Whereas institutions have been a major focus of political science, the realist view of international relations has assumed that anarchy is the dominant feature of international relations. The concept of institutions, however, is far from clear and simple. “Institutions” have been mentioned in a variety of meanings by different authors. In recent studies of international relations, the concept has been stretched to informal institutions such as regimes, sovereignty and balance of power. Because of the informalization of the concept, institutions have become a more relevant analytical concept for students of international relations, but at the cost of obscuring the concept itself.
In order to access the actual level of institutionalization in today's international relations, this paper first introduces a typology of institutions. The three criteria of the typology here are, the level of formalization of institutionalization, domain of institutionalization, and scope of institutionalization. It can be assumed that formal multilateral institutionalization in the field of security is the most demanding type of institutionalization. This article, therefore, focuses on this type of institutionalization with hope that this would allow us to estimate the overall level of institutionalization in the international society today.
This article then introduces three sets of time-series data. By examining these data, we can observe that in recent years, multilateral security treaties have increased in number whereas multilateral arrangements started with functional cooperation and then became important in economic areas. Thus, the data suggests that international relations have been “institutionalized” in an impressive fashion today.
Several hypotheses are presented to explain the above findings. One is the continued increase in the density of international exchanges, which creates a stronger demand for an ordering of the exchanges through institutionalization. Second is convergence of international norms particularly after the Cold War. Third is an easier access to infrastructure for international institutions resulting from lower communication costs. Fourth is the dynamic self-multiplication of institutions.
The above hypotheses suggest diminishing differences between internal and international politics. This author, however, doubts whether such internalization of international politics can go as far as tight institutionalization of international politics comparable to domestic politics. In addition to imperfection of the international society, in comparison to national societies, the very structure of international relations, namely its two layered structure consisting of national and international levels, will continue to limit the institutionalization of international relations.

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This essay examines the institutionalization of the European international system in the latter half of nineteenth century with a case study of Japan's entry into the international society by applying new institutionalism, originally developed by economic historians and applied widely to other social sciences. Institutionalism is a broad approach where scholars' emphasis varies from the crude rational-choice variant that focuses on choices of human agent at the one end of the continuum to the historical institutionalist variant that focuses more on the constraints imposed on actors within specific historical contexts at the other end. It can be usefully applied to explain the institutionalization of the European international system and the socialization of its members, offering insight into the important interaction between the systemic/societal constraints and the choices that actors make.
Interstate systems can be regarded as institutions that possess certain functions that reduce or increase transaction costs for their members. I will pay particular attention to the development of the system of international law as an important index of institutionalization of the international system. The nineteenth century experienced a paradigmatic shift in international law from natural law to legal positivism, displacing the universal notion of sovereignty with a constitutive one. Japan's entry into international society coincides with this positivist turn in international law, which constrained the way newcomer states entered the family of nations. This was also the time when international relations started to be conceived as exclusively European, based on a sense of cultural differentiation from non-European countries. In this transformation and change in international norms, European international society developed the concept of “standard of civilization” as its membership criteria for the newcomers.
The European state system created a systematized pattern of interaction in international affairs, where Japan perceived utility in joining it. During the process of socialization between 1853 and 1899, the Japanese leaders saw interest in abiding by international law as a means to enhance their self-interests, first as a shield of the weak, and later as a tool of the strong. Japan's conformity to the international system in turn strengthened the durability and the autonomy of the existing international system as an institution. From a broader perspective, therefore, a country's socialization into the sovereign state system must be considered as a simultaneous process with further institutionalization of the European system. In examining the logic of persistence of the Westphalian system and of the conformity of newcomers, efforts need to be made to present an explicit, parsimonious model of interactions between structural constraints and the actor's choices by combining the strengths of theories of International Relations and Comparative Politics.

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Sometimes, a state joins an international regime even with no intention to observe its norms and rules, and does subsequently fail to observe its norms and rules: I call such a delinquent member a ‘negative actor’ and such a defective regime an ‘asymmetrical regime.’ This study tries to explain (1) why a negative actor would agree to participate in a regime and, (2) whether faithful member states-whom I shall call ‘positive actors’-are in fact skeptical about the negative actors' sincerity and just pretend to expect them to observe the regime's norms and rules.
On the other hand, a perfectly functional regime may be compromised when one or more of its member states turn into negative actors: I call this kind of regime ‘dead-letter regimes.’
As a typical example of the negative actor in an asymmetrical regime, this study cites the USSR in the human rights regime of the CSCE (Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe), vis-à-vis the Western member states. As a typical example of the dead-letter regime, this study cites the human rights and democratization regime of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, former CSCE), in which Belarus turned into a negative actor vis-à-vis the Western and Central European states.
Throughout this study, comparative analyses are used to illuminate the relationship between the regime theory and member states' domestic factors.

