States seldom enter diplomatic bargaining or negotiations as power equals. Each has information of its own and its opponent's power potential, as well as knowledge of its own goals, even though that information may be imperfect, incomplete, or even just wrong. Thus, although the outcome of the bargaining is almost always mutually beneficial (if not, why bother?), that outcome is not likely to please each of the parties equally. And the satisfaction of each party may change as new information is revealed or as conditions change over time. Bargaining and negotiations are complex processes, complicated by at least two critical factors. First, most states carry out two levels of bargaining simultaneously: international bargaining between and among states and the bargaining that must occur between the state's negotiators and its various domestic constituencies, both to arrive at a negotiating position and to ratify the agreement reached by the two states. Political scientist Robert Putnam refers to this as the “two-level game". International trade negotiations within the World Trade Organization are such a two-level game. For example, Japan and South Korea bargain with the United States over the liberalization of rice markets. The United States supports liberalization in order to improve the balance of trade between it and the respective Asian powers; by advocating this position, the United States supports its own domestic rice producers, located in the key electoral states of California and Texas. Japan and South Korea have powerful domestic interests opposing liberalization, including rice farmers strategically located in virtually all voting constituencies. Thus, in each case, the United States and Japan or South Korea are each conducting two sets of negotiations: one with the foreign state and the other within the domestic political arena. What makes the game unusually complex is that “moves that are rational for one player at one board . . . may be impolitic for that same player at the other board.” The negotiator is the formal link between the two levels of negotiation. Realists see the two-level game as constrained primarily by the structure of the international system, whereas liberals more readily acknowledge domestic pressures and incentives.