MAPPING THE NEW WORLD ORDER Thomas J. Volgy, Zlatko Šabicˇ, Petra Roter, and Andrea K. Gerlak with Ana Bojinovic´ Fenko, Elizabeth Fausett, Anus˘ka Ferligoj, Keith A. Grant, Andrej Mrvar, and Stuart Rodgers
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
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MAPPING THE NEW WORLD ORDER
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MAPPING THE NEW WORLD ORDER Thomas J. Volgy, Zlatko Šabicˇ, Petra Roter, and Andrea K. Gerlak with Ana Bojinovic´ Fenko, Elizabeth Fausett, Anus˘ka Ferligoj, Keith A. Grant, Andrej Mrvar, and Stuart Rodgers
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
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This edition first published 2009 © 2009 Thomas J. Volgy, Zlatko Šabič, Petra Roter and Andrea K. Gerlak Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www. wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of Thomas J. Volgy, Zlatko Šabič, Petra Roter and Andrea K. Gerlak, to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mapping the new world order / Thomas J. Volgy … [et al.] ; with Ana Bojinovic´ Fenko … [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-6963-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4051-6962-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. International organization. I. Volgy, Thomas J. JZ4850.M36 2009 341.2–dc22 2008054076 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Set in 10.5/13pt Minion by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India. Printed in Malaysia 1
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Contents
Preface About the Authors 1 In Search of the Post-Cold War World Order: Questions, Issues, and Perspectives Thomas J. Volgy, Zlatko Šabicˇ, Petra Roter, Elizabeth Fausett, and Stuart Rodgers 2 Mapping the Architecture of the New World Order: Continuity and Change in the Constellation of Post-Cold War Formal Intergovernmental Organizations Thomas J. Volgy, Keith A. Grant, Elizabeth Fausett, and Stuart Rodgers 3 Accounting for the New World Order of FIGO Architecture and Its Effectiveness Keith A. Grant, Thomas J. Volgy, Elizabeth Fausett, and Stuart Rodgers 4
Problematizing the Benign: Conflict, IGOs, and the New World Order in the Post-Communist Space Elizabeth Fausett and Thomas J. Volgy
5 The Correlates of Cooperative Institutions for International Rivers Andrea K. Gerlak and Keith A. Grant
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6 Substituting for Democratization: A Comparative Analysis of Involvement in Regional Intergovernmental Organizations Stuart Rodgers and Thomas J. Volgy
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7 State Support for Human Rights Treaties Petra Roter, Anus˘ka Ferligoj, and Andrej Mrvar
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8 The Mediterranean as a Region in the Making Ana Bojinovic´ Fenko
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9 Conclusions Thomas J. Volgy, Zlatko Šabicˇ, Petra Roter, Andrea K. Gerlak, Elizabeth Fausett, Keith A. Grant, and Stuart Rodgers
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Index
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Preface
This effort owes its birth to numerous sources of inspiration. One large part of it stemmed from the unilateralist impulse among US foreign policy makers following the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and culminating in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That terrorist tragedy led to war in the Middle East but did not stimulate a multilateral reconstruction of global and regional architecture of cooperation between states. We felt that these events represented a missed opportunity of tragic proportions, and led us to take a closer look at how much restructuring has occurred (and why) since the end of the Cold War. We were also challenged by our diverse experiences with regional and global institutions. The authors from North America worked together with European colleagues. These geographical differences underscore not only significant differences in training and in theoretical and methodological perspectives, but as well, significant life experiences with regional and global institutions. European scholars live under the shadow of the gigantic and expanding regional experiment that is the European Union (EU); it touches virtually every facet of their lives. For American scholars, there is no similar experience, but they in turn have lived as part of – and have been critically influenced by – first, the superpower status of the US, and then its “unipolar” status following the end of the Cold War. Merging these perspectives created both inspiration and much challenge to our efforts to examine and evaluate the nature of post-Cold War collaborative arrangements in international affairs.
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As with most books, this one came in a mixture of enthusiasm, anticipation, much toil, and angst. In particular, it was a result of ongoing discussions we shared regularly, during annual International Studies Association (ISA) conventions and on various other occasions, both in the US and in Slovenia. Our institutional relationship within the ISA and the Central and East European International Studies Association (CEEISA) has developed into personal friendship, which allowed for all those debates, disagreements, and efforts to look for solutions to theoretical and methodological as well as normative issues. What was particularly striking to all of us during years-long conversations were not our views on substantive issues, though those differed significantly on a few occasions, but methodological ones. Without our friendship we might not have been able to overcome those differences. Instead, we chose to work hard on compiling the data where possible, but also on questioning already existing data, adding the missing pieces of information, doing alternative coding, and gently questioning each others’ methods. Luckily, our graduate students shared our enthusiasm. In fact, they often pushed us as data were collected and first analyses were complete. In addition to our (initial) differences on what data are needed to address our research questions, we spent months discussing the definition of regions. Here, our views were perhaps most apart, particularly with respect to two already contested regions: Europe and the Middle East (and by implication, Africa and Asia). As we have sought to explain regional and inter-regional behavior and cooperation, such differences were more than purely definitional. The way regions are defined, we all agreed, would have an impact on region-based behavior, particularly on inter-regional cooperation. In the end, we agreed to disagree. Or to put it more accurately: we agreed that different approaches toward identifying and/or defining regions are needed in our exercise. In the end, we feel that this is one side-product of our analysis that itself offers a contribution to the ongoing debates about defining regions, particularly among (comparative) regionalism scholars. Every co-author knows the varied trade-offs of collaboration. Theoretical, methodological, and stylistic differences are constantly exaggerated by differences in schedules, professional responsibilities, and the varying demands of everyday life. At the same time, co-authors share responsibility, probe and analyze each others’ contributions, (hopefully) provide support when needed, and pressure for a better product when one or more of us felt the pressure to “move on” instead of focusing on the need to do the best possible job.
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The yardstick of successful co-authorship should be the quality of the product it produces; we hope that we have succeeded on this measure, but it is ultimately up to the reader to determine if we have created useful and valid insights into the changing nature of international relations. For coauthors, however, there is another test of their collaboration: have their relationships and friendships deteriorated or solidified? While of no consequence to the reader, we proudly report that on this measure we have succeeded. Those who are familiar with the process of collaboration will readily acknowledge that this is a great accomplishment. As with all efforts of this type, we owe much to others who are not formally recognized in the pages that follow. We wish to thank the support and resources provided to us by the Centre of International Relations at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana and the Department of Political Science and the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona. We acknowledge financial support by the European Commission (the GARNET Network of Excellence on Global Governance, Regionalisation and Regulation: The Role of the EU, contract No.: 513330), which helped us to complete the data collection on human rights, and several other aspects of the project. We acknowledge as well the legions of discussants and colleagues at too many conferences and conventions who heard excerpts of our work: at the ISA, at the World International Studies Committee conferences, at the CEEISA, and at the Russian International Studies Association conference. We thank our graduate students in both Ljubljana and Tucson: some of them provided enormous insights and assistance with this project; others made up some of the captive audiences who heard and responded to various versions of our efforts. We thank as well Nick Bellorini at what used to be Blackwell but is now Wiley-Blackwell for having faith in the project and us, and for providing quality anonymous reviewers who gave us important insights both at the beginning and at the end of this process. Publishers need to encourage, cajole, and then threaten when deadlines loom, but never discourage; both Nick and many others in the publications house did their jobs admirably, and we are grateful for the roles they played in this enterprise. Each of us also owes individual debts of gratitude. Tom Volgy thanks first his spouse Sharon Douglas whose support – both emotional and intellectual – appears to have no limits and without whom neither this nor any work would be possible or worthwhile. He thanks as well Matthew, a son who may have rejected the study of politics for the simpler disciplines of the physical sciences in his studies, but is otherwise the perfect son through
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whom one learns quickly that the future should be the issue of utmost concern. Additionally, the extent of hospitality, warmth, professionalism, and friendship extended to Tom and his students by the University of Ljubljana, and especially Petra Roter and Zlatko Šabicˇ , cannot be sufficiently acknowledged. Tom thanks as well his students (both graduate and undergraduate) who are far more important in the classroom for the production of knowledge than we typically acknowledge. Finally, he wishes to thank Dana Larsen, the staff, the leadership, and the members of the International Studies Association (ISA), who have always given encouragement and latitude for him to produce research while the work of the ISA continues unabated. In fact, all the authors express gratitude to Dana Larsen, the ISA staff, and their great colleagues at the ISA for all the support and inspiration they have provided. Andrea K. Gerlak is grateful to Tom Volgy and Aaron Wolf for their mentorship and inspiration during this project as well as in other professional pursuits, and to Jeanne N. Clarke for providing such a solid foundation upon which to explore these and many other matters of policy and governance. She thanks her spouse, Conrad Clemens, for his friendship and love, and for always keeping her grounded with his constant injection of humor and playfulness. And to her two children, Ella and Lucas, she appreciates their patience when their mother’s nose was (often) stuck in the computer. She wishes them a passion for international affairs – and a commitment to making the world a better place. Finally, Petra Roter and Zlatko Šabič would like to thank Tom Volgy for his constant enthusiasm and his guiding role in this project. It was his persistence that kept them going on more than one occasion. It was also thanks to him that they spent time discussing issues of world order and global governance with their colleagues at the Faculty of Social Sciences (particularly Ana Bojinović Fenko who shared their eagerness for this project right from the beginning, but also Anuška Ferligoj and Andrej Mrvar who added to this rewarding experience by continuously providing critical input when it was most needed). This has been a true learning experience, and they are happy that the end result is not just the book, but also personal friendship with Tom, Sharon, Andrea, and the rest of the wonderful staff at the ISA that guarantees a few long dinner dates at any joint occasion possible.
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About the Authors
Thomas J. Volgy is Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona, and executive director of the International Studies Association. He has previously worked for USAID, USIA, and the National Democratic Institute in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Central America, and was recently an Atlantic Fellow. His previous books include International Politics and State Strength (2003) and Politics in the Trenches: Citizens, Politicians, and the Fate of Democracy (2001). He has also written prolifically in IR and political science journals. Zlatko Šabicˇ is Professor of International Relations at the University of Ljubljana, and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of International Relations. He is President of the Central and East European International Studies Association (CEEISA) and a member of the Standing Group on International Relations. He sits on the Editorial Board of the European Journal of International Relations and has authored or edited over 50 articles, focusing on democratic global governance, the role of small states, and EU enlargement. His previous books include Small States in the Post-Cold War World: Slovenia and NATO Enlargement (co-edited with Charles Bukowski, 2002). Petra Roter is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Ljubljana, and Research Fellow at the Centre of International Relations. She was recently GARNET Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Globalization and Regionalisation at the University of Warwick and holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Cambridge. She has co-authored a book on the integration of new minorities in urban areas, is a member of two editorial boards, and coordinates three EU-funded research projects at the Centre of International Relations, University of Ljubljana.
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Andrea K. Gerlak is Director of Academic Development for the International Studies Association, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science, and Research Scholar with the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona. Her research interests are in environmental and natural resource policy, with particular attention to institutions and governance issues. She has published articles in numerous journals, including Global Environmental Politics, Journal of Environment and Development, Policy Studies Journal, Natural Resources Journal, Water Policy, Society and Natural Resources, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, and Environmental Management.
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Chapter 1
In Search of the Post-Cold War World Order: Questions, Issues, and Perspectives Thomas J. Volgy, Zlatko Šabicˇ, Petra Roter, Elizabeth Fausett, and Stuart Rodgers It has become somewhat trivial to argue against the thesis that we are living in an age characterized by “the end of history” (Fukuyama, 1992). Now, roughly two decades since the Cold War ended and a new era dawned in international relations, we witness little in the way of a total and complete victory of democratic and capitalist forces and peaceful, wealthy, and harmonious relations between states. The US emerged as the dominant state in global politics but found itself fighting no fewer than four separate wars and mired in two of them. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) went to war for the first time in its history. Genocide raised its ugly head in Africa and Europe. Regional conflicts pared down efforts at collaboration in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and recently in Europe. International terrorism, all too familiar during the previous era, hit again nearly all regions of the world and uniquely in the US. Inequality within and between states has continued to increase. Norms of democratization, human rights, and nuclear non-proliferation are much more vigorously contested in a variety of regions than one would suspect in a time of peaceful and harmonious relations.
Elizabeth Fausett is a PhD candidate in the department of Political Science at the University of Arizona. Her research interests include the changing dynamics of international organization, international institutions and cooperation, foreign policy preferences and the link between global and regional architecture. Stuart Rodgers has a law degree and is completing his PhD in Political Science at the University of Arizona, focusing on foreign policy substitutability concerns.
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Globalization has accelerated, yet unevenly, in terms of both scope and benefits. Climate change is no longer contested scientifically, and it augurs a dire future. Scarcity in natural resources, particularly water and oil, along with rising energy and food costs, threatens security. International cooperation between Northern and Southern states, developed within trade regimes of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), has appeared to have ground to a halt (at least for the Doha Round of negotiations). The near-collapse of the global financial system in late 2008 has shown that governance in this sector (or, the lack of it) has been inadequate, while globalization has caused the crisis to shift very swiftly from one company to another, from one sector to another, and from one country to another. Unlike academics such as Fukuyama, policy makers never expected the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War to be a panacea for the world’s ills, and few expected the “end of history.” However one may wish to call this new era in global politics, it seems safe to argue that the world remains in many ways at least as troublesome as before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It appears as well that the ways and means of governing contemporary world issues are insufficient or inadequate for the challenges posed by the contemporary international community, and that there may be need for approaches to global governance different from the structures that limped in from the Cold War. The clearest articulation of an intention to build and manage a new world in the wake of the Cold War came from George H. W. Bush at the beginning of his term as the President of the United States: We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment … Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective – a new world order – can emerge: a new era – freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony … Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we’ve known.1 … [And six months later] … Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order.2
Of course, optimism about the emergence of “new” in international politics had much to do with the fact that the Soviet Union collapsed as a superpower.3 Yet, almost two decades on, there is still an ongoing debate among the policy makers and in the scholarly literature (Drezner, 2008; Ikenberry, 2003; Stein, 2008) on the following questions: What is or could
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be this new world order? How different is it or can it be from the previous one? What are or may be its consequences for international relations? The purpose of this book is to explore the features of this (emerging) new world order by addressing these and related fundamental questions. Previous answers in the literature vary greatly, and range from calls for reconsideration of the great power structure in the world,4 through arguments that the emerging new world order would be dominated by various transnational networks (Slaughter, 2004), to somewhat optimistic anticipation of “cosmopolitan democracy” as a foundation of the global institutional architecture (Held, 1995; Archibugi et al., 1998). It appears that the answers depend often on differences surrounding competing theoretical perspectives, the issues being considered as paramount in international relations, and access to available data. Our conception of world order (new or old) is nearly as eclectic as the international relations literature. However, the tasks we pursue in this volume restrict the exploration of the order to the constellation of intergovernmental organizations being created – or failing to be created – in international and regional politics, and a range of effects that such creations have on the relations between states. We recognize (below and in Figure 1.1) that the concept of world order is far broader than our focus; we note where we fit into the larger conceptualization and we seek to extrapolate some of our findings beyond the constellation of organizations that promote cooperation between states. Yet we wish to stress the caveat that an examination of the entire order is beyond the scope of this (or most other single) volume(s). By world order, we are referring to patterns of relationships over time that are structured by mechanisms and actors to make socio-political interactions across state boundaries predictable and manageable. There is much to include in such a generic definition, including the distribution and control of global military and economic capabilities, and the development and maintenance of norms, rules, institutions, and organizations. Furthermore, the definition is not meant to be deterministic: while distributions of global military/political/economic capabilities may reflect the potential for global or regional leadership by certain actors, we assume that there are far more factors at play in the creation and maintenance of global mechanisms that shape the contours of world order than material capabilities. Thus, in our conceptualization, while conditions of unipolarity or multipolarity may matter, they are not deterministic in identifying new or existing world orders.
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In fact, the extent to which changing material capabilities and the actions of strong states can create new world order – new structures and, resulting from them, new norms, new patterns of relationships, and new methods of addressing global and regional issues, as articulated in the statements of President Bush – is a matter of much controversy and needs to be subjected to substantial empirical analysis. The work that follows seeks to slice into this broad definition by focusing on subsets of world order: changes in organizational structures and norms emanating from such organizational structures, and linking the presence or absence of such changes to patterns of relationships between states. In this manner, while we will not be able to assess whether or not all the dimensions of world order have changed, we will be able to scrutinize more closely whether or not salient subsets of world order have undergone change, and the consequences they may have produced for post-Cold War international relations.
Conceptualizing World Order What is meant by world order and related concepts such as global governance depends in large part on one’s theoretical perspective and the assumptions such a perspective brings to the study of international politics. Neorealism, as the most influential theoretical approach in studying international relations, assumes that the international system operates under conditions of anarchy (Waltz, 1979). Accepting the anarchy assumption (Bueno de Mesquita, 2003:126) narrows the new world order focus to the distribution and control of military/political/economic resources and gives rise to debates about whether or not the new system is unipolar and conditions under which it will likely transform to bipolarity or multipolarity (Waltz, 1993). While parsimonious, we find the approach driving the assumption of anarchy – the absence of such governance structures modeled on how states are organized – too narrow for understanding how governance operates in international affairs. It is clear that states struggle against anarchy, and, depending on their capabilities, desires, and the costs involved at any particular time, can succeed in various ways to create relatively enduring mechanisms that make governance at the system level consistently possible for significant periods of time. In turn, many states agree to abide by norms, rules, and procedural mechanisms created by institutions to resolve either
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problems and conflicts or issues of coordination. Whether they do so because of enforcement mechanisms or because other alternatives are perceived to be more costly, these uses of global (and regional) governance mechanisms are not completely dissimilar to structures and processes in domestic political systems that lead citizens to opt generally to live within a system of rules for reasons other than the high probability of sanctions and central government enforcement. This picture – suggesting varying ways that anarchy in international affairs can be reduced – may not conform to the idea of governance through a centralized government that has a monopoly on the distribution of goods and values in many domestic political systems. It is, however, a significant distance from the assumption of the constancy of anarchy. We recognize as well that governance mechanisms are supported and made possible by states, but we feel that this simply adds to the decentralized character of governance, rather than being equated with anarchy. Thus, and consistent with much of the implicit emphasis in international relations scholarship, we suggest that rather than being a constant condition, anarchy should be treated as a variable that fluctuates with time, circumstance, the extent of decentralized organization of international politics, and the capability and willingness of states to create mechanisms of governance. Treating anarchy as a variable appears to be consistent with a variety of theoretical approaches to understanding international politics. Even those close to neorealists, including power transition theorists (Tammen et al., 2000) and long-cycle theorists (Rasler and Thompson, 1994), who either focus on hierarchies of power relations or on global leaders and challengers, nevertheless include as critical the articulation of sets of rules and norms established primarily by leading powers for the entire operation of the interstate system. Liberal institutionalists (Keohane, 1984; Ikenberry, 2001) offer a more decentralized view of global order, yet articulate as well constellations of organizations, institutions, regimes, etc., that when treated together appear to demonstrate substantial order to international politics. Social constructivists are even more dismissive of the anarchy assumption (Wendt, 1992, 1996). Taken as a whole, this scholarship seems not so much to suggest that anarchy is a constant, but to focus persistently on the question of variation: how much anarchy is there at any point in time and under what conditions does it vary? For those who see anarchy as a constant, the conception of world order is quite narrow, and based around capabilities. For those who see anarchy as a variable, the conception of world order is quite complex, involving
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broad-issue areas of governance with myriad organizations, institutions, regimes, norms, and laws created to facilitate interaction, cooperation, and coordination in international relations.
One Dimension of World Order: The Constellation of Intergovernmental Organizations Classic realist theorists saw institutions, not as the product of cooperation, but as collusion among the most powerful states in the international system to codify rules that benefited the powerful to the detriment of others. Realist theory provided two mechanisms for explaining how intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) functioned: (1) organizations allowed powerful states to set the agenda and determine the distribution of gains among members and (2) they allowed powerful states to bind the policies of other states in a formal setting through the use of incentives given through issue-linkages (Schweller and Priess, 1997). A modified structural realist view holds that IGOs matter because they create stability by filling the gap between “rising political participation and weak governing institutions” and by offering reward incentives to member-states to avoid extreme destabilizing behavior, to manage nuclear proliferation, and to provide a forum for weaker states to voice concerns (Snidal, 1991). Both of the realist views, however, perceive institutions as primarily a reflection of the desires of the world leader(s) and as a means to preserve the status quo. Rationalists hold that IGOs matter chiefly by facilitating information exchange, monitoring compliance, facilitating issue linkage, defining cheating, and thus promoting cooperation (Keohane, 1984; Katzenstein et al., 1998). The neoliberal institutionalist approach shares some of the realist mechanisms, such as monitoring and issue linkages, but also emphasizes that IGOs enhance cooperation through extending the shadow of the future and enhancing the reputation costs associated with behavior. Institutionalist theory focused a great deal of attention on the role of international organizations and cooperative agreements, but paid little attention until recently to distinctions among agreements and institutions. It is only lately that much more work has been done to focus on the nature of changing institutional designs both for organizations and for international agreements (Haftel, 2007; Boehmer et al., 2004). The differentiation of IGOs by how they are designed at the micro level at times ignores the larger macro issues involved with the changing dynamics
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of the international system. We recognize that our thicker conception of world order is multidimensional in nature and a full treatment of how the order has changed over time needs to address ultimately its various dimensions. Figure 1.1 seeks to illustrate the large universe of cooperative arrangements, containing spaces where both IGOs and NGOs may operate, within the context of bilateral and multilateral approaches, and intersected further by issue areas of concerns (two issue areas are noted as illustrations). We have noted as well in the figure differentiation of organizations based on both organizational design and geographical scope. The international relations literature has yet to accomplish the enormous task of accounting for all of the arrangements at work in our illustration, and especially how different dimensions of cooperative arrangements are linked to each other. At this point, it would be difficult to establish whether changes across dimensions move in tandem or if they are driven by different factors and consequently some change more slowly and some not at all while others undergo dramatic changes in response to systemic turbulence and shifts in priorities in international politics. Limitations of resources, time, and expertise make that comprehensive analysis impractical here. Instead, we focus on only one dimension of world order – the constellation of IGOs operating in international politics – and explore the extent to which its architecture has changed from the previous era. Since the role of IGOs in the larger world order literature has been mixed at best, and to the extent that realists and neorealists have articulated conceptions of world order, the assumption of an international system that operates under conditions of anarchy has minimized the salience of IGOs. This book has been structured to address the importance of the IGO dimension, both formal institutional (functional) and normative (legal). While we address a variety of IGOs in this book, a primary focus is on a subset of them that we have labeled formal intergovernmental organizations (FIGOs). FIGOs are differentiated from other IGOs over a variety of organizational attributes (e.g., centralization and autonomy) that are discussed in the following chapter, and contain characteristics that we expect to be associated with governance mechanisms in international relations that are most likely to produce a variety of effects on the behavior of states, their interactions with each other, and their abilities to coordinate and collaborate with each other. Some of the chapters below compare FIGO effects with the effects of more generic IGOs (nFIGOs);5 some of the chapters probe conditions under which FIGOs are not being created in sufficient numbers, or in some cases, not created at all.
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Furthermore, while we note, where appropriate, findings from other researchers that may reflect similar or different outcomes from other dimensions, we recognize that the resulting picture we draw of change and continuity across two eras is limited to only one aspect of world order, and will require additional work to create a more comprehensive picture of global (and regional governance). So why focus on IGOs and in a narrower sense, FIGOs, at all? Several reasons make this dimension of governance salient for further consideration. First, arguably IGOs constitute an important aspect of the Kantian peace proposed by researchers studying interstate conflict (Russett et al., 1998; Russett and Oneal, 2001; Oneal and Russett, 1999). While far from uncontested, these findings suggest that dynamics operating inside IGOs ameliorate conflicts between states and therefore the constellations of IGOs operating in international politics appear to matter. Which IGOs, how much, and why they matter are far more controversial questions, but answers to these questions may create some significant insights into the extent to which varying constellations of IGOs may reduce the extent of anarchy operating in international politics. Another reason to focus on IGOs is because states (and other actors) have invested heavily in the creation and maintenance of IGOs and these organizations have especially proliferated over the past half century. From a small handful in the early nineteenth century, the number of IGOs has grown over time and virtually exploded since the early 1960s. We assume that there is some salience in these numbers. IGO formation is expensive; furthermore, some organizations that have been created require at least minimal sacrifices to state sovereignty and at times may work against the interests of even their more powerful members.6 By their sheer numbers and the costs and risks involved in their creation and functioning, IGOs are presumably judged by states as being important and useful for the conduct of international relations, and for their own foreign policy objectives. Another important argument in favor of studying IGOs is that over the past century, the pattern of IGO creation has marched in tandem with fundamental systemic change in global affairs and efforts to reconstruct the nature of world order. This was the case following the end of World War II as the US and its allies created a broad constellation of IGOs that would institutionalize both security and economic arrangements in the postwar order. As we note in the following chapter, the architecture of IGOs grew by some 67 percent in a 15-year period following the end of hostilities. Even after World War I, Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to create new principles of global order, while withering before the loss of domestic support in the US,
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nevertheless led to the creation of a substantial constellation of new IGOs within 15 years after the end of that global conflict. It seems reasonable to assume that during a similar time frame following the end of the Cold War, we should be able to uncover a substantial set of changes in and growth of IGOs, reflecting the aspirations of foreign policy makers in key states to restructure the nature of world order. Of course, the regional and global architecture is composed of more than simply FIGOs, and the extent to which they can function properly depends in large part on the interests of states that constitute the IGO membership.7 In fact, as with much of the literature, we differentiate between IGOs and other types of cooperative arrangements (as noted in Figure 1.1), such as ad hoc agreements, ongoing non-institutionalized collaborative meetings between states, sub-units of other IGOs, or institutions controlled by other IGOs or dominated by non-state members (NGOs). Yet, this does not imply that these cooperative arrangements carry no salience for the relationships between states. In fact, we point to areas where formal IGO development is being replaced by “looser” cooperative arrangements, as in the case of transboundary cooperation over water issues. Finally, the literature on IGOs is only beginning to assess systematically the organizational architecture in the post-Cold War world. Previously, there have been three such stocktaking exercises that have sought to make an inventory of IGOs, either at one point in time (Jacobson et al., 1986), or to assess changes over time (Shanks et al., 1996; Cupitt et al., 1996). The two longitudinal studies cease their analyses at a very early point in the postCold War era, and consequently neither one of them has been able to compare systematically IGO architecture after the Cold War with the period prior. In addition to that, it is important to view IGOs as part of the international system; studying the institutional architecture in general, and IGOs in particular, in isolation from the processes that happen within and around them, would have little explanatory value. Thus, the present book complements the comparative analysis of the IGO architecture by placing patterns of change and continuity into the larger context of the roles taken by states in changing the nature of IGOs, and vice versa, before and after the Cold War. Within such a framework, the present volume is primarily concerned with five mutually related sets of issues with regard to this particular dimension of world order, analyzed in the context of tectonic changes and marked by the end of the Cold War. The first is about conditions under which states are willing and able to create and sustain IGOs as a means to structure a
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regional and/or global world order. The second concerns the readiness of states to participate actively, as members in IGOs and relevant cooperative arrangements, should issues that require collective action occur, especially when participation can create some significant costs for states. The third concern is about the impact that such IGOs have on the ongoing relationships between states, and the extent to which those impacts have changed as global conditions have changed. The fourth is about the willingness of states to honor commitments they had agreed to as members of IGOs and other cooperative arrangements or, in other words, whether or not states have been able and/or willing to help an institution achieve its basic goals (such as to promote and encourage respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as put forth in Article 1 of the UN Charter). In exploring these issues, a final point becomes clear and is wedded throughout to our analyses: the absence of IGOs (in a region, an issue area, etc.) can convey as much information, and oftentimes more, about the state of international relations than their presence. Answering these questions from the perspective of the development and performance of IGOs (and with an eye to other cooperative arrangements) will help us to conclude how much has really changed after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, in terms of both the institutional and normative architecture, and whether we have truly witnessed the emergence of a new global world order. As the reader will note in the chapters that follow, we do not find a radically changed constellation of cooperative institutions corresponding to what would be expected either from the pronouncements of policy makers or from the turbulence that was created by the end of the Cold War. However, before turning to a detailed description of what lies in the greater part of the book, we first look more closely at the concept of intergovernmental organizations, both theoretically and empirically, in order to provide a foundation for the coming chapters.
Conceptualizing IGOs and FIGOs It has been noted that the counting of IGOs is a matter of definition.8 Numerous questions arise in choosing the relevant units of analysis: should one include those IGOs created by states or also those that are created by other IGOs (emanations);9 include those with two or more members or only those with more than two members;10 include those whose membership is primarily made up of states or allow a mix of state and non-state
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members; include those that meet seldom as well as those that meet regularly;11 include only those with substantial bureaucracies or also those with minimal bureaucracies?12 In most large-N empirical studies, the operational definition of an IGO uses the Correlates of War (COW) definition, requiring that an organization be a formal entity, with three or more sovereign states as members, and possess a permanent secretariat or other “indication of institutionalization such as a headquarters and/or permanent staff ”(Pevehouse et al., 2005:9–10). Depending on how one chooses to identify what an IGO is, the number, character, and potential effects of IGOs change dramatically. Unfortunately, too often the conceptual and operational definition of what constitutes an IGO is left to convention or the practical availability of an existing database that may have already defined the subject. The core concept of international organization, as it has evolved in the international relations literature, gives researchers a broad idea of the population of the universe, but provides few objective criteria by which observations can be identified. Although there is no single, consensual definition of IGOs, the core concept can be found through induction of previous systematic attempts to classify and identify IGOs. There have been three major efforts to quantify the population of IGOs in the international system and each of these previous efforts employed empirical criteria (Wallace and Singer, 1970; Jacobson et al., 1986; Shanks et al., 1996; Pevehouse et al., 2003). Through the overlap of those criteria, there is a hint at the broader concept shared throughout the literature. These previous approaches sought to distinguish IGOs from other events in international relations such as agreements, singular or ongoing meetings between states that are not institutionalized, or organizations that are either dependent on another institution or are controlled by non-state actors. Abbot and Snidal (1998) provide much of the appropriate core concept. They identify two crucial dimensional aspects of formal13 IGOs: centralization and independence – centralization of collective decision-making and the collective actions taken by member-states and independence for the organization to act with a degree of autonomy within a defined sphere. However, while their delineation of the core concept is generally in line with empirical observations, the core concept gives little guidance as to when an entity qualifies as an IGO. While the researcher can use the core concept to distinguish between the extremes – a summit meeting is not an IGO whereas the UN is – it provides little assistance in identifying those
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that fall between the poles. The core concept also lacks direction on how to delineate between types of organizations that share dimensional characteristics that set them apart from others.14 Moreover, while the core concept can be properly used to explain how IGOs affect the international system, causal theory general enough to apply to the quasi-specified population of organizations hinted at by the core concept cannot also explain the variation in organizational effects observed across temporal-spatial geography, nor may it specify mechanisms that are unique to the different typologies of IGOs. Addressing these concerns, researchers have turned to constructing concepts with more field utility – systemized concepts that include specific dimensional mechanisms that make definite identification of observations possible and practical. The construction of a systemized concept requires an adjusted balance among a standard set of criteria (Gerring, 1999:367).15 Research on intergovernmental organizations requires that special attention be paid to the balance between coherence, differentiation, theoretical utility, and field utility. The relevant population of institutions depends on the research question at hand. Basing systematized concept construction off of the needs of the theoretical question results in models that are more internally consistent and that have improved predictive validity. Systemic concepts are central to theories that seek to explain differences between membership, effects, and operation of IGOs. Neo-liberals and constructivists argue that the increasingly dense network of organizations is altering state sovereignty and mediating environmental processes that seek to undermine cooperation. For example, Beckfield (2003) demonstrates that IGOs affect the world polity through formulation of economic, military, and social policies and through the significant dedication of resources by states which bind their policies to those of the IGO. This argument centers on specific dimensional characteristics of IGOs and should necessarily group organizations accordingly. Other IGO research focuses on the peace-encouraging effects of IGOs and is specifically concerned with the effects of dispute resolution mechanisms, a clearly identifiable dimension that is not present among all IGOs (Smith, 2000; Russett et al., 1998). Neorealist theory suggests that IGOs affect member-states through the binding of policies via costly membership, information exchange, and issue cross-linkage. Variance among these attributes is so broad that the theory itself suggests a threshold below which membership will have few of the expected effects and therefore the theory requires a concept that permits differentiation.
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Chapter 2 provides an illustration of the transition from core concept to the appropriate systematic concept. The chapter focuses on ascertaining the extent to which a formal, institutional dimension of a “new world order” is being created after the end of the Cold War. It thus broadly assumes that the creation of organizations with little bureaucratic organization and very limited autonomy are less useful in stabilizing a new world order than a network of organizations that are bureaucratically stable and autonomous (at least in terms of achieving a minimal threshold for both). Likewise, it may be far easier to construct organizations that have neither of these characteristics than ones that do. Including organizations with little or no autonomy or bureaucratic stability16 would dilute the predictive validity of a model that explains the importance of great power strength in formal institutional construction. As a consequence, the systematic concept developed with the appropriate field utility is that of FIGO. Thus, due to the focus of our research, several of the authors in this volume are interested in a particular cross-section of IGOs. The organizations they concern themselves with represent the “strongest” of the IGO population. As we have already indicated, they require significant resources to be created. They involve major commitments by states to multilateral means by requiring not only some degree of sacrificed autonomy on the part of individual states but also recognition that a non-state entity in turn gains autonomy. Thus, the research questions we raise particularly in Chapters 2 and 3 about the changing nature of the world order direct us to a systematized conceptualization of IGOs that is likely to represent only a small portion of the total IGO population and unlikely to be spread evenly across issue/geographic areas. It is important to note, however, that this class of IGO is not always the norm. In certain issue areas, states may prefer the flexibility provided by ad hoc agreements or less institutionalized organizations. This is likely to pertain to issue areas that are hotly contested by the relevant states, perhaps where a “one problem at a time” mentality dominates and extremely formalized and stylized interaction is unpalatable. Likewise, issue areas that experience rapid changes, such as in technology or environmental preservation, may be more closely associated with more flexible organizational forms (as we see below in Chapter 5). The presence or absence of major powers in the region, as well as outside powers penetrating the region, may greatly influence the degree of desired IGO “strength” by participants (noted in Chapter 8 on the Mediterranean “region”). Therefore, we have chosen to approach our inquiry by following the dynamics associated with the FIGO classification in Chapters 2, 3, and 6, while in Chapters 4, 5, 7, and 8 we
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Thomas J. Volgy et al. Cooperative arrangements
Multilateral agreements
IGOs
N F I G O S
SRGOs
RGOs IRGOs
NGOs
GIGOs
Issue area: Economic
F I G O s
Bilateral treaties
Issue area: Security
Figure 1.1 Illustration of the diversity of collaborative, institutional arrangements involving governance mechanisms
explore the FIGO focus further by comparing the emergence of FIGOs (global, interregional, regional and subregional FIGOs, GIGOs, IRGOs, RGOs and SRGOs, respectively) with looser arrangements, or in the context of specific issue areas (transboundary water issues, acceptance of human rights norms). Critical and common to all these chapters is an awareness of the differences in IGO subpopulations and the extent to which such conceptual and empirical differentiation needs to be theoretically driven.17 Figure 1.1 illustrates the universe of cooperative arrangements. These range from the most informal, ad hoc agreements (represented by the area with dots) to more formal arrangements, such as IGOs and multilateral
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treaties. We do not present Figure 1.1 as an argument for any specific theoretical question or framework. Rather, it serves as an illustration demonstrating a possible cross-section of organizations overlaid by pertinent issue areas for a hypothetical question. For this hypothetical question, there appears to be economic and security causal mechanisms that are driving the selection of organizations for analysis. Coverage by issue area can and does range from utilizing all forms of cooperative agreements, as seen in the realm of human rights, to narrowly tailored issue areas as in the coordination of air-traffic between two neighboring countries, which would most likely only concern the bilateral treaty subset of institutions. Each issue area may have a different coverage area and the cooperative institution(s) involved will consist of different subsets. Across the universe of cooperative arrangements, the inclusion/exclusion of germane arrangements depends on the question at hand. Figure 1.1’s graphic representation of relevant institutions augments our theoretical argument regarding properly specified definitions and models. The graphic is also a much simplified version of the actual architecture; for example, some issue areas overlap, as does organizational development – while organizational infrastructure may be built for one issue area, it can be found to be useful (and utilized) for another (Powers, 2004). Regarding the relative strength of organizations, it has been assumed that the creation of constellations of IGOs to help structure world order and to struggle against anarchy (which includes getting states to opt into these organizations and has effects on members’ foreign policies) cannot likely be accomplished through weak IGOs as long as states are still the primary units in international politics. Weak IGOs include those that are not created by states (emanations) and therefore not formally sanctioned by them. Furthermore, even if created by states, organizations differ in terms of their internal structure and functioning. Weak organizations lack the structural capacity to impact on the behavior and interaction of their members and on the organizations’ outputs. Likewise, organizations with highly circumscribed functions may have limited effects on the broader external environment as well as on the range of foreign policy behaviors of their members. Chapters 4 and 6 illustrate further when FIGOs should be the pertinent conceptualization of intergovernmental organizational collaboration. In Chapter 4 the authors specifically examine the distinction between FIGOs and nFIGOs in analyzing a geopolitical space (post-Communist states in East Europe and Central Asia) undergoing redefinition in organizational architecture after the end of the Cold War and the struggle by Russia to
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reestablish control over a physical area it had previously dominated. The FIGO classification provides a threshold by which the authors can point to serious commitments by members of that space in dedicating resources and binding policies, and the extent to which such constellations are working to minimize conflict between states newly emerging on the global scene. Meanwhile, Chapter 6 specifically focuses on the ability of IGOs to serve as policy substitutions for member-states that do not wish to democratize yet want to receive the “dividends” that may come from democratization. Here, state joining behavior is dependent on the perceived effects of IGOs, which is in turn dependent on the capacity of organizations to affect behavior and compliance. In this context, FIGOs become highly significant since weak organizations would not be perceived as providing credible organizational commitments and substituting for democratizing regimes. This does not mean, of course, that weak IGOs are unimportant in international politics. In fact, they may be useful in furthering certain efforts at collaboration, and/or they may, by creating greater opportunities for interaction, increase the range of opportunities for states to engage in conflicts as well as to cooperate. It may also be the case that under certain global conditions, states have as their most cost-effective option the creation of these weak IGOs rather than stronger organizations.18 In fact, one may argue that when states begin to opt for weak over strong organizational creation, some important changes are occurring in international affairs. A good example of such an IGO is the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the importance of which has been growing with the spread of awareness of the globality of environmental problems. However, UNEP may also indicate the importance of strong versus weak organizations: its structure may not be strong enough to accommodate substantial joint environmental collaboration and for some time now, several governments have been toying with an idea to build a World Environment Organization that would be built on the UNEP (Charnovitz, 2002:8). The very absence of strong organizations, or FIGOs, may also create salient theoretical puzzles. In Chapter 5, the authors explore regional cooperation in the area of shared waters. Focused on this issue area of concern, they find virtually no FIGOs existing on their own to facilitate these regional agreements. The analysis clearly warrants both a broadening of the conceptual approach to IGOs in the issue area (as the authors do) and further probing of why the subject matter is divorced from formal organizational development. Note that this problem is similarly explored in Chapter 8
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where aspirations and identity for a common region appear to exist, but there is virtually no organizational architecture developing. In Chapter 7, the focus of inquiry shifts to the effects of IGOs within the issue area of human rights, involving a substantial set of normative considerations. The formal requirements of the FIGO classification may be less well suited to determining the strength or effectiveness of organizations in regard to changes in normative beliefs in conflict. In fact, it is plausible that weaker organizations may be more adept at creating discussion among states and organizations where there may not be binding commitments required after some level of consensus is reached.
The Varied Delineation of Regions The spatial clustering of both FIGOs and other IGOs, as well as the measure of state membership in the multi-layered institutional architecture (i.e., at the global, regional, and inter-regional levels), has required the creation of a classification of regions in international relations. Much like defining the concept of IGOs, the issue of what is a region is highly contested, and there is little consensus over terms among scholars, and consequently, over regional affiliation of a number of states. This is particularly the case for states that are geographically in the center of one region, but where a number of other issues (history, political affiliation, cultural links, economic cooperation) closely link it with another region, or make its regional affiliation a very contested political issue. Because important foreign policy and domestic political consequences exist for and against a state’s inclusion in the region, and consequently in the formal institutional structure that exists in the region, this can indeed be a hotly contested issue (perhaps best illustrated in the ongoing debate about Turkey and its entry into the European Union; see Diez, 2005). Although the focus of this volume does not include resolving the conceptual issues related to the definition of regions, we do employ a two-step, bifurcated approach that is analogous to the one we employed in building the FIGO concept. The first step involves the selection of the underlying, general framework from which the regional concept is derived: the nature of the geography. Many studies utilize a physical-geographic region, but as mentioned supra, sometimes political, economic, social, or religious geography is more relevant. The studies included in this volume provide variation in geographic typology to illustrate this point.
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The second step is the selection of an issue area that places the geography of the region within context. This step is further illustrated in Chapter 2, where the authors argue that the clustering of states into regions occurs as a function of geography plus one or more politically relevant considerations identifying the boundaries of geographical space. The second step depends on the subject matter at hand, indicating that the concept of region may vary with the issue of concern. A good example is the discussion of the role of IGOs in the post-Communist space (Chapter 4 in this volume). This space ranges from the Czech Republic through Kazakhstan. In this case, the boundaries of the space have been dictated by a combination of geography and historical/political dynamics shared by emerging new states. The danger with such an approach is that the issues of relevance, as a subjective category, may have a significant effect on the results, particularly with respect to inter-regional cooperation, but also in the terms of intra-regional behavior. This problem is partially addressed in our concluding chapter where we note commonalities within regions even when different regional definitions have been utilized. Several chapters focus on physical-geographic regions that are differentiated by issue-specific contextual factors. For example, Chapter 2 compares changes to the architecture of global, inter-regional, and regional organizations during the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. Change measures are critically dependent on the identification of regional and inter-regional organizational clusters. Since the study classifies state membership in the network of organizations based in large part on opportunity and willingness to belong to organizations available to states for membership, the regions are classified based on both geography and broad political affiliation. For example, the Middle East is identified as a region of Muslim states, integrating North African states along with more traditional Middle Eastern countries. Nearly all states of North Africa have the opportunity to belong to most Middle Eastern IGOs/FIGOs. Whether or not they join is an issue of willingness. Israel, while physically situated in the Middle East, is excluded from nearly all organizations of the region;19 therefore, Israel is not classified as a Middle Eastern state. Iran is able to join those organizations open to Muslim states, but is barred from organizations open only to Arab states. These limitations notwithstanding, Iran can still be classified as part of the region. In a similar fashion, Turkey has been placed in the group of Middle Eastern countries, because it has more opportunity to join FIGOs in the Middle East than in Europe. Chapters 3, 4, and 6 also focus on a similar physical-geopolitical typology of regions.
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Some issue areas, however, require alternatives to this type of regional differentiation. In Chapter 5, physical proximity to specified bodies of water is the primary dynamic that differentiates regions due to the particular issue area (international rivers). This chapter does not use any static geographic definitions of regions because to deal with shared-water issues, and to exclude Israel from the Middle East on the grounds of a broad political affiliation (and the opportunity to join organizations in the region), would make no sense if the underlying factor was objective physical location, given that the authors focus on ascertaining the development of cooperative arrangements around international rivers, or rivers that cross state boundaries. Instead, physical proximity to an object that is defined by the issue area is utilized in place of static geographic considerations. In Chapter 7, which analyses state behavior in the issue area of human rights, institutional affiliation (membership in a regional formal IGO that deals with the issue area of human rights protection) has been taken as the criterion for identification of regions. Physical geography alone as a basis for regional classification would not support the theoretical question of inquiry since in Chapter 7 the causal mechanisms revolve purely around institutional geography. Here, the focus of interest is the extent to which states are conforming to human rights norms to which they are institutionally linked, and therefore the regional definition needs to focus on this issue dimension. Thus, regions have been modeled according to state participation in regional international organizations with established human rights institutions and mechanisms. Such specific regional normative frameworks suggest that like-minded states (when it comes to the issue area in question) have cooperated extensively and bound themselves to the same normative framework, which they had created. Such shared commitments are taken as a sufficient starting point for determining the regional affiliation of individual states. Using this type of approach to classifying regions yields somewhat different results for individual states. Israel is listed in the “other” group. Belarus is as well, since it is not a member of the regional organization holding the primary focus on human rights protection: the Council of Europe. For exactly that same reason, Turkey is designated as European, due to its longstanding membership in the Council. To validate their approach, the authors use block modeling (Doreian et al., 2005) in the second part of Chapter 7. The chapter on the Mediterranean centers on a geographical area that is identified by two dimensions: first, geographical considerations and physical
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characteristics of the area. Second, the author also considers the avowed aspirations of state and non-state actors to create a regional identity. This approach to delineating the boundaries of the region works for the theoretical question at hand: to ascertain why, when physical characteristics and identity issues converge, no significant organizational structures that accompany them seem to be able to delineate the political boundaries normally associated with regions in the modern era. In the parlance of the first three chapters in this volume, the Mediterranean constitutes inter-regional space; we consider it here as an important focus of inquiry as critical actors seek to create a formal “region” in what we consider an inter-regional area in our earlier formulation.
The Organization of the Chapters The chapters in this volume exhibit an eclectic set of theoretical perspectives, research designs, and methods of empirical analysis. The complexity of the subject matter requires that the contributing authors remain agnostic about competing approaches to international relations. For example, Chapter 5 on international river cooperation affords a unique opportunity to test which if any of the competing state-based theoretical approaches can best match the reality of cooperative choices by states, before integrating elements of each into a more coherent theory. One of the approaches that the authors have used in their analyses (see Chapters 2 and 7, respectively), social network analysis, offers one particularly useful methodological approach for clustering IGOs, state memberships, and the behavior of states. The analysis allows for the integration of institutional and normative architecture into a dense intergovernmental network, and results in the drawing of maps that visually present the changes that have occurred in the network over time. The volume begins, in Chapter 2, by discussing the conceptual variety of IGOs that have been created by both state and non-state actors to further collaboration, coordination, and cooperation in international politics. The authors’ definitions and assumptions are framed around the specified causal mechanisms associated with IGOs relevant to the theoretical questions they have set. Moving from concept to operationalization and building on the existing literature in the field, they identify steps to measure and count the existence and types of FIGOs operating in the post-Cold War
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order and during the immediate period preceding it. The FIGO data are applied with a view to sketching out change and continuity in global, interregional, and regional architecture, highlighting the extent to which the networks of organizations have or have not changed after the end of the Cold War. Chapter 3 continues the theme of changing effects across the Cold War versus post-Cold War periods by seeking to explain the outcomes found in Chapter 2, based on the loss of American strength to fashion the kind of new world order it desired. Then, the chapter moves on to examine the effectiveness of post-Cold War architecture by assessing the impact of IGO and FIGO memberships of states on their propensity to engage in conflict with each other. Treating relationships at the dyadic level, the authors test whether or not primarily Cold-War-based IGOs and FIGOs continue to have the same conflict-ameliorating effects on members after the end of the Cold War, or whether, as some have suggested (Forman and Segaar, 2006), this older architecture is beginning to lose its effectiveness under newly emergent global and regional conditions. Chapter 4 continues to focus on IGO impact on states by narrowing the perspective to new states emerging from the ashes of the Cold War. Here, the analysis is on post-Communist states as they struggle through their early years of independence, in the midst of developing foreign policy machineries and (for nearly all but the Russian Federation) with little experience in foreign affairs. The authors explore the effects of choices made by these states to join IGOs on their conflict behavior toward each other, arguing that IGO co-membership creates greater opportunities to identify differences in policy orientations, and therefore, may actually increase conflicts between these states. Of particular interest in this research is the question of the role of a hegemon, whose active involvement in (inter)regional affairs may have important consequences for both increased conflicts and the creation and maintenance of IGOs and their effects on members.20 In contrast, Chapters 5 departs from the assumption that a hegemon typically would play a major role in forming and sustaining cooperative arrangements. In this respect, rather than tackling the issue from the standpoint of individual states or dyadic relationships, the unit of analysis here is the river basin and the effort is to uncover the conditions under which different types of structural arrangements are created to tackle the problem of cooperation around a critical and often shrinking resource. As the authors note, managing international rivers that cross political boundaries is a universal water governance dilemma – virtually every country in the world has
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at least one international river within its borders. The authors explore the range of factors promoting and inhibiting cooperation in river basins. Based on strong empirical evidence through an original database, the authors use state-based theories of international relations to explain the birth and life of cooperative arrangements in international river basins. Chapter 6 endeavors to explain the proclivity of nearly all states, despite widely varying capabilities and interests, to seek membership in IGOs, and in particular, in FIGOs. The authors focus on Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America in an attempt to show similar joining behavior despite very divergent conditions that would intuitively elicit divergent outcomes. By treating FIGOs as policy alternatives for states, the authors suggest that developing non-democracies might utilize FIGOs to achieve policy and economic goals otherwise unachievable or enforce policies that would be otherwise prohibitively costly, by seeking membership in the very same organizations utilized by developed democracies. By turning classical assumptions about joining motivation and behavior on their head, this study seeks to explain joining behaviors that were previously relegated as being anomalous or that were explained under an enticing, and yet incomplete, umbrella of a democratization-based approach. Chapter 7 shifts the focus back to the impact of IGOs on the behavior of their members. States join international organizations, but once they have become members, they are expected to act in accordance with the existing norms and rules and jointly achieve the goals of individual organizations. Focusing on the human rights issue area, Chapter 7 demonstrates that the goal formally established by the UN of respecting and protecting human rights has been achieved gradually, in terms of both the expansion of international legal norms and state participation in this ever more complex normative framework. In a few decades, human rights have become one of the most developed normative issue areas in the international community. However, not all regions have joined this normative framework at the same pace, and to the same extent. By using diverse methodological tools to address state behavior in this issue area, the authors are able to reject the assumption that like-minded or similar states, defined very broadly, act in the same way when it comes to their support of universal human rights norms. On the contrary, states from very different regions and with diverse attributes display highly similar attitudes and behavior toward human rights norms. This suggests that institutional membership has had diverse impact on state active participation in fulfilling the organization’s goals, and on the behavior of member-states in the issue area of human rights protection.
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Chapter 8 approaches the issue of regional cooperation by asking why there is no Mediterranean region despite the aspiration of key actors to create one. As the chapter illustrates, even the end of the Cold War has failed to bring about the creation of formal intergovernmental networks of cooperation. Indeed, there has been a bottom-up regionalization process taking place since 1989. The process has led to a variety of informal arrangements, including only two organizations that have been sustained and many that have failed, along with the increasing role of nongovernmental actors in the vacuum created by competing states and organizations outside of the region. The author argues that such a state of affairs is to be attributed to the external presence of influential actors in the Mediterranean area (during the Cold War and after) that have prevented a rise of a (legitimate) regional hegemon, which would enable a positive structural impetus for further regionalism projects. In this respect, the chapter offers important insights on the role that major powers play in the creation of organizational architecture, an issue that runs through Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6. Each of the chapters seeks to examine change between the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. The specific time frames used depend on availability of data and the research design necessitated by the primary research question being raised. Accordingly, Chapters 2 and 3 focus on 15 years preceding the end of the Cold War (1975), at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and 15 years after the end of the Cold War (2004). These points in time give us comparable time frames of comparison for assessing changes during and after the Cold War, and they are time frames for which we have been able to assess a wide variety of evidence. These time frames are inappropriate for Chapter 4 where the focus is on states emerging from the Cold War in postCommunist space. Chapter 8, which allows for a longer time frame to examine aspirations versus the reality of creating a Mediterranean region, also allows for the inclusion of more recent events beyond 2004 without doing disservice to the inquiry. Of course, it would be naïve to think that the institutional and normative architecture has stopped changing after 2004, and we do not mean to imply such with the use of these time frames. To the contrary, in some issue areas much has happened in a very short time span over the past decade or so. The volume therefore expands the analysis beyond 2004 where developments in the international community required such an extension, and does not do a disservice to the logic of the research design being utilized. This extension, where appropriate, is particularly important given the
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events following 9/11, and especially given the war in Iraq, which has played a key role for the US and scores of other states.21 The final chapter revisits the nature of the post-Cold War order as seen from the standpoint of the organizational – both formal institutional and normative – architecture existing in international politics. Weaving together the findings regarding architectural creation, state decisions to join these networks of organizations, and the various effects we have noted as resulting from state participation in IGOs, a series of predictions and concerns are offered about the manner in which we expect the new world order to evolve in the decade to come. No meaningful work can be the final word on the subject, and part of its value is to raise additional questions that need to be explored further. That agenda for needed future research is addressed as well.
Notes 1 President George H. W. Bush, Address to the Joint Session of Congress, 11 September 1990. 2 President George H. W. Bush, Address to the Joint Session of Congress, 6 March 1991. 3 “New world order: What’s new? Which world? Whose orders?” The Economist, 23 February 1991, pp. 25–6. 4 For example, by 2010 “the annual growth in combined national income from Brazil, Russia, India, and China – the so-called BRIC countries – will be greater than that from the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy combined” and by 2025, “it will be twice that of the G-7” (Drezner, 2007:34–5). Mearsheimer (2001) argues similarly. 5 For example, Chapter 4, focusing on the tendency of all IGOs under certain circumstances to exacerbate conflict, explicitly compares FIGOs and nFIGOs. This comparison would be less appropriate when focusing on the conflictameliorating functions of FIGOs; for a justification of this distinction, see Chapter 3. 6 Note the conflict between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Bush administration leading up to the second Iraqi war in 2003. The tense relationship had been renewed during the monitoring of the development of Iran’s nuclear technology. See “U.S. and El Baradei at odds over Iran’s nuclear program,” International Herald Tribune, 31 August 2007. 7 Note Kofi Annan’s statement that the UN can be as strong as its members want it to be. See “Transcript of Press Conference by Secretary-General Kofi Annan at UN Headquarters, New York, 18 December 2003.” SG SM 9009, 19 December 2003.
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10 11 12
13 14
15
16 17
18
25
The so-called “reasonable” definitions “yield numbers that are larger than 344 but less than 1,075” (Jacobson et al., 1986:144). While some emanations are created by negotiations between states and, for some, state membership occurs by state consent, this is not the case for other emanations. Furthermore, many emanations are created in such a manner as to be subsidiary or subservient to the parent organization. Below, we note that those emanations that meet all the requirements of independence and autonomy lose their emanation status and become FIGOs in our classification. Emanations in general appear to be created and die at rates much faster than IGOs created by states, reflecting substantial differences between the two types of cooperative arrangements. Typically, the cutoff for IGOs is a minimum of three members. The cutoff for inclusion in the Yearbook of International Organization for “active organizations” is that they meet at least once every four years. Most researchers require a headquarters or an executive for an IGO to be classified as such. However, numerous IGOs identified in the Yearbook have either no professional staff or a staff of one or two individuals. The concept of “formal” as a version of “strong” intergovernmental organizations is further elaborated in Chapter 2 below. This may be the source of much of the obfuscation that has risen out of incompatible concepts. The identifying characteristics are centralized but the underlying characteristics of the subgroup are not delineated. (1) Familiarity – “How familiar is the concept?”; (2) Resonance – “Does the chosen term ring?”; (3) Parsimony – “How short is (a) the term and (b) its list of defining attributes?”; (4) Coherence – “How internally consistent are the instances and attributes?”; (5) Differentiation – “How differentiated are the instances and the attributes? How bounded, how operationalizable, is the concept?”; (6) Depth – “How many accompanying properties are shared by the instances under definition?”; (7) Theoretical Utility – “How useful is the concept within a wider field of inferences?”; (8) Field Utility – “How useful is the concept within a field of related instances and attributes?” Such as, for example, emanations that are not created by states, and often lack autonomy and independent bureaucracies. Of course, the differentiation between IGOs and FIGOs is not the only conceptual distinction that can be made between organizations. Organizations differ on a variety of other critical characteristics, ranging from the issues they address, the functions they perform, the degree of interconnectedness between organizations as networks – all in addition to the nature of their institutional designs – with significant consequences for having an impact on their members and on international politics (Boehmer et al., 2004; Gartzke et al., 2005). The difference between IGOs and FIGOs alone is sufficient so that some 86 organizations in the year 2000 are IGOs but fail to meet the operational
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Thomas J. Volgy et al. measures associated with FIGOs (Volgy et al., 2008). In addition, there are hundreds of other entities entirely outside of even the IGO classification, ranging from ad hoc, collaborative arrangements through large constellations of emanations. And especially so from all “formal” organizations, although it is included in organizations that are inter-regional and/or have quasi autonomous capacity, such as the Middle East and Mediterranean Travel and Tourism Association (MEMTTA). The chapter on the Mediterranean (Chapter 8) also puts forward an argument about the importance of strong regional states as an important explanatory variable in understanding the dynamics of the institutional development of a region. We should note as well that for Chapters 2 and 3, we conducted an update of the database in search of new and “dying” organizations after 2004 and as of the June 2008, found virtually no net changes to the constellations we report for FIGOs.
References Abbott, Kenneth W., and Duncan Snidal. 1998. “Why States Act Through Formal International Organizations.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 52:3–32. Archibugi, Daniele, David Held, and Martin Köhler (eds.). 1998. Re-Imagining Political Community: Studies in Cosmopolitan Democracy. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Beckfield, Jason. 2003. “Inequality in the World Polity: The Structure of International Organization.” American Sociological Review 68:401–24. Boehmer, Charles R., Erik A. Gartzke, and Timothy Nordstrom. 2004. “Do Intergovernmental Organizations Promote Peace?” World Politics 57:1–38. Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce. 2003. Principles of International Politics. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press. Charnovitz, Steve. 2002. “A World Environment Organization.” Available at www. unu.edu/inter-linkages/docs/IEG/Charnovitz.pdf. Cupitt, Richard T., Rodney Whitlock, and Lynn Williams Whitlock. 1996. “The [Im] mortality of Intergovernmental Organizations.” International Interactions 21:389–404. Diez, Thomas. 2005. “Turkey, the European Union and Security Complexes Revisited.” Mediterranean Politics 10:167–80. Doreian, Patrick, Vladimir Batagelj, and Anuška Ferligoj. 2005. Generalized Blockmodeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drezner, Daniel W. 2007. “The New New World Order.” Foreign Affairs 86: 34–46. Drezner, Daniel W. 2008. “Two Challenges to Institutionalism.” In Alan S. Alexandroff (ed.) Can The World be Governed? Possibilities for Effective Multilateralism. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp. 139–59.
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Forman, Shepard, and Derk Segaar. 2006. “New Coalitions for Global Governance: The Changing Dynamics of Multilateralism.” Global Governance 12: 205–25. Fukuyama, Francis, 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press. Gartzke, Erik A., Timothy Nordstrom, Charles R. Boehmer, and J. Joseph Hewitt. 2005. “Disaggregating International Organizations in Time and Space (updated October 2006).” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association (March, Honolulu). Gerring, John. 1999. “What Makes a Concept Good? A Critical Framework for Understanding Concept Formation in the Social Sciences.” Polity 31: 357–93. Haftel, Yoram Z. 2007 “Designing for Peace: Regional Integration Arrangements, Institutional Variation and Militarized Interstate Disputes.” International Organization 61:217–37. Held, David. 1995. Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Cambridge: Polity. Ikenberry, G. John. 2001. After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ikenberry, G. John. 2003. “Is American Multilateralism in Decline?” Perspectives on Politics 1:533–50. Jacobson, Harold K., William R. Reisinger, and Todd Mathers. 1986. “National Entanglements in International Governmental Organizations.” American Political Science Review 80:141–59. Katzenstein, Peter J., Robert O. Keohane, and Stephen Krasner. 1998. “International Organization and the Study of World Politics.” International Organization 52:645–85. Keohane, Robert O. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. London: W. W. Norton. Oneal, John R., and Bruce M. Russett. 1999. “Assessing the Liberal Peace with Alternate Specifications: Trade Still Reduces Conflict.” Journal of Peace Research 36:423–42. Pevehouse, Jon C., Timothy Nordstrom, and Kevin Warnke. 2003. “Intergovernmental Organizations, 1815–2000: A New Correlates of War Data Set.” Available at http://cow2.la.psu.edu/. Pevehouse, Jon C., Timothy Nordstrom, and Kevin Warnke. 2005.“Intergovernmental Organizations.” In Paul F. Diehl (ed.) The Politics of Global Governance. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, pp. 9–24. Powers, Kathy L. 2004. “Regional Trade Agreements as Military Alliances.” International Interactions 30:37–95.
