Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables and Figures
- Preface
- 1 Future Perfect
- 2 “With a Little Help from My Friends”: Principles of Collective Action
- 3 Absence of Invisibility: Market Failures
- 4 Transnational Public Goods: Financing and Institutions
- 5 Global Health
- 6 What to Try Next? Foreign Aid Quagmire
- 7 Rogues and Bandits: Who Bells the Cat?
- 8 Terrorism: 9/11 and Its Aftermath
- 9 Citizen against Citizen
- 10 Tales of Two Collectives: Atmospheric Pollution
- 11 The Final Frontier
- 12 Future Conditional
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
7 - Rogues and Bandits: Who Bells the Cat?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables and Figures
- Preface
- 1 Future Perfect
- 2 “With a Little Help from My Friends”: Principles of Collective Action
- 3 Absence of Invisibility: Market Failures
- 4 Transnational Public Goods: Financing and Institutions
- 5 Global Health
- 6 What to Try Next? Foreign Aid Quagmire
- 7 Rogues and Bandits: Who Bells the Cat?
- 8 Terrorism: 9/11 and Its Aftermath
- 9 Citizen against Citizen
- 10 Tales of Two Collectives: Atmospheric Pollution
- 11 The Final Frontier
- 12 Future Conditional
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
Once upon a time, there lived an agile cat, whose favorite treats were tender mice from a colony that lived in constant fear of becoming the cat's dinner. One day, one of the mice had a brilliant idea: why not place a bell on a rope around the cat's neck while he was asleep? With such an early warning device, the mice could avoid the cat's silent stealth. When the clever mouse looked to the others for a volunteer, there were just blank stares and a deafening silence as each mouse weighed the great personal risk that “belling the cat” would spell for a brave volunteer. Of course, once the bell was secured on the cat, every mouse in the colony would benefit greatly. This children's fable and the collective action problem that it embodies is analogous to the social dilemmas posed by bullies, bandits, tyrants, kleptocrats, or rogue states that have plagued humankind from the beginning of time and the rise of nation states.
With the advent of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the stakes have increased greatly so that nations are even more concerned about rogue states that operate outside of accepted norms of behavior. Such states may use WMD to threaten other countries, a region, or even the global community. North Korea and Iraq (prior to the US-led March 2003 invasion) are often characterized as rogue nations that seek WMD to invade neighboring countries, to influence the global agenda, or to extort concessions. Although their potential arsenals are more threatening, rogue states have been around throughout recorded history. Examples include Athenian imperialism to maintain the Delian League around 400 B.C. following the defeat of the Persians.
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- Information
- Global Collective Action , pp. 144 - 162Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004