Introduction

This article has two major inter-connected objectives about the ascendancy of informal institutions on a global basis (Alexandroff and Cooper 2010; Cooper 2014; Alexandroff and Brean 2015). The first objective is to highlight the extended scope of this phenomenon. Up to the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) informal institutions were the marked preserve of the incumbent powers (Kahler 2013); the hallmark illustration being the creation and maintenance of the G7 by the United States (US), along with its ‘likeminded’ partners, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, Italy and Canada (Putnam and Bayne 1987; Putnam 1988). Not only did the G7 act explicitly as an informal institution it did do in a manner that sharply divided countries up into categories of insiders and outsiders. Whereas the established advanced countries took on the status of insiders within the informal G7, countries whether defined as the ‘rest’ of the global South (Zakaria 2008) or simply as non-incumbents were uniformly left in an excluded status on the outside.

Although taking place in a highly uneven and contested fashion, the GFC constituted a major transition in this pattern of institutionalism. The bulk of the countries located within the global South remained excluded and marginalized (Payne 2010; Wade and Vestergaard 2010). By way of contrast, a select cluster of ‘rising’ states from beyond the G7 become prominent participants of the new set of informal institutions with both pluralistic and solidarist characteristics (Naylor 2019). On the pluralistic side, the G20 elevated to the leaders’ level stands out (Cooper 2010; Cooper and Thakur 2013; Kirton 2013; Luckhurst 2016; Naylor 2019; Slaughter 2019) as an institution in which incumbents and non-incumbents co-existed in an integrated forum designed to act as a crisis committee and/or a steering committee. On the solidarist side, a variety of informal institutions animated exclusively by non-incumbents emerged in parallel with incumbent-animated forums (Barma et al. 2007; see also Chin 2010). The most visible of these autonomous forums dominated by non-incumbents is the BRICS, with Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as members (Xing 2014; Stuenkel 2015, 2020; Cooper 2016; Cooper and Stolte 2019).

The motivations and modalities of this institutional shift are highly salient for the international system. Possible rewards from an embrace of informal institutions are apparent. Symbolically, the movement into informal institutions of both pluralistic and solidarist comes with enhanced status for non-incumbents (Cooper and Alexandroff 2019). But there are risks attached to these evolved forms as well. On the pluralistic side, questions opened about the degree of ownership non-incumbents possessed vis-à-vis the incumbents (Cooper and Pouliot 2015). And in both cases, engagement with informal institutions faces a potential backlash both in terms of the distancing from formal intergovernmental organizations (most notably, the United Nations) and a dilution of association with the rest of the global South.

The second objective of this article evaluates how the mainstream International Relations (IR) literature has treated the cascading wave of informal institutions. With this expansion in mind, the focus is on a critical evaluation of the rationalist institutionalist literature generally and rational design scholarship more specifically. Operating on the assumption that all countries act according to the logic of instrumental calculations this set of approaches—dominated initially by neoliberal institutionalism most closely associated with Robert Keohane (Keohane 1984, 1989; see also Stein 2008)—has the value of shifting the focus of IR research explicitly onto the privileging of international institutions. And, in a more refined fashion, rational design scholarship animated by this cluster of influential scholars moves to make the competition between formal organizations and informal institutions central to its analysis (Abbott and Snidal 1998; Koremenos et al. 2001; Vabulas and Snidal 2013; Abbott and Snidal 2021; see also Roger 2020). As self-described, it is the sheer ambition of this institutionalist-oriented approach that stands out: ‘Our main goal is to offer a systematic account of the wide range of design features that characterize international institutions’ (Koremenos et al. 2001: 762).

The extended and intertwined mode of analysis in this scholarship possesses some considerable foundational advantages. It must be credited for bringing institutions back into mainstream scholarship from realist detractors (Mearsheimer 1994). At the same time several important deficiencies stand out. Conditioned by a spare, parsimonious style, this mode of analysis is constricted in a number of ways. First, in terms of participation, the scholarship remains excessively US-centric. Regarding modes of operation, prime agency in the contest between formal multilateral organization and informal institutions is accorded to the US. Moreover, not only is the role of the global South neglected in practice, the intellectual contribution of scholars outside the US academy is left out as well. Secondly, in terms of projection, the rationalist institutionalist literature surveys in a sustained fashion the quantitative evolution of informal institutions. Yet, in doing so, the historical context of this shifting pattern is missing. Little attention is devoted to how or when institutions have been created. Moreover, this mode of analysis lacks any anticipatory component, with a predictive capacity about trends of institutional development into future. Thirdly, in terms of the ‘living personality’ constitutive of informal institutions, the mode of analysis lacks nuance. Stripping the features down to the basics, the components identified with informal institutions are reduced to the absence of ingredients considered to be the essence of formal organizations: with a squeezing of their individualist personality ingredients. Formal institutions have a charter or constitution, what they termed informal intergovernmental organizations (IIGOs) don’t. Formal institutions have a headquarters in fixed physical locations, IIGOs don’t. Formal institutions have a set schedule of meetings, IIGO don’t. Formal institutions have secretariats, informal organizations don’t (Vabulas 2019: 401–402).

On top of these detailed deficiencies, there is the fundamental problem related to the profile of informal institutions. Notwithstanding its claims of consistency with respect to the logic of institutionalism, the rationalist institutionalist literature is highly uneven in terms of its analysis about the nature of informal institutions. Indeed, several shifts (and internal debates) have taken place relating to the privileged domain of institutional design. Keohane originally emphasized regimes, with codified rules and norms (Keohane 1989: 4), with subsequent criticism from rational design scholars. Notably, Snidal’s original focus of contestation was not positioned on challenges from the ascendancy of informal institutions. Rather it was on the challenges posed by regime theory as advocated by other strands of institutionalist IR. Positioning himself as the defender of the primacy of formal organizations generally and the United Nations specifically, Snidal argues that: ‘Recent theorizing has been premised on an expansive but somewhat vague conception of international regimes which deliberately deemphasizes the role of formal IGOs…Although empirical work on regimes often discusses the role of formal institutions, the theory is not well developed with respect to the specific role, if any, of [intergovernmental organizations] IGOs in maintaining regimes or promoting cooperation. Ironically the expansive definition of regime has tended to squeeze out the narrower but still important role of formal organizations’ (Snidal 2004: 221).

