The review of international organizations最新文献

Who adjusts under International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs and why? In this paper, I demonstrate that labor groups adjust when there is a fixed exchange rate regime and international financial groups are strong enough to defend the peg. In that case, the Fund substitutes currency devaluation with lowering labor costs via labor market reform. Lower wages are used to increase competitiveness and support exports. In other words, the Fund makes labor ‘cheaper’ through its labor market reform when money cannot be made ‘cheaper’ due to strong international financial interests. To test this theory, I use a mixed-method approach. I complement the case comparison of Latvia and Hungary in 2008–two very similar cases except for their exchange rate regime and the influence of international finance on their economy–with a large-N study using a global sample of IMF borrowers over the years 1989 and 2014. The paper shows that international organizations such as the IMF might amplify the voice of the strong (financial interests) while making the ‘weak’ (labor groups) weaker via their conditionality.

The United States has helped create and lead many international organizations (IOs). Yet in the last six years, the US announced its withdrawal from several IOs including the World Health Organization, UNESCO, and the Universal Postal Union. Do Americans care about US withdrawals from IOs? When do Americans support withdrawing from IOs and support candidates who propose this? We argue that Americans’ support for multilateralism tends to divide along party lines, and that IO withdrawal can activate those preferences. We also argue that framing an IO withdrawal as benefiting US national interests can make Americans more likely to favor IO exit. Data from four US survey experiments during the 2016–2020 Trump administration support these arguments. Democrats tend to oppose IO withdrawals while Republicans tend to support them. Further, results show that IO withdrawal (and how it is framed) affects candidate choice and policy support. This suggests that announcing IO withdrawal can be used to rally domestic electoral support. Still, the data also show that a large proportion of the US public values remaining in IOs, even when IOs are imperfect or challenging. In these cases, we note that sunk cost fallacies, status quo bias, and loss aversion may pose friction points for supporting withdrawal. Our findings have important implications for research on public opinion about international cooperation, backlash against IOs, and their life cycles.

When countries are confronted with a crisis and have no alternative but to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), speed is of the essence. Why do some countries negotiate IMF loans more quickly than others? We introduce an original dataset on the timing and intensity of negotiations between the borrowing government and IMF staff for more than 700 IMF loans agreed between 1985 and 2020. Applying concepts from this special issue on the “Power of the Weak” (Snidal et al., 2024), we argue that although borrowing countries are in a weak position when they approach the IMF, they nonetheless sometimes achieve more rapid negotiations. In particular, we argue that borrowers can obtain speedier negotiations on the basis of their ties to major IMF shareholder states, specifically through shared membership in other international organizations and financial exposure. Importantly, we suggest that well-placed borrowers can hasten the conclusion of negotiations without compromising on the conditions attached to IMF programs. We use our original data and an illustrative case study of Côte d’Ivoire to support our claims.

Abstract

While international historians and policy practitioners regularly highlight the utility of multilateral diplomacy as a quintessential “strategy of the weak,” International Relations (IR) scholars have generally downplayed the impact of diplomatic choices. The tools within IR theory to assess the impact of diplomacy remain underdeveloped, contributing to an inability to account for a highly proximate source of international influence. This article argues for a theoretical reengagement with the subject of multilateral diplomacy and, using insights from Social Network Analysis, develops a Diplomatic Impact Framework. Building on the novel concept of replaceability, the article contributes theoretically to the literature on diplomacy, as well as on small and middle powers. This framework captures the fundamentally relational character of diplomacy, isolating analytically this form of structural power from the influence conferred by superior material or institutional resources. Drawing extensively on a multinational collection of diplomatic documents and first-hand accounts, this multidisciplinary article probes the plausibility of the framework through a detailed comparative case study of Canada’s diplomatic influence at the United Nations General Assembly throughout two international security crises: the Korean War and the Suez Crisis.

Many proposals advocate linking climate and trade policy to improve climate cooperation. Since climate mitigation is non-excludable, mitigation cannot be enforced through issue-specific reciprocity, but linking mitigation with trade penalties on non-participants could incorporate trade’s enforcement powers into a climate club. However, this perspective has overlooked the relationship between climate policy preferences and existing trade flows. Using a model of issue linkage in climate and trade motivated by findings from the domestic political economy of international trade, I show that the necessary conditions for climate clubs are exacting. Effective climate–trade clubs require members with high levels of climate policy ambition, export leverage over laggards, and insulation from trade retaliation. However, I show that these three attributes do not necessarily co-occur theoretically or empirically. States that support the club’s goals on one dimension may undermine them on another. The findings provide insights into institutional design, climate politics, and the constraints on issue linkage in international cooperation.