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The structure of the international system is anarchy. So the conventional wisdom goes. The logic is simple: the international system lacks any central authority; therefore the structure is anarchy. This article contends with this presumption. The anarchy-hierarchy dichotomy unduly restricts our imagination, especially on how we conceive of world politics today. Therefore, it is unable to provide a picture of an increasingly globalizing world.
There is, however, a third type of structure that is neither anarchy nor hierarchy: heterarchy. As defined first by Warren S. McCulloch, heterarchy exists when there is “a redundancy of potential command, wherein knowledge constitutes authority.” Put simply, heterarchy exists when two conditions are met: first, authorities are devolved from the states to the private sector and are based upon knowledge as well as upon institutional roles; second, units of a system are increasingly organizing themselves as networks.
I argue that the anarchical society is now in the process of transforming itself into a heterarchical society. I illustrate this point with the archetypical units of heterarchy, i. e., global public-private networks, such as Global Compact, Global Knowledge Partnership, and Roll Back Malaria. This article also discusses three concepts related to networks: bricolage, projects, and adaptability. The concept of bricolage is useful in explaining how networks are formed. Projects are a special case of networks in that they institutionalize their termination from the outset. Adaptability is better enhanced when an organization is based on a network, rather than hierarchy.

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This article explores the momentum with which globalization has brought about domestic institutionalization in China. Following WTO rules, China has been faced with metamorphosing from the system of “renzhi” (ruled by men) to the system of fazhi (ruled by law). Globalization has affected a fundamental change in the type of regime, transforming a Planned-Economy system to a Socialist-Market-Economy system. Despite the fact that China still claims to be a “socialist country”, its only choice is to move ahead toward a market system in which the status quo, including Jiang Zemin and other leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, received Globalization as an unavoidable and inevitable phenomenon. This has led to the emergence of a favorable domestic, regional and international environment for implementing structural reform in China. This tendency has produced domestic-international links to make progress in institutionalizing its political system and changing its monolithic institutions.
China is now in the midst of struggling with three crucial issues: economic development, structural reforms and modernization. China's WTO entry was perceived as being the most momentous turning point. An historical event occurred in which China utilized fundamental structural reforms according to global standards. China became a full-fledged WTO member in December 2001. After rigorously bargaining for membership for fifteen years, its entry was the reward for China's tenacity to adjust to global standards. Yet, accession also means that China must make its administrative, political and business practices more transparent. The Chinese government has to step up its battle against corruption and the system of “renzhi” that has dominated Chinese society until now. Officials will also have to be more diligent about institutionalizing their society and states. Since Deng Xiaoping announced China's economic reform and an “open-door” policy in 1978, China has embraced modernization. However, some of the internal “renzhi” systems still remain unchanged. WTO entry could serve as a major force in leading to changing the current regime.
Fundamental changes in Chinese society in this era of globalization have led to a corresponding change in its role in international institutionalization. Through the practice of economic reform and liberalization, its impact and influence hover over the political and administrative fields. It seems as if the streams of economic globalization “cascade” down to that of other institutions. As the process of political and economic institutionalization has been progressing steadily, the Chinese government and the Communist Party have significantly strengthened their governing capacity towards promoting political stability and achieving economic prosperity. On the whole, as long as China can keep achieve progress in institutionalizing its internal political system and liberalizing its monolithic institutions, the Communist Party and State can maintain the regime in which they have dominion. In conclusion, there is a common ground which equalizes the international institutionalization with domestic institutionalization.

