Formal Models of International Institutions Michael J. Gilligan 1 and Leslie Johns 2 1 Department of Politics, New York University, New York, New York 10003; email: michael.gilligan@nyu.edu 2 Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles 90095; email: ljohns@polisci.ucla.edu Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2012. 15:221–43 First published online as a Review in Advance on February 9, 2012 The Annual Review of Political Science is online at polisci.annualreviews.org This article’s doi: 10.1146/annurev-polisci-043010-095828 Copyright c  2012 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved 1094-2939/12/0615-0221$20.00 Keywords international cooperation, compliance, bargaining, multilateral agreements, repeated prisoners’ dilemma Abstract The past three decades have witnessed the development of a rich literature that applies the formal tools of game theory to understanding international cooperation and international institutions. We divide this literature into three “generations” of scholarship. With a few notable exceptions, the first generation used very simple models—2 × 2 normal form games—to under- stand why states need to cooperate and why they comply with their coopera- tive agreements under conditions of anarchy. This first generation unfortu- nately bogged down in the neorealist–neoliberal debate. Second-generation scholars began to use tailor-made models to address the neorealist–neoliberal debate and to turn to new questions, such as how international agreements are created and how domestic political divisions affect international cooper- ation. With answers to the key questions of how international agreements are created and complied with, third-generation scholars could turn to in- creasingly refined models to answer specific questions about international institutions, such as the proper size of multilateral agreements, how the gains of cooperation are distributed, whether flexibility provisions should be built into agreements, and the specific functions of international organizations. 221 Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2012.15:221-243. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org Access provided by 3.90.191.191 on 06/11/22. For personal use only.