Cumulative Legitimation, Prudential Restraint, and the Maintenance of International Order: A Reexamination of the UN Charter System

 Author’s note: Earlier versions of this article were presented at the ISA Comparative Interdisciplinary Studies Conference in The Hague on July 3, 2006 and at the APSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia on September 1, 2006. For helpful comments, I thank the participants at these conferences as well as Robert DeVries, Simona Goi, Robert Pape, Duncan Snidal, William Stevenson, Erik Voeten, and especially Lora Viola, Alexander Thompson, and the three anonymous reviewers from ISQ. For financial support I thank the John G. Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University, and for Interim Study Leave, I thank Calvin College