International-relations scholars tend to focus on the formation, design, and effects of international organizations (IOs). However, the vitality of IOs varies tremendously. I argue that IOs end up in ...one of three situations. They could die off altogether, though this happens infrequently. More commonly, many IOs become “zombies.” They continue to operate, but without any progress toward their mandates. A third category includes IOs that are alive and functioning. I develop a theory to explain an organization’s vitality, hinging on the quality of the bureaucracy. In an environment where IOs with similar goals, and with many overlapping members, compete for bureaucrats, the ability of the secretariats to attract talented staff and to enact policy autonomously are associated with whether organizations truly stay active, simply endure, or die off. I demonstrate this proposition using a new measure of the vitality of international economic organizations from 1950 to the present. Around 52 percent of the organizations in the sample are alive and functioning, around 10 percent are essentially dead, and nearly 38 percent are zombies. Using these original data, tests of these propositions support the theory.
United Nations (UN) General Assembly votes have become the standard data source for measures of states preferences over foreign policy. Most papers use dyadic indicators of voting similarity between ...states. We propose a dynamic ordinal spatial model to estimate state ideal points from 1946 to 2012 on a single dimension that reflects state positions toward the US-led liberal order. We use information about the content of the UN's agenda to make estimates comparable across time. Compared to existing measures, our estimates better separate signal from noise in identifying foreign policy shifts, have greater face validity, allow for better intertemporal comparisons, are less sensitive to shifts in the UN' agenda, and are strongly correlated with measures of liberalism. We show that the choice of preference measures affects conclusions about the democratic peace.
Abstract
Why are some institutions without any policy powers or output? This study documents the efforts by governments to create empty international institutions whose mandates deprive them of any ...capacity for policy formulation or implementation. Examples include the United Nations Forum on Forests, the Copenhagen Accord on Climate Change, and the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. Research is based on participation in twenty-one rounds of negotiations over ten years and interviews with diplomats, policymakers, and observers. The article introduces the concept of empty institutions, provides evidence from three empirical cases, theorizes their political functions, and discusses theoretical implications and policy ramifications. Empty institutions are deliberately designed not to deliver and serve two purposes. First, they are political tools for hiding failure at negotiations, by creating a public impression of policy progress. Second, empty institutions are “decoys” that distract public scrutiny and legitimize collective inaction, by filling the institutional space in a given issue area and by neutralizing pressures for genuine policy. Contrary to conventional academic wisdom, institutions can be raised as obstacles that preempt governance rather than facilitate it.
The liberal international order has recently come under increasing nationalist pressure, evidenced by a rise in nationalist demands to withdraw from international institutions. A growing literature ...examines the domestic economic, social, and political origins of this nationalist backlash against international institutions. However, less is known about the extent to which precedents of withdrawals of one country affect nationalist pressures for future withdrawals elsewhere. In this paper, we argue that initial withdrawal episodes provide new information about the feasibility and desirability of withdrawals to nationalist elites in other countries. Hence, we expect nationalists abroad to be either encouraged or deterred to follow a similar path - depending on the success of these precedents. We explore this argument in the context of the British withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit), which arguably marks the most significant withdrawal from an international institution to date. Based on a quantitative analyses of media reports in ten European countries, we show we show that nationalist parties in Europe increased or moderated the aggressiveness about their EU-related rhetoric as the ups and downs of the Brexit-drama unfolded. Our results suggest that precedents of nationalist withdrawals shape domestic politics well beyond the concerned countries themselves.
The design of international institutions varies in many ways: Institutions can be more or less formal, flexible, independent, precise, inclusive, centralized, and so on. This article classifies ...theoretical efforts to make sense of these similarities and differences. First, some theories focus on the bargains or contracts that attempt to construct equilibrium behavior while other theories analyze institutional design as a dynamic process. Second, theories vary in whether they understand institutional design as a response to the environment in which institutions operate or as a function of the incentives, interests, values, initiatives, and power of the actors that created the institutions. The article discusses four ideal-typical theoretical approaches that fit in each quadrant of the resulting 2×2 typology: rational functionalist, distributive rationalist, historical institutionalist, and structural process theories. These approaches identify different causes for suboptimal or even dysfunctional institutional design: domestic politics, power politics, path dependence, and culture. The conclusion discusses how these theories can help us make sense of current challenges to institutions and their design.
Global food security is at a tipping point. After decades of both absolute and relative improvement in food security worldwide, climate change, market disruptions and declining productivity have ...reversed the trend. After four decades of improving food security, both more people and a larger portion of the global population are hungry today than in 2015. In response, researchers and their funders, governments, industries and interest groups are urging renewed collaboration and partnerships to recover and return to accelerate food production and to improve food distribution. Recently some public academics and civil society organizations are opposing these public-private partnerships (P3s). The article reviews the context, discusses the logic for P3s and explores the range of P3s that have been used and their impacts on the global agri-food system. We conclude that rather than reversing direction, the use of both strategic and tactical partnerships should be accelerated in order to improve global food security.
•Food insecurity is increasing, triggering a need for innovative solutions.•Public sector investments in agricultural R&D are declining.•Recent increases in ag R&D are due to private sector investments.•P3s equitably share the costs and risks of innovation.•P3s offer food security solutions in the face of changing climates.
Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are generally understood to promote political cooperation between members. I argue that institutional exclusion can damage political cooperation between members ...and non-members. Preferential trade agreements reflect strategic considerations, enabling countries to promote new trade norms, strengthen diplomatic networks, and redirect commercial flows to allies. Excluded countries are denied these benefits and may possibly be targeted by members. Thus, excluding PTAs may be perceived as threats. The record of the Trans-Pacific Partnership illustrates the theory. Statistical analysis of the near-universe of PTAs and countries’ voting affinities in the United Nations General Assembly supports the argument.
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