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The monumental works by Inis Claude Jr. have led many scholars of International Relations to regard collective legitimization as one of the most important mechanism for the institutionalization of international relations. This paper explores the enhancement of international institutions by focusing on the US collective legitimization in the Dominican intervention (1965) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).
This paper argues that collective legitimization enhances institutionalization of international relations in two different ways: constraining the US decision about its military actions, and expanding the roles and functions of the formal international organizations. In the case of the Dominican intervention in 1965, due to opposition by other countries in the region, the US failed to continue deployment of its troops, especially the Army and Air Force, as it wished. The US also reluctantly accepted a Brazilian general for the commander of the Inter-American Peace Forces even though it wanted an American commander. In addition to these constraints, as a result of creation of Inter-American Peace Forces, the roles and functions of the OAS were expanded into peace-keeping operations and humanitarian military operations, neither of which was within the scope of the Charter of the OAS.
A comparison of the Dominican Intervention in 1965 with the Cuban Missile Crisis shows there are two strategies of collective legitimization: assertive (offensive) legitimization and negative (defensive) legitimization. Assertive legitimization is a strategy whereby the United States tries to show the legality and justice of its military actions by gaining formal support from international institutions. Negative legitimization is a strategy whereby the United States tries to show the legality and justice of its military actions by denying the claim of an enemy or counterpart such as Cuba or the USSR. In the Dominican Intervention, the United States utilized assertive legitimization. The OAS, which legitimized the US position, was institutionalized considerably; but the UN, which was bypassed by the US, was not institutionalized. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, on the other hand, the United States chose negative legitimization. Neither the UN, nor the OAS was institutionalized. From these empirical analyses, this paper provides a new hypothesis that assertive legitimization by the United States enhances institutionalization of international relations more than negative legitimization.

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Among the various decision-making rules of international organizations, weighting of votes under a qualified majority is highly institutionalized in that the voting powers of member states are fixed in number for a certain period. Standard criteria to distribute voting power among states have not yet established and several factors have been claimed to be appropriate criteria for a variety of international organizations.
The Treaty of Nice introduced significant modifications of rules for Council decisions in the EU. As a part of a new triple majority requirement, the qualified majority voting was adopted and the weighted votes of each Member States (and the candidate states) were reallocated, preparing for the future enlargement and responding to larger Member States' claim that the present allocation of votes fails to reflect the political and economic realities in the EU.
This article examines the criteria proposed to reallocate the votes in the Intergovernmental Conference 2000 that culminated in the Nice summit. Firstly, there was a consensus among Member States that population of the Member States should be the main criterion for the revision. Populous countries such as Germany and France emphasized ‘democratic legitimacy’ to justify the increase of their voting power. Secondly, larger Member States also stressed such economic factors as GDP and their financial contributions to the EU to be taken into consideration. In addition, some candidate countries were not provided as many votes as they expected partly because of their lack of EU membership.
These criteria could be adopted for institutional reform of other international organizations. Of course, the EU is an exceptional international organization in various terms and there is no need for other international organizations to follow the modifications of the EU. But ‘democratic legitimacy’ is a universal principle and might be used for another international organization to introduce a population criterion. In that case, the contradiction between ‘democratic legitimacy’ and equality of sovereign states should be dissolved. The experiments of the EU institutional reform are worthy of attention in this regard.

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With the end of the Cold War, there was an expectation that international problems would be cooperatively solved, as many international agenda would turn into common global issues which all the actors in the global system would have shared motivations to tackle. But what we have seen instead is a variety of local instabilities as well as mushrooming of international institutions to deal with those local problems. The existing applications of the theory of public goods, which is usually referred in order to explain institutionalization of international society, cannot explain the above phenomena. First, the theory cannot explain why and how institutions can be regional or local rather than global. Second, related to the first, it cannot explain how the size of the membership of institutions can be determined.
Club theory could better explain the above mentioned puzzles. This theory has developed the discussion of the theory of public goods concerning the voluntary provision mechanism of public goods. It assumes that the actors voluntarily organize a group which undertakes the provision of public goods. The key point of the theory is the mechanism through which the optimal size of the group is decided.
This paper initially compares the theory of public goods and regime theory, and then introduces the concept of local and global public goods. Secondly, the characteristics of the present global system, where actors build ‘institutions’ to create stability aiding the provision of local and global public goods, will be examined. Third, club theory is introduced in order to explain frequent changes of the size of the ‘institution’. Finally, this paper then examine the cases of NATO expansions and the Gulf War coalition referring to club theory to illustrate applicability of the theory.

