Power and Strategies of Rule - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 65

its own policy autonomy. Likewise, the less certain the leading state is that weaker states can
in fact constrain their policies, the less the leading state will offer constraints on its policy
autonomy.
So the leading state is faced with a choice: how much institutional limitation of its own
policy autonomy and exercise of power is worth how much policy lock-in of weaker states?
Institutionalization tends to be a two-way street. A powerful state can try to embed other
states in a set of rules and institutions, but it will likely need to give up some of its own dis-
cretionary power to get the desired outcome. Terry Moe notes this in regard to a ruling party's
control of government institutions: “They can fashion structures to insulate their favorable
agencies and programs from the future exercise of public authority. In doing so, of course,
they will not only be reducing their enemies' opportunities for future control; they will be
reducing their own opportunities as well. But this is often a reasonable price to pay, given
the alternative. And because they get to go first, they are really not giving up control—they
are choosing to exercise a greater measure of it ex ante, through insulated structures that,
once locked in, predispose the agency to do the right things. What they are moving away
from—because it is dangerous—is the kind of ongoing hierarchical control that is exercised
through the discretionary decisions of public authority over time.” 27
Several hypotheses follow immediately from this model of state power and institutions.
First, a leading state should try to lock other states into institutionalized policy orientations
while trying to minimize its own limitations on policy autonomy and discretionary power.
This is the story that Michael Crozier tells about politics within large-scale organizations.
Each individual within a complex organizational hierarchy is continually engaged in a dual
struggle: to tie his colleagues to precise rule-based behavior—thereby creating a more stable
and certain environment in which to operate—while also trying to retain as much autonomy
and discretion as possible for himself. 28 Similarly, leading states will try to lock in other
states as much as possible while also trying to remain as unencumbered as possible by insti-
tutional rules and obligations. Second, the leading state will make use of its ability—to the
extent the ability exists—to limit its capacity to exercise power in indiscriminate and arbit-
rary ways as a “currency” to buy the institutional cooperation of other states.
The availability of the institutional bargain will depend on several circumstances that can
also be specified as hypotheses. First, the amount of “currency” available to the leading state
to buy the institutional cooperation of weaker states is determined by two factors: the abil-
ity of the leading state to potentially dominate or injure the interests of weaker states and its
ability to credibly restrain itself from doing so. Although all states might offer to restrain and
commit themselves in exchange for concessions by other states, the willingness and ability of
powerful states to do so will be of particular interest to other states. Chad may offer to lock it-
self into an institutional agreement that lowers its policy autonomy and make its future policy
orientation more predictable, but few states will care much about this offer to bind itself and