The Politics of Linkage

Linkage politics—a state's making its course of action concerning a given issue contingent upon another state's behavior in a different issue area—is of interest to policymakers as well as to those theoreticians who employ an issue—area approach to the study of international politics. However, there has been little discussion of the circumstances and conditions of linkage, or of its bargaining strategies. In this paper, 2 × 2 games are used as a model of strategic interaction to delineate the situations amenable to linkage, the forms of linkage, and relevant strategies. Coerced, threat-induced, and mutual linkage are illustrated and distinguished.