Rev Int Organ (2009) 4:435–437

DOI 10.1007/s11558-009-9074-5

Alexander Thompson. 2009. Channels of power:

The UN Security Council and U.S. Statecraft in Iraq
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press)

Erik Voeten

Published online: 7 November 2009

# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009

Channels of Powers is the rare book that manages to successfully combine

sophisticated international relations theory with penetrating analyses of recent events
and sensible policy recommendations. The book’s empirical focus is on the attempts by
the United States to coerce Iraq into compliance with its demands, starting with the 1990
Gulf War all the way to the Second Iraq war in 2003. The particular question of interest
is why the U.S. has sometimes successfully channeled these efforts through the United
Nations Security Council and other international organizations and why it has at other
times circumvented these institutions? The policy relevance of this question needs no
further commentary but it is also a question of great theoretical import. International
relations scholars largely ignored the Security Council during the 1990s, even as it
became more actively involved in authorizations of force. This has changed in recent
years thanks to contributions both by scholars with constructivist inclinations, such as
Bruce Cronin, Ian Hurd and Ian Johnstone, and scholars with a rationalist focus,
including Terry Chapman, Songying Fang, Alex Thompson, and myself. This has led to
a lively debate about the role of the Council and other political institutions in world
affairs.
Thompson’s volume is the most elaborate contribution to the rationalist strain of
this work. Like other rationalists, Thompson argues that the Council matters because
it is composed of member states that have diverse preferences. As such, approval of
a proposed use of force signals something meaningful to an audience. Rationalists
differ on precisely what type of information Council approval signals to whom. Does
it signal information about the true intentions of the proposer state (almost always
the United States), the merit of the proposal, or how other states will likely respond

E. Voeten (*)
Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
e-mail: ev42@georgetown.edu
436 E. Voeten

to the initiative? Is the relevant audience a domestic public in the proposer state or
foreign leaders and publics? Thompson stresses information about merit and
intentions and argues that foreign leaders and publics are the most important
audiences for this information.
Acquiring Security Council approval, then, is beneficial to the United States
because it sends politically useful information about a proposed coercive act to
foreign leaders and publics. It is, however, also costly to obtain such approval.
Thompson distinguishes four types of costs: freedom-of-action costs (the cost of
compromise), organizational costs (cost of diplomacy and side-payments), the cost
of delay, and the increased scrutiny that comes with multilateral actions. The United
States is most likely to utilize the Council when the benefits are high and the costs
are low. If the costs are too high, the U.S. may seek refuge with less inclusive
multilateral institutions (such as NATO) that yield lower benefits (because their
membership is less diverse) but the cost of acquiring approval from these institutions
may also be lower.
The book’s strengths lie in the manner by which evidence for these costs and
benefits are illustrated by analyzing several episodes in one long case: US and UN
policy toward Iraq starting with the first Gulf War. This is a well-chosen case study
within which the theoretical cost and benefits of Council approval varied greatly
over time and issue areas. Thompson provides ample documentation for his claims,
based on original interviews, public opinion surveys and as much other data as could
be compiled. The empirical chapters are well-written and make for a cohesive
narrative. This is not one of these books that is simply a long article: it very much
deserves to have its own front and back cover.
The book is at times confusing in its motivation of the informational mechanisms
that are central to the theoretical part of the volume. Some of these issues are mostly
semantic. For example, Thompson writes frequently that the Council matters
because it is “neutral” and “independent,” qualifications that seem peculiar to even
the casual observer of Security Council politics. Indeed, Thompson argues that the
Council matters precisely because it is biased against the US not because of its
impartiality or neutrality. In the context of international organizations independence
usually refers to an organization that cannot be controlled by states, with
international courts and bureaucracies as the prime examples. To Thompson it
means that no individual state can control its decision-making. This definition does
not come until page 34. It would have been better to use more descriptive terms, if
only to highlight more clearly that the reasons why the Security Council matters are
very different than the informational rationales that are sometimes offered to explain
the importance of institutions such as the IAEA, the IMF, or the ICJ.
More problematic, especially for those of us considering the book for a graduate
course, is the part of the book (chapter 2) where Thompson motivates the
informational rationales with reference to game-theoretic treatments of why congress
sometimes delegates authority to committees. These models certainly have their uses
as a source of inspiration but they need to be adapted to the bargaining context of the
Security Council. For example, the book continuously stresses the role of the median
voter in an international organization, even though the median voter has no specific
leverage in the absence of majority voting rule. Key hypotheses, such as that
diversity of interests promotes informational efficiency, are motivated with reference
Channels of power: The UN Security Council and U.S. Statecraft in Iraq... 437

to an article by Thomas Gilligan and Keith Krehbiel without questioning whether the
model in which this result holds indeed properly characterizes the strategic problem
faced by actors involved in Security Council bargaining. Bargaining itself is not
modeled. For example, one would think that freedom-of-action costs are endogenous
to a bargaining situation, with other states less likely to insist on grand modifications
of policy if they believe that the US has credible alternative options. The theory has
no convincing explanation for bargaining breakdowns, such as when the US
attempted but failed to get a resolution to legitimize the second Gulf War. Ultimately,
despite the strategic rhetoric of the book, this is fundamentally not a theory based on
a strategic model. It is a cost-benefit analysis that looks at the perspective of the US
only. The other states are not strategic actors in any meaningful sense.
I suspect that the main arguments that Thompson advances could be derived from
a more developed game-theoretic treatment. Indeed, to a degree talented young game
theorists like Terry Chapman and Songying Fang have already done so. This would
undoubtedly lead to some refinements in Thompson’s hypotheses, especially on why
other states would go along with the US. Yet, it would likely leave the main thesis
intact: that the Security Council matters not so much because it satisfies a desire for
morally just interventions but because it signals politically relevant information
about proposed coercive actions. Thompson not only provides ample evidence for
this thesis but he also derives sensible policy lessons from it that are critical of both
naïve unilateralism and multilateralism. A proper understanding of the complex
interaction between unilateralism and multilateralism is in short supply in most
public debates and this book provides an accessible yet sophisticated treatment of the
subject. Despite my misgivings about one chapter (chapter two), this is an important
book that I can wholeheartedly recommend to students of international organiza-
tions, security, and US foreign policy.