In the original formulation of their own analysis rational design scholars credited formal organizations as having a superior design to informal institutions (Abbott and Snidal 1998). When a shift toward informal institutions took place, they in turn restricted their focus to IIGOs, not a wider array of state-societal networked partnerships. By comparison, Keohane signals the importance of trends toward complex patterns of networks, with a far more diverse trajectory and forms of participation. Modes of multilateralism retain a privileged position via embedded formal International Organization (IO) built into the architecture of the multipurpose UN, the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) via the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But the architectural pillars associated with rules-based, universal-aspirant formality—with its unique degree of legalization—intersect—and rub up against—a hybrid-type of informal institutional pluralism composed of both state and societal components (Keohane 2002: 75–77; see also Rosenau 1990: 245–6).

Only in subsequent recalibrations did rational design scholars expand the domain of informality to encompass a wider range of institutional diversity. As the two lead scholars of rational design put it in a 2021 edited collection, institutional informality is deemed to have moved to embrace diffuseness: ‘International institutions do not come pre-packaged in a single form, but display remarkable diversity from public to private: from formal to informal, and from legally binding to voluntary’ (Abbott and Snidal 2021: 5).

The most consistent component throughout rationalist institutionalist literature is what type of informal institutionalism is left out. Informal institutionalism is recognized to be on the ascendancy. But the core manifestation of informal institutionalism—state-based plurilateralism—is neglected in the analysis. This theme of omission is especially evident with reference to the institutional dynamics around plurilateral summitry related to the G7, G20 and the BRICS. This lack of scholarly attention regarding plurilateralism is maintained, moreover, despite the appreciation in other literatures of the salience of these dynamics for the advance (or retreat) from global governance.

What the rationalist institutionalist literature is good at doing is covering the trajectory of institutional choice opened in a wide albeit thin manner. The focus is on the examination of the widening reach of institutional choice, without an amplified focus on the breadth (or differentiated salience) of the institutional eco-systems around them. The foundational argumentation at the center of the research program among rational design scholars was the privileging of the optimal size of institutions. As Abbott and Snidal argued in their 1998 article: more actors make cooperation more difficult with collective action problems, issues especially relating to monitoring and defection (Abbott and Snidal 1998: 26–29). But over time this core consideration diminished. Based on this original logic, it should be informal state-based plurilateralism that is given a similar pride of place (albeit positioned as a rival) to formal institutionalized multilateralism. In effect, the rationalist institutionalist literature focuses on informal institutionalism except the form that matters most.

Differentiating analyses of informality under the shadow of rationalist institutionalists

Critiquing the mode of analysis proffered by rationalist institutionalists generally and rational design literature more specifically is not to treat this body of scholarship as if it was a single compressed scholarly entity. Over the past decade, the output from academics positioned within this mode of analysis– or influenced by it—has enlarged considerably. Across the continuum of contributions there is some considerable differentiation. Nor, in parallel fashion, is the critique presented in this article intended to devalue contributions that engage in dialogue with other modes of analysis.

One recent work that is strongly influenced but not tightly embedded in the rationalist institutionalist literature is Charles Roger’s The Origins of Informality (2020). Consistent with the overall shift of emphasis in the literature, Roger picks up the theme of the ascendancy of informal institutions, refining models concerning the ‘drivers of informality’ on an either/or basis as functionality or power dynamic (Roger 2020: 5–6). In doing so, he distances himself explicitly from the assumption that ‘the move to law’ through the dynamics of legalization would prevail with an air of inevitability over the ‘remarkable and worrisome’ hold of informality (Roger: xi; see Abbott et al. 2000).

Still, while displaying some impressive attributes of academic refinement, Roger’s work also reveals some of the limits of modes of analysis under the shadow of rationalist institutionalism. Building on the larger body of work, concentrated in the rational design literature (Vabulas and Snidal 2013; see also Dingwerth 2021: 243), the onus of Roger’s work is on extending the data base related to the quantitative expansion of informal institutions. In doing so, the qualitative ingredients attached to this process is placed in the background. In the effort to list the ascendancy of informal institutions: it is scale that is privileged at the expense of evaluating the comparative role of these institutions in an extended basis.

A good illustration of this shadow effect comes in the bias toward scope as opposed to intrinsic salience of institutions comes in Roger’s attention to the eco-system around the G20. Without the privileging of the dynamics around state-based plurilateralism focused on sustained examination of summit dynamics the analysis is flat, with little or no differentiation on a qualitative basis. Roger at the outset of his book argues that the G20—along with related forums, notably the Financial Stability Board (FSB)—are worthy of emphasis. But over time, the focus on this ‘central forum’ (Roger 2020: 2) is diluted, with attention moving to encompass the diffuseness of other bodies involved in global financial markets including the Bank for International Settlements (BCBS) and International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), the International Association of Insurance supervisors (IAIS) among others.

In similar fashion, Roger’s concern is with the scope not the nuances of informal institutions located as ascendant entities in specific functional domains. Instead of detailed scrutiny of any individual institution, Roger moves through a tour d'horizon across an expansive spectrum. On climate change these informal institutions include the Major Economies Forum (MEF). On data privacy, informal institutions extend from Global Privacy Enforcement Network and the International Conference on Data Protection and Privacy Commissions. And in the Security domain, illustrations include the Australia Group, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Proliferation Security Initiative, and the Wassenaar Arrangement.

