In Who Gets What? Áslaug Ásgeirsdóttir analyzes the impact of domestic forces on international agreements through a detailed empirical analysis of the distributional outcomes of negotiations in shared fisheries. She is particularly interested in the allocation of “straddling stocks” of fish—including herring, capelin, cod, and oceanic redfish—between Iceland and Norway. Ásgeirsdóttir's research provides persuasive evidence that the constraints imposed by domestic interest groups translate directly into more beneficial outcomes from international negotiations. At the same time, her work suggests an agenda of future research that would more fully integrate issues of incomplete information and enforcement, and more fully explain the sources of domestic interest group strength.

The issue of international cooperation—when it succeeds or fails, and which states gain the most—has featured prominently in the study of international relations over the last couple of decades, and it remains a vibrant area of research. Ásgeirsdóttir approaches this literature by focusing on cooperation in a highly structured, rule-bound environment. In particular, the Law of the Sea provides a framework within which Iceland and Norway repeatedly bargain over the allocation of shared stocks. The presence of these background rules and provisions means that Ásgeirsdóttir can abstract away from the question of whether cooperation will emerge, and concentrate instead on the terms of cooperation.

She finds that the terms of cooperation have shifted strongly in Iceland's favor in the period she considers (roughly 1980–1996). While the earliest agreements were approximately evenly balanced in their allocation of stocks, later agreements have been increasingly favorable toward Iceland. Ásgeirsdóttir traces this shift in a straightforward manner to the decline of the Norwegian fishing industry as an influential interest group. Supporting the “Schelling conjecture” that tight domestic constraints lead to the ability to extract greater concessions on the international level, as Norway's interest groups declined in influence while Iceland's remained powerful, the terms of international agreements also shifted in Iceland's favor.

In both Iceland and Norway, the domestic fishing industries are well organized and tightly integrated into national politics. This is not surprising, given the countries' corporatist structures of government and the heavy dependence of these economies on the export of fish. (For example, fish exports accounted for over 90 percent of Iceland's total exports in the 1960s, and even as the economy has diversified, they made up approximately 70 percent of exports by 1995 [p. 100].) However, over the period considered, the number of fishermen in Norway declined by about 30 percent (p. 71), the industry lost most of the subsidies it received from the national government, and the parliament turned its attention to other issues. This put Norwegian negotiators in a weakened position vis-à-vis their Icelandic counterparts, accounting for the pronounced shift in bargaining outcomes.

Ásgeirsdóttir's research makes a strong contribution to the study of international fisheries, as well as to the literature on international cooperation more generally. Her empirical research is meticulous, with extensive and wide-ranging interview access, data collection, and work in the archives. She has thoroughly mastered the relevant minutia of the Law of the Sea, and the scientific literature on the fish stocks at stake, their sustainable yields, and so on. The argument she puts forth is thus persuasive, and reaffirms that the two-level games model of studying international cooperation (see Robert Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics,” International Organization 42 [1988]: 427–60), with its focus on win-sets and domestic constraints, is powerful.

This study also raises some issues for future research, in particular about how to integrate the study of interest group impact on distributional outcomes into a fuller model of international cooperation. One issue that I would raise is the possibility of endogenizing interest group strength. Ásgeirsdóttir treats interest group strength as purely an exogenous variable: As Norwegian interest groups lost power, international-level outcomes moved in Iceland's favor. This begs the question of the source of the decline of Norwegian groups. Ásgeirsdóttir provides the answer, while not fully integrating it into her theoretical framework: the rise of the Norwegian oil industry. Norwegian oil and natural gas exports accounted for just 2.2 percent of total exports in 1970, but soared to over 50 percent by 1985 (p. 72). Given the opportunities of the energy export sector, and the pressure the oil and gas boom created on the Norwegian currency, the decline of the fishing sector and increasing disinterest on the part of national politicians is no surprise. Providing a framework in which the relative strength of domestic interest groups can be more thoroughly theorized and measured would push this research agenda forward. Another tantalizing aspect of this issue might be to consider whether domestic group strength is itself influenced by the outcome of international negotiations, creating an interesting internal dynamic. As the Norwegian fishing industry began to decline, Norway's negotiating strength declined, leading in turn to further decline of the industry. Is this type of self-reinforcing decline a common feature of international negotiations, and another way to conceptualize two-level games?

Ásgeirsdóttir's work also provides some hints of important stories about information and enforcement that could be elaborated in future research. Scientific information is a vital element of any discussion of environmental issues, including fisheries. Scientists interact intensively with fishing groups throughout processes discussed in the book, and these groups are an essential source of information. Yet, the role of uncertainty (regarding, for example, the state of scientific knowledge and the actions of fishing fleets) is not explicitly theorized here, and could be productively developed. Would the influence of interest groups on negotiations decline, or otherwise be different, in a high-information environment without the type of scientific uncertainty prevalent in fisheries? Similarly, enforcement is a crucial aspect of international cooperation that arises throughout the book, but would benefit from more systematic development. Ásgeirsdóttir is able to abstract from potential enforcement problems to concentrate on distributional conflict because the interest groups themselves have worked out domestic enforcement mechanisms. This is a fascinating case of international cooperation where the inherent enforcement issues are quite intense and difficult, but there are essentially no international provisions for enforcement. Enforcement has been left entirely to the domestic level, and apparently is highly effective. This finding supports James Fearon's argument (“Bargaining, Enforcement, and International Cooperation,” International Organization 52 [1998]: 269–306) that the bargaining stage of international cooperation only becomes salient when the enforcement problem has been solved. Closer attention to domestic mechanisms that provide for enforcement of international agreements might constitute another productive research agenda following from Ásgeirsdóttir's carefully researched book.