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Rasler, Karen A., and William R. Thompson. 1994. The Great Powers and the Global Struggle, 1490–1990. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. Russett, Bruce M., and John R. Oneal. 2001. Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations. New York: W. W. Norton. Russett, Bruce M., John R. Oneal, and David R. Davis. 1998. “The Third Leg of the Kantian Tripod for Peace: International Organizations and Militarized Disputes, 1950–85.” International Organization 52:441–67. Schweller, Randall L., and David Priess. 1997. “A Tale of Two Realisms: Expanding the Institutions Debate.” Mershon International Studies Review 41:1–32. Shanks, Cheryl, Harold K. Jacobson, and Jeffrey H. Kaplan. 1996. “Inertia and Change in the Constellation of International Governmental Organizations, 1981–1992.” International Organization 50:593–627. Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2004. A New World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Smith, James McCall. 2000. “The Politics of Dispute Settlement Design: Explaining Legalism in Regional Trade Pacts.” International Organization 54:137–80. Snidal, Duncan. 1991. “Relative Gains and the Pattern of International Cooperation.” American Political Science Review 85:701–26. Stein, Arthur A. 2008. “Incentive Compatibility and Global Governance: Existential Multilateralism, a Weakly Confederal World, and Hegemony.” In Alan S. Alexandroff (ed.) Can The World be Governed? Possibilities for Effective Multilateralism. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp. 17–84. Tammen, Ronald L., Jacek Kugler, Douglas Lemke, Allan C. Stam, Mark A. Abdollahian, Carole Alsharabati, Brian Efird, and A. F. K. Organski. 2000. Power Transitions: Strategies for the Twenty first Century. New York: Chatham House. Volgy, Thomas J., Elizabeth Fausett, Keith A. Grant, and Stuart Rodgers. 2008. “Identifying Formal Intergovernmental Organizations.” Journal of Peace Research 45:837–50. Wallace, Michael D., and J. David Singer. 1970. “Intergovernmental Organizations in the Global System, 1816–1964: A Quantitative Description.” International Organization 24:239–87. Wendt, Alexander E. 1992. “Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics.” International Organization 46:391–425. Wendt, Alexander E. 1996. “Constructing International Politics.” International Security 20:71–81. Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley. Waltz, Kenneth N. 1993. “The Emerging Structure of International Politics.” International Security 18:44–79.
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Chapter 2
Mapping the Architecture of the New World Order: Continuity and Change in the Constellation of Post-Cold War Formal Intergovernmental Organizations* Thomas J. Volgy, Keith A. Grant, Elizabeth Fausett, and Stuart Rodgers Introduction The literature on intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) contains three sets of mapping exercises (Wallace and Singer, 1970; Jacobson et al., 1986; Shanks et al., 1996; Cupitt et al., 1996) that delineate the constellation of IGOs operating in international affairs. While all of these efforts trace the growth of IGOs, none of them are recent enough to assess the nature of changes to these organizations since the end of the Cold War. Our purpose here is two-fold. First, we create a new mapping process that allows us to identify the range of changes that may have occurred in the constellation of formal intergovernmental organizations over the first 15 years of the postCold War era and compare the patterns we uncover to those of the 15 years immediately preceding the Cold War’s end. Second, we compare changes and continuity in state membership in these organizations. Chapter 3 will then both propose an explanation for the patterns we uncover and probe some consequences of these patterns for post-Cold War international politics. In addition to a more recent empirical time frame, we differ from previous efforts in four ways. First, we conceptualize the universe of relevant Keith A. Grant is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science, University of Arizona. His research interests range across conflict and conflict management, major powers and status inconsistency, networks of relationships in international relations, and various methodological issues.
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IGOs as formal intergovernmental organizations (FIGOs), and for theoretical reasons we exclude numbers of organizations that fail to meet minimal criteria for organizational stability and autonomy. Second, our conceptual approach to FIGOs leads us to use a new database that focuses explicitly on formal intergovernmental organizations (Volgy et al., 2008). Third, we supplement our research design with network analysis, a method increasingly used in the study of IGOs (e.g., HafnerBurton and Montgomery, 2006; Ingram et al., 2005) but one that has not been utilized previously in mapping their constellations. Finally, our theoretical orientation differs from the previous efforts in that (a) we are interested in the role played by great powers in creating constellations of organizations and (b) we seek to provide some systematic evidence about the durability of conflict-ameliorating functions of organizations that were created during the Cold War and are still being utilized in the new era. No decent effort at systematic description can proceed without some basis in a series of theoretical and substantive concerns and we are motivated by a number of them. The first is the extent to which the end of the Cold War has led to a restructuring of cooperative and collaborative relationships by states, and the apparent failure of the lead global state (the US) to create a new set of institutional arrangements consistent with its interests. It is clear that foreign policy makers have articulated strong preferences for “new world” order creation (e.g., Bush, 1990, 1991), and have viewed the multilateral organizational context as a highly salient one for pursuing their objectives.1 As noted in Chapter 1, we are aware that the idea of a new order encompasses far more than the creation and maintenance of IGOs; intergovernmental organizations have become an increasingly important aspect of global governance and they are one salient way of assessing the changing nature of international relations. That major powers may hold strong preferences for new world order construction should not be surprising. Three times during the twentieth century fundamental disturbances had shaken international politics and led to efforts by major powers to create new institutional arrangements. After World War I, Woodrow Wilson articulated a new set of principles for world order construction. Even before World War II ended, efforts were under way to create what Ikenberry (2001) called a new, “constitutional order” that lasted at least through 1989. At the end of the Cold War, President
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George H. W. Bush twice articulated (Bush, 1990, 1991) American intentions to shape the contours of a new world order that would be fundamentally different from its predecessor. While restructuring takes many forms, it is accompanied as well by substantial changes to, and substantial growth in the constellation of multilateral institutions of cooperation between states. Within 15 years after the end of the World War II, the numbers of IGOs in global affairs increased by approximately 78 percent; even with President Wilson’s failure to pursue his new world order vision following World War I, the numbers of IGOs within 15 years after 1919 grew by about 18 percent.2 At the same time, world order creation, even by the strongest of victorious powers, is often contested and does not appear automatically even when desired by the strongest of states. President Woodrow Wilson’s vision was not universally shared and was ultimately rejected even domestically. Despite the emergence of the US as the preeminent global power following the end of World War II, its actions to create multilateral organizations and regimes was immediately contested by the Soviet Union and its allies (and later by scores of newly independent states). Since the end of the Cold War, French, Russian, Chinese, and a host of Third World leaders have contested American direction and leadership in the creation of a new world order.3 Additionally, it is clear that not all IGOs are created equal: some require greater investment in their creation and maintenance than others; some carry more capabilities for effectuating collaboration and cooperation between states than others; some require that states surrender potentially more of their sovereignty as a cost of joining than others. Consequently, neither is the impact of IGOs on member-states uniform. The bourgeoning literature on institutional design (e.g., Bearce and Omori, 2005; Boehmer et al., 2004; Haftel, 2007; Koremenos et al., 2001; Smith, 2000; Powers, 2006; Rosendorff, 2005) makes these differences evident. Thus, certain types of IGOs should have more relevance than the aggregate of all IGOs, both for creating new collaborative arrangements and for the effects on states that join and participate in these arrangements. Simply enumerating the numbers of IGOs and observing their birth and death rates over time gives us insufficient information with which to assess changes to the post-Cold War order, or the effects that new organizational arrangements may have on their members and on global and regional governance.
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The Concept and Operationalization of Formal Intergovernmental Organizations (FIGOs) There are two primary theoretical questions framing our conceptual approach to identifying the relevant population of intergovernmental organizations. First, we wish to ascertain the extent to which a formal, institutional dimension of a “new world order” is being created after the end of the Cold War. Supported by previous IGO literature and driven by theoretical necessity we assume that the creation of organizations with little bureaucratic organization and very limited autonomy is less useful in stabilizing a new world order than a network of organizations that are bureaucratically stable and autonomous (at least in terms of achieving a minimal threshold for both). Likewise, it may be far easier to construct organizations that have neither of these characteristics than ones that do. Including both weaker and “quasi” IGOs would dilute the predictive validity of a model that explains the importance of great power strength in formal institutional construction. Our second research concern is about patterns of joining and participation by states in these IGOs. We wish to uncover whether or not states participate in these organizations for reasons similar to, or different from, factors correlated with their participation during the Cold War. We assume that joining organizations that lack internal organization and offer little capacity to execute the collective will of members requires much less from states in terms of the costs of joining such organizations. Including “cheap” organizations may distort our understanding of the conditions under which states may invest resources in joining IGOs, including possibly confusing membership in these organizations with the willingness of state policy makers to potentially surrender some of their sovereignty as a result of their participation in these organizations. For these reasons we limit our analysis to organizations that are created by states, are most likely to have an impact on them, and require states to potentially sacrifice some autonomy and sovereignty by participating in them. We move from a more traditional mapping of IGOs to defining, operationalizing, and applying the concept of formal intergovernmental organizations (FIGOs) to our mapping project. We define FIGOs4 as organizations created to provide formal, ongoing, multilateral processes of cooperation and have the capacity to execute the collective will of its
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members (states). We concur with Abbott and Snidal that the two primary functions of formal organizations (and the likely reasons why states form them and join them) are to create a stable organizational structure and some amount of autonomy in a defined sphere (Abbott and Snidal, 1998:5). Stability of organizational structure (in terms of routine interactions by states along with an administrative apparatus to ensure institutionalized interactions and administration) and autonomy are critical as well for institutional conceptions of power (Barnett and Duvall, 2005), both for assessing global governance and for hegemony. Thus, we require FIGOs to contain attributes that provide an organization some degree of independence to encourage ongoing collaboration and to allow for follow-up on collective decisions made by its members, while remaining responsive to members. A formal intergovernmental organization is classified as such when it is created by states; is multilateral (three or more states); contains routine meetings and oversight of its functioning by its members; contains mechanisms allowing it to execute its functions with some independence from its membership once decisions are made by holding resources routinely made available to it; and is able to spend those resources subject only to the oversight responsibilities of its members. Figure 2.1 demonstrates the linkage between our three dimensions of collective decision-making, bureaucratic organization, and autonomy, and the 11 specific operational criteria used for detecting the existence of FIGOs from the larger population of intergovernmental organizations. As the illustration suggests, the FIGO conceptualization eliminates substantial numbers of organizations used in both previous mapping exercises and also in most large-N analyses of IGO impacts on conflict and cooperation. Emanations, for example, are excluded,5 as are organizations that do not have significant professional staffing and independent sources of funding. Using this formulation, we have in a previous effort (Volgy et al., 2008) differentiated between IGOs and FIGOs across the Cold War and afterwards. Once an organization meets all 11 criteria (noted in the following illustration), it is further classified as belonging to one of four types. Global intergovernmental organizations (GIGOs) are open to all states in the global system without geographic restrictions, or are restricted only by their focus on an activity or purpose irrelevant to some states (e.g., all states can become members that import or export wine). Inter-regional governmental organizations (IRGOs) are restricted in membership to states geographically, culturally, ethnically (e.g., Latin states, Francophone states, Arab states), or politically (e.g., former colonies), across two or more (but not all) regions.
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Membership consists of 3+ state actors &
Individual members are acting on behalf of their governments
COLLECTIVE DECISION-MAKING
&
States are principal decision makers &
Regularized contact through plenary meetings
&
&
FORMAL INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
Charter with an identified set of rules and procedures &
Permanent staffing Secretariat /headquarters
BUREAUCRATIC ORGANIZATION
&
Independent staffing &
&
Non-symbolic staffing &
Identifiable funding mechanism
AUTONOMY
&
Funding independent of other IGOs, non-members, or one member-state &
Non-symbolic funding
Figure 2.1 Illustration of FIGO threshold criteria for identifying formal intergovernmental organizations
Regional governmental organizations (RGOs) are open to all members of a single region.6 Sub-regional intergovernmental organizations (SRGOs) are restricted by geography, or other criteria (e.g., African states with large Muslim populations), to certain members within a region.7 Each FIGO is coded further on a variety of characteristics. These include whether or not it is a functional organization; its primary purpose; its founding date and (when relevant) year of death; and its state membership. Data are generated for three time frames: 1975, 1989, and 2004.8 These represent three equidistant periods that allow for a comparison between Cold
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War and post-Cold War constellations of FIGOs. The resulting FIGO database is a conceptual subset of COW IGO (Pevehouse et al., 2003), although the two subsets are not identical empirically.9 The systemized concept of FIGO provides clear boundaries for the observance of phenomena and includes only those organizations that are theoretically relevant for the questions of interest. Moreover, because the FIGO concept clearly defines the three dimensions around which it is built, it is applicable to questions of interest that internally consist of the same three dimensions. Conceptually, FIGO is both narrowly tailored to the dimensionally relevant attributes and is broad enough to facilitate questions of interest similarly theoretically situated.
Mapping the Constellation of Post-Cold War FIGOs in Comparative Perspective10 As previous mapping exercises have demonstrated, the contours of intergovernmental organizations can be delineated in three ways: by observing continuity and change in the numbers and types of FIGOs; by observing patterns of state membership across the constellation of FIGOs; and by observing changes in linkages between organizations and state membership. We utilize all three approaches. First, regarding continuity and growth in the web of organizations, the literature notes (a) significant net increases in the number of IGOs after major systemic disturbances (after 1919, 1945, and with the massive increase of new states following decolonization in the 1960s), consistent with various theoretical perspectives (e.g., Modelski and Thompson, 1988; Keohane, 1984; Ikenberry, 2001; Vasquez, 1993; Goertz, 2003); (b) monotonic net growth of organizations through the twentieth century even when there are no systemic disturbances (Wallace and Singer, 1970; Shanks et al., 1996); (c) “normal” death rates even when there is no system transformation and unusually high organizational death rates around major systemic disturbances (Cupitt et al., 1996; Shanks et al., 1996); and (d) during the Cold War an architecture of IGOs that is primarily regional (and increasing in size) rather than global in nature. We do not expect FIGOs to exhibit exactly the same birth, death, and – in the aggregate – net growth rates as all IGOs. IGOs in general appear to be more fragile than organizational theorists would suspect (Shanks et al.,
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Number of FIGOs
300 250 200 150 100 50 0 1975
1989
2004
Figure 2.2 Total number of FIGOs, 1975, 1989, 2004
1996). FIGOs, since they are by definition created with some organizational stability and autonomy,11 require more investment (and risk-taking) by states, and hence may more likely survive than either emanations or IGOs lacking some FIGO capabilities and especially so when FIGOs are endowed by bureaucracies whose function in part is to perpetuate the organization. Therefore, by restricting our analysis to the population of FIGOs, we expect our enumeration to differ from previous efforts.12 Note that we compare the post-Cold War FIGO architecture of 2004 with the architecture at the end of the Cold War (1989) and with how that architecture evolved over the last 15 years of the Cold War (since 1975).13 The first and most striking outcome of these comparisons is the absence of any net aggregate growth of FIGOs after the end of the Cold War. As a major systemic disturbance, the termination of the East/West conflict creates neither a dramatic net growth of FIGOs nor even continued incremental growth. As Figure 2.2 illustrates, the 265 FIGOs in 2004 represent at the aggregate level a constellation of organizations that are virtually identical in number to their size in 1989, an outcome that reverses completely the proliferation of FIGOs during the Cold War (a net growth rate of 26 percent alone between 1975 and 1989) and the monotonic net growth of IGOs noted by others (Wallace and Singer, 1970; Cupitt et al., 1996; Shanks et al., 1996). However, the aggregate image of a static post-Cold War institutional architecture conveyed in Figure 2.2 masks a variety of changes, even though the nature of these changes appears to be clearly inconsistent with the anticipation of a new world order led by a rejuvenated US global leader. One is the birth of new versus the death of existing organizations. Around
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200 150 100 50 0 GIGOs
IRGOs
RGOs / SRGOs
Figure 2.3 Replacement rate (new/dead) of FIGOs, 1990–2004
periods of substantial systemic turbulence an unusual number of organizations die and are replaced by even more multilateral structures (Cupitt et al., 1996) and even without turbulence, significant levels of IGO deaths are accompanied by even more IGO creation (Shanks et al., 1996). It is not unrealistic to expect that the end of an era would be accompanied by a substantial increase in both the death of existing FIGOs and the creation of substantially larger numbers of new ones – and especially those of a global nature – to address emerging complexities and a host of new problems and issues facing states. Half of these expectations are borne out by our mapping: the post-Cold War FIGO death rate substantially exceeds the death rate during the Cold War (although the overwhelming numbers of organizations dying are regional and sub-regional ones). Twenty-three percent of all FIGOs alive in 1989 or created afterwards are dead by 2004, compared to only about 5 percent of FIGOs dying in the previous period.14 However, the number of new organizations created in the post-Cold War era fails to match even the growth of FIGOs in the 1975–89 period – despite the high post-Cold War death rate – and the types of FIGOs being created differ substantially from their predecessors (see Figures 2.3 and 2.4). Global FIGOs (GIGOs) continue to lose their share of organizations, consistent with the trend between 1975 and 1989. At the same time, two new trends emerge in the post-Cold War era: inter-regional FIGOs increase and slightly surpass global ones by 2004 while regional and sub-regional FIGOs reverse earlier trends and demonstrate a net decrease in number (Figure 2.4). These patterns are attributable to the differential birth and death rates of FIGOs across the time periods examined.15 Compared to the
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100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 1975
1989 GIGOs
IRGOS
2004 RGOs/SRGOs
Figure 2.4 Percent of global, inter-regional, and regional FIGOs, 1975, 1989, 2004
Cold War era, the birth of new global FIGOs declines even further in the post-Cold War period, in large part due to the fact that their replacement rate is only 58 percent (Figure 2.3). Meanwhile, the inter-regional FIGO replacement rate is by far the highest of all FIGO types at roughly 150 percent of its death rate in the postCold War era. Regional and sub-regional FIGOs actually exceed their high Cold War birth rates in the post-Cold War era (representing 51 percent of all new FIGOs), but they fail to match their even higher death rate (accounting for roughly 70 percent of the deaths of all post-Cold War FIGOs). Taken together, there appears to be little evidence at the aggregate level that new global FIGOs are being created to substitute for Cold War architecture. What does appear to be new is unusual growth in the constellation of inter-regional FIGOs and the possible restructuring (and reduction in size) of regional and sub-regional organizations. Although declining as a proportion of all organizations, a strong point of continuity across the two periods is nevertheless represented in the distribution of regional FIGOs. These are the most numerous, and the proportions across the regions have remained fairly stable. As Figure 2.5 illustrates, the poorest (Sub-Saharan Africa) and the richest (Europe) regions contain the largest number of organizations across the three time frames. The Asian region, where preferences run deep for more informal arrangements (Katzenstein, 2005), and where the US and Japan have worked to prevent the creation of multilateral structures they could not control (Rapkin, 2001), contains the fewest FIGOs of any region, and consistently so across the three time periods. In Africa and the Middle East, the regional constellations of FIGOs actually diminish between 1989 and 2004.
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70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1975 Africa
Asia
1989 Caribbean
Europe
2004 Latin America
Middle East
Figure 2.5 Frequency of RGOs/SRGOs by region, 1975, 1989, 2004
As this aggregate mapping illustrates, the constellation of post-Cold War FIGOs represents both some continuity and significant departure from expectations based on previous trends. Even if we accept that the pattern of high FIGO death rates in the post-Cold War period is consistent with death rates surrounding major systemic disturbances,16 other expectations are not met. The net growth of FIGOs in the most recent era is arrested, and there is no net global FIGO growth after 1989. Finally, while the constellation remains predominantly regional in nature, the replacement rate of dead regional and sub-regional FIGOs is not matched by new ones and the proportion of regional FIGOs in the global architecture actually declines. It is only in the realm of inter-regional FIGOs17 where births significantly exceed organizational death rates. Yet, even this change, while attributable to end of Cold War effects, is a localized rather than systemic phenomenon. Closer inspection of new inter-regional FIGOs reveals that a majority (55 percent) of new ones are created in post-Soviet/Communist space previously occupied by the USSR (prior to its breakup) along with its East European communist neighbors.18 Almost all of these organizations – with the critical exception of the Shanghai Cooperation Council (SCO) – appear to be created by Russia to take on a variety of tasks previously performed either internally within the Soviet Union or through the Warsaw Pact and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).19 The emerging pattern of post-Cold War FIGO constellations appears to be very much inconsistent with the notion that the US – as the lead global
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power – has been fashioning new architecture for the new era, consistent with its articulated preferences. Global institutions appear to shrink rather than grow or to replace those born and evolved during the Cold War. The high death rates appear to reflect major changes in mostly two regions. Roughly 80 percent of the regional FIGO deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa (where there appears to be a major restructuring of regional organizations) and in Europe (consistent with the consolidation of EU organizational mechanisms).20 Neither of these changes is linked to US global leadership for creating new multilateral structures. In fact, in the two regions of strong concern for the US – Asia and the Middle East – there is no growth in the constellation of FIGOs. A second way of mapping the FIGO infrastructure is through a focus on continuity and change in state membership within and across these organizations. We use simple membership tabulations as well as network analysis and focus both on all states and on the changing centrality of major powers in the FIGO architecture, in an attempt to connect patterns of organizational growth and decay with changing membership patterns. The FIGO database estimates both opportunity and willingness to join organizations. While it can yield a simple count of numbers of organizations joined, it identifies as well the number of organizations a state is eligible (opportunity) to join. We create a measure of proportional membership density for each state, based on its willingness to join (actual membership/ opportunity). The resulting percentage allows us to compare states that differ in terms of their willingness to make the most of their varying opportunities to join organizations.21 We present proportional membership density patterns of participation for both global and regional organizations. With respect to participation in global FIGOs, Figure 2.6 illustrates a persistent increase in participation by states at the aggregate level across the three time frames. However, beneath the aggregate pattern, regional distributions show a convergence across regions. European states, long the most active, appear to decrease their willingness to participate in global FIGOs after 1989,22 while states in all other regions increasingly utilize their opportunities to join global organizations, with the strongest gains made by South American and Middle Eastern states after the end of the Cold War. The patterns of participation in regional FIGOs (Figure 2.7) is considerably more complicated. Despite the substantial numbers of FIGOs in the two regions, European (despite continued EU integration, and in part due to the emergence and reemergence of new European states following the
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0.7 0.65
Europe
0.6
South America
0.55
Middle East
0.5 0.45
Asia Sub-Saharan Africa
All States
0.4
Caribbean
0.35 0.3 1975
1989
2004
Figure 2.6 Average proportional membership density, global FIGOs, 1975, 1989, 2004
1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2
South America Middle East Caribbean
Europe Sub-Saharan Africa Asia
1975
1989
2004
Figure 2.7 Average proportional membership density, regional FIGOs, 1975, 1989, 2004
end of the Cold War) and Sub-Saharan African states fail to exhibit the high densities of regional participation demonstrated by South American and Middle Eastern states.23 Asian states have the fewest opportunities to join regional FIGOs, are least inclined to exercise the choice to join them, and are the only group to exhibit density scores in 2004 that are even lower than in 1975. Of all the regions, South American and Caribbean states demonstrate the strongest surge in regional participation densities ( see Figure 2.7) after the Cold War. As we have noted earlier, network analysis24 is a useful complement to assessing the patterns of organizational memberships. As opposed to focusing on counts of organizations, or membership profiles, network analysis emphasizes the linkages formed through organizations. A network may be conceived as a set of nodes connected through linkages of a defined type.
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In this case, the nodes are states, and the linkages are organizational memberships, producing a network of states connected through their voluntary membership in FIGOs. Network analysis is able to validate our observations, show linkages between densities25 of state memberships within and across various types of organizations, and identify the centrality of major powers in the constellation of FIGOs. The density of membership linkages can be described in two ways: creating means and standard deviations of density in terms of raw numbers and in terms of proportions. However, raw density scores can be misleading, since raw scores fail to account for variation in the number of possible linkages between states when states are compared across regions with varying numbers of FIGOs. Thus, in addition to raw density scores, we present proportional network density scores: these scores represent the average number (and their standard deviations) of organizations connecting states relative to the possible number of potential linkages, allowing for more direct comparison across regions. Concerning the validation issue, the first part of Table 2.1(A) provides raw and proportional network density scores (and standard deviations) systemwide and by region. The second part (B) provides density scores for regional FIGO membership. At the global level, and despite a decreasing number of global FIGOs, the density of global FIGOs has continued to increase, suggesting that while decreasing in numbers, FIGOs that are connecting states are expanding their memberships, and incorporating more states in the system. The relatively static nature of the standard deviation scores, however, indicates that global membership is not becoming more homogeneous across the large variety of states constituting the international system. Looking at the global network density scores by region reveals that the highest deviations derive from Europe and Asia, the two regions most affected by the end of the Cold War through the creation of “new” states. The proportional densities continue to show Europe as having the highest global density rating of any region, although its density score declines compared to 1989. The least density evidenced is by Asian states. South American and Middle East proportional density scores exhibit linear growth across the three time periods, with South American density scores nearly reaching European proportions. Part B of Table 2.1 reveals considerable variation in regional FIGO densities following the end of the Cold War. Europe – divided by the Cold War through 1989 – increases its proportional density score by about 25 percent by 2004, reflecting increased integration within the old Europe and with new
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Table 2.1A Global FIGO densities, raw numbers and proportions (means and standard deviations) Density
System South America Sub Saharan Africa Asia Middle East Caribbean Europe
Proportion
1975
1989
2004
1975
1989
2004
15.08 (7.32) 19.33 (7.32) 12.38 (6.34) 11.71 (7.32) 17.40 (5.09) 13.18 (5.21) 26.36 (8.96)
19.42 (7.78) 25.53 (6.26) 19.23 (4.53) 15.09 (8.58) 22.16 (5.65) 14.71 (4.38) 32.17 (11.90)
22.04 (7.77) 28.71 (4.88) 22.77 (3.47) 16.10 (8.01) 27.35 (3.90) 19.44 (2.67) 29.76 (11.74)
.236 (.114) .302 (.114) .193 (.099) .175 (.114) .272 (.080) .206 (.081) .412 (.140)
.266 (.110) .350 (.086) .263 (.062) .207 (.118) .304 (.077) .202 (.060) .441 (.163)
.315 (.111) .410 (.070) .325 (.050) .230 (.114) .391 (.056) .278 (.038) .425 (.168)
Table 2.1B Regional FIGO densities, raw numbers and proportions (means and standard deviations) Density
South America Sub Saharan Africa Asia Middle East Caribbean Europe
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Proportion
1975
1989
2004
1975
1989
2004
3.12 (1.91) 2.61 (2.79) 0.13 (0.40) 5.83 (3.80) 1.53 (1.09) 3.40 (3.99)
4.50 (1.94) 3.78 (3.58) 0.25 (0.58) 10.34 (6.67) 1.69 (1.10) 3.89 (4.59)
5.20 (1.91) 3.56 (3.24) 0.18 (0.55) 9.77 (6.24) 5.15 (1.55) 5.08 (3.87)
.520 (.318) .059 (.063) .043 (.133) .530 (.345) .765 (.545) .121 (.143)
.346 (.149) .065 (.062) .050 (.116) .492 (.318) .423 (.275) .130 (.153)
.520 (.191) .079 (.072) .036 (.110) .575 (.367) .736 (.221) .164 (.125)
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MAG
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DRC
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TOG
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Figure 2.8 A network map of FIGO densities, 1975
RWA
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European states.26 The regional proportional density scores increase even more dramatically in South America (50 percent) between 1989 and 2004.27 Middle Eastern states demonstrate a somewhat higher proportional regional density score in 2004 than South American states, although the higher standard deviation reflects the greater diversity and conflicts embedded in the region.28 At the opposite extreme are states of the Asian region: at the regional level (as at the global) they constitute by far the thinnest network of FIGO memberships of any geographical grouping, including after 1989. Note that we treat all of Europe as the region, rather than just Western European/EU states. Thus we find substantially lower density scores at both the regional and global level than for core EU countries. For example, the 15 core states of the EU have proportional global density FIGO scores of .716 (compared to .425 for all Europe), illustrating that the EU core is far more entrenched into the global constellation of FIGOs than any region. Likewise, the core 15 demonstrate regional density scores in 2004 that are roughly three times higher than for all Europe, illustrating that the historical divisions brought about by the Cold War have not yet disappeared, despite vigorous efforts by the EU to embrace the “new” states of Europe.29 In addition to creating density scores, network analysis is capable of generating a graphic representation of the intersection between membership in regional, global and inter-regional FIGOs, creating a visual view of the changing relationships between state membership and changes to different types of organization. Since the constellation of FIGOs functions simultaneously on three overlapping levels, we create network graphs of states connected through FIGO linkages at the regional, inter-regional, and global levels. In an attempt to make the network graphs readable, we show only linkages between states that are considered “above average”,30 so that significant, yet sparse regional architecture will not be overshadowed by the more dense global or inter-regional architecture, as would be the case if all types of FIGO were treated equally. Figures 2.8 through 2.10 show these linkages for the three time periods, demonstrating both the strengths and weaknesses of graphical representation. One clear weakness of looking at data in this manner is that – as with Rorschach tests – much can be read into the patterns. We limit our observations to what appear to us to be the most obvious changes over time. The first one is that the most dramatic changes in organizational linkages occur between 1975 and 1989 as a relatively diffuse pattern becomes more integrated into the system. The changes noted in the graphs between 1989 and 2004 appear to be modest at best, with perhaps the growing numbers
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SWA
ZIM
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ZAM BOT GNB
CHA
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EQG
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GUI
MLI NIR
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BEN
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Figure 2.9 A network map of FIGO densities, 1989
LES
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of inter-regional FIGOs appearing to create bridges in memberships across integrating regional clusterings (most strongly illustrated by the increased dense South American and Caribbean linkages into the center of the graph). Especially in comparison to the 1975–89 period, the last map does not appear to show major changes in linkages between 1989 and 2004, although the network of post-Soviet space31 in the 2004 graph has clearly replaced the East European constellation evident in 1989, as noted in our assessment of the growth in inter-regional FIGOs. What of the role of major powers in the web of FIGOs? Network analysis provides a centrality measure we use to assess changes to the positioning of major states, including the US, Russia/USSR, China, Japan, and the major states of the EU (UK, France, and Germany). While there are multiple measures of centrality, we focus on eigenvector centrality. It is a weighted centrality measure, indicating the extent to which a node (state) is connected to the core elements of the system. Not all nodes are of equal influence within the network. Eigenvector centrality accounts for this difference by placing greater weight on links to more influential members of the system relative to links to less influential members of the system.32 Table 2.2 reports eigenvector centrality scores to estimate how extensively the major powers are linked into the network of FIGOs. These scores indicate a pattern of decreasing centrality in the network of FIGOs by the major powers after the end of the Cold War and especially so for the US. There are only two exceptions: the first, unsurprisingly, is that Russian centrality in 2004 reflects a bounce up from its low rating in 1989, to a level just above where the Soviet Union was in 1975. What is surprising in the Russian case is that the extent of Russian involvement with regional and inter-regional FIGO creation and participation in the post-Cold War era resulted in less centrality by 2004 than the Soviet Union enjoyed in 1975.33 The second exception concerns the Chinese level of centrality in the network: its eigenvector score increases by nearly 60 percent between 1975 and 1989. Yet even such dramatic growth flattens after the Cold War’s end, and dips slightly between 1990 and 2004.
Plus ça change? Contrary to expectations, the major turbulence created by the end of the Cold War has not yielded major changes to the pattern of formal multilateral
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CAP
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ETH
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OMA
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UGA
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ZAM
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QAT DJI
LIB
COM
LEB
NAU
IND
MAL
PNG FIJ SRI NEP PHI SIN MYA
MAD
WSM
Figure 2.10 A network map of FIGO densities, 2004
SEY
ERI
SYR
YEM IRQ
IRN SOL BHU LAO AFG
VAN
DRV ISR IRE
MON
NEW
CAM KYR
MLD
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ICE UKR CRO CHN BUL ROK RUS SLO TUR JPNAUL AUS CZR LAT SWZ POL UKG NOR DEN SLV LIT GRC FIN SWD ROM HUN EST BEL FRN POR SPN CYP GMY ITA SAF LUX NTH USA BRA ARG CAN MEX GUA CHL PER HON ECU COL COS SAL PAR HAI PAN CUB JAM BOL DOM VEN TRI URU BAR NIC SUR GRN
INS
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Table 2.2 Eigenvector centrality scores for major powers, 1975, 1989, 2004 State
1975
1989
2004
United States France United Kingdom Germany Russia/USSR China Japan
14.98 18.14 16.87 17.52 11.63 7.75 15.86
14.29 16.40 15.37 16.43 10.37 12.08 15.28
12.07 15.19 14.34 14.97 11.88 12.05 13.32
cooperative structures, similar to previous eras of fundamental change in the twentieth century. There has been no net explosion of new FIGOs in the post-Cold War era; while many organizations died, these deaths came overwhelmingly at the regional and sub-regional levels, and mostly in Africa and Europe (consistent with greater integration/consolidation within the EU). The monotonic rise in FIGOs has been arrested. The percentage of global FIGOs has actually shrunk in the post-Cold War era, while growth of inter-regional organizations appears to be primarily a function of Russian construction of cooperative arrangements in the vacuum created by the collapse of the USSR. Regarding state membership in global FIGOs we note increasing membership in the constellation of organizations by most states outside of Europe and Asia, suggesting (with the exception of Asia) a convergence of global FIGO membership density across regions. At the same time, the central participatory role of almost all major powers – and especially that of the US – has decreased, as indicated by their eigenvector centralization scores over time. We confined our analysis to three equidistant periods separated by 15 years during and after the Cold War, in order to allow for appropriate comparisons of change and continuity. This decision has meant that the description of the constellation of formal intergovermental organizations stops in the year 2004. We have been tracing the patterns of organizational formation and dissolution since 2004 as well, and find little in the way of substantial changes to these patterns. Inter-regional organization formation continues, along with halting attempts to restructure some regional arrangements, especially in South America as domestic political processes continue to unfold in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Ecuador, translating into interstate leadership conflicts within and between Andean and Mercosur
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(Mercado Común del Sur) members. As the experience with the South American Community illustrates,34 most of the post-2004 attempts appear to be quite fragile and virtually none of these organizations yet have sufficient longevity to be able to assess the extent to which they will meet the requirements of FIGOs. Note also that what we have presented above has been a broad-sweep, quanitative exercise that has not focused on the extent to which attempts have been made to reform extant organizations instead of destroying old ones and replacing them or complementing them with new ones. We know that reforms have been initiated and sometimes succeeded, although “success” may depend on the definition and measure being utilized. Early efforts to reform the UN in the 1990s are now generally accepted as not having worked. Expansion of NATO and its success in addressing new security threats or in anchoring fledging democracies are more controversial. The creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the movement from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to the World Trade Organization (WTO) are further examples of reform and reformulation of existing arrangements with stronger institutional settings. How successful35 this strategy has been, why states pursued these strategies of incremental reform rather than restructuring the architecture, and in fact how effective the combination of these changes has been are the topics of the following chapter.
Notes * Some of the material from this chapter first appeared in “Changing Architecture and PostCold War Transition,” in William Thompson (ed.) Systemic Transitions: Past, Present and Future (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
1 Note, for example, Russian President Putin’s call for alternative arrangements to the WTO and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (Kramer, 2007). 2 Authors’ calculations using the COW IGO database; the percentages represent the net growth of IGOs. 3 See, for example, reports of such publicly expressed policy preferences in Eckholm, 1999; Erlanger, 1997; Kramer, 2007; Gordon, 1997; Sanger, 1997. 4 For the remainder of the chapter, we use the term FIGO for those organizations that meet our conceptual criteria while the term IGO is used as the more generic classification of intergovernmental organizations. 5 Emanations are not created by states but typically by other organizations and states are automatically classified as members of the emanation when they are
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part of the creating organization. Most emanations also depend on the parent organization for either bureaucratic structure or funding. There is much controversy over how to identify “regions” in international relations (e.g., see Lemke, 2002; Buzan and Waever, 2004). We make no claim to resolving this controversy. However, for analytic purposes, we have created a generic classification scheme that is based on a combination of geography and broad political affiliation. Accordingly, our regions consist of: Europe, Asia, Middle East (including states with dominant Arab or Islamic populations directly adjoining the Middle East, such as Saharan Africa, Afghanistan, and Turkey), Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America (including Central America), and the Caribbean. Organizations exclusive to North America (two) and Oceania (two) are for accounting purposes coded as “other” region. Israel is excluded from the Middle East. For the purposes of this mapping exercise, we have collapsed sub-regional and regional organizations into one regional dimension. We use the sub-regional classification, however, below, to identify when states have the opportunity to participate in certain organizations. Three 15-year time frames are created, rather than annual observations, for two reasons. First, data based on annual observations of either membership or organizational characteristics likely create significant reliability problems when either organizational characteristics or IGO membership changes. While a longer time frame does not eliminate this problem entirely, it may reduce significantly the problem of coding “0”s for several years after they have become “1”s. Second, observing changes to the size of the IGO architecture 15 years after the end of world wars in the twentieth century offered a sufficiently long time frame to note significant changes to the size of the institutional architecture. We confirmed these 15-year counts using the COW IGO database. This is so for several reasons, including the fact that COW IGO concludes in 2000 and FIGO codes through 2004. FIGO uses as well a variety of sources more recently available, including updated web pages of organizations and correspondence with IGOs when information is limited or unclear (for a comparison between IGO classifications used in COW IGO and the FIGO classification, see Volgy et al., 2006). The authors have created and periodically update the FIGO database. The database is available by contacting the authors at
[email protected]. While, given our definitions and operationalization, the more general population of IGOs lacking FIGO characteristics are not. As Jacobson et al. (1986) note, the world of IGOs varies from a few hundred to over 1,000, depending on varying operational definitions. The sources we utilize – including the Yearbook of International Organization, organizational web pages, direct contact with organizations, etc. – have made it virtually impossible to verify data from earlier time frames.
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Thomas J. Volgy et al. This is not a function of large numbers of Soviet-based Cold War institutions dying. Relative to the larger constellation of FIGOs, these were not numerous and their death rate does not impact on these numbers. Plausibly, given our discussion in Chapter 1 of the varying definitions of regions and their boundaries, these results could be a function of how we defined regional versus inter-regional organizations. However, since the operational definitions remain the same across all three time periods in this analysis, we are reasonably sure that the changes we note here regarding the growth of interregional FIGOs after the Cold War are not a function of our regional definition. Recall that even this death rate appears to be contrary to expectations: it is accounted for by an extremely large death rate among regional FIGOs, and overwhelmingly from Africa, apparently unrelated to the end of the Cold War. We noted earlier our methodology for identifying regions; note that interregional organizations are those whose membership is designed across two or more (typically two), but not all of these regions. FIGOs in post-Communist space typically cut across both European and Asian regions. Listed among this new regional birth are post-Communist space organizations such as the Organization of Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), the Inter-State Bank (ISB), the Eurasian Patent Organization (EPO), and the Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications (RCC). There are some interesting exceptions, however: some of the new organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) or the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG) include China, while others, such as BSEC, include Turkey. Some of these organizations whose mandate was absorbed by EU internal elements include the Oslo Commission, the Paris Commission, the European Monetary Institute, and the European Atomic Energy Committee (Euratom). For example, Iran cannot join Arab organizations while Iraq can, making comparisons between states in the same region problematic when one is ineligible to join certain organizations and the other is not; comparisons across regions become even more problematic. This decline is partially a result of “new” states emerging in Europe after the Cold War, and is not necessarily attributable to the “older” European state network. Part of this outcome is likely due to the very large number of regional organizations in Africa, while African states have limited capabilities for joining all of them. This capacity issue is not the same for European states, but their density scores are impacted by the post-Communist subgroups emerging into the European Community. Also known as “social network analysis.” Density in this sense represents the density of linkages connecting states within a given system or subsystem.
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By “old” European states we are referring to the states that were outside the Soviet Union’s alliance; “new” European states are those that were inside, or part of the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia before its breakup. This rate of density growth is exceeded only in the Caribbean region (74 percent) between 1989 and 2004. We did not place Israel into the Middle East region; the diversity and conflict issue refers more directly to diversity between the remaining states, divided along ethnic and religious lines, and indirectly in terms of their relationships toward the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. See Saideman and Ayres (2007) on domestic versus accession effects on the new member-states of the EU. Above-average linkages are determined relative to the average density and standard deviations. Only countries linked by two standard deviations above the average density for that respective system are displayed graphically. “Post-Soviet/Post-Communist space” refers to three sets of states after the end of the Cold War: independent states that were allies of the USSR in Eastern Europe; the former parts of Yugoslavia; and the states that emerged from the disintegration of the Soviet Union, including Central Asian Republics. For a more extensive discussion of this space, see Chapter 4. Centrality scores were calculated using UCInet version 6.166. Note in Table 2.2 that separate from actual centrality scores, Russian centrality among the major powers ranks last in 1989 and 2004, and next to last in 1975. See, for example, “Speak fraternally but carry a stick.” The Economist, 31 May 2008: 41–2, for conflicts within the Andean Community and Mercosur, and the halting attempt to create a Union of South American Nations (Unasur), as a substitute for a failed South American Community that was created in 2004. The issue of success has certainly fired up journalistic assessment: for example, the 5 July 2008 issue of The Economist focuses on the effectiveness of these organizations (“What a way to run the world”), and its cover shows a crumbling tower of Babel, representing various parts of the global and regional organizational architecture.
References Abbott, Kenneth W., and Duncan Snidal. 1998. “Why States Act Through Formal International Organizations.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 52:3–32. Barnett, Michael N., and Raymond D. Duvall. 2005. “Power in International Politics.” International Organization 59:39–79.
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Bearce, David H., and Sawa Omori. 2005. “How Do Commercial Institutions Promote Peace?” Journal of Peace Research 42:659–78. Boehmer, Charles R., Erik A. Gartzke, and Timothy Nordstrom. 2004. “Do Intergovernmental Organizations Promote Peace?” World Politics 57:1–38. Bush, George H. W. 1990. Address to the Joint Session of Congress (11 September). Bush, George H. W. 1991. Address to the Joint Session of Congress (6 March). Buzan, Barry, and Ole Waever. 2004. Regions and Powers: The Structures of International Security. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cupitt, Richard T., Rodney Whitlock, and Lynn Williams Whitlock. 1996. “The [Im] mortality of Intergovernmental Organizations.” International Interactions 21:389–404. Eckholm, Erik. 1999. “Bombing May Have Hardened China’s Line.” New York Times, 18 May, p. A1. Erlanger, Steven. 1997. “Clinton Basks at Summit; Some Europeans Are Cool to US.” New York Times, 6 June, p. A1. Goertz, Gary. 2003. International Norms and Decision Making: A Punctuated Equilibrium Model. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Gordon, Michael. 1997. “Russia–China Theme: Contain the West.” New York Times, 26 April 26, p. A3. Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., and Alexander H. Montgomery. 2006. “Power Positions: International Organizations, Social Networks, and Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 50:3–27. Haftel, Yoram Z. 2007 “Designing for Peace: Regional Integration Arrangements, Institutional Variation and Militarized Interstate Disputes.” International Organization 61:217–37. Ingram, Paul, Jeffrey Robinson, and Marc L. Busch. 2005. “The Intergovernmental Network of World Trade: IGO Connectedness, Governance, and Embeddedness.” American Journal of Sociology 111:824–58. Ikenberry, G. John. 2001. After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jacobson, Harold K., William R. Reisinger, and Todd Mathers. 1986. “National Entanglements in International Governmental Organizations.” American Political Science Review 80:141–59. Katzenstein, Peter J. 2005. A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Keohane, Robert O. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Koremenos, Barbara, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal. 2001. “Rational Design of International Institutions.” International Organization 55:761–99. Kramer, Andrew. 2007. “Putin Plays Down IMF and WTO.” New York Times. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/business/worldbusiness/ 11chiefs.html?ref=business.
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Lemke, Douglas. 2002. Regions of War and Peace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Modelski, George, and William R. Thompson. 1988. Sea Power in Global Politics, 1494–1993. London: Macmillan. Pevehouse, Jon C., Timothy Nordstrom, and Kevin Warnke. 2003. “Intergovernmental Organizations, 1815–2000: A New Correlates of War Data Set.” Available at http://cow2.la.psu.edu/. Powers, Kathy L. 2006. “Dispute Initiation and Alliance Obligations in Regional Economic Institutions.” Journal of Peace Research 43:453–71. Rapkin, David P. 2001. “The United States, Japan, and the Power to Block: The APEC and AMF Case.” Pacific Review 14:373–410. Rosendorff, Peter B. 2005. “Stability and Rigidity: Politics of Design of WTO’s Dispute Settlement Procedure.” American Political Science Review 99:389–400. Saideman, Stephen M., and R. William Ayres. 2007. “Pie Crust Promises and the Sources of Foreign Policy: The Limited Impact of Accession and the Priority of Domestic Constituencies.” Foreign Policy Analysis 3:189–210. Sanger, David E. 1997. “U.S., Lauding Its Economy, Finds No Summit Followers.” New York Times, 20 June, p. A1. Shanks, Cheryl, Harold K. Jacobson, and Jeffrey H. Kaplan. 1996. “Inertia and Change in the Constellation of International Governmental Organizations, 1981–1992.” International Organization 50:593–627. Smith, James McCall. 2000. “The Politics of Dispute Settlement Design: Explaining Legalism in Regional Trade Pacts.” International Organization 54:137–80. Vasquez, John A. 1993. The War Puzzle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Volgy, Thomas J., Elizabeth Fausett, Keith A. Grant, and Stuart Rodgers. 2006. “Ergo FIGO: Identifying Formal Intergovernmental Organizations.” Working Papers Series in International Politics: Department of Political Science, University of Arizona. Volgy, Thomas J., Elizabeth Fausett, Keith A. Grant, and Stuart Rodgers. 2008. “Identifying Formal Intergovernmental Organizations.” Journal of Peace Research 45:837–50. Wallace, Michael D., and J. David Singer. 1970. “Intergovernmental Organizations in the Global System, 1816–1964: A Quantitative Description.” International Organization 24:239–87.
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Chapter 3
Accounting for the New World Order of FIGO Architecture and Its Effectiveness* Keith A. Grant, Thomas J. Volgy, Elizabeth Fausett, and Stuart Rodgers How can we account for the patterns uncovered in Chapter 2? There are in particular two substantively important puzzles raised by the earlier findings that require some explanation. The first surrounds the reason(s) for the absence of a substantially different set of organizational arrangements following the end of the Cold War, in contrast to dramatic changes to organizational architecture in the past that accompanied systemic turbulance, and especially so given the avowed intention of the strongest of powers emerging from the Cold War to develop a new world order. The second one, and related to the first, is the extent to which the postCold War constellation of formal organizations, incrementally modified and consisting of a combination of older and newer organizations, is able to address the relationships between states as effectively as during the Cold War.
Why No Fundamentally New World Order? One possible explanation for these outcomes – where major systemic turbulence is not accompanied by a similar fundamental restructuring of the constellation of formal intergovernmental organizations – is that the end of the Cold War was not as traumatic an event as previous disturbances since it did not end in a global or a major regional war, destroying existing infrastructure. We are loath to accept this explanation. The Cold War, if not
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the central, defining feature of the past half century, was nevertheless a predominant one, and although no direct physical confrontation occurred between the US and the Soviet Union, the fighting never stopped (Brogan, 1990). Its end yielded the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the creation of scores of new states and new domestic regimes, and it even led to war on the borders of the European “zone of peace.” Certainly it cannot be that only systemic, global war – missing in 1989 – is required to create fundamental change and growth to intergovernmental architecture. Note that the end of colonialism and the creation of new states during the 1960s and early 1970s came without global war, yet this change in international relations was accompanied by a substantially larger creation of IGOs than following the end of World War I. Our data in the previous chapter indicate that formal intergovernmental organizations (FIGOs) exhibited a net increase of 25 percent in growth to the intergovernmental architecture following the end of colonialism. Surely, the end of the Cold War represents no less of a turbulent event in the international system. Nor does minimizing the importance of the Cold War’s end account for what has changed. While history did not end, and conflicts of major proportions continued after 1989, we found an end to the continued growth of FIGOs, the decreasing centrality of major powers in the constellation of FIGOs, and an accelerated growth of inter-regional FIGOs. An alternative to the “no fundamental change” explanation is provided by the “constitutionalist structure” argument, best represented by Ikenberry’s (2001) work. Briefly, this approach suggests that at the end of World War II, the US – as the lead global power – built a series of institutions that would embed American policy preferences within a global order along with “constitutional” mechanisms allowing states joining these organizations to limit American power by participating in the decision-making process involving collaborative and cooperative practices. The US benefited from building these institutions with agendas consistent with its objectives. Other states benefited by getting the US to act (albeit not always) through these arrangements and thus partially checking American power. To the extent that these organizations were not destroyed at the end of the Cold War (whose end made mostly the USSR-based FIGOs such as the Warsaw Pact and COMECON technically irrelevant), the constitutional view suggests that Cold War institutions do not need to be replaced (although they can be incrementally modified), and predicts no fundamental transformation to organizational infrastructure. Given the “success” of these institutions
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and the potential costs and risks involved in trying to build new ones, this perspective questions the extent to which American policy makers would actually hold strong preferences for new world order construction, opting ultimately for incremental modifications to existing institutional mechanisms. Implicitly, the constitutionalist argument suggests that incremental adjustments to the constellation of cooperating institutions should be sufficient to address post-Cold War issues as long as the US remains dominant and its institutions continue into the new era. In fact, several salient, incremental changes have occurred since the end of the Cold War. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was expanded, both in membership and mission (e.g., out-of-theater operations). During the early phase of transition out of the Cold War, efforts were made to reform the United Nations (UN) and to have it play a larger role in “peace-making” activities. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was eventually transformed into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Meanwhile regional arrangements were also reformulated. The European Community evolved into the European Union. Informal trade relationships in North America were broadened and formalized through North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Multilateral institutional agreements were reworked in Africa and in South America Mercosur was endowed with a broader mandate than just trade issues. Yet, we are skeptical of this “constitutionalist with reform” explanation. The post-Cold War world is substantially different from its predecessor. Incremental modifications have failed to address a large and diverse set of ongoing and emerging global and regional policy issues, and in fact (even before the second war in Iraq) the US had turned to more unilateral and bilateral initiatives, rather than relying on existing multilateral institutions. It has certainly fought the creation of new multilateral initiatives, including the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court (ICC), and scores of other initiatives proposed by other states. Even in the most pressing security arena – the fight against international terrorism – there has been no attempt by the US to create new formal multilateral organizations of collaboration, relying instead on unilateral, bilateral, and informal/ad hoc multilateral efforts to complement existing organizations that may be ill suited to the task.1 Even in traditional issue areas, extant institutions are exhibiting, at best, a mixed record of success. The UN faces a bevy of scandals and the Security Council does not appear to be more responsive to issues than during the Cold War as policy conflicts between its permanent members
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have not disappeared. The WTO has developed strong adjudication mechanisms compared to GATT, but has bogged down in negotiating important new regime changes.2 NAFTA has witnessed both growing trade between members and growing inequality within member-states as some of its major promises (uplifting the Mexican economy, minimizing the migration problem between Mexico and the US) have not materialized. NATO engaged in two major military operations (against Serbia and in Afghanistan), exposing the operational weaknesses within the organization. Even the EU, the most successful integrationist experiment in modern times, cannot develop a common foreign and security policy, its attempt to rewrite its constitution has so far failed, and its expansion has created increased conflict within the region and with Russia (Saideman and Ayres, 2007). In South America, developments in Mercosur and attempts to integrate with the Andean Community of states are bogging down over growing conflicts in leadership and policy orientation between Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina (e.g., see Romero, 2007). The cumulative record does not offer evidence that the ongoing architecture, even if incrementally modified, is well suited for the new era of international relations. It is likely that policy makers see similar weaknesses. As Forman and Segaar note, both state and non-state actors are increasingly relying on informal mechanisms of collaboration in the face of organizational failure to address their problems, and this appears to be the rule rather than the exception … governments increasing opt to act through diverse [and informal] intergovernmental arrangements, operating alongside or outside the traditional intergovernmental institutions on a widening set of interrelated issues, including global economic and financial matters and threats to peace and security … (Forman and Segaar, 2006: 208–9).
Thus, we reject the idea that substantialy new organizational formation has not occurred because past architecture was sufficient to address issues of collaboration and cooperation in the post-Cold War environment. We do concur with the broad assessment that a principal difference in the post-Cold War order has been the (temporary) evolution of American unipolarity, a condition capable of affecting all states in international politics (Stein, 2008:26). Yet we question whether or not such “unipolarity” is sufficient to construct substantially new organizational architecture. We
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begin by accepting the arguments of long-cycle theorists (e.g., Modelski, 1990; Modelski and Thompson, 1988), hegemonic stability theorists (e.g., Gilpin, 1981; Keohane, 1984), power transition theorists (e.g., Organski and Kugler, 1980; Tammen et al., 2000), and some liberal institutionalists (Ikenberry, 2001), who point to how a global state, holding predominant capabilities in the aftermath of system transformation, would seek to create a new world order consistent with its policy objectives. In the twenty-first century, such global leadership should include substantial attention to new constellations of formal, multilateral organizational development, since these organizations appear to matter not only to scholars but to policy makers as well, as indicated by the richness of IGO construction by states over the past half century. We depart from these perspectives, however, in one fundamental way. We do not believe that institutional reconstructions occur automatically when systemic transformations warrant them. We contend that structural approaches to global stability and world order underestimate conditions that may negate efforts by great powers – or discourage them – to establish new institutions when international politics undergo dramatic changes. We assume that at a minimum three conditions are required for a global leader to engage in fundamental transformation of global institutions. First, its policy makers must hold strong preferences (Moravcsik, 1997; Bueno de Mesquita, 2003) for new order construction if it is to commit substantial resources to the effort. Second, they need the creativity to be able to assemble new institutions that reflect changing circumstances (Modelski, 1990). Third, the lead power needs sufficient strength with which both to create architecture and to entice or coerce others to participate (Strange, 1989). There is no reason to assume that these three conditions will automatically coincide with the onset of a new era. We contend that of the three conditions, it is first sufficient strength that is needed, without which will and creativity are inadequate for restructuring the web of global institutions. Insufficient strength can either make strong policy preferences meaningless, or cause lead policy makers to alter their preferences if they cannot generate sufficient strength to accomplish them.3 There are two types of strength necessary for architectural construction and its maintenance: relational strength and structural strength. Relational strength refers to the relative capability of a great power vis-à-vis potential challengers to its leadership (Wilkinson, 1999; Volgy and Imwalle, 2000). It is the type of strength that may be required to deter or defeat the military of another state. It is strength assessed by
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viewing capabilities in the context of other major and minor powers and such strength can be measured as the aggregate share of great power economic and military capabilities (Spiezio, 1990; Volgy and Imwalle, 2000). It is in this sense that the US possesses “unipolar” strength in the postCold War era. Relational strength, however, is only part of the equation, important for maintaining the order that is created. The creation of a global order – in terms of developing a broad set of norms, rules, and organizations for global governance, and generating adherence to the use of these governance mechanisms – requires structural strength (e.g., Krasner, 1978; Strange, 1989; Volgy and Bailin, 2003). Structural strength differs from relational strength in a number of fundamental respects, all focused on the capacity of a major power to effectuate a set of ordered relationships globally and to generate substantial compliance with the rules and adherence to the institutions that it has created. Strength of that type requires not only that the state in question be able to overcome resistance from one or two potential contenders for global leadership, but to be able as well to generate support and acceptance of the order being created from myriad state and non-state actors that may be salient in a variety of issue areas. Relational strength is often conceptualized dyadically vis-à-vis potential challengers; structural strength is conceptualized systemically in the context of the broad array of actors and issues that compose global order. How much structural strength is needed for world order transformation may then depend on two factors: the state’s degree of autonomy to pursue a new order and the complexity of the system it is seeking to organize.4 It is unlikely that in a world of globalization any major state can be truly autonomous of its environment. However, the less autonomy a state enjoys, the more strength it will need to overcome its dependence on other actors in the international system. Increased American economic dependence for its well-being on Chinese exports or European imports limits its freedom of action in the construction of a new economic order. Likewise, changes in the system’s complexity ought to matter in gauging structural strength. Creation of a security regime that addresses potential security threats from a handful of states differs from creation of a security regime where – in addition to state threats – a large variety of non-state actors, operating across a complex system of supportive and/or failing states, pose asymmetrical but potentially lethal challenges to its ability to fashion order. Both the system’s complexity and the major power’s autonomy to act independently should impact on the strength needed to effectuate new global arrangements.
