of which challenges existing understandings of international cooperation. First, international negotiations and institutions reallocate political resources by changing the domestic institutional, informational and ideological context in which domestic policy is made. Second, this reallocation of control over domestic political resources generally favors those who participate directly in international negotiations and institutions most often. though not invariably. national executives. Third, this shift in domestic rower resources toward executives feeds back into international bargaining. often facilitating international cooperation