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The interaction of international institutions from a social network perspective

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Abstract

The literature increasingly acknowledges that international institutions do not exist in isolation, but regularly interact with each other. This interplay might induce influence, affecting institutions’ development and performance. The following research adds to this debate by systematically analyzing the quantitative evidence on how institutional interaction drives institutional design from a network perspective. Using dyadic cross-sectional data on international environmental agreements in 1952–2000, the authors find support for their theoretical argument that regimes’ similarity in design as captured by their degree of legalization strongly depends on institutions’ interaction. However, while “soft law” disseminates between regimes that are well connected through direct or indirect links, this does not apply to “hard law.” The authors explain this divergence with states’ concerns about binding-law commitments and sovereignty costs associated with the latter. This research may have important implications for studies of international institutions and of network analysis in general.

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Notes

  1. We use the terms “(international) institution,” “regime,” and “treaty” interchangeably. We also treat “performance” and “effectiveness” equally.

  2. Skjærseth et al. (2006) is the only exception in this regard. We elaborate below how we build on and intend to extend this study.

  3. Regime design can refer to more aspects than those under study here, such as the incorporation and design of dispute settlement mechanisms, the form of decision making, etc. However, our choice to understand design in terms of hard versus soft law is grounded in the fact that a major strand of the literature, to which we strive to contribute to, focuses on this particular aspect of regime design (Goldstein and Martin 2000; Skjærseth et al. 2006; Bernauer et al. 2013).

  4. For recent overviews, see Oberthür and Stokke (2011) or Oberthür and Gehring (2011).

  5. We also conducted a series of robustness checks, which we discuss in the online appendix or briefly refer to below.

  6. It is, of course, also possible that the kind of information on institutional design, which we focus on, spreads through different channels, such as government officials negotiating international agreements in different sectors, officials from international organizations, etc. However, this should not work against our proposed mechanism, since there is no reason to assume that contrary information should spread through these different channels.

  7. This is because hard-law treaties reduce the risk of incomplete contracting by lowering the transaction costs of the law’s application and by decreasing post-agreement costs such as management or enforcement (Rosendorff 2005). Furthermore, hard law may increase the reputational costs, a state will incur if it reneges on its commitments.

  8. The online appendix provides a list of all considered regimes. Originally, Bernauer et al. (2013) relied on CIESIN (2006) and Mitchell (2008), and then deleted treaties from the data that, in their assessment, deal with environmental issues only at the margin or not at all. They also eliminated treaties that are not open for ratification to all countries globally.

  9. The establishment of an institution refers to the first year this treaty is open for ratification. We also employed a more conservative setup by dropping those directed dyads in our data, in which the source institution has been established in the same year the target institution has been founded. The results based on this setup are identical to those reported below.

  10. The variables we use to measure legalization are coded dichotomously. Arguably, certain treaty design variables may exhibit more than a binary variation. Bernauer et al. (2013) originally allowed for more fine-grained categorizations for some of the variables. However, their coding process revealed the cure might be worse than the disease: since many of the treaties in the sample did not allow for a more fine-grained classification, Bernauer et al. (2013) ended up with only a few or no cases in several categories and, therefore, the coding became less reliable. Generally, this limitation mainly arises because the treaties are still rather heterogeneous, although they belong to the same policy area. In the end, Bernauer et al. (2013) decided that the empirical benefit from using more fine-grained scales is not worth the loss in data quality and reliability.

  11. Instead of relying on all countries that have ratified both regimes, one could use only those members that were part of the negotiating group to each treaty. While this could be sensible from a theoretical perspective, we would lose about 50 treaties in our sample, for which we are lacking the corresponding data, thereby making our empirical approach less generalizable.

  12. In order to calculate Maximum Flow of Information with this equation, the network must satisfy the condition \(r \le (n - 2)^{1/2} ,\) where n is the number of institutions and r is the ratio of the largest edge value in a network to the smallest edge value. This is given in our setup.

  13. The baseline category we leave out of the models pertains to those treaties that regulate mixed public goods, i.e., issues that have some regional or domestic component, but also a transnational character.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Manfred Elsig, Tana Johnson, Xavier Fernández-i-Marín, the participants of the 6th Annual Conference on the Political Economy of International Organizations (PEIO), the participants of the Workshop on the Design and Effects of International Institutions at the ECPR Joint Sessions 2013, and the journal's anonymous reviewers as well as the editor for helpful comments and advice. The replication materials for the data analysis can be obtained from the authors on request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK

    Tobias Böhmelt

  2. Center for Comparative and International Studies, ETH Zürich, Haldeneggsteig 4, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    Tobias Böhmelt & Gabriele Spilker

  3. Department of Political Science, University of Salzburg, Kapitelgasse 4-6, 5020, Salzburg, Austria

    Gabriele Spilker

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  1. Tobias Böhmelt
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Correspondence to Tobias Böhmelt.

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Böhmelt, T., Spilker, G. The interaction of international institutions from a social network perspective. Int Environ Agreements 16, 67–89 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-014-9248-3

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