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Whether we consider relational or structural strength, the US is the strongest of states in the post-Cold War era, the one most capable of creating a new web of architecture, and its policy makers have articulated the intention to do so. American relational strength is certainly sufficient for global leadership, both in the aggregate and on the basis of relative economic and military measures. It is in the context of relational strength that the US has been judged to have unipolar capabilities (Krauthammer, 1990/91; Wilkinson, 1999) and at a level that exceeds, in the aggregate, 50 percent of all major power strength (Volgy et al., 2004). Yet, for a number of reasons its structural strength, along with those of other major powers, has declined dramatically over time and may be insufficient to effectuate a new world order. Previous research (Volgy and Imwalle, 2000; Volgy and Bailin, 2003) has assessed structural strength in a global context by first measuring the total amount of resources major powers commit to all foreign affairs, and then reducing those resources by external limits on state autonomy (measured as trade/GDP [gross domestic product]), limited further by the level of the international system’s complexity (measured as the number of states in the system). The resulting index allows comparisons for each major power to itself over time, with a specific base year as the starting point.5 For the US, that base year is 1950. Previous research has found the structural index for all major powers (including the US, UK, France, Germany, USSR/Russia, China, and Japan) to be in substantial decline in the context of decreasing autonomy and growing system complexity (Volgy and Bailin, 2003). Figure 3.1 updates the structural index measure for the US as the strongest global state in the present era. Even with major commitments to increasing resources since 9/11, the US structural strength index in 20046 is some 40 percent lower than it was in the 1960s and during the “new world order” construction phase, and even lower through the 1990s. In the context of sufficient relational but insufficient structural strength, it is plausible that US policy makers could hold preferences for a new world order, yet find it a task too arduous. The unipolarity of relational strength offers the hope of unlimited ability. It is predictive of an easy defeat of an Iraqi army (in 1991 or 2003) or of successful deterrence of military engagements with Chinese or Russian counterparts. It is the structural strength, however, needed not to defeat Saddam Hussein but to restructure the map of the Middle East (or global affairs) that appears to be in short supply.7 In the context of sufficient relational but insufficient structural strength, we should expect a mixed American strategy of unilateral and bilateral
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Source: Volgy and Bailin, 2003; updated to 2004
Figure 3.1 US Structural Strength Index, 1950–2004
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approaches (consistent with relational strength) over a substantial reconstruction of the web of IGOs. What the actual mix of strategies will be like depends in large part on the nature of policy preferences and personnel. The second Bush administration pressed for unilateralist and ad hoc coalition approaches to policy concerns; the first Bush administration pursued more multilaterally sanctioned force responses. The Clinton administration used a variety of combinations ranging from unilateral force (Somalia), to abstention (Rwanda), and to multilateral approaches (the response to Serbia). Yet, all of these options involved the primacy of relational strength across the three administrations, and a distinct preference for unilateral, bilateral, and ad hoc multilateral approaches over IGO-based multilateral approaches (Stein, 2008). As other states resist American leadership in the post-Cold War environment (and perhaps recognize the structural weakening of the US), we should expect three consequences in response to reduction in US structural strength. First, states previously resistant to participation in architecture created or influenced by the US should be now integrating and participating in those structures, less fearful of American control over collective agendas and outcomes. Second, resistance to US leadership should be partially manifested in attempts to create multilateral structures that are not necessarily supported by the leading global state. Third, since the structural strength of all major states has declined, such architectural creation is likely to be of very limited success and mostly in regional and inter-regional spheres, rather than in a global context. Essentially, much of this is what we have found in our mapping exercise. There has been no major restructuring of global organizations after the Cold War. Neither has there been any growth in regional FIGOs in regions of major concern to the US: the Middle East and Asia. The major changes that have occurred with respect to the death and birth of FIGOs have come in inter-regional FIGO growth and restructuring of regional FIGOs generally unrelated to US efforts to create them. Consistent with our prediction, state membership in FIGOs, by those less extensively involved in the past, has increased. At the same time, our network analysis indicated that the central positioning of all but two of the major powers (Russia and China) decreased significantly between 1989 and 2004. We offer three additional pieces of evidence relating to attempts to construct FIGO architecture by those dissatisfied with US global leadership. First, if new organizational construction is linked to dissatisfaction with the status quo and US global leadership, then the organizations being created
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Table 3.1 Comparison of new FIGOs by type, 1975–89 and 1990–2004 Type of organization Period
Other
Functional
N
1975–1989 1990–2004 Total
33% 56%
67% 44%
69 68 137
Pearson’s chi2 = 7.0500, p = .008; Likelihood-ratio chi2 = 7.1131, p = .008.
after 1989 should reflect attributes allowing for contestation, as opposed to merely collaboration in an increasingly complex environment. Functionalists (e.g., Jacobson et al., 1986) have argued for the continued need to construct functional organizations to address highly complex, narrow, technological and informational issues. In fact, most FIGOs created in the 1975–89 period were functional ones. While important, these are less likely to be the arenas where contestation over the status quo is likely to take place. If the new global and inter-regional FIGOs in the post-Cold War era are meant to broadly challenge US global leadership, then we should find that these new organizations – with broader economic and political mandates – should now reverse the pattern and outnumber the creation of new functional FIGOs. In fact, this is the case: comparing new FIGOs across the time periods (Table 3.1), we find that 67 percent of FIGOs created between 1975 and 1989 were functional organizations. Most new FIGOs created after the Cold War are broader in scope, with new, functional organizations representing only 44 percent of organizations created, a significant difference. Second, we can observe the pattern of organizational membership for the two major states (Russia and China) in the post-Cold War era that are dissatisfied with US global leadership, and were not on the winning side at the end of the Cold War. We would expect that these states would both join existing institutions and participate in new institutions at a higher rate than previously, if they are challenging US global leadership and aware that US structural strength is in decline. We assess the extent to which their participation in Cold War FIGOs predicts participation in new architecture in the post Cold War period. As Table 3.2 illustrates, and consistent with our predictions, there is a significant (p = .01) decline in American participation and a significant (p = .04) increase in Russian and/or Chinese participation in new institutions.8 This
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Table 3.2 Major power participation in global and inter-regional FIGOs, 1990–2004
United States Russia and/ or China
Participation in existing architecture
Participation in new architecture
Difference
p-value*
.519 (.044) .534 (.044)
.290 (.083) .710 (.083)
−.229 (.099) .175 (.099)
.01 .04
* One-tailed difference of means test.
divergence in behavior is suggestive of efforts by China and/or Russia to create and participate in new transcontinental ties and organizations, and/ or the inability or unwillingness of the US to deter the formation of these arrangements. Finally, if structural strength matters, then we should find evidence of it also through the death rates of these institutions. Although the structural strength of all major powers is in decline (Volgy and Bailin, 2003), it is also the case that the US has substantially more structural strength than Russia or China. Therefore, for those new institutions in which the US participates, survival should be higher than for those in which the US is not participating. This is clearly the case. The survival rate for new global and inter-regional FIGOs was 86 percent in the post-Cold War era. None of the new organizations died when the US was a member. However, nine of these post-Cold War FIGOs – created without US participation – were dead by 2004, even when they included participation from Russia, China, and/or major EU states, including Germany, France, and the UK.
How Effective Are FIGOs in the post-Cold War System? Organizational creation is a risky and costly enterprise. It may be more cost-effective to continue to use a mix of Cold War organizations (with a number of them incrementally modified) and newly created ones to address post-Cold War issues of collaboration and coordination between states than to engage in fundamental reconstruction of organizational architecture.9 However, if the claim is accurate that the post-Cold War architecture
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is not very useful (Forman and Segaar, 2006) and in fact results in “forum shopping” by the more powerful states seeking the most advantageous organizational environment in which to operate (Drezner, 2008), then costeffectiveness becomes a distant, secondary consideration. We are aware of no systematic attempt to evaluate the post-Cold War architecture’s effectiveness, apart from individual case studies; we turn to that task here. There are a nearly infinite variety of means through which to assess the effectiveness of networks of organizations, though most require the evaluation of individual organizations relative to their specific mandates and issue areas, thus precluding a more general analysis of the effectiveness of the constellation of IGOs. Alternatively, we can assess parts of the constellation by subdividing the architecture into broad mandates of cooperation such as economic or military/ political organizations and seek to assess the extent to which they are able to meet their mandates (e.g., increasing trade and investment, or producing greater security for members). Accepting that there are alternative measures of effectiveness, we settle for a broadly generic effectiveness measure. All organizations share the goal of facilitating cooperation among their members, regardless of their specific orientation; direct hostilities between member-states can jeopardize the workings of organizations when member-states become consumed by security concerns, undermining the ability of the organization to function properly. Therefore, we opt to measure organizational effectiveness based on the conflict-ameliorating abilities of organizations. At least three broad arguments regarding the conflict-ameliorating functions of intergovernmental organizations have been advocated in the literature. First, IGOs can become a substitute venue for international disputes. Organizations provide a controlled playing field for countries to compete in certain issue areas, without resorting to violence (Dixon, 2007). For instance, states can file grievances within the context of the WTO, and thus compete in a controlled setting without resorting to violence. Second, IGOs can uncover and disseminate information unavailable to at least one potentially conflicting party (Boehmer et al., 2004).10 Thus, organizations can decrease private information through intra-organizational interactions, where states signal resolve and capability, and potentially reduce the likelihood of emerging conflict. Third, organizations can socialize memberstates to a certain set of norms, whereby states create shared identities through increased communication and interactions. Organizations can then sanction those members that deviate from acceptable behavior, or reorient their behavior, sometimes through built-in conflict resolution
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mechanisms, reinforcing the set of norms institutionalized by the organization (Russett et al, 1998). All three of these arguments about the effectiveness of networks of IGOs in which states are embedded imply similar phenomena regarding the nature of intergovernmental organizations: they need to be designed with sufficient strength to be able to produce the outcomes suggested by these explanations. One dimension of such organizational strength is the FIGO/ nFIGO distinction that we developed earlier. In addition, we suggest three others: organizational durability, geographical scope, and organizational “currency.” The institutional design characteristics reflected in FIGOs should be quite salient for the ways in which participation in these organizations by states may ameliorate conflicts between them. Organizational requirements for routinized participation by policy makers of states (and a bureaucracy that organizes and encourages these sessions) are key to sustained state interactions that facilitate additional information sharing (Boehmer et al., 2004) and for building trust (Bearce and Omori, 2005). Independence of funding along with an independent and effective bureaucracy is likely to be critical for allowing IGOs to demonstrate autonomy (Abbott and Snidal, 1998), allowing them to become the predictable arena for disputes and their resolution. In fact, all three arguments for the conflict-ameliorating functions of IGOs appear to suggest organizations that have the design characteristics of FIGOs. In addition to the formality of their institutional design, IGOs are differentiated by their varying geographical scope. As we noted in the previous chapter, roughly half of FIGOs in the international system are created and sustained as regional organizations; the other half as inter-regional or global. To the extent that regionally oriented organizations are more homogeneous than inter-regional or global organizations, those FIGOs should be more effective in responding to the needs of localized clusters of states. Indeed, regional organizations with smaller memberships than universal, global organizations should be more sensitive to disruption resulting from conflict between their members, and therefore should be more willing to expend their resources to pacify the relations of their members. Their focus on regionally defined issues, as well as their susceptibility to intra-member conflict, provides regional organizations with both greater capacity and greater incentive for conflict amelioration.11 In addition to formality and geographical scope, organizational durability should matter for the mitigation of conflict between members.
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Organizations need time to establish their legitimacy and effectiveness. Organizational longevity for FIGOs should have at least two effects: structural and cultural.12 From a structural perspective, it takes some time before formal procedures are refined and integrated with informal rules and procedures in all organizations. It is also likely that over time, organizational mechanisms become more complex (Smith, 2000; Haftel and Thompson, 2006), and are imbued with more legal mechanisms and more extensive operating procedures. These changes are likely to enhance institutional strength. Most organizations also develop an organizational culture, consisting of norms of appropriate behavior for member-states’ representatives and for those engaged in the bureaucracy. The organizational culture, together with clear structural arrangements, helps to define behavior within the organization, creating added predictability for those participating in the organization. Yet, the development of both organizational structure and culture requires time; organizational longevity should be a prerequisite of such organizational development. However, one potential side effect of increased organizational longevity is the associated probability of organizational failure or loss of organizational effectiveness as IGOs become outmoded. Some organizations are able to adapt to dramatic changes in their external environment; most others far less so. The structures, mandates, and power relationships embodied within IGOs typically reflect the global or regional conditions at the time of their creation. The more fundamentally environmental circumstances change, the more difficult it is for organizations to adapt and change. For these reasons, we assert that institutional “currency” should influence the effectiveness of IGOs, especially in the context of older, Cold War architecture functioning in the post-Cold War era. Observers of international politics are well aware of this phenomenon. The UN, for instance, was established reflecting in its most critical organ – the Security Council – the power relationship and security issues dominating at the conclusion of World War II. The veto states have remained the same, despite extraordinary changes in international politics over the past six decades. NATO was a child of the Cold War and after 1989 it has had to adapt and evolve to meet the dramatic changes occurring in its environment. Yet, its ability to function effectively under new political dynamics is increasingly questioned (Axelrod and Borzutzky, 2006). According to Forman and Segaar (2006), in recent years most IGOs have failed to meet the new demands of the post-Cold War international system.13
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If our assertions are correct, then states face an interesting set of dilemmas in creating and operating inside the architecture of intergovernmental organizations. Organizational durability increases the potential effectiveness of these structures; however, with increased longevity, organizations run the risk of losing currency or relevance during and after changing global circumstances. Creating new organizations to address issues and power relationships pertinent to a new era can address the issue of currency, but, as relatively new organizations, they lack longevity, and are likely less effective until they have matured in terms of their structure and culture. There are of course exceptions to such dilemmas.14 Some organizations are created with built-in flexibility to address changing environmental considerations; others – and we are guessing that this is true of a majority of IGOs and FIGOs – are far less capable of adapting to dramatic or fundamental changes to their environments. Thus, we test one facet of IGO effectiveness – conflict amelioration – by modifying a basic interstate conflict model to represent the aspects of organizational design, scope, endurance, and currency we believe are salient. If our arguments are relevant, then we should find that Cold War-based organizations have diminished in terms of their effects on conflicts and that newer, post-Cold War organizations (by virtue of their embryonic level of development) are less effective in ameliorating conflict between members than were their Cold War counterparts. We translate effectiveness of IGOs in terms of having an impact on highlevel conflicts between states, and therefore the dependent variable is the presence or absence of a militarized interstate dispute (MID) (Ghosn, Palmer, and Bremer 2004), drawn from Maoz’s dyadic MID dataset (Maoz, 2005). A MID represents a threat, display, or use of militarized force between two states. The unit of analysis in our model is the politically relevant dyadyear,15 covering the 1975–2000 time frame.16 The baseline model of violent interstate conflict includes proximity (Bremer, 1992; Vasquez, 1995; Vasquez and Henehan, 2001),17 the other two “legs” of the Kantian peace of democracy and trade interdependence,18 the dyadic distribution of power,19 and formal alliance ties within the dyad.20 We use the cubic spline approach (Beck et al., 1998) to address issues related to possible temporal autocorrelation in the model that may skew substantive results. We add to this baseline model our key independent variables. The Correlates of War (COW) IGO database is divided into two subpopulations, along the FIGO/nFIGO distinction. We further divide the population of FIGOs relative to their geographic scope. Organizational durability
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is measured for each shared organizational membership, by taking a FIGO’s founding year and subtracting it from the current year. Then, the data are aggregated to the dyad-year level, representing the cumulative age of all organizations in which the two states share membership. Finally, we offer a very simple measure of institutional currency. We have virtually no useful data on adaptability of Cold War organizations to changing circumstances, but for the purposes of this analysis we assume (a) that not many of them do; and therefore (b) whether or not they are operating in the post-Cold War environment makes them in the aggregate less current than prior to 1989. Thus, our measure of currency consists of two elements: the international environment in which the organization was founded, and whether or not it is still functioning within that environment at the point of observation. Organizations are parsed into two categories – Cold War era organizations and post-Cold War organizations – relative to their founding date. The results of our analysis are contained in Tables 3.3 and 3.4. We find that organizational formality, geographical scope, durability, and organizational currency all appear to influence the ability of IGOs to mitigate conflict between their member-states. While formal organizations appear to reduce the likelihood of militarized interstate disputes, regional FIGOs drive this relationship. Our analysis indicates as well that more durable organizations have an increased ability to suppress conflict: as the age of regional organizations increases, so does their ability to deter conflict among their members. However, and as we had predicted, this longevity can be counterbalanced by a loss of organizational currency; formal organizations in existence during the Cold War era appear to have substantially lost their ability to pacify their members’ relations following the end of the Cold War. Meanwhile, post-Cold War organizations do not yet seem to have developed sufficiently to significantly reduce conflicts between their members. It is worth taking a closer look at the effects of both organizational durability and institutional currency. With respect to organizational durability, for every one-year increase in the cumulative age of shared regional FIGOs, the likelihood of violent conflict decreases by about .5 percent. Though the coefficient appears modest, the impact is dramatic – the cumulative age of shared regional organizations ranges from zero to 730, and averaging 43 (a 22 percent decrease in the likelihood of conflict), with each standard deviation increase resulting in a 53 percent decrease in the likelihood of a MID emerging.
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Table 3.3 Intergovernmental organization formality and longevity, and violent interstate conflict (MIDs), 1975–2000 Formality Model 1 All IGOs Formal IGOs Non-formal IGOs Regional formal IGOs Cumulative IGO age Cumulative FIGO age Cumulative nFIGO age Cumulative Regional FIGO age Capabilities
.001 (.005) –
Model 2
Longevity Model 3
Model 4
Model 5 Model 6
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
.006 (.008) .08** (.021) -.12** (.022) –
–
–
−.01a (.007) .06** (.022) –
–
–
–
–
–
.0005** (.0001) –
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
.0005** (.0002) .0004) (.0006) –
.0007** (.0002) .0007 (.0006) −.005** (.0009)
−.26** (.044) −.28* (.129) −.01 (.010) 7.67 × 10−6 (6.73 × 10−6) −.16** (.026) −.86** (.235) 33,591 845.85**
−.26** (.043) −.15 (.123) −.02** (.010) 6.45 × 10−7 (6.25 × 10−6) −.19** (.026) −1.16** (.246) 33,591 951.81**
−.20** (.041) −.47** (.121) −.03** (.001) −5.09 × 10−6 (1.34 × 10−5) −.18** (.025) −1.55** (.235) 33,591 895.09**
−.20** (.041) −.48** (.124) −.03** (.011) −5.16 × 10−6 (1.35 ×10−5) −.18** (.025) −1.55** (.240) 33,591 900.47**
−.21** (.040) −.28** (.123) −.03** (.010) −5.08 × 10−6 (6.07 × 10−6) −.20** (.025) −1.68** (.243) 33,591 991.09**
–
−.26** (.044) Allies −.34** (.13) Democracy −.01 (.010) Interdependence 6.80 × 10−6 (6.90 × 10−6) Distance −.17 ** (.026) Constant −.91 ** (.234) N 33,591 χ2 837.92**
** p ≤ .01; * p ≤ .05; a p = .056. Coefficients are odds rates: standard errors in parentheses. Cubic splines are not reported here.
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Table 3.4 Intergovernmental organization effectiveness and violent interstate conflict (MIDs), 1975–2000 Model 7 Cold War Cold War era FIGOs (post-Cold War era) Cold War era NFIGOs (post-Cold War era) Post-Cold War era FIGOs Post-Cold War era NFIGOs Cold War × Cold War era FIGOs Cold War × Cold War era NFIGOs Capabilities Allies Democracy Interdependence Distance Constant N χ2
−.16 (.241) .01 (.009) −.03 (.037) −.09a (.051) .09b (.052) −.03* (.013) .11* (.051) −.25** (.043) −.27* (.125) −.02c (.011) 5.56×10−6 (7.92×10−6) −.17** (.026) −.80** (.231) 33,591 928.87**
** p ≤ .01; * p ≤ .05; a p = .087; b p = .083; c p = .076. Coefficients are odds rates: standard errors in parentheses. Cubic splines not reported here.
The flipside of this issue revolves around organizational currency. Organizational currency appears to have an important effect on the ability of organizations to deter conflict. During the Cold War, formal organizations had a significant pacifying influence on their members (as reported by the interaction term); the impact of these Cold War organizations does not carry into the post-Cold War era. During the Cold War era, each additional shared membership in formal organizations decreased the likelihood of interstate conflict by roughly 3 percent. However, in the post-Cold War era, FIGOs created during the Cold War no longer appear to have any impact on interstate conflicts between their members. At the same time, post-Cold War formal IGOs appear to have some conflict-ameliorating properties, though of questionable statistical significance. We approach this finding with some caution, especially since data are available on post-Cold War FIGOs for only a decade; nevertheless, it is plausible that post-Cold War FIGOs reflect our earlier findings: they are beginning to have an impact on the emergence of conflict, but do not yet possess the longevity needed to stabilize their structures and cultures.
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Conclusions Our mapping of the web of FIGOs in the post-Cold War era indicates no substantial creation of a new institutional order, along lines that would be consistent with the stated preferences of US policy makers. In many significant ways, however, the institutional architecture has changed: death rates of regional FIGOs have increased substantially compared to the past; inter-regional FIGOs have increased dramatically; the overall web of FIGOs has failed to continue its upward trajectory, although the density of state linkages may be deepening; there appears to be substantially more organizational formation involving those states that may not be satisfied with American global leadership; and in fact the US, along with most major powers, appears to be less central to the web than it was 15 or 30 years ago. In terms of the creation of new institutional arrangements, we find some limited evidence consistent with the notion that the decline in US structural strength is associated with its inability or unwillingness to forge a new institutional order. Paralleling diminished US structural strength, there is greater participation in ongoing organizations and in newly created organizations by both major dissatisfied states (Russia and China) and by other states dissatisfied with US foreign policies. In fact, there are nearly as many new global and inter-regional FIGOs in the post Cold-War web when all major powers are absent, indicating perhaps that resistance to US global leadership may be more widespread than when viewed only through the participation patterns of major powers. Nor should such a conclusion come as a surprise to observers of postCold War international politics. American policy makers have used bilateral and unilateral approaches at least as often as multilateral ones,21 and have spent a considerable amount of effort to veto attempts at multilateral arrangements by other states since the end of the Cold War. These “vetoes” of multilateral arrangements implies that US structural or relational strength may be sufficient to deter certain institutional outcomes. Clearly, American policy makers have worked to insure that regional institutional arrangements did not arise in Asia, and the paucity of organizations in that region attests to the possible veto power contained by US relational strength (e.g. Rapkin, 2001). Attempts by China and Japan to create a regional counterweight to the IMF for Asia in the 1990s failed in part due to such pressure.
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What are the consequences of these findings for global and regional governance? At least four trends are evident. One is the proliferation of ad hoc groupings of state (and non-state) actors, coalescing around specific problems to assist existing organizations and/or to pursue collaborative efforts outside of a structured organizational context (Forman and Segaar, 2006). While these efforts may yield some collaborative gain, they fail to erect long-term structures that can institutionalize cooperation between states. A second trend is the continued proliferation of emanations – organizations created by other organizations rather than by states. Most of these fail to meet the design characteristics of FIGOs and appear to be more fragile (Shanks et al., 1996) than multilateral arrangements created and resourced by states. A third trend is the stress placed on older FIGOs and their updated versions, created under systemic circumstances reflecting twentieth-century realities, and now being utilized to address problems increasingly unique to the post-Cold War era. It is difficult to envision a scenario where most of these organizations can be sufficiently realigned to address the problems of the twenty-first century. Finally, we take note of the considerable restructuring of regional relationships and the potential development of inter-regional attempts at formal collaboration. African states have restructured their multilateral relationships substantially, including integrating a security component into regional trade organizations (Powers, 2006). Inter-regional collaborations have flowered across former Soviet space and now involve emerging European, Central Asian, and Asian states, reaching as far as the Middle East with Iranian and Turkish participation (albeit as observers) in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Ties are strengthening between Central American, South American, and Caribbean states. It is plausible that these inter-regional efforts can create a network to supplement substantially the global FIGO network. It is plausible as well that in the absence of sufficient structural strength on the part of the US, several of the major powers can create a coalition of builders to construct new global architecture. The G-7/8 is potentially one such coalition, although it would likely require the addition of China, and perhaps that coalition would become too large to address severe differences in policy preferences. Even the present mix of democratic and nondemocratic (Russia) polities makes the concept of the G-8’s “group hegemony” quite problematic (Volgy and Bailin, 2003).
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When paired with loss of organizational currency – following the end of the Cold War – and leading to the apparent decrease in the conflictameliorating functions of the FIGO constellation, the diminished ability of states to construct new organizational architecture might have profound implications. Our data suggest that while, in the short term, reconstruction of architecture may not produce highly effective organizations until they reach some phase of maturity, it may be worth the wait in comparison to architecture that no longer carries substantial currency. We recognize that the trends noted in our analysis cannot be well tested unless there is some more passage of time away from the end of the Cold War, and thus they suggest a host of research questions needing to be pursued. One highly salient question is the continuing effects of FIGOs on the inhibition of conflict relations between their members. The growing literature in this area has increasingly focused on the effects of varying institutional design as the key to effecting conflict reduction between members. As FIGOs continue to experience the increased stresses accompanying their aging and perhaps outdated infrastructure, research needs to focus on the extent to which earlier findings continue to hold as the post-Cold War order ages. Related to this issue is another: the literature notes that the conflict reduction tendencies of IGOs are related to the degree of homogeneity of their membership (Boehmer et al., 2004). To the extent that inter-regional FIGOs are blossoming compared to regional organizations, this trend may not augur well for the future conflict-reduction effects of FIGOs. A second area of research needs to probe the complexity of linkages between states viewed as networks of FIGO relationships. Much previous research has probed the effects of the numbers of organizations shared between dyads and the effects of such numbers on conflicts within those dyads. Yet network analysis reminds us that these dyads are embedded in a deeper network of relationships, both direct and indirect, and their cumulative effects may be stronger than a simple count of joint membership, particularly at the regional and inter-regional levels of formal cooperation.
Notes * Some material from this chapter first appeared in “Changing Architecture and Post-Cold War Transition,” in William Thompson (ed.), Systemic Transitions: Past, Present and Future (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
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Axelrod and Borzutzky (2006) note, for instance, the extreme obstacles faced in trying to restructure NATO to respond to post-9/11 issues regarding international terrorism. Antkiewicz and Whalley (2006) argue strongly for the apparent emergence of an alternative structure of broad economic relationships that may be challenging the WTO (and US leadership) and its failure to address regime changes. It is also plausible that policy makers may overestimate the amount of strength at their disposal and move forward with architectural construction, although we would predict that this strategy will not likely succeed. For an elaboration of the concept, see Volgy and Bailin, 2003 (ch. 3). For a validation of the index, see Volgy and Imwalle, 2000, and Volgy and Bailin, 2003. In fact, the upward trend in structural strength during the 2003–4 period is somewhat misleading since it represents a huge outlay of defense spending for the Iraqi war, resources that are simultaneously produced and spent in the conflict. Even in the context of substantial budgetary outlays by the Bush administration toward the end of its presidential cycle, the State Department reported that its staffing of diplomatic personnel was 25 percent below minimal levels, and many of its officers were insufficiently trained (NPR interviews, 21 February 2008). As a point of comparison, Russian and Chinese participation in new FIGOs created after 1989 (and when the US is not a member) is roughly twice as high as their participation in equivalent organizations during the 1975–89 period. How difficult new organizational construction can be is well illustrated by an analysis of what is needed to construct a viable organizational setting to address climate change (Keohane and Raustiala, 2008). Note that this argument emanates from bargaining theory (e.g., Fearon, 1995). The general literature on conflict seems to underscore the point about most conflicts being regional in nature and thus the importance of regional organizations for their amelioration. Note, for example, the emphasis on geographical proximity and clustering (Bremer, 1992; Braithwaite, 2005). Note also the variation in regional dynamics that create conflict (e.g., Lemke, 2003; Mansfield and Pevehouse, 2006). It is plausible that a number of IGOs do not evolve over time; it is possible that the life cycle of these organizations is considerably shorter than for those IGOs that last (e.g., Cupitt et al., 1996; Volgy et al., 2008b). Not all organizations develop deeper structures or an extensive culture, regardless of their longevity. Conversely, some (e.g., the WTO) are designed to initiate periodic changes in their rules of governance. For other illustrations of organizational failure in the face of the post-Cold War environment, see Antkiewicz and Whalley, 2006 on the WTO; Helleiner and Momani, 2007 on the IMF; Axelrod and Borzutzky, 2006 on NATO.
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Keith A. Grant et al. For example, the WTO was organized to build in several “rounds” of regime changes, albeit even in this case the Doha Round is failing to create new rules. All results hold when using all dyads rather than politically relevant dyads as the unit of analysis. We restrict our study to this time period due to the difficulty of attaining reliable, historical IGO data. Finding sufficiently detailed information on institutional structure, independence, and autonomy for often defunct organizations proves quite difficult before 1975 (Volgy et al., 2008a). In order to account for the effects of distance, we control for the natural log of inter-capital distance between states, as generated by EUGene (Bennett and Stam, 2000), where states which are directly contiguous are coded as having an inter-capital distance of zero. As is now convention, we use an indicator of the minimum level of dyadic democracy (Dixon 1993, 1994), using Polity IV (Marshall and Jaggers, 2002). Economic interdependence is measured as the ratio of total dyadic trade to each country’s GDP (Oneal and Russett, 1997, 1999a, 1999b), using Gleditsch’s (2002) Expanded Trade and GDP data. Similar to democracy, we include only the “weakest link” of economic interdependence, representing the minimum level of economic co-dependence within the dyad. Captured as the ratio of the stronger state’s military capability to the weaker, as indicated by the Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) score from COW National Material Capabilities dataset, version 3.02 (Singer, Bremer, and Stuckey 1972). Data are drawn from the Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions dataset, version 3 (Leeds et al., 2002). Nor is this trend confined to FIGO construction: Leeds and Mattes (2005), in an analysis of alliance treaties, indicate that the proportion of bilateral alliances since 1989, compared to multilateral ones, far exceeds the norm.
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Oneal, John R. and Bruce M. Russett. 1999b. “The Kantian Peace: The Pacific Benefits of Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations, 1885–1992.” World Politics 52:1–37. Organski, A. F. K., and Jacek Kugler. 1980. The War Ledger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Powers, Kathy L. 2006. “Dispute Initiation and Alliance Obligations in Regional Economic Institutions.” Journal of Peace Research 43:453–71. Rapkin, David P. 2001. “The United States, Japan, and the Power to Block: The APEC and AMF Case.” Pacific Review 14:373–410. Romero, Simon. 2007. “Brazil’s Objections Slow Down Chavez’s Plan for a Regional Bank.” New York Times. Available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage. html?res=9E0CE531A15754C0A9619C8B63&sec. Russett, Bruce M., John R. Oneal, and David Davis. 1998. “The Third Leg of the Kantian Tripod for Peace: International Organizations and Militarized Disputes, 1950–85.” International Organization 52:441–67. Saideman, Stephen M., and R. William Ayres. 2007. “Pie Crust Promises and the Sources of Foreign Policy: The Limited Impact of Accession and the Priority of Domestic Constituencies.” Foreign Policy Analysis 3:189–210. Shanks, Cheryl, Harold K. Jacobson, and Jeffrey H. Kaplan. 1996. “Inertia and Change in the Constellation of International Governmental Organizations, 1981–1992.” International Organization 50:593–627. Singer, J. David, Stuart A. Bremer, and John Stuckey. 1972. In Bruce M. Russett (ed.) Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820–1965. Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 19–48. Smith, James McCall. 2000. “The Politics of Dispute Settlement Design: Explaining Legalism in Regional Trade Pacts.” International Organization 54:137–80. Spiezio, K. Edward. 1990. “British Hegemony and Major Power War, 1815–1939: An Empirical Test of Gilpin’s Model of Hegemonic Governance.” International Studies Quarterly 34:165–81. Stein, Arthur A. 2008. “Incentive Compatibility and Global Governance: Existential Multilateralism, a Weakly Confederal World, and Hegemony.” In Alan S. Alexandroff (ed.) Can The World be Governed? Possibilities for Effective Multilateralism. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp. 17–84. Strange, Susan. 1989. “Toward a Theory of Transnational Empire.” In Ernst-Otto Czempiel and James N. Rosenau (eds.) Global Changes and Theoretical Challenges: Approaches to World Politics for the 1990s. Lexington: Lexington Books, pp. 161–. Tammen, Ronald L., Jacek Kugler, Douglas Lemke, et al. 2000. Power Transitions: Strategies for the Twenty first Century. New York: Chatham House. Vasquez, John A. 1995. “Why do Neighbors Fight? Proximity, Interaction, or Territoriality.” Journal of Peace Research 32:277–93. Vasquez, John A., and Marie T. Henehan. 2001. “Territorial Disputes and the Probability of War, 1816–1992.” Journal of Peace Research 38:123–38.
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Volgy, Thomas J., and Alison Bailin. 2003. International Politics and State Strength. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Volgy, Thomas J., Elizabeth Fausett, Keith A. Grant, and Stuart Rodgers. 2008a. “Identifying Formal Intergovernmental Organizations” Journal of Peace Research 45:837–50. Volgy, Thomas J., Keith A. Grant, and Elizabeth Fausett. 2008b. “Changing Architecture and Post-Cold War Transition.” In William Thompson (ed.) Systemic Transitions: Past, Present, and Future. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Volgy, Thomas J., and Lawrence E. Imwalle, 2000. “The Two Faces of Hegemonic Strength: Structural versus Relational Capabilities and Global Architectural Construction.” International Interactions 26:229–51. Volgy, Thomas J., Kristin Kanthak, Derrick Frazier, and Robert Stuart Ingersoll. 2004. “The G7, International Terrorism, and Domestic Politics: Modeling Policy Cohesion in Response to Systemic Disturbances.” International Interactions 30:191–209. Wilkinson, David. 1999. “Unipolarity without Hegemony.” International Studies Review 1:141–72.
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Chapter 4
Problematizing the Benign: Conflict, IGOs, and the New World Order in the Post-Communist Space* Elizabeth Fausett and Thomas J. Volgy
Introduction In Chapter 2 we noted the limited range of changes that have occurred in the post-Cold War architecture of formal intergovernmental organizations (FIGOs). While we found no evidence that fundamental restructuring had occurred, we did note that in one geographic area substantial changes were in evidence. As the Cold War ended, the limited network of FIGOs created by the USSR in Eastern Europe quickly dissolved as they lost their relevance. Just as salient, during the short period between 1989 and 1992, the Communist states in the area either underwent dramatic and revolutionary transformations to their domestic polities, and/or in the cases of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, disintegrated into numerous separate republics. We label the geographical area that emerged as the post-Communist space and it is this arena that is the focus of this chapter. It is an area of considerable turbulence and provides a unique opportunity to observe the effects of membership in intergovernmental organizations on the behaviors between the states of this territory. Most of the emerging states are new, with brand-new foreign policy machineries, little foreign policy experience, and limited institutional memories relevant to extant relationships and problems between them. A reemerging Russia seeking to reestablish new institutional relationships with states that were part of the old Soviet Union and to identify new patterns of relationships with former allies (whose new policy makers likely view Russia with some apprehension and/or hostility), while the “victorious” Western European states and the US move quickly to
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develop closer political and economic relationships in the area, is the fundamental dynamic that underlies interaction among these states. The combination of turbulence and new states with limited foreign policy experience (except for Russian policy makers) in this area also provides a unique opportunity to assess the effects of intergovernmental membership on the relationships between these states. As we noted in the previous chapter, much of the literature on IGOs views such membership as ameliorating conflicts between members as participation allows for better quality information, conflict management mechanisms, and the socialization of members into norms of collaboration. As Chapter 3 argued, this may be especially true for states engaged in FIGOs that are regional in scope, of substantial duration, and possessing institutional currency. The states considered in the previous chapter are for the most part actors with developed foreign policy machineries and substantial institutional memories of relationships with politically relevant states. In addition, many of them exist in neighborhoods of relative stability. Parsing out the independent effects of IGO membership on their behaviors toward each other is complicated by these factors. The post-Communist space provides a laboratory where the effects of intergovernmental organizational membership can be assessed without much of the path dependency imposed by entrenched foreign policy bureaucracies and tests IGO effects under conditions of substantial conflict. There is little doubt that the post-Communist space experienced substantial conflict after the end of the Cold War. Between 1990 and 2000, there were 59 episodes of militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) between states that were either allies of the former Soviet Union or emerged as new republics from a disintegrated USSR or Yugoslavia (Ghosn and Palmer, 2003). In the same 10-year time span, Reuters captured more than 5,226 incidents of conflictual behavior between these same states.1 Just as important from the standpoint of the central themes of this volume, no mapping of post-Cold War institutional architecture could gloss over the fundamental changes that have occurred in the constellation of IGOs and FIGOs in this particular space (as we illustrated in Chapter 2). Not only did the USSR-imposed institutions (including the Warsaw Pact, COMECON, and a constellation of additional emanations) disappear or cease to become significant, but their demise was soon followed by an extensive effort by Russia to create new institutions that sought to expand, at least in geographical scope, beyond previous institutional ties (ranging from functional organizations through new CIS structures to the Shanghai
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Cooperation Organization involving China).2 In fact, as noted in Chapter 2, Russian initiatives after 1989 generated the plurality of inter-regional organizations (and involving the post-Communist space) created in the post-Cold War era.
FIGO Memberships in Post-Communist Space Some of these efforts succeeded in attracting several of the newly formed states in post-Communist space, while other emerging/reemerging states sought different structures through which to establish linkages in the new world of post-Cold War international politics. This included, in the case of some new European states, a determination to flee from the region through architectural linkages to the West. While some states were coerced, or nearly coerced, by Russian pressures, others made strategic choices regarding their positions in alternative global, regional, and international settings. Table 4.1 illustrates the variety of choices made among the states in the postCommunist space. Several obvious patterns appear from Table 4.1. Reemerging states that had legal positions in the old Cold War architecture (e.g., Hungary, Poland, etc.), and continued to have legal access to their seats, substantially reduced (by approximately 12 percent) their commitments to continuing in these global institutions. Except for Romania, these states significantly reduced their memberships in global organizations at a time when most states outside of Europe were increasing their involvement with global infrastructure (see Chapter 2). Meanwhile, the newly created states in post-Communist space appeared to join these organizations at levels equal to or surpassing the global average, perhaps as a signal of their new sovereign status. Unsurprisingly, at the regional level, reemerging and new European states moved into regional FIGOs at rates substantially greater than prior to the Cold War. For reemerging states, movement into European regional institutions represents more than a twofold increase from 1989, and this choice is echoed as well by the newly created states in the Balkans and the Baltics. There are two exceptions to the strong movement into regional FIGOs: through 2004, the new states in the Caucasus and in Central Asia generated virtually no regional memberships in European and Asian FIGOs, respectively.
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Table 4.1 Membership in FIGOs, as percentage of qualified,1 by type of state and type of organization Global FIGOs (%)
Regional FIGOs (%)
Inter-regional FIGOs (%)
Reemerging states
1975
1989 2004 1975 1989 2004 1975 1989 2004
Poland Hungary Czechoslovakia Albania Bulgaria Romania Russia
74.4 78.6 75.0 76.9 72.5 71.7 75.6
74.0 80.9 73.7 83.3 72.3 72.9 73.1
79.1
83.0
Re-created European states Yugoslavia Macedonia Slovakia Croatia Serbia Bosnia Slovenia Moldova Estonia Latvia Lithuania Ukraine Belarus Armenia Georgia Azerbaijan Emerging Asian states Turkmenistan Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan Kazakhstan World mean
43.0
47.8
64.8 65.7 65.6 71.4 67.2 71.4 66.2
4.7 7.1 5.6 7.7 7.5 6.5 4.9
4.0 6.4 5.3 0.0 6.4 4.2 5.8
9.3
8.5
16.9 17.9 15.6 11.9 14.1 11.1 6.5
20.9 14.3 19.4 15.4 20.0 21.7 19.5
22.0 12.8 21.1 16.7 21.3 22.9 21.2
11.6
8.5
18.3 16.4 18.8 16.7 18.8 17.5 27.3
78.0 66.7 74.5 79.2 74.3 69.5 62.5 63.8 63.8 70.5 61.7 66.7 71.4 78.4 64.1
12.2 16.7 16.4 12.5 14.3 15.3 12.5 14.9 14.9 13.6 10.6 2.6 2.9 2.7 5.1
9.8 16.7 9.1 8.3 11.4 15.3 25.0 21.3 21.3 15.9 27.7 30.8 25.7 18.9 30.8
65.5 60.6 61.9 62.9 62.2 51.7
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 58.3
34.5 39.4 38.1 37.1 37.8 60.4
55.0
57.0
60.6
63.2
1 Percentages are derived as a function of opportunity (number of organizations joined)/ willingness (number of organizations eligible to join).
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This pattern reverses when considering inter-regional FIGOs, many of which are driven by Russian policy makers. With respect to these organizations, reemerging European states reduced their participation after the end of the Cold War and new European states appeared to have followed the same pattern, while the states in the Caucasus, Ukraine, Belarus, and Central Asia3 demonstrated substantially high levels of inter-regional FIGO participation. Thus, states in post-Communist space made a variety of choices of what organizations to join and where to commit their resources for organizational participation. Some of these choices were voluntary, some less so, pressured either by domestic political imperatives or by the looming presence of a Russian state seeking influence in the area, and made sometimes in the context of extremely limited resources available for foreign policy pursuits. We have limited information about how and why they made these choices; in this chapter we probe not those decisions but instead the consequences of the choices they made.
Distinguishing among and between Conflict-Ameliorating Effects Much of the literature on the effects of IGOs, and especially much of the systematic, large-N analyses of conflicts between states, focuses on high severity conflicts, including interstate wars, crises, and militarized interstate disputes, similar to the analysis in the previous chapter. This focus is understandable: the destructive potential associated with these types of conflicts has motivated scholars to understand their causes and how they may be prevented or managed. Yet, MIDs and wars represent an extremely small part of the range of conflicts appearing between states, and we suggest that the study of conflicts between states that encompass a broader range of behaviors, beyond simply the most conflictual of events, is an equally worthy focus of scholarly inquiry.4 The salience of conflicts of lower severity is well illustrated by an event in 2006 when Gazprom, the Russian state-owned oil company, substantially curtailed the amount of gas supplied to Ukraine. The cutback came after Russia requested and Ukraine refused to pay $230 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, more than a fourfold increase from the prior fee. Not coincidentally, the action came following the election of a pro-Western Ukrainian president.
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The change in resource policy toward Ukraine left little doubt that this clash over energy represented both an economic and a political conflict between Russia and its former territory (BBC News, 2006). The issue between the two parties also coincided with growing conflicts between Russia, several of the newly formed states of the former Soviet Union (e.g., the Baltic States), and those of its former allies that had migrated into the EU (e.g., Poland). In addition, the Ukrainian–Russian conflict led to increasing concerns among the more established EU states about growing EU dependence on Russia’s natural resources and increasing Russian belligerence toward the “near abroad” – the EU and the US. Important as the Gazprom incident was to relations within the postCommunist space (and to numerous other states), it would not register in any of the conflict databases that focus on high severity conflicts, and conflicts of this type are routinely absent in most empirical conflict models. While conflicts that do not contain overt coercive components represent a range of concerns between states that may be worthy of scholarly focus for their substantive implications alone, we suggest another rationale for focusing on both lower and higher levels of conflict: it is quite plausible that the antecedents of many severe conflicts in international politics lie in lower-level disputes and conflicts between states that, when unchecked, can escalate to much higher levels of severity. Thus, studying the dynamics associated with lower-level conflicts may help us to understand better one path to conflicts of high severity and security threats for states.
Why Look at Post-Communist Space? We focus our analysis on a zone we call post-Communist space. In the parlance of Chapters 1–3, this represents an inter-regional area whose unifying characteristics are largely driven by Soviet dominance within the arena until the end of the Cold War. It consists of two sets of actors: countries that were closely allied with the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe during the Cold War and were virtually re-created afterwards; and states that emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia following their collapse. Excluding a handful of microstates, the states arising in post-Communist space represent virtually all the new states created after the end of the Cold War.5 They are states of substantive and theoretical interest for at least three
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reasons. First, and with the possible exception of Russia, they emerged on the international scene lacking recent (or any) experience with foreign affairs, and needing practical knowledge and information regarding interstate affairs salient for their well-being. Second, all of these states were in the midst of restructuring both their domestic policies and political systems, either through fragile democratic transformations or through equally difficult autocratic political consolidation. Third, these states are in a territory of considerable turbulence and uncertainty as Soviet Union-based (and enforced) institutions disappeared simultaneously with the appearance of a host of new issues including appropriate boundaries, rights of citizenship, ethnic divisions, and conflicting claims over ownership of resources. This combination of tumultuous geopolitical space, newly emerging states, and transitioning democracies can easily create a combustible mix for interstate conflict (Bennett, 2006; Mansfield and Snyder, 1995). One nearly impossible factor to control in studies of conflict revolves around institutional memory regarding foreign policy experience in a state’s foreign policy apparatus (Crescenzi, 2007). Seldom do states come to participate in IGOs with a clean slate of little knowledge regarding politically relevant actors. Institutional memory and historical patterns of foreign policy experience act as a filters or buffers for state interactions, creating some path dependency through preexisting reputations and histories institutionalized between the two states. The foreign policy apparatus utilized by almost all of the other states was created typically by either ex-Communist elites with little or no experience in foreign policy (e.g., in Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, Belarus, Ukraine), or where new governments sought to expunge the Communist legacy (e.g., Poland, Czech Republic, the new Baltic States) and therefore lacked the institutional foreign policy memory to filter relations. Few states besides Russia salvaged any institutional memory of foreign policy relationships and especially ones relevant for post-Communist relations.6 By focusing on new and newly reemerging states in post-Communist space, we are able to approximate states with little institutional experience in their new, “regional” environment,7 and therefore we can gauge more directly the potential effects of IGO membership on both low and high severity conflicts.8 Finally, while clustered in an “inter-regional” space, these newly (re) emerging states made choices about joining regional, inter-regional and/or global organizations that may or may not be centered on this particular space. Turning to global IGOs, states within this space have joined the UN
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as well as the WTO and the Universal Postal Union. Some have migrated to preexisting inter-regional organizations that spanned the post-Communist space and survived the dissolution of the USSR, such as the Interoceanmetal Joint Organization (IOM) and the International Centre for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI), while others have opted for inter-regional organizations like the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) or the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO), which draw their membership from a wider regional variety then simply the post-Communist space. Some chose to participate in the birth of new inter-regional FIGOs within this space, such as the Eurasian Patent Organization (EPO), the Organization of Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Regional organizations, though largely centered in Europe (like the EU) and not within Asia (as explained in Chapter 2), offer additional organizational outlets for post-Communist states. The broad range of choices facing the states in the post-Communist space with regard to IGO joining/creation underscores the variation in joining portfolios (noted in Table 4.1) and the increased opportunity for interaction at an international level among these states.
Intergovernmental Organizations and Conflict The variety of circumstances – including both the nature of post-Soviet space and the organizational choices being made by states – represents a nearly ideal condition for investigating the role of membership in intergovernmental organizations for the amelioration of interstate conflicts. As much of the IGO literature has noted, IGOs can be very effective in mediating among conflicting parties, reducing uncertainty by conveying information, assisting in problem-solving, helping to expand states’ conceptions of self-interest, helping to integrate states into regional and global norms (Russett et al., 1998:444–5), providing organizational mechanisms through which states can pursue their objectives more efficiently (Katzenstein et al., 1998), and socializing states into the modern international system (Thomas et al., 1987; Finemore, 1996; Schimmelfennig, 2005).9 Integration into the constellation of IGOs providing such functions should have positive effects on conflict amelioration between these newly emerging states.
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At the same time, we suggest that access to more information can be a double-edged sword, and sometimes familiarity can breed discontent and highlight differences of interests, policies, and values. Additionally, the substantial increase in opportunity to interact through the constellation of IGOs creates opportunities for greater friction as well as greater cooperation and collaboration. When such opportunities are coupled with competing economic and political interests toward the area by major powers from the outside (e.g., the US, EU states, Japan, China), new states within the post-Communist space may quickly come to establish divergent preferences in political and economic policies under pressure from domestic factions, outside forces, and an emerging Russia seeking to reestablish some semblance of order and leadership in the region. It is plausible, then, that the organizational structures through which these states interact may provide them with additional information for identifying substantial disparities between policies, interests, and values, and thus opportunities to exacerbate conflicts. While it may be the case that proximity increases the probability of “at least occasional confrontation and conflict” (Waltz, 1970:205, 222) for all states, this may be particularly true for states with limited previous experience with each other. Much of the literature on the conflict-inhibiting effects of IGOs focuses primarily on conflicts of high severity and the more recent literature has focused on variation in institutional design to account for varying IGO effects on major disputes between states. Strong institutions, those with design features that contain extensive legal mechanisms, bureaucratic organizations, relative independence, and/or decisional mechanisms requiring substantial participation by state policy makers seem to have stronger negative effects on major conflicts between states than institutions designed with more fragile organizational mechanisms (e.g., Smith, 2000; Haftel, 2007; Boehmer et al., 2004; Gartzke et al., 2005). Some recent scholarship has argued that failing to parse out the effects of strong institutions leads to findings that may either wash out the effects of organizational membership, or worse still, indicate positive relationships between organizational membership and conflict, by watering down the effects of “strong” IGOs in models of conflict (e.g., see Gartze, Li, and Boehmer, 2001; Kinsella and Russett, 2002). Indeed, in Chapter 3 we noted the combination of factors that may ameliorate high severity conflicts between states: organizations with formal designs (FIGOs), primarily of limited geographical scope, substantial
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organizational longevity, and institutional currency. The previous chapter’s findings, however, hinted at another phenomenon: under certain conditions, IGO membership may be actually related to higher levels of conflict, depending on the type of organization. We suggest here that the relationship between organizational membership and increased conflict should be particularly more pronounced for conflicts of low severity between states and especially for those types of state that constitute the population of post-Communist space. We suggest that the association between IGO membership and increased low-level conflict is likely to exist for at least two reasons. First, conflict mechanisms embedded in these so-called “strong” organizations are typically designed to impact on severe conflicts and not to put a damper on less severe conflicts. IGOs that provide forums for state interaction and coordination, help reduce collection action problems, reduce transaction and information costs, highlight the shadow of the future, and perhaps even punish cheating can nonetheless produce processes within organizations that are not inconsistent with opportunities for increased, albeit lower severity, conflicts between states. Second, we assume that within nearly all intergovernmental institutions (IGOs and FIGOs alike), clear processes exist to encourage interest articulation: the representation of broad and substantial differences in interests, values, and policy preferences. This assertion may be true by definition; there is no reason for the existence of these institutions if they cannot reflect the interests of their members and if members cannot freely express their policy preferences.10 To the extent that such policy preferences vary within IGOs, membership in such organizations allows for the demonstration of the degree to which states may differ in terms of preferences, objectives, and foreign policy styles. This should be equally the case for strong and weak institutions. Weaker organizations may not be strong enough to ameliorate conflicts between states, but they may not be neutral to the development of conflicts between states. We suggest that, ceteris paribus, to the extent that weakly structured IGOs function to expose states to differences of preferences, interests, and values, they are likely to increase at least lower levels of conflict between politically relevant dyads. Since they are not strongly designed institutions, it is even plausible that they could have an even stronger effect on lower levels of conflict than institutions with design characteristics that ameliorate higher levels of conflict (but may have some effects on lower levels of conflict as well).
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A Conflict Model for States in Post-Communist Space We offer three predictions regarding the relationship between intergovernmental organizations and the conflict activities between states in the postCommunist space. First, since we expect that both IGOs and FIGOs are likely to contribute to lower severity conflicts between their members, we don’t differentiate between the two types of organization, and focusing on dyads, we hypothesize a positive and significant relationship between the frequency of joint IGO membership and lower levels of conflict. Second, since we assume that there is some path dependence between lower severity and higher severity conflicts, and in fact a significant number of low severity conflicts may escalate to higher levels of severity, we hypothesize a significant relationship between less severe and more severe levels of conflict between states in the post-Communist space. Finally, the analysis in the previous chapter suggested that the organizations most likely to ameliorate high levels of conflict are those that are FIGOs, regional in scope, of long duration, and of substantial institutional currency. This combination creates a truly mixed bag of effects for states in post-Communist space. Some join regional organizations, others shy away from them. Some draw back from organizations of long duration while others join organizations with limited currency, while the ones with most currency also have limited longevity and tend to be inter-regional in scope. In Table 4.1 we noted the patterns of joining by these states in FIGOs, but they join in similar numbers the broader classification of IGOs as well. Given these contradictions, we suggest the null hypothesis regarding the relationship between IGO (and FIGO) membership and high severity conflict: we are not likely to find a significant impact on high severity conflicts within the post-Communist space. In order to test our hypotheses, we start with a simple model of conflict in the extant literature based on a framework of opportunity and willingness to engage in conflict (Kinsella and Russett, 2002). We borrow liberally in creating our conflict models, but we alter a number of the variables to better suit the conditions associated with states newly emerging on the regional and international stage. The initial model focuses on opportunity (including power ratio of the dyad, proximity, and major power involvement in the dyad) and willingness (democracy, dependence, economic openness, IGO, and alliance memberships) to engage in conflict. We alter a number of these variables to better suit the primary question at hand (low
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severity conflict) and the conditions associated with states newly emerging on the regional and international stage.
Conflict variables We measure the frequency of conflict within dyads through the use of the IDEA events database. The database is generated by a computerized contextual analysis, relying on verb-recognition software, of Reuter’s newsfeeds spanning the period from 1990 to 2004.11 The use of events data and the IDEA database, while not without flaws, nevertheless allows researchers to address simultaneously temporal and cross-section research designs, to begin to tackle potential causal mechanisms, and to distinguish between different levels of conflict severity.12 Conflict events are drawn from the IDEA project, aggregated to the nondirected dyadic year. First, we identify all conflict events; second, we create two separate dimensions of conflict representing those events of low severity and those of high severity. These divisions are accomplished by applying the Goldstein cooperation/conflict scale (1991) to the data, similar to Kinsella and Russett’s (2002:1055) use of events data available for the Cold War era. Designed for easy interpretation, this scale extends from −10 (most conflictual) to +8.3 (most cooperative) and attempts to capture an intuitive understanding of conflict at the state level. An excerpt of the divided sample of conflictual behavior, as per the Goldstein scale, is illustrated in Appendix A. A contextual analysis of the scale as well as a frequency mapping identified −6.8 as the most natural cut-point for the transition between low and high severity conflicts, with high severity conflicts on the scale ranging from −10 to −6.8 and low severity conflicts spanning the range of −0.1 to −6.7. These procedures generate two versions of the dependent variable. Both variables are measured in terms of their frequency – rather than their intensity – within each dyad, for any given year.13 The count rather than the intensity option is chosen in order to provide comparability with previous findings (Kinsella and Russett, 2002) on dyads in dispute.14
Co-membership in intergovernmental organizations The primary independent variable is shared IGO membership among the dyads. We use the Correlates of War (COW) IGO conceptualization15 and
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database (Pevehouse et al., 2003). Since it is reasonable to assume that IGO effects are not instantaneous, we lag the dyadic membership data one year. Mutual IGO membership ranges from one co-membership on the low end to 38 on the high end. In addition, since shared memberships are not evenly distributed and are also likely to suffer from diminishing returns, the variable is log-transformed.
Other conflict considerations In order to test our predictions, we create a broad context to account for variation in conflict across dyads by integrating the joint IGO membership variable into three models of conflict. These include an aggregate model (Model 1), along with separate models of low (Model 2) and high severity conflict (Model 3). The low severity conflict model is built with the following considerations in mind. We start with the notion that low severity conflicts emanate from differences in policy preferences within the dyad. The greater the difference in policy orientations, the more likely that conflicts will occur between two states. The issue of similarity in policy preferences should be particularly salient for new states. It is likely that more established dyads with histories of interactions have ongoing knowledge of policy preferences and can accommodate some level of differences. Newly emerging states lack relevant history and information as policy preferences are emerging. IGOs may function critically in helping to provide information on such emerging differences and the differences in turn may provide the first stages of a conflict spiral within the dyad. We develop two measures of policy preference. One is a generic policy affinity measure, based on similarities within dyads using UN General Assembly (UNGA) roll-call votes. We are not alone in either using such voting behavior as a policy preference measure (Lemke 2002; Tomlin 1985; Voeten, 2000; Gartze, 1998, 2000, 2006), or noting its drawbacks. It is clear that state policy preferences and state behavior are not identical, although we concur with Gartzke that the resulting “distortions will be least intense where the value in making choices is most modest” (Gartzke, 2006:2), as is the case in UNGA voting behavior. Our measure of policy preferences provides comparisons between the voting behaviors of dyad members. Individual states’ voting scores are calculated by averaging each state’s vote over the number of resolutions for
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the session.16 The absolute value of the distance between individual state scores is the dyad policy affinity score. Lower numbers represent smaller distances between policy preferences and thus higher policy affinity between states, while larger numbers correspond to greater disagreements in policy affinity within the dyad. As policy preferences become more divergent (the policy affinity score becomes larger), the likelihood of conflict should increase. While we use voting behavior as a general measure of preferences, we are concerned that this measure may not be sufficiently sensitive for the most salient policy concerns of newly emerging states in post-Soviet space. Fortunately, our research site affords us a second, more specific preference measurement: alliance similarity. Alliance portfolios have been used extensively in previous studies but appear to be relatively insensitive to fluctuations in policy preferences (except for the most dramatic types) and appear to be static compared to fluctuations in policy preferences measured through UNGA voting. Given our research site, alliance commitments appear to work here somewhat differently. Nearly all the states in our space (with the exception of Russia) have emerging, untested, and typically small militaries and, during these early years, we assume that alliance commitments are primarily signals of security fears and security policy concerns between states that are developing their foreign policy orientations. Therefore, we create a security concern variable and code it as “1” if the dyad pair shares at least one political-military alliance in that dyadic year, as reported by Leeds et al. (2002). We believe that this treatment of alliance treaties within the post-Soviet space is more appropriate as a measure of security concern rather than a primary manifestation of security coordination.17 While we expect that treaties would have a role in mediating conflicts of high severity, we expect that the expression of security concerns embedded in them should predict increased low severity conflict within the dyad. We are not sure that the democratic peace applies to our sample of transitioning states, some of which are reaching higher levels of institutionalized democracy gradually, some more quickly, while others still are in turbulent transition, but we agnostically include level of democracy as a possible constraint on low levels of conflict. We use Polity IV scores (Marshall and Jaggers, 2004), ranging from 0 (least democratic) to 10 (most democratic). Since the benefits of mutual democracy should be constrained by the least democratic state within the dyad (Dixon, 1994), we use the “weakest link” score for the dyad. Contiguity has been consistently identified as a critical determinant of conflict relationships, and we expect that physical distance will reduce the relevance of actors to each other, even when they have opposing policy
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preferences (e.g., Bremmer, 1992). We create a measure of distance, calculated as the distance (per 10 miles) between capital cities, while we account for contiguous states by reverting the measure to zero when states share a direct border. The data are obtained through EUGene and were originally part of the COW project (Small and Singer, 1982). We add relative capabilities to the model as a control variable, assuming that imbalanced strength may inhibit expressions of even low levels of conflict, although we anticipate that especially in early stages of new state development relative capabilities may be difficult to gauge by states unless the differences are enormous. We calculate relative capabilities using the dyadic ratio of each state’s Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) scores (the states’ average share of the total international population, urban population, military expenditures, military personnel, iron and steel production, and energy consumption) as developed by Singer, Bremer, and Stuckey (1972) and provided by EUGene. Typically conflict models add both economic interdependence and openness as ameliorating factors. These considerations are difficult to apply to the states in our sample for both substantive and methodological reasons. Reliable information on trade relations for our dyads is scarce.18 More is known about the economic capabilities they have inherited from the Cold War era and we expect that policy makers have better information on the size of their economies. Wealth may either dampen conflict as dyads with greater wealth have sufficient resources to pursue a variety of strategies, including conflict avoidance, or conversely, they have sufficient resources to engage in conflict. We measure wealth using data from the Penn World Tables (Heston et al., 2006; real GDP per capita (Constant Prices: Chain series; scaled per hundred). In keeping with a “weakest link” principle (Dixon, 1994), we use the lowest GDP-PC of the dyad as the indicator. Finally, we add a dummy variable for Russian involvement in the dyad (“1” if it is; “0” otherwise). To the extent that Russian policy makers have sought to reorder post-Soviet space (e.g., Willerton and Besnosov, 2007), we expect Russian involvement in the dyad to be a considerable source of turmoil for new states. In addition, as the major power in the area, Russian involvement within a dyad is expected to correlate highly with conflicts of all types (Kinsella and Russett, 2002:1061). Our model for high severity conflicts is nearly identical to the one for low severity, with one exception and one changed expectation. The exception is the addition of a lag of the low severity conflict variable to test the prediction that low severity conflict is salient for higher severity. The change in expectation and direction (as noted above) is in regard to security preferences: we expect
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that similarity in alliance commitments at high levels of conflict within the dyad should predict reduced conflict as these treaties contain provisions and mechanisms for mediating high levels of conflict (potential violence) between signatories. The states constituting the post-Communist space (along with their birth/rebirth years) are noted in Appendix B. Note that the time frame includes the period 1990 through 2000. While IDEA data are available past 2000, we are limited by the COW IGO database that concludes in 2000. We include all possible dyads in post-Soviet space as they come into existence, starting with the end of the Cold War.
