DOCUMENT REVIEW: DIPLOMACY AND DOMESTIC POLITICS: THE LOGIC OF TWO-LEVEL GAMES BY ROBERT D . PUTNAM
Introduction
Robert D. Putnam’s metaphor of Two-Level Games is presumably the most successful effort in understanding international negotiations, bargaining, double edged diplomacy and the linkage between domestic and international politics. Domestic and international politics are often understood as separate levels and the understanding how these two levels interact is somewhat unclear from the systemic perspective.
Summary of the Article
Putnam has created a theoretical framework which links these two Levels successfully whether it was a case of coercive or co-operational negotiations. According to his evaluation what is of critical importance is not to analyze whether or not the two influence each other but it is of paramount importance to analyze how or when these two are entangled. He cites an example of the Bonn Summit of 1978. Putnam divides his analysis into the state of the art, two-level games: a metaphor for domestic-international interactions, the importance of win sets, uncertainty and bargaining tactics and the role the role of the chief negotiator.
Major Issues
The paper points out that Domestic politics and international relations are often inextricably entangled, but existing theories (particularly "state-centric" theories) do not adequately account for these linkages. When national leaders must win ratification (formal or informal) from their constituents for an international agreement, their negotiating behavior reflects the simultaneous imperatives of both a domestic political game and an international game. Domestic preferences and coalitions, domestic political institutions and practices, the strategies and tactics of negotiators, uncertainty, are highly echoed in international pressures, and the interests of the chief negotiator. This theory of two-level games may also be applicable to many other political phenomena, such as dependency, legislative committees, and multiparty coalitions.
Putnam in his document mentions the Two-level games: a metaphor for domestic-international interactions. He states that the politics of many international negotiations can usefully be conceived as a two-level game. At the national level, domestic groups pursue their interests by pressuring the government to adopt favorable policies, and politicians seek power by constructing coalitions among those groups. At the international level, national governments seek to maximize their own ability to satisfy domestic pressures, while minimizing the adverse consequences of foreign developments which was the case that was experienced during the Bonn negotiations of 1978 by USA, Germany and Japan where the states ended up negotiating for 1970s, a coordinated program of global reflation proposed to foster Western recovery from the first oil shock.
One of the core components of Two-Level Game model is Win-Sets. Domestic Win-Set means, according to Putnam the set of all possible Level I agreements that would gain the necessary majority among the [domestic] constituents when simply voted up or down”. This means that all opponents on the international level have their own domestic Win-Sets, and if an agreement is accomplished and ratified on Level II, then the Win-Sets overlap. The size of the Win-Set depends on the preferences of domestic and international decision-making arenas and, most importantly, on the interactive relationship between these two levels.
In Putnam’s paper the logic of the Two-Level Games can be understood best from the perspective of the Chief Negotiator. The negotiator is usually a statesman who has an official mandate to represent national polity in international negotiations.. The negotiator is seen as a “Janus-faced” actor trying to balance between international and domestic challenges in which he or she faces “distinctive strategic opportunities and strategic dilemmas” (Moravcsik 1993, p. 15; Putnam 1993 p. 459). Over domestic negotiations, the chief negotiator absorbs the concern of societal actors and builds coalitions with them; at the international level, the chief negotiator seeks an agreement that is amongst the possible "wins" in his state's "win-set". Win-sets are the possible outcomes that are likely to be accepted by the domestic interest groups who either must ratify the agreement or provide some other form of government backing. The negotiator seeks to find an agreement that will be attractive to his constituents (because they will need to ratify the agreement in the end) -There are 2 stages in finding an agreement, which are: Level I : on this level the negotiators bargain in order to find a tentative agreement and Level II: on this level a separate discussion within each group of constituents takes place in which they discuss whether or not the agreement can be ratified ( vote upon).
Minor Issues
There are other theories that can be used to explain the relationship whioch exists between domestic and international negotiations such as the Rational Actor Theories which the document should have shed more information on. This view states that decision-makers always make their decision rationally meaning that they tend to compare and measure different decision alternatives before choosing the most attractive one, which in their minds, offers most satisfaction
Conclusion
The Two Level by Putnam helps us to answer questions that point to how it is possible for governments to adopt policies which are different from those they would have adopted without international negotiation and the role that power minorities in each government influence policy on domestic grounds. It is key to note that the “rules” of the game are not strictly bounded which means the model is very open to alterations such as adding more levels if needed. For instance, a decision scenario where Greece and Finland made a bilateral agreement, had to be ratified by the Eurogroup and their domestic constituencies. In Two-Level Games, the main decision-makers who participate in the process of integrating domestic policies with the international sphere are seen as mediators, although in practice, they are rather not neutral in their intentions.