Assumptions of gain preference and choice of action by states in international legislation: From the perspective of international relations

Upon entry into the vision of scholars in international relations, game theory has quickly become an effective approach to analyzing international conflicts and cooperation, and has been broadly adopted by neo-realism and neo-liberalism, which are two dominating aspects in the current theories of international relations. The former argues that the states participating in the game always follow relative gains, hence achieving a pessimistic conclusion on international cooperation, while the latter argues that the states participating in the game always follow absolute gains and deduce an optimistic prospect for international cooperation, which provides a useful way to analyze the confrontation and cooperation of states in international legislative game. Of course, it is aware that gain preference and choice of action by states in international legislative game are also conditioned by other factors.