Energy Policy Alliances and Cooperative Games: A Survey of Issues and Solution Concepts

摘要

This paper reviews obstacles to international agreement and of analytical approaches to describing foreign alliance formation and conflict resolution relative to energy security policies and preparedness. While these models provide useful intuitive insight on the nature of interactions among oil importing countries they have limited practical applicability in formulating testable hypotheses about international behavior. Thus to more fully understand international institutions created by sovereign nations to achieve greater energy security, different strands of the theory must be combined with factual knowledge and preceptions of different countries' incentives and objectives. The paper also reviews the public good nature of international agreements and the resulting obstacles to creating viable alliances. Subsequent sections provide a critical survey of various theoretical approaches to describing cooperative agreements. The concluding section summarizes deficiencies in existing theory and discusses the practical information required to better understand international institutions and behavior. (ERA citation 10:044453)