Did bilateral and regional bargaining choke off international commerce and finance in the 1930s and prolong the Great Depression? And is the open world economic system now being placed at risk by explicitly discriminatory practices that erode respect for the GATT, the IMF and the IBRD??;pMost political economists would answer in the affirmative, warning that bilateral and regional preferences are at best inefficient and at worst catastrophic. By contrast, Kenneth Oye shows how economic discrimination can foster international economic openness by facilitating political exchange. Preferential policies, of course, benefit the parties to agreements at the expense of third parties. Oye demonstrates that the expected benefits of inclusion and the expected costs of exclusion play a pivotal role in broadening antiprotectionist domestic coalitions and in drawing third nations into liberalizing international negotiations. In his view, explicit economic discrimination in the 1930s slowed and ultimately reversed the movement toward economic closure and discriminatory arrangement under Super 301, Canadian-American free trade and the European Community Single Integrated Market reduced barriers to

This path-breaking book offers fresh insights into a perennial problem. At times, the absence of centralized international authority precludes attainment of common goals. Yet, at other times, nations realize mutual interests through cooperation under anarchy. Drawing on a diverse set of historical cases in security and economic affairs, the contributors to this special issue of World Politics not only provide a unified explanation of the incidence of cooperation and conflict, but also suggest strategies to promote the emergence of cooperation.