a contest of beneficence 95
collective security arrangements and provides the raison d’être for United
Nations peacekeeping operations (Kupchan and Kupchan 1995 ; Bobrow
and Boyer 1997 ; Khanna, Sandler, and Shimizu 1996 ; Shimizu and Sandler
2002 ). However, this explanation of prosociality is susceptible to prob-
lems of collective action (Olson 1965 ; Olson and Zeckhauser 1966 ; Hardin
1982 ). Improving the collective welfare of the group provides a benefit to
all group members even if they did not partake in the prosocial effort. It
is a prosocial act. This creates strong incentives for free riding, which is
likely to result in an underprovision of the good. The collective welfare
explanation, therefore, results in a tautology — it suggests that prosocial-
ity is driven by prosociality.
Some actors, for example, may have an unusually strong interest in the
provision of the collective good. Such actors, according to Olson, consti-
tute a “privileged” group in which “each of its members, or at least one
of them, has an incentive to see that the collective good is provided even
if he has to bear the full burden of providing it himself” (Olson 1965 , 49 –
50 ).^8 This type of explanation is often used to account for the seemingly
prosocial behavior of hegemons or great powers (Gilpin 1981 ; Kindle-
berger 1973 ; Stein 1984 ; Webb and Krasner 1989 ; for criticism, see Gowa
1989 ; Snidal 1985 ). Similarly, the literature on middle powers claims that
their intermediate position in the international hierarchy turns them into
a privileged prosocial group. Middle powers, according to this argument,
are more prosocial because they have the highest stakes in keeping the
system stable and peaceful (Holbraad 1984 ; Pinchaud 1966 ; Mackay 1969 ;
Wood 1988 ; Gordon 1966 ; Boyd 1964 , 81 – 81 ; Pratt 1989 , 1990 ; Lovbraek
1990 ; Naeck 1995 , 184 – 85 ). However, contrary to the expectations of he-
gemonic stability theory and theories of public goods, smaller countries,
rather than big or even middle powers, carry more of the burden of UN
peacekeeping (Bobrow and Boyer 1997 , 729 ). Similarly, Hoadley ( 1980 )
finds that small Western countries tend to be more generous and offer
higher levels of foreign aid than big Western powers.
Privileged groups can also be formed by actors who are ideologically
committed to prosociality. Actors can engage in prosocial policies simply
because they believe that it is the right thing to do (Lumsdaine 1993 ; Van
der Veen 2000 ; Thérien and Noël 2000 ). This explanation is often used
to account for the internationalist policies of the Scandinavian countries
(Pratt 1990 ; Lamsdaine 1993 ; Thérien and Noël 2000 ; Van der Veen 2000 ;
Stokke 1989 ). However, even in the Scandinavian case, not all dimensions
of foreign policy follow the prosocial line. If ideology is the motivating
