Conclusion
Beyond any reasonable doubt, Brooks and Wohlforth’s view of reputation & legitimacy is better. Their reasoning and clarity, supported by the empirical justifications, couldn’t persuade any further. Indeed, the constraints of reputation work best for economic policy, but cannot work when it comes to security policy. These are two different domains that must be handled differently. A country’s cooperation with the international economic institutions and the international security institutions purely depends on the goals and interests of that country. Nothing, not even reputation, should compel the country to comply when it doesn’t want to, especially when the said country is the key player.
Attaining compliance through credible threats of retaliatory action and reputation costs, as argued by the institutionalists, cannot be used against United States. The country’s dominant position in the international system cannot entertain any sort of retaliation or revenge from any country. Instead, every country would wish to cooperate with US, as doing so has a lot of benefits. It is the power that controls the means, and US has the power; so, US definitely controls the means. This, however, doesn’t mean that US uses the multilateral organizations only to suit its purpose, as argued by the institutionalists . United States is the largest player and the leader of these organizations and its reputation is segmented. Besides, compliance rates vary across nations.
While institutionalists argue that compliance rates may be uniform and high if a reputation that advocates for international cooperation is adopted, evidence shows otherwise. Compliance rates depend on the importance of the key issues. Every issue is independent of another and linkages should not be made between these issues. It can therefore be costly for a state to comply with international institutions on some issues. Furthermore, lack of compliance on one issue cannot lead to poor reputation as reputation is multidimensional, and depends on time and the key issues at that particular time.
Regarding legitimacy, Brooks and Wohlforth’s argument holds more water. Legitimacy is not about international approval; it’s about the best acceptable option. When war is the best acceptable option, it becomes legitimate despite international approval, which might even fail. As argued by Ikenberry, its true legitimacy is based on judgment, but the judgment of that particular state according to their belief and acceptability, not the judgment of the international community. The war against communism was not subject to any international approval; instead, US believed it was the best acceptable option at that time. They established standardized institutions which were later accepted on an international level. US achieved legitimacy. A legitimist nation follows its own rules. These rules cannot be changed every time depending on the interests and attitude at the time. Situations might call for the changing the beliefs or accepted norms, but this doesn’t guarantee maintenance of legitimacy. Many nations re-write the rules to suit their interests when they are the leading hegemons. Others employ different tactics including bribes. An example is the response of US after the 9/11 attack. By failing to respond immediately and enshrining the war in the 2002 homeland security plan, US simply redefined the rules, or rather, broke the rules to make other rules. It could have gained legitimacy by persuading others of the need for change or by linking the new rules to the already established ones.
