This course is about the design and functioning of international cooperation through contemporary international organizations. Under what conditions would nation-states collaborate to solve common problems, when everything about their environment encourages them not to do so? By its very nature, the “chessboard” of international relations leaves little room for cooperative endeavors between nation-states, who are naturally predisposed, for their survival, to be inimical, suspicious, and short-sighted in their behavior toward one another. This is because they interact and strategize in an environment in which there is no formal authority (anarchy) and the only international law that exists is dependent on the voluntary agreement by sovereigns to abide by it when it is in their interest to do so. How do international organizations nonetheless sometimes come to be? How and how effectively do existing international organizations function?