Amidst this extensive listing of forums there is no effort to assess the specific nature or impact of any of these targeted institutions. At the most basic level, questions relating to which of these institutions have not only been created but sustained is not addressed. In other words, do some of these informal institutions fade away, and if so when and how? Or, alternatively, do they become variations of zombie institutions (Gray 2018), apparently dead but then reappearing? One illustration of the importance of such issues relates to the MEF. Roger’s list gives equivalency between the MEF and the G20 and the FSB. But the pattern of the MEF is far different. The MEF—technically becoming the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change—sprung into institutional life in 2009 with the notion that this informal institution would provide a site for dialogue on a mixed incumbent/developed—non-incumbent/developing basis. The primary activity was the meeting on April 27–28, 2009, in Washington, DC, with Leaders’ representatives and other officials from seventeen major economies in attendance, as well as the United Nations and Denmark. The forum was upgraded with the first Leaders’ Meeting taking place on the edge of the G8 on 9 July 2009 in L'Aquila, Italy. But after that phase of the initiative—unlike the G20—the initiative became a forum for Leaders’ representative level. And during the period of the Trump administration, there was a serious downgrade, with two meetings in 2015 in Washington, DC and Mondorf-les-Bains, Luxembourg. Only with the election of the Biden administration was there a return to high visibility for the MEF (White House 2021a).

And extending the debate over the G20 versus related institutions in its extended eco-system, questions must be asked about whether some ascendant institutions should be taken more seriously than others? The question of hierarchy among these institutions is left out completely. Are all members equal? Or do some counties have a privileged position with control over participation and agenda? Certainly, the similarities and differences between an institution such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and the Wassenaar Arrangement are relevant. In the case of Wassenaar Arrangement, as of 2017 India was let in as a member with China staying outside. Yet, although important in terms of its List of Dual Use Goods and Technologies, the Wassenaar Arrangement does not attract the level of intense debate that the Nuclear Suppliers Group elicits: with its mandate of controlling the export of materials, equipment, and technology that can be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. Here it is important that due to China’s opposition, India has been refused entry into the NSG.

The salience of these type of questions come to the fore when individual forums that deserve special recognition as exemplars of the state-based plurilateral model are introduced in an undifferentiated manner. A good example of the problem of treating informal institutions in a one type fits all template comes out with the reference to the BRICS. Not only is the BRICS conflated with other institutions notably the IBSA Trilateral Dialogue Forum and the MIKTA Partnership that should be placed in a different qualitative category (Roger 2020: 3), but some of the key attributes of the BRICS go missing.

As elaborated upon by a wealth of literature beyond the rationalist institutionalist ambit, the BRICS has gained an impressive degree of institutional traction in a manner absent in the case of the IBSA Trilateral Dialogue Forum and the MIKTA Partnership. To point to this success, it needs to be conditioned, does not mean an absence of problems. On the contrary, as it has progressed, the issues surrounding the evolution of the BRICS as an institution have become more—not less—magnified. In 2017 the BRICS summit was caught up in an intensifying geopolitical contest between India and China punctuated by a dramatic escalation of tensions around the Doklam standoff, with armed forces of the two countries facing off in the Sikkim sector of the China-India boundary.

That said, in relative terms, the BRICS is an institution that has achieved milestones of achievement quite different from the IBSA Trilateral Dialogue Forum and the MIKTA Partnership. Even faced with highly seriously geo-political tensions between China and India, the BRICS has met continuously and at the highest level of political leadership in terms of annual summits. Papering over the 2017 Doklam standoff, a de-escalation was facilitated by meetings between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the informal BRICS meeting on the sidelines of the Hamburg G-20 summit at Hamburg at the end of August 2017 (Papa and Verma 2021).

In the context of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, the BRICS rejected the suggestion that Russia would be excluded from the G20’s Brisbane Summit in November 2014. At the 2015 Ufa summit of the BRICS the leaders did not refer specifically to Russia’s actions but only to the BRICS ‘deep concern about the situation in Ukraine’ and the need to resolve the situation through ‘inclusive political dialogue’ (Ufa 2015).

By way of comparison, the IBSA Trilateral Dialogue Forum has seriously stalled after a series of meetings. Indeed, it can be argued that the biggest casualty of the BRICS consolidation was the IBSA Trilateral Dialogue Forum, although the institution had been set up by India, Brazil, and South Africa at the leaders’ level in 2006 well before the first BRICS summit (Alden and Vieira 2005; Stuenkel 2015). With an identity that underscored the democratic credentials of these countries, along with their location as sites for robust civil society participation, as opposed to simply the size and growth potential of their economies, IBSA retained in theory some comparative advantage. In operational practice, however, IBSA got crowded out by the wider summit process that contained China and Russia. In 2013 the IBSA Dialogue Forum at the leaders’ level was postponed by India, and notwithstanding promises that it will be revived, has faded from the scene.

And the MIKTA Partnership has never been elevated to the level of a leaders’ summit. Akin to the BRICS, a strong logic can be made for a MIKTA meeting at the leaders’ level in the context of the G20 summit process, to mobilize support for components of the G20 summit before or after the meeting (Cooper 2015; Parlar Dal and Kurşun 2016; See also Flake and Douglas 2014). Such activities would in some ways replicate what the BRICS has done since 2011. Yet unlike the BRICS, a straightforward path to ‘move up’ from meetings at the foreign minister level to a summit of leaders. In terms of this scenario, the ingredient absent in MIKTA is a single global issue that binds the members together. In the case of IBSA, this was the common motivation by Brazil, India, and South Africa to be elevated to the UNSC.

At the same time as Roger conflates the pattern of activity animated by the BRICS across a range of other disparate institutional activities, he downplays the extent to which the BRICS has evolved organizational. Here the work by Alan Alexandroff on the ‘iceberg theory’ is helpful (Alexandroff 2011; see also Alexandroff and Brean 2015). At one level, Roger’s interpretation is correct in suggesting that with regard to the BRICS—as for a wider array of informal organizations—the ‘bureaucratic footprint is light’ and ‘standing under international law is uncertain at best’ (3).

Yet, teased out in a much more-broader context, this interpretation loses its accuracy. In terms of a major institutional breakthrough, it is the establishment of the New Development Bank (NDB) that jumps to the fore. Although quite consciously not called the BRICS bank, the NDB has been created and operated by the BRICS membership. In doing so, the BRICS veered away from the strict tenets of informality toward a formal turn. Furthermore, constituted as a bank, many of its operational activities became in effect legalized (Cooper 2017; Wang 2017).

