Abstract :
This article is intended to offset, partially at least, the lopsided stress
placed by international relations scholarship on punitive pressures, at
the expense of positive inducements, as tools for bringing renegade
regimes into compliance with internationally accepted norms of
behavior. I discuss the focus on punishment as a tool of foreign policy
and the reasons why this bias has provided disappointing results. Using
a parallel theoretical framework, I then discuss the forms that
inducements can assume and the circumstances encouraging their
success. The hypotheses thus derived are applied to a number of specific
policy challenges. The bottom line is that inducements can, at times,
produce a direct quid pro quo from the target regime and, occasionally,
can modify that regime’s basic motivations, so that both punishments
and rewards become less necessary. In any case, positive engagement is
most effective when regime’s position is being challenged from within
