This paper contributes to theory development about the politics of overlapping organizations. It explains how organizational overlap can affect the execution of organizational mandates. Within the ...universe of intergovernmental overlapping organizations, I argue that we need to study institutional positions in conjunction with governmental preferences. Based on these two variables, member-states have different strategies at their disposal: hostage-taking, forum-shopping, and brokering. These strategies affect the formulation and implementation of multilateral commitments. Taking the EU-NATO overlap as an example, I show how these strategies can lead to compromised organizational mandates, where hostage-taking leads to long delays in sending troops, operational uncertainties and wasted resources and brokers are left with innovating informal solutions.
The contemporary global order is widely said to be in crisis. But despite a rapidly proliferating literature on the subject, there is little clarity or consensus about wherein the 'crisis' consist, ...or what precisely is under threat. We offer a restricted characterization of the post-war global order based on its fundamental substantive and procedural ordering principles: sovereign inter-state relations and a relatively open global economy, characterized by practices of inclusive, rule-bound multilateralism. We argue that only if one of more of these foundational principles are systematically violated, can we speak of a demise of the order. To this end, we consider the extent to which each of these basic principles is currently endangered. We conclude that what we are witnessing is not the collapse of the current world order, but rather its transformation and adaptation into a broader, more flexible and multifaceted system of global governance - a change within the order rather than of the order.
Why and how do pathways to regime complexes diverge? Building on insights from the literatures on institutional design and historical institutionalism, we argue that early institutional design ...choices produce long-term variation in the pace, density, and composition of institutional layers within a regime complex. In a first step, we argue that if an institution becomes focal, this increases the exit costs for member-states to leave. Additional institutional layers become a more likely outcome. In a second step, we argue that depending on the focal organization’s formal or informal design, variegated sovereignty costs inform the additional layering pathways. If a focal organization is formal, sovereignty costs are high for member-states. Consequently, creating additional institutional layers becomes cumbersome, leading to a slow pace of “negotiated layering” and a regime complex characterized by low density and composed of formal and informal institutions. In contrast, low sovereignty costs associated with informal focal organizations enable a rapid process of “breakout layering” resulting in a high density of mostly informal institutions. We develop our argument by examining the evolution of security institutions in Europe and Asia through diplomatic cables, treaty texts, personal memoirs, and policy memos.
The creation and continued existence of CSDP cannot be understood without reference to the institutional environment within which it is located. To explain its emergence and design, one needs to ...study the institutional architecture into which this additional institution emerged. Once institutional overlap exists, it becomes a crucial independent variable explaining not only the strategies that member states have at their disposal, but also the development of international institutions occupying the same policy domain as well as the impact on the policy field at large.
Abstract
Research on political parties and foreign policy has grown in recent years in response to disciplinary and real-world changes. But party research still bears the imprint of earlier ...scepticism about the role of parties. The result is scholarship which is disaggregated, which avoids difficult cases for parties, and which has focused more on showing that parties matter relative to structural accounts of foreign policy-making. This article takes stock of recent research on political parties, party politics and their role in foreign policy-making. We argue that it is time for party research not only to embrace the question of whether parties matter but also how, when and where they matter. This requires a move away from most-likely cases and the realist foil towards an embrace of the complexity of party positions. Building on International Relations, comparative politics and foreign policy analysis scholarship, we suggest four avenues deserving of greater scholarly focus: 1) ideological multidimensionality; 2) parties as organizations and the role of entrepreneurs; 3) parties as transnational foreign policy actors; and 4) the interaction between parties and the changing global order. We propose how these literatures can help identify new research questions, contribute to theory development and help define scope conditions. This will hopefully help scholars establish benchmarks for judging the efficacy of parties in foreign policy-making.