The successful expansion of the membership of the BRICS’ NDB takes the focus away the China–India bilateral relationship. Originally, the issue of expansion of membership was another source of bilateral tension. For expansion was widely viewed in India as a vehicle of adding to the leverage of China at the expense of India especially if it targeted Beijing-friendly countries especially Pakistan. With the addition of Bangladesh (along with the UAE and Uruguay) to the NDB in September 2021 these concerns have been allayed.

The value of rationalist institutionalist scholarship in opening avenues of debate about the pattern of international institutions is diminished by its failure to delve into the features of the institutions themselves. Casting the net wisely, the approach is sparse about the individual differences between institutional forms. The self-conscious motivation in the literature is an advancement of ‘the field’s basic understanding of informal organizations’ (Roger 2020: 7) not to probe the nuances in and between those informal institutions mapped across the entire ‘universe’ (Roger 2020: 7). But this evolution of debate also opens up some of the closures in the mainstream rationalist institutionalist literature.

Privileging institutions, but with a constricted US centric mode of analysis

A fuller critique necessitates going beyond Roger’s work to a closer examination of the detailed gaps within mainstream rationalist institutionalist literature. In terms of the participation deficiency, the scholarship of this mode of analysis has remained excessively US-centric. Regarding modes of operation, prime agency in the contest between formal organization and informal institutions is accorded to the US.

At the operational level, the US-centrism of the literature has attracted some attention. To be sure, mainstream institutionalist IR scholarship simplifies the contest in terms of the participatory dimension of institutional choice. The hallmark of the US led order is taken to be the centrality of institutionalism, through the establishment of formal pillars, resting as much on ‘on the basis of principles espoused by the United States’ as a disciplinary component (Keohane 1984: 8–9; see also Keohane 2012: 127).

Missing throughout this literature, is the role in particular of non-incumbents in the entire institutional contest. As Acharya and Buzan denote: ‘Liberal thinking overlooked the agency of the Third World. The same can also be said of the more general understandings of multilateralism and global governance’ (Acharya and Buzan 2019: 159).

Still, this criticism can be taken much further. In Keohane’s work over-looking the agency of non-incumbents in his foundational texts is an understatement. Looking at his pivotal 1989 collection of articles it is striking, to just give one illustration, that there is only one reference to China throughout the work. And, this reference connects China’s institutional trajectory with the US’s own: ‘A review of American foreign policy also makes it easier to understand why certain governments in the Third World—China being the most obvious example—have returned to more associative policies after a period of disassociation’ (Keohane 1989: 209).

Furthermore, this US centrism goes beyond operational practice to intellectual contributions. A review of Keohane’s work demonstrates the complete lack of diversity of scholarly material. While fully aware of the influence that Keohane’s work has had, notably on multilateralism (Keohane and Nye 1985; Keohane 1990), it is also worth noting the complete lack of input from sources beyond the US based academy. Although a rich academic literature multilateralism existed beyond the US, among specific incumbents, for example Canada (Keating 2002; Whalley 1985; see also Camps 1983 and Diebold 1988); and non-incumbents, as on Brazil (Selcher 1978; Figueredo 1983). In his well-known 1990 article on Multilateralism, only one non-US based scholar is noted in the text, and that reference is to the British realist E.H. Carr writing in the 1930s (Keohane 1990: 735).

To his credit, Keohane acknowledged the reflection of ‘Americanocentrism of scholarship in the United States, and I regret it (Keohane 1989 67; see also Acharya 2014: 156; Acharya 2020; and Hobson 2012: 216–222). His corrective effort, nonetheless, was simply to point to the work of other (US based, Euro-focused) scholars trying to expand the range of literature (Hoffmann 1977; Lyons 1982). As in other components of analysis it is significant to compare Keohane’s perspective that he is ‘not sufficiently well- read in works published elsewhere to comment intelligently on them’ (Keohane 1989: 67), with Robert Cox’s engagement with global voices. By doing so, Cox’s parallel 1992 article on multilateralism provides a very different analysis of the US’s role: citing (the Guyanese Commonwealth Secretary-General and public intellectual), Sir Shridath Ramphal’s view that the UN had been weakened by an erosion of the ‘obligation of leadership' (Cox 1992: 163).

This focus on the missing intellectual contributions is important substantively not just stylistically in the debate about the shift to informal institutions. Rationalist institutionalists have long been aware of the existence of informal institutions as a force in global affairs. They simply chose to underplay those informal plurilateral institutions in comparison to formal organizations (Abbott and Snidal 1998). After all, the original major contribution to rational design literature—lauding the primacy of formal multilateral organizations—was published in 1998, well over two decades after the prime state-based forum in the form of the G7 came into existence (Putnam and Bayne 1987; Putnam 1988). So, when Roger asks whether ‘informal organizations have been around for some time and only appear to have grown because they have only recently attracted attention’ (Roger 2020: 8) he is in effect asking why mainstream rationalist institutionalist IR has not given pride of place to this trend up until recently. For as represented in a wide array of scholarship, academics beyond the US mainstream have located these patterns and analyzed them over a long span of time. The problem is not attracting attention, it is attracting attention from the ‘right’ sections of the US centric academy.

In terms of substance the neglect by Keohane of the G7 is striking. Whereas Keohane provides elaborate treatment in the 1970s or 1980s of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the G7 is dismissed. In one footnote, Keohane goes so far as to contend—a conclusion completely at odds with the analysis provided by Robert Putnam—that the impact of the G7 in terms of plurilateral summitry should not be over-blown: ‘at the very highest levels of government…these trans governmental interactions are often quite limited’ (Keohane 1984: 101). The only reference in his 1989 collection is to the ‘Group of Five in international financial affairs’ (Keohane 1989: 14).

The rationalist institutionalist literature suffers therefore not just a problem of generalized parsimony, but specific US centric parsimony. In this regard, Roger’s work stands out as a welcome exception to the reliance almost exclusively on US based sources. Still, even Roger’s contribution when the analysis comes down to the core ingredient—‘coding rules that operationalize the concept of an informal organization’ (Roger 2020: 8)—tilts explicitly to a reliance on US based rational design scholars, Felicity Vabulas and Duncan Snidal (Vabulas and Snidal 2013). From a quantitative assessment perspective, tying into this school is perfectly understandable. From a qualitative assessment perspective, though, the imbalance between widening and deepening distorts the analysis.

