ABSTRACT
Why do powerful states channel coercive foreign policies through international organizations (lOs)? Governments that lack resources or expertise often require 10 assistance for material and technical reasons, and weak states rely on international forums to increase their political clout and bargaining power. Powerful states, by contrast, typically do not need lOs to achieve specific objectives. On the contrary, because turning to an international institution complicates policymaking and entails some loss of autonomy, one might expect powerful states to avoid such entanglements. Yet even superpowers sometimes channel coercive actions, including the use of force, through lOs, despite viable alternatives that offer more flexibility and control-namely unilateralismand ad hoc multilateralism. The liter-
For valuable comments on earlier drafts, I would like to thank Charles Glaser, Peter Gourevitch, I,.loyd Gruber, Darren Hawkins, Keith Krehbiel, David Lake, Charles Lipson, Daniel Nielson, Kenneth
~chultz, Duncan Snidal, Michael Tierney, Daniel Verdier, Erik Voeten, and Joel Westra, as well as participants in the PIPES workshop at the University of Chicago and the conference on Delegation to International Organizations at the University of California, San Diego. I also thank Lisa Martin and two anonymous reviewers for constructive suggestions. I am grateful to Matthew Scherbarth for research assistance and to the Mershon Center at Ohio State University for financial assistance.