Policy boundaries and issue interdependence are not a given. The stakes they imply-who governs, how, and where a policy domain is-become institutionalized over time, often first by the Global North. ...We know little about how these stakes are presented and institutionalized within and across organizations. We tackle this lacuna by asking how, and to what effect, an emerging policy domain is situated in a densely institutionalized environment. We argue that new policy domains such as cyberspace or artificial intelligence prompt resourceful governments to forum-shop policy frames by clustering promising issues in new and existing organizations in pursuit of coalition-building. Initially, resonance is more likely to be established in organizations with like-minded countries, leading to partially differentiated non-hierarchical regime complexes. In the long-term, competing adjustment pressures, particularly felt in the Global South, help trigger a regime-shift to an orchestrating general-purpose organization. Key actors must reconfigure their frames thereby reducing differentiation. In today's geopolitical world, this hardens intra-organizational political differences. We examine three propositions in the case of cyberspace and show how the proliferation of competing frames across organizations led to shifting the policy debate to the UN, where only piecemeal policy adjustments are possible. Our analysis is based on primary sources and immersion strategies.
Despite the prominence of ad hoc coalitions (AHCs) in global governance, there is little scholarly understanding about how to recognize or categorize them. The article provides a rigorous foundation ...for identifying AHCs and studying their effects, by drawing attention to three characteristics: their short notice creation, task specificity and initial temporality.
Abstract
Ad hoc coalitions (AHCs) are an indispensable but scantly conceptualized part of global governance. In recent years, several typologies and classifications of global governance arrangements have been provided, mostly differentiating them based on their organizational design features of degree of formality and membership composition. These do not capture AHCs and the role they play in global governance. In this article, we not only provide a conceptualization of AHCs, but also propose ways in which AHCs fit within the broader global governance architecture. We argue that what sets AHCs apart is not so much their (in)formality or membership, but rather their short-notice creation, their task-specific purpose and their temporarily circumscribed existence. We therefore define AHCs as autonomous arrangements with a task-specific mandate established at short notice for a limited time frame. We then develop a research agenda on the nature and future of AHCs, including their short- and long-term relationship with other multilateral arrangements in the global governance architecture. This is important, as we do yet not know how AHCs complement, compete and impact on international organizations and international crisis response.
Abstract What kind of order and contestation dynamics emerge if the initial institutional bargain includes liberal, partially liberal, and nonliberal visions of order? This contribution to the ...special issue locates the liberal ideational and institutional properties within the crisis management domain and analyzes contestation dynamics and their impact. My argument is twofold. First, liberal visions of order (e.g., based on human rights and self-determination) have coexisted alongside other aspirations focusing on the right of nonintervention and privileged political communities because post–World War II conflict management is rooted in the legal ambiguity of the Charter of the United Nations (UN). This ambiguity (low legalized institutionalization) gives space to different interpretations of what counts as peace, enforcement, threat, and the relationship between the UN and regional organizations (low liberal embeddedness). Second, ambiguity and competing visions of order sustain persistent contestation, which produces dialectical ordering within and outside the UN. Within dialectical ordering, order-challenging contestation occurs when actors disengage from the global level or when their vision of order becomes globally hegemonic. While order-challenging attempts in the realm of crisis management exist, they have remained unsuccessful so far. Seen from this perspective, there has never been a liberal international order in conflict management—only liberal attempts to impose a liberal order on an ongoing dialectical order-making process. So far, other order-challenging attempts, such as Russia’s sphere of influence or China’s developmental peace approaches, have also remained unsuccessful. Contestation remains the norm.
When member states of the European Union face serious international threats, does this serve as a catalyst or obstacle for European integration in the security and defence domain? To gain purchase on ...this question, this paper examines public opinion from a common instrument fielded in 24 EU member states (and the United Kingdom) with a total sample size of more than 40,000 respondents. We argue that theoretical accounts of perceived threat produce rival hypotheses. Threats might have either uniform or differential effects on different groups of citizens and could lead to either convergence or divergence of public opinion. We show that perceptions of foreign threats are associated with more favourable views on integration in the security and defence domain. Importantly, this association is as strong among Eurosceptics as among Europhiles. The findings presented here are consistent with the view that functional pressures may temporarily convince Eurosceptics to accept integration in the foreign and security domain.
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