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Reference profile · Thinker

Robert Keohane

Institutions, interdependence, and global governance

Public posture

This profile codes institutions as durable channels for cooperation and gives later work added weight on legitimacy and accountability.

Canonical institutionalist works and later governance writing in the coded source record.

This reading covers 1984–2001. It does not attribute a present-day position from older works.

The argument

Cooperation need not depend on states becoming altruistic. Keohane asks how governments with competing interests can still make agreements worth keeping. Institutions matter when they change the practical conditions under which those governments bargain.

How it works

Repeated negotiations make reputation consequential. Shared information and monitoring help governments judge whether partners have kept an agreement; established procedures lower the cost of negotiating the next one. Reciprocity then has something observable to work with, even without a world government enforcing every promise.

An agreement can support rival explanations

In this project’s reviewed INF verification case, one reading emphasizes agreed inspections reducing uncertainty; its rival emphasizes both sides’ fear of unconstrained missile competition. The dispute is whether the procedures themselves change the relationship or depend on a prior strategic incentive. This is the project’s illustration, not an attributed position by Keohane on that case.

Read the case, its rival and source record →
Coding record
Scope: FoundationReviewed 13 Jul 2026Version 2

Position in the field

The mark is the coded public posture, computed through the same projection as every Foundation result.

Evidence

Support by dimension

Each dimension shows its interpretation and a supporting note. Open the source detail for the full evidence. Raw coding coefficients stay in the Methods record.

Security rivalry partial

He takes anarchy and power seriously but not as the whole story.

Frames cooperation under anarchy through regimes and interdependence.

Sources and full evidence
Institutions and rules strong

Institutions, expectations and rules are central to cooperation.

Frames cooperation under anarchy through regimes and interdependence.

Sources and full evidence
Domestic politics partial

Later work gives visible weight to accountability and participation.

Adds participation, persuasion, accountability, and legitimacy to the governance account.

Sources and full evidence
Identity and legitimacy partial

Legitimacy and beliefs matter, though not in a full constructivist way.

Sets the institutional research program alongside interpretive approaches.

Sources and full evidence
Markets and dependence strong

World political economy and regime-managed interdependence are central terrain.

Frames cooperation under anarchy through regimes and interdependence.

Sources and full evidence
Restraint and advantage partial

He prefers negotiated cooperation but does not elevate strategic restraint as a doctrine.

Connects rules and expectations to cooperation under interdependence.

Sources and full evidence
Order and justice partial

He wants effective governance with legitimacy and accountability, not mere order-preservation.

Adds participation, persuasion, accountability, and legitimacy to the governance account.

Sources and full evidence

Sources

Works behind this reading

  1. Canonical work · Tier 3After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy — Robert O. KeohanePrinceton University Press; JSTOR, 1984
  2. Canonical work · Tier 3International Institutions: Two Approaches — Robert O. KeohaneInternational Studies Quarterly; archive PDF, 1988
  3. Canonical work · Tier 3International Institutions: Can Interdependence Work? — Robert O. KeohaneForeign Policy; archive PDF, 1998
  4. Canonical work · Tier 3Governance in a Partially Globalized World — Robert O. KeohaneAmerican Political Science Review; archive PDF, 2001

Disputed readings

  • Early work can be read as relatively thin and state-centric.
  • Later governance work broadens the role of legitimacy and belief.

Revisions

  1. v112 Jul 2026Created as a non-public research draft.
  2. v213 Jul 2026Published after second-person evidence review against the approved source pack.

See an error in this coding? Send the public source and disputed dimension through the corrections page. Accepted corrections appear under Revisions.

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