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Chapter 3: The 2004 IGC: Bargaining or Learning?in micro-economics. One of the key benefits of the regime is that it providesmore accurate information to its members about each others’ intentions,preferences and the benefits of co-operation. The regime allows its membersto share information and communicate more openly. Bargaining will lead tooutcomes which achieve policy-makers aims more fully. As the next paragraphsshow, constructivists like institutionalists emphasise the importance of ideas increating new institutional processes. For constructivists ‘it is through discursivepractices that agents make sense of the world and attribute meaning to theiractivities.²⁰ Constructivists emphasise arguing and discussion as a“Mode of interaction which enables actors to challenge the validityclaims inherent in any causal or normative statement and to seek communicativeconsensus about their understanding of a situation.”²¹Moreover, ‘the goal is not to attain one’s fixed preferences, but to seeka reasoned consensus’.²² Thus, the adoption of new ideas (that is, learning),is caused by communication and discourse. For constructivists, theset of values and ideas chosen by political leaders and the communicativeprocesses that underlie their interaction is central to understanding internationalrelations.Similarly, institutionalists by emphasising the role of information and learninghighlight the role of ideas in international relations. For institutionalists,the absence of full information among policy-makers implies that conditionsof bounded rationality exist in international relations, analogous tomarket imperfections in microeconomics. One of the key benefits of theinstitution is that it provides more accurate information to its membersabout each other’s intentions, preferences and the benefits of co-operation.Institutions allow members to share information and communicate moreopenly. Such bargaining will achieve policy-makers’ aims more fully.The overlaps between institutionalism and constructivism are illustratedby the relevance of Haas’ analysis of learning to both constructivism andinstitutionalism. For Haas, learning implies a fundamental shift in policypurposes and underlying conceptualisation.²³ Issue-linkage is substan-Chapter 3: The 2004 IGC: Bargaining or Learning?tive, whereby issues in bargaining are linked only if one is perceived to beconnected to the other in its content – substantive issue-linkage occurs.Moreover, learning implies the existence of ideological compromise.While emphasising the importance of institutional engineering in facilitatinglearning, Haas has also been defined as a constructivist because of hisemphasis on a ‘powerful sociological (sic) of international co-operation,based on learning.²⁴ Thus, for both institutionalists and constructivists ideasmatter and communication processes matter in bargaining relationships.Overall, there are clear overlaps between institutionalism and constructivismin their emphasis on information and learning. In contrast, for neo-realists,ideas and norms are used and abused as the more powerful think fit:“Rules and norms can be longstanding and widely recognized, butalso frequently violated … the international system has alwaysbeen characterised by organized hyprocisy.”²⁵Thus, if norms appear to explain the bargaining process or outcome, it isonly because hegemons allow these norms to be implemented – becauseof their self-interest. The most influential self-interest is the will to surviveand threats of annihilation or of war provide the most effective constraintson state behaviourAssuming, co-operative bilateral relations exist and the smaller state wieldsdisproportionate influence on bargaining outcomes (see above), theprocess of bargaining may exhibit evidence of a learning process. In thiscase, institutional processes play a key role in allowing states to evaluateideas, revise older approaches and innovate. This evidence would providea defence of institutionalism, emphasising the role of institutions in allowingfree flows of information between individuals and groups to facilitateconsensual bargaining. The institution serves states’ aims and lowers theirtransaction cost of bargaining.The relevance of learning to bargaining in the2004 IGC is that learning implies that agreement are consensual and thatbargaining is non-zero sum. Indeed, for some academics, learning wouldimply no bargaining, but ‘arguing’ or ‘problem-solving’.20) RISSE (2004), p. 164.21) Ibid.22) Ibid.23) See above24) ADLER (2003),p. 9925) KRASNER (2000), p. 134.82 83