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concern for relative gain predicts that states will prefer balance of power over collective security because the latter requires that states trust one another enough to completely forgo relative gain through unilateral disarmament, which is inherently at odds with the idea of having a positional advantage for self-defense (Mearsheimer 1994-95, 36). Meanwhile, the neoliberal institutionalist cooperation theory essentially presumes the pursuit of absolute gain over relative gain for states to achieve cooperation (Keohane 1984, 68). On a broader scale, therefore, the pursuit of relative gain would undercut international cooperation in general, in both high and low politics. It is safe to say that in practice, states are concerned with both relative and absolute gains to different degrees under different circumstances. Scholars like Duncan Snidal and Robert Axelrod have rigorously demonstrated the complexity of situations in which these two competing interests dynamically interact and change over time (see for example Snidal in Baldwin ed. and Axelrod 1984, Chapter 2). In general, though, a prevalent preference for relative gains and more specifically, military positionality among states increases the likelihood of balancing relative to collective security. If states tend to favor absolute gains instead, we are more likely to see phenomena such as deep international institutions and pluralist security communities.
VVBut even if there existed a malign hegemon that other states wanted to balance against, and the states all pursued relative gains, balance of power would still be conditional. That is, even with the aforementioned systemic constraints, balance of power is not a given without knowing the specific contingency factors unique to each situation. One additional implication of an anarchic system is pervasive uncertainty resulting from the scarcity of information, since all states have an incentive to misrepresent in order to further their positionality in event of war (Fearon 1998, 274). This explains why, perhaps in a paradoxical way, historically even in periods of multipolarity and bipolarity characterized by intense suspicion and tension, balancing did not happen as often as BOP would predict. The crux is the unexpected availability of new information which leads to a change in the course of action by altering preexisting beliefs and preferences. The European states’ collective decision to buttress the rising challenger Prussia in the 1800s despite the latter’s clear expansionist tendency shows that neither intention nor preference can be taken as a given, but both are subject to circumstantial construction (Goddard, 119). In times of crisis, this constructing effect may be especially strong. Such characterized the interwar period, and resulted in a significant lag in the European states’ learning which may have otherwise incurred greater balance against the revisionist Germany (Jervis 1978, 184). Still caught up in a spirit of collective security from the first war, these states were too “hot-headed” to switch to the phlegmatic behavior of balancing (Weisiger, lecture). This, however, had less to do with their perception of Germany or their pursuit of relative/absolute gains than with the transformational effect of the trauma of World War I. In short, the more rapid and unpredictable is the flux of information in a given situation, the less likely that the balance of power contingent on existing beliefs and preferences will occur as predicted.