During the past decade, a growing number of scholars have turned to cultural approaches to account for the foreign and security policies of states. Surprisingly, however, these scholars have devoted little attention to the concept that boasts the most venerable tradition in the field of political science, that of political culture, as a possible source of state behavior. This neglect is unjustified. Like other cultural variables, political culture promises to explain phenomena that are enigmatic from the perspective of leading noncultural theories, such as neorealism. Yet it applies to a broader range of cases than do the many alternative cultural concepts, such as strategic culture and organizational culture, that have been employed. I begin by describing an important puzzle in the international relations literature that suggests the need to consider culture as a variable: the failure of neorealism to predict German security policy after unification. I then assess the various cultural approaches used in recent years to explain state behavior. After noting the similarities in these approaches, I discuss the important differences that mark them and identify the reasons for the greater utility of political culture. Finally, I illustrate the explanatory power of the political culture approach by applying it to the case of German security policy since 1990.

a b s t r a c tIn June 2010, the Japanese cabinet adopted a new Basic Energy Plan (BEP). This was the third such plan that the government has approved since the passage of the Basic Act on Energy Policy in 2002, and it represents the most significant statement of Japanese energy policy in more than four years, since the publication of the New National Energy Strategy (NNES) in 2006. Perhaps more than its predecessors, moreover, the new plan establishes a number of ambitious targets as well as more detailed measures for achieving those targets. Among the targets are a doubling of Japan's ''energy independence ratio,'' a doubling of the percentage of electricity generated by renewable sources and nuclear power, and a 30 percent reduction in energy-related CO 2 emissions, all by 2030. This paper explains the origins of the 2010 BEP and why it was adopted. It then describes the content of the plan and how it differs from the NNES. A third section analyzes the appropriateness of the new goals and targets contained in the BEP and their feasibility, finding that achievement of many of the targets was likely to be quite challenging even before the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis.

International institutions are a central focus of international relations scholarship as well as of policymaking efforts around the world. Despite their importance, our scholarly literature lacks a widely accepted definition of just what they are. Instead, scholars have employed a range of largely nonoverlapping conceptions, contributing to a fragmentation of the literature and hindering theoretical cumulation. This essay seeks to remedy this unsatisfactory state of affairs. It first reviews the principal ways in which international institutions have been conceptualized and identifies their shortcomings. It then develops a definition that promises to be inclusive of what are commonly regarded as the most important institutional forms without losing analytical coherence. A final section discusses some of the concrete benefits that result from employing the new definition, both in improving existing scholarship and by suggesting valuable new avenues of research.

With the end of the cold war, the military posture of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has entered a period of profound change. Prior to the recent dramatic political events in Europe, however, NATO conventional force levels in the Central Region had been remarkably stable for some three decades. This article seeks to explain this record of stability in terms of three widely used theories of international relations. It argues that balance-of-power theory and public goods theory cannot alone provide a satisfactory account. Rather, these traditional approaches for understanding alliance behavior must be supplemented by regime theory, which emphasizes the constraining effects of enduring institutional factors even in the face of structural change. Specifically, it shows how an international regime has influenced the provision of conventional forces in the Central Region by alliance members. More generally, this analysis seeks to contribute to the literature on international regimes in three ways. First, it demonstrates that regimesdomatter by providing an example of their importance for explaining state behavior and international outcomes. Second, it extends regime theory to relations among military allies. Third, it elaborates a comprehensive model for understanding why states actually comply with regime injunctions. The model stresses both the ways in which regimes effectively modify the international environment within which states operate, altering the costs and benefits associated with different courses of action, and the ways in which participating states may internalize regime norms and rules, thereby making compliance increasingly automatic.

“The Rational Design of International Institutions” (special issue of IO, Autumn 2001) makes a significant contribution to the theoretical literature on international institutions. It is important, however, to recognize the limits of both the Rational Design project in its current form and the conclusions that can be drawn from the special issue about the project's usefulness and validity. This article evaluates the project on its own terms, as a rationalist attempt to explain variation in international institutions. I identify three significant sets of limitations: those of the scope of the project, those of the analytical framework, and those of the efforts that are made to evaluate the framework through empirical analysis. Although the first set of limitations is largely a matter of choice, the last two raise questions about how much of an advance the special issue in fact represents. Nevertheless, these shortcomings are not absolute—they can be remedied through further theoretical and empirical research.