The article presents the first systematic comparative study on the growing involvement of international organizations in national constitution making around the world. Over the past three decades, the emerging field of international constitutional advising has undergone an intense process of institutionalization and professionalization, mirroring the increasing role constitution making is playing in both national and international politics. Despite the vast scope of the phenomenon, the involvement of foreign constitutional advisors in domestic constitution-drafting or constitutional reforms has received little scholarly attention. This article takes the first steps towards addressing this lacuna empirically, by introducing a new dataset on 46 international organizations involved in 730 constitutional advising projects in 145 countries between 1989 and 2017. We classified the organizations based on their type, their headquarters’ location, the countries they target, the kind of advising activities they perform and the level of directness of the advising intervention. While generally, we find a significant correlation between more direct constitutional advising activities and larger relative changes in the quality of democracy and larger numbers of constitutional systems in a country, the article suggests avenues for more nuanced research to better understand constitutional advising’s impact.

By nearly every measure, power in the international system is concentrated, meaning that most states lack significant power resources. And yet international relations theory tends to focus on the behavior of great powers. This special issue instead explores the strategies that “weak” states use in the context of international organizations both to advance their interests and to resist pressure from stronger states. We define weakness as a relative lack of power across one or more dimensions. While the literature, to the extent it has focused on weak actors, has too often defined weakness solely in material terms, we adopt a broader conception that builds on the influential typology of power by Barnett and Duvall (Barnett and Duvall, 2005a, Barnett and Duvall, International Organization 59, 39–75, 2005b). A multidimensional conceptualization of power allows analysts to show how actors that are weak in one dimension (often material power) may be stronger on other dimensions, giving them greater capacity for action than is often recognized. From this framework we create a typology of “strategies of the weak” that emphasizes the agency of weaker actors to make the most of their positions. The contributions to the special issue, summarized here, illuminate and substantiate many of these strategies across a diverse range of international organizations, understood as both forums and actors. As the articles show, these alternative theoretical mechanisms help explain how and why seemingly weak states sometimes fare better than a simplistic assessment of their material capabilities might suggest. By deepening our understanding of weakness and how it influences state behavior, the volume advances our theoretical understanding of how power is built, wielded, and resisted in and through international organization.

How do intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) evolve? Cooperation through IGOs is difficult to maintain, as membership dynamics change dramatically over time, leading to dissatisfaction with the status quo. This paper argues that IGO members states create new affiliated bodies, which I call linked intergovernmental organizations (LIGOs), to “re-contract” their cooperation. This helps IGOs adapt to changing membership dynamics, including the addition of new members and shifting constellations of power and preference. LIGOs are particularly useful for weak or formerly weak states seeking to alter the institutional status quo. Several features of LIGOs incentivize their creation: (1) they bypass difficult-to-enact reforms at existing IGOs; (2) flexible design features increase the voice of dissatisfied constituencies; and (3) they are politically viable for dissatisfied and status quo members of IGOs. To test my argument, I analyze original data on 1,200 LIGOs created between 1945 and 2012. Multivariate statistical analyses show that LIGOs are created in response to shifting membership environments that create demands for change at existing IGOs. I complement the quantitative analysis with case studies of two significant LIGOs: The International Development Agency (IDA) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). My theory suggests a dramatic rethinking of how international cooperation evolves and has broad implications for global governance in an increasingly multipolar world.

This article explores how weak countries deflect systemic pressure towards change and even succeed in preserving old institutions to their advantage. By expanding Goddard’s theory of embedded revisionism to smaller powers, the study identifies strategies these states deploy to improve access and brokerage. We use the UN General Assembly Sponsorship Dataset to locate multilateral brokers and, after detecting Cuba’s centrality in this arena, we proceed to a heuristic case study. Havana’s maneuvers to offset its vulnerability during and after the Cold War reveal a mix of structural, institutional, and compulsory power. Specifically, its renewal of the Non-Aligned Movement even after the end of bipolarity, its maintenance of autocracy amidst the pressures for democratization, and later support of radicalized Latin American leaders provide insight regarding unexpected sources of network power available to a resilient rogue state.

Given high costs of negotiating formal international institutions, states are widely expected to adapt, reform, and repurpose existing institutions rather than create new ones. Nevertheless, during the past century some 60 intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) have been directly replaced by a legal successor. Why do states sometimes dissolve an existing IGO only to replace it with a new one that takes over the incumbent organization’s mandate and assets—a practice known as institutional succession? We offer a theory of institutional succession and illustrate with examples. Against the dominant belief that creating new IGOs is a choice of last resort, we argue that reform and succession are equally expedient tools for achieving institutional change but address different negotiating hurdles. By creating a new institution (as opposed to amending an existing one) succession bypasses veto players that may stunt reform. However, succession suffers from potential diseconomies-of-scale (since not every member of an existing IGO may join the successor) which reform does not. Depending on which negotiation hurdle prevails, reform will be preferred to succession or vice versa. Our analysis advances existing understandings of institutional contestation and change within the life cycle of an international organisation.