Abstract
A recent literature explores how domestic institutions affect politicians’ incentives to enter into international agreements (IAs). We contribute to this field by systematically testing the impact of a broad set of domestic institutional design features. This allows us to compare new and established political economy explanations of IA entry. For this purpose, 99 democracies are analyzed over the period 1975 to 2010. We find that domestic institutions determine countries’ disposition to enter into IAs, as predicted by political economic theory. For example, democracies with majoritarian electoral institutions are less likely to conclude IAs than other democracies. Countries also conclude more IAs when their democratic institutions are long-lived and they lack an independent judiciary. However, programmatic parties and the number of domestic veto players are not associated with IA-making. The key take-away of this study is that specific domestic institutions matter for how frequently states make formal deals with each other.
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Kiesow Cortez, F. and J. Gutmann (2017). Domestic Institutions and the Ratification of International Agreements in a Panel of Democracies. Constitutional Political Economy 28(2): 142–66.
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Notes
- 1.
As of this writing 114 states have ratified the Vienna Convention and 15 more have signed but not yet ratified the convention. Many non-signatory states recognize that the convention or parts of it reflect customary international law.
- 2.
The dilemma of the strong state is discussed, for example, in Dreher and Voigt (2011). The dilemma involves a commitment problem of the state vis-à-vis its citizens. On the one hand, the state should be strong enough to enforce private property rights. On the other, if a state is powerful enough to enforce property rights, it can misuse its strength to violate those rights. See also Weingast (1995), who argues federalism could be one way of solving the dilemma.
- 3.
This issue is discussed in Cox and McCubbins (2001).
- 4.
According to Vreeland (2007) these costs include (1) being denied access to the IMF loan; (2) increased difficulty in rescheduling debt, since informal creditor organizations (such as the Paris Club) require good standing under an IMF agreement; and (3) fear of decreased FDI because of the negative signal from a failed IMF agreement.
- 5.
This is the case when the executive has an informational advantage and enhanced authority over veto players regarding the conclusion of IAs, which appears to be a plausible assumption. However, research by Mansfield and Milner (2012) on PTAs assumes that domestic veto players have enough political weight to prevent the executive from entering into PTAs. If this applies, governments will be hindered from strategically using IAs to overcome veto player opposition.
- 6.
For simplicity, we do not show the joint probability or log likelihood function. The interested reader is referred to Cameron and Trivedi (2005: 804) for a comprehensive discussion.
- 7.
To further rule out problems caused by collinearity in our data, we have checked bivariate correlations between our independent variables as well as variance inflation factors (VIFs) from a model estimated with OLS. All bivariate correlations are below 0.8. Unsurprisingly, the highest positive correlations are between income per capita, democracy, and judicial independence. The highest negative correlations are between income and aid dependence, and between population size and trade openness. The VIFs also suggest no reason for concern about collinearity. Judicial independence and income per capita show the highest VIFs with 5.5 and 4.6 respectively.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Description of Variables and Data Sources
Variable | Description and source |
|---|---|
New treaties | Number of New Treaties in t. Source: Dreher et al. (2008) |
No. of treaties in t-1 | Number of Existing Treaties (in thousands) in t – 1. Source: Dreher et al. (2008) |
Log income per capita | Logarithm of PPP-adj. GDP per capita (Laspeyres) at 2005 constant prices. Source: Heston et al. (2012) |
Log population | Logarithm of population (in thousands). Source: Heston et al. (2012) |
Log openness | Openness at 2005 constant prices (in %). Source: Heston et al. (2012) |