Results and Discussion Table 4.2 displays the results for our three conflict models. In all three models of conflict we include a lag of the dependent variable, and we do so for both methodological and substantive reasons.19 Because of the overdispersion occurring throughout the population of conflict behavior, the negative binomial is well suited for event data.20 The aggregate model indicates that the relationship between IGO comembership and conflict is significant and positive, including both high and low severity conflicts. When conflict is disaggregated into levels of lower and higher severity (Models 2 and 3 respectively), increased levels of joint membership in IGOs continue to be associated with a statistically significantly larger probability of lower severity conflictual behavior within dyads, consistent with our first prediction. In order to assess impact, we graph the effect of IGO co-membership on conflict while holding all other variables constant at their mean. Figure 4.1 illustrates the expected rate of low severity conflictual events concurrently with the number of shared IGO memberships in the dyad; the graph indicates both a strong initial upswing and a steady rise associated with increased IGO interaction. Controlling for the range of potential considerations associated with low severity conflict, we find that a one standard deviation increase in IGO co-membership corresponds to a 3.7 percent increase in low severity conflict within the dyad when all other variables are held at their means. A somewhat different way of assessing the effect of IGO membership is to hold all other independent variables at their median values, a more real-life scenario than mean values. Doing so, we find that a one standard deviation
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Joint IGO membership on conflict among dyads, 1990–20001 All conflict [1] Coef. (std err)
Shared IGO membership (lagged) All conflict (lagged)
0.2619** (0.1284) 0.0839*** (0.0221)
High severity conflict (lagged) Lower severity conflict (lagged) High severity conflict
Lower severity conflict [2] Coef. (std err) 0.4085** (0.1307)
Policy affinity Russian presence Level of democracy Distance National wealth Relative capabilities Constant alpha N Log pseudo-likelihood Prob. > χ2
0.1735 (0.1637)
0.379*** (0.0946) 0.067** (0.0254) 0.2028* (0.1079)
Lower severity conflict Security concern
High severity conflict [3] Coef. (std err)
0.3098 (0.2249) −1.876* (1.0474) 2.5528*** (0.2972) −0.0799** (0.0247) −0.0181*** (0.0017) 0.0043 (0.0039) 0.1024 (0.373) −0.8073* (0.4495) 2.1188 (.2883) 2425 −1840.6954 0.000
0.4581** (0.2091) −1.4547 (1.0118) 2.5423*** (0.2742) −0.0779** (0.0247) −0.0175*** (0.0017) 0.0065 (0.004) 0.1662 (0.3658) −1.5829*** (0.4066) 1.9167 (.2842) 2425 −1755.9783 0.000
0.028** (0.0112) −0.7064* (0.4034) −1.3166 (1.9422) 2.3051*** (0.4506) 0.0074 (0.0523) −0.016*** (0.0026) −0.0157* (0.0086) 0.1619 (0.8295) −1.8881* (1.0256) 3.6950 (1.1940) 2425 −415.20415 0.000
1
Coefficients are unstandardized, standard errors are robust, clustered on dyads and indicated in parenthesis. Bold signifies statistically significant figures. * p > .10, ** p > .05, *** p > .001.
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Elizabeth Fausett and Thomas J. Volgy 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.1
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Number of shared IGO comemberships
Figure 4.1 Impact of IGO memberships on the rate of low severity conflict among dyads
increase in IGO co-memberships (from 12 to 19) corresponds to an increase in low-level conflict by 4.1 percent, in support of the hypothesis that increasing the opportunity for interaction and sharing information through IGOs within a dyad may lead to increased friction, at least at a low severity level. Regarding our second hypothesis, we find a significant relationship between higher and lower severity conflict. The impact of low severity conflict is noted in Model 3 and illustrated in Figure 4.2. Controlling for high severity conflict in the previous year, we find that the incidence of low severity conflict is associated with a statistically significant rise in higher severity conflict. The size of the effect, however, requires some interpretation. At first glance, the impact of low severity conflict on high severity appears to be quite small. However, this impact needs to be considered in the context of high severity conflicts being low-probability events, along with the primary conditions under which high severity conflicts emerge. In our model, dyads experience the highest levels of conflict when they are not allied, contiguous, and Russia is included in the dyad.21 Within this profile and holding all other variables at their mean values, we find that an increase from no low severity conflict to one is accompanied by an expected increase of 4.79 percent in the count of high severity conflict events. We believe that this magnitude illustrates that even under conditions when high severity conflicts are already well predicted by other considerations (including the
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14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0
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10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 Number of low conflict events
Figure 4.2 Impact of low severity conflict on the rate of high severity conflict among dyads
lag of high severity conflict), low-level conflict contributes substantively to accounts of high severity conflicts. Finally, Model 3 illustrates that joint IGO membership does not show any significant relationship with higher severity conflict.22 We note two plausible reasons. First, IGO membership may have immediate effects for low-level conflicts by instantaneously exposing states to differences in foreign policy orientations and interests. However, it is plausible that many of the IGO effects seen as ameliorating high levels of conflict require substantial participation by members over a longer period of time than covered in the time frame of this study (during the first 10 years, or less in some cases, that these states emerged/reemerged on the international scene). Second, it is plausible that by aggregating both weak and strong IGOs into our analysis, we are watering down the effects of FIGOs with complex design characteristics that are most likely to ameliorate severe conflicts between states. To address this issue, we recalculated COW IGO membership by restricting the data to only FIGOs.23 Nevertheless, the results remained similar and failed to show a significant impact on high severity conflict. These results appear consistent – given conditions in postCommunist space – with the conclusions in Chapter 3. Turning to the effects of other variables in the models, we underscore two phenomena. First, the measure of security consideration through
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mutual alliance commitments – as a more salient indicator of policy concerns in the neighborhood – does appear to work as we had suggested earlier. As we had suggested, dyads with formal treaty commitments are significantly associated with high levels of low severity conflict; at the same time, these treaty obligations are associated with lower levels of high severity conflicts,24 corresponding to a 5.7 percent increase in low severity and a 1.2 percent decrease in high severity conflicts within dyads when all other variables are held at their means. Second, it is clear that the presence of Russia within a dyad creates a very strong effect on conflict. The expected rate of conflict for dyads with Russian involvement is 10 and 12.7 times greater for high and low levels of conflict, respectively, holding all else constant at their means. For high conflictual events, this accounts for about an 11 percent increase when all other variables are held at their means. For low severity conflict, however, this effect more than doubles. Concurrent with both our expectations and recent findings (Willerton and Beznosov, 2007), it is not surprising that Russia, as a major power located in the space, would hold such great influence on the likelihood of conflict. The attempt to solidify its position as a global power while still trying to tie other states in the post-Communist space to itself is likely to generate substantial conflict.
Conclusions More than a decade after their abrupt (re)entrance into the international arena, the Central and Eastern European states and their Asian counterparts represent a conglomeration of young (and fairly young) states thrust into the middle (literally and figuratively) of established powerful states and longstanding competition in a period of dynamic transformation in the international system. This effort has sought to address two related puzzles with respect to these states. The first is in regard to the possible effects of IGO membership in creating additional conflicts of lower severity between the states occupying post-Communist space. The second and related concern is about the impact of low levels of conflict on conflicts of higher severity for such newly emergent states. We found significant support for the proposition that co-membership in IGOs is related significantly to levels of low severity conflict. Additionally, we found evidence to support the suggestion that low severity conflict is
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significantly associated with high severity conflict for these states. We suspect that these findings are not trivial and are related to a third concern of this inquiry. Recent research has argued that previous findings of insignificant or positive relationships between IGO membership and certain forms of conflict are due to a failure to control for design differences across organizations, but consideration of IGOs with strong design features should continue to exhibit the conflict-ameliorating functions of intergovernmental organizations (e.g., Gartzke et al., 2005). The corollary to this argument is that researchers should filter out weaker IGOs in their analysis. However, our research suggests that this approach would be a mistake. While institutions with strong design characteristics may ameliorate high levels of conflict between member-states, it appears likely that for some states co-membership in both strong and weakly designed IGOs creates opportunities for greater low-level conflict, which in turn may increase higher levels of conflict between those states. As noted in Chapter 1, the FIGO distinction is more important for some research questions than others and our findings underscore this claim. We have situated our research in an environment that was designed to observe states with unusual characteristics: newly emergent, with new foreign policy establishments containing little institutional memory relevant to presently salient foreign policy relationships, acting in a context of dramatic change and transformation while a major power (Russia) in the neighborhood was seeking to reestablish some semblance of control over the space. An initial mapping of the area revealed not only the salience of the local arena for these states (increasing regionally oriented institutional enmeshment versus global) but also the degree to which Russian attempts at inter-regional hegemony are institutionally embedded. Using this type of site for our research allowed us to look at possible opportunity effects for processing information through IGOs without typical embedded institutional filters (ongoing foreign policy bureaucracies) in a dangerous and turbulent neighborhood where policy makers need to respond to rapidly changing circumstances. One obvious consequence, however, of the choice of research sites is the generalizability of these results to other newly emergent states or to newly emerged states in more stable neighborhoods or during more stable global conditions. Neither is it clear that our findings are necessarily applicable to states that are not new. It is plausible that states with established foreign policy machineries and substantial histories of experience with their neighbors are less likely to react in a similar manner to the opportunity of witnessing
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differences in goals, interests, policies, or styles exhibited through shared IGOs. We suspect that at one extreme – for major powers – additional information and interaction with other states through IGOs may generate insubstantial amounts of low-level conflicts. For other states, however, this remains an empirical question worth pursuing further, including the secondary linkage between lower versus higher levels of conflict severity. We found in our analysis no significant negative relationship between IGO co-membership and high severity conflict. This was so even when we sought to reduce co-membership to formal intergovernmental organizations that contain strong design characteristics associated with bureaucratic centralization and some level of autonomy and independence. It is plausible that in addition to the issues raised in the previous chapter, this outcome is also a function of the research site: these dyads are in the midst of considerable instability and Russian involvement in the space is so extensive that it may overcome the strength of institutions with conflictameliorating functions.25 These results suggest as well a third possibility worthy of future research: when it comes to high severity conflicts with substantial consequences for the well-being of the states involved, the payoffs from IGO involvement (routinized meetings of top officials, increased information, organizational conflict mediation processes, socialization dynamics, etc.) may require more time spent inside organizations than the relative short time frame used in this study. Anecdotal information suggests the same: involvement in the EU by newer states has created more conflict between members (e.g., Polish objections to liberal social rules) and early failure to live up to promises in the short run (Hungarian and Romanian backsliding on Roma rights), although these conflicts may be alleviated as longevity in the EU increases. Most research linking dyadic membership in IGOs with high levels of conflict fails to control for the duration of immersion in these organizations by members of the dyad. Our research implies that this may be a fruitful arena of further pursuit. Finally, the absence of significant results between IGO co-membership and high severity conflict is worth revisiting. Recent research indicates that such IGO impacts may very well depend on not only how many organizations states join but as well which types of IGOs are being joined. IGOs clearly vary across membership, mandate, organizational bureaucracy, autonomy, collective decision-making, conflict resolution mechanisms, strength, permanence, and a variety of other variables. Though
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several studies have sought to distinguish among different organizational attributes (Mansfield and Pevehouse, 2000; Powers and Goertz, 2006; Leeds and Anac, 2005), these tend to focus on a single portion of the population rather than comparatively across the population of IGOs. To what extent do institutions with characteristics that, by design, ameliorate higher levels of conflict actually do so and what effects (if any) can be found on lower levels of conflicts by this same subset of organizations? These questions speak to larger issues of conceptual clarification when dealing not only with the internal mechanisms of IGOs, but also with the scope of their activities and the geopolitics context in which they operate. As the literature turns ever more to addressing how and under what conditions do organizations matter, parsing out the answers to these questions in a wide variety of research sites offers a rich direction for future research.
Notes * Some of the materials in this chapter are from an article accepted for publication in International Studies Quarterly (forthcoming, March 2010). Reproduced with permission of the authors and ISA. 1
2 3
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Militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) and the conflictual events recorded by Reuters do not represent equivalent units since MIDs episodes are “united historical cases” of aggregated, interrelated conflictual incidents for dyads where only the highest level of hostility reached is recorded (Jones et al., 1996:168; Pevehouse 2004:253–4). While the numbers of actual dyadic conflicts dwarf the number of conflict episodes represented by MIDs, both understate the turbulence that characterizes the area following the end of the Cold War. With observer status for Turkey and Iran. While Central Asian states appear to have developed few formal linkages to the small regional architecture that has developed in Asia, our mapping exercise did provide evidence that their involvement in inter-regional FIGOs is not solely due to pressures to join organizations created by Russia. Some of the density of inter-regional FIGO participation for these states is accounted for by their participation in inter-regional FIGOs involving states of the Middle East. We are not the first to make this claim; recent examples include Hensel et al., 2008; Dixon, 2007; and Pevehouse, 2004. By focusing on states in post-Communist space, we are aware that we excluding a number of additional states that came into existence after the end of the Cold War. However, with two exceptions (Namibia and Eritrea), during the period
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Elizabeth Fausett and Thomas J. Volgy under examination, all the excluded ones are microstates with different foreign policy dynamics and virtually no resources with which to impact on their external relations. Excluding microstates, the states in post-Communist space account for 91 percent of all new states from 1990 to 2000. We recognize that this is not true for Russia, which inherits the foreign policy apparatus of the former Soviet Union. One other notable exception is Georgia, during Eduard Shevardnaze’s leadership of that state; the breakup of Yugoslavia, for example, left its foreign policy machinery in Serbia cleansed of actors from the other parts of the multi-ethnic republic, and presumably not in very good shape. We also recognize that many of the political elites in the new republics of the old USSR had substantial and close ties with Russian elites, but these relationships did not extend to foreign affairs. Elites in the restructured states of Eastern Europe may have had far less in common with their Russian counterparts, and in fact many of them came to office with very strong, negative perceptions of Russians and other neighbors; yet even such negative images likely required some reinforcement based on foreign policy interactions inside and outside of organizational structures. We assume that this would less likely be the case when Russia is part of the dyad. This should be true for a number of reasons, including historical experience with the Kremlin, and Russian movement immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union to influence post-Soviet space. We account for this phenomenon in our model. We are separating here the effects of long-term institutional “memory” from immediate previous experience, which we include in our conflict model by lagging the dependent variable. We are not claiming that policy makers in these states make explicit choices to join IGOs because they necessarily understand (understood) these benefits. Some had little choice, either because they were coerced to join or because they could not conduct effective foreign and economic policies without joining. Others may have joined to lock in domestic policy preferences (Mansfield and Pevehouse, 2006; Schimmelfennig, 2005). Others still perhaps made strategic choices about joining various intergovernmental organizations. Our more modest claim here is that regardless of why they joined, we should expect to find significant impacts on their foreign policy interactions with other states. Except for the rare condition when potential members are coerced to join an organization by a dominant power and the organization exists for the sole purpose of facilitating coordination between the dominant power and the other members, a condition that may have existed during the Cold War for the Warsaw Pact and COMECON. Due to restrictions imposed by the availability of IGO membership data, this time period is reduced to the 11-year span of 1990 to 2000.
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For an explanation of event data and techniques associated with machinecoded event data, as well as an extensive validity test, see Gerner et al., 1994. For further information on the IDEAs dataset in particular, see Bond et al., 2003. Descriptive statistics for all variables are found in Appendix C. Kinsella and Russett (2002:1055) count the existence of a conflict if it reaches a severity level of 2.2 or higher on the Goldstein scale, which corresponds to what Kinsella and Russett deemed as strong verbal hostility or higher. We find no theoretical reason for this cut-off level for conflict, and so we include all low-level conflicts. We think this is especially appropriate for new states experiencing their first interactions in the region. An IGO is defined as such if it is “(1) is a formal entity, (2) has [three or more] [sovereign] states as members, and (3) possesses a permanent secretariat or other indication of institutionalization such as headquarters and/or permanent staff ” (Pevehouse et al., 2005:9–10). UNGA votes from contested resolutions are recoded along a Likert scale where a “no” vote is recorded as the lowest value, a “yes” is the highest, and “abstain” or “absent” provides the middle point. By placing “abstain” and “absent” as the middle ground between yes and no, this scale acknowledges the diplomatic reality that some states may not be able to risk outright agreement or disagreement with others. The impetus for abstentions and absentees is typically ambiguous without careful case study – a task significantly beyond the abilities of the present data collection. In order to avoid over-weighting in either direction, they are consigned to a neutral category. We draw our data from Volgy et al., (2003) and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) coding of UN General Assembly roll-call voting. A closer examination of a number of these treaties exemplifies the point. Shortly before their internationally recognized split, the Czech Republic and Slovakia signed a treaty in November of 1992, stipulating defense pact and consultation pact components, and specific guidelines to deal with internal disagreements (Leeds et al., 2002:Article V). Both Romania and Hungary (non-aggression pact, September 1996) and Poland and Ukraine (non-aggression pact, consultation pact, neutrality pact, May 1992) signed similar documents. Each of these dyads faced border anxiety in a geopolitically fluid time frame and concerns over the treatment of minority populations within neighboring territories, and the treaties included commitments to non-interference in internal state affairs. Specific treaty data are drawn from Case files 4845, 4370, 4225 (Leeds et al., 2002). The explicit attention within these treaties to problems facing new or newly reemerging states in a transitory phase underlines potential and/or existing policy differences and concerns between dyad members.
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Elizabeth Fausett and Thomas J. Volgy Traditionally, trade (as a function of trade dependence between the dyads) would be included in the model. Unfortunately, due to the lack of data availability (reducing the population size by over 86 percent), the inclusion of this variable seemed unjustified. Results incorporating this variable are available from the authors, although its inclusion produces results similar to those reported below. We substitute the lagged dependent variable in lieu of “peace years” used in a number of conflict models, since we are observing newly emerging states with limited experience in international politics. We assume as well that immediate experience in terms of the previous year’s conflict within a dyad is likely to be salient for a foreign policy apparatus. This over-dispersion is in large part due to the under-occurrence of conflict within the system. Ordinarily, one might resort to a zero-inflated binomial; however, since our analysis seeks to understand the role IGOs play in the reduction or promotion of conflict rather than a pure theorization of the causes of conflict itself, the negative binomial model appears to be a more appropriate choice. The significance of the alpha parameter demonstrates this. For example, this is characteristic of both Georgian–Russian and Azerbaijan– Russian relations in 1992. Nor is this finding without precedent: Kinsella and Russett (2002) find a similar result in their analysis of MIDs and high severity conflict using a different sample of states and a different time frame (1951 through 1992). These models are not shown here but are available from the authors on request. These findings appear to parallel those of Kinsella and Russett as well; they suggest that alliance commitments appear to signal “salience” between states in a dyad (2002:1059), allowing for both conflict management and more disputes. The role of Russia in post-Soviet space is consistent with large-N empirical studies of conflict that have created a series of regional “dummy” variables and found that they impact significantly on general models of conflict, suggesting substantial regional variation that is likely based on different characteristics associated with regions, and with the role of major powers in those regions.
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Bennett, D. Scott. 2006. “Toward a Continuous Specification of the Democracy– Autocracy Connection.” International Studies Quarterly 50:313–38. Boehmer, Charles R., Erik A. Gartzke, and Timothy Nordstrom. 2004. “Do Intergovernmental Organizations Promote Peace?” World Politics 57:1–38. Bond, Doug, Joe Bond, Churl Oh, J. Craig Jenkins, and Charles Lewis Taylor. 2003. “Integrated Data for Events Analysis (IDEA): An Event Typology for Automated Events Data Development.” Journal of Peace Research 40:733–45. Bremer, Stuart A. 1992. “Dangerous Dyads: Conditions Affecting the Likelihood of Interstate War, 1816–1965.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 36:309–341. Crescenzi, Mark J. C. 2007. “Reputation and Interstate Conflict.” American Journal of Politics 51:382–96. Dixon, Gregory C. 2007. “Trading For Votes: International Institutional Change and Democratic Leaders.” PhD Dissertation: University of Arizona. Dixon, William J. 1994. “Democracy and the Peaceful Settlement of Conflict.” American Political Science Review 88:14–32. Finnemore, Martha. 1996. National Interests in International Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Gartzke, Erik A. 1998. “Kant We All Just Get Along? Opportunity, Willingness, and the Origins of the Democratic Peace.” American Journal of Political Science 42:1. Gartzke, Erik A. 2000. “Preferences and the Democratic Peace.” International Studies Quarterly 44:191–212. Gartzke, Erik A. 2006. “The Affinity of Nations Index, 1946–2002: Codebook Version 4.0.” Available at http://www.columbia.edu/∼eg589/pdf/affinity_ codebook_03102006.pdf. Gartzke, Erik A., Quan Li, and Charles R. Boehmer. 2001. “Investing in the Peace: Economic Interdependence and International Conflict.” International Organization 55:391–438. Gartzke, Erik A., Timothy Nordstrom, Charles R. Boehmer, and J. Joseph Hewitt. 2005. “Disaggregating International Organizations in Time and Space (updated October 2006).” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association (March, Honolulu). Gerner, Deborah J., Philip A. Schrodt, Ronald A. Francisco, and Judith L. Weddle. 1994. “Machine Coding of Event Data Using Regional and International Sources.” International Studies Quarterly 38:91–119. Ghosn, Faten, and Glenn Palmer. 2003. “Codebook for the Militarized Interstate Dispute Data, Version 3.0.” Correlates of War 2 Project. Available at http://cow2. la.psu.edu. Goldstein, Joshua S. 1991. “A Conflict–Cooperation Scale for WEIS Events Data.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 36:369–85. Haftel, Yoram Z. 2007. “Designing for Peace: Regional Integration Arrangements, Institutional Variation and Militarized Interstate Disputes.” International Organization 62:217–37.
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Hensel, Paul R., Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, Thomas E. Sowers II, and Clayton L. Thyne. 2008. “Bones of Contention: Comparing Territorial, Maritime, and River Issues.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 52:117–43. Heston, Alan, Robert Summers, and Bettina Aten. 2002. “Penn World Table Version 6.1, Center for International Comparisons at the University of Pennsylvania (CICUP), October 2002.” Available at http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/php_site/ pwt61_form.php. Jones, Daniel M., Stuart A. Bremer, and J. David Singer. 1996. “Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1816–1992: Rationale, Coding Rules, and Empirical Applications.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 15:163–215. Katzenstein, Peter J., Robert O. Keohane, and Stephen D. Krasner. 1998.“International Organization and the Study of World Politics.” International Organization 52:645–85. Kinsella, David, and Bruce M. Russett. 2002. “Conflict Emergence and Escalation in Interactive International Dyads.” The Journal of Politics 64:1045–68. Leeds, Brett Ashley, and Sezi Anac. 2005. “Alliance Institutionalization and Alliance Performance.” International Interactions 31:183–202. Leeds, Brett Ashley, Jeffrey M. Ritter, Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, and Andrew G. Long. 2002. “Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions, 1815–1944.” International Interactions 28:237–60 (ATOP Data, version 3.0, Last Revised May 10, 2005) Lemke, Douglas. 2002. Regions of War and Peace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mansfield, Edward D., and Jon C. Pevehouse. 2000. “Trade Blocs, Trade Flows, and International Conflict.” International Organization 54:775–808. Mansfield, Edward D., and Jon C. Pevehouse. 2006. “Democratization and International Organizations.” International Organization 60:137–67. Mansfield, Edward D., and Jack Snyder. 1995. Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Marshall, Monty G., and Keith Jaggers. 2004. “POLITY IV PROJECT: Dataset Users’ Manual, Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2004. Dataset and User’s Manual.” Manuscript: University of Maryland. Pevehouse, Jon C. 2004. “Interdependence Theory and the Measurement of International Conflict.” Journal of Politics 66:247–66. Pevehouse, Jon C., Timothy Nordstrom, and Kevin Warnke. 2003. “Intergovernmental Organizations, 1815–2000: A New Correlates of War Data Set.” Available at http://cow2.la.psu.edu/. Pevehouse, Jon C., Timothy Nordstrom, and Kevin Warnke. 2005.“Intergovernmental Organizations.” In Paul F. Diehl (ed.) The Politics of Global Governance. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, pp. 9–24. Powers, Kathy L., and Goertz, Gary. 2006. “The Evolution of Regional Economic Institutions (REI) into Security Institutions or the Demise of Traditional
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Military Alliances?” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, (March, San Diego). Russett, Bruce M., John R. Oneal, and David R. Davis. 1998. “The Third Leg of the Kantian Tripod for Peace: International Organizations and Militarized Disputes, 1950–1985.” International Organization 52:441–67. Schimmelfennig, Frank. 2005.“Strategic Calculation and International Socialization: Membership Incentives, Party Constellations, and Sustained Compliance in Central and Eastern Europe.” International Organization 59:827–60. Singer, J. David, Stuart A. Bremer, and John Stuckey. 1972. “Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820–1965.” In Bruce M. Russett (ed.) Peace, War and Numbers. Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 19–48. Small, Melvin, and J. David Singer. 1982. Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816–1980. Beverly Hills: Sage. Smith, James McCall. 2000. “The Politics of Dispute Settlement Design: Explaining Legalism in Regional Trade Pacts.” International Organization 54:137–80. Thomas, George M., John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez, and John Boli. 1987. Institutional Structure: Constituting the State, Society and the Individual. Newbury Park: Sage. Tomlin, Brian W. 1985. “Measurement Validation.” International Organization 39:189–206. Voeten, Erik. 2000. “Clashes in the Assembly.” International Organization 54(2): 185–215. Volgy, Thomas J., Derrick V. Frazier, and Robert Stewart Ingersoll. 2003. “Preference Similarities and Group Hegemony: G-7 Voting Cohesion in the UN General Assembly.” Journal of International Relations and Development 6:51–70. Waltz, Kenneth N. 1970. “The Myth of National Interdependence.” In Charles P. Kindleberger (ed.) The International Corporation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 205–23. Willerton, John P., and Mikhail Beznosov. 2007. “Russia’s Eurasian Power Interests and the CIS.” In Katlijn Malfliet, Lien Verpoest, and Evgeny Vinokurov (eds.) Russian and the Evolving CIS. London: Macmillan, pp. 47–70.
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Appendix A: Conflict Division High Severity Conflict Events
Low Severity Conflict Events
biological weapons use military occupation coups and mutinies military raid military engagements assassination military seizure military border fortification military mobilization military naval display military alert break relations threaten military war threaten military occupation threaten military blockade threaten military attack military force threat protest altruism give ultimatum guerrilla seizure police seizure
sanctions threat reduce or stop aid protest defacement and art expel demand political arrest and detention criminal arrest and detention disclose information defy norms refuse to allow reject halt negotiations denounce or denigrate warn accuse formally complain reduce routine activity criticize or blame grant asylum deny responsibility decline comment/ comment (negative)
Appendix B: Post-Communist Space States (birth/rebirth year) Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Czech Republic Czechoslovakia Estonia Georgia
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(1991) (1991) (1990) (1992) (1990) (1992) (1993) (1990–d.1993) (1991) (1991)
Lithuania Macedonia Moldova Poland Romania Russia/USSR Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Tajikistan
(1991) (1993) (1991) (1990) (1990) (1990) (1992) (1993) (1992) (1991)
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Conflict, IGOs, and the New World Order Hungary Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Latvia
(1990) (1991) (1991) (1991)
Turkmenistan Ukraine Uzbekistan Yugoslavia
113 (1991) (1990) (1991) (1990– d.1992)
Appendix C: Descriptive Statistics N Shared IGO Membership Shared IGO Membership (logged) Lower Severity Conflict High Severity Conflict Security Concern Policy Affinity Russian Presence Level of Democracy (weakest link) Distance National Wealth (weakest link) Relative Capabilities
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Min
Max
Mean
Std Dev
2524 2524
1 0
38 3.638
12.7002 2.3883
6.6888 0.5975
2524 2524 2524 2524 2524 2524
0 0 0 0 0 0
91 35 1 0.3913 1 10
1.1732 0.0957 0.6763 0.0740 0.0850 2.9926
5.0187 0.9307 0.4680 0.0715 0.2789 3.2793
2524 2524
0 9.8569
299.4 115.0564 136.6598 41.1065
87.2222 21.5523
2524
0.0036
1
0.3606
0.2798
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Chapter 5
The Correlates of Cooperative Institutions for International Rivers Andrea K. Gerlak and Keith A. Grant
Introduction There has been an increase in attention to governance and sustainable management of water resources by policy makers, academics, international institutions, and non-governmental organizations in recent years (Hattingh, 2007). Insofar as it is generally accepted that the world is experiencing a water crisis, many of the leading voices in the global development community believe that this is more a crisis of governance than of actual physical resources (Global Water Partnership, 2000). Better governance of water resources is deemed necessary to confront this growing crisis (UNESCO, 2003). Today’s water governance has been characterized as a “bottom-up process of norm diffusion and normative convergence over time across separate regimes at the basin level” (Conca, 2005:95). Governance, according to this view, is diffuse and decentralized. A global rivers regime does not exist, nor is there a convergence toward one (Falkenmark, 1990; Conca et al., 2006). International law principles provide little guidance for addressing transboundary waters (Salman and Boisson-de-Chazournes, 1998). However, there is indication of movement toward a convergence on joint management and protection of international rivers (Conca et al., 2006). Increasingly, donor organizations are emphasizing new governance mechanisms, evidenced by the Global Environment Facility’s regional waters program, which aims to improve cooperation around shared waters
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through the creation of regional basin institutions (DiMento, 2001; Uitto and Duda, 2002; Gerlak, 2004a, 2004b, 2007; GEF, 2008). One such cooperative institutional arrangement around an international river is the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). Created in 1999, NBI is designed to achieve sustainable development, and to promote peace and cooperation among the riparian states. This chapter aims to explore the correlates of cooperative institutional arrangements for international rivers. We trace the growth of these institutional arrangements between the years 1975 and 2000 in the context of the emergence of a new world order. In line with other chapters in this book, this analysis compares river basin cooperation in the Cold War to the post-Cold War era or new world order, with keen attention to differences in the institutional architecture and state motivations for creating and joining cooperative river basin institutions. We ask: What factors promote and inhibit cooperation in international river basins? We test competing theories, including neorealist, neoliberal institutionalist, and neofunctionalist explanations for the emergence of cooperative institutional arrangements for international rivers, to answer this question. First, we turn to the literature on water conflict and cooperation to better understand the challenges posed by international rivers. Then we map the rise of cooperative institutions for international rivers internationally and examine this rise in the context of the post-Cold War era. Finally, we outline and test several hypotheses raised by competing theoretical frameworks. Our discussion and conclusions follow.
Conflict and Cooperation around Transboundary Waters Managing international rivers, or waters that cross political boundaries, is a universal governance dilemma. Virtually every country in the world has at least one international river within its borders. Today, some 300 rivers cross political boundaries, accounting for more than half of the earth’s surface and more than 40 percent of the world’s population (Dowdeswell, 1998; UNEP, 2002:2). Problems of water governance and management are exacerbated when rivers cross political boundaries (Udall and Varady, 1994). Further, there is enormous variation across river basins in terms of the size of the problem and resources available, as well as contrasting
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economic, social, and political circumstances and interests that may impede river basin cooperation (Fischhendler and Feitelson, 2003:561). Transboundary resources pose unique collective action problems. First, states have incentive to over-exploit, with the benefits going to the state exploiting, while the costs are shared among all states in the basin. Second, there is a “use it or lose it” mentality or fear that other states will overuse. Finally, because forming agreements between states is complicated, states often have very different preferences concerning legal principles and doctrines (Giordano et al., 2005:55–6). Despite such obstacles to cooperation, given the nature of the resource, failure to manage any interdependent situation well may lead to undesirable scenarios (Starr, 1997). For full optimization of the resource itself, states must act collectively (Benvenisti, 1996). The solution then is to reach cooperative, basin-wide solutions that will benefit all parties (Lowi, 1995:126). But history tells us that states do not often behave in such cooperative ways. Considerable scholarly attention has been paid to state conflict around shared waters (Homer-Dixon, 1994; Lonergan, 1997; Elhance, 1999; Gleditsch and Hegre, 2000; Klare, 2001; Yoffe et al., 2003; Hensel et al., 2006). It is common for scholars to highlight well-known cases of water provoking armed conflict and used for military and political goals or as an instrument of war, notably in the Middle East (Cooley, 1984; Gleick, 1993; Myers, 1993; Homer-Dixon, 1994; Butts, 1997; Soffer, 1999). In their study of shared rivers, Toset et al. (2000) found that joint rivers increase the probability of militarized interstate disputes and armed conflict. Sowers (2002) finds variation in conflict across regions: shared rivers do not escalate conflict in the Americas, Europe, or the Middle East but do increase conflict escalation in Asia and Africa. Gleditsch et al. (2006) find that upstream–downstream situations in river basins can induce conflicts related to resource scarcity. Empirical studies have found that sharing a river increases the risk of armed conflict (Furlong et al., 2006; Gleditsch et al., 2006). In particular, the upstream–downstream problem is the most difficult to resolve along international rivers (Le Marquand, 1977). The upstream–downstream relationship can make treaty formation less likely (Song and Whittington, 2004). Despite the significant literature on conflict and shared waters, there is also growing attention to cooperative efforts among policy makers and scholars. In their review of literature on shared international freshwaters between 1992 and 2003, Dinar and Dinar (2003:1237) maintain that “the rich history of cooperation over water demonstrates that shared water
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resources may ultimately induce cooperation rather than conflict.” A considerable body of research has developed around treaties or agreements for shared waters (Bernauer, 1997; Milich and Varady, 1999; Hensel, 2001; Wolf et al., 2003; Tir and Ackerman, 2004, 2008; Conca et al., 2006). Wolf et al. (2003:7) found violent conflict over shared waters to be rare, far outweighed by the number of international water agreements. Further, it has been argued that treaties that provide for effective monitoring and enforcement are often remarkably resilient, holding even when the signatories are engaged in hostilities over non-water issues (Postel and Wolf, 2001:66). Finally, non-traditional influences can also help foster cooperation in a basin, including epistemic communities, as in the Lake Constance region (Blatter, 2001). Others have noted the role of industry in promoting cooperation in the Rhine River basin (Verweij, 2000). International organizations and donor countries may also be instrumental in promoting cooperation and overcoming water conflicts (Le Marquand, 1977). In cases where cooperative river-based institutions exist, there is evidence to suggest that they serve to ease the settlement of new conflicts (Haftendorn, 2000:68). Yet, the mere existence of a cooperative institutional arrangement does not guarantee improved coordination or more effective resource management. Nor does it guarantee greater peace. In some instances, issues in the basin may best be resolved through bilateral arrangements or activities at the sub-basin level. In cases where cooperative institutions exist, the limitations of these institutions have been well examined in various case studies (Bernauer, 1995; Dupont, 1998; Kibaroglu and Ünver, 2000; Nishat and Faisal, 2000; Kliot et al., 2001; Jagerskog, 2002; Kibaroglu, 2002). Sneddon and Fox (2006:183) note worse ecological conditions in the Mekong River Basin, despite the presence of a cooperative institution there.
Mapping Institutional Arrangements around Transboundary Waters A cooperative institutional arrangement is defined as a permanent organizational structure established by the riparian states with the intended purpose of promoting cooperation and dialogue around an international river. Such institutional arrangements are designed to promote cooperation around
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shared waters, offering participating states greater predictability and serving a mediating effect. They are designed to promote the exchange of information and obtain scientific and technical information for participating states (Haftendorn, 2000:66). Cooperative institutions along Europe’s rivers, particularly the Danube and Rhine, are frequently studied by scholars and put forth as “ideal” or “model” governance models (Bernauer, 1995; Duda and LaRoche, 1997; Verweji, 2000; UNEP, 2002:12; Gerlak, 2004a, 2004b). Increased coordination via cooperative river basin institutions is on the rise in Europe today, as a result of the European Union Water Directive Framework (1999), which aims to standardize water management practices in the region (Barreira, 2006). Data are derived from a variety of sources including the FIGO database (Volgy et al., 2008); Oregon State University’s Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database; and the World Directory of Environmental Organizations.1 The database reports 180 cooperative river-basin-level institutional arrangements across 113 international river basins, from 1889 to 2007.
The big picture: Cooperation between 1889 and 2007 First, we seek to paint the big picture by examining institutional cooperative arrangements along international rivers between the years 1889 and 2007. In doing so, we find significant regional 2 variation: Europe (41 percent), former Soviet States (40 percent), and North America (100 percent) are regions with the highest cooperation in proportion to the number of transboundary waters within their borders. The Middle East has the lowest percent of cooperation, with only 20 percent of cooperative institutional arrangements. Asia also has a significantly low level of cooperation at 26 percent. We also find that two-state basin cooperative institutional arrangements outnumber multi-state basins by at almost 3 to 1, with an exception in Africa, where the cooperative institutional arrangements are strongly multilateral.3 This is consistent with the findings in earlier chapters in this book which report considerable multilateral organizational experimentation in Africa in other policy realms. Institutional cooperation around international rivers is also examined on a temporal scale, as noted in Table 5.1. Half (53 percent) of all cooperative institutional arrangements along international rivers have been created beginning in the 1990s. This corresponds with earlier findings related to the presence of general water treaties (Conca et al., 2006:271).
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Table 5.1 Cooperative river basin institutional arrangements over time, 1889–2007 Time period Before 1975 1975–1989 1990–2000 2001–2007 Total
Number of basin-level cooperative institutional arrangements 64 (35%) 21 (12%) 59 (33%) 36 (20%) 180
A more focused view: Cooperation between 1975 and 2000 Next, we offer a more focused view of institutional arrangements along international rivers emerging between 1975 and 2000. Here we find 77 cooperative institutions, of which 46 (or 60 percent) emerged in first 10 years following the end of the Cold War. Africa and Europe stand out with the greatest numbers of new cooperative institutional arrangements, 20 and 22, respectively. In Europe, these 22 institutions exist in 21 different river systems but Africa’s 20 institutions are found on only 11 different river systems, suggesting a higher level of nesting of institutions in Africa. When considering the number of international rivers in each region, compared with the number of new institutions formed, the largest growth appears in North America and Europe. This is a similar pattern to the overall emergence of cooperative river institutions by region between 1889 and 2007, as discussed earlier. But we also find a considerable growth in cooperative institutions in former Soviet States during the 1975–2000 time frame. Although only six new institutional arrangements emerged, they account for cooperative institutions on 30 percent of the region’s international rivers. The vast majority, some 71 percent of institutions between 1975 and 2000, are in multi-basin states, involving more than two states. The institutions that are bilateral are a result of the geography of the river: only two states share the river. Between the years 1975 and 1989, 14 multi-state basin institutions emerged while only seven were formed in states with two states. We see even more multi-basin institutions formed after 1990. Of the 59 institutions formed in this decade, some 44 institutional arrangements were formed in river basins with more than two states. In contrast, only 15 institutions emerged in basins with only two states. Cooperative institutional arrangements vary considerably by their depth of cooperation. Most common is shallow cooperation, defined by loose
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institutional cooperation, such as joint committees, coordination teams, technical teams, commissions, task forces, or partnerships. In these circumstances, states may meet regularly but no official headquarters exists, nor does a formalized bureaucratic mechanism. These types of institutional arrangements are characterized by softer law agreements. The Amur River Coordination Committee, established between China, Russia, and Mongolia in 2004 as a vehicle for cooperation between these states, is one example. Almost half of the cooperative institutions formed between the years 1975–2000 were shallow, or loose in nature. On the opposite side of the cooperation spectrum is the presence of a formal intergovernmental organization, or FIGO. These institutions meet all of the requirements of a FIGO, including a high degree of bureaucratic organization, autonomy, and financial independence (Volgy et al., 2008). Because institutions at this level of cooperation are characterized by financial independence, few cooperative river-based institutional arrangements qualify: only seven FIGOs are identified in the dataset. Three were formed in 1978 in Africa, while the other four emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. The International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine River, established in 1950 between five European states (Switzerland, Germany, France, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands), provides an example. Between the shallow model and the presence of a FIGO is a deep level of cooperation (Table 5.2). This level is characterized by a more sophisticated level of bureaucratic organization than shallow cooperation, including arrangements for regularized meetings of the participating states and a permanent headquarters or secretariat with an independent staff. Institutions at this level, however, have no financial independence and rely largely on donor organizations to finance river basin projects, thus keeping them from achieving the FIGO status. The Organization of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty, established in 1978 by the nine riparian states, is evidence of an institutional arrangement with many official bureaucratic capacities but lacking in financial independence.
Theoretical Contributions and Cooperative Institutional Arrangements Multiple theoretical schools offer insights into the factors supporting the emergence, or inhibiting the emergence of, cooperative institutional arrangements.
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River basin cooperation by region, 1975–20001
Total # of cooperative institutional arrangements # of rivers with cooperative institutional arrangements Total # of international rivers % of rivers with cooperative institutional arrangements # of cooperative institutions in two basin states # of cooperative institutions in multibasin states # of shallow institutions # of deep institutions # of FIGOs
Former Latin Middle North Europe Soviet States America East America
Africa
Asia
20
9
22
6
6
2
10
11
8
21
6
4
2
9
56
42
69
20
58
15
24
20%
19%
30%
30%
13%
38%
0
1
7
1
1
0
10
20
8
15
5
5
2
0
12
8
19
5
4
2
3
5
1
3
1
2
0
7
3
0
0
0
0
0
0
7%
1 Many river systems span geographic regions, traversing two and sometimes three separate regions. As such, though only 63 cooperative institutional arrangements are included in this study, some might be reported as parts of multiple regions, causing a discrepancy between the total number of institutions created and the sum of institutions across the columns in the table.
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We apply various theoretical approaches, including neorealism, neoliberal institutionalism, and neofunctionalism, to examine which approaches best explain the emergence of cooperative institutions for international rivers, and highlight a series of hypotheses derived from these competing theories.
Neorealism and barriers to cooperation Broadly, neorealists see little benefit to cooperative institutions along international rivers (Waltz, 1979; Gilpin, 1981; Mearsheimer, 1994/95). Under this approach, states would be wary of engaging in international cooperation because international cooperative efforts could distribute absolute gains differently. As a state could experience more relative losses than absolute gains, cooperation could be detrimental to a state (Grieco, 1988; Powell, 1991; Baldwin, 1993). Rather, cooperative institutional arrangements along international rivers are viewed as a tool for riparian states to prevent one state from increasing its power relative to other states. Because with international rivers we are dealing with hard territorial issues (Vasquez, 2004), we would expect neorealist arguments to play out well in our analysis. One of the more dominant factors explaining conflict between states over shared waters is the military power of the parties (Dinar and Dinar, 2003:1230). Swatuk and Van der Zaag (2003) argue that security and power distribution concerns prohibit the emergence of cooperation around shared waters. Frey (1993) argues that there will be consistent potential for conflict in basins when relative power symmetry exists in a basin. Hensel and Brochmann (2007) found that asymmetry of capabilities aggravated conflict in dyadic relations. Conflict emerging from asymmetric military conditions is expected to limit cooperation and inhibit or block the emergence of cooperative institutions. Cooperation can be created and maintained by a regional hegemon which can force other state to cooperate (Keohane, 1984). Because more powerful states may create an institution to further their self-interest (Mearsheimer, 1995), a more powerful state in a river basin may force less powerful neighbors into forming a cooperative institution or into signing a water treaty that allocates most of the benefits to the more powerful state (Elhance, 1999). Others have noted in a more benevolent way that an interested regional hegemon can be an important factor in the promotion of cooperation (Lowi, 1993). In the absence of a cooperative agreement guiding management of shared waters, it has been argued that it is typically the
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state with the greatest power whose interests dominate (Hillel, 1994). Indeed a hegemon can play many roles in the region: it can force the creation of an institution, facilitate its emergence cooperatively, or prohibit a cooperative institution altogether along the international river. Finally, conflict inhibits states’ willingness to cooperate as they must first address their security problems before they are able to move to more cooperative issues (Powers and Goertz, 2006). Tir and Ackerman (2004:17) found that prior militarized disputes slightly reduced the chances of treaty signing. Generally, it is expected that basins characterized by more severe intrabasin conflicts will be less likely to enter into cooperative institutional arrangements.
Neoliberalism and the promotion of cooperation For neoliberal institutionalists, institutions provide benefits to states by providing information and reducing uncertainty and transaction costs (Keohane, 1986; Young, 1989; Snidal, 1991). Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) create a norm of trust and information-sharing (Russett and Oneal, 2001). They can also help increase the costs of non-cooperation (Moravcsik, 1997). International institutions can also link different issue areas, facilitating trade-offs in international negotiations, and help facilitate domestic reform (McGillivray and Smith, 2000; Mansfield et al., 2002). Despite myriad problems associated with international institutions, they do seem to provide benefits to developing countries (Milner, 2005). In the realm of water resources, there is evidence to suggest that institutions play important roles in mitigating conflict and promoting cooperation (Swain, 2001; Hensel et al., 2006). Cooperative institutions for international rivers can help overcome the transaction costs associated with gaining scientific information and bureaucratic knowledge. Prior cooperation can be a strong indicator of future cooperation (Jacobson et al., 1986; Abbott and Snidal, 1998). Conflict in international river basins is less likely between countries with generally cooperative relations (Dupont, 1998). Mutually shared benefits of cooperative management, such as flood control or water quality, or even for river basin development, can provide incentives for states to establish transboundary cooperative institutions (Grey and Sadoff, 2007:563). In cases where there is a high degree of prior cooperation, evidenced by the formation of treaties around shared waters, we could expect a higher level of institutional emergence.
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Similarly, more formalized cooperation, embodied in intergovernmental organizations, might also promote heightened cooperation within a river basin. IGO shared membership can help build trust among states, provide a forum to resolve disputes, and lower transaction costs of communication. Tir and Ackerman (2004) found that common IGO membership increased the chance for a river treaty. Because our level of analysis is the river basin, we examine membership in regional organizations, or RGOs. When states join a regional organization they become part of a wider geographic network, linking to neighboring states. The higher the number of RGOs in a river basin, the more one could expect to find other forums for cooperation, including river basin institutions. Democratic norms may also influence the emergence of cooperative institutions. Because democracies have shared values and rule-making approaches, their means of working together is more compatible (Oneal and Russett, 1997). The democratic peace literature suggests that democracies are less likely to fight each other than other regime types (Kacowicz, 1998; Gleditsch, 2002; Lemke, 2003). Democratic international organizations are successful at reducing militarized conflict between their memberstates (Pevehouse and Russett, 2006). Water wars are expected to be less likely between countries with shared values (Dupont, 1998). Further, democracies are more likely to sign environmental agreements than other regime types (Congleton, 1992; Neumayer, 2002; Gates et al., 2003). Democracy has been found to have a positive effect on the environment: democracies have less water pollution than non-democracies (Li and Reuveny, 2006). In their research on state conflict over maritime, river, or territorial claims, Hansen et al. (2008) found that international organizations are more likely to help disputing states reach an agreement if democratic states are involved in the claim. They find that this is because democratic states are more likely to turn to international organizations for assistance. Tir and Ackerman (2004:17) also found support for democratic norms as a factor supporting the formation river treaties around shared waters. We would expect cooperative institutional arrangements to emerge in international river basins characterized by the presence of democratic states. Just as democratic norms are expected to have a positive influence on the emergence of cooperative institutions along international rivers, economic development may also shape cooperation. Economic differences between states on international rivers indeed have important impacts on cooperation (Dinar, 2006). More economically developed countries are expected to
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value the benefit of cooperation along international rivers, if only to enable future economic growth and meet growing industrial demands for water. States with very low resources and poor economic conditions may be too hampered by their economic situation to have the capacity to develop a cooperative institution. Tir and Ackerman (2004) found that a certain level of economic development can be a powerful force propelling leaders to negotiate river treaties. Regional trade interdependence is another measure of cooperation in a basin that can support cooperation or inhibit it. There is not agreement in the literature about the impact of trade. On the one hand, there is a rich body of research which argues that economic interdependence defined by trade can mitigate violent conflict (Oneal and Russett, 1997; Morrow, 1999; Gartzke, 2003; Bearce, 2003; Gartzke et al., 2001). Trade behaves as a measure of trustworthiness between states, thereby creating an environment where cooperation can then flourish on other issues (Gartzke et al., 2001). Trade can also help reduce transaction costs of cooperation (Jervis, 1999). Others see trade provoking conflict between countries (Barbieri, 2002). Prior research on factors supporting the emergence of river treaties by Tir and Ackerman (2004:17) did not find that economic interdependence increased the level of trust between the dyad members, paving the way for cooperation through river treaties.
Neofunctionalism and the promotion of cooperation According to functionalists, cooperation develops as states integrate in limited functional or technical areas (Deutsch, 1957; Sewell, 1966; Mitrany, 1976). Neofunctionalists focus on regional integration efforts, viewing the role of international institutions as central to the formulation and implementation of policy (Haas, 1964; Caporaso, 1998; McCormick, 1999). Collaboration on more technical matters can help bring about a broader peace in the region. Cooperative efforts in one substantive area could also “spill over” and trigger cooperation in other areas (Haas, 1964). Because many cooperative institutions along international rivers were designed as technical bodies charged with planning and operational issues, we would expect neofunctional arguments to well explain the emergence of cooperative institutional arrangements (Marty, 2001:25). Some scholars suggest that cooperation is best supported by a small number of countries (Olson, 1965; Ostrom, 1990), and coalitions may be
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more sustainable when they involve a smaller number of players (Just and Netanyahu, 1998:41). Barrett argues that it is not necessarily the number of countries that is the nature of the problem: “Full cooperation can only be sustained by an international treaty if no country can gain by not being a party to it, and no party can by not implementing it” (Barrett, 1999:521). In their examination of bilateral water treaties from 1944–98, Epsey and Towfique (2004) found that the larger the basin, the more likely cooperation in the form of a water treaty. In addition, environmental quality concerns may be a function of cooperative institutions around water. Some riparian states may be stronger environmental leaders than others. It is expected that states demonstrating a higher level of environmental leadership will be more apt to cooperate on water issues. Finally, water quality conditions will likely influence the emergence of cooperative institutions. There is little agreement about the role of water quality in interstate cooperation. Some suggest that transboundary rivers may generate conflicts over pollution (Shmueli, 1999). In contrast, Wallensteen and Swain (1997) argue that there is a strong incentive to cooperate in river basins where there is a quality problem. Water pollution concerns have been the main incentive for the establishment of river basin institutions in Europe (Kliot et al., 2001:323). Research also suggests that wealthier countries may be more willing to address and finance pollution abatement, even in situations where they do not appreciate any direct benefit (Linnerooth, 1990:643; Shmueli, 1999:439; Dinar, 2006:421). River basins facing serious water quality concerns may be compelled to find forums to address water issues and work with neighbors.4 Of notable absence from our analysis is a measure of water availability. We do not include a water availability measure by river basin because of the absence of reliable historical basin-level data.5
Data and Methods The new dataset of cooperative institutional arrangements is the source of data for our dependent variable – institutional cooperative arrangements around shared waters. The emergence of cooperative institutional arrangements is analyzed across 245 river basins between the years 1975 and 2000. During this time frame, 63 cooperative arrangements were detected.6 These
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cooperative institutions represent a multilateral accord spanning the entirety of the basin. Though some basins consist only of two countries, it is not appropriate to assume that the multilateral process is equivalent to a series of bilateral agreements between the states within the basin. Instead, this study adopts the river basin year as the unit of analysis, in contrast to most prior work on cooperation that treats water treaties as a binary dependent variable and emphasizes dyadic cooperation. However, one difficulty of our approach is the variation in basin size. Many basins, such as the Rio Grande and the Yukon, are comprised of only two states. However, larger basins do exist. The two largest basins, the Danube and the Congo, consist of 17 and 13 states, respectively. This creates the challenge of constructing consistent measures across regions of differing sizes. This process is discussed below. Two dependent variables are used in this analysis. First, we analyze the presence or absence of cooperative institutional arrangements along shared river basins. A second, more nuanced measure distinguishes between varying levels or depths of cooperation that might emerge along riparian boundaries. This measure is a three-point ordinal scale, representing the absence of cooperation, loose cooperative institutions, and more formalized, deep institutions, as previously specified. Independent variables that may stimulate or inhibit the emergence of cooperative institutional arrangements along international rivers are drawn from standard data sources and we attempt to reflect methods of operationalization used in the literature, although indicator construction needed to take into account the unique nature of river basins. At times we rely on basin means, standard deviations, or sums, while certain measures warrant more nuanced aggregation techniques. Aggregation methods are determined relative to the theoretical expectations of that variable, as well as to the unit of analysis for each data source. Military capabilities are measured using the standard deviation of basin military expenditures. The standard deviation is preferable over other potential measures, such as the mean, as it measures the level of (a)symmetry within the basin: higher standard deviations equate to increased military asymmetry. Basin hegemony is also measured relative to military expenditures. Rather than choosing an arbitrary point at which a basin is considered to have a regional hegemon, we create a continuous measure of basin hegemony which measures the degree to which a basin has a hegemonic actor, relative to the other states making up the basin. First, the mean and standard deviation of military expenditures are calculated for each basin. The mean level of expenditures is then subtracted from each state’s individual level of expenditures,
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and that quantity is divided by the standard deviation for the basin. Finally, for each basin, we identify the maximum value of this indicator, representing the degree of the advantage the strongest state in the basin has over the average state in the basin. Data for military expenditures are taken from the Correlates of War National Material Capabilities dataset (v. 3.02) (Singer et al., 1972). Conflict severity is primarily a dyadic event; however, any active conflict between members of a basin can serve as a barrier to cooperation. As more intense conflicts are more difficult to overcome, we identify the maximum level of conflict severity existing between any two countries within the basin. Conflicts are identified using the Correlates of War Militarized Interstate Dispute dataset (v. 3.1) (Ghosn et al., 2004), applying Diehl and Goertz’s (2000) severity measure, calculated in their Rivalry dataset. Democracy is measured as the average level of democracy within the basin, according to the Polity IV dataset (Marshall et al., 2002). While dyadic studies often focus on the minimum level of democracy as the constraint on enacting democratic norms (Dixon, 1993, 1994), this measure does not seem appropriate for multilateral settings, as it penalizes a basin for having only one autocratic state, regardless of regime types of the others. Contrastingly, though the mean still accounts for autocratic states, it would allow for multiple democratic states to overcome the penalty of one or two autocracies. Intrabasin trade interdependence is measured using a modified version of Oneal and Russett’s (1997, 1999) trade interdependence measure. Here, we rely on Gleditsch’s (2002) expanded trade and GDP data, and measure the total amount of dyadic trade between all countries in the basin, controlled for over the total aggregate GDP of the basin. This measure represents the importance of intrabasin trade to the overall regional economy of the basin, and is a logical multilateral extension of the most commonly used interdependence measure. Derived from Gleditsch’s trade and GDP data, we measure the overall per capita GDP of the river basin. This is done by dividing the overall economic outputs of the states in the basin by the total population of the river basin. Basin membership in regional governmental organizations is measured as the average number of RGOs connecting states in the basin. While river basins can be thought of as regions, they are not the typical geographically based regions. Often rivers are isolated to only one section of a region, or dissect multiple regions. As such, certain areas of the basin might experience high similarity in RGO memberships, while those on far corners of basins likely have little similarity in their membership profiles. The average number of RGO linkages between states accounts for basin-wide connectedness through regional organizations. This measure
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is derived from the Correlates of War IGO dataset (v. 2.1) (Pevehouse et al., 2003), applying the FIGO typology (Volgy et al., 2008). We account for previous cooperation relative to water resources by including the count of the number of water treaties formed within the basin in previous years. Data for this measure is drawn from Oregon State University’s Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database. Additionally, we account for environmental performance within each basin. This measure represents the number of states within the basin scoring above 80 on the Environmental Performance Index. The Environmental Performance Index measures a country’s current environmental performance within the context of sustainability by measuring performance on 16 indicators of health and ecosystem vitality (Esty et al., 2006). We measure mean levels of organic water pollution (kilograms of emissions per day) across the states within each basin. This measure represents the average levels of pollution across the basin, though pollution may be concentrated at different points throughout the basin. Data for this measure are taken from the World Development Indicators (World Bank, 2008), and measured at the country-year level. Where missing data was a problem, values were filled in with the closest data point. Finally, we include two measures representing the size of the basin. As basins range considerably in size, we include one measure of the overall number of countries within the basin, as well as a dichotomous indicator of a bilateral basin.7 Additionally, we include a control for Europe, where integration has produced an environment where cooperation seems especially likely. We run two separate analyses, first looking at the presence or absence of a cooperative institutional arrangement, followed by an analysis of the depth of the agreement. Because the first model uses a binary dependent variable, we use a standard logit model. We correct for temporal dependence by including cubic spines (Beck et al., 1998). The second model, emphasizing the depth of cooperation, uses an ordinal version of the dependent variable, representing no cooperative institution, loose cooperative institutions, and deep cooperative institutions. As such, an ordinal logit model would be appropriate. However, ordinal logit makes the restrictive assumption that the impact of a covariate is constant across categories (Long, 1997). That is, democracy, for example, should have the same impact when moving from no cooperation to loose cooperation as it has when moving from loose cooperation to deep cooperation. Often, this assumption does not hold, producing results of questionable legitimacy. To address this limitation, we implement a generalization of the ordinal logit model, which allows for flexibility on the proportional odds
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assumption. The unconstrained partial proportional odds (UPP) model tests the proportional odds assumption independently for each covariate, reporting constant effects across the categories when the proportional odds assumption holds, while producing deviations from proportionality when the assumption does not hold (Jones and Westerland, 2006). If the proportional odds assumption universally holds, the model reduces to a standard ordinal logit model. This model offers insight into the factors that promote or prohibit cooperation, while allowing different factors to have different impacts on loose and deep forms of cooperation.
Results and Discussion What factors promote or inhibit cooperative agreements forming along international rivers? Statistical analysis highlights a variety of factors that impact the likelihood of cooperative institutions emerging in shared river basins. Results of the statistical analyses are presented below in Tables 5.3 and 5.4. Table 5.3 presents analyses using the first dependent variable: the presence of any cooperative institution. In Table 5.4, we report a more nuanced analysis, using a second dependent variable that distinguishes between levels of cooperation, or depth of the institutional arrangement. The results provide support for elements of realist, liberal, and functionalist arguments.