Such a constriction in source material is a sustained feature of the rationalist institutionalist literature. At the outlet of Vabulas’s contribution in a 2019 edited collection (Vabulas (2019) the work by Keohane’s showcased related to informal governance is taken right back to 1974, with the inclusion of an article written by Joseph Nye on transgovernmentalism (Keohane and Nye 1974). The work by Abbott and Snidal on the ascendancy of informality in comparison is pushed up to the 2009 article (Abbott and Snidal 2009), a contribution that is more focused on regulatory standard institutions rather than informality per se. No explanation is offered to how the assumptions of these work differ from the foundational 1998 publication (Abbott and Snidal 1998).

On the distribution of sources, Vabulas expands the span of literature to encompass a variety of literature beyond the US. However, consistent with Keohane’s signaling, this opening up is concentrated on European contributions (Christiansen and Neuhold 2012; see also Kleine 2013). The defining literature, nevertheless, remains solidly in the vein of rationalist institutionalists. The icons of mainstream rationalist institutionalists—both Keohane and Abbott and Snidal—are placed in a privileged position.

The constrictions of projection backwards and forward

In terms of projection, the rationalist institutionalist literature surveys in a sustained fashion the quantitative evolution of informal institutions. As an accounting exercise this is highly valuable, especially the IIGO 2.0 dataset. Yet, in doing so, the context of this shifting pattern is missing. This is a criticism concerning the ahistorical nature of that stretches back to the work of Robert Cox in his 1996 collection: ‘If elegance is what Robert Keohane writes as “spare, logically tight” theory the historicist approach does not lead to elegance. It may, however, lead to better appraisal of historically specific conjunctures. One person’s elegance is another’s oversimplification’ (Cox 1996: 53).

Looking back Cox takes Keohane to task for his US-centrism: with a fixation on the hegemonic power applied by a single state as opposed to ‘a group of states’ or some combination of actors (Cox 1981: 153). Equally, though, there is a critical focus on the lack of attention devoted by rationalist institutionalist to how or when institutions have been created. Or to use Cox’s language, there is no effort to study the nature and implications of historical ‘breaking points:’ acting as catalyst for institutional transformation (Cox 1981: 153).

Looking forward, what comes to the fore is a missing anticipatory component in the rationalist institutionalist literature. In other words, this scholarship lacks a predictive capacity about trends of institutional development into future. There is a caution built into this type of scholarship. Such instincts do not mean that rational design scholars provide an accurate assessment of the trajectory of informal institutions on an individual basis. No less than Roger, Vabulas and Snidal signal the relevance of the MEF on Climate notwithstanding the uneven performance of this institution (2020: 47), with the forum going into a dormant condition under the Trump administration, before reviving with the Biden administration (White House 2021a).

The tendency to try to fit as wide a number of institutions into the concept of IIGOs comes at the expense of nuance. This type of superficiality is exemplified by the cursory manner that the Shanghai Five IIGO—made up of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan—is explored by Vabulas and Snidal as an exemplar of a durable—and expansive informal institution. If the Shanghai 5 created in 1996—and changed to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2001—has some qualities that conform to that model, it is at the most a hybrid between formal and informal format. In addition to the annual presidential summits pointed to Vabulas and Snidal, more careful examination points to the possession by the SCO of a charter and a defined organizational structure (including a Council of Heads of States) (Vabulas and Snidal 2020: 863; see also Panda 2012; Konarovsky 2019).

The lack of predictive insight is most visible in the neglect by Vabulas and Snidal of the rise of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad. This is the type of institution that meshes far more neatly into their notion of an IIGO. The first Quad meeting was held on a trilateral basis (without the presence of Australia) in August 2007. Thereafter, the Quad was brought back into life through a meeting on the edge of the 2017 ASEAN summit in Manila—a revived initiative that reflected concerns about the geopolitical environment and shifts in distributions of power vis-à-vis China. Most significantly, the Biden administration has elevated the Quad to include a meeting of leaders (The White House 2021b).

The ascendancy of the initiative was linked to the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Although the US—and Japan—have argued that the Indo-Pacific concept is not a containment strategy vis-à-vis China, this is the impression of China. As Jia Wenshan of the Center for China and Globalization, is quoted as stating: ‘China needs to as soon as possible deal with the Indo-Pacific alliance, as it is absolutely in conflict with [the BRI]. This appraisal is reinforced by the recalibration of the Quad as a geopolitical mechanism’ (Cannon 2019).

Although also comparatively neglected by the rationalist institutionalist literature (Taylor 2020), the BRI, with all its ambitious scale of infrastructure development an overland route, the Silk Road Economic Belt, and the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSR), constitutes a diffuse hybrid model with both formal and informal features. The flexible nature of the wide range—and often expensive and risky—type of BRI projects is manifest from attempts to identify which projects are synonymous with Beijing’s BRI versus those labeled BRI simply because they are funded, built or planned by Chinese organizations and/or businesses (Hurley et al. 2018). The BRI seeks inclusion in existing formal organizations, but also avoids setting up fixed venues or charters.

In operational terms, the diffuse, hybrid image extends to the uneven mode approach to summitry with respect to the BRI. The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) has been opened to a wide and flexible cluster of world leaders. A Joint Communique was adopted by the first BRF in April 2017, but it was not endorsed by all the leaders who attended. In terms of participation, the BRF is more akin to a global informal summit such as the G20. What stands out is—again akin to the G20—is its convening power with a global projection. Beijing had the capacity in terms of resources and largesse to build the leverage through its convening power of events such as the BRF. The informal approach, nonetheless, allowed China not only to gain kudos for who turned up but offset any reputational issues about who didn’t. While Chinese analysts contend that the informality of the BRI allows ‘a community of shared destiny,’ the BRF was also marked by key absentees. Not only did the US refrain from attending, neither did the leaders of Japan, India and Australia (Foreign Ministry of China 2017) yet, if this absenteeism serves as a sign of concern about strategic competition with a China-led initiative, there were signs of tactical, operational accommodation. Even with its lack of participation at the BRF, for example Japan has begun to entertain notions of cooperating with China on the BRI. (Maini 2018).

