  We present a formalism within which the relationship (discovered by
Drinfel'd) between associators (for quasi-triangular quasi-Hopf algebras) and
(a variant of) the Grothendieck-Teichmuller group becomes simple and natural,
leading to a simplification of Drinfel'd's original work. In particular, we
re-prove that rational associators exist and can be constructed iteratively,
though the proof itself still depends on the apriori knowledge that a
not-necessarily-rational associator exists.