Examining the emergence of a cooperative institution When focusing on the prospects of cooperative institutions emerging, we find that realist factors do appear to influence the emergence of cooperative riparian institutions, but not fully in the expected manner. Immediate security concerns do not appear to inhibit the formation of cooperative institutions: ongoing conflict in the river basin does not appear to inhibit cooperation. This supports recent research by Tir and Ackerman (2008:20) which found that militarized conflict does not affect the emergence of water treaties in river basins, suggesting that conflict “simultaneously unleashes contradictory influences: it creates mistrust while potentially encouraging cooperation by clarifying the futility of using force.” Despite the apparent unimportance of immediate security concerns, we do find that increased power asymmetry within the basin does seem to increase the likelihood of concluding a cooperative agreement. This suggests that basins marked by a more symmetric
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distribution of power are less capable of forming cooperative arrangements, potentially due to concerns that inequitable gains from cooperation would be translated into power advantages. On the other hand, basins experiencing increasing military asymmetry seem more likely to create cooperative institutions, either because stronger states are able to impose agreements on their weaker counterparts, or because the distribution of power is such that unequal gains from cooperation would not impact the overall distribution of power in the basin. This result is even more apparent when looking at the degree to which the strongest state in the basin represents a regional (basin) hegemon. In accordance with previous research citing the central role a hegemon plays in fostering cooperation (Le Marquand, 1977; Lowi, 1993; Elhance, 1999; Marty, 2001), we find that powerful states do seem to have a large influence in the formation of cooperative organizations: as the distance between the strongest state in the basin and the average basin power increases, cooperation becomes increasingly likely. This result, in accordance with the findings about basin distribution of power, suggests that increasingly powerful states can compel weaker states to join cooperative institutions, most likely reflecting the interests of the dominant power. Neoliberal arguments find little support for explaining the presence of cooperative riparian institutions. Contrary to expectations, highly democratic basins appear no more likely to form cooperative arrangements than those with a lower average level of democracy. This result is surprising, though it might suggest that the formation of cooperative institutions is issue driven, where riparian organizations emerge to address the specific needs of the basin, regardless of their adherence to democratic norms. Two indicators of previous cooperation present conflicting results: while basins exhibiting previous water-related treaties are more likely to create cooperative institutions, the existence of higher levels of cooperation, indicated through RGO linkages, actually seem to inhibit the creation of cooperative institutions. This finding is rather counterintuitive, as it is often thought that cooperation begets cooperation, especially as states attain more formalized mechanisms for cooperation. However, as we shall see later, this counterintuitive finding seems to be a result of aggregating levels of cooperation, where loose cooperation is nearly twice as prevalent as deeper, more formalized cooperative institutions. Surprisingly, economic factors appear to have no bearing on the formation of cooperative institutions. Neither the level of basin wealth nor intrabasin trade interdependence seems to promote the formation of cooperative institutions between riparian states. Rich basins appear no more likely to
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Table 5.3 Logistic regression of cooperative institutional arrangements in international river basins
Capability asymmetry Degree of hegemony Conflict severity Democracy Intrabasin trade interdependence RGO membership Basin per capita GDP Previous water treaties Environmental leadership Water pollution Multi-state basins Two-state basins Europe Constant N χ2
Model 1
Model 2
Coef. (SE)
Coef. (SE)
8.41 × 10−9** (4.19 × 10−9) 2.101** (.647) −.005 (.007) .061 (.041) −1.79 ×107 (2.84 ×107) −.105* (.054) 4.26 ×10−5 (5.48×10−5) .051* (.026) −.33* (.200) −3.36×10−7 (2.18×10−7) −.262* (.137) −1.811** (.453) —
8.01 × 10−9** (4.00 × 10−9) 2.135** (.628) −.006 (.007) .055 (.044) −1.85 ×107 (2.69 ×107) −.113** (.051) 5.04 ×10−5 (5.36×10−5) .055* (.027) −.441** (.207) −4.20×10−7* (2.25×10−7) −.253* (.133) −1.729** (.455) .461 (.364) −4.959** (.797) 5,703 155.88**
−4.825** (.749) 5,703 140.67**
* p ≤ .1; ** p ≤ .5. Cubic splines not reported.
form cooperative institutions than poorer basins, despite their increased economic capability to do so. Additionally, basins characterized by low interdependence are no less likely to form cooperative agreements than those marked by a heightened level of economic interdependence, measured as
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shared trade among the riparian states. These two findings, together, suggest that economic interests are not driving factors in the formation of basinlevel cooperation. This supports earlier research which reported that wealth played no role in the formation of water treaties, with shared trade having a negligible impact on treaty formation (Espey and Towfigue, 2004). Finally, turning to the functionalist hypotheses, we find that cooperation becomes more difficult in larger, multi-state basins, though bilateral basins, containing only two states, are the least likely to create cooperative institutions. Each additional state in the basin makes an institution about 30 percent less likely, while basins with only two states are roughly 6 times less likely to form cooperative institutions. This result is consistent with the argument that while formalized coordination and cooperation is more needed in larger groups, it becomes increasingly difficult as the size of the group grows; bilateral basins can more readily rely on informal cooperation, as policies are easier to coordinate and direct punishment for defection is possible, since interactions take the form of an iterated Prisoners’ Dilemma (Axelrod, 1980, 1984; Axelrod and Keohane, 1985). In such basins, informal cooperation is generally in the best interest of both parties. In larger basins, however, cooperation is much more akin to the tragedy of the commons. The increased size of the basin makes it more difficult to identify defectors, and retaliatory defection, such as is possible in the bilateral setting, punishes all (Axelrod and Keohane, 1985), making formalized cooperation both more necessary and also more difficult. Instead, formalized rules of cooperation must be defined, as well as penalties for defection. Contrary to expectations, basins including states known for higher environmental protection are actually less likely to create cooperative institutions than those not characterized by environmental leadership. Moreover, heightened levels of water pollution seem to have no significant bearing on the formation of cooperative institutions. Though functionalism suggests that cooperation would emerge relative to specific problems facing individual basins, it seems likely that our analysis cannot pick up these influences, as we do not identify the dominant problem facing each individual basin, on a river-by-river case, whether it be water scarcity, pollution, or management, and assume (through our variables) that environmental factors are driving functionalist cooperation. Basins likely respond to these various governance problems differently, depending on both the nature of the problem and the composition of the basin. At present, our analysis is likely not sufficiently nuanced to identify and account for the dominant governance issues facing each basin.
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Generally, the overall model testing the presence or absence of cooperation in river basins paints a confusing picture. It suggests that cooperation is more likely to occur in smaller multi-state basins with asymmetrical capabilities and an increasingly powerful regional hegemon. Yet, a number of other relationships noted in the model make little sense. Environmental leadership exercised by states inhibits cooperation, and water pollution does not seem to have any discernible effect on cooperation. Moreover, previous cooperation both encourages and inhibits future cooperation – more formalized cooperation is seen to deter emerging cooperative institutions while less formal treaties promote cooperative institutions.
Examining the emergence of cooperative institutional arrangements, by depth of cooperation We reexamine these relationships with a second set of models, focusing not on the presence or absence of a cooperative institutional arrangement in an international river basin, but rather on the depth of cooperation characterized by the institutional arrangement. This ordinal model estimates the impact of the variables in moving from a lower category or depth of cooperation into a higher category or depth of cooperation. However, rather than assume that the impact of each variable is the same for entering each category, this model allows variables to have differing impacts relative to the categories of the dependent variable. The same factor might be found to promote loose cooperation while reducing the likelihood of deeper forms of cooperation. Indeed, in some cases, this is found to be the case. Results of the partial proportional odds model are reported in Table 5.4. Table 5.4 contains two models: the sole difference between models 3 and 4 is the inclusion of a dummy variable controlling for the increased levels of cooperation within Europe resulting from European integration. Given the significance of this variable, we will focus primarily on interpreting model 4, as it appears that not controlling for European basins hides some of the nuance across levels of cooperation, as European basins account for 50 percent of all loose agreements included in this analysis, though only 11 percent of the deeper agreements. In several instances, the impact of certain variables actually reverses direction when moving to deeper cooperation. Again, we find that increased asymmetry in basin capabilities promotes cooperative institutions, but with the added nuance of only promoting deeper institutions. At the same time,
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Table 5.4 Partial proportional odds logistic regression of depth of cooperative institutional arrangements in international river basins Model 3
Coef. (SE) Capability asymmetry Degree of hegemony Conflict severity Democracy Intrabasin trade interdependence RGO membership Basin per capita GDP Previous water treaties Environmental leadership Water pollution Multi-state basins Two-state basins Europe Cutpoint 1 Cutpoint2 N χ2
Deviations when moving to deep cooperation
6.69 × 10 −9* (4.04 × 10 −9) 2.363** (.627) −.005 (.005) .085** (.038) −1.06 × 10 7 (2.07 × 10 7)
1.66 × 10−8** (6.12 × 10−9) −2.910** (.958) –
−.132** (.056) .00004 (.00005) .048* (.028) −.384** (.187) −3.27 × 10 −7 (2.18 × 10 −7) .−.308** (.150) −1.809** (.432) –
.287** (.127) .0002** (.00008) –
−4.978** (.630) −7.514** (1.039) 5,703 89.79**
−.207** (.069) –
– – .615 ** (.184) −4.206 ** (1.287) –
Model 4 Deviations when moving to deep cooperation
Coef. (SE) 5.68 × 10 −9 (3.94 × 10 −9) 2.641** (.695) −.005 (.005) .080** (.040) −1.46 × 10 7 (2.15 × 10 7)
5.67 × 10 −8** (1.27 × 10 −8) −5.047** (1.389) −.031** (.013) −.477** (.136) –
−.161** (.058) .00005 (.00005) .057** (.029) −.454** (.198) −4.08 × 10 −7* (2.34 × 10 −7) −.368** (.157) −1.675** (.430) .500 (.327) −5.175** (.659) −8.464** (1.416) 5,703 98.72**
1.165** (.256) – – 2.806** (.656) – .740** (.232) −5.457** (1.584) −6.419** (1.544)
* p ≤ .1; ** p ≤ .5.
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we see that increasing degrees of hegemony within a basin promote the formation of loose agreements, while serving to block the formation of deep institutions. That hegemony should actually promote and deter cooperation should come as no surprise. Despite previous research citing the importance of hegemonic power in formulating agreements (Le Marquand, 1977; Lowi, 1993; Elhance, 1999; Marty, 2001), any institutional agreement imposed by a hegemon would be a function of that state’s preferences. It is equally likely that it would be against the basin hegemon’s interests to form a cooperative arrangement if it was the main benefactor of the status quo. This suggests that deep cooperation is more likely to form under conditions of military asymmetry, but when no single country is clearly dominant. Additionally, adding support to the general realist argument is the negative impact of conflict severity on deeper institutions. As conflict between members of the basin becomes more severe, deep institutions are increasingly difficult to form, though ongoing conflict seems to have no bearing on looser cooperative arrangements. This seems logical, as security issues need resolution before forming binding, permanent arrangements, while more temporary, less binding cooperative measures might be taken even during times of conflict. Of particular interest is the impact of the liberal factors at different levels or depths of cooperation. Here, higher levels of democracy only seem to promote the formation of looser river basin institutions, and actually appear to reduce the likelihood of forming deep institutional arrangements. A few possible explanations arise. First, democracy alone might not be enough to create deep, formalized cooperative institutions. Additional factors not considered in this study, such as donor financial support, might be necessary to push countries toward permanent cooperative arrangements. In contrast, highly democratic basins might not require deeper cooperative institutions; loose cooperation might suffice. In addition, because democracies are practiced at interest aggregation at domestic levels and because they also form more regional organizations in general, it is plausible that democratic states address water-related matters through other venues of regional cooperation, avoiding the need to create additional deep structures of cooperation. Additionally, on the liberal front, we find a reversal in the impact of regional governmental organizations when looking at different levels of cooperation. Earlier, we noted that the seemingly negative relationship between RGO linkages and basin cooperation was especially puzzling.
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In this light, however, it makes good sense. RGOs are formalized institutions, sharing many of the same properties as our deep cooperative institutions – permanent headquarters, full-time staffing, and independent funding, to name a few. Basins with higher rates of RGO linkages likely grow to prefer this style of cooperation over looser, less formal versions, and this is what appears to be indicated in models 3 and 4, including the negative association with the formation of less formalized institutions. Indeed, for each additional RGO linking the average states in the basin, that basin is about 3.2 times more likely to form a deep cooperative institution, and is about 17 percent less likely to form a loose cooperative institution. It appears that states become accustomed to a certain type of cooperation, and replicate it, rather than risk implementing a less familiar form. In this light, cooperation might be path dependent – basins choose a certain level of cooperation, and provided its previous effectiveness, replicate it. Some support is found for the functionalist argument. Previous waterrelated cooperation is found to promote the formation of cooperative arrangements in general. For every additional water quality or quantity treaty signed, a basin becomes about 6 percent more likely to reach a higher level of cooperation. This suggests a nesting or cumulative impact of cooperation and a linkage between cooperative efforts pursued through treaties and cooperation advanced through institutional arrangements. Interestingly, basins with environmental leaders seem to prefer more formalized arrangements over looser agreements. For each state scoring about 80 on the environmental protection index, the basin becomes about 57 percent less likely to create a loose institution, and about 16 times more likely to form a deeper institution. Here, it appears that basins with environmental leaders prefer organizational structures capable of stricter regulatory mechanisms to better address the tragedy of the commons problem posed by shared waters. Finally, though two-state basins seem to avoid any sort of formalized agreement, relying instead on decentralized coordination, increasingly large states seem to favor creating deeper, more formalized agreements. This suggests that states do not perceive looser institutions as being well suited to deal with the governance problems inherent to promoting coordination within increasingly large basins. Indeed, bilateral basins do not seem to require cooperative institutions to govern their basins, while increasingly complex basins seem to favor more formalized cooperative arrangements, which are more able to promote and enforce multilateral coordination.
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Conclusions As common pool resources, international rivers pose a challenge to cooperation. Yet, cooperation is necessary if states are to achieve full optimization of the river and to solve issues stemming from resource overuse. Scholars and practitioners have conducted considerable research examining water as a source of political conflict and as a vehicle for interstate cooperation. This research examines the correlates of cooperative institutional arrangements along international rivers. Because these cooperative institutions are regional in nature, they can be viewed as a component or subset of the broader world order. The results of this analysis suggest that no one theoretical perspective (neorealism, neoliberal institutionalism, or neofunctionalism) fully explains the creation of cooperative institutional arrangements in international river basins, though all make important contributions. In general, cooperative institutional arrangements are most likely to form in basins with larger numbers of states, basins exhibiting asymmetrical military capabilities, and ones containing predominantly democratic states. Of greater importance are the findings that the depth of cooperation does not seem to progress incrementally. Deeper institutional arrangements do not seem to be formed for the same reasons as looser agreements. Rather, basins accustomed to more formalized cooperative organizational structures, with sufficient economic capabilities, seem to prefer to create more binding, formal institutions, while those basins lacking either the experience or the resources make less stringent institutional arrangements. Further research is necessary to address the limitations of the study. Studies should examine constructivist arguments, such as the role of non-governmental organizations, donor groups, and international organizations, in the promotion of cooperative institutions. In addition, efforts to establish a meaningful measure of water availability over time across river basins is necessary to better understand its role in promoting or inhibiting cooperation. Finally, questions about the institutional design of these cooperative institutions and ultimately, their effectiveness are worthy of scholarly attention.
Notes 1
The data was supplemented by studies conducted on river organizations in Africa by the German Development Institute (Scheumann and Neubert, 2006);
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3
4 5
6
7
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UNEP, 2005; Oregon State University on institutions and flooding (Bakker, 2006); and other sources, including searches of organizational websites and scholarly descriptions of river basin institutions. To define regions, a generic classification scheme based on a combination of geography and broad political affiliation was adopted (Volgy et al., 2008). For our purposes, regions consist of: Europe, Asia, Middle East (including states with dominant Arab or Islamic populations directly adjoining the Middle East, such as Saharan Africa, Afghanistan, and Turkey), North America (including the US, Canada and Mexico), Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America (including Central America). Dominant role of bilateral over multilateral arrangements is also reported for military cooperation (alliances) and the further tilt toward bilateralism in the post-Cold War era (Leeds and Anac, 2005). Of course, the situation could be so dire that states are unable to cooperate, perhaps even resorting to violence or conflict. Obtaining historic water availability data by river basin has proven difficult. As a proxy for historic data, we constructed a water availability measure by dividing 2003 water discharge data, the most complete dataset available, by the total annual population of the basin. When we ran the model with the measure included, it proved insignificant. We recognize that this figure does not match those reported in Table 2.2. In some instances, multiple institutions were formed in a single year. While these are reported in Table 2.2 as separate institutions, they are treated as a single institution in the analysis. Some institutional arrangements were formed around lakes; however, at present, we do not have information on those states within that watershed. Finally, large-scale data availability problems limited the inclusion of several river basins. Previous studies have indicated that the length of a river is a significant predictor of conflictive and cooperative behavior around international waterways. We do not test for the impact of river length, however, since we believe it is spurious for the number of states in a basin. Longer rivers are more likely to contain more states, and cooperation within that basin is a function of agreement between those states, rather than of the length of the basin.
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Axelrod, Robert. 1984. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books. Axelrod, Robert, and Robert O. Keohane. 1985. “Achieving Cooperation under Anarchy: Strategies and Institutions”. World Politics 38:226–54. Bakker, Marloes H. N. 2006. Transboundary River Floods: Vulnerability of Continents, International River basins, and Countries. PhD Dissertation: Oregon State University. Baldwin, David A. 1993. Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate. New York: Columbia University Press. Barbieri, Katherine. 2002. The Liberal Illusion: Does Trade Promote Peace? Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Barreira, Ana. 2006. “Water Governance at the European Union.” Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education 135:80–5. Barrett, Scott. 1999. “A Theory of Full International Cooperation.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 11:519–41. Bearce, David H. 2003. “Grasping the Commercial Institutional Peace.” International Studies Quarterly 47:347–70. Beck, Nathaniel, Jonathan Katz, and Richard Tucker. 1998. “Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series–Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable.” American Journal of Political Science 42:1260–88. Benvenisti, Eyal. 1996. “Collective Action in the Utilization of Shared Freshwater: The Challenges of International Freshwater Law.” American Journal of International Law 90:384–415. Bernauer, Thomas. 1995. “The International Financing of Environmental Protection: Lessons from Efforts to Protect River Rhine against Chloride Pollution.” Environmental Politics 4:369–90. Bernauer, Thomas. 1997. “Managing International Rivers.” In Oran R. Young (ed.) Global Governance: Drawing Insights from the Environmental Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 155–96. Blatter, Joachim. 2001. “Lessons from Lake Constance: Ideas, Institutions and Advocacy Coalitions.” In Joachim Blatter and Helen Ingram (eds.) Reflections on Water: New Approaches to Transboundary Conflicts and Cooperation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 89–122. Butts, Kent. 1997. “The Strategic Importance of Water.” Parameters 27:65–83. Caporaso, Jareo. 1998. “Regional Integration Theory: Understanding Our Past and Anticipating Our Future.” Journal of European Public Policy 5:1–16. Conca, Ken. 2005. Governing Water: Contentious Transitional Politics and Global Institution Building. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Conca, Ken, Fengshi Wu, and Ciqi Mei. 2006. “Global Regime Formation or Complex Institution Building? The Principled Content of International River Agreements.” International Studies Quarterly 50:263–85. Congleton, Roger D. 1992. “Political Institutions and Pollution Control.” Review of Economics and Statistics 74:412–21.
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Chapter 6
Substituting for Democratization: A Comparative Analysis of Involvement in Regional Intergovernmental Organizations Stuart Rodgers and Thomas J. Volgy Introduction Although the concept of globalization has been in vogue for quite some time,1 scholars of international relations have recognized that trade patterns tend to be more regional than global, and that regional intergovernmental organizations (RGOs) are created and joined by states substantially more so than any other type of intergovernmental organization (IGO).2 No wonder then that there has been a recent wave of regional institutional literature seeking to explain state joining behavior in RGOs. Much of this literature views RGOs as mechanisms to lock in state policy preferences and to signal commitments to other states (Pevehouse, 2002:613–15), and shows a strong relationship between democratic polities and their propensity to join both RGOs and IGOs (Russett et al., 1998). However, the literature fails to explain why there are so many RGOs in non-democratic regions3 and why RGO membership tends to be dominated by non-democracies.4 This is the puzzle we seek to address here. The “democratic peace” literature has argued persuasively that democratic norms, along with institutional and procedural practices and domestic political dynamics, create conditions that facilitate conflict resolution mechanisms between democratic states that minimize (or eliminate) coercive practices and strongly encourage bilateral, regional, and global institutional mechanisms of cooperation in international relations. Thus, it would make sense that democracies are most likely to join RGOs. The thick web of
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institutional architecture in Europe and American promotion of global and regional institutional arrangements5 during the Cold War are often seen as reflections of such affinity for institutional cooperation. But then, what explains why non-democracies join RGOs in such large numbers? We begin by presenting a general theory that focuses on considerations through which policy choices can yield benefits consistent with a “democratic advantage,” and we show how both democratization and RGO membership may provide similar mechanisms to pursue such benefits. We then integrate into the theory important regional and global contextual considerations that may impact the joining behavior of states in RGOs. Finally, in the latter part of this chapter we present and test the empirical model and discuss the results. Crucial to our analysis is the argument that non-democracies can and do use RGOs to lock in and signal commitments as a substitute for domestic liberalization and democratization.6
The Benefits of Democracy States with democratic polities seem to be able to pursue relations with other democracies that result in more favorable outcomes compared to non-democratic polities. There appears to be a “democratic difference” yielding a peace dividend in security relations and in higher trade and investment in economic relations in comparison to autocracies or mixed pairs of states (Mansfield et al., 2000). Scholars (Morrow et al., 1998; Mitchell, 2002; Dixon 1993, 1994, 1996) have identified several causal mechanisms for such democracy effects, including democracies’ tendencies toward market openness, shared preferences, transparency and stability, and the use of third-party dispute settlement procedures to resolve conflicts. Market openness is more likely to occur in democracies because of the tendency of low state involvement in the market (Morrow et al., 1998:651). Since the state is less involved in the operation of the market and most firms and industries are privately run, they will opt for access to foreign markets. The norm of reciprocity shared among democracies leads to a mutual lowering of barriers in return for access to each other’s markets. Market openness also incorporates the possibility of foreign investment and as a secondary effect, trade creation may occur through downstream market
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development.7 Democracies that do not rely on revenue from state-run industries will be less likely to be threatened by foreign investment than those states that would see such investments as potential competition for revenue. Democracies also share similar systems of policy formation that rely on transparent political processes (North, 1990) that may facilitate peaceful negotiation and compromise with other democracies regarding security issues (Morrow et al., 1998). Similarly, when trade policies are highly transparent, firms and investors can anticipate the degree of compliance and factor in potential costs and overhead. When the degree of compliance and costs are unknown, firms and investors may prefer to trade with another state, even one with less competitive prices, in exchange for the added security of knowing compliance and costs. Democracies also share preferences for deliberative bodies, free speech, human rights concerns, and the protection of property rights, political preferences conducive to higher levels of trade (Dixon and Moon, 1993). Democracies share a norm of compromise and trust in the equity of thirdparty dispute settlement processes and are likely to abide by its rulings (Mitchell, 2002). Democracies are, typically, also more politically stable than nondemocracies and firms and investors value this attribute highly (Morrow et al., 1998:651). Stability comes in part from the establishment of institutions by which the polity is bound to the preferred policies of the majority (Moravcsik, 2000:226–7). Political preferences in democracies for effective methods of crisis management also increase stability by lessening the damage from either exogenous or endogenous shocks to economic or political relationships (Goertz and Diehl, 2000). Prior studies empirically support these arguments. Morrow et al. (1998) found that joint democracy is a significant predictor of dyadic trade. Dixon and Moon (1993) also found shared regime type to be significant (between the US and its trading partners) as well as shared political preferences. Mitchell (2002) and Dixon (1993, 1994, 1996) found that third-party dispute resolution lowers the potential for militarized disputes. Mitchell (2002:757) also found that the density of democratic states in the international system was important for the acceptance of the thirdparty dispute settlement norm (2002:757). Democratization appears to foster and promote mechanisms that make these states desirable trading partners and targets of investment in addition to fostering peaceful relations between democratic states.
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An Alternative to Democratization Most of the causal mechanisms attributed to democracies, however, can be found as well in the thick web of RGOs, which is perhaps a reason why democracies feel comfortable in joining and using RGOs to pursue vital foreign policy interests. These include credible commitments to liberal trading policies; harmonization of policy preferences; greater transparency through the collection and dissemination of information; the promotion of political and economic stability of members; and the creation of dispute settlement mechanisms that member-states agree to utilize. While democracies tilt toward market openness, RGOs can assist states in making a credible commitment to liberal trading policies when the domestic options for credible commitments are limited (Pevehouse, 2002:613). There are several reasons that RGOs tend to facilitate market openness. A common type of RGO is the preferential trade agreement,8 which can be in the form of a customs union, a free trade area, or a common market, alternatives that increase market openness and facilitate the free movement of goods and factors of production (Mansfield and Milner, 1999:592).9 As democracies often demonstrate shared policy preferences, the harmonization of policy preferences is one of the key functions of many RGOs. The treaties and protocols of RGOs serve as a place to preemptively discuss and settle potential political problems before they arise. Through reciprocity, states negotiate a series of agreements, each one a constraint on policy choices, in exchange for the power to constrain the other member-states. Reciprocal arrangements “[h]elp to guarantee that … concessions made by one party will be repaid, rather than exploited, by its counterparts” (Mansfield and Pevehouse, 2000:781). By committing to certain behaviors, member-states remove a degree of uncertainty in their relationships and many interactions are changed from pure competition problems to cooperative problems, which are much easier to resolve (Morrow, 1994).10 Democracies provide transparent domestic political processes that allow for the gathering of information by others regarding policy preferences and intentions, facilitating predictability and thus cooperation with other democracies. Likewise, an important function of RGOs is the collection and dissemination of information (Russett et al., 1998:446). In most RGOs the Secretariat serves to keep the relevant activities of its members predictable
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and transparent by collecting and maintaining all agreements, reporting on the activities of the members, and monitoring members’ compliance with agreements.11 Democracies are generally stable politically and economically, further reinforcing greater predictability for those interacting with them. RGOs are frequently designed to promote the political and economic stability of the member-states. Typically, the ASEAN Concord exemplifies the desire of RGO framers to promote stability among its members, requiring states to adopt the accord’s principles for the purpose of “promoting stability,” and creating a plan for political cooperation, especially in the event of crises (Bangkok Declaration, 1967). The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) contains similar language in its list of principles, stating as a major goal “maintenance of regional peace, stability and security …” (Treaty of Lagos, 1975). Finally, we noted that democracies favor third-party dispute settlement mechanisms. So do RGOs, and one of the most important components they create is a series of dispute settlement mechanisms for their members. Although there are varying degrees of legalism across agreements and across time, most RGOs have some sort of dispute settlement mechanism, even though it may have been developed some time after formation of the RGO (Smith, 2000:174), as RGOs tend to progress from less to more legalism in the enforcement of agreements (Smith, 2000:137). The dispute settlement mechanisms contained within RGOs, and the actions of states to join these RGOs, signify the member-states’ willingness to negotiate disputes and resolve them using these mechanisms.
The Substitutability Proposition The thick webs of RGOs contain a number of mechanisms that appear to be analogous to the causal mechanisms associated with the “democratic difference” hypothesis that privilege democratic states, leading to the possibility that RGOs can be substituted for democratization when policy makers in non-democratic polities seek the benefits accruing to democratic states. While joining and participating in RGOs is not necessarily inexpensive for policy makers, it is a less expensive alternative than running the risk of creating democratic regimes, and losing office through elections. Thus, RGO involvement,
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while not equivalent to becoming a democracy, appears to be a cost-effective substitute for democratization for non-democratic policy makers. Literatures on democracies and on joining RGOs have both shown significant associations between democratic polities and their propensity to join regional and global institutions.12 We are not contesting this linkage, and given our assertions regarding the causal mechanisms operating in RGOs we would expect that such organizations would reinforce democratic proclivities and allow democratic states to feel “at home” in these institutional contexts. We are proposing, instead, that to the extent RGOs offer opportunities for non-democratic states to help make up for the “democratic deficit,” they are likely to join and participate in RGOs as a means of pursuing their foreign policies. In this sense we are consistent with scholars who have argued for both substitutability (Most and Starr, 1984) and diversity in foreign policy approaches. Goertz (2005:26) notes that substitutability “is the natural way to incorporate historical and cultural diversity into the larger theoretical framework.” Locke and Thelen (1995) contend that both institutions and identities are important in explaining why the same international forces set in motion fundamentally different substantive processes in different national contexts. We argue that the reverse is also the case: states with different identities and political systems (and for different reasons) than democracies are just as likely to seek out the same types of international structures (join RGOs) as democracies.
Some Intervening Considerations We propose that all else being equal, the less a state exhibits democratic characteristics, the more likely it will be to join the thick web of organizations in its region in order to make up the “democratic difference.” Thus we expect a negative relationship between level of democracy and RGO membership. Of course, rarely are all things equal in international affairs, and we need to consider the intervening effects of three important sets of considerations: characteristics of regions and the role of great powers in RGO formation, characteristics of states, and the changing nature of global international politics. First, we note that the United States has played a predominant role in architectural construction (both at the global and regional levels) at least
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through the evolution of the Cold War (Ikenberry, 2001). It has encouraged the formation and development of regional institutions (Europe), participated aggressively in the creation of others (Latin America), discouraged the formation of regional architecture where great power rivalries threatened its interests (Asia), and at times neglected the development of regional architecture altogether (Sub-Saharan Africa). We postulate that where the US has actively participated and/or encouraged the creation of regional webs of cooperation, it will have imposed its policy preferences on member-states, including security considerations, economic considerations, and (when not inconsistent with the other two) preferences for democratization of states. In such regions, states may benefit from joining and helping to constrain American power (Ikenberry, 2001), but they run substantial risks by agreeing to US policy preferences, including, for non-democratic leaders, pressures to move in a democratic direction.13 Thus, we suggest that it is in regions of hegemonic neglect where the substitutability proposition is most likely to hold. A second condition under which hegemonic involvement in a region may impact regional organizations and the propensity of states to join them would be where either US concerns over security trump democratic preferences, and/or where there is regional web creation to resist hegemonic initiatives, and especially once American structural power is diminishing (Volgy and Bailin, 2003). One example may be in Latin America, where US security concerns have trumped historically preferences for democratization; furthermore, as American structural strength has declined, South American states have sought to create regional institutions countervailing US initiatives. In such contexts, we would expect to find some evidence – albeit not as strong – for our substitutability proposition. We note as well that in addition to great power involvement, there are other dimensions of inter-regional variation, both in terms of the characteristics of regions and in terms of the applicability of universal propositions regarding how states behave toward each other (Lemke, 2002). We assume that such regional differences matter. Regions with a substantial diversity of domestic political systems may create high risks for non-democratic policy makers who may, by joining regional RGOs, experience the pressures of democratic contagion, and thus would be less likely to use regional institutional arrangements to address their democratic deficits. Likewise, states with substantial economic and military/political capabilities are less likely to need regional webs to pursue
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political and economic objectives when other states in the region provide little benefit to the pursuit of their objectives. We expect these characteristics to be important intervening considerations as we address the evidence about non-democracies joining RGOs as a substitute for democratization. Turning from regional to state attributes, we consider several characteristics of countries to be salient for our analysis. One is the capacity of the state to engage regional and global webs of institutions. Even though states may be able to use RGOs to lock in policy preferences and signal a credible commitment to those policies, these opportunities are not free. Each membership is costly in terms of resource commitments (including financial and other resources with which to staff and participate in the deliberations of these organizations) and vulnerability to pressures from other members. Joining and participating in the large constellations of IGOs and RGOs increase state costs appreciably. We anticipate that this concern diminishes at some threshold of capability. A second concern is relative openness. We expect that non-democratic states that are already successful in international trade without the democratic benefit are less likely to search for it either through changing regimes or needing to engage in the regional web. Third, we expect policy preferences to be relevant to RGO participation because the costs of joining increase as a state’s policy preferences diverge from other members, and the state needs to ameliorate those differences when interacting within an RGO.14 Moreover, substantial policy differences with a hegemon may drive states toward a multilateral institutional framework: otherwise, as observers of Latin American states note, “selective bilateralism provided a much higher degree of certainty for the US and supplied the contact within which to exercise its preponderant relational power” (Foote et al., 2003:168). States that diverge substantially from the policy preferences of the hegemon may be attracted to RGOs to avoid asymmetrical bilateral interactions or as a place where they can create a collective response to a very powerful state. Finally, we assume that regions and the webs of organizations they contain are not immune from the ebbs and flows of global conflicts between major powers. Fluctuations in conflict between East and West during the Cold War, the transformations resulting from the end of the Cold War, and turbulent phenomena such as the growth of international terrorism or fluctuations in globalization are important contextual considerations that may impact on state calculations to join RGOs.
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Comparing Regions In order to address differences across regions, we create a test for our central hypothesis that compares two regions (Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America) varying across a number of characteristics we consider salient. We choose Sub-Saharan Africa since this region has characteristics consistent with conditions likely to allow for RGO substitutability. First, the region exhibits very low levels of democratization. Between 1970 and 2000 the number of democracies ranged from two to five; even at the high-water mark, no more than 10 percent of the states in Sub-Saharan Africa were democracies.15 Most policy makers in the region need not fear the democratic contagion effect by joining RGOs. Second, the democratic benefit is very much needed in the region: it has been dominated by underdeveloped economies concentrated on raw goods exports and very few manufactured goods, and the region has received a minimal share of global trade and investment. It has also seen little of the peace dividend, and has been marked by historically high levels of intra- and inter-state conflict (Foote et al., 2003:171). Third, the region has been relatively marginal to vital hegemonic interests and with rare exceptions ignored by both the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and by the US following the Cold War (Foote et al., 2003:172–3). The region, however, has not been immune from the effects of global political and economic pressures, and neither have its states been passive in response. In fact, many African states joined with states in other regions in opposition to liberal economic regimes (Foote et al., 2003:172), seeking benefits through fairer distributions in the global political economy (Foote et al., 2003:173). As a region, Latin America looks very different from Africa in terms of stability, dominant regime type, average level of development, and the degree of hegemonic involvement in the region. Latin America contains much higher levels of democratization than Africa: by 1970, almost a quarter of Latin American states were democracies and over half were democracies by the year 2000.16 These changes from rightist governments – often managed by the military and backed by the US – corresponded with severe economic crises, followed by democratic and economic reforms (Bowman, 1996:292). The overall pattern of the last two decades of the twentieth century in Latin America illustrates democratic contagion in the region.
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The involvement of the US during the Cold War period and afterwards “has been nothing short of decisive in the founding, nature, and functioning of the multilateral institutions in the Americas in which it has taken part” (Foote et al., 2003:239). Due to the involvement of the US throughout Latin American regional architecture, the nature of the organizations and the options available to Latin American states were substantially different than those within the African region. Unlike Africa, which experienced pressure primarily in the global environment, for Latin America the hegemonic pressures led to substantially different architectural groupings, either through groupings of institutions dominated by the US, or efforts to institutionalize resistance to hegemonic pressures, as in the case of Mercosur. States in Latin America thus face choices of institutional arrangements either dominated by American preferences or by arrangements resisting hegemony (Buzan, 2005). This brief sketch of the two regions suggests some critical consequences for the substitutability proposition. In Sub-Saharan Africa foreign policy makers can pursue RGO memberships to seek the democratic benefit but without the fear of democratic contagion effects, and can do so in an environment of roughly cohesive policy preferences regarding the international system, and without the persistent17 intrusion of outside major powers. In Latin America, foreign policy makers operate in an environment of hegemonic intrusion, democratic contagion, a greater diversity of policy preferences regarding the hegemon and the global environment, and difficult choices between competing institutional arrangements. Given these differences, we expect that if there is RGO substitutability for democratization it is more likely to be discernible in Sub-Saharan Africa than in Latin America.18 This in due in part to the fact that RGOs in Latin America will be the product of competing forces: those RGOs that were in part set up by the US to endorse and support hegemonic policy preferences, and those RGOs that were set up by states within the region to oppose hegemonic intrusion into policy determination. The result of these competing RGO designs may be to mute the evidence of policy substitutability within the region.19 The competing mechanisms that are present in Latin America and Africa, and which are probably not predominant factors in RGO membership outside of these regions, necessitate a very specific model design. First, substitution that might be expected in the Latin American and African regions would not be expected in North America or Europe because of the predominance of democratic regimes in the latter regions. Likewise, the Middle
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East is entirely non-democratic (in our conceptualization, as noted in Chapter 2, we excluded Israel from the region). An argument could be made that substitutability might occur in Asia, but the mechanisms by which this would happen seem much less clear due to heavy dominance by global power interests within the region, resulting, as we noted in Chapter 2, in a substantial underdevelopment of regional FIGOs in Asia. A second important consideration regarding the construction of the model hinges on whether to use a single model with a dummy variable to delineate between regions, or to employ a different model for each region. The advantage to the unified approach is that the model can draw on many more observations and it encourages parsimony. The disadvantage arises out of the specification of the design itself. The two regions employ different mechanisms. The motivations for pursuing substitution in Africa are different from those in Latin America and there are different global influences at play. Were the models to be combined, the subtlety of the causation in each region would be muted and potential lost amid opposing causal mechanisms.
Comparing Time Frames Our comparison includes joining behavior across the regions over two different points in time. Both the global and regional webs of institutional cooperative arrangements tend to change as a substantial number of IGOs and RGOs die and others are created by states or as emanations by other organizations (Shanks et al., 1996). These changes suggest not only that states are facing constant decisions to engage new organizations, but as well that any sectional analysis of a single point in time would be an inadequate test of our central hypothesis and especially so given the momentous changes in international politics brought about by the end of the Cold War. Therefore, we develop a test of our model that includes the same three time slices considered in Chapter 2 – 1975, 1989, and 2004 – reflecting substantially different periods in international politics. The year 1975 revolves around a time of substantial turbulence in international politics. Conflicts between East and West continued to escalate with Soviet military activity in Afghanistan, and the map of the Middle East changed suddenly with a fundamentalist revolution in Iran. Surrounding
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the time frame were two major oil crises during the 1970s and the American pullout from Vietnam. The year 1989 reflects the fulcrum of global politics, with the Soviet empire in demise and rise of a post-Cold War order. Alternatively, 2004 represents the latest year for which we have systematic data on both the web of organizations and state membership in those organizations.20 It provides us a “new world order” time frame that is 15 years removed from the end of the Cold War and 11 years after the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union. These three time slices give us substantially different conditions under which to test our expectations, and provide variation in the global context in which foreign policy makers choose to join webs of organizations.21
Comparing Types of Organizations Lastly, joining behavior for RGOs will be compared to that of global IGOs. This is because global IGOs are more reflective of global concerns, problems, and policy preferences and will provide a good base point for comparison of general IGO joining behavior versus RGO joining behavior. If RGOs are in fact being used as policy substations to evade global pressures and to address strictly regional concerns, we should find that global IGO membership should operate through different mechanisms than those pertaining to RGOs. This differentiation by geographical scope was salient in the analysis of organizational effects discussed in Chapter 3.
Utilizing the FIGO Data We argue that RGOs serve as valid policy alternatives for non-democracies because they can be perceived by state and non-state actors as credible commitments to key liberal policies and are expected to actually alter international behavior in favor of those policies. Although nearly all organizations, regardless of institutional strength, may favor these liberal policies, weak organizations (nFIGOs) are less likely to be perceived as credible commitments because they lack either investment of substantial resources or the means by which to monitor and enforce compliance. Therefore, it is the “stronger,” more formal organizations (FIGOs) that are of interest.
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The FIGO dataset is best suited to the task of including only those organizations that may be perceived by others as offering a credible alternative to democratization, both by member-states, non-state actors and by other states in the international system. This is not to say that nFIGOs are not important in determining state joining behavior in the international system, but that a different set of causal mechanisms would be expected. As such, all measures of organizational membership are taken from the FIGO dataset.
The Model and the Specification of Variables For the purposes of comparability with previous findings, we seek to create empirical models that conform with one of a very few recent empirical studies on the democratization and as well correlates of joining IGOs (Mansfield and Pevehouse, 2006). We use their base model to provide salient variables for our standard empirical model predicting FIGO participations. To analyze the relationship between democratization and IGO/RGO membership we estimate two models:22 Membership density = ß0 + ß1 Regime Type + ß2 Democratization + ß3 Openness + ß4 Wealth + ß5 Development + ß6 Year + ε⁓ Membership density = ß0 + ß1 Regime Type + ß2 Democratization + ß3 Openness + ß4 Wealth + ß5 Development + ε.
The dependent variable: Membership density We wish to measure the extent to which states respond to the opportunity to join RGOs. Simply measuring the number of organizations joined fails to account for the number of choices a state has to participate in the regional web. Within any region, such as Latin America or Sub-Saharan Africa, there are clusters of organizations, some regional, while others are sub-regional in scope and unavailable to all members of a region. Thus, we measure membership density as the number of organizations joined by a state divided by the number of organizations which that state is eligible to join in the region.23 The resulting values range from 0 (state joins no RGO) through 1 (state joins all possible RGOs available to it in the region). We have also created a second dependent variable that is identical to the regional density
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except that it captures global IGO membership density instead. We do this, as mentioned supra, to provide a comparison for determining those mechanisms which are unique to RGOs and to discern any general FIGO joining behavior that is common across types of organizations.
Independent variables24 To measure regime type, we use the Polity IV database. The scores range from −10 (most autocratic) to +10 (most democratic). These scores are based on the coding of various authority characteristics of states. Polity only measures institutional features of democracy, but is considered a valid measure for democracy given its high correlations with alternative measures (Jaggers and Gurr, 1995). In addition, in order to assess changes in democratization, we introduce a measure that captures the average change in polity score over a five-year period.25 Economic strength is measured using the GDP for each state, in constant 2000 dollars for comparability across time periods. This serves as a basic measure of the overall size of a state’s economic capability and is consistent with the measure employed in other recent empirical studies.26 We also capture a state’s wealth through a measure of GDP per capita, which incorporates a second aspect of economy size but controls for size of population. As a measure of openness, we use the World Development Indicators database, which has reasonably complete information on trade as a percentage of GDP.27 We utilize trade as a percentage of GDP in order to capture how much a state’s economy is devoted to trade.
Findings Tables 6.1 and 6.2 present the estimates of Model 1 for RGO membership density and for global IGO membership density, respectively. The model generates results which are contrary to the predictions of the classic democracy-IGO literature but consistent with the substitution argument. Democratization has no significant effect on RGO membership density in Africa and has a negative and significant impact on RGO membership density in Latin America. This is counter to the “democratic contagion” idea that has been widely argued elsewhere, but it is expected if RGOs are viewed
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as alternatives to global and hegemonic policy preferences. If states are undergoing democratization they will attain many of the same benefits that are acquired through RGO membership, reducing some of the impetus to join and lessening the costs associated with joining regional or global FIGOs, making these organizations more attractive in a relative sense. Regime type is significant and negatively correlated with RGO membership density (consistent with our predictions) in Africa but is not significantly related to RGO participation in Latin America. Openness is negatively and significantly related to membership density in Latin America but is not a significant predictor for Africa. This may be so in Latin America because it is the more protectionist nations that are seeking regional unity against the proportionately more intense hegemonic pressures for liberal market access. The increased degree of influence and pressure by the US triggers an increased and significant response in terms of RGO membership. Development is also negatively and significantly related to membership density in Africa. Given the relatively poor state of African economies, RGOs, constituting a very distant second best alternative to full global liberalization, allow these nations some pooling of market power and resources to solve regional problems. The overall importance of the findings must be placed in context with regards to the strength of the findings. The overall weakness of the R2 is in large part due to the omission of a “prior membership density” variable. The strongest predictor of institutional association is prior association. The reason that no lagged variables were included in the models, in regards to membership density, is because the impact of the variables would become cumulative as the lagged variable would include the lagged impact of the other variables, distracting from the immediate impact of regime type, democratization, openness, etc. Moreover, the impact of each variable must be interpreted in light of the dependent “density measure” which is a percentage and not a simple count, and the cumulative impact over time which is not fully captured by cross-sectional analysis. Both of these factors produce a left shift for each of the variable coefficients generated in the results. The nature of the dependent variable and the impact of cross-sectional analysis should not diminish the importance of the findings, however. The negative correlation between regime type and membership density in Africa reflects the fact that the RGO architecture is dominated by nondemocracies, and the lack of a relationship between democratization and membership density suggests that African states are benefiting in ways unrelated to the democratization effects advanced by contemporary
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Regional FIGO density, African and Latin American states Africa
Regime type Democratization Openness Wealth Development year Constant R2 N
−.012 (.004)** .042 (.031) −.001 (.001) .000 (.000) −2.46*e−12 (1.31*e−12)* .004 (.002)* −7.53 (4.47)* .10 105
Latin America −.001 (.004) −.032 (.016)** −.001 (.000)*** −9.47*e−7 (.001) −1.42*e−13 (1.53*e−13) −.001 (.002) 3.06 (4.11) .28 54
Entries are ordinary least squares estimates, with panel-corrected standard errors in parentheses. ***p ± .01; **p ± .05; *p ± .10. Bold signifies statistically significant figures.
studies.28 The results support the argument that states are using RGOs as policy alternatives, at least in these two regions, and provide support contrary to the claims that states seek membership in RGOs to facilitate democratization. Moreover, in Latin America it is those nations that are becoming less democratic that are likely to increase in the number of RGO memberships. It should be noted that there are two opposing dynamics at play in Latin American organizations, however: those organizations that facilitate state adherence to and adoption of hegemonic policies and those that directly oppose US interests. The results in Table 6.2 echo the findings on the regional web of architecture. Openness is negatively and significantly related to global membership density in both Africa and Latin America, reaffirming the argument that the states joining the web are those that need assistance. However, development is positively and significantly related to global density in both regions and this may reflect the desire of states with sufficiently strong economies to enter into membership in organizations that give them access to global markets. RGOs are a step toward market liberalization but allow safeguards and protection from the pressures of the global markets. Global IGOs promote progress toward full liberalization and might afford less protection for developing regional actors. Regime type is again significant and negatively related to membership density in Africa.29 Democratization fails to have any significant relationship with membership density for either region,
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Global FIGO density, African and Latin American States Africa
Regime type Democratization Openness Wealth Development year Constant R2 N
Latin America
−.005 (.002)*** .003 (.013) −.001 (.000)*** 2.32*e−5 (1.11*e−5)** 1.64*e−12 (5.31*e−13)*** .004 (.001)*** −8.93 (1.82)*** .38 105
−.001 (.001) .005 (.008) −.001 (.000)*** 1.93*10−5 (5.75*e−6)*** 2.73*e−13 (7.37*e−14)*** .004 (.001)*** −7.36 (1.98)*** .73 54
Entries are ordinary least squares estimates, with panel-corrected standard errors in parentheses. ***p ± .01; **p ± .05; *p ± .10. Bold signifies statistically significant figures.
Table 6.3
Regional FIGO density, African states, 1975, 1989, 2004
Regime type Democratization Openness Wealth Development Constant R2 N
1975
1989
2004
−.022(.010)** .088(.053) −.000(.001) .000(.000) −4.92*e−12(3.53*e−12) .408(.118)*** .32 29
−.016(.008)* −.011(.053) −.001(.001) .000(.000) −3.58*e−12(2.41*e−12) .354(.107)*** .20 38
−.014(.008)* .049(.061) −.001(.001) −7.00*e−6(4.28*20−6) −1.34*e−12(1.75*e−12) .625(.095)*** .15 38
Entries are ordinary least squares estimates, with panel-corrected standard errors in parentheses. ***p ± .01; **p ± .05; *p ± .10. Bold signifies statistically significant figures.
directly contrary to what would be expected if states were utilizing these organizations to lock in democratizing reforms. We employed the second model to examine each time period individually across the two regions for each of the dependent variables. This is of theoretical importance because it is possible for there to be vastly different mechanisms at work during each time period and for causal direction and significance to vary. These time-period-specific differences might be lost in the pooled model. In this way, the second model acts as a check on the first, to ensure that no single time period is dominating the results and that the theoretical conclusions drawn are representative of the system across time
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Regional FIGO density, Latin American states, 1975, 1989, 2004 1975
Regime type Democratization Openness Wealth Development Constant R2 N
.004 (.004) −.033 (.018)* −.002 (.001)** 3.03*e−5 (1.76*e−5) −1.38*e−14 (3.27*e−13) 1.15 (.092)*** .28 18
1989
2004
−.001 (.009) .006 (.034) −.001 (.002) 3.46*e−6 (2.62*e−5) −1.43*e−13 (3.65*e−13) .867 (.164)*** .11 18
−.023 (.032) .034 (.063) −.002 (.001)** 2.11*e−5 (2.14*e−5) 2.72*e−14 (2.00*e−13) 1.14 (.246)*** .27 18
Entries are ordinary least squares estimates, with panel-corrected standard errors in parentheses. ***p ± .01; **p ± .05; *p ± .10. Bold signifies statistically significant figures.
and in some instances, across regions. Tables 6.3 and 6.4 present the results for all three cross-sections for both Africa and Latin America, respectively. Most critically for our argument about policy substitutability, we note in Table 6.3 that in Africa the negative relationship between regime type and regional membership density holds across two of the three time periods and is significant for all three periods as well. In Latin America the negative and significant impact of democratization on regional membership density appears to be isolated to the 1975 time period, although the impact of regime type appears negative across two of the three periods. This pattern may have represented a reaction to the Nixon Administration’s highly interventionist tactics during the US-sponsored overthrow of the Chilean socialist government in 1973. Openness remains negatively and significantly related to regional membership density in Latin America for two of the time periods. Model 2 provides consistent results for global membership density across all three time periods (Tables 6.5 and 6.6). In Africa, regime type is negatively correlated with global membership density across all three time periods albeit it is only statistically significantly for 1975 (Table 6.5). This may be the case because these organizations were primarily set up during the earlier periods of African legitimacy when colonial rule was quickly being dismantled and these IGOs were utilized to entrench and institutionalize the new order. There is no significant impact of democratization on membership density (although it is interesting that democratization is negatively correlated for both 1975 and 1989). In general, it appears that regime type
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Stuart Rodgers and Thomas J. Volgy Global FIGO Density, African States, 1975, 1989, 2004
Regime type Democratization Openness Wealth Development Constant R2 N
1975
1989
2004
−.015 (.004)*** −.007 (.023) −.001 (.001) 1.91*10−5 (2.36*e−5) 2.77*e−12 (1.60*e−12) .332 (.053)*** .33 29
−.005 (.004) −.005 (.023) −.001 (.000)** 4.78*10−5 (2.36*e−5)** 1.86*e−13 (1.06*e−12) .435 (.047)*** .17 38
−.002 (.003) .019 (.019) −.001 (.000) 1.12*10−5 (1.38*e−5) 2.09*e−12 (5.66*e−13)*** .490 (.030)*** .32 38
Entries are ordinary least squares estimates, with panel-corrected standard errors in parentheses. ***p ± .01; **p ± .05; *p ± .10. Bold signifies statistically significant figures.
is not an important determinant in global FIGO joining behavior and that no similar democratic-substitution effect is seen on the global level.30 Openness is negatively correlated across all three time periods, but is only significant for 1989. Both wealth and development are positively related to membership density across all three periods and are significantly related in two time periods. Global markets require sufficient infrastructure and economic development to integrate and the IGOs that reinforce the norms and policies of the global markets come with high costs for policy-incompatible states. Interestingly, neither regime type nor democratization has any significant impact on global membership density for Latin America during any of the time periods (Table 6.6). Clearly democratization is not driving the push for global IGO membership, nor does it necessarily appear to be a byproduct of that membership, which is contrary to the classic Kantian argument. Otherwise, there are some substantial similarities to the African region. Both wealth and development appear to be positively related to global IGO membership and are significantly so in 1975 and 2004.31 Openness is negatively related across all three periods and significant in 1975 and 2004.32 The commonalities shared between regions suggest that there are distinct causal mechanisms driving regional and global IGO membership density; but for African and Latin American states democratization does not appear to positively impact either process, and in the context of regional density it appears that states are either reducing their levels of democratization as they join and participate in RGOs or are managing to remain non-democratic.
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Global FIGO Density, Latin American States, 1975, 1989, 2004
Regime type Democratization Openness Wealth Development Constant R2 N
1975
1989
2004
.002 (.003) −.013 (.013) −.002 (.001)** −3.03*e−7 (1.60*e−5) 8.26*e−13 (2.70*e−13)*** .521 (.066)*** .66 18
−.002 (.005) .004 (.016) −.001 (.001) 2.94*e−5 (1.27*e−5)** 1.77*e−13 (1.77*e−13)
−.002 (.011) .020 (.022) −.001 (.000)* 1.87*e−5 (3.39*e−6)** 2.53*e−13 (6.91*e−14)*** .558 (.084)*** .79 18
.522 (.080)*** .66 18
Entries are ordinary least squares estimates, with panel-corrected standard errors in parentheses. ***p ± .01; **p ± .05; *p ± .10. Bold signifies statistically significant figures.
Conclusions The foregoing empirical analysis provides support for the ongoing development of the model advanced in the first section of this chapter. We suggest that democratization does not explain the high rate of participation of non-democracies in regional and global IGO architecture, and in fact the data suggest that all things being equal, states in either region that join and participate in the web of RGOs are not more likely to democratize as a result. There is even a negative relationship apparent for one time period in Latin America which is directly contrary to the democratization effect argument. The consistent negative relationship between regime type and regional membership density in Africa, combined with the complete lack of a significant relationship between democratization and membership density, suggests that African members join and benefit for reasons outside of those advanced in recent literature. Since neither regime type nor increasing democratization appears to be able to explain the membership of non-democracies and emerging democracies in Latin America and Africa, we suggest that the results from all three time periods lend substantial support to argument of a substitution effect. The benefit of examining joining behavior in light of the foreign policy substitutability framework is that the behaviors of both democracies and non-democracies can be explained with a common overarching theory. The models suggest that state membership density in global FIGOs is impacted by different mechanisms than those that affect RGO membership
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density. There is an interesting disconnect between the types of state that join global IGOs in Africa and those that join regional ones: the results in Tables 6.3 and 6.4 clearly demonstrate that less wealthy and smaller economies are more likely to have higher regional density and wealthier and larger economies are more likely to engage in the global IGO architecture. This relationship might be a function of capabilities, or perhaps there is a substitution occurring between those states that have shared policy preferences with the global order and those fighting to insulate themselves from it. In either case, our findings regarding the differences for joining and participating in regional versus global organizations are consistent with the effects of regional organizations noted in Chapter 3. The counterintuitive findings produced by the models are in part the result of examining these relationships through the FIGO classification. The same models utilizing a broader, less restrictive definition of IGO yield less conclusive results that produce virtually no significant relationships. Therefore, it is extremely important to note that only formal IGOs serve as credible policy alternatives within the confines of this theoretical inquiry and that the joining behavior of states in nFIGOs may be motivated by entirely different mechanisms. We make no claims of definitiveness, but the results contained in this chapter do suggest the need for further inquiry into why states join IGOs, particularly FIGOs, and how states may view these organizations as credible policy alternatives to solve domestic and international dilemmas that would otherwise require significant and undesirable policy commitments. It is important to highlight that two or more groups may exhibit similar behavior but for very different policy reasons and that models capable of capturing the different causal mechanisms are required to adequately explain systemic behaviors and architecture.
Notes 1 2 3
For an alternative view arguing for the death of globalization, see Rosenberg, 2005. For examples, see Chapter 2; the list of organizations in the Yearbook of International Organizations at http://www.uia.org; also Pevehouse (2003). For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa, with few democracies but the largest constellation of regional and sub-regional organizations, as noted in Chapter 2.
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We estimate membership in “traditional” RGOs, organizations that states agree to join by treaty, as opposed to “emanations” that are actually created by other organizations and do not require treaty approval by states. But not in every region (e.g., Rapkin, 2001) and not necessarily in the postCold War system, where the US has resisted the development of global and regional institutions it did not control. We are not saying, of course, that the only reason why non-democratic states join RGOs is solely for the democratic substitutability benefit. In fact, our models and the discussion below suggest a number of additional reasons. Downstream market development is when an industry requires the support of other industries and leads to the development of those industries. For example, a shoe manufacturing plant may require a rubber processing plant as well as the development of new infrastructure such as roads and power. Not all preferential agreements are IGOs, however. Although not all agreements are compliant, the barrier reduction effects of PTAs are encouraged by Article XXIV of the GATT/WTO, which requires regional trade agreements to be trade creating in nature and to have lower external tariffs after formation than those that were in place before (Bhala, 2001). For example, trade between states is normally modeled as a pure competition Prisoner’s Dilemma, but “when a Prisoner’s Dilemma is played as a cooperative game, the dilemma disappears” (Morrow, 1994:111). How capable the Secretariat is in performing this activity is partly a function of institutional design. As we noted in Chapters 2 and 3, FIGOs are endowed with bureaucratic structures that are more extensive, better funded, and typically staffed with more independent personnel than general IGOs. Although a recent mapping of global architecture found that increased democratization decreased IGO participation by 11 percent, and those states that moved toward autocracy increased membership by 8 percent (Shanks et al., 1996:609). We concede that this may not be consistently the case, but even when inconsistent, it may be difficult for states to gauge when the hegemon will seek to impose democratic norms. For example, there was a very short time span between President Carter’s emphasis on human rights issues (a degree of demand for democratization) in Latin America and a near-absence of attention to such norms following the change in US administration. It should be noted that we do not measure preferences in the model itself, but that our regional comparisons offer two distinct policy preference environments. In Africa there has been historic broad disagreement with US-led policies but more policy convergence within the region. In Latin America the
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Stuart Rodgers and Thomas J. Volgy agreement/disagreement with US-led policies have waxed and waned over time, creating a mix of organizations that support the hegemonic order and those that offer alternatives against it. These statistics are based off of Polity IVe data. Polity IVe provides scores ranging from −10 to 10, with negative 10 indicating the most autocratic and positive 10 indicating the most democratic. These scores are based on the coding of various authority characteristics of states. This measure is intended to show the level of democracy for each state. Polity only measures institutional features of democracy, but is considered a valid measure for democracy given its high correlations with alternative measures of democracy. The accepted democratic threshold that was used for these statistics was a Polity score of 7 or greater (Jaggers and Gurr, 1995). 1970: 5 democracies; 1980: 7 democracies; 1990: 11 democracies; 2000: 16 democracies. We emphasize “persistent” here, noting that in fact the US, the USSR, China, and former colonial powers, and especially France, have intruded from time to time in the region’s affairs. Most recently, China has come to play a stronger role in its search for natural resources. However, these intrusions wax and wane over time and may not represent a continued and ongoing campaign to influence policy preferences. We compare Sub-Saharan Africa with Latin America since both regions have a fairly large number of RGOs but vary in terms of the number of states with democratic polities across the time frame of the study. This would not be the case for either the Middle East (virtually no democracies) or Asia (few RGOs). A more precise measure that distinguishes between hegemonic-friendly RGOs and those RGOs that oppose hegemonic interests would disentangle and illuminate these effects. The UIL Yearbook of International Organizations identifies new IGOs and RGOs beyond 2004, but does not have sufficient information on their characteristics and membership to allow for our analysis. Ideally, we would track state membership annually. Unfortunately, the database available (Pevehouse, 2005) is based on the UIL Yearbook (Union of International Associations, 2005), which is not necessarily very sensitive to annual changes in membership, and the more recent issues of the Yearbook provide only the most recent membership data. The only difference between the models is the inclusion of the year variable to pool the analysis in the first model, whereas the second model provides three distinct time slices. We do this to examine the cumulative effect of the variables within a region across all three time periods and the impact of each variable during distinct and unique periods of time to ensure that changes in causal direction or time-period-specific patterns are not lost.
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For the process used to determine “opportunity” versus “willingness,” see the discussion in Chapter 2. State membership data are from the COW IGO and FIGO databases as noted in Chapters 3 and 4. It should be noted that conflict, distance, and population, all standard control variables, have not been included in the model. Prior iterations included these variables but they were omitted for practical reasons. Conflict was not found to have a significant impact on the dependent variable for the three time periods in either region. Distance, which is a common variable in dyadic models, has been incorporated into this monadic model through the concept of the geographic region. Lastly, the inclusion of population as a control was significant but the interaction with the wealth variable diminished the influence of wealth as a causal factor. Moreover, the inclusion of population did not affect the causal direction or significance of any of the other variables. This measure differs slightly from the one employed by Mansfield and Pevehouse, but it captures change over the entire five-year period. See Mansfield and Pevehouse, 2006:148. The Gleditsch dataset was not used because the WDI database provided more complete information for the African region, allowing analysis, whereas there would have been a substantial bias toward larger economies otherwise. For other recent studies that utilize the WDI database see: Li and Schaub, 2004, and Biglaiser and Brown, 2005. It should be emphasized that virtually all of the states in the African region are non-democracies and the impact of the joining behavior of those few democracies carries substantial weight. But so does the extent to which non-democracies vary in the extent to which they are autocracies. Further, as additional democracies have emerged in the region through time, those states have acted in ways consistent with the substitution argument. This is in contrast with the findings regarding global FIGOs (discussed later), where neither regime type nor democratization appears to be a significant predictor of membership density with the exception of the African Region in 1975. This is in comparison to the effects at the regional level; however, the models do reveal a significant and negative effect during the Africa-1975 cross-section. This was significant and positively correlated in the African region for 1989. This was significant and negatively correlated in the African region for 1989.
References Bangkok Declaration. 1967. Available at http://www.aseansec.org/1212.htm. Bhala, Raj. 2001. International Trade Law: Theory and Practice. (2nd ed.) York: Lexis Publishing.
