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Partners and rivals: a model of international collaboration in advanced technology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Jonathan B. Tucker
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Concepts from bargaining theory and neorealist theory are integrated in a partners-and-rivals (PAR) model that explains the terms of collaboration between rational actors (for example, firms) that are potential competitors. The model contends that the stronger player's incentive to collaborate is determined not only by its interest in absolute welfare benefits from collaboration but also by its concern about and loss of utility from unfavorable shifts in relative position vis-à-vis the weaker player. Two propositions are derived from the model. According to the disparity principle, the stronger player's net payoff from collaboration (the sum of its welfare benefits and positional costs) is a function of the disparity in capabilities between the two players. The net payoff curve is low when the disparity in capabilities is large, reaches an optimum when the disparity is moderate, and then falls again as the disparity approaches zero. The slope of the curve is also affected by a coefficient, α, which reflects the stronger player's sensitivity to positional losses. According to the compensation principle, for collaboration to arise, the weaker player must make an adjustment in the terms of the bargain, or a side-payment, to compensate the stronger player for its positional losses from collaboration. The validity of the PAR model is tested by comparing Franco-German collaboration on military aircraft in two cases, one in which the disparity in capabilities between the players was moderate and the other in which the disparity was small.

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International Organization , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , Winter 1991 , pp. 83 - 120
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Copyright © The IO Foundation 1991

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References

This article is based on my previous work, “Shifting Advantage: A Game-Theoretical Model of International Collaboration in Advanced Technology,” Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 1990. An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 1990, San Francisco. The research and writing were supported by a 1987–88 Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship in the Federal Republic of Germany and a 1988–89 Ford Foundation Fellowship in European Society and Western Security at the Harvard Center for International Affairs. For criticisms and suggestions, I am grateful to Barry O'Neill, Richard Samuels, Ethan Kapstein, Howard Raiffa, Stephen Krasner, and two anonymous reviewers.

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