Omission-catchup engagement with core summit dynamics

In the aim of maintaining its lead status, the rationalist institutionalist literature has adopted a continuous process of omission-catchup. Having missed important shifts in institutional design, serious efforts are made to catch up. A compelling illustration is the 2020 intervention by pivotal scholars within the rational design school in the debate over the G7, the G20, and the BRICS. Having ignored these core informal institutions for decades, Vabulas and Snidal engage with these select informal institutions in a 2020 article published in Global Policy (2020).

Given this record of omission, what is most interesting about the analysis is that it occurs at all. In the scene-setting contribution about the contest between formal and informal institutions the G7/8 is not given any substantive treatment (Abbott and Snidal 1998). What is more, when the G7/8 is initially brought into the debate about institutional design (Vabulas and Snidal 2013), there is of value added.

For a scholarly approach that prides itself on assumptions of logic, the initial treatment of the G7/8 as an institution lacks a core focal point of analysis. Indeed, this forum appears to be more a source of puzzlement than a core target of investigation. ‘G8 summits are attended by the world’s most powerful heads of state and vehemently criticized by protestors. Opinions on the influence of the G8 vary widely…but the attention that both powerful and weak states give these informal arrangements cannot be denied’ (2013: 194).

If intended to deepen the analysis, Vabulas and Snidal engage uncomfortably with the G20. In terms of the elevation toward a G20 at the leaders’ level, the argument by Vabulas and Snidal, that the ‘Major states used the G8 summit in 2009, for example, to address the deepening global financial crisis’ is at odds with operational realities (2013: 194). From a closer examination of the proceedings relating to the G20, it should be recognized that this ‘premier forum’ already had convened two summits by the time the 2009 G7/8 meeting took place.

Moreover, a closer look at the change in the US administration allows an awareness that President Obama gave very little attention to the financial crisis at the July 2009 in L'Aquila, Italy. Not only had he already placed his personal imprint on the G20 as the crisis committee in London in April 2009, but he was also preparing to act as host for the follow up summit in Pittsburgh in September 2009: a summit that brought the G20 to life with a distinctive institutional personality.

So, from this sparse and distorted assessment it is a huge leap to try to provide a detailed examination of the G7 in the 2020 Global Policy article (Vabulas and Snidal 2020). From the sense of puzzlement about the G7/8 that is projected in 2013, an air of confidence pervades the 2020 article. Instead of the logic about instrumental rationality at the core of the analysis in the earlier contributions, though, this shift is accompanied by an adoption of a modified version of neo-Gramscian conceptualization. That is to say, the understanding of the recalibrated G7 is shifted to an approach underscored by an appraisal that casts the G20 as a mechanism of system management through the application of a collaboration and hegemonic consensus.

A shift along these critical lines is perfectly credible. Yet, once more, analysis of this type gives the impression that Vabulas and Snidal are trying to catch up with the literature that is downplayed in earlier work. In the earlier 2013 contribution, reference is made to a 1999 article by Stephen Gill animated by neo-Gramscian conceptualization (Gill 1999). In a later contribution (2020), another contribution by Gill (1993) as well as Cox (1993). However, beyond these references, there is wealth of literature that could have been tapped into as well: including work that provides far more detailed analysis (see Chodor 2019).

In any case, with this revised conceptualization as a guide, Vabulas and Snidal move from puzzlement to making definitive judgments about the G7 in 2020. In keeping with the theme of system maintenance, Vabulas and Snidal put as the centerpiece of their work the argument that the political like-mindedness of the G7 ‘is key to understanding why, even as China (and to a lesser extent India) started to rise economically, it was not included in the G7’ (2020: 46). This is, from one angle, a highly plausible contention. Still, as with so much of the rationalist institutionalist literature a confidence of assertion doesn’t make it necessarily so. What is missed, from another angle, is the number of prominent G7 leaders prior to the GFC who called for the inclusion of China and India into the G7 (See for example, Sarkozy 2007). On a variety of counts, the addition of China and/or India made far more sense in terms of problem solving on an issue-by-issue basis than the inclusion of Russia. To be sure, as events in the late 1990s demonstrate, the un-like-mindedness of Russia did not bar Russia gaining entry. Nonetheless, in that case, the push for inclusion came from the US, with considerable enthusiasm from the Clinton administration (Dobson 2006: 41).

Viewed in this wider context, the non-entry of China into the G7 came not just the incumbents’ refusal but from the reluctance of China to join (Cui 2007; see also English and Thakur 2005). What is more, if China was hesitant, India was if anything arguably more hesitant. With deep concerns about moving into an exclusive forum of this type (Bidwai 2007), this reluctance was so deeply entrenched that India showed considerable ambivalence as well with the G20. It is interesting in this regard to note that India remains one of the last members of the G20 to host a summit (Mathur 2019).

In turning to an examination of the G20, the analysis of Vabulas and Snidal falls between wide and thin and deep and expansive. As in other parts of their analysis, the parsimonious component gets in the way of accuracy. The G8 did not create the G20 finance, individual finance state officials from select incumbents did. And in any case, Russia never joined the G7 meetings of finance ministers, so it did not have any role in the creation of the G20 finance, although it did join the latter institution.

In terms of their discussion of integration by cooptation, the foundational assumption of a universal logic of behavior that runs through the rational design literature is found wanting. The core argument of this literature from the outset is that notwithstanding massive asymmetries, all countries benefit from the establishment of formal institutions (Abbott and Snidal 1998). Yet, amid the GFC, Vabulas and Snidal argue that ‘established powers’ and ‘rising powers’ operate based on very different assumptions: with the former using the G20 to ‘forestall pressure’ from the BRICS for other types of reform and the latter ‘persuading’ the ‘established powers’ ‘of the principled need to broaden the dialogue’ (Vabulas and Snidal 2020: 47).

As with so much of their analysis, there is a contradiction between the conceptualized world of rational design scholars and the realities in terms of operational machinery on the ground. At the time of the GFC, the BRICS did not exist at least as a leaders’ summit. And while pressure for IMF reform did build up, this was not the main source of concern in October/November 2008. On the contrary, a more immediate objective of China was to gain entry into the Financial Stability Board: as up to that time Hong Kong rather than China was a member of the older Financial Stability Forum.