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Multilateral frameworks range from international organizations to loose diplomatic associations. International organizations, on one hand, are mainly built on international treaties or legal agreements such as the European Union and the United Nations. On the other hand, there is a loose framework based on conference diplomacy such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference (APEC) and the G8 Summit. The latter framework shall be called a ‘loose cooperative body’ in this article. Loose cooperative bodies are based not on legal agreements and supranational organizations, but on holding conferences at regular intervals. This article aims to provide an appropriate analytical scheme for the better understanding of this loose cooperative body.
Scholars in international organizations and international law analyze that a loose cooperative body lacks institutional aspects since it has little legal character compared with international organizations. This analysis regards institutions as legalized or explicitly stated in documents. Institutions, however, should be treated as more extensive concepts including informal aspects such as customs, conventions and unwritten standards of behavior. International regimes theory deals with informal aspects of institutions. But international regimes lack functional aspects to analyze how to organize multilateral frameworks. In this respect, studies on international organizations adapt functions of internal organs within international organizations. Therefore, regime theory needs to be developed to introduce functional aspects for loose cooperative bodies.
This article introduces ‘chairmanship’ as an analytical scheme for loose cooperative bodies. This scheme strengthens the previous studies with two points. The first point is that chairmanship is an informal institution developed with mutual understanding among members of multilateral frameworks. In particular, loose cooperative bodies are better analyzed with this informal institutional aspect because they are treated as less institutionalized from formal institutional points of view. The second point of this scheme relates the fact that loose cooperative bodies have international conferences as their core activity. In chairmanship, the Chair plays central roles in the preparation process of these conferences. The Chair is charge not by a person but by one of member countries in the loose cooperative bodies. The role of the Chair mainly consists of inviting new members, agenda-setting and consensus-building. In this way, it can be said that the chairmanship adopts a functional aspect to organize loose cooperative bodies. Taking APEC and the G8 as examples, this article investigates how loose cooperative bodies have developed throughout the role of the Chair in the preparation process of conferences.
By focusing on informal and functional aspects of institutions, it is argued that even loose cooperative bodies could have institutional aspects. Chairmanship provides a suitable analytical scheme in order to clarify this argument.

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North Korea's foreign policy and its policy toward South Korea obviously wavered after the Cold War. Why did North Korea's policy toward the South seesaw between cooperation and conflict? The purpose of this article is to examine under what conditions North Korea cooperates with South Korea.
Firstly, although during the Cold War North Korea had shown conflictive behavior toward the South, the U. S. and Japan, after the Cold War its policy distinctively shifted to cooperation. For balance of power on Korean peninsula in this period, South Korea was remarkably superior to the North. Was balance of power the causal element of North Korea's cooperation? An investigation of the article demonstrates that objective balance of power did not draw on the North's cooperative behavior. Change of South Korea's policy toward the North and cleavage in the South's domestic politics affected the North's policy, while the North reviewed its definition of “nation” and “nationalism” which could be seen as subjective element of the North's behavior toward the South.
Secondly, North Korea's policy, in turn, shifted to conflict after its declaration of withdrawal from NPT. Strictly speaking, around its declaration of withdrawal North Korea explored cooperation with the South in contrast to confrontation against the U. S., but, as soon as the U. S. -North talk launched, the North intensified cooperation with the U. S. in reverse to conflict against the South. How can such a distortion of North Korea's policy be coherent? An examination of the article shows that South Korea's policy was reversed to a hard-line in terms of “legitimacy” of state, subsequently the North's policy also returned to conflictive and exclusive one. And here also balance of power did not necessarily affect the North's policy into cooperation as well as above-observation. Rather, above-mentioned subjective element produced the North's exclusive behavior against the South, which was regarded, according to a North Korean peculiar view, as “treacherous” or “a puppet of the American Imperialism”.
Thirdly, there have been talks and agreements between North and South Korea, such as the North-South Joint Statement in July 1972, mutual visit of divided families in the mid 1980's, the basic Agreements between the South and the North in December 1991, and the North-South Summit Meeting in June 2000. A comparative analysis indicates the following: North Korea's policy and behavior in 1970's and the mid-1980's could not be seen cooperative in spite of some talks and agreements, because there had been prevailing view of “legitimacy” of state and “liberation of The South” with North Korea. After the Cold War, it was verified that North Korea's behavior and policy changed with the South's policy and their domestic politics, and more than anything-else, the North' cooperation with the South was conditioned under whether of appeasing “legitimacy” of state.

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