This refers to the conscious manipulation of the institutional setting within which bargaining relations take place. Many important issues are decided before they reach the bargaining stage, indeed, often because they never reach it. For understanding the distribution of power, it is as important to see who obtains in decisions made as it is to analyse which ‘non-decisions’ were made. Such conceptualisations can be found in James Caporaso’s and Susan Strange’s structural power, Stephen Krasner’s meta-power and, so one concentrates on cultural means to achieve it, in Joseph Nye’s *soft power. Despite occasional claims to the contrary, this version is perfectly compatible with neo-institutionalist approaches.