Vabulas and Snidal come in and out of treating China as a unique case and conflating it with other emerging or rising powers. This duality in China’s position is highly significant and deserves to be more fully teased out. Nonetheless, as it is positioned in this article, the analysis does not elaborate at all on the manner which these two very different roles played out. If China’s institutional positioning has been massively amplified, it’s out in front leadership role should not be twisted out of proportion (Panova 2021). The assertion by Vabulas and Snidal that China ‘set up informal arrangements such as the BRICS, East Asia Summit [EAS], and BASIC to redistribute institutional power to match its increasing material power’ is simply not true: diminishing the role of other actors including ASEAN on the East Asia Summit (Vabulas and Snidal 2020: 40).

In any case, although exhibited in strikingly different ways, the image of a coopted China and India should not be inflated. Both China and India agreed to membership in the G20 amid the GFC without preconditions. But their participation does not easily mesh with the notion of a willingness to go along with an incumbent set agenda via the G20. Neither country engaged actively—or for that matter was called upon to take on this role—in the negotiations about the mandate or the membership of the G20 in the initial preparations. On the contrary, this was a process monopolized by the incumbents, in particular the US, the UK, and France (Cooper and Pouliot 2015). It was only after the G20 was set up that some forms of dialogues were created between the ‘established powers’ and ‘rising powers’, and here again, there is little sign of what can be taken to be co-optation. China pushed back hard on several key policy issues, notably rebalancing and currency issues. And India demonstrated a strong element of reluctance regarding engagement on the G20 (Cooper 2020).

On BRICS, Vabulas and Snidal are much fairer to that organizational dynamic than a variety of other commentators, including it must be noted the conceptual originator of the acronym (O’Neill 2021). That said, the analysis misses far more than it contributes. For one thing, it starts with a familiar tendency to compare totally different types of informal institutions. For besides possessing the ingredient of informality, the BRICS contains nothing in common with either the Asia‐Europe Meeting, or the China‐Japan‐South Korea Trilateral Summit. The Asia‐Europe Meeting, and the Trilateral Summit brought incumbents and non-incumbents together in ‘mixed’ form of dialogues. The BRICS—with the partial exception of Russia, as a traditional incumbent at least in the form of UNSC membership and great power status—brought together non-incumbents in an informal institution of their own making and exclusive ‘club’ membership.

In terms of the specific origins of the BRICS, Vabulas and Snidal play down the leadership of the other members to the attributes of China seeking to ‘redistribute power’. Nevertheless, it was Russia and Brazil that provided the initial push for the BRICS (Panova 2021; Stuenkel 2020), or more precisely the BRICs (without South Africa). It was only when the BRICS was up and running that China began to exert leverage. One sign of this recalibration of influence came with China’s push (over India’s objections) to bring South Africa into the institution. Another was the ability of China to win the contest for the headquarters of the BRICS’ created New Development Bank.

The neglect of ‘living’ institutional personalities

In terms of the ‘living personality’ constitutive of informal institutions, the mode of analysis lacks nuance. Stripping the features down to the basics, the components that can be identified as distinctive - what Cox points to as the attributes of an institution that ‘take on their own life’ including ‘the stimulation of rival institutions’ - are left out (Cox 1981: 136–137). In an accented fashion to Roger, Vabulas interprets informal institutions as only engaging at the apex of the state: with exclusive attention at the level of ‘Heads of Government or State, Ambassadors, and high-level Ministers (Vabulas 2019: 404). Such a sparse mode of analysis leaves out a wide variety of ingredients essential to the mode of operation about informal institutions. As Vabulas allows, ‘Focusing on IIGOs…sets aside technocratic or regulatory meetings among lower level government officials, such as subnational ‘transnational networks’ (2019: 404).

Such a restrictive approach is deficient in several ways. For one thing, the special role assigned for Sherpas (or personal representatives of leaders) is left out of consideration. In the G7 context, the Sherpas held a dominant position as the permanent representatives of leaders. However, this hierarchy was recalibrated within the G20 as finance and central bank officials gained leverage. With the G20 initially concentrating its activities as a crisis committee, the expertise and specialized knowledge of its technocratic actors was not only vital but more amenable to building transnational policy communities. The skills of many of the Sherpas were by contrast more of the different political cultures of the individual G20 member states (Cooper 2019a). For another thing, the expansion of transnational networks is not taken into account (Slaughter 2019; Cooper 2019b). To provide just illustration, the Thinktank 20 (T20) has built up a prominent role, with working groups and policy recommendations that were connected into the G20 process. Moreover, emerging from the German presidency in 2017, the T20 has (taken on an institutional personality (both through a secretariat at the Hertie School and the Council for Global Problem-Solving, based at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy). (see also Cooper 2013; Naylor 2020).

Where the work by Vabulas is of potentially high value is the area of the function of the substitution of secretariat and the role of the chair in informal institutions. As in other areas reference to more specialized literature is lacking. On the role of the secretariat, it is Roger, not Vabulas, who probes this component along a wider cluster of institutions, although again there is an over-emphasis on quantitative factors for determining informality. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is judged to be informal because it has a small secretariat (Roger 2020: 29). Yet In terms of the established organizational model, the norms promoted by APEC contained strong elements of formality. Although there continued to exist only a small secretariat, from the outset APEC possessed a formal culture with a focus on promoting economic liberalization through legally-binding, enforceable, comprehensive agreements that would lead to the full liberalization of the economies of the Asia–Pacific (Ravenhill 2001). On the contrary, claims of a hub status by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is driven by a culture of informality (Caballero-Anthony 2014; see also Pekkanen 2016; and Cooper and Stubbs 2017). Unlike other formal bodies going back to the era of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), ASEAN was perceived to have established its own mode of operating, the so-called ASEAN way. In terms of its quiet, consensus-oriented approach, ASEAN serves as a manifestation of what Acharya calls 'constitutive localization'—the process where global norms are localized by endogenous actors to create their own version of the norm (Acharya 2004).