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Biglaiser, Glen, and David S. Brown, 2005. “The Determinants of Economic Liberalization in Latin America.” Political Research Quarterly 58:671–80. Bowman, Kirk. 1996. “Taming the Tiger: Militarization and Democracy in Latin America.” Journal of Peace Research 33:289–308. Buzan, Barry. 2005. “The Security Dynamics of a 1 + 4 World.” In Paradigms in Transition: Globalization, Security and the Nation State. SUNY series in global politics. Albany: SUNY Press, pp. 177–98. Buzan, Barry, and Ole Waever. 2004. Regions and Powers: The Structures of International Security. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dixon, William J., and Bruce E. Moon. 1993. “Political Similarity and American Foreign Trade Patterns.” Political Research Quarterly 46:5–25. Dixon, William J. 1993. “Democracy and the Management of International Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 37:42–68. Dixon, William J. 1994. “Democracy and the Peaceful Settlement of International Conflict.” American Political Science Review 88:14 –32. Dixon, William J. 1996. “Third-Party Techniques for Preventing Conflict Escalation and Promoting Peaceful Settlement.” International Organization 50:653 –81. Foot, Rosemary S. Neil MacFarlene and Michael Mastanduno, eds. 2003. US Hegemony and International Organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goertz, Gary, and Paul F. Diehl. 2000. War and Peace in International Rivalry. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Goertz, Gary. 2005. Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ikenberry, G. John. 2001. After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jaggers, Keith, and Ted Robert Gurr. 1995. “Tracking Democracy’s Third Wave with the Polity III Data.” Journal of Peace Research 32:469–82. Lemke, Douglas. 2002. Regions of War and Peace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Li, Quan, and Drew Schaub. 2004. “Economic Globalization and Transnational Terrorism: A Pooled Time-Series Analysis.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 48:230–58. Locke, Richard M. and Kathleen Thelen. 1993. “Apples and Oranges Revisited: Contextualized Comparisons and the Study of Comparative Labour Politics.” Politics and Society 23:337–68. Mansfield, Edward D., and Helen V. Milner. 1999. “The Political Economy of Regionalism.” International Organization 53:589–627. Mansfield, Edward D., and Jon C. Pevehouse. 2000. “Trade Blocs, Trade Flows and International Conflict.” International Organization 54:775–808. Mansfield, Edward D., and Jon C. Pevehouse. 2006. “Democratization and International Organizations.” International Organization 60:137–67.
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Mansfield, Edward D., Helen V. Milner, and B. Peter Rosendorff. 2000. “Free to Trade: Democracies, Autocracies and International Trade.” American Political Science Review 94:305–21. Mitchell, Sara McLaughlin. 2002. “A Kantian System? Democracy and Third. Party Conflict Resolution.” American Journal of Political Science, 46:749–59. Moravcsik, Andrew. 2000. “The Origins of Human Rights Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar Europe.” International Organization 54:217–52. Morrow, James D., Randolph M. Siverson, and Tressa E. Tabares. 1998. “The Political Determinants of International Trade: The Major Powers, 1907–90.” American Political Science Review 92:649–61. Morrow, James D. 1994. Game Theory for Political Scientists. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Most, Benjamin A., and Harvey Starr. 1984. “International Relations Theory, Foreign Policy Substitutability, and ‘Nice’ Laws.” World Politics 36:383–406. North, Douglass C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Preference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pevehouse, Jon C. 2002. “With a Little Help from My Friends? Regional Organizations and the Consolidation of Democracy.” American Journal of Political Science 46:611–26. Pevehouse, Jon C. 2005. Democracy from Above? Regional Organizations and Democratization. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pevehouse, Jon C., Timothy Nordstrom, and Kevin Warnke. 2003.“Intergovernmental Organizations, 1815–2000: A New Correlates of War Data Set.” Available at http://cow2.la.psu.edu/. Rapkin, David P. 2001. “The United States, Japan, and the Power to Block: The APEC and AMF Case.” Pacific Review 14:373–410. Rosenberg, Justin. 2005. “Globalization Theory: A Post Mortem.” International Politics 42:2–74. Russett, Bruce M., John R. Oneal, and David R. Davis. 1998. “The Third Leg of the Kantian Tripod for Peace: International Organizations and Militarized Disputes, 1950–85.” International Organization 52:441–67. Shanks, Cheryl, Harold K. Jacobson, and Jeffrey H. Kaplan. 1996. “Inertia and Change in the Constellation of International Governmental Organizations, 1981–1992.” International Organization 50:593–627. Smith, James McCall 2000. “The Politics of Dispute Settlement Design: Explaining Legalism in Regional Trade Pacts.” International Organization 54:137–80. Union of International Associations and K. G. Saur. 2005. Yearbook of International Organizations (online edition). Available at http://www.uia.org. Volgy, Thomas J., and Alison Bailin. 2003. International Politics and State Strength. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
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Chapter 7
State Support for Human Rights Treaties Petra Roter, Anus˘ka Ferligoj, and Andrej Mrvar
Introduction Over the past two centuries, a dense intergovernmental institutional web1 has developed, composed of different international institutions, including organizations and international regimes. Variation of states’ membership in institutional webs at different levels of governance appears to suggest their preference, or their strategic interests, to be involved in decision-making Anus˘ka Ferligoj is a professor of statistics at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. She is the head of the graduate program on Statistics at the University of Ljubljana and head of the Research Center of Methodology and Informatics at the Institute of Social Sciences. She is the editor of the statistical journal Metodološki zvezki, and a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Journal of Classification, Social Networks, Methodology, Statistics in Transition, Structure and Dynamics, Statistical Analysis and Data Mining, and Advances in Data Analysis and Classification. She was a Fulbright Scholar in 1990 and a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh. She was awarded the title of Ambassador of Science of the Republic of Slovenia in 1997. Her interests include multivariate analysis, social networks, and survey methodology. She is the co-author of Generalized Blockmodeling (2005), which obtained the Harrison White Outstanding Book Award in 2007. Andrej Mrvar finished his PhD in Computer Science at Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is an associate professor of social science informatics at the Faculty of Social Sciences. He has won several awards for graph drawings at competitions between 1995 and 2005. Since 2000, he has edited the statistical journal Metodološki zvezki. He is one of the co-authors of the program package Pajek (with Vladimir Batagelj), and one of the co-authors of the book Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek (2005).
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processes in individual institutions, but it does not provide any information about what states actually do once they have joined the web. For example, how do they, as members of international institutions, behave when it comes to the development of, or support to, norms? Further, how does their support for such norms change, if at all, in the wake of major systemic changes, such as the end of the bipolar Cold War divide? If a particular pattern of state behavior has developed in a specific institutional context, what happens if the broader environment changes? This chapter seeks to begin addressing this puzzle in one key issue area of international relations – human rights. In particular, our attention will be devoted to human rights protection within the UN. In the context of studying the issue of a (new) world order, human rights are important for at least three reasons. First, although questions of people’s rights, duties, and responsibilities have been part and parcel of different cultures and religious traditions, and were included in the Hindu Vedas, the Hammurabi’s Code, the K’oran, the Bible, and the Analects of Confucius (HRRC, 1998), modern human rights norms began to appear in written form in documents produced in the West (now also called the North; Hadjor, 1998): the British Magna Carta (1215), the English Bill of Rights (1689), the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789), the American Bill of Rights (1789), and the Geneva Conventions in the mid-nineteenth century. When promotion and protection of human rights became a matter of international concern after World War II, as included in the UN Charter, and when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights2 was adopted in 1948, there were only 58 UN members. Although the Declaration was meant “to provide a common standard that can be brought to life in different cultures” (Glendon, 2001:xviii), the increasing political animosities between the US and the Soviet bloc made the adoption process far from straightforward. In the end, 48 states voted for the Declaration, two were absent, and eight abstained: Belarus, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, South Africa, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. Saudi Arabia’s abstention was due to religious freedom, whereas the Eastern bloc’s, according to Eleanor Roosevelt, was most likely because it could not accept “Article 13, which provides that everyone has the right to leave his country” (quoted in Glendon, 2001:170). Second, abstention by the countries from the Communist bloc in 1948 later developed into fully fledged opposition to perceiving all human rights as a single whole. The East–West divide manifested itself in the human rights issue area, with the East giving priority to economic, social, and
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cultural rights, and the West to civil and political rights.3 Further, the “Anglo-American dialect of rights language emphasized individual liberty and initiative more than equality or social solidarity” (Glendon, 2001:xvii). Accordingly, the West perceived individuals as holders of human rights, whereas the East saw the realization of human rights as a collective (community) matter. In the Soviet constitutional tradition, the individual was subordinated to the state, equality took priority over freedom, and social and economic rights took priority over political and civil liberties (Glendon, 2001:xviii). Such fundamentally opposing ideas subsequently led to the formation of two universal human rights treaties (both international covenants), contrary to expectations that one single legally binding treaty would supplement the Universal Declaration. Third, the idea of human rights has been formulated as an issue of international concern, but because of Cold War divisions, protection of human rights frequently came to be perceived as interference by powerful states in the internal affairs of young, newly decolonized, and newly independent states. New dividing lines in the international community – i.e., between rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped, colonizing powers (or former powers) and former colonies – further diversified interests in human rights (Caney, 2001): for the developing world, the key concern was full realization of economic or social rights. Basic human needs, such as food, shelter, water, or personal security, were at the forefront of many African governments’ concerns. Personal freedoms, involving rights regarding information, opinion, or speech, were secondary. Not for Western European or North American governments, however. To them, basic civil and political rights were not to be subjected to any compromise. Simultaneously, Western reference to non-interference in internal affairs and sovereignty effectively prevented any substantial international criticism of, among other things, racial segregation in the US (Hadjor, 1998:363). Due to such Cold War disagreements, it is not surprising, as Hadjor (1998:364) points out, that the demise of the Cold War “gave human rights diplomacy a new lease on life.” But even such seemingly favorable circumstances have gradually opened up some arguably fundamental disagreements about human rights among states from different world regions. On one hand, protection of human rights has come to be interpreted (although generally by political regimes unfriendly to human rights) as an imposition of Western values to cultures and traditions that are very different from the idea of individual freedoms and rights. This argument has come to be known as cultural relativism of human rights, often heard from Asian
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governments (Jones, 2001; Callaway, 2007). On the other hand, the criticism of tyrants and dictators has been complemented by “the criticism of the cultural and social practices that prevail in the undemocratic societies of the South,” thereby suggesting the necessity of saving the South from itself (Hadjor, 1998:364). This has positioned the North, with many international institutions, as the global moral high ground, but new South-based challenges to such problematic practices have subjected the field of human rights to power politics (Hadjor, 1998:367–8) – all this with the Cold War world order long gone, and in the absence of the old East–West divide. In the wake of such conflictual views and attitudes by regionally affiliated groups of states, we raise the following question about human rights diffusion in the international community: Have states, in the absence of the Cold War bloc affiliations, shown different patterns of support to universal human rights norms over time, and if they have, are such patterns regionally based? Since human rights development and promotion are fundamental to its charter, the UN provides the most appropriate institutional framework for seeking answers to such questions. Also, the UN human rights norms as formulated in general human rights UN treaties represent, as a whole, the international compromise on the content of what has been accepted as universal, indivisible human rights. Such treaties are open to all states and no regional affiliation is needed for a state to adhere to those treaties.4 We will therefore try to establish to what extent human rights have become universally accepted in the global international community as it has structurally changed since the end of the Cold War, and within the UN whose outcomes, including norms and state support to them, have always been subject to coalition-building. Since the UN is the dominant forum for action on human rights globally, we analyze the extent to which it has been able to socialize states in the issue area of human rights, and what the effects of such socialization are over time, in the period between 1975 and 1989, and between 1989 and 2004,5 when a major systemic change occurred. Thus, we seek to assess the effects, if any, of the disappearance of the bipolar division on state attitudes toward human rights within the UN as the only international institution concerned with human rights protection globally, across regions. This chapter is organized in six sections. In the following section we discuss human rights from a theoretical perspective, as an international normative framework, and review the relevant literature. The third section discusses the database we have created to address empirically when and how states have entered the normative network unfolding in the UN,
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through a blockmodeling approach used in social network analysis (Doreian et al., 2005). We use this approach to analyze patterns in three specific years (1975, 1989, and 2004) of state support to human rights at the level of their legally binding commitments to international human rights treaties. The fourth section is devoted to analysis of the data on state acceptance of human rights treaties according to world regions. By looking at state support to human rights treaties over time, we seek to establish whether or not this system change has affected the normative network of human rights, and its membership. In the fifth section, we put regional affiliation of states in brackets, by analyzing state behavior in the issue area of human rights (again based on state support to human rights treaties) of all existing states at once. With the blockmodeling we seek groups or clusters of states that behaved, at any of the three periods under examination, in the same manner; i.e., they established the same or similar mutual linkages through the existing (available) universal human rights treaties. We are interested in clusters and in changes in membership over time. With the Pajek program (de Nooy et al., 2005) we then draw maps of such behavior for the three years, in which the strongest supporters of human rights treaties are presented in the center. The results of our analysis dismiss regional affiliation as an explanation for state behavior in the issue area of human rights. Very different states, from different regions, behaved similarly at different times. In the concluding sixth section, we analyze different patterns of norm diffusion prior to and after the end of the Cold War, under the auspices of the UN.
Human Rights as an International Normative Framework Since the creation of the UN, human rights have become a fundamental normative issue in international relations, even a new standard of civilization, as one author has argued (Donnelly, 1998). In addition to national institutions, a wide range of international institutions – universal, regional or sub-regional, governmental and non-governmental – seek to promote human rights in the international community, and to monitor the implementation of human rights standards at the national level in individual states. Those activities and norms that have developed over the past few
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decades form a normative context for state behavior.6 More fundamentally, it is within such a normative context that state interests are defined. As Finnemore (1996:2) suggests: [s]tate interests are defined in the context of internationally held norms and understandings about what is good and appropriate. Such a normative context influences the behavior of decisionmakers and of mass publics who may choose and constrain those decisionmakers.
Of course, the normative context may, and indeed does change over time, thereby influencing the formation of state interests and, consequently, state behavior (ibid.). In addition to pressure by domestic groups and international threats (Sikkink, 1993b), such impacts of international norms or the power of ideas (Sikkink, 1993a), on the very construction of state interests, have also been observed in the issue area of human rights (Finnemore, 1996; Checkel, 1999a, 1999b; Linden, 2002). The research had been, however, nonsystematic and rather scarce until just a few years ago. Since then, research on state support for human rights treaties has focused on two broad issues: the process of ratification of international human rights treaties, and actual changes on the ground, i.e., actual improvements of human rights, in the wake of treaty ratification. Researchers have sought answers to: How do human rights treaties get ratified, and what difference do they make in practice? Based on ever-increasing studies on state support to human rights treaties, we have learned a number of important factors that make states more or less likely to ratify individual treaties, and more or less prone to implement them domestically. Because the results of overwhelmingly quantitative analyses are largely dependent on available data, and because the scope of those analyses has differed in terms of treaties and the number of states for which the relevant data have been collected, the results have differed in some instances, and cannot be applied to the entire issue area of human rights. Still, those analyses offer some insights into understanding state support to human rights treaties. The international human rights regime differs from international trade, and from monetary, environmental, or security regimes, in that it is “not designed primarily to regulate policy externalities arising from societal interactions across borders, but to hold governments accountable for purely internal activities,” and in that human rights norms “are not generally enforced by interstate action” (Moravcsik, 2000:217). Human rights empower individuals to challenge intrastate actions based on international
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norms. Despite such inherent challenges to state sovereignty, why do states commit to human rights treaties? A decade ago, Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) offered one explanation: States commit to human rights norms to follow other states, which had already committed, and they do so when they are generally expected to commit. State behavior at the international level and their interests cannot always be explained by domestic politics. Because states “are embedded in dense networks of transnational and international social relations that shape their perceptions of the world and their role in that world,” they “are socialized to want certain things by the international society” and their “interests are defined in the context of internationally held norms and understandings about what is good and appropriate” (Finnemore, 1996:2, emphasis in original). At some point, states may become convinced that it is appropriate for them to adopt certain human rights norms, thereby making those norms constitutive of their state identity. These findings have been subjected to empirical testing. As a result, state commitment to human rights norms has been attributed to several factors, and explanations have largely moved back to the domestic level. Based on his analysis of the formulation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Moravcsik (2000) has shown that states are interested in establishing human rights for domestic political self-interest. Such self-binding at the international level is most beneficial to newly established democracies, “which have the greatest interest in further stabilizing the domestic political status quo against nondemocratic threats” (Moravcsik, 2000:220). By committing to international human rights treaties, states therefore seek to lock in domestically the benefits of international norms. Entering the human rights regime can be particularly beneficial for democratizing states: although this poses certain sovereignty costs, emerging democracies are more likely to bear those costs and use them “to lock in liberal policies and to signal their intention to consolidate democratic institutions and practices” (Hafner-Burton et al., 2008a:1). Moreover, the greater the costs, the more likely are democratizing states to join human rights regimes, and stable democracies are faster to join such regimes than autocracies. But UN human rights treaties, as opposed to human rights organizations,7 bear relatively few sovereignty costs (Hafner-Burton et al., 2008a). Because different types of government had been assumed to deal with commitment costs differently, it is notable that no statistically significant differences have been observed with respect to domestic governance type and
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adherence to six major UN human rights treaties, although democratization has stimulated treaty commitment (Hafner-Burton et al., 2008a:14, 28). Based on their analysis of one human rights treaty (on the prevention of torture), Goodliffe and Hawkins (2006), however, found no evidence to support the “lock-in” argument for governmental human rights commitment. Similarly, Hathaway (2003:136) has suggested that democratic nations are more likely to commit to human rights treaties than nondemocratic ones, but that democratic states with poorer human rights record are less likely to commit than democracies with better human rights ratings. That the lock-in argument bears little significance in Hathaway’s study is clear from the general trend observed (Hathaway, 2003:135): The higher the cost of commitment – a cost defined by the interaction of a country’s divergence from the human rights standards outlined in the treaty and the likelihood that the country will actually put those standards into place if it joins – the less likely a nation to join a human rights treaty.
Goodliffe and Hawkins (2006) have also analyzed in greater detail possible costs and benefits of state commitment to human rights norms in the case of the UN Convention against Torture (CAT). Do states “weigh the benefits of lock-in and normative conformity against the costs of those commitments,” including the costs of policy change, unintended consequences and limited flexibility (Goodliffe and Hawkins, 2006:359)? Their answer is affirmative: normative conformity and various costs – not just sovereignty costs (Hafner-Burton et al., 2008a) – matter for treaty signature and ratification. With respect to the costs of adhering to the treaty, countries with more civil liberties, the rule of law,8 and those with a common law judicial system are more likely to sign and ratify the CAT. More powerful states are more likely to ratify it because they perceive their resources to be sufficient to avoid unintended negative consequences. By contrast, states involved in interstate disputes, but not poorer states, are less likely to commit to the CAT (Goodliffe and Hawkins, 2006:365–6). However, the most important factor affecting state commitment is not costs, but the behavior of other states. Importantly, if states from the same region have signed or ratified the treaty, the country is more likely to sign or ratify the treaty, and to do that sooner, whereas global support to the treaty affects only a country’s likelihood to ratify, and not to sign (Goodliffe and Hawkins, 2006:365).9 All this appears to suggest “that perhaps norms play a role above and beyond the costs and benefits they provide” (Goodliffe and Hawkins, 2006:369).
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With regard to state commitment to international monetary norms, “the behavior of other countries, especially in one’s own region, has far more influence on commitment and compliance than has generally been recognized” (Simmons, 2000:832). The setting of norms and assessment of reputational costs take place among “groups of roughly comparable countries,” but through international markets rather than international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (ibid.). This may be specific to the monetary norms. In the issue area of human rights, however, the “decentralized forces,” seen by Simmons as influencing state norm commitment, may come in the form of common values, as a precondition for human rights organizations. Thus, shared perceptions about support to individual human rights norms may provide the “international market” that affects state commitment in this issue area. In addition to analyzing the issue of why and how states commit to human rights norms in international human rights treaties, scholars have probed the relationship between such commitments and effects in practice. Expectations differ, depending on different perspectives on international relations. From a (neo)realist point of view, positive effects of human rights norms depend on powerful states, but these are precisely the states, as explained by Neumayer (2005:926), that are “rarely consistent in their application of human rights standards to their foreign policy, and they are rarely willing to grant human rights questions priority,” unless their own citizens are affected by them; or in cases where they provide a necessary moral justification for otherwise imperialist motives behind humanitarian interventions, such as the one in Iraq (Conlon, 2004). Consequently, the international human rights regime has weak decision-making procedures, without the power to affect state sovereignty in any significant manner.10 Contrary to (neo)realism, institutionalism takes a more positive view of actual effects of international regimes. In general, human rights treaties affect the behavior of governments, particularly when governments do not ratify them for the purpose of “window-dressing for the self-interested pursuit of national goals” (Hathaway, 2002:1940). The human rights regime is believed to have led to a modest improvement of human rights protection within states, mainly because states that have ratified individual human rights treaties can be held accountable (Landman, 2005; Neumayer, 2005), although this may be exercised indirectly (Neumayer, 2005:951): by moral or material pressures (Sikkink, 1993b), through foreign aid or by action of non-governmental organizations, rather than by treaty enforcement mechanisms (Payne and Abouharb, n.d.: 7–9). Additionally, such indirect effects
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may refer to the creation of a common human rights language, reinforcement of the universality of human rights, building a consensus of the international community with respect to human rights, providing the background norms for stigmatizing human rights offenders, or providing support to human rights campaigners (Cassel, in Neumayer, 2005:951). But the opportunities for domestic and international criticism, by human rights campaigners and champions, of human-rights-violating states with no intention of improving their human rights record have also brought about unexpected negative effects, such as altering the types of repression from overt to less detectable (Payne and Abouharb, n.d.: 15–17).11 Quantitative analyses of actual effects of human rights norms have produced similarly mixed knowledge, depending on particular circumstances, rights, or treaties analyzed. With regards to the effects of ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Camp Keith (1999) has noted a difference in human rights protection between state parties and non-parties to this treaty, but no statistically significant difference in state behavior before and after the ratification of the ICCPR. This has led her to conclude that “it may be overly optimistic to expect that being a party to this international covenant will produce an observable direct impact” (Camp Keith, 1999:112). However, it is possible that the ICCPR does have an impact but that students have been unable to discern it, for at least two reasons: first, the impact may be more indirect, on changes of domestic law that will only make it possible for human rights protection to take place. Second (Camp Keith, 1999:113, emphasis in original), becoming a party to the covenant may only be the final step in a long socialization process within the international community that influences a state’s willingness to protect human rights. Thus, formally joining the treaty may serve primarily as a formal or symbolic recognition of behavioral norms and international standards that the state has already accepted and has begun to act upon.
Of course, evidence would be hard to find and it would be almost impossible to test this outcome with quantitative methodology. In a study encompassing different types of human rights (not just civil and political rights) for 79 countries, Cingranelli and Richards (1999) examined whether the end of the Cold War had had any effect on the propensity of governments to respect human rights. They showed that torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings continued at about the same rate;
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significant improvement occurred for the right against political imprisonment; and that despite lower rates of interstate and intrastate conflicts, there was no increased respect for the right against political imprisonment, although some short-term improvements in Africa were observed at first (Cingranelli and Richards, 1999). It is clear that treaty ratification does not have unconditional effects on human rights, but such positive effects increase in more democratic countries, while in autocratic states treaty ratification can even lead to more violations of human rights (Neumayer, 2005). In fact, states with very negative human rights records continue to sign and ratify human rights treaties at the same pace as states with good human rights ratings (Hafner-Burton et al., 2008b; Vreeland, 2008).12 This is due to opportunities in the human rights regime that enable governments to display low-cost human rights legitimizing commitments, without any intention or capability to implement them in practice (Hafner-Burton et al., 2008b).13 In sum, the intensive quantitative research on state behavior in the issue area of human rights has produced many insights into why states join human rights treaties and into the effects of those ratifications, but the results have been often conflicting, and applicable to a limited number of treaties and hence to specific human rights or to a limited number of countries. Furthermore, much of the research seems to have been method- and data-driven and especially influenced by variables for which data are widely available. Consequently, state behavior has been frequently explained by characteristics of states that had been previously measured and collected, such as the level of democracy, the number of interstate conflicts, or the rule of law. Neither has there been much synthesis of a large variety of competing explanations, including the failure to identify competing explanations emerging from quantitative and qualitative findings (Hafner-Burton and Ron, 2007). Just as important, it has been recognized that there is enormous crossregional variation in patterns of state–society interaction, and because human rights “often seek to fundamentally reshape state–society relations, it would be wrong to assume that identical efforts will play out in similar ways across world regions” (Hafner-Burton and Ron, 2007:382). If states care how other states behave (even more if they are neighboring ones) to such an extent that this can affect their own behavior in the international community (Simmons, 2000; Goodliffe and Hawkins, 2006), then trends and trend-setters in state support to human rights may provide some valuable information about both norm diffusion and the strength or
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effectiveness of international organizations with regards to changes in normative beliefs. If the expectation about region-based similarities in state attitudes toward human rights is correct even when it comes to global, universal, UN-based human rights treaties, then more attention needs to be devoted to the way regions are conceived; regions are never solely a matter of geography, as the recent debate about the level of Europeanness of Turkey demonstrates (e.g., Keyder, 2006; Baban and Keyman, 2008).
The Data and Organization States generally attempt to support human rights at different levels of governance, including universally. Due to the wider research on state participation in institutional webs and comparison between state participation in global and regional webs, and due to different perceptions about individual human rights treaties and their importance in different parts of the world, the present research about state participation in the issue area of human rights has been carried out at the universal level, although by taking into account the regional dimension. We have compiled data for all major human rights treaties, for all existing states in the three periods under examination: 1975, 1989, and 2004. All major universal (open to all states) human rights treaties (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), with key protocols, both on matters of substance (i.e., on a specific human right) and on procedural matters (i.e., allowing the Human Rights Committee to receive individual complaints by citizens of a state party to the treaty and the relevant protocol), have been analyzed (the list of treaties is in the appendix). Only ratifications, rather than signatures, are used to measure support for a treaty.14 Lastly, the 15-year period enables a sufficient time span for a country to sign and ratify a treaty if it has a genuine intention to become a state party to the treaty, rather than only announcing, by signing a treaty, its possible commitment in the future.
Regions The data have been compiled for the existing states in the three years, and subsequently organized by state regional affiliation, given the assumption that states with similar traditions (history, political development, culture in
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the broad sense of the word) share the same or at least similar values and are expected to support the same human rights treaties over time. Given that the same argument supports the formation of general, multi-purpose regional organizations, or a specialized human rights regional organization such as the Council of Europe, “regions” have been primarily designed based on state membership in such organizations (where they exist). The situation at present has been taken as a point of departure for delineating state regional affiliation; based on shared interests, norms, and values, states have joined the same institutions over time, or the lack of such commonly shared interests, norms, and values has prevented them from establishing a relevant regional organization, and they are, consequently, related only by geographical location. Such physical proximity may still affect norm diffusion among neighbors. Determining regions based on the state of affairs at present enables us to analyze whether, and how, states behaved in the issue area of human rights in 1975 and 1989, when compared to other states in the same region, regardless of their institutional membership in the existing regional organizations at the time. For 1975 and 1989, we have thus defined membership in a regional organization as an independent variable (i.e., instead of assuming that state membership in a regional organization has led to strong regional affiliation that can be observed in the human rights issue area, we ask whether or not states that have come to share the same regional institutional affiliation by 2004 act similarly in the period between 1975 and 2004 in the issue area of human rights). The following “regions” (groups of states) have been formed according to the criteria specified above: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, Arab/The Middle East (Arab/ME), Oceania, and Other. The European region is constituted by members of the Council of Europe (CoE) – presently 47 states.15 The European system of human rights protection under the auspices of the CoE is widely acknowledged as the most developed, with the European Court of Human Rights having the power to impose financial sanctions on human-rights-violating states. This region encompasses old and new democracies, states with the longest traditions of human rights protection (the UK, France), and former Communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, including parts of the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic states, and the Russian Federation), which have all become members of the CoE, and hence state parties to the ECHR, since the early 1990s, or later. Turkey, a CoE member since 1950, is included in this region.16 Due to the state-formation and nation-building processes
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Table 7.1 International system membership in 1975, 1989 and 2004 (own data)1
Region
No. states 1975
Africa Americas Asia Europe Arab/ Middle East Oceania Other Total
No. states Change No. states 1989 (1975–89) 2004
Change (1989– 2004)
Change (1975– 2004)
40 29 23 35 21
41 35 24 35 22
2.5 % 20.7 % 4.4 % – 4.8 %
43 35 30 46 21
4.9 % – 25.0 % 31.4 % – 4.6 %
7.5 % 20.7 % 30.4 % 31.4 % –
7 3 158
13 3 173
85.7 % – 9.5 %
14 3 192
7.7 % – 11.1 %
100.0 % – 21.5 %
1
Data compiled based on UN admissions, the COW database, and websites of individual states.
after the end of the Cold War, this region grew most dramatically between 1989 and 2004, increasing by about 31 percent (Table 7.1). The Americas region is made up of the Organization of American States (OAS), and is the second most developed regional system for the protection of human rights. This is a diverse group of states from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean.17 Two regions – Africa and the Middle East – each have regional organizations (the African Union and the League of Arab States), but memberships partly overlap in North Africa.18 Since North African states are also members of the League of Arab States, but not vice versa, all the African states that are members of both organizations have been included in the Arab/ME region (hence the name), given the Arab values as the basis for affiliation with the League of Arab States.19 All other African states belong to the region of Africa. Two regions without any general, multi-purpose regional organization, or without any human rights regional institution, are Asia and Oceania. Here, geographical location has been used as the selection criterion for regional membership. Several sources have been compared for regional affiliation, based on geography, combined with geopolitics, for the purpose of combining the Asian region (30 states in 2004) and the region of Oceania (14 states in 2004).
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Due to systemic changes, both as a result of decolonization and in the wake of the end of the Cold War, the number of states in most regions has increased. The expansion/density of the international system, and different growth rates in individual regions, should be noted when analyzing state acceptance of human rights treaties. If the original member-states of the UN needed two decades to adopt the first universal legally binding general human rights treaties (the covenants on civil and political rights, and on economic social and cultural rights), and another 10 years to ratify them to enter into force, the newly formed states in the period since 1975, and particularly since the end of the Cold War, generally need just a few years to become state parties to at least a few human rights conventions. As will be seen below, in 2004 there was no state that would not be legally bound by at least some human rights obligations.
The treaties For this effort, we analyze only universal human rights treaties, and some optional protocols. As states have gradually adopted new treaties, the analysis for subsequent years takes into consideration the newly adopted treaties. The treaties for each time frame are listed in the appendix. As noted earlier, state support for each treaty is measured by that state’s ratification.20
Support to human rights over time Based on the analysis of support for human rights treaties over time (1975, 1989, and 2004), while taking into account that the number of treaties has itself grown, two observations are apparent: support for individual treaties has increased, and almost every treaty has come to be supported by a significant proportion of the existing states. In 1975 (Figure 7.1; Table 7.2), on the average, 28 percent of all states supported an individual human rights treaty, with a range of 55 percent for the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) to 7 percent of existing states supporting the optional protocol for the ICCPR. In 1975, support to human rights treaties was not equal in all world regions (Figure 7.2): Europe and states in the Americas region showed most support to human rights treaties (on the average, every treaty was supported by 42 percent of all European
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State Support for Human Rights Treaties CPCG 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
CAT
CEDAW
ICSPCA
189
ICERD
ICCPR
ICCPR-OPT1
ICESCR
Africa Americas Asia Europe
Arab/ Middle East Oceania Other ALL
Figure 7.1 Support for human rights treaties, 1975
states, and by 34 percent of all states in the Americas), whereas Africa (18 percent), Asia (19 percent), and Oceania (19 percent) were on the other end of the continuum. In some regions (Asia, Oceania, Arab/ME), there was no support to strengthen monitoring procedures by allowing the Human Rights Committee to receive individual complaints (Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR-OPT1) ). By 1989 (Figure 7.3; Table 7.3), the acceptance rate of individual treaties had increased: by 40 percent for the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA), by 30 percent for the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
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Table 7.2
Support for human rights treaties, by regions, 1975
No. states 40 29 23 35 21
Region
CPCG
Africa Americas Asia Europe Arab/ Middle East Oceania Other ALL
7 3 158
ICCPROPT1 ICESCR ICSPCA
ICERD
ICCPR
20.00 68.97 56.52 74.29 42.86
47.50 62.07 30.44 68.57 61.91
12.50 24.14 8.70 40.00 28.57
5.00 20.69 0 11.43 0
12.50 24.14 13.04 40.00 28.57
7.50 3.45 4.35 17.14 19.05
42.86 66.67 51.27
57.14 66.67 55.06
0 33.33 22.15
0 0 7.60
14.29 33.33 23.42
0 33.33 10.13
Asia
Europe
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Africa
CPCG
Americas
ICERD
ICCPR
Arab/ Middle Oceania Other East
ICCPR-OPT
ICESCR
ALL ICSPCA
Figure 7.2 Regional support for human rights treaties, 1975
Rights (ICESCR), by 29 percent for the ICCPR, by 20 percent for the ICCPR-OPT1, and by 18 percent for the ICERD. Two new treaties, adopted between 1975 and 1989, were ratified by 58 and 28 percent. All treaties, with the exception of the youngest (CAT) and the procedural optional protocol (ICCPR-OPT1), were ratified by more than a half of all states, with the ICERD having the highest acceptance rate of 73 percent, exactly 20 years
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State Support for Human Rights Treaties CPCG 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
CAT
CEDAW
191
ICERD
ICCPR
ICSPCA
ICCPR-OPT1
ICESCR
Africa
Arab/ Middle East
Americas
Oceania
Asia
Other
Europe
ALL
Figure 7.3 Support for human rights treaties, 1989
after it had entered into force in 1969. Overall, the average rate of support for all human rights treaties between 1975 and 1989 increased from an average of 28 percent of state support to 50 percent by 1989. As in 1975, patterns of state support for human rights treaties in 1989 differed according to regional affiliation of individual states (Figure 7.4; Table 7.3). Europe and the Americas regions continued to show the strongest support for all human rights treaties: on the average, 66 percent and 62 percent, respectively. Support diminished across the other regions, ranging from 47 percent in Africa to only 20 percent in Oceania. All but the region of Oceania increased their acceptance rate between 1975 and 1989, with the largest rates of increase coming from Africa and Asia. By 1989, the stateformation process after decolonization had clearly been complete. The
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Table 7.3 No. states 41 35 24 35 22
13 3 173
Support for human rights treaties, by regions, 1989
ICCPRRegion CPCG ICERD ICCPR OPT1 ICESCR ICSPCA CEDAW CAT Africa Americas Asia Europe Arab/ Middle East Oceania Other ALL
34.15 68.57 66.67 82.86 50.00
78.05 77.14 62.50 77.14 77.27
43.90 29.27 60.00 48.57 37.50 4.17 77.14 42.86 50.00 9.09
46.34 65.71 37.50 80.00 50.00
70.73 60.00 58.33 25.71 59.09
60.98 80.00 50.00 77.14 22.73
12.20 34.29 12.50 62.86 18.18
38.46 46.15 15.39 7.69 66.67 100.00 33.33 0 58.38 73.34 51.45 27.75
23.08 33.33 54.34
0 33.33 50.29
15.39 33.33 57.80
15.39 33.33 28.32
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Africa
Americas
Asia
Europe
Arab/ Oceania Other Middle East
CPCG
ICCPR
ICESCR
CEDAW
ICERD
ICCPR-OPT1
ICSPCA
CAT
ALL
Figure 7.4 Regional support for human rights treaties, 1989
newly independent states were now becoming responsible members of the international community and accepting the existing norms, including those in the issue area of human rights protection. In 2004, the international system was fundamentally different from the one in 1989: the number of states had increased by 11 percent and the Cold
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14 3 192
43 35 30 46 21
No. states
Region
93.02 91.43 80.00 97.83 95.24
35.71 42.86 66.67 100.00 70.83 88.54
51.16 77.14 73.33 93.48 71.14
14.29 66.67 80.21
95.35 85.57 63.33 97.83 71.14
CPCG ICERD ICCPR
14.29 33.33 54.69
65.12 62.86 30.00 84.78 19.05
14.29 0 28.13
11.63 20.00 10.00 78.26 4.76
21.43 66.67 78.65
90.70 77.14 66.67 97.83 71.14
0 33.33 52.60
72.09 60.00 50.00 36.96 76.19
71.43 66.67 93.23
100.00 97.14 93.33 97.83 80.95
14.29 33.33 36.46
16.28 40.00 26.67 80.43 4.76
ICCPR- ICCPRCEDAWOPT1 OPT2 ICESCR ICSPCA CEDAW OPT
Support for human rights treaties, by regions, 2004
Africa Americas Asia Europe Arab/ Middle East Oceania Other All
Table 7.4 CRC
14.29 100.00 100.00 100.00 72.40 98.96
76.74 100.00 65.71 97.14 60.00 100.00 95.65 100.00 76.19 95.24
CAT
7.14 33.33 47.40
37.21 46.51 46.67 67.39 38.10
CRCOPT1
0 66.67 46.35
41.86 62.86 43.33 47.83 57.14
0 0 14.06
18.60 22.86 16.67 6.52 14.29
CRCOPT2 ICPRMW
194
Petra Roter, Anus˘ka Ferligoj, and Andrej Mrvar CPCG ICPRMW
ICERD
CRC-OPT2
ICCPR
CRC-OPT1
ICCPR-OPT1
CRC
ICCPR-OPT2
ICESCR
CAT ICSPCA
CEDAW-OPT CEDAW Africa
Arab/Middle East
Americas
Oceania
Asia
Other
Europe
ALL
Figure 7.5 Support for human rights treaties, 2004
War bipolar structure of the system had been replaced, with the US eventually establishing itself as the only superpower.21 Despite such circumstances, both trends with respect to the development of the issue area of human rights continued: states were adopting new human rights treaties, and they were extending their support for the existing ones. In 2004 (Figure 7.5; Table 7.4), for the first time in history, a human rights treaty became binding for 99 percent of all states.22 Furthermore, some older treaties had been ratified by the vast majority of states (Table 7.4). A majority of states even accepted the possibility of being subjected to individual complaints before the Human Rights Committee (ICCPR-OPT1). On the average, every human rights treaty was supported by 61 percent of all states in 2004, up by 23 percent from 1989. In individual regions (Figure 7.6; Table 7.4), the acceptance rate had increased by a third (in Africa, Asia, and the Arab/ME).23 The highest acceptance rate was in Europe, at 77 percent. Most of human rights treaties
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100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Africa
Americas
Asia
Europe Arab/Middle Oceania Other East
ALL
CPCG
ICCPR-OPT1
CEDAW
CRC-OPT1
ICERD
ICCPR-OPT2
CEDAW-OPT
CRC-OPT2
ICCPR
ICESCR
CAT
ICPRMW
ICSPCA
CRC
Figure 7.6 Regional support for human rights treaties, 2004
were almost unanimously accepted by European states, including all new democracies and new states; most of them needed just a few years to ratify the treaties. States in Europe were reluctant only toward the newest treaty, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (ICPRMW) (supported by just 7 percent of states), and toward the ICSPCA (37 percent), whereas even optional protocols were supported by nearly half of European states. The second highest level of support continues to be manifested in the Americas (65 percent), but African states had almost closed the gap (62 percent). Asia and the Arab/ME exhibited acceptance rates above 50 percent. With the exception of Oceania, the other regions show convergence in their ratification of human rights treaties. As Europe and the Americas had been the leading regions in terms of human rights support in 1975, by 1989 they had retained the position, but countries in Africa and Asia had made a great leap forward as their support to human rights had more than doubled. By 2004, the growth rates had slowed down, although states in most regions had nevertheless improved their support levels by a third, including the newly
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independent states, formed only since the end of the Cold War. Such results seem to suggest that human rights have been universally accepted since the end of the Cold War. They also seem to suggest that arguments of cultural relativism with regards to the protection of human rights are obsolete. They are used instrumentally, by some governments, in some specific contexts when they are being asked, or pushed, to adopt certain norms. Furthermore, the analysis of state support to human rights treaties has shown that states appear to be somewhat reluctant to accept stronger monitoring procedures, but are eager to adhere to major human rights treaties that establish various human rights, for human beings in general, or for different parts of populations. Such an analysis does not show, however, differences that may exist between states within regions. To address this issue, and to address any criticism with respect to our definition of world regions and their membership, the second part of our analysis focuses on individual states.
Human Rights as a Social Network Social network analysis using Pajek (de Nooy et al., 2005) has enabled us to sideline world regions, and focus on individual state behavior in the issue area of human rights over time. Instead of looking at world regions (and geographical proximity) as promoters or as followers of human rights, we wanted to explore, first, which states, from which regions, act similarly when it comes to support to human rights norms. Second, given the differences among states with respect to their verbal support to human rights, we wanted to explore whether states have changed their behavior toward human rights over time. All states under examination have had equal opportunities to accept human rights norms as legally binding obligations (all human rights treaties are universal documents, open to all states equally). Still, not all states have done so, nor have they done so at the same pace. The network analysis enables us to determine linkages, defined in terms of state membership to a treaty, between states in the issue area of human rights. Based on calculated density of those linkages, the network analysis allows us as well to determine the centrality of states in this issue area. We addressed the issue of similar state behavior with regards to human rights, in the three years under examination, with blockmodeling two-mode network data,24 when actors (states) either support a treaty (by ratifying it) or they do not (Doreian et al., 2005:ch. 8). In the year 1975, there are five clusters of states obtained (Table 7.5 and Figure 7.7); each cluster is, however, composed of states from very different regions.25
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Table 7.5 Clusters of states, based on density of linkages, 1975, 1989 and 2004 1975
1989a
1989b
2004a
2004b
Clusters Linkages Density Clusters Linkages Density Clusters Linkages Density Clusters Linkages Density Clusters Linkages Density
1 19 0.167 1 594 0.721 1 360 0.634 1 1,203 0.754 1 774 0.718
2 62 0.333 2 101 0.180 2 87 0.294 2 453 0.415 2 371 0.520
3 0 0.000
4 160 0.721
3 14 0.053
4 234 0.914
3 429 0.828
4 82 0.217
5 27 0.180
The cluster of states in 1975 – with the highest density of linkages (based on extensive support to all human rights treaties) – is cluster no.4, which is composed of: six Arab/ME states, Australia, five African, three Asian states, seven states from the Americas, and 14 (of 35) European states, including most Communist and Scandinavian states. Other Western European states are mostly in the cluster with the second highest density of linkages (cluster no.2), together with 10 states from the Americas and a few states from other regions. The third most dense cluster (no.5), showing support to the ICERD and/or to the ICSPCA, is overwhelmingly composed of African (15) and Arab/ME states (5). The cluster no.1 only shows support to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPCG), and is composed of states from across all regions.26 In the cluster no.3 there are states that accepted no legally binding obligations in the issue area of human rights. This, again, is a diverse group of states, mostly composed of African (14), Asian (10), and Arab/ME (6) states, but also of seven from Europe and six from the Americas, including the US. By 1989, the level of acceptance of human rights norms had improved significantly. Every state had accepted some legally binding human rights obligations. Based on visual inspection of dendrograms obtained using Euclidean distance and the Ward method, the data for 1989 can be clustered in two ways, either into two groups of states (Figure 7.8), or into four clusters (Figure 7.9).
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Figure 7.7 Five clusters of states, 1975
ISR
SAU LBR ETH DRC CAM MYA SRI AFG ROK DRV MNC TUR ALB ITA SAL NIC HON GUA
ALG EGY MOR TON FIJ LES GHA BFO NEP LAO IND PAK POL NTH SPN AUS ICE GRC BEL FRN UKG CUB MEX CAN HAI BRA VEN BHM ARG PER PAN
ICCPR-OPT
ICCPR
ICESCR
CPCG
ICSPCA
ICERD
SYR JOR IRQ LEB TUN LIB AUL MAG KEN MAS MLI RWA PHI MON IRN GDR ROM BUL HUN UKR RUS GFR YUG CZR CYP DEN NOR FIN SWD JAM URU COS COL BAR CHL ECU BLR
YPR KUW SOM QAT UAE NEW SWA BOT SIE SEN CAO NIG NIR ZAM TAZ TOG CDI CEN CHA GUI BEN MLT TRI BOL HSE
SUR USA
PAR
DOM
GRN
GUY
LIE SWZ
SNM
AND POR
LUX
IRE
THI
SIN CHN
MAL BNG
MAD
BHU
JPN
PRK
INS
UGA GNB ZIM
ANG
MAW
GAM
CON CAP
MZM
STP SAF BUI
GAB
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Figure 7.9 Four clusters of states, 1989
Overall, states showed roughly two types of behavior (Figure 7.8): 60 percent had ratified the majority of human rights treaties, whereas 40 percent of states did so much more selectively. When the two clusters are compared, states from all world regions are equally split between them, with two exceptions: the vast majority of European states had ratified most treaties and so have two-thirds of states in the Americas. When the behavior of states in both groups is analyzed in greater detail, each group displays different behavior with regards to individual treaties. To further examine such differences, the level of support can be presented in four clusters (Figure 7.9). When state behavior is organized in four clusters, the number of states with the highest density of linkages and the highest number of ratified treaties becomes much smaller, and less diverse: it is predominantly composed of European states (Eastern/Central or Communist, Scandinavian and some Western democracies, such as France, Italy, Spain, and Austria), and of states of the Americas (a quarter of all states in this region, including the
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US, Canada, Mexico, and other Latin American states). The second cluster of states, showing the second highest level of support to human rights treaties, is the biggest, composed of 41 percent of all states. This cluster is diverse, with the majority of African and Asian states and states from the Americas being included in this group. The third cluster is again diverse, mostly composed of the rest of African and Asian states. States with the least level of support are in the fourth cluster, dominated by countries from Oceania and Africa (seven each), Americas and Asia (six each), but also including three European states. Figure 7.10 illustrates human rights ratification 15 years after the end of the Cold War, when human rights had become a universal standard. There are still different levels of support, but no state was left out of this normative framework by 2004, and the human rights network became much denser than it was in 1989, due to both more treaties and more ratifications. When states are divided into two groups, one displaying a significant level of support to human rights and the other showing less support, both clusters are composed of countries with diverse regional affiliation. However, European states are by and large in the “best” group (on the left side in Figure 7.10), as are the majority of states in the Americas. The opposite is the case with Oceania: all but Australia and New Zealand are in the least human-rightssupporting group. States from other regions are almost equally divided between both clusters. However, a closer examination on the basis of four clusters (Figure 7.11) illustrates a stronger role for regional affiliation. The “best” cluster is dominated by European states (27 out of 46 states).27 By 2004, no Arab/ME state had committed itself sufficiently to human rights norms to make it to the best performing cluster. The second cluster of states with the second highest density of linkages is the largest (40 percent of all states), composed of states from different regions: of most Asian states, the majority of African, American, and Arab/ME states, and the second largest group of European old and new democracies. The rest of European states (Andorra, Armenia, San Marino, Malta, and Latvia) are only in the third “best” group of states, together with most African states (22 states), nine American and seven Asian states. The least level of support is shown by states from Oceania (11 out of 14 are in cluster four), and Asia (8 out of 22), together with three from the Arab/ME region, two from Africa, and four from the Caribbean part of the Americas. Taking into account the density of the linkages in the human rights network, we have used as well the social network analysis using Pajek
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Figure 7.10 Two clusters of states, 2004
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Figure 7.11 Four clusters of states, 2004
(de Nooy et al., 2005) to draw a map, for each year, which shows the centrality of states in the network, whereby the centrality is defined by the density of the linkages (Figures 7.12 through 7.14). The central place has been earned by the highest level of state commitment to legally binding human rights norms. The maps show how the network has become ever denser, but they also display a variety of important shifts in the position of individual states on the map of human-rights-supporting states. The 1975 mapping shows a number of states not yet in the network (the outer layer). The inner layer of states is very small and regionally mixed, dominated by the then autocratic28 Latin American states and both autocratic (Communist) and strongly democratic (Scandinavian) European states. By 1989, however, the inner circle (the “region” of strongest human rights supporters) expands to include 10 states: five Latin American states, Togo, Senegal, Libya, the Philippines, and Hungary. The second layer is
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dominated by European states and states in the Americas, with most of them becoming democracies by 1989. Contrary to 1975, Yugoslavia is no longer in this circle, whereas Czechoslovakia joined the second circle, together with a number of Western democracies. African and Asian states had, for the first time, ratified human rights treaties and, consequently, changed their position on the map: if they were hardly included in the network in 1975, they had moved toward the middle layer of the network by 1989. In 2004, the map looks fundamentally different. Overall, the network in 2004 is much denser than the one in 1989, with many more states showing increasing support to human rights norms. Additionally, all states are members, bound by at least some human rights treaties. This suggests that human rights have truly become a universal value and the UN has been successful in carrying out its goal of promoting human rights. No UN member could afford to ignore UN human rights treaties entirely. Such broad support for human rights, and the value attached to them, would also seem to explain why the inner circle had again shrunk by 2004, to just three states, with Azerbaijan and Bosnia-Herzegovina joining Ecuador. If the latter had firmly positioned itself in the center when it was still an autocracy, it has continued to support all human rights treaties (as they continued to be developed) also as a democracy. Human rights norms and the UN human rights regime have thus displayed some level of persistence, or robustness. When accepted by a state, regardless of its regime type, they become part and parcel of the state’s international record. It appears that norm diffusion in human rights is a one-way process. With respect to the two newcomers to the inner circle, Azerbaijan and Bosnia-Herzegovina, their broad acceptance of human rights norms could prove their status in the international community as responsible states, although they are newly independent states. This could be the case also for the second circle, composed of Latin American states, Libya, three African states, two Asian states (Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines), and five European states – all former Communist states: Slovakia, Serbia-Montenegro, Romania, Macedonia, and Croatia. Given the fact that the end of the Cold War paved the way for an intensive state-formation process and the expansion of the international system, this expansion was met by intensive human rights norm diffusion. By then, the majority of states in individual regions had joined the UN human rights regime, thus providing an example for other states to follow suit, regardless of the costs.29
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Conclusions Our data analysis, based on global human rights treaties ratified by states across three time frames encompassing the changes in recent international politics from the Cold War to the post-Cold War era, reveal a number of notable patterns. Most clear are three points. First, there appears to be substantial diffusion in human rights norms if ratification of these treaties is a measure of norm diffusion. The density of networks between 1975 and 2004 has increased dramatically, clearly reflecting increased state support to UN human rights treaties over time. In this respect, our analysis has demonstrated that an IGO such as the UN can indeed affect, over time, how states behave internationally. The convergence of state behavior in the issue area of human rights, when measured by state support to UN human rights treaties – i.e., documents, which states are free to join or not to join – has systematically increased over time. This has happened despite the major systemic changes (decolonization and the end of the Cold War) that paved the way for the expansion of the international system. The trend that began in the 1970s, by democracies and autocracies alike, in the issue area of human rights has continued. Within the UN, human rights norms were legally defined, and supported by an ever-increasing percentage of states. Second, our note on regions: there is substantial variation in norm diffusion between states and within and between regions. While European and American states often appear in the “best” category, sufficient variation exists across the clusters to question the argument of cultural relativism regarding the importance of human rights norms (at least in terms of their formal acceptance). This variation may also put to the test the recent argument, by scholars employing quantitative methods to analyze state support to human rights, that more regional differentiation is warranted in those analyses. Because there are several possibilities in defining regions, a danger exists that this may substantially affect research findings. From a qualitative point of view, and based on our analyses of both secondary literature and empirical data, state support to human rights appears to be determined by: (a) intrastate factors (though it is not yet clear what factors explain human rights support in general, rather than a specific right and types of rights as established in one treaty, for example); (b) interstate factors, especially by the behavior of neighboring states, from the same region; and (c) by the developments globally, under the auspices of formal institutions, such as the UN.
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Methodologically, a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods will have to be applied to help us better understand norm diffusion in the human rights regime. Third, human rights, it would seem, have transformed into some sort of a sovereignty principle: a condition to be met by states if they are to be perceived by other states as credible members of the international community and the UN. Still, human rights are not above sovereignty. As demonstrated earlier, state commitment to human rights internationally does not necessarily correspond to implementation of those norms domestically. This is likely to be a result of two related factors: first, human rights treaties are weak in the sense that a state suffers no major consequence if it does not implement them; second, human rights have become a criterion for full and responsible membership in the contemporary international community, so states are keen to ratify individual human rights treaties even if they will not implement them fully. Our social network analysis of human rights support has demonstrated that the end of the Cold War has indeed led to an increased density in the human rights network, due to the new treaties and the ongoing process of treaty ratifications. The human rights network now includes all existing states, and its density has significantly increased over time. We cannot conclude, however, that the Cold War, or its end, has affected the behavior of individual states, from individual regions. Clusters of states behaving similarly were composed of very different states. This seems to be an indication that state interests in the issue area of human rights have not been motivated by block allegiance. States from the same bloc, either the Western democratic or the Communist, made different choices with regards to universally adopted human rights treaties. This was the case during the Cold War, at its end, and 15 years after.
Notes 1
2 3
Of course, the web is not limited to states, and the number of non-governmental organizations surpasses that of governmental by more than 20 times. On the mapping of the institutional web see Chapter 2 in this volume. On the road to the Declaration see Burgers (1992). This is not to suggest that the West did not support economic and social rights. Note US Secretary Marshall’s speech to the General Assembly in September 1948, in which he endorsed the Universal Declaration (quoted in Glendon, 2001:135).
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Petra Roter, Anus˘ka Ferligoj, and Andrej Mrvar In other words, all states have equal opportunities to show their explicit support to UN human rights treaties. Additionally, states may opt to adhere to regional human rights treaties that may be stronger in terms of enforcement mechanisms. However, only European states and states in the Inter-American human rights regime can do so. Despite such stronger regional mechanisms, the UN human rights system continues to offer equal opportunities for all states across the international community to show their explicit support to human rights. The UN system therefore appears to offer an appropriate framework for the analysis of state support to human rights globally. For the explanation of the 15-year interval see Chapters 1and 2. Traditionally, most of the literature on human rights in international relations (i.e., from a political science rather than an international legal point of view) has focused on the development of international human rights norms, their content, the organizational structures (institutions) that have been set up to monitor the implementation of those norms, and on the impact of human rights on state sovereignty. See, among many, Onuf and Peterson (1983), Ruggie (1983), Donnelly (1986), Henderson (1988), Burgers (1992), Krasner (1995), Barkin (1998) and Wheeler (2001). Mainly these are emanations of international organizations, established by organizations to address human rights. Countries based on the principles of the rule of law are also much more likely to comply with their international commitments with respect to monetary norms (Simmons, 2000:832). Because treaty ratification bears reputational costs (i.e., non-implementation affects state reputation), international norms alter governments’ interests in compliant behavior: countries commit to international norms, in this case to internationally monetary norms, when they intend to follow a policy as prescribed by those norms (Simmons, 2000). Even prosecution of international crimes against humanity has been subject to special bilateral agreements between the US and other countries, effectively protecting American soldiers from international prosecution. For instance, regimes that “wish to maintain the benefits of repression while also avoiding domestic and international condemnation to covertly rather than overtly violate the physical integrity rights of their citizens” tend to replace extra-judicial killings with disappearances (Payne and Abouharb, n.d.: 17). Worse human rights record in the wake of treaty ratification had been observed by Hathaway (2002). Vreeland (2008) demonstrates that dictatorships that practice torture are more likely to ratify the CAT than dictatorships that do not practice torture, because torture occurs in regimes where power is shared and there are plenty of opportunities, as opposed to one-party or no-party dictatorships, for individuals to defect against the regime. Power-sharing also make it possible for political parties to pressure the regime to make concessions, including accession to the
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CAT. On the effects of domestic judiciary constraints on state adherence to this treaty and on implementation of treaty provisions see also Powell and Staton (2007). Further, autonomous repressive regimes, i.e., those that are less constrained by domestic forces, are more likely to ratify human rights treaties. Thus, they commit symbolically, and they can do so because they are free to decouple between policy and practice (Hafner-Burton et al., 2008b). We use ratification as an indicator that a state in not just verbally supporting a treaty, but that is willing to be legally bound by the treaty and hence subject to implementation monitoring procedures. Signatures have not been taken into account as they may or may not be followed by ratifications, and they provide an unreliable indicator of state support to human rights treaties. Also, in the period under examination, many new states were formed. They have frequently adhered to treaties without signing them first. Forty-six in 2004, when Montenegro was still part of Serbia-Montenegro. The use of this criterion excludes the Holy See and Belarus. They are listed with Israel in the “Other” category. Cuba, excluded from participation in the OAS since 1962, but still formally a member, is also included in the region. The Charter of the Arab League, 22 March 1945, Article 1; http://www.middleeastnews.com/arabLeagueCharter.html (20 March 2008); The Constitutive Act of the African Union, Togo, 11 July 2000, Article 27; http://www.africa-union. org/root/au/AboutAu/Constitutive_Act_en.htm (20 March 2008). Since Israel is not a member of any of the two organizations, it has been included in the “Other” group of states, together with Belarus and the Holy See. Western Sahara and Palestine have not been included in the analysis as they are not members of the UN, and neither are they state parties to any of the human rights conventions. Some states have indeed only signed individual treaties, and have yet to ratify them. For instance, China signed the ICCPR in 1998 and the United States signed the ICESCR in 1977. Neither has ratified the relevant treaty in the meantime. Such long periods may be taken as an indication that a state is not yet willing or prepared to ratify the treaty and become legally bound by it. On the structural strength of the US, see Chapter 3 in this volume. Only the US and Somalia refused to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In Oceania, the level of support had improved by 24 percent, thus leaving this region, composed of a number of small island states, with the lowest human rights treaties acceptance rate. Two-mode blockmodeling seeks to cluster units from the first set (states), which have substantially similar patterns of relationships with the units of the second set (treaties). The main goal of blockmodeling is thus to identify, in a given
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Petra Roter, Anus˘ka Ferligoj, and Andrej Mrvar network (in our case the international community), clusters of units (in our case states) that share structural characteristics, defined in terms of relational data (in our case this refers to sharing human rights norms as established in UN human rights treaties) (Doreian et al., 2005:2–3). The number of clusters was determined by inspecting dendrograms obtained using the Euclidean distance and the Ward agglomerative method (see, among others, Doreian et al., 2005:137–48). The solution was further improved using the blockmodeling approach. Including Italy, Albania, Turkey, Honduras, Israel, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Ethiopia, DR Congo, and Saudi Arabia. Combined with five Latin American states (Panama, Paraguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Columbia), two African (Seychelles and Namibia), Nepal as the only Asian state, and Australia and New Zealand. Based on the Polity IV dataset (polity2). It would thus seem that the findings on the CAT (Goodliffe and Hawkins, 2006:369), as explained in the section on human rights as an international normative framework above, can be extended to other UN human rights treaties. According to Article 1, “A State Party to the Covenant that becomes a Party to the present Protocol recognizes the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications from individuals subject to its jurisdiction who claim to be victims of a violation by that State Party of any of the rights set forth in the Covenant. No communication shall be received by the Committee if it concerns a State Party to the Covenant which is not a Party to the present Protocol.”
References Baban, Feyzi, and E. Fuat Keyman. 2008. “Turkey and Postnational Europe: Challenges for the Cosmopolitan Political Community.” European Journal of Social Theory 11:107–24. Barkin, J. Samuel. 1998. “The Evolution of Sovereignty and the Emergence of Human Rights Norms.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 27:229–52. Burgers, Jan Herman. 1992. “The Road to San Francisco: The Revival of the Human Rights Idea in the Twentieth Century.” Human Rights Quarterly 14:447–77. Callaway, Rhonda L. 2007. “The Rhetoric of Asian Values.” In Rhonda L. Callaway and Julie Harrelson-Stephens (eds.) Exploring International Human Rights. Essential Readings. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, pp. 112–21. Camp Keith, Linda. 1999. “The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Does It Make a Difference in Human Rights Behavior?” Journal of Peace Research 36:95–118. Caney, Simon. 2001. “Human Rights, Compatibility and Diverse Cultures.” In Simon Caney and Peter Jones (eds.) Human Rights and Global Diversity. London: Frank Cass, pp. 51–76.
