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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