Specific and Diffuse Reciprocity
Several theorists have drawn a distinction between "specific" forms of reciprocity and "diffuse reciprocity" (Keohane 1986). Whilst specific reciprocity is exemplified by international trade negotiations, as suggested above, diffuse reciprocity points to a wider institutionalisation of trust. Through consistent cooperation in an "international society", states are seen as building generally accepted standards of behaviour. These general standards exert their own normative pressure on state action, contributing to the development of long-term obligations between states which stress cooperation. Thus in a system of diffuse reciprocity, states need not seek the immediate benefit guaranteed by specific reciprocity, but can act in the confidence that their cooperative actions will be repaid in the long run.
Read more about this topic: Reciprocity (international Relations)
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“I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly,
musical, self-sufficient,
I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb,
Rich, hemm’d thick all around with sailships and steamships, an
island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“General education is the best preventive of the evils now most dreaded. In the civilized countries of the world, the question is how to distribute most generally and equally the property of the world. As a rule, where education is most general the distribution of property is most general.... As knowledge spreads, wealth spreads. To diffuse knowledge is to diffuse wealth. To give all an equal chance to acquire knowledge is the best and surest way to give all an equal chance to acquire property.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
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—Simone De Beauvoir (1908–1986)