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Checkel, Jeffrey T. 1999a. “International Institutions and Socialisation.” Arena Working Papers 99/5. Oslo: Arena and University of Oslo. Checkel, Jeffrey T. 1999b. “Sanctions, Social Learning and Institutions: Explaining State Compliance with the Norms of the European Human Rights Regime.” Arena Working Papers 99/11. Oslo: Arena and University of Oslo. Cingranelli, David L., and David L. Richards. 1999. “Respect for Human Rights after the End of the Cold War.” Journal of Peace Research 36:511–34. Conlon, Justin. 2004. “Sovereignty vs. Human Rights or Sovereignty and Human Rights?” Race and Class 46:75–100. de Nooy, Wouter, Andrej Mrvar, and Vladimir Batagelj. 2005. Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Donnelly, Jack. 1986. “International Human Rights: A Regime Analysis.” International Organization 40:599–642. Donnelly, Jack. 1998. “Human Rights: A New Standard of Civilization?” International Affairs 74:1–24. Doreian, Patrick, Vladimir Batagelj, and Anus˘ka Ferligoj. 2005. Generalized Blockmodeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Finnemore, Martha. 1996. National Interests in International Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Finnemore, Martha, and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change.” International Organization 52:887–917. Glendon, Mary Ann. 2001. A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: Random House. Goodliffe, Jay, and Darren G. Hawkins. 2006. “Explaining Commitment: States and the Convention against Torture.” The Journal of Politics 68:358–71. Hadjor, Kofi Buenor. 1998. “Whose Human Rights?” Journal of Asian and African Studies 33:359–68. Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., Edward D. Mansfield, and Jon C. Pevehouse. 2008a. “Democratization and Human Rights Regimes.” Available at: http://www.law. uchicago.edu/files/intlaw-hafnerbarton.pdf. Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., and James Ron. 2007. “Human Rights Institutions: Rhetoric and Efficacy.” Journal of Peace Research 44:379–83. Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., Kiyoteru Tsutsui, and John W. Meyer. 2008b. “International Human Rights Law and the Politics of Legitimation: Repressive States and Human Rights Treaties.” International Sociology 23:115–41. Hathaway, Oona A. 2002. “Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference?” Yale Law Journal 111:1935–2042. Hathaway, Oona A. 2003. “The Cost of Commitment.” Yale Law School, Public Law Working Paper No. 47: 101–41. Henderson, Conway W. 1988. “Human Rights and Regimes: A Bibliographical Essay.” Human Rights Quarterly 10:525–43. HRRC. 1998. “Human Rights in History.” Available at: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/hreduseries/hereandnow/Part-1/short-history.htm.
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Jones, Peter. 2001. “Human Rights and Diverse Cultures: Continuity and Discontinuity?” In Simon Caney and Peter Jones (eds.) Human Rights and Global Diversity. London: Frank Cass, pp. 27–50. Keyder, Caglar. 2006. “Moving in from the Margins? Turkey in Europe.” Diogenes 53:72–81. Krasner, Stephen D. 1995. “Sovereignty, Regimes, and Human Rights.” In Volker Rittberger (with the assistance of Peter Mayer) (ed.) Regime Theory and International Relations. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 139–67. Landman, Todd. 2005. Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Linden, Ronald H. (ed.). 2002. Norms and Nannies: The Impact of International Organizations on the Central and East European States. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Moravcsik, Andrew. 2000. “The Origins of Human Rights Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar Europe.” International Organization 54:217–52. Neumayer, Eric. 2005. “Do International Human Rights Treaties Improve Respect for Human Rights?” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 49:925–53. Onuf, Nicholas Greenwood, and V. Spike Peterson. 1983. “Human Rights from an International Regime Perspective.” Journal of International Affairs 37:329–42. Payne, Caroline L., and M. Rodwan Abouharb. 2008. “The International Human Rights Regime: Cause or Cure for Forced Disappearance?” Available at: http:// www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/5/3/7/5/ pages253752/p253752-2.php. Powell, Emilia Justyna J., and Jeffrey K. Staton. 2007. “Domestic Judicial Institutions and Human Rights Treaty Violation.” Available at http://ssrn.com/abstract= 1028672. Ruggie, John Gerard. 1983. “Human Rights and the Future International Community.” Daedalus 112:93–110. Sikkink, Kathryn. 1993a. “The Power of Principled Ideas: Human Rights Policies in the United States and Western Europe.” In Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane (eds.) Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change. Cornell Studies in Political Economy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 139–70. Sikkink, Kathryn. 1993b.“Human Rights Principles, Issue-Networks, and Sovereignty in Latin-America.” International Organization 47:411–41. Simmons, Beth A. 2000. “International Law and State Behavior: Commitment and Compliance in International Monetary Affairs.” The American Political Science Review 94:819–35. Vreeland, James Raymond. 2008. “Political Institutions and Human Rights: Why Dictatorships Enter into the United Nations Convention Against Torture.” International Organization 62:65–101. Wheeler, Nicholas J. 2001.“Humanitarian Vigilantes or Legal Entrepreneurs: Enforcing Human Rights in International Society.” In Simon Caney and Peter Jones (eds.) Human Rights and Global Diversity. London: Frank Cass, pp. 139–67.
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Appendix: List of Human Rights Treaties Utilized, 1975, 1989, and 2004 1975 CPCG: Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948, entry into force 12 January 1951 (140 parties as of 18 July 2007); ICERD: International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted and opened for signature and ratification by General Assembly resolution 2106 (XX) of 21 December 1965, entry into force 4 January 1969 (173 parties as of 18 July 2007); ICCPR: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966, entry into force 23 March 1976 (160 parties as of 28 February 2008); ICCPR-OPT1: Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,30 16 December 1966, entry into force 23 March 1976 (110 parties as of 11 October 2007); ICESCR: International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966, entry into force 3 January 1976 (157 parties as of 28 February 2008); ICSPCA: International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 3068 (XXVIII) of 30 November 1973, entry into force 18 July 1976 (107 parties as of 20 July 2007).
1989 (two new additions) CEDAW: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 34/180 of 18 December 1979, entry into force 3 September 1981 (185 parties as of 15 February 2008); CAT: Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted and opened for signature, ratification
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and accession by General Assembly resolution 39/46 of 10 December 1984, entry into force 26 June 1987 (145 parties as of 2 October 2007).
2004 (six new additions) ICCPR-OPT2: Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, 15 December 1989, entry into force 11 July 1991 (65 parties as of 25 January 2008); CEDAW-OPT: Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 6 October 1999, entry into force 22 December 2000 (90 parties as of 25 January 2008); CRC: Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989, entry into force 2 September 1990 (193 parties as of 12 February 2008); RC-OPT1: Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, 25 May 2000, entry into force 12 February 2002 (120 parties as of 5 March 2008); CRC-OPT2: Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, 25 May 2000, entry into force 18 January 2002 (126 parties as of 25 February 2008); ICPRMW: International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, adopted by General Assembly resolution 45/158 of 18 December 1990, entry into force 1 July 2003 (37 parties as of 18 July 2007).
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Chapter 8
The Mediterranean as a Region in the Making Ana Bojinovic´ Fenko Is There a Mediterranean Region? Although the Mediterranean1 is a region with a long and rich history, there has never been sufficient incentive or political will to establish a Mediterranean network of intergovernmental organizations with political, security, or economic mandates of cooperation. Moreover, there are practically no formal intergovernmental organizations (FIGOs) in the Mediterranean institutional architecture, save for a 90-year-old exception of a functional FIGO for scientific exploration of the Mediterranean Sea. The low level of institutional development in this geographical area has been well described by Aliboni (2000), who lists the following features that restrict the Mediterranean from entering a higher level of political, economic, social, and cultural integration. First, the political and cultural centers of areas in the Mediterranean are elsewhere (in Europe, Asia, and Africa); therefore the Mediterranean is a “border” and not a “center” in itself. Second, the Mediterranean countries do not constitute a security complex: they have very different political and institutional regimes and great economic gaps exist between the countries in the North and the South of the basin. Third, due to its global political and economic importance, the area is highly penetrated by external political actors – be it global intergovernmental organizations (GIGOs), regional governmental organizations (RGOs), or powerful states. In terms of the delineations created in Chapter 2, the Mediterranean space is considered in the FIGO database as inter-regional Ana Bojinović Fenko is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences, and member of the Centre for International Relations. Her research focuses on theory on regionalism and regionalization, foreign policy, the Mediterranean region, and the EU policy toward the Mediterranean.
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space. Therefore, references to RGOs in this chapter are about European and Middle Eastern clusterings with a Mediterranean mandate, which would be listed in the FIGO database as inter-regional organizations. Yet, the non-existence of Mediterranean RGOs does not mean that there is nothing that one may call a Mediterranean institutional architecture. There are many forms of regional cooperation conducted by states, nonstate actors, and especially multi-actor collectivities that have since the end of the Cold War become important for Mediterranean regional cooperation. These regionalizing actors cooperate in many critical areas: environmental protection,culture,science,education,human rights,and socioeconomic issues. These actors have been reinforcing regional cohesion in the Mediterranean since 1989 and have in some respects started to restore deeply rooted socio-historical transnational regional patterns of relations of the ancient Mediterranean existing as an organized social and political entity in terms of today’s regions (Calleya, 1997). Historically, the Mediterranean had been a region which acted as the center of the world. This had been the case until the rise of the Western nation-state in the seventeenth century, and this “status” was sought to be restored in the second half of the nineteenth century (Amin, 1989). What is relevant today is whether the historical memory and legacies of regional practices might be activated by the regionalizing actors to contribute to the process of the Mediterranean space acquiring elements of tighter regional cohesion. To analyze the Mediterranean as a (historical) region (Troebst, 2003) one needs to begin with the notion of a process of social construction, in which the Mediterranean is studied as a region in the making. The process of region-making, as termed within the framework of the New Regionalism Approach (NRA) (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000:462–8; Hettne, 2003:28–9) focuses on the area becoming a region; it is the becoming rather than being that is of primary research interest. For the Mediterranean area, this approach is of principal importance, since focusing on the “being” simply brings the conclusion that there is no Mediterranean constellation of regional organizations and no region, which may not be the case where a region is in the process of becoming one. In the case of the Mediterranean, the prevailing approaches to the study of regionalism in International Relations and International Political Economy – neorealism, liberal institutionalism, or market integration – expose their limited applicability to regions being created. NRA takes a critical stand toward these accounts of regional phenomena which focus mainly on interstate regional relations modeled on the European integration experience and are able to produce
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only certain types of questions and knowledge (Söderbaum, 2004:1). Since not all regions develop by terms of the EU model, NRA avoids these theoretical presumptions by focusing on the content of regionalism, asking “by whom, for whom and with what purpose/consequences it is being put into practice, consolidated or resisted” (Söderbaum, 2004:4, 38). This is especially relevant for the Mediterranean space, where relations involving transnational, non-governmental actors have since the end of the Cold War – as in other regional spaces – grown in numbers and mandate. However, the difference the respective area discloses is the independence of non-state from formal intergovernmental regional framework (regional FIGO). The EU model, as determined by Wallace (1994), firstly develops formal integration; a confederal system and cooperative federalism comprising the interpenetration of national governments, forming common institutions, through which to develop rules and policies, to regulate, channel, redirect, encourage, or inhibit economic and social flows. “Within this framework, once established (in case of the EU), informal integration developed: patterns of interaction that flow without further deliberate governmental decisions, following the dynamics of markets, technology, communication networks, and social exchange, or the influence of social, political or religious movements” (Wallace, 1994:5). The process in the Mediterranean space in this respect has been the opposite. The “creators” of regions are regionalizing actors in diverse fields of cooperation in different time and space. Following this approach, the chapter introduces a general analytical distinction among the actors and fields of cooperation; state2 and non-state (transnational)3 actors on one side and functional and political cooperation on the other. As this delineation is made for analytical purposes, the main aim of the study is to show the value added and reinforcing effects of the initiatives made by combinations of these regionalizing actors and fields of regional cooperation within the process of Mediterranean regional construction. Through the process of region-making an area attains a stronger degree of regionness (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000:462–8; Hettne, 2003:28–9). This term expresses the intensity and quality of “regional cohesion” as defined by Hurrell (1995), whereby an area develops tighter regional relationships. The Mediterranean as it exists today can be conceptualized as a developing regional society (Bojinović, 2007). At this level, an area can be organized through RGOs and then a region is called a “formal” region. Alternatively, a regional society can also be more spontaneous, meaning that there is the presence of processes of regionalization “from below,” creating a “real” region
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(Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000:462–8; Hettne, 2003:28–9). In this case the states are not the only critical actors although they may remain dominant. Meanwhile, non-state actors contribute to the process of region-making and cause the formation of a transnational regional economy and regional civil society (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000:462–8; Hettne, 2003:28–9). Regionalization is therefore an actual process of increasing exchange, contact, and coordination, and includes elements such as cooperation, integration, cohesion, and identity (Hveem, 2003:83). According to NRA, when the elements of regional society are reinforced through diverse processes at various levels and sectors, relations between the formal and the real region increase and widen, cognitive structures become institutionalized, and an area starts attaining regional identity and “raises” its regionness to the level of regional community. The later is expressed in terms of an overlap of the formal and real region, deepened social trust at the regional level, and developed regional identity (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000:462–8; Hettne, 2003:28–9). This chapter approaches the development of the Mediterranean region in social and political terms through the following steps. It reviews the construction of elements of regional society up to the present, with special attention to (possible) changes in regional cohesion after the end of the Cold War. Further, four sections are devoted to the various regionalizing actors’ value added in the Mediterranean region-making. A differentiation is made among state actors inside and outside the Mediterranean space representing efforts in the formal region-making. Due to the low number of interstate governmental organizations focused specifically on this area, the focus instead is on institutional ties of state actors in terms of common memberships in RGOs and in inter-regional IGOs, and illustrated by applying network analysis to these linkages. Then, construction of a “real Mediterranean region” is analyzed through the initiatives of non-state actors and mixed-actor collectivities in the Mediterranean space. In conclusion, the contribution of all actors is summarized in terms of their possible rapprochement.
Construction of the Mediterranean from Social, Historical, and Political Perspectives The Mediterranean existed as a comprehensive international region in the Hellenic and Roman period (3000 bc–ad 565), with Greece and Rome representing the dominating core over the peripheral sector (entire basin and coastlines), with little intrusion from outside of the region (Calleya, 1997:
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59–88). A high degree of cohesion (social, economic, organizational) which was achieved in the Roman federal system (Sandwell, 2007; Malkin et al., 2007; Lolos, 2007) proved to be an important feature of Mediterranean regionality, especially due to the fact that the system of governance (customsfree trading system, providing roads, ports, currency, free travel, and security) did not result in the complete disintegration after the end of Pax Romana. On the contrary, it had a lasting influence in the area as Roman institutions persisted (law, engineering, transportation, mass media, and interchange among elites), and coexistence of cities was also a unique feature of the region (Calleya, 1997).4 Amin (1989) observes, however, that the political unity created at the time of Roman Empire was not reclaimed by any of the succeeding hegemonies in the Mediterranean (nor Arabs, Italian cities, or the Ottoman Empire). Despite the fact that “Arab foreign policy strategic planning attempted to somewhat imitate the Roman network of relations” (Calleya, 1997:65) during the 600–1517 period, leading to high levels of interstate conflict with their immediate European neighbors5, commercial relations and cultural, scientific, and artistic cooperation were extensive at the height of the Italian city states’ power during the eleventh century. Those relationships helped to transform the Mediterranean from a boundary zone between Christian North and Muslim South to an increasingly transnational area (Calleya, 1997). Despite the variety of ethnicities living in the area, the region during the Middle Ages acquired common social and cultural features, with “collective destinies” (Braudel, 1990). Nevertheless, conceptions of a common region were not homogeneous; Moulakis (2005) presents the contradicting Latin and traditional Arab ideologies of the Sea and the area.6 In the medieval context, the Mediterranean became an intrusive regional system, in which external actors (Great Britain, Austro-Hungary, and Russia) exerted influence on both the core (France, Italy, Spain, and the Ottoman Empire) and peripheral sectors (the rest of the basin). This is the era of the rise of the European nation-states (1500–1900), leading to an intrusive regional pattern of relations in the area, continuing and remaining prevalent up to the end of the Cold War (Calleya, 1997:85).7
Regional Construction of Mediterranean-ness in the Modern Era By the second half of the nineteenth century, the scramble for colonies intensified the degree of competition between the external actors and
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spurred the rise of nationalism from the nations in the Balkans. The expansion of the Latin idea for the Mediterranean was reflected in Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, resulting in the area’s representation as “a system of mutually beneficial exchanges” (Izzo and Fabre in Moulakis, 2005:32), and a renewed object of European embrace. A major turning point toward a formal region came with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, taken “as a symbol of a genuine desire to construct a region – to ‘invent’ the Mediterranean – whose complementary elements contribute to the enrichment, material and cultural, of all participants” (Moulakis, 2005:32–3). This idea was put into practice in 1919, with the formation of the first IGO for the area – the creation of the International Commission for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean Sea (CIESM), seated in Monaco, proposed by the International Congress of Geography (CIESM, 2008).8 The experience of contact with the rapidly modernizing and industrializing West led Arab entities to see the Mediterranean not as a divider (given large differences in economic development) but as a link, a means of attacking the prospects of “once owned society” via the Western vehicles of progress while maintaining a sense of pride in Arab identity (Moulakis, 2005:22). The attachment of the Mediterranean to Europe, albeit through colonization, meant inclusion of the area into the world system of exchange (Moulakis, 2005:22). The Latin idea of the area prevailed and was expressed by powerful individual states (such as France). But this idea also brought negative effects for region-making in the Mediterranean, especially with political and economic meddling in “regional” affairs by large nonMediterranean European states. The combination of the increased importance of the area for external actors, along with the shift of attention from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, reshaped the context for regional development (Bromley, 2004), with substantial consequences: this “shift of the center of gravity started deepening the concept of unequal development. Mediterranean community existed, but also ceased to exist. The Mediterranean became a frontier zone between a new Euro-North American center and a new Afro-Asian periphery, and a strategic zone for the others” (Amin, 1989:3). As the number of external actors increased and competition intensified, major conflicts ensued in the form of the Moroccan crisis and later in the Balkan wars and the outbreak of World War I (Calleya, 1997:75). The second idea on institutional cooperation in the Mediterranean was a Russian proposal of a Balkan League, including the Ottoman government (Roberts, 1999:197–8), but it was a sub-regional, Slavic-motivated idea and
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during the interwar period sustained mostly by a handful of states.9 The most influential states in the area – France, Italy, Great Britain, Austro-Hungary, and later Germany and Russia – manipulated smaller states by inviting them into regional agreements of mutual assistance and cooperation without the actual intention of creating multilateral institutional cooperation.10 Clearly, cohesiveness and common norms were being (formally) developed only in one part of the Mediterranean. The first attempts at state cooperation in the political field, though informal, short lived, and including external actors, can be seen as rudimentary elements for the later creation of RGOs, however halting and sparse. Many regional initiatives for cooperation proved unsuccessful. Eventually a functional IRGO – the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EMPPO) – was created in 1951, with 17 Mediterranean states as members (Pevehouse et al., 2003). The first idea of regional political cooperation at a multilateral level was put into practice at a ministerial meeting of four central Mediterranean states (Italy, Malta, Libya, and Tunisia) in 1972, although it did not produce concrete achievements (Bin, 1997:60; Adler and Crawford, 2006:21). As decolonization among Arab states unfolded, the process of nation and state-building led to the initiation of sub-regional cooperation in order to protect new states from external powers’ meddling in their internal affairs and those of the “region.”11 In fact, quite a few ideas for regional cooperation at a multilateral level in various sectors were expressed, especially after the end of the Cold War, with a view to creating formal and informal regional institutions to fill the void perceived to have been created by the ending of the confrontation between the superpowers. Two of the major unrealized regional proposals included the following: (1) A Council of the Mediterranean in 1992, modeled on the Council of Europe, evolved into an idea of a Stability Pact for the Mediterranean in 1995 (Tanner, 1996; Bin, 1997; Calleya, 2006); and (2) an Italian-Spanish idea for a Conference for Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean (CSCM) in 1989/90 (Bin, 1997; Gomez, 1998; Joffé, 2001; Calleya, 2006), whose aim was “to establish a Mediterranean international society by promoting and managing interdependence between Western Europe and the Middle East.” In addition, two (sub)regional governmental institutions of an informal nature were created: (1) The Mediterranean Dialogue 5+5 (initially 4+5), proposed by France in 1983 and realized in 1990, was reserved for western Mediterranean states, but was soon abandoned and then re-launched by Portugal in 2001 (Bin, 1997; Calleya, 2006); and (2) the Forum of
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Table 8.1 Mediterranean mandated regional institutions with date of formation, relaunching and dissolution Existing Institutions
FIGOs
Mediterranean space
CIESM (1910)
Sub-regional
UAM (1989)
Inter-regional
EMPPO (1951)
not FIGOs
Not established or dissolute
Council of the NAM (1970s) Mediterranean MWN (1993) (1992) Mediterranean Forum (1991/94) CSCM (1989/90) Dialogue 5 + 5 RIMMO (1983/90/2001) (1993–1997) MEMTTA (1995) EMP (1995)
Dialogue and Cooperation in the Mediterranean (Mediterranean Forum), proposed by Egypt and France, was launched in 1994 and included 11 Mediterranean states, with no limitations on membership (Calleya, 2006:113; El Sayed, 1995). The last case is a rare example of a regional initiative assessed as fully working (Aliboni, 2000), with a broad mandate, continuous dialogue, flexibility, and consensus, but with a rotating presidency, no permanent secretariat, and no stable financial mechanism for implementation (Calleya, 2006:113). Nevertheless, the launch of the Mediterranean Forum was opposed by influential (external) actors’ conflicting ideas on regional cooperation.12 A review of Mediterranean states’ regional co-operation in different forums is summarized in Table 8.1. It shows three existing Mediterranean FIGOs, all at different regional levels of cooperation. There are more non-formal institutions (non-FIGOs), namely six. There are also a relatively high number of initiatives which have not been able to materialize in any form, have stagnated and then been re-launched (Dialogue 5 + 5), or have died after a short existence as a FIGO (RIMMO – Réserve internationale maritime en Méditerranée occidentale). Table 8.1 comprises only IRGOs with a Mediterranean mandate and not all Mediterranean states are members of these IRGOs. The latter are taken into consideration in Figures 8.5 and 8.6. Table 8.1 does not appear to show much formal regionalism in the Mediterranean space. Regionalism emerges as sets of state projects intersect (Gamble and Payne, 1996:250), but it may fail to coalesce if no common
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agreement can be reached. The structural contexts in which regions are built are different, the capacities of states vary, and different social coalitions push for the adoption of regionalist policies. Relevant levels of analysis, in congruence with NRA, are not only the world system but also external actors and state–society interactions (Grugel and Hout, 1999:11). We look at all of them in the following sections.
States’ Regionalism – the Mediterranean as a Formal Region Since there are few regional institutions of an intergovernmental nature in the Mediterranean space, it is worthwhile observing the Mediterranean states’ possible common memberships in other IGOs. As seen in Table 8.2, states from the Mediterranean cooperate more (hold more common memberships) in arenas other than the Mediterranean and this is true for all three time slots encompassed in the FIGO database. Furthermore, the dearth of FIGOs for the area – reflected as IRGOs in the database – is completely inconsistent with the patterns noted earlier for regional development during the 1975–89 period, and for inter-regional development during the 1990–2004 period elsewhere. Figure 8.1, in contrast to the patterns noted for most other groupings in Chapter 2, bears little relationship to the regionally relevant patterns noted in other areas. Particularly different is the failure to create more IRGOs after the end of the Cold War, a pattern that would have mirrored the trends elsewhere. This contrast with the patterns noted in (and between) other geopolitical spaces highlights the inability of state actors and consequently the inability of a strictly formal intergovernmental analysis to chart the process of creating a Mediterranean region at non-formal governmental level. Table 8.2 Common memberships of Mediterranean states in FIGOs Membership in 1975 1989 2004
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All IGOs
GIGOs
IRGOs
RGOs
25 34 36
23 28 30
2 3 3
3 4 4
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40 35
36
34
30
30
28
25
25 23
ALL GLOBAL
20
INTERREGIONAL
15
REGIONAL
10 5
3
2
0 1975
4
4
3
1989
3 2004
Figure 8.1 Membership in FIGOs by Mediterranean states, 1975, 1989, 2004
It is clear from these empirical observations that an analysis of regional cooperation at the formal, FIGO level misses “the action” occurring in the region, starting in the 1990s, and involving the non-formal intergovernmental level. Particularly interesting is that most of the FIGO-based cooperation between Mediterranean states occurs in FIGO settings outside of this region, typically involving regional FIGOs in the Middle East or Europe. Consistent with Chapter 2, a look at the Mediterranean through network analysis across three time frames provides an interesting visual image of the linkages uniting and separating states in the geographical area over time.13 The author presents the interstate institutional linkages as regional networks on the basis of criteria she calls “average common membership.” Average common membership is calculated as all Mediterranean states’ common memberships in different FIGOs.14 This was selected as the most tangible criterion for illustrating Mediterranean regional institutional statelevel cohesion in the absence of a higher number of RGOs/IRGOs in the Mediterranean (as presented in Table 8.1). For the year 1975 the subgroups are noted in Figure 8.2. One is the Northern Mediterranean ([Southern European states – France, Greece, Italy, and Spain, but not Portugal], Portugal, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta) and the other is the Southern Mediterranean (including all North African and Near-Eastern Arab) states. The third subgroup is made up of four Southern European states (France, Greece, Italy, and Spain). Israel and Albania act as isolated states, with Israel sharing common memberships with only four
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CYP MLT POR ALG
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Figure 8.2 Network analysis of average common RGO membership for states within the Mediterranean, 1975
Mediterranean states and Albania with none. It is France and Mauritania that have, in absolute numbers, the highest number of RGO memberships and somehow represent a formal institutional link between the two subgroups of states in the Mediterranean. At the end of the Cold War (1989), Figure 8.3 fails to show substantial changes to common regional ties among Mediterranean states, albeit the numbers of ties within subgroups are stronger than in 1975. There appears to be very limited formal linkage between Yugoslavia and Egypt, the leading non-aligned movement states. The Arab subgroup remains more cohesive than the Northern Mediterranean or even Southern European one, while France and Mauritania continue the institutional linkage between North and South. Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War (2004), Figure 8.4 reflects the greater integration of the Southern European part of the Mediterranean as the East–West conflict has ended. Albania is now integrated into the Northern side and the Southern European subgroup now surpasses the numbers of linkages compared to the Arab region. France and Mauritania once more represent the linkage between the two big subgroups. The figures reflect increased cohesion values of subgroups within the Mediterranean space but it is cohesion within European and Middle Eastern regional networks as defined in the FIGO database. In order to assess
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Ana Bojinovic´ Fenko CYP MLT POR YUG TUR ALG
JOR
EGY GRC
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LEB LIB
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Figure 8.3 Network analysis of average common RGO membership for states within the Mediterranean, 1989
ALB
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MLT SNM
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ITA
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FRN POR
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Figure 8.4 Network analysis of average common RGO membership for states within the Mediterranean, 2004
increased interstate cohesion within the entirety of Mediterranean space, the analysis shifts to networks of linkages in inter-regional FIGOs, represented by a calculation of average common membership of Mediterranean states in the IRGOs as designated in the database. These IRGOs are the few already mentioned dealing directly with the Mediterranean (CIESM, EMPPO, and RIMMO), and other IRGOs whose mandates are such that they include mainly Mediterranean states as members, e.g., the Afro-Asian
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CYP
ISR MLT
MOR
ALG
TUR
TUN
EGY JOR LIB MAA
YUG SYR ITA
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Figure 8.5 Mediterranean FIGO cohesion in 1989 by average common IRGO membership
Rural Reconstruction Organization (AARRO), Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee (AALCO), Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSCE), Central Office for International Railway Transport (OTIF – Organization intergouvernementale pour les transports internationaux ferroviaires), Eurasian Patent Organization (EAPO), International Center for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), and Joint Administration of the Turkic Culture and Arts (Turksoy). Analysis of average common IRGO memberships of Mediterranean states reveals that there is neither substantial organizational development nor substantial cohesion of members across the traditional regions of Europe and the Middle East. The total number of IRGOs increases only from six in 1975 to eight in 2004, despite the substantial growth of IRGOs after 1989 noted in Chapter 2. Between the end of the Cold War and 2004, the actual percentage of Mediterranean states participating in Mediterranean IRGOs dropped slightly – from 43 to 38 percent – indicating stagnation or even a decrease in the number of common formal institutional ties between these states. Figures 8.5 and 8.6 illustrate the number of institutional ties making up the network of relationships between Mediterranean states sharing IRGO memberships. At the end of the Cold War (Figure 8.5), all states are included in institutional ties. The core states remain Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and
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SNM
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TUR SPN
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MNC CYP ALG
CRO GRC
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Figure 8.6 Mediterranean FIGO cohesion in 2004 by average common IRGO membership
Turkey (as was the case in 1975) but now joined by Syria. North Mediterranean states share an average 10 memberships; however, Spain is the core state among them with an average 16 memberships. Figure 8.6 illustrates that the network of Mediterranean states’ common IRGO memberships becomes more diverse by 2004, compared to 1989. It shows two main clusters of states, namely the South Mediterranean – Arab – states, and the North Mediterranean states.15 The new states of the former Yugoslavia integrate well into the latter group, while the Arab subgrouping continues its own relative cohesiveness, with Jordan and Lebanon moving closer and Egypt moving into the Arab core. Turkey is part of the European network of common memberships in RGOs, although at the same time an analysis of IRGOs indicates its connection to the Middle Eastern region.
The Role of External Regionalizing Actors Ayoob (1999) identifies a number of crucial factors for achieving tighter regional cohesion involving external actor activity: the presence of a pivotal regional power, legitimate hegemonic or managerial aspirations
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within the region, insulation of the region from external intervention and undue extra regional influence. Meanwhile, external involvement is likely to produce fruitful direction toward stronger regional cohesion if the area’s states see regional integration as being concurrent with nation-building and complementary rather than hostile to their objectives. These conditions did not appear to hold after the end of World War II, and especially as the area for external actors shifted from economic (Roucek, 1953:79–81; Campbell, 1975) and geostrategic goals to ideological objectives (Vukadinović, 1984; Strpić, 1989). Clearly, a focus on external actors is an important piece of the puzzle for Mediterranean regionalism. External presence in the area was featured by the reluctant replacement of Great Britain by the US after 1947 with an increasingly proactive foreign policy (Calleya, 1997:83, 169). US foreign policy, however, addressed the area as the Middle Eastern region and not the Mediterranean (Looney, 2005; Dillery, 2006). After 1989 the US initiated a number of “regional” cooperation initiatives, including the Middle East Partnership Initiative, Middle East–North Africa (MENA) economic summits, Eizenstat initiative (Aliboni, 2000), and in 2004 a “Greater/ Broader Middle East Initiative”16 (Cofman Wittes, 2004; Çağri, 2005). American policy makers appeared to have been engaged in a type of cognitive deconstruction of the Mediterranean, not as a region in the making, but due to the interstate regional conflicts and “potential spill over from the neighbouring countries” (King, 1998:118), as simply part of a more “realistic” regional (security) complex of the larger Middle East.17 Traditional intensive penetration from external actors in the Mediterranean space was present during, and continued after the Cold War, not only by states but also IGOs (RGOs and GIGOs). Influential external RGOs in the Mediterranean have been the Conference/Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (C/OSCE) with its Mediterranean component (Petković, 1984; Dromnjak, 1984; Žic, 1988; Bin, 1997; Aliboni, 2000; Adler and Crawford, 2006), the presence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), European Community/Union (EC/EU) foreign relations/policy initiatives, and the UN system. Altogether, Šabič and Bojinović (2007) count as external actors’ active involvement: two OSCE and two NATO initiatives, six ongoing UN agencies’ programmes, 19 EU-related programmes and institutions, and three US regional (Middle East) initiatives. The policies of the EC also influenced whether or not regional architecture emerged in this area. The EC launched its Mediterranean policy in
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the 1960s with the idea of developing privileged relations with countries of the Mediterranean basin by a set of bilateral association agreements of a mainly commercial nature (Bin, 1997:61). In 1972, the EC enhanced and renamed this policy as the Global Mediterranean Policy (GMP), which concentrated on financial and technical cooperation and the promotion of industrialization and modernization of agriculture, again through bilateral agreements (Žic, 1988:366). Despite naming the policy “Mediterranean,” it merely reflected a common name for the countries from the EC economic cooperation area, with no “regional” substance. The Euro–Arab dialogue, which was launched after the 1973 oil crises “due to the European fear of the loss of oil supplies” (Campbell, 1975:611), was the first example of EC dialogue with Mediterranean states as a group, although a sub-regional one. The purpose of the dialogue, however, was not commonly shared; the initiative was abandoned due to disagreement between the two parties regarding content and priorities.18 Ideas on the Mediterranean space were still diversified between the (EC) states of the area.19 But, as Bicchi (in Adler and Crawford, 2006:21) claims, this was the first time the EC recognized the Mediterranean as “a region” (Adler and Crawford, 2006:21). Yet, the EC’s attention was very much on the European side of the Mediterranean due to the growing strength of the communist parties of the Southern European states, including practices of Mediterranean states individually and unequally, according to each state’s strategic importance, with the effect of contributing negatively to regionalization by institutionalizing existing and perceived differences between states of the area. Despite the 18-year ongoing Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) launched by the Barcelona Declaration,20 which includes elements of regional cooperation, the 2004 European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) reproduces practices of bilateral cooperation between the now-EU and individual Southern Mediterranean states (del Sarto and Schumacher, 2005; Bojinović, 2007). Furthermore, the EU categorically excluded the Western Balkan Mediterranean states from EMP and ENP for historical and political reasons (Pace, 2006), addressing them only within the EU’s enlargement policy, despite their high interest in joining the EMP in Barcelona in 1995 (Geršak, 2006).21 The most recent development of the EU-Med policy is the upgrading of the stalled EMP with a Mediterranean Union initiative, proposed by France in 2007. The “Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean” was launched in July 200822 with agreed participation of all the EU states and EMP partners, including Albania and Mauretania (in December 2007) and the most recent members Bosnia
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and Herzegovina, Croatia, Monaco, and Montenegro (for more on the development of the initiative, see Aliboni et al., 2008). Also of great importance is the role of the UN system in Mediterranean environmental and development projects (Šabič and Bojinović, 2007), although this remains at the level of technical cooperation, unable to produce “spill-over” effects. Another important external force during the Cold War was the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Two Mediterranean states (Yugoslavia and Egypt) had a leading role in the movement, and the majority of states in the area opted for NAM. The movement was an example of political unity shared by Southern European as well as Third World countries in the area, motivated by the perception of a cultural and political oppression enforced by imperialist entities (the West, USA, NATO) (Jackson, 1983); it “gave way for a search for a Mediterranean region de-linked from western dominance” (Aliboni, 2000). NAM intensely debated Mediterranean affairs within the scope of its political meetings (Žic, 1988:364); periodic ministerial conferences of the non-aligned countries of the Mediterranean were held until 1990 (Bin 1997:61). From its earliest existence one of NAM’s aims was to turn the Mediterranean into “a zone of peace and security” (Dromnjak, 1984:1080; Petković, 1984), which the movement managed to get codified in UN documents under resolutions on “strengthening of security and cooperation in the Mediterranean region.”23
Regionalization Overtaking Regionalism – the Mediterranean as a “Real Region” Yet, it is the transnational (non-state) actors who have since the 1970s taken “the lead” in constructing transnational patterns of relations in the Mediterranean: Mediterranean international and local (networks of) NGOs, networks of research centers, think tanks and epistemic communities, local communities and cities working in the fields of environmental protection and sustainable development, social affairs, cultural dialogue, and all types of human rights protection. Here, the focus is not on analyzing the distribution of the presence of non-state actors in the Mediterranean, which has been done elsewhere (Šabič and Bojinović, 2007) and points to a concentration of the latter in the northern part of the area, whereby France hosts about 56 percent of Mediterranean NGO headquarters and only 19 percent of the latter are located outside EU territory. The main point is
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to show that transnational actors that have been much more active in terms of the quantity of Mediterranean initiatives and the focus of their mandates compared to the states themselves. As Šabič and Bojinović (2007) show, the growth of these non-governmental actors has especially risen since 1990; between the end of the Cold War and 2006, their growth has been more than threefold, and twice that of state-sponsored initiatives in existence. Therefore, the role of these non-state actors in making the real Mediterranean region is worth exploring and, furthermore, leads to an understanding of the possible non-state influences on region-making. Rosenau (1969) was one of the first – using the concept of linkage politics – to underscore the importance of advocacy networks, epistemic communities, and international non-governmental organizations for state policies and for the creation of international norms and the diffusion of these norms into domestic practices. This process is enabled through the transnational actors’ strategies and socialization process conducted within the framework of international material and institutional conditions, domestic conditions, and by linking the two (Risse, 2006:263–8). The Mediterranean non-governmental regionalizing actors in this context create the necessary base for communication, coordination of policies and programs, as well as the logistical and financial support for Mediterranean non-governmental institutions which otherwise would not have been able to cooperate with their counterparts in other Mediterranean countries. Of course, this is not the only region to do so: successful INGO networks of regional cooperation have existed since the 1990s in the regions of South-East and North-East Asia and not only in the “traditional” civil society fields of action such as protection of human rights, but also and especially in regionalization of the security agenda, where their role is “to formulate a consensus on the role and capacity-building process of civil society groups in the area of conflict prevention and co-operation with international and governmental agencies” (Lee, 2006).24 The process appears to be similar in the Mediterranean and has led to no fewer than the following: Forum of Mediterranean NGOs for Ecology and Sustainable Development, Institut de la Méditerranée, Mediterranean Development Forum, Forêt Méditerranéenne, Mediterranean Information Office, Inter-Mediterranean Geographical Commission as part of The Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions, la Conférence Permanente des Villes de la Méditerranée. Global NGOs with a Mediterranean “dimension” are exemplified by the International Council for Local Environmental
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Initiative (ICLEI) and Friends of the Earth and their FOE–MedNet programme (for a more exhaustive list, see Šabič and Bojinović, 2007). Social and political cooperation of a non-governmental nature was present during the Cold War (Dromnjak, 1984). This process of substitution for formal intergovernmental organization appears consistent with the findings in Chapter 3 about the growing vacuum being created by the present organizational architecture. In addition to the individual activities of these non-governmental, transnational actors in the Mediterranean, one can observe a growing tendency of these actors to align and coordinate their regional activities with actors who represent states, including institutions within states. The products resulting from these interactions are called mixed-actor or multi-actor collectivities, a term coined by Söderbaum who finds similar cases of regionalizing actors, “seldom acting in autonomous and distinct spheres” (Söderbaum, 2004:51), in the regional space of South Africa.25 There are two actors of this kind in the Mediterranean which serve as excellent examples. One is the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), founded in 1975 as the first-ever plan adopted under the UN Environment Programme’s umbrella (UNEP, 2008). The MAP is a regional cooperative effort involving 21 countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea,26 as well as funding through voluntary contributions to support specific projects and from the EU, UN agencies (including the UN Development Programme, World Health Organization, International Oceanographic Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Bank), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), including the participation of NGOs and scientists (UNEP, 2008).27 A second example is MIO-ECSDE (The Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture, and Sustainable Development). As stated in its profile, MIO-ECSDE acts as a technical and political platform for the intervention of NGOs in the Mediterranean space.28 In cooperation with governments, IGOs, and other socioeconomic partners, it plays an active role in the protection of the environment and the promotion of sustainable development of the Mediterranean region and its countries (MIO-ECSDE, 2005). Its roots go back to the early 1980s, when the expanding Mediterranean membership of the EC encouraged the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) to form its Mediterranean Committee, supported by the Elliniki Etairia (Hellenic Society for the Protection of the Environment and the Cultural Heritage). The Mediterranean Information Office was established in 1990 as a network of NGOs, under a joint project of the EEB and Elliniki Etairia and in close
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collaboration with the Arab Network of Environment and Development. The expansion of MIO-ECSDE’s Mediterranean NGO network, and the increasing requests for constructive and structured NGO opinions and representation in Mediterranean and international forums, led to the transformation of MIO-ECSDE to its current NGO Federation status. Civil society is one of the “new” actors especially involved by the EU in the EMP and the ENP (Schumacher, 2005), and the EU has been prominent in funding transnational NGOs, research think tanks, and micro-regional cooperation (Jünemann, 2002). Global civil society has especially reinforced the promotion of human rights (Feliu, 2005), although with mixed success. Nevertheless, where there has been success (e.g., foreign support of domestic media reform), networks of non-governmental institutions have been of particular importance for the Mediterranean region (Sakr, 2006). It appears that governmental actors have noted the possible success of regional cooperation in mixed-actor collectivities and are trying to establish those kinds of institutional patterns of relations in the Mediterranean space. This would especially apply to EU foreign policy initiatives such as within the third basket of the EMP (cultural and social cooperation, promotion of human rights). Mixed-actor collectivities provide a better institutional environment for enabling trust among the actors since they operate around functional policy fields and are more amenable to the EU’s emphasis on foreign policy pursuits based on soft power.
Conclusion The Mediterranean displays an excellent opportunity to bridge the gap between developing and developed countries, and diverse political, cultural, and socioeconomic systems. Its main asset may be the historical collective memory of regional practices and social cohesion which its peoples experience(d) as “the way of life” (Braudel, 1990). Today, this way of life remains very similar around the Mediterranean and stimulates initiatives for regional cooperation to build a tighter regional cohesion in order to assure security, welfare, and cultural prosperity. These initiatives have only minimally materialized at the intergovernmental level in terms of traditional levels of cooperation; creation of a formal region has not progressed. Regionalism today remains only at the level of basic functional cooperation (science, tourism, environmental protection). There has not yet been any serious political
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will to transform the existing regional functional collaborative practices into political, security, and economic cooperation. The international system change in 1989 spurred a number of Mediterranean state initiatives in this regard; however, they remain mired in a few informal institutional settings. Poor interstate cooperation is mainly rooted in mistrust among governments and in ongoing disputes and conflicts in the area. The analysis of formal regional institutional ties among the states in the Mediterranean since 1975 shows virtually no change in clusters of state connections, namely the Northern and Southern (mainly Arab) Mediterranean, except for the inclusion of previously isolated Albania and Israel and for the increase in the average number of common memberships in RGOs that overlap with parts of the Mediterranean space. Meanwhile, a similar IRGO analysis shows higher cohesion of Mediterranean states in 1989 than in the postCold War era. Thus, the political institutions of state regional cooperation are few and of an informal nature. Virtually no new “Mediterranean order” appears in terms of a formal region after the end of the Cold War. Importantly, such a state of affairs is exacerbated by the presence of strong external actors, institutionally connected to already powerful states in the Mediterranean space. Due to their presence, cooperation in the fields of politics and the economy stays on the agenda and, moreover, external actors also try to incorporate cultural, social, and human rights fields of cooperation. The three baskets of regional cooperation (political, economic, cultural), reproduced in the C/OSCE and EMP frameworks, respectively, seem to be firmly established within regional practices in the Mediterranean. Even the latest initiatives of the US Greater/Broader Middle East Initiative and the Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean rest on the combination of functional and political cooperation in terms of three baskets. The strong focus on cultural, social, environmental, and human rights fields of cooperation in the mandates of external actors’ Mediterranean policies points to their willingness to evade institutionalized state cooperation but link regional activities directly to market forces and civil society. Further regionalization cannot progress even through non-state actors unless it is built on mutually reinforcing cultural regional experiences. Where this has occurred it has been mostly through new regionalizing actors, namely mixed-actor collectivities, which could – besides the enormous growth of non-state actors – be perceived as a novelty in region-making after 1989. In this respect, one can conclude that political developments in the Mediterranean space after 1989 have led to a
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change in regional cooperation, which focuses less on political-security issues, and more on economic, cultural, social, and other forms of cooperation, and is practiced less within the formal and more within the real region. Another major issue highly salient for region-making revolves around the ideational (re)creation of the Mediterranean space becoming a region. Discursive practices referring to the latter are important, but quite diverse even within the Mediterranean, let alone among relevant external actors (Pace, 2006). Different regionalizing actors also deconstruct the Mediterranean; as noted earlier, the Mediterranean space in US foreign policy hardly exists, as displayed in the latter’s recent initiative of the Greater/Broader Middle East. The EU wants to build a Euro-Mediterranean region, encompassing all states of the EU and the Mediterranean, but is in internal conflict about goals and focus, as reflected in disputes around the creation of the Mediterranean Union in 2007 and 2008. Non-state actors seem to encompass non-politically binding perceptions of the area and include in Mediterranean cooperation fields and actors with similar problems – the real region. Yet, this multiplicity of approaches between state and non-state actors is not predetermined, even with the abundance of varied actors involved in the regionalization process. As the Mediterranean holds a long-lasting historical experience of regional cooperation before the creation of states took place, it could build on the common regional practices of its people’s lifestyles, similarities and complementarity in economic sectors, and similar environmental, social, and cultural values. Multi-actor collectivities already display successful regional cooperation and seem a promising institutional environment for the creation of more formal networks of cooperation for the states in the Mediterranean space.
Notes 1
In terms of socio-historical-political cohesion within the Mediterranean area, an operational definition of the region includes the following 26 states: Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FRYM), France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Mauritania, Monaco, Montenegro, Portugal, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey.
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The term “state actors” delineates states performing regional cooperation through their foreign policy either bi- or multilaterally in formal or informal settings. Non-state or transnational actors are defined as: markets, private businesses and firms, transnational corporations, transnational business networks, nongovernmental organizations, social movements, and other types of social network formed on the basis of professional, ideological, ethnic, or religious ties (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000:465) including epistemic communities and communities of practice (Adler, 2008). Of especial importance was the urban culture of the Mediterranean cities which totally contrasted to the feudal and rural prevailing organization of society in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe until the Modern age (urban type of civilization, trading function of the town, social formations of urban nature, power of merchant and clerical urban aristocracy, and the phenomenon of clientele) (Amin, 1989:2). For a historical analysis of the Mediterranean area, see Horden and Purcell (2002) and Norwich (2006). Crusades (from the eleventh to the thirteenth century) serve as an example to illustrate the religious tensions in the area; however, their true réalité majeure was conquering the maritime and commercial space of the Mediterranean (Braudel, 1993:90). The Latin idea, “produced” by Spain, France, and Italy, views the Mediterranean as mare nostrum, “a whole, unified conceptually, functionally and in terms of historical evocation as part of our world” (Moulakis, 2005:15). The Arab traditional ideology sees the Mediterranean Sea as peripheral, small – being only one of the many bays of the ocean – and even dangerous, inimical. The sea as seen in this light does not bind; it separates (Moulakis, 2005:15–22). The division of the Catholic and Orthodox Church in 1053, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the beginning of expansion of the Ottoman Empire brought about more visible geostrategic and political role of the Balkans within the Mediterranean. This is the only IGO we could label as a Mediterranean RGO; it is listed as an IRGO of European and Middle Eastern states. Its membership by 2004 included no fewer than 19 states of the region. For more on the role of Balkans and especially Turkey in the Mediterranean in the 1930s, see Barlas (2005). This was why the French proposal of consolidating Balkan Entente by a Mediterranean Pact failed to materialize, although it was enthusiastically supported by the Turks, as was the idea of a Mediterranean Entente (Barlas, 2005:453). Tripp (1995) notes that paradoxically, the League of Arab states was set up in 1945 as a guarantee for each of the participating states’ sovereignty and independence which could be threatened from within or from outside the region.
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Ana Bojinovic´ Fenko Similarly, pan-Slavic ideas realized in the First and Second Yugoslavia, which came into being after World Wars I and II, respectively, were federation projects to preserve small nations from being integrated into larger neighboring states (Južnič, 1992). The Spanish, Italian, Tunisian, and Moroccan idea was to include a clear mandate in security matters; however, Egypt wanted the forum to be a technical institution for challenging European aid to the Southern Mediterranean nations. The EU stressed separate relations with the eastern and western Arab world and the Americans objected to the formation of any political framework for Mediterranean cooperation excluding the US (El-Sayed Selim, 1995:20). The author thanks Keith Grant for his assistance in preparing the network analysis charts. Average common membership is calculated in the following way: all Mediterranean states were selected from the FIGO database and the absolute numbers of their FIGO (RGO and IRGO) memberships extracted in a register. Then, the average number of common memberships of pairs of states was calculated. Finally, out of all numbers of common memberships of pairs of states, the average common membership of Mediterranean states in RGOs/ IRGOs was calculated. This was done for the RGO and IRGO memberships in all time slots. The Northern Mediterranean group of states has been graphically slightly stretched for the purpose of clear name indication. G-8 Greater Middle East Partnership Working Paper, published by Al-Hayat, 13 February 2004, available at Middle East Intelligence Bulletin webpage: http://www.meib.org/documentfile/040213.htm (6 October 2007). This also influences the need to study the Middle East instead of the Mediterranean. See, e.g., Aarts (1999), Bilgin (1998), Bromley (2004), Cantori and Spiegel (1970), Fahmy (2004), Fawcett (2005), Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan (2002), Lemke (2002), Lindholm Schulz and Schulz (2005), Nnelaanza et al. (2001), Peres (1980), Tripp (1995). The EC gave priority to economic matters related to energy, but the Arab states pushed for the discussion on the Palestinian problem (Bin, 1997:60; Adler and Crawford, 2006:21). However, the EC did launch the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation (PAEAC) in 1974, trying to promote peace in the Middle East, and to strengthen political, economic, and cultural cooperation between Europe and the Arab world (Šabič and Bojinović, 2007). France is marked by Calleya (1997:84) as a middle power in the region; however, it was the only EC member with a clear idea of a “Mediterranean community with France as its natural leader.” Other states did not offer support to put the idea into practice further than discourse; Italy and Spain did not agree with French leadership, Greece and Turkey were skeptical, Israel hostile, and the Arab states maintained their reserve (Campbell, 1975:622–3).
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Barcelona Declaration, adopted at the Euro-Mediterranean Conference, 27–28 November 1995 in Barcelona, available at http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/ lvb/r15001.htm (19 January 2009). Slovenia and Croatia especially were striving very hard to gain the status of a partner state to be associated with the western democratic standards of governance and cooperation, but partnership was “reserved for” the Southern Mediterranean states. Slovenia, after heavy lobbying, managed only to observe the Barcelona conference as a guest by invitation of the convenor (the Spanish government). Joint Declaration of the Paris Summit for the Mediterranean, accepted at the Euro-Mediterranean Heads of States and Government meeting in Paris, under the co-presidency of the President of the French Republic and the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, on 13 July 2008, available at http://www.ue2008.fr/webdav/site/PFUE/shared/import/07/0713_declaration_de_paris/Joint_ declaration_of_the_Paris_summit_for_the_ Mediterranean-EN.pdf (30 September 2008). See, for example, UN General Assembly resolutions A/41/468, A/42/759, A/43/579, A/43/912, A/44/820, A/45/713 and A/46/523. For the role of transnational actors (especially civil society) in the interregional Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM process), see Gilson (2005). Söderbaum cautions us that it is “important to move beyond the analytical distinctions between four spheres of states, market, civil society and external actors, and also acknowledge the way various actors come together in different types of mixed-actor collectivities and hybrids, modes of regional governance and regional networks” (Söderbaum, 2004:51). Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Monaco, Morocco, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey (UNEP, 2008). The Global Environment Facility (GEF), established in 1991, helps developing countries fund projects and programs that protect the global environment. It is an independent financial organization that provides grants to developing countries for projects that benefit the global environment and promote sustainable livelihoods in local communities (GEF, 2007a). NGOs participate in the GEF activities and assist in the design, execution, and monitoring of projects. There is also a Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel which provides objective scientific and technical advice to the GEF (GEF, 2007b). It includes NGOs from outside the Mediterranean area and from Mediterranean states, from 19 states and the Palestinian Authority; Albania, Algeria, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey (MIO-ECSDE, 2005).
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Chapter 9
Conclusions Thomas J. Volgy, Zlatko Šabicˇ, Petra Roter, Andrea K. Gerlak, Elizabeth Fausett, Keith A. Grant, and Stuart Rodgers The fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and enhanced globalization encapsulate the types of tectonic change in international relations that should have led to a major reshuffling of regional and global institutional architecture. However, the initial enthusiasm for new working relationships at the end of the Cold War was quickly replaced with the dilemma of what to do to revise a world order that was built for another era. The primary international governing body, the United Nations – though no longer paralyzed along old divides – continues to preserve a distribution of power that is by many decades out of date. Other organizations, such as NATO, have struggled to revise their objectives and structures in an attempt to remain relevant, as their primary purpose for existence had disappeared with the era. This volume has attempted to narrow in on one salient dimension of global order, focusing on the contours and effectiveness of structured cooperative arrangements created between states. We sought to contribute to the discussion of the post-Cold War order by investigating one of its pieces, the constellation of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Of course, it would be difficult to ignore the multidimensionality of the global institutional architecture. Nevertheless, focusing on IGOs has its own merits. IGOs have become an increasingly important aspect of global governance and they are one salient way of assessing the changing nature of international relations. This is so in no little part because IGOs require resource commitments by states and they seek to create agreements to limit or focus policy preferences in a way that can have substantial economic, military, or reputational consequences in the event of non-compliance.
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Despite a great divergence in the issues addressed in the various chapters included here – from the acceptance of human rights treaties, to collective natural resource management, to the deterrence of violent conflict – this volume has been built around the shared recognition that the transition away from a bipolar international system could have served as an impetus for massive revision to the international system. Yet, at least in the areas investigated here, we have found that such an overhaul has failed to occur. Building from this shared observation, individual chapters in this volume focused on one or more of three questions. First, despite apparent states’1 policy preferences in its favor, why did a “new world order” fail to emerge and what has emerged/remained in its place? Second, for what reasons do states choose to engage or disengage from this “order”? Third, how effective is this current “order” in addressing the governance dilemmas for which it was created? The answers to these questions are varied, and as is always the case, they depend on the theoretical perspective utilized and the specific issue area of concern. For example, while we find no evidence of a new global order, we do note a trend toward downsizing of the constellation of IGOs, at least at the global level. This pattern partially results from the waning need for many Cold War era organizations, but is also partially due to the consolidation of parts of the architecture into fewer organizations. The resulting structural arrangement, characterized by a reversal of the growth of IGOs across the Cold War era, has functioned in the post-1989 era to connect more states, both globally and regionally. Yet, the continuation of the old order, in spite of some consolidation and restructuring, seems to have resulted in the loss of institutional currency. At least relative to certain tasks, such as resolving potentially violent conflict between their members, this loss of currency has led to a lessened effectiveness of these organizations. In other areas, there has been no organizational replacement prompted by the increased death rate of organizations following the end of bipolarity. Less formal, sometimes ad hoc arrangements arose instead, providing more flexible and less forcible means of cooperation. And despite a seeming shift from issues of global governance to more regionally defined concerns, with the exception of the intense integration occurring over the past decades in Europe, there has been an absence of successful attempts to build more coherent regional orders, even in areas where such an attempt would be expected (e.g., in Asia, the Middle East, and South America).