While published in 2019, there is no reference in Vabulas’s work for instance to the work by Crump and Downie (2018) on the role of the chair in informal organizations with special reference to the G20. It also misses the level of debate not just in the G20 but the BRICS about whether a secretariat is necessary (Saran and Saran 2012). As with Roger, Alexandroff’s ‘iceberg theory’ is missing in action (2011; see also Alexandroff and Brean 2015).

The prioritizing of informal institutions as engaging mainly at the apex of the state is made more puzzling by the fact that the rationalist institutionalist literature lacks any compelling interest in the detailed dynamics around plurilateralist summit processes. Despite the recognition by Roger of the elevated status in terms of its operation—‘a central forum for coordinating action’ (Roger 2020: 2)—the actual summit dimension of the G20 is never mentioned. As such, a defining distinction between the G20 and the other informal institutions it is conflated with, including the FSB, the BCBS and ISCO is neglected. To point to this difference is not to argue that these other informal organizations have not carved out important functions especially in the immediate post GFC period. What requires greater refinement is not a downgrading of these technically oriented bodies. Rather it is simply to stress the difference between the FSB, the BCBS and ISCO and the G20.

In earlier articles—as Roger attests—Vabulas along with Snidal does move attention to the manner how the engagement of ‘top leaders’ takes place in informal institutions (Roger 2020: 27. See also Vabulas and Snidal 2013). However, in the 2019 article there is no follow up on this theme. The only feature that Vabulas picks up in this contribution is the contention that ‘the chair in the G20 is responsible for setting up a temporary secretariat in their country’ (2019: 412).

In overall terms, paralleling Roger, Vabulas raises awareness about the ‘informal intergovernmental organizations are not only rising in magnitude but also in importance’ (2019: 412). But in terms of the claim that this research agenda moves ‘beyond just recognizing the existence of this set of institutions’ the template falls far short. Diffuseness in looking for common features comes at the expense of any detailed analysis at ‘understanding how the various actors work within IIGOs’ (2019: 413). Certainly, this is a formidable task, as Vabulas is aware; in that ‘the informal nature’ of the modes of operation ‘may preclude clarity on what goes on behind the scenes’ (2019: 413). However, as illuminated by a wide number of contributions from scholars not associated with the rationalist institutionalist schools, such reticence is belied from those with an alternative skill set and willingness to engage in a far more comprehensive fashion.

Extending the qualitative dimensions of analysis: differentiation, deepening and diversification

In his 1989 collection, Keohane argues that other schools of thought—and specially what he terms the sociological approach—has neither ‘the coherence nor the self-confidence of the rationalists’ (1989: 160). From this analysis, the first of these attributes at least must be challenged. As depicted through this counter-vailing analysis, claims of coherence among mainstream rationalist institutionalists are over-inflated. Assumptions of superiority related to the contest between formal organizations and informal institutions are fundamentally changed. So are the assumptions about state-based institutions, with space allowed over time for a range of not only informal but non-state, and hybrid institutions.

These assumptions move the mode of analysis to greater attention to plurilateral dynamics. Keohane denotes in his 1989 edited collection that he has been influenced in his ‘characterization of emerging patterns of world politics’ by concepts of plurilateralism (1989: 86; see also Paris 2015). And the move by Vabulas and Snidal to engage with pivotal informal institutions in their 2020 Global Policy article (2020) points in a similar direction. However, notwithstanding these major shifts, neither the nature nor implications of state based plurilateralism is explicitly addressed. Except for the 2020 Global Policy article by Vabulas and Snidal the ascendancy of informal institutions is analyzed as a technical issue. And, even then, the shift toward state based plurilateralism is not given the centrality it deserves.

The neglect of the G7 at its foundation means that rationalist institutionalists lack the ability to put the ascendancy of informal institutions in a meaningful context. To be sure, the shift by privileged non-incumbents toward informal is not simply animated by technical considerations but by core political and diplomatic concerns. Indeed, the entire ambit of the shift toward informal institutions is predicted on issues entirely missed by rationalist institutionalists: not just the characteristics around pluralistic and solidarist design but the motivations of associational or adversarial relationships. And above all, the context of a fundamental contest between formal multilateralism not with informal institutions generally but state-based plurilateralism more specifically.

What overarching source of consistency exists is not an attachment to a rigid logic or for that matter to one side of the contest between formal organizations and informal institutions. After all, the literature has gone through a wide number of intellectual twists and turns. Rather what is consistent are the detailed deficiencies highlighted in this article relating to the shift toward informal institutionalism: constrictions in terms of participation, with the privileging of scholarship that is excessively US-centric; a failure to capture key patterns of institutional change; and a neglect of the distinctive features constitutive of individual informal institutions.

The contradiction of this constricted intellectual input is made more compelling by catch-up recognition particularly by the rational design scholars that many of the sites related to the ascendancy of informal institutions come beyond the domain of the incumbents. As Vabulas and Snidal recognize, the use of informal institutions has been growing and spreading: ‘Although initially used mainly by developed and larger states, especially European ones, they now involve all sorts of states across all regions of the world' (Vabulas and Snidal 2021: 860). No less than in the foundational works by Keohane, however, the recent contributions of rational design scholars retain an almost complete reliance on US or Western centered sources. The Global Policy article by Vabulas and Snidal highlight this embedded concentration: with only one reference to the contributions of scholars from the global South (Stuenkel 2020).

Rationalist institutionalism generally, and rational design specifically—notwithstanding their self-identity as possessing a logical, quantitative grounding—therefore should not be given a privileged uncontested status in IR. If mainstream rationalist-oriented IR literature deserves the credit for the initial probing of question relating to institutional choice, they lack any legacy claims to an appropriateness of inquiry. Driven by the requirement for a deeper, more discrete recognition of the qualitative dimensions relating to differentiation, deepening and diversification, a different, multi-faceted, and inclusive research agenda must reclaim space at the heart of the contest of institutional design as in other domains. Notwithstanding its ambition of purpose and confident delivery, the exploration of institutional choice is simply too important to be left to a mode of analysis that substitutes abstract, broad assumptions and scope for intensive, nuanced, and variegated exploration.