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What Order Has Emerged? Unlike previous eras, where a clear and new architecture emerged in the wake of a major systemic transformation that resulted in redesigning and reshaping the international arena and interstate interactions, no such arrangements have been created at the conclusions of the Cold War. With the two exceptions of reconstructions in Sub-Saharan Africa and developments in Eurasian post-Communist space, the configuration of the system has remained widely static following the death of many Cold War era organizations. As has been noted throughout this volume, the lack of systemic transformation at this juncture is surprising, especially given the initial enthusiasm by the US government for the creation of a new world order. The post-Cold War era can be characterized by neither a new global order nor the emergence of amplified regional governance. What, then, has emerged in this new era? Through the previous chapters, we have been able to illustrate three patterns: substantial continuity with past architecture, partial shifting towards ad hoc, informal, and unilateral institutional arrangements, and efforts at restructuring existing architecture. First, a significant portion of the current order exhibits substantial continuity with the past. A large part of the IGO architecture is dominated by older institutions, built mostly during the Cold War and demonstrating substantial durability, but with decreasing institutional currency to address post-Cold War realities. State participation in these organizations has grown, at both the global and regional levels, linking states closer together, but in organizations that are relatively resilient to substantial reform in the face of exogenous change and novel stimuli. While there have been efforts to restructure many of these organizations, the effect of such adjustments has been limited. This is especially true in case of United Nations reforms; meanwhile NATO’s role in Europe (and beyond), in spite of its successes in enlargement and some success in addressing security issues, remains controversial. These organizations, and especially the United Nations, still reflect the old distribution of power that brought about the fall of Nazism and Fascism in Europe and Asia, and may continue to do so indefinitely with the assistance of permanent seats and unilateral veto authority in the Security Council. Nevertheless, our data demonstrate that states have continued to join these organizations, irrespective of their institutional “currency.” As we
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illustrated in Chapter 2, the wide variation in joining and participation in the architecture by states has diminished substantially, at both the global and regional levels (albeit with Asian states remaining as a major exception). Presumably, the costs of participation are outweighed by a variety of benefits, although these benefits may come less in the form of successfully addressing governance issues than in terms of individual benefits to states joining. These benefits include a substitution effect for democratization on the part of more autocratic states (Chapter 6), and opportunities for obtaining legitimacy for states willing to indicate compliance with broadly accepted norms, irrespective of whether or not those norms, as in the case of human rights, are followed domestically (Chapter 7). In fact, our analysis of state support for human rights treaties indicates an interesting pattern of benefits from joining and participating in organizations that may have limited effectiveness. Clearly, states are eager to adhere to major human rights treaties that more broadly establish categories of human rights and thus fulfill one of the goals of many IGOs, including the United Nations. However, state commitment to human rights internationally does not necessarily correspond to the implementation of those norms domestically. Through IGO participation, the ratification of weak human rights treaties comes at a bargain price for states. On one hand, by their formal commitment to human rights, states are rewarded with recognition for their “belonging” to a community based on democracy and the rule of law – hence support to human rights treaties has increased over time, spreading into all world regions. On the other hand, many states pay little or no price if human rights are not implemented domestically. The pattern of continuity is also underscored by the mix of organizations in the global architecture: regional IGOs continue to dominate over global and inter-regional organizations, and the dominant patterns of regional architecture from the Cold War period continue to persist into the postCold War era. Even the pattern of relative imbalance in regional IGO construction across the various geographic regions has continued in the post-Cold War era. In Africa, the large constellations of regional and subregional organizations have been replaced by new regional and sub-regional organizations nearly as numerous as in the prior period; it is an open and unanswered question whether the new organizations are more effective. Few regional organizations have developed in Asia since the end of the Cold War, mirroring the previous period. In South America, strong efforts at integration of Andean and Mercosur states, created in the post-Cold War
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era, have floundered over growing conflicts between conservative, moderate, liberal, and leftist regimes, creating little new, effective infrastructure. Nevertheless, as we noted in Chapter 2, state membership in regional organizations has substantially increased and converged across nearly all regions. However, it is only in Europe where the constellation of the European Communities (evolving into the EU) has both broadened and integrated larger numbers of states into the region, although our analysis indicates that the core Western European states continue to dominate the organizational linkages in the region. How much further integration and growth will occur in Europe is clearly an open question as well: efforts to expand EU structures through constitutional changes that would provide it with more authority in defense and foreign policy continue to flounder. Simultaneously, several Eastern (or South Eastern) European states wish to join the central EU-dominated institutional web, but such membership continues to be subjected both to hurdles regarding economic and political accession criteria by the applicants, and to the agreement by the EU members on further expansion and inclusion of countries that have been left outside for years (Croatia) or decades (Turkey). Attempts to create new infrastructure for informal regions have also demonstrated limited success. As Chapter 8 illustrated, despite numerous attempts to construct a Mediterranean region, key actors have been no more successful in the development of IGOs in the post-Cold War era than previously, with cooperation developing along informal lines, and mostly across a constellation of international non-state and sub-state actors. Regionalism in the Mediterranean today continues to be based on the established tradition of functional cooperation in areas of science, tourism, and environmental protection, but mostly at the non-governmental level. Save for one functional IGO for the scientific exploration of the Mediterranean Sea, there are no FIGOs in the Mediterranean institutional architecture. While the end of Communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union spurred Mediterranean state initiatives, they served only to stimulate an informal, loose institutional architecture within this geographical space, while generating much tension within the EU over larger, more grandiose plans (such as the French initiative for a Union of the Mediterranean). At present, one can hardly refer to the Mediterranean as a formal region, although it may be developing its regionality through informal mechanisms and through non-state actors. Paralleling the pattern of substantial continuity with past architecture are two other patterns of adaptations to new political circumstances. First,
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we find that states and non-state actors seem to have responded to the reduced effectiveness of existing organizational arrangements through at least a partial shifting towards ad hoc, informal, and unilateral arrangements. Though we are not the first to make this observation (Forman and Segaar, 2006), we believe these looser cooperative arrangements to be a significant element of structure, especially in more technical and specialized issue areas, such as the governance of international rivers. Likewise, these less restrictive associations appear to exist not as a component of the organizational order (as presented in Chapter 2), but as a complement to it. At least related to water resource management, regions (defined by river basins) having previous success with more formalized organizations tended to maintain cooperation through such mechanisms, while areas characterized by fewer formalized organizations tended to prefer looser, less binding cooperative mechanisms. Looser cooperation, then, does not appear a stepping stone to more formalized, deepened cooperation (a point also highlighted in the Mediterranean chapter), but rather an alternative that many states seem to prefer, at least in the post-Cold War era. Clearly, the issue area of transboundary rivers is one of many issue areas where structured cooperation is needed but formal institutional mechanisms are not forthcoming in the post-Cold War environment. We suspect that at both regional and global levels, the patterns for other issue areas are likely to resemble what we have observed with respect to transboundary river issues, although we are loath to generalize from one issue area to others, such as ecological degradation, air pollution, etc. More comparative research is needed that focuses on both regional and global arrangements to address attempts by states (and non-state actors) to create mechanisms of cooperation and coordination across the range of salient issue areas. In addition, there have been varied, incremental efforts at restructuring both global and regional architecture. Some of these efforts are new, and necessitated by the complete dissolution of existing organizational arrangements – as in the case of the Soviet bloc. In the Eurasian “region”, Russian policy makers have worked diligently to construct formal organizations in post-Communist space in cooperation with newly emergent republics and with China (best exemplified by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization). Our analysis (Chapter 4) indicates that co-membership and participation in IGOs by emerging states in post-Communist space has exacerbated conflict rather than ameliorating it, while much of dyadic interaction involving Russia within the region is strongly correlated with both low and high severity conflict. Whether or not these organizations will be able to
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ameliorate conflictual relations, as their organizational capabilities increase (and assuming they can survive under these conditions), remains another open question. It is equally unclear whether these new arrangements are designed strictly for a limited geographical setting, or perhaps as alternative models to existing, larger arrangements. As we write, Russian policy makers have advanced the creation of a major international conference in Moscow in 2009 to develop alternative security structures to NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), arguing that existing arrangements no longer reflect the realities of present international relations. Whether this is the true aim or instead it is meant to advance the credibility and role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in security relations outside of Eurasia remains to be seen.2 What is clear, however, is that – consistent with our findings in Chapter 3 – Chinese and Russian challenges to the status quo should substantially increase in the future, including challenges to the viability of existing architectural arrangements. There have been, of course, numerous other efforts at constructing new organizations and institutions in the post-Cold War era, although the failure rate (as we noted in Chapter 2) is substantially beyond failure rates during the Cold War. The most prominent efforts – an alternative to the International Monetary Fund for Asia by China and Japan, the development of the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change into global institutional form, an International Criminal Court – have either been successfully opposed by the US and failed to take hold, or have failed to live up to expectations, such as in the case of the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA). More extensive has been the type of restructuring of organizations that is incremental in character. Incremental changes may occur in at least two forms: changes to the membership of organizations, and changes to their structure and mission. We have noted some of the more important cases when one or both have occurred: EU expansion to accommodate newly emerging European states, NATO expansion both in membership and in task, the transition from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and ongoing (albeit mostly unsuccessful efforts) to reform the UN. Even informal arrangements, such as the shift from the G-7 to the G-8, have undergone some incremental reconstruction. While we have been able to detect incremental changes through expansion in membership, our approach is ill suited to assessing incremental
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changes to the structures of existing organizations, except for assessing whether or not an IGO crosses the threshold to become a formal IGO, or FIGO. Few organizations from the Cold War period were able to engage in such structural changes. Therefore, we are unable to assess fully this dimension of change to the architecture, although we suspect that highly salient incremental structural changes are exceedingly difficult to effectuate in the rapidly changing political environment that is characteristic of post-Cold War international politics. Although not one of our explicit foci, the WTO provides a clear example of how difficult it is to build – or change – global cooperative infrastructure that retains its organizational currency. The WTO was constructed both as a “strong” and as a flexible IGO, including an adjudicating mechanism built into the organization. Rather than entrenching voting decisions into an archaic or unchanging power structure, new rules require unanimity and substantial negotiations, and to keep the organization current it is assumed that there will be a series of “rounds” with which to redefine norms and rules regarding trade relationships. Yet, the latest Doha Round of changes to the organization has met with utter failure, due to a combination of changing power relationships and economic circumstances in the global political economy.3 There are few FIGOs in the global or regional architecture that have built-in change mechanisms as flexible as the WTO; therefore its apparent failure to change does not augur well for the more rigid elements of the architecture that are in need of revision.
The Effectiveness of the New Order A large variety of yardsticks are available with which to measure the effectiveness of IGO architecture. One is the amount of success that is achieved regarding certain global (or regional) governance objectives through the cumulative outputs of organizations focused on a common mission. It is plausible, for instance, that the network of organizations devoted to trade growth between members has created significant additional trade that would not have occurred without the existence of the network. Clusters of informal IGOs working in the issue area of international rivers may cumulatively contribute to the conservation and quality of drinking water in a significant way. IGOs focused on human rights concerns may have a significant impact on the observance of human rights among member-states
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(although Chapter 7 as well as previous research suggests that this may be very doubtful, at least among the states violating human rights the most). These cumulative outputs, important as they are, have not been the focus of our research and we cannot infer effectiveness from our analysis using this yardstick. In addition to the organizational outputs, two other yardsticks for assessing organizational effectiveness that are used extensively in the literature involve the impact of organizations on their members through either dampening conflicts between them, or socializing members into norms and interests that are broadly shared by the larger community of states. In the first form, conflicts between members are reduced as organizations provide additional information to members, reduce uncertainty, minimize cheating on agreements, or provide mediating mechanisms over disputes. Socialization occurs through repeated interactions between members, and produces one of two types of effect: either socialization into the norms of appropriate conduct, and/or a deeper socialization that changes states’ interests and moves them closer to a similar outlook toward common problems, or toward changing their behavior so that they conform to the norms.4 We have generated some evidence of IGO effectiveness using the conflict reduction yardstick. The increasing shift toward informal agreements noted in several chapters seems to suggest a perceived ineffectiveness of the existing architecture. However, some regional organizations have been found to reduce conflictual behavior between members, and non-democracies have been able to signal openness through increased joining (although the impact that signals has yet to be evaluated). Still, two chapters suggest that increased participation in the order might actually increase interstate conflict. Chapter 3 suggests that the population of weak IGOs – those organizations that are lacking strong bureaucratic structures and fiscal independence – are associated with increased levels of militarized disputes. Likewise, Chapter 4 suggests that participation in the newly forming postCommunist architecture, while perhaps deterring some amounts of higherlevel conflict, creates increasing numbers of lower-level negative interactions, which in turn are associated with higher levels of interstate conflict. This confusing picture is perhaps best understood by two naturally opposed elements of organizational effectiveness. Organizations are demonstrated to be more effective as they endure; however, increasing longevity is often associated with a decrease in institutional currency. This suggests countervailing forces at work: at the same time that organizations are refining their bureaucratic mechanisms and increasing their authority over
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their members, processes that stabilize these organizations in the present era, the foundations on which they were initially built increase the risk that these institutions are losing organizational currency. Their effectiveness increases, but so does their risk of losing it as global conditions change. Likewise, we have seen in these chapters, as with other recent literature on IGOs, that conflict reduction varies by strength of organization and organizational scope. Strong IGOs are more likely to reduce conflict between members than weak ones, and more homogeneous, strong regional organizations are more likely to have conflict-ameliorating effects than strong but (by definition) heterogeneous global organizations. These requirements for organizational effectiveness do not bode well for the post-Cold War architecture. To the extent that the architecture continues to be dominated by strong Cold War organizations, the constellation loses organizational currency. Newly formed FIGOs are still at the stage of limited effectiveness, and their death rates appear to be substantially higher than they were during the previous era, demonstrating a higher level of fragility in the face of shifting issues and power relationships in the twentyfirst century. Meanwhile, to the extent that informal arrangements or weak IGOs are seen as substitutes for the hard work of creating and maintaining strong, formal architecture, it may be plausible that these substitutes produce few conflict-ameliorating functions and may actually contribute to increased conflicts between states. With respect to the constellation of regional IGOs, at least in the conflict realm, regional architecture seems to be quite salient, especially after a significant period of entrenchment. As well, emerging architecture can be extremely effective in moderating the levels of conflict, especially when it was specifically designed for the issues of the region, as was done in the former Soviet republics. Hence, it seems that locally constructed agreements can exert influence over their member-states, given the localized scope of those agreements and the increased ability for organizational currency that comes with it. Yet, the picture we present at the regional level should continue to raise concerns about architectural effectiveness. The growth in strong (formal) regional organizations has declined, compared to the previous era, and efforts at greater integration in security and foreign policy are moving slowly in the EU and floundering in South America. Wholesale restructuring in Africa and across post-Communist space increases the institutional currency of some of these organizations, but their durability is yet to be tested. In Asia, the number of formal organizations has not been constructed
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beyond a bare minimum, and the Middle East has witnessed a small decline in its regional constellation since 1989.5 In fact, some of the benefits of participation by states in regional architecture provide an interesting set of outcomes with respect to organizational effectiveness. Increasing numbers of non-democracies are participating in regional governance endeavors. This suggests that joining the regional order is beneficial for them, even when such participation leads to collective, representative decision-making procedures – something generally considered alien to autocratic regimes. As Chapter 6 suggests, those benefits may signal general economic openness and high quality governance, allowing for autocratic regimes to assume many of the advantages of liberal democracies without elites risking a loss of power through general elections, or the transitional instability that often accompanies democratization. This potential substitutability effect, however, may have counterintuitive consequences. Many organizations are thought to encourage democratization. In these cases, however, where increased participation in regional organizations is perhaps being used as a substitute for democracy – allowing states to gain the international liberal benefits without the costly democratic transition – countries lose the incentive to transition to democracy, leaving more oppressive regimes in control. In this light, the effectiveness of regional orders might hinder the most recent wave of democratization, increasing the viability of autocracies in an increasingly globalized, liberal (economic) order. The socialization effects of the post-Cold War architecture are difficult to determine, although once more we have some limited evidence from our research. Chapter 7 clearly points to “Type I” socialization effects: states join organizations engaged in human rights norm development and relatively quickly come to accept those norms, at least in a formal sense. In this manner, they are acceding to the rules of the game externally, although as the chapter indicates (for especially the most egregious of states), such agreements do not translate well to domestic policy. At a minimum, the discourse about human rights changes. However, the long-term impact on domestic human rights protection may be both unclear and dependent on a number of factors (since implementation of some rights requires political will whereas most second-generation human rights require also some minimum level of economic development, these factors may range from domestic regimes and their willingness to change behavior to individual human rights at stake). The most recent literature on socialization effects, by Bearce and Bondanella (2007), offers two additional cues about the nature of the emerging order. They point to “Type II” socialization effects (converging
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interests and objectives) when organizations are strong (in our parlance, formal), but weakened when there is a power imbalance between the two states in a dyad. They demonstrate regional variation in socialization effects, with Asian states and regional institutions showing the strongest impact of IGO membership on interest convergence within dyads. Their research is consistent with our findings in Chapters 6 and 7 where we note that states seem to commit to a minimum acceptance of international norms regarding free trade, human rights, and transparency in order to avoid more invasive and “costly” forms of socialization. While these results are encouraging, the socialization effects of the postCold War architecture are susceptible to the same problems as the conflict reduction effects. We assume that strong IGOs demonstrate socialization effects since their bureaucratic structures and the repeated interactions of their members are the stimulants of the socialization process. In this sense, Bearce and Bondanella’s strong organizations are akin to the FIGOs in our research; presumably, the socialization effects of both types of these IGOs vary with their durability and organizational currency. That institutional currency appears to matter is part of the evidence that prior research provides: in every one of their models showing socialization effects, Bearce and Bondanella’s (2007) results indicate a substantially stronger effect on issue convergence by the “Cold War” variable than the IGO variable, regardless of global or regional context.6 To the extent that the architecture is losing its organizational currency, we presume that it will have a diminishing effect as well on the socialization of its members.7 We observe as well the interesting anomaly that socialization effects are noted to be the strongest for regional actors and organizations in Asia (Bearce and Bondanella, 2007:721). Unfortunately, it is precisely in this region where there is so little institutional progress in FIGO formation, and perhaps not a coincidence that state actors are unwilling or unable to create additional organizational mechanisms that may lead to a convergence of their interests.
An Agenda for Future Research Nearly every research effort raises as many new issues and questions as it seeks to address, and we are no exception to that rule. Our findings are particularly suggestive of a number of issues that need further consideration.
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(1) The interplay between IGOs and non-state actors: In Chapters 5 and 8 we draw attention to the role of non-state actors in the design of IGOs and their subsequent operations. In the case of international rivers, non-governmental organizations and some donor agencies have played a significant role in promoting transboundary cooperation in various regions of the world, including Africa, within the area of former Soviet states, and Latin America. In the Mediterranean, transnational, non-state actors have since the 1970s played a significant role in constructing transnational patterns of relations, evidenced by networks of NGOs, research centers, social affairs, human rights, and environmental protection. Increasingly, the emphasis there is being placed on establishing “regional” cooperation in mixed-actor collectivities. Further research is needed to explore more thoroughly the cross-scale interplay between IGOs and non-state actors in various policy realms. For instance, the same avenue could be taken in the issue area of human rights where comparative research on the role of IGOs could be usefully examined from the perspective of increasing effectiveness of international human rights treaties. The extent to which non-state actors have penetrated IGOs (becoming members), and especially at the regional and inter-regional level, would likewise deserve closer examination. For example, in our analysis of FIGOs, we record all state memberships, as does the Correlates of War (COW) IGO project. Neither database, however, accounts for the growing involvement of non-state actors in these organizations; in fact, in our research we limit FIGOs to only those organizations where the majority of membership and majority of funding are by states. The extent to which non-state actors are involved in funding and participating in these organizations merits closer review, however, as does the differential impact of organizations that are solely composed of states versus a broader array of actors.8 (2) The interplay across regional IGOs: As we have noted, one approach to governance has been the creation of inter-regional, formal organizations that are not global in character but focus on the relationships between states across two or three regions, and underscored by a common dynamic (cultural, economic, and political). An alternative to this approach – not studied here – that sidesteps the development of formal collaborative relationships is the creation of informal structural relations between regional organizations across two or more geographical areas, by conducting regionto-region relationships through IGOs rather than states (Söderbaum and Langenhove, 2005). Examples of these kinds of inter-regional cooperation relations include EU–ASEAN (or ASEM process; Gilson, 2005) and
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EU–Mercosur (Santander, 2005). The absence of such relationships between regions may be of equal significance, as in the case of EU–NAFTA, where states within each regional organization are more important to interregional relations than the organizations themselves. (3) The interplay across issue areas: As Figure 1.1 illustrated, and underscored in Chapters 4 and 7, an issue area focus to architectural arrangements yields interesting variations on how states construct and participate in cooperative arrangements. The findings in those chapters suggest strongly that much further research is needed, using a comparative issue area focus, to highlight similarities and differences across issue areas.9 The comparison between transboundary water cooperation and emerging cohesion on human rights norms in Chapters 5 and 6 hint at the notion that some of the variation across issue areas may be a function of conditions under which “defection” from agreements and norms is related to domestic compliance (human rights). Such compliance that is less detectable and less enforceable versus compliance that generates immediate effects on the parties to the agreement (water pollution or usage across boundaries). Where defection may be less noticed, less monitored, and less costly to other parties, the issue area may generate more compliance and Type I socialization into global and regional norms.10 States appear to be far more cautious, however, in creating and agreeing to structures of cooperation for international river basins, where monitoring and external compliance are more obvious. A comparative analysis of structured cooperative arrangements could highlight as well the extent to which there is migration of organizational mandates from one issue area to another (and the causal processes associated with it). Powers’ (2006) work on regional trade agreements has shown that in Africa, such agreements often morph into security organizations as actors discover that economic mandates cannot be accomplished when the physical security of members is threatened. We do not know if this is a phenomenon unique to either trade organizations or to the African region. Chapter 4, however, hints at a certain amount of path dependency that is far more general than the economic issue area generating security concerns and security mandates in Africa. Further research would serve us well in assessing this phenomenon in a comparative, issue area context. (4) Can IGOs/FIGOs increase their organizational currency? It is clear to us that organizational currency matters in terms of both the effects the organization has on its members and the extent to which it can fulfill its mandate and impact on global or regional governance. We are far less knowledgeable about conditions under which organizations can adapt to (and keep
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current) substantial turbulence and change in their environments. Future research would be extremely useful in pinpointing the types of organization that have been able to adapt to such fundamental environmental changes and/or shocks. Paralleling such exploration would be the investigation of the extent to which such organizations had a differential impact on their members and the tasks the organizations pursued, compared to ones less able to adapt. (5) Do IGOs and other forms of multilateralism march in synch? Finally, we should note that our findings regarding the lack of new FIGO architectural development do not appear to be confined only to building formal cooperative organizations. Leeds and Anac (2005) note the sharp decline in multilateral alliance development in the post-Cold War environment. Denemark and Hoffman (2006) also suggest a similar diminution of all multilateral treaties during the most recent period within their analysis. Further research is needed to determine the extent to which all forms of multilateralism are in decline in the twenty-first century, and whether the mechanisms we associate with arrest of FIGO development apply as well to other multilateral processes between states.
The Future of the New World Order Given our findings about the evolution of organizational architecture in the post-Cold War era, can we find evidence that the minimal changes in the architecture uncovered here will eventually yield to substantially greater ones in the near future? The crystal ball within our theoretical perspective is far too murky to allow for a comprehensive answer to this question, and especially so without first completing the future research agenda suggested above, but a number of trends are suggestive nevertheless. One is related to the discordance between US pronouncements regarding the desire for constructing a new world order versus its failure to shape one. We know that historically the strongest of states in international politics has played a (the) key role in constructing such architecture. The failure on the part of the US to do so, then, is not a trivial issue in probing the future of the new world order. Why it failed to aggressively pursue this task is open to much interpretation. Some have argued that there was never any intention to do so: “the Bush Administration’s New World Order was made out of the very same rhetorical material as the Cold War, and it was designed to
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re-charge its institutions with a new mandate” (O’Tuathail and Luke, 1994:383). Others have argued that the intention was there, but the goal was overwhelmed by pressing domestic economic and political issues (Nye, 2001). We have argued in Chapter 3 that regardless of intention, the US lacks (lacked) the structural strength to effectuate a substantially different constellation of organizations. We suspect that all three factors may have been in play, and have suggested elsewhere (Volgy and Bailin, 2003) that architectural creation is a function of substantial structural strength, coupled with the will and the creativity to do so. The arguments about intentions and domestic versus foreign policy priorities are in fact issues about the will to commit substantial resources for pursuing a new global architecture. Whether or not the absence of will may have been missing (and may continue to be missing) for American policy makers may as well be due to at least some latent understanding that the US and other states interested in new world order development would need to substantially increase their structural strength11 to make the process possible (and such an investment in global organization would be extremely expensive). To the extent that at the end of the Cold War there was no perceived direct global threat to peace and prosperity – at least until 2001 – may have reduced will further. And without such direct threat, policy makers in the US may not have seen the need to change the existing order as long as they believed that it had served them well during the Cold War and there was no proof at hand to doubt that it would not do so in the future. Nor is it possible to place the lack of will only at the hands of the US. It was not alone in seeking to preserve old institutions or tinkering at the margins with them, rather than seeking to restructure cooperating organizations. Other states have played along while – sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly – critiquing US leadership and lack of US initiatives, but the most powerful of them have not demonstrated the will to restructure through substantial commitments to new architecture. Western European states have pressed for “soft power” alternatives and multilateral arrangements to address newly evolving problems, yet have been unable or unwilling to construct new defense and foreign policy architecture even within the existing structure of the EU. Russian and Chinese policy makers have been consistently critical of existing architectural arrangements, yet Russia has partnered with NATO and actively sought membership in the G-7 and the WTO. China has been no more eager to carve out strong new cooperative architectural arrangements, either regionally or globally. It is only around
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the events of 2008 – the installation of NATO’s missile defense in Poland and strong Western response to Russian actions against Georgia – that the Russians and Chinese have publicly announced a desire for alternative architectural arrangements to NATO and the OSCE. From a national interest point of view, many of these developments to date make some sense. It is easier and cheaper to keep existing structures than to change them.12 Existing institutions provide substantial certainty to states about the consequences of participation in structural cooperative arrangements. States understand well the costs of continuing to work within the constellation of existing organizations. The alternative – creating new rules and organizational mechanisms – is fraught with uncertainty, and especially in the fluid environment of post 9/11 international politics. It simply may not be possible to generate the creativity, will, and structural strength needed to build new institutions, even when recognizing the severe limitations of architecture that may be crumbling and in disarray,13 unless a growing convergence of forces and threats compels that reassessment. It may be that the storms on the horizon will signal an era of renewed willingness to restructure architecture. The combination of increased conflict between Russia, China, and the West, the growing threat of global warming, the ongoing conflict involving international terrorism, the fragmenting of nuclear non-proliferation norms, and even stagnation in global, regional, and national economies may come together to force reexamination, increase will, stimulate creativity, and realign some resources from some domestic priorities to external ones, both in the US and among other major powers. We lack the knowledge to determine if such a combination of conditions is sufficient to create such changes. What we suspect is that existing institutional arrangements, likely insufficient to address significantly new problems, issues, and changing global circumstances, will be difficult to replace. We expect that absent a global economic catastrophe, the WTO will continue to limp along without a resolution of the Doha Round, as states may not confront the risk that the functionality of economic IGOs will continue to matter as much as it does today. We do not expect political international organizations to be any less resilient. It is true that some of those institutions face serious challenges. The OSCE, for example, has become seriously hurt because of antagonisms between Russia and the United States. At the same time, however, the OSCE represents the only institutional platform in Europe in which both Russia and the United States consistently cooperate. The enlargement policy of NATO is likely to
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complicate further the relations between Russia and the West. This does not mean, however, that NATO will disintegrate – its post-Cold War raison d’être, to offer some kind of institutional protection to former Soviet satellites, seems stronger than ever.
Postscript As we write this concluding chapter, efforts are under way once more to restructure cooperative arrangements at the global and regional levels. Huge fluctuations and net, momentous losses in most stock markets, the freezing of credit and the shaking of banking systems in October of 2008, have all combined to stir policy makers to action. At first, in the US, Russia, and the Republic of Ireland, the response was unilateral. Later, EU states met to try to develop a coordinated response.14 Finally, as we write, leaders of the largest economies have announced plans to come together and determine what structural, architectural changes are needed to existing institutions (IMF, World Bank, the WTO, etc.) to allow them not only to respond to the pressing economic emergency, but as well to avoid other rounds of it in the future. Importantly, these efforts seem to be directed toward reformation/ restructuring of both economic regimes and organizations. However, the efforts are coming on the heels of previous actions by major states (and much rhetoric by economic non-state actors) to liberalize and deinstitutionalize, “de-govermentalize,” financial markets. Liberalization and deregulation have made the recent crisis possible, and may have made governments so weak individually that they are now, again, opting for collective action within the existing institutional (governmental) web. Ironically, that task may be more difficult now. There may be some parallels between the financial crisis of 2008 and the terrorist crisis of 2001. Both sets of events have forced substantial rethinking among US decision makers about the direction of their policies and the stability of global architectural arrangements. The events around 9/11 precipitated substantial American action, although not the sort that led to architectural restructuring. It is plausible that this may be the case with the economic crisis of 2008. In the midst of the most recent economic crisis, incumbent US policy makers have engaged the market in ways contrary to their own predilections about governmental involvement in financial
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systems;15 perhaps that is why there appears to be a paucity of plans being discussed for global restructuring in Washington. Those plans appear to be coming primarily from British and French policy makers16 who have articulated a desire not only to reform but to restructure what still remains of the Cold War-based Bretton Woods organizations.17 Yet, this is not the first time that European policy makers have articulated the need and desire to re-create architecture in the face of post-Cold War realities, and fell short in the face of US resistance to initiatives it could not control. US policy makers in 2008 remain conspicuously silent about the role they are willing to play in the restructuring of Bretton Woods institutions. Perhaps the comparison between the two events is deceiving. The US could drive the response to 9/11 as it had overwhelming military superiority in the face of security threats. The banking crisis is economic in nature and the US is less able to command the global economy unilaterally. However, it is sufficiently strong from an economic perspective that it can command a veto over arrangements not to its liking. Given our perspective on the dynamics involved with restructuring of organizational architecture, we predict that the unhappy result of these deliberations will be incremental restructurings of global economic organizations, resulting in some policy changes but little in the way of substantial structural changes unless the economic crisis continues unabated and threatens the long-term well-being of the global economy. As long as the development of the world order is based on the competition of interests, international organizations will continue to serve as one of the primary instruments for consensus-seeking, no matter the level or type of cooperation. Under what circumstances and after how much loss of organizational currency will major states be willing to commit to changing the forms and rules of these organizations, however, may be the vital question for the coming decade. Equally important will be the extent to which major states remain strong enough to effectuate such changes should they desire to do so. This is especially the case for economic issues where states may have surrendered substantial autonomy to non-state actors driving economic markets. Since the close of the Cold War, many states have moved away from creating more deeply integrated organizations of the type that were formed during the bipolar world order. They have progressed down a path of increasingly thin multilateral policy commitments and ad hoc arrangements that allow for more flexibility in a changing and unpredictable global environment. The trend is rational as the certainty in the coming world order wanes, shortening the shadow of the future. Major policies that call for deep resource commitment and narrow
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margins for change become increasingly risky as the opportunity and probability of a shift in economic and military power structures increase. We are writing, of course, at a time when the leadership of the US government has just changed personnel and direction. The Obama campaign has called for a fundamental reassertion to multilateral instruments in foreign policy, and by extension, a closer look at the nature of the global architecture of cooperation between states. From the rather consistent preelection rhetoric we can assume with some certainty that the new administration will engage in substantial domestic and foreign policy change. Nevertheless, we should remain careful about the actual outcomes that will result from the changes desired by the new administration. We see in the policy pronouncements the will and perhaps the creativity to restructure decaying institutions. However, as long as the structural strength to do so may be lacking, these pronouncements may yield not much more than the ones uttered by George H. W. Bush in 1990. Whether the new administration will have the will, creativity, strength, and persistence to increase American structural strength to accomplish such objectives is rightly the topic of another book.
Notes 1
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While US policy makers may have been the first to articulate the desire for a new world order, as we had suggested earlier, French, Chinese, Russian, and many Third World policy makers also began to articulate their conceptions and desires for influencing the contours of a new world order. On these developments, see “Geopolitics: A bowl of thin alphabet soup,” The Economist, 9 August 2008, pp. 55–56. See David E. Sanger’s report, “Beyond the Trade Pact Collapse,” New York Times, 3 August 2008, p. 4. For an excellent summary of the two approaches and as well the two types of socialization, see Bearce and Bondanella (2007). Note: this pattern holds when we look at FIGO formation since 2004 (the last time point for the analysis in Chapters 2 and 3). See Bearce and Bondanella (2007:718, 722, 726). We have no way of gauging the extent to which the other consideration – large power asymmetries in dyads – is diminishing or increasing in the post-Cold War era, but to the extent that it is the former, such a trend would diminish socialization effects further.
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A variant on this issue is that of formal organization–non-formal organization integration across regions, exemplified most often as an EU-led phenomenon. In a number of instances, regional organizations “construct” regions through these inter-regional relationships, as in the case of the ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries; see Farrell, 2005), EU–Eastern neighborhood (Smith, 2005), and the EU–Mediterranean example discussed in Chapter 8. Using issue areas to parse out organizational differences is a tremendously complex process. For a review of some of the pertinent literature, a possible database, and an alternative approach to using a comparative issue area approach, see Hensel et al. (2008). Simultaneously, however, we should note that international norms matter to the extent that they become part of state identity. Human rights treaties have been gradually accepted by an ever-increasing number of states. The UN has thus managed to make some significant steps in the direction toward meeting its goal to be the center of international cooperation in the issue area of human rights protection. To the extent that structural strength is in part a function of domestic resources and capabilities, previous research (Gurr, 1990; Volgy and Bailin, 2003) has demonstrated evidence that the strongest of states in international politics (with the exception of Russia since 1992) have substantially increased their domestic capabilities, and their declining structural strength can be reversed through a recommitment of domestic resources for foreign policy pursuits. And it may be easier to change when there is a fortuitous circumstance of familiarity with institutional mechanisms and systemic “shock” in the political system (e.g., the end of the Cold War), as some have argued (Cooper et al., 2008). Yet, even under these conditions we do not detect major shifts to authoritative restructuring of existing organizations, save with the possible exceptions of the EU and the WTO. The cover of a recent issue of The Economist captured the “pathology” of international organizations, by portraying them as if they were in the state of disrepair, a crumbling tower of Babel; see “What a way to run the world,” The Economist, 5–11 July 2008. Although ironically, as the French, Germans, Britons, and Italians met to underscore the need for a multilateral response, German Chancellor Merkel acted within hours after the meeting to insure the German banking system. While at the same time the presidential candidate of their party is busy denouncing the opposition for having “socialist” tendencies in seeking governmental interference with the market and capital flows. See “EU Leaders Seek Broad Bank Reform,” 15 October 2008, BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7669710.stm. See “Suddenly, Europe Looks Pretty Smart.” New York Times, 19 October 2008 (Week in Review, p.1, 6).
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References Bearce, David H., and Stacy Bondanella. 2007. “Intergovernmental Organizations, Socialization, and Member-State Interest Convergence.” International Organization 61:703–733. Cooper, Scott, Darren G. Hawkins, Wade Jacoby, and Daniel L. Nielson. 2008. “Yielding Sovereignty to International Institutions: Bringing System Structure Back In.” International Studies Review 10:501–24. Denemark, Robert A., and Matthew J. Hoffmann. 2006. “Global Cooperation: Treaties and the Dynamics of Multilateralism.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association (March, San Diego). Farrell, Mary. 2005. “A Triumph of Realism over Idealism? Cooperation Between the European Union and Africa.” Journal of European Integration 27:263–83. Forman, Shepherd, and Derk Segaar. 2006. “New Coalitions for Global Governance: The Changing Dynamics of Multilateralism.” Global Governance 12:205–25. Gilson, Julie. 2005. “New Interregionalism? The EU and East Asia.” Journal of European Integration 27:307–26. Gurr, Ted Robert. 1990. “The Transformation of the Western State: The Growth of Democracy, Autocracy, and State Power since 1800.” Studies in Comparative International Development 25:73–108. Hensel, Paul R., Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, Thomas E. Sowers II, and Clayton L. Thyne. 2008. “Bones of Contention: Comparing Territorial, Maritime and River Issues.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 52:117–42. Leeds, Brett Ashley, and Sezi Anac. 2005. “Alliance Institutionalization and Alliance Performance.” International Interactions 31:183–202. Nye, Joseph S. 2001. Power and Interdependence. Third edition. New York: Longman. O’Tuathail, Geraóid, and Timothy W. Luke. 1994. “Present at the (Dis)integration: Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization in the New Wor(l)d Order.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84:381–98. Powers, Kathy L. 2006. “Dispute Initiation and Alliance Obligations in Regional Trade Agreements.” Journal of Peace Research 43:453–71. Santander, Sebastian. 2005. “’The European Partnership with Mercosur: A Relationship Based on Strategic and Neo-liberal Principles.” Journal of European Integration 27:285–306. Smith, Karen E. 2005. “The EU and Central and Eastern Europe: The Absence of Interregionalism.” Journal of European Integration 27:347–64. Söderbaum, Fredrik, and Luk Van Langenhove. 2005. “Introduction: The EU as a Global Actor and the Role of Interregionalism.” Journal of European Integration 27:249–262. Volgy, Thomas J., and Alison Bailin. 2003. International Politics and State Strength. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
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Abbott, K. 11, 33 Abouharb, M. R. 183 Ackerman, J. T. 123, 124, 125, 130 ad hoc coalitions 64, 75, 248, 252, 265–6 Adler, E. 232 Africa GIGOs 166 human rights treaties 184, 195 nesting of institutions 119 post-Cold War 250, 256 regional trade agreements 260 rivers, international 118 security organizations 260 Africa, Sub-Saharan democracy 156 FIGOs 22, 38, 40, 41 non-democracies 171n28 reconstruction 249 RGOs 156, 157–8, 162–3, 168n3 African Union 187 Afro-Asian Rural Reconstruction Organization 229 Albania 226–7, 232, 237 Aliboni, R. 217, 233 Americas, Central 75
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Americas, North 118 see also United States of America Americas, South 40, 42, 47, 59, 75 see also Latin America Amin, S. 221, 222 Amur River Coordination Committee 120 Anac, S. 261 anarchy 4–6 Andean Community 49–50, 53n34, 59, 250–1 Annan, Kofi 24n7 Antkiewicz, A. 77n2 Arab League Charter 211n18 Arab Network of Environment and Development 236 Arab States, League of 187, 239n11 Argentina 49, 59 ASEAN Concord 152 ASEM process 259–60 Asia FIGOs 41, 256–7 human rights 187, 195 newly emerging states 102–3 proportional network density 42 rivers, international 118 Asia, Central 85, 105n3
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Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee 229 Axelrod, R. 77n1 Ayoob, M. 230–1 Bailin, A. 62, 66, 75, 262 Balkan League 222–3 Balkans 85, 222, 239n9 Baltic States 85, 88, 89 banking crisis 264, 265 Barcelona Declaration 232, 241n20 Barrett, S. 126 BBC News 88 Bearce, D. H. 257–8 Beck, N. 70 Beckfield, J. 12 Belarus 19, 89 Black Sea Economic Cooperation 52n18, 90, 229 block modeling approach 19, 178, 196–207, 211–12n24 Bojinovic´, A. 231, 233, 234 Bondanella, S. 257–8 Borzutsky, S. 77n1 Bosnia 207, 232 Braudel, F. 221, 236 Brazil 24n4, 49, 59 Bremer, S. 97 BRIC countries 24n4 Brochmann, M. 122 bureaucratic organization 33, 34 Bush, George H. W. 2, 4, 31, 64, 261, 266 Bush, George W. 24n6, 64, 77n7 Calleya, S. C. 220, 221, 222, 240n19 Camp Keith, L. 183 Campbell, J. C. 232 Caribbean states 41, 47, 75 Carter, Jimmy 169n13 CAT (Convention Against Torture), UN 181, 190, 210–11n12, 212n29, 215–16
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CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) 215: see United Nations Environment Programme CEDAW-OPT 216 Central Office for International Railway Transport (OTIF) 229 Chile 165 China as challenge 253 cooperative institutions 120 FIGOs 47, 77n8 ICCPR 211n20 IMF alternative 74 national income 24n4 new institutions 65–6 policy makers 262 CIESM (International Commission for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean Sea) 222, 224, 228 Cingranelli, D. L. 183–4 Clinton, Bill 64 Cold War, ended ad-hoc agreements 265–6 aftermath 1, 47, 49, 56–7, 155 conflicts 155 FIGOs 20–1, 23, 35, 39–40, 42, 45, 66–73 human rights 201, 202, 208 IGOs 9–10, 35, 69, 247, 249–50 Mediterranean 227 NGOs 219 post-Communist space 21 socialization 257 Colombia 59 colonialism ending 57, 165–6, 191–2, 208, 223 COMECON 57, 84, 106n10 Composite Index of National Capability 97 Conca, K. 114, 118
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Index Conference for Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean (CSCM) 223 Conference/Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (C/OSCE) 231, 237 conflict amelioration democratic peace literature 148–9 effectiveness 255 FIGOs 30, 71, 72, 73, 76, 91–2 IGOs 8, 67–9, 70, 76, 90–2, 103, 256 post-Communist space 87–8 regional 77n11 conflicts classified 112 Cold War era 155 COW IGO 101 Goldstein scale 107n14 IDEA database 94, 98 IGO co-membership 98–100, 102–3, 104–5 interstate 8, 49–50, 184 post-Communist space 84, 87–8, 93–8 religious 239n5, 239n7 Russia 102 water resources 116, 122–3, 138 Congo basin 127 Constance, Lake 117 constitutionalist structure argument 57–8 constructivist approach 12, 138 Convention Against Torture, UN: see CAT Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 215 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPCG) 197 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 211n20, 216
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cooperation 7, 14, 15 and conflict scale 94 democracy 124, 129, 131–2 functionalists 125, 133, 137 hegemony 131 human rights 15 informal 133 multilateral 32–3 neofunctionalism 125–30 neoliberal institutionalists 131 regional 16–17, 23 RGOs 136–7 rivers, international 19, 20, 114, 116–18, 122–3, 138 cooperative institutions China 120 cooperation levels 119–20, 134, 135, 136 database 126–7 democracy 124, 129, 131–2 emergence of 130–4 human rights 15 multilateral accords 127 neorealism 122–3 river basins 127, 130–4 transboundary waters 117–18 Correlates of War: see COW IGO C/OSCE (Conference/Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) 231, 237 Council of Europe 186 Council of the Mediterranean 223 COW IGO (Correlates of War) conflict 101 FIGO database 35, 51n9 FIGOs/nFIGOs 70–1 IGOs 11, 51n8, 94–5 Mediterranean 223 MID dataset 128 National Material Capabilities dataset 128 non-state actors 259
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COW IGO (Correlates of War) (cont’d) post-Communist space 98 RGOs 129 CPCG (Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide) 197, 215 Crawford, B. 232 CRC (Convention on the Rights of the Child) 211n20, 216 CRC-OPT1 216 CRC-OPT2 216 Croatia 233, 241n21, 251 CSCM (Conference for Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean) 223 cubic spline approach 70, 129 Cupitt, R. 29 Czech Republic 18, 89, 107n17 Danube River 118, 127 de Nooy, W. 178, 196, 203 decision-making 33, 34, 174–5 democracy Africa, Sub-Saharan 156 benefits of 149–52 cooperation 124, 129, 131–2 human rights 201, 203 levels of 96, 136, 184 democratic peace literature 148–9 democratization alternative to 151–3 FIGOs 16 GIGOs 163–4, 165–6 human rights regime 180, 181 IGO/RGO membership 160, 161–2, 163–4, 167, 169n12 Latin America 156 norms 1 Polity IV database 161 substitutability proposition 250, 257 Denemark, R. A. 261
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Diehl, P. 128 Dinar, A. 116–17 Dinar, S. 116–17 Dixon, W. 150 Doha Round 2, 78n14, 254, 263 Donnelly, P. 178 Doreian, P. 178, 212n25 ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) 90, 180 Economic Community of West African States 152 Economist 53n34, 53n35, 267n13 Ecuador 49, 207 Egypt 227, 233 eigenvector centrality 47, 49 Eizenstat initiative 231 Elliniki Etairia 235 emanations 10–11, 25n9, 33, 50–1n5, 75, 169n4 EMP (Euro-Mediterranean Partnership) 232, 236, 237 EMPPO (European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization) 90, 223, 224, 228 Environmental Performance Index 129 Epsey, M. 126 Eritrea 105n5 EU–ASEAN 259–60 EUGene 97 EU-Mercosur 260 Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism 52n19 Eurasian Patent Organization 52n18, 90, 229 Euro-Mediterranean Partnership 232, 236, 237 Europe 42, 45 integration 218–19 nation states 221, 222
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Index rivers, international 118 see also European Union Europe, Central and Eastern 89, 102–3, 106n6 European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization: see EMPPO European Community 58, 231–2 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) 90, 180 European Court of Human Rights 186 European Environmental Bureau 235 European Neighbourhood Policy 232 European Union common foreign and security policy 59 foreign policy 231 integration 219 Mediterranean 240n12 and Russia 59, 88 Turkey 17, 251 Water Directive Framework 118 see also European Community FIGO database 30, 40, 41, 118, 129, 159–60 FIGOs (formal intergovernmental organizations) 7, 32–3 Africa, Sub-Saharan 22, 38, 40, 41 Asia 41, 256–7 autonomy 33, 34 Cold War/post-Cold War 20–1, 23, 35, 39–40, 42, 45, 66–73 comparisons by type 20–1, 35, 38, 49, 65, 68–9 conceptualizing 10–17, 32–5 conflict amelioration 30, 71, 72, 73, 76, 91–2 death rate 38, 64, 256 democratization 16 distribution of 38, 70–1 eigenvector centrality 47, 49
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geopolitics 15–16 global/regional densities 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167 and IGOs 25–6n18, 25n17, 50n4 major powers 66 mapping constellations 35–47 Mediterranean 217, 225, 226, 229, 230, 251 Middle East 226 network analysis 76 new world order 13–14 and nFIGOs 15, 68, 70–1 non-democracies 22 numbers of 35, 36, 74 organizational currency 71, 73, 76, 260–1 organizational durability 33, 69, 70–1, 72, 73 as policy alternatives 168 post-Communist space 85–7, 90 regional participation 38, 40–1, 163 rivers, international 120 state membership 35, 64 substitutability proposition 235 time frames 34–5 US membership 66 see also emanations Finnemore, M. 179, 180 FOE–MedNet 235 Foote, R. 155, 156 foreign policy 89, 231 Forêt Méditerranéenne 234 formal intergovernmental organizations: see FIGOs Forman, S. 59, 69 Forum of Mediterranean NGOs for Ecology and Sustainable Development 234 Fox, C. 117 Framework Convention on Climate Change, UN 253 Friends of the Earth 235
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274 Fukuyama, F. 1, 2 functionalists 65, 125, 133, 137 G7/8 75 Gartzke, E. 95 GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) 2, 50, 58, 59, 253 Gazprom 87–8 GDP per capita ratings 97, 161 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade: see GATT geopolitics 15–16, 18 Georgia 106n6, 263 GIGOs (global intergovernmental organizations) 33 Africa 166 decreasing 37–8, 40 democracy 165–8 liberalization 163–4 Mediterranean 217–18 post-Communist space 89–90 Gilpin, R. 60 Gleditsch, K. S. 128 Gleditsch, N. P. 116 Glendon, M. 175, 176 Global Environment Facility 114–15, 241n27 global governance 4, 30, 254 global intergovernmental organizations: see GIGOs global markets 166 Global Mediterranean Policy 232 globalization 2, 61, 148, 247 Goertz, G. 128 Goldstein, J. S. 94 Goldstein scale 94, 107n14 Goodliffe, J. 181, 184 Greater/Broader Middle East Initiative 231 Hadjor, K. B. 176, 177 Hafner-Burton, E. M. 180, 184
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Index Hansen, H. E. 124 Hathaway, O. A. 181, 182, 210n11 Hawkins, D. 181, 184 hegemony cooperation 131 institutional reconstruction 60–2, 63, 64 relational/structural strength 60–2 states 21 water resources 122–3, 127–8, 136 Hensel, P. R. 122 Hettne, B. 218, 220 Hoffman, M. J. 261 human rights Asia 187, 195 Cold War ending 208 colonialism ending 208 cooperative arrangements 15 cultural relativism 176–7 democracy 201, 203 democratization 180, 181 historical traditions 175 IGOs 17, 22, 254–5 international regime 179–80, 182–3, 187 international relations 210n6 Latin America 207 maps of supporters 204, 205, 206 neorealism 182 norms 1, 178–83, 184–5, 208, 260, 267n10 post-Communist space 207 regions 185–8 social network 196–207 state behavior 19, 184, 185–8, 196–207, 208 UN 175, 177–8, 207, 210n4 human rights treaties 175, 179, 185, 188–96 Africa 184, 185 institutionalism 182–3 newly emerging states 195–6
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Index regional support 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 201, 203, 208 repressive regimes 210n11, 211n13 states 180–1, 209, 250 universal 176 Hungary 104, 107n17 Hurrell, A. 219 IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) 24n6 ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) 183, 188–9, 211n20, 215 ICCPR-OPT1 190, 194, 215 ICCPR-OPT2 216 ICERD (International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination) 188, 190–1, 197, 215 ICESCR (International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) 189–90, 211n20, 215 ICPRMW (International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families) 195, 216 ICSPCA (International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid) 189–90, 195, 197, 215 IDEA database 94, 98 IGOs (intergovernmental organizations) 3 co-membership 98–100, 102–3, 104–5 conceptualizing 10–17 conflict amelioration 8, 67–9, 70, 76, 90–2, 98–101, 103, 256 constellations 3, 15, 30, 67, 256 costs/benefits of membership 123, 250 COW IGO 11, 51n8, 94–5
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275
death rates 35, 36–7 decision-making 11, 174–5 defined 107n15 democratization 160, 161–2, 163–4, 167, 169n12 diversity 6–7, 9–10, 20–1, 31 and FIGOs 25–6n18, 25n17, 50n4 geographical scope 68–9 human rights 17, 22, 254–5 increasing numbers 31, 35, 36, 57 information dissemination 67 mapping exercises 29 monotonic net growth 35 non-state actors 259 organizational currency 68–9, 70, 260–1 as policy substitution 16 post-Cold War 9–10, 35, 69, 247, 249–50 post-Communist space 18, 252–3 relevant 29–30 replacement rate 37 socialization 90 spatial clustering 17 states 70, 90 trust 124 world order 6–10 see also emanations Ikenberry, J. 30, 57, 60, 154 India 24n4 Institut de la Méditerranée 234 institutions diversity of design 31 interest articulation 92 memory 106n8 new world order 13 organizational currency 256 post-Communist space 264 realist theory, classic 6 reconstructions 60–2, 63, 64 strong/weak 92 USA 57–8
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interdependence 97, 128 intergovernmental organizations: see IGOs Inter-Mediterranean Geographical Commission 234 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 24n6 International Centre for Migration Policy Development 229 International Centre for Scientific and Technical Information 90 International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine River 120 International Commission for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean Sea (CIESM) 222 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination: see ICERD International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (ICPRMW) 195 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) 189–90, 215 International Council for Local Environmental Initiative 234–5 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: see ICCPR International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) 189–90 international crimes against humanity 210n10 International Criminal Court 58, 253 International Monetary Fund 182, 253 international relations cooperative arrangements 7 globalization 148, 247 human rights 210n6
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neorealism 4 new world order 3 regionalism 218 Interoceanmetal Joint Organization 90 Inter-State Bank 52n18 Iran 18, 52n21, 158 Iraq 52n21, 182 Iraq War 24, 62, 77n6 IRGOs (inter-regional governmental organizations) 38 clustering 47 diversity 259–60 formation 49–50 Mediterranean 218, 223, 224, 225–30, 237 post-Cold War 65 restrictions 33 Islamic Development Bank 229 Israel 18, 19, 51n6, 53n28, 211n19, 226–7, 237 Italy 223 Jacobson, H. K. 29, 65 Japan 47, 74 Joint Administration of the Turkic Culture and Arts 229 Kaplan, J. H. 29 Kazakhstan 18, 89 Keohane, R. O. 60, 122 Kinsella, D. 93, 94, 107n14 Kugler, J. 60 Kyoto Protocol 58, 253 Kyrgyzstan 89, 207 Latin America democratization 156 human rights 207 joining behavior 22 policy preference 155 RGO membership 163 US security concerns 154
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Index Le Marquand, D. G. 117 Lee, D. 234 Leeds, B. A. 96, 261 liberal institutionalists 5, 60 liberalization 264 Libya 223 Locke, R. M. 153 long-cycle theorists 5, 60 Malta 223 Mansfield, E. 160 Maoz, Z. 70 market openness 149–50, 151, 162, 166 Mathers, T. 29 Mauritania 227, 232 Mediterranean Arab identity 222, 223, 227, 239n6 cohesion 227–8, 238n1 COW IGOs 223 EU 240n12 external political actors 217–18, 230–4 FIGOs 217, 225, 226, 229, 230, 251 GIGOs 217–18 historical status 218, 220–1, 239n4 interstate institutional linkages 226–30 IRGOs 218, 223, 224, 225–30, 237 network analysis 226–7 nFIGOs 224 NGOs 234–5 non-state actors 233–4 post-Cold War 227 as region 19–20, 217–20, 221–5, 238 regionalism 223, 224–5, 231, 236–7, 251 religious conflict 239n5, 239n7 RGO membership 217–18, 227, 228 and US 231 Mediterranean Development Forum 234 Mediterranean Dialogue 223
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Mediterranean Forum 223–4 Mediterranean Information Office 234, 235–6 Mediterranean Union 238 Mekong River Basin 117 Mercosur 49–50, 53n34, 58, 59, 157, 250–1, 260 Merkel, Angela 267n14 Middle East FIGOs 40, 226 Iran 158 Israel excluded 18, 19 proportional network density 42 as region 18 regional constellations 256–7 rivers, international 118 water resources 116, 118 Middle East Intelligence Bulletin 240n16 Middle East Partnership Initiative 231 Middle East–North Africa 231 militarized interstate dispute (MID) 70, 71, 72, 73, 84, 105n1, 128, 131 MIO-ECSDE 235–6 Mitchell, S. Mc. 150 Modelski, G. 60 Monaco 233 Mongolia 120 Montenegro 233 Moon, B. E. 150 Moravcsik, A. 179, 180 Morrow, J. D. 150 Moulakis, A. 221, 222 multi-actor collectivities 218, 235, 236, 238, 259 NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) 50, 58, 59, 253, 260 NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) 233 Namibia 105n5 nation states 221, 222
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278 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) 59 alternative to 253 and Cold War 69 expansion of 50, 58, 249, 263–4 Mediterranean 231 Poland 263 post-Cold War 1, 247 and Russia 262 terrorism 77n1 neofunctionalism 125–30 neoliberal institutionalists 6, 12, 123–5, 131 neorealism 4, 12, 122–3, 182, 218 network analysis 30, 41–2, 47, 76, 226–7 Neumayer, E. 182 new economic order 61 New Regionalism Approach 218, 219 new world order Bush, G. H. W. 2, 4, 31, 261 FIGOs 13–14 and global state 60 international relations 3, 4 non-emergence of 248 time frame 159 newly emerging states alliance similarity 96 Asia 102–3 Europe 102–3 human rights treaties 195–6 policy affinity 95–6 post-Communist space 83–4, 105–6n5 nFIGOs (non-formal intergovernmental organizations) 15, 68, 70–1, 159, 224 NGOs (non-governmental organizations) 9, 138, 219, 234–5 Nile Basin Initiative 115
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Index Nixon, Richard 165 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) 233 non-democracies 22, 171n28 non-formal intergovernmental organizations: see nFIGOs non-governmental organizations: see NGOs non-state actors 20, 59, 220, 239n3, 252, 259 Nordstrom, T. 35, 95 North American Free Trade Agreement: see NAFTA North Atlantic Treaty Organization: see NATO NRA (New Regionalism Approach) 218, 219 nuclear non-proliferation 1, 263 OAS (Organization of American States) 187 Obama, Barack 266 oil resources 2, 159 Oneal, J. 128 openness 97, 155, 161, 162, 163 Oregon State University 118, 129 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe: see OSCE Organization of American States (OAS) 187 Organization of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty 120 Organski, A. F. K. 60 OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) 90, 253, 263 OTIF (Central Office for International Railway Transport) 229 Paris Summit 241n22 Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation 240n18
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Index partial proportional odds model 134, 135 path dependency 89, 93–8, 137, 260 Payne, C. L. 183 Penn World Tables 97 Peru 49 Pevehouse, J. 35, 95, 129, 160 Poland 89, 104, 107n17, 263 policy makers China 262 institutional reconstructions 60–2, 63, 64 rivers, international 116–17 US 262, 264–5, 266n1 political imprisonment 184 Polity IV database 161, 170n15 pollution 126, 133 post-Cold War: see Cold War, ended post-Communist space 52n18 alliance treaties 96 conflicts 84, 87–8, 93–8 FIGOs 85–7, 90 GIGOs 89–90 human rights 207 IGOs 18, 252–3 institutional protection 264 newly emerging states 83–4, 105–6n5 reconstruction 249, 256 Russian involvement 15–16, 97 states 15–16, 18, 21, 88–90, 93–8, 112–13 transboundary waters 119 WTO 90 power transition theorists 5, 60 Powers, K. 260 preferential trade agreement 151, 169n9 proportional network density 42 racial segregation 176 realist theory 6
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279
Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications 52n18 regional governmental organizations: see RGOs regionalism international relations 218 Mediterranean 224–5, 231, 236–7, 251 and regionalization 233–6 regionalization 219–20, 233–6, 260 regions conflict amelioration 77n11 delineation of 17–20, 51n6 human rights 185–8 restructuring of relationships 75 trade 125, 260 Reisinger, W. R. 29 religious conflict 239n5, 239n7 repressive regimes 211n11, 210n13, 257 reputational costs 182, 210n9, 247 Reuters 84, 105n1 RGOs (regional governmental organizations) 39, 155 Africa, Sub-Saharan 156, 157–8, 162–3, 168n3 as alternative to democratization 151–3 cooperation, levels of 136–7 democratization 160, 161–2, 163–4, 167 great powers in 153–4 Latin America 163 Mediterranean 217–18, 227, 228 membership 34, 124, 148, 160–1 policy preferences 155 river basins 124, 128–9 Rhine River 117, 118 Richards, D. L. 183–4 RIMMO 224, 228 Rio Grande 127 riparian states 114–15, 120, 126
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280
Index
river basins bilateral 137 cooperation 117, 119, 121, 133 hegemony 127–8, 136 institutions 115, 127, 130–4 interdependence 128 military capabilities 127–8 see also water treaties rivers, international cooperation 19, 20, 114, 116–18, 122–3, 138 FIGOs 120 IGOs 254 management 21–2 policy makers 116–17 see also transboundary waters; water resources Roma rights 104 Roman federal system 221 Romania 85, 104, 107n17 Ron, J. 184 Roosevelt, Eleanor 175 Rosenau, J. N. 234 rule of law 184, 210n8, 250 Russett, B. 93, 94, 128 Russia as challenge 253 conflicts 102, 108n25 and EU 59 as exception 96 FIGOs 47, 77n8 foreign policy 106n6 G8 75 Georgia 263 as hegemon 91, 103, 104 national income 24n4 natural resources 88 new institutions 65–6, 83–4, 84–5 policy makers 262 post-Communist states 15–16, 97 and Ukraine 87–8 and US 74
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Russian Federation 21 Rwanda 64 Šabicˇ, Z. 231, 233, 234 SCO: see Shanghai Cooperation Organization security regime creation 61, 101–2, 260 Segaar, D. 59, 69 Serbia 64, 106n6 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) 39, 52n18, 75, 84–5, 90, 252, 253 Shanks, C. 29 Sikkink, K. 179, 180 Simmons, B. H. 182, 184 Singer, J. D. 29, 97 Slovakia 107n17 Slovenia 241n21 Sneddon, C. 117 Snidal, D. 11, 33 social constructivists 5 social network analysis 178, 196–207 socialization 90, 180, 255, 257–8 Söderbaum, F. 218, 219, 220, 235, 241n25 Somalia 64 South American Community 50 Soviet Union 2, 57, 83, 84, 89, 106n6, 186 Sowers, T. E. 116 SRGOs (sub-regional governmental organizations) 34, 39 Stability Pact for Mediterranean 223 state sovereignty 180–1, 209 states 239n2 autonomy 61, 62 capacity for institutions 155 clusters over time 197, 198, 199, 200, 202, 203, 209 environmental protection 133
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Index FIGOs 35, 64 forum shopping 67 hegemony 21 human rights 19, 184, 185–8, 196–207, 208 human rights treaties 180–1, 209, 250 identity 20, 67 IGOs 70 international monetary norms 182 joining behavior 148, 158–9 non-state actors 59, 252 numbers increasing 188, 192, 194 postcolonial 191–2 post-Communist space 15–16, 18, 21, 57, 88–90, 93–8, 112–13 RGOs 148 self-interest 122 socialization of 90, 180, 255, 257–8 see also nation states; newly emerging states; riparian states state–society interaction 184 stock market losses 264 Stuckey, J. 97 sub-regional governmental organizations (SRGOs) 34, 39 substitutability proposition 16, 152–3, 154, 165, 235, 250, 257 Suez Canal 222 Swain, A. 126 Tammen, R. L. 60 terrorism 1, 77n1, 263, 264 Thelen, K. 153 third-party dispute resolution 150, 152 Thompson, W. R. 60 Tir, J. 123, 124, 125, 130 torture 181, 183–4, 210–11n12 Toset, H. P. W. 116 Towfique, B. 126 trade 125, 148, 150, 260
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281
Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database 118, 129 transboundary waters 114, 117–18, 119, 126, 252, 260 see also rivers, international Tripp, C. 239n11 trust 124, 125, 220 Tunisia 223 Turkey 17, 18, 19, 185, 186, 239n9, 251 two-mode network data 196–207, 211–12n24 UAM 224 Ukraine 87–8, 89, 107n17 unconstrained partial proportional odds (UPP) model 130 UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) 239 United Nations distribution of power 247, 249 human rights 175, 177–8, 207, 210n4 Human Rights Committee 185 peace-making 58 post-Communist space states 90 scandals 58 see also specific Conventions United Nations Charter 10, 175 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) 235 United Nations General Assembly 95–6, 107n16 United Nations Security Council 58–9, 69 United States of America economic dependence 61 as global power 31, 39–40, 153–4, 194 as hegemon 58, 64, 65 ICESCR 211n20 institution-building 57–8 Iraq war 24, 77n6
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United States of America (cont’d) Latin America 154, 157 and Mediterranean 231 policy makers 262, 264–5, 266n1 racial segregation 176 relational/structural strength 61–2, 63, 64, 65–6, 74, 75, 77n6 resistance to 64, 65 RGOs 153–4 Third World leaders 31 unilateralism/bilateralism 58, 62, 64, 74 unipolarity 59–60 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 175–6, 209n3 Universal Postal Union 90 Uzbekistan 89 Venezuela 49, 59 Vietnam 159 Volgy, T. J. 30, 62, 66, 75, 118, 120, 129, 262 Vreeland, J. R. 210–11n12 Wallace, M. 29 Wallace, W. 219 Wallensteen, P. 126 Waltz, K. 4, 91 Warnke, K. 35, 95 Warsaw Pact 57, 84, 106n10 water resources 2, 139n6 conflict 116, 122–3, 136, 138
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hegemon 122–3, 127–8, 136 management of 114–15, 122–3, 252 Middle East 116, 118 pollution 133 quality 126, 254 regional cooperation 16–17, 19 transboundary cooperation 9, 115–16 water treaties 118, 125, 126, 130 Whalley, J. 77n2 Whitlock, L. W. 29 Whitlock, R. 29 Wilson, T. Woodrow 8–9, 30, 31 Wolf, A. T. 117 World Development Indicators 129, 161 World Directory of Environmental Organizations 118 World Environment Organization concept 16 world order 3, 4–10, 30, 31 see also new world order WTO (World Trade Organization) alternative to 77n2 Doha Round 78n14, 263 and GATT 2, 50, 58, 59, 253–4 post-Communist space 90 state grievances 67 Yugoslavia 83, 84, 106n6, 227, 233 Yukon river 127
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