Level of democracy | Polity2, ranges from +10 (strongly democratic) to −10 (strongly autocratic). Source: Marshall et al. (2014) |
Log age of democracy | Logarithm of number of years since country was nondemocratic. Source: Cheibub et al. (2010) and own calculations |
Presidential system | Country classified as presidential democracy. Source: Cheibub et al. (2010), updated based on Bormann and Golder (2013) |
Common law | Common-law legal system. Source: La Porta et al. (1999) |
Aid dependence | Net ODA received (% of GNI). Source: World Bank (2014) |
Majoritarian system | Country classified as majoritarian electoral system. Source: Bormann and Golder (2013) |
Programmatic parties | Own calculation: Share of PPs among gov. parties and largest opposition party. Source: Beck et al. (2001) |
CCP-approve | Own calculation: Number of actors needed to approve international agreements (treatap). Source: Elkins et al. (2009) |
CCP-initiate | Own calculation: Number of actors with competence to initiate international agreements (treatini). Source: Elkins et al. (2009) |
CCP-revoke | Own calculation: Number of actors with competence to revoke international agreements (treatrvk). Source: Elkins et al. (2009) |
Judicial independence | Level of judicial independence. Source: Linzer and Staton (2015) |
Checks (DPI) | Checks and balances. Source: Beck et al. (2001) |
Checks (DPI), dummy | Own calculation: 1 if checks (DPI) > 3, else 0. Source: Beck et al. (2001) |
PolCon III (Henisz) | Political constraints. Source: Henisz (2002) |
PolCon V (Henisz) | Political constraints, includes two additional veto points (the judiciary and sub-federal entities). Source: Henisz (2000) |
Appendix 2: List of Countries
Albania | Germany | Nicaragua |
Argentina | Ghana | Niger |
Armenia | Greece | Nigeria |
Australia | Guatemala | Norway |
Austria | Guinea-Bissau | Pakistan |
Bangladesh | Honduras | Panama |
Belgium | Hungary | Papua New Guinea |
Benin | India | Paraguay |
Bhutan | Indonesia | Peru |
Bolivia | Ireland | Philippines |
Brazil | Israel | Poland |
Bulgaria | Italy | Portugal |
Burundi | Jamaica | Romania |
Canada | Japan | Senegal |
Cape Verde | Kenya | Sierra Leone |
Central African Republic | Korea, South | Slovakia |
Chile | Kyrgyzstan | Slovenia |
Colombia | Latvia | Solomon Islands |
Comoros | Liberia | Spain |
Congo | Lithuania | Sri Lanka |
Costa Rica | Luxembourg | Sudan |
Croatia | Macedonia | Suriname |
Cyprus | Madagascar | Sweden |
Czech Republic | Malawi | Switzerland |
Denmark | Mali | Thailand |
Dominican Republic | Mauritania | Trinidad and Tobago |
Ecuador | Mauritius | Turkey |
El Salvador | Mexico | Uganda |
Estonia | Moldova | Ukraine |
Fiji | Mongolia | United Kingdom |
Finland | Nepal | United States |
France | Netherlands | Uruguay |
Georgia | New Zealand | Venezuela |
Appendix 3: Correlation Matrix
(1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | (6) | (7) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
(1) Majoritarian system | 1 | ||||||
(2) Programmatic parties | −0.16 [0.15] | 1 | |||||
(3) CCP-approve | −0.35 [0.00] | −0.09 [0.41] | 1 | ||||
(4) CCP-initiate | −0.26 [0.02] | −0.10 [0.35] | 0.25 [0.02] | 1 | |||
(5) CCP-revoke | −0.32 [0.00] | −0.09 [0.43] | 0.23 [0.04] | 0.25 [0.02] | 1 | ||
(6) Judicial independence | −0.06 [0.58] | 0.51 [0.00] | −0.09 [0.39] | −0.05 [0.66] | 0.05 [0.62] | 1 | |
(7) Checks (DPI) | 0.01 [0.91] | 0.33 [0.00] | −0.05 [0.64] | 0.02 [0.85] | −0.07 [0.51] | 0.26 [0.02] | 1 |
Appendix 4: Additional Regression Results
(1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
No. of treaties (in t – 1) | 1.129* | 1.105(*) | 1.114(*) | 1.098 | 1.139* |
(0.065) | (0.064) | (0.067) | (0.064) | (0.069) | |
Log income per capita | 0.876(*) | 0.877(*) | 0.864* | 0.898 | 0.883 |
(0.062) | (0.063) | (0.062) | (0.069) | (0.067) | |
Log population | 1.086* | 1.070(*) | 1.075(*) | 1.075(*) | 1.091* |
(0.044) | (0.043) | (0.043) | (0.044) | (0.044) | |
Log openness | 1.151(*) | 1.141(*) | 1.167* | 1.180* | 1.195* |
(0.086) | (0.086) | (0.088) | (0.090) | (0.091) | |
Level of democracy | 1.032** | 1.034** | 1.033** | 1.055*** | 1.053*** |
(0.012) | (0.012) | (0.012) | (0.016) | (0.016) | |
Log age of democracy | 1.165*** | 1.154*** | 1.148*** | 1.173*** | 1.171*** |
(0.043) | (0.042) | (0.043) | (0.044) | (0.045) | |
Presidential system | 1.172 | 1.237 | 1.221 | 1.254 | 1.133 |
(0.170) | (0.180) | (0.175) | (0.182) | (0.163) | |
Common law | 0.883 | 0.758* | 0.733* | 0.767* | 0.875 |
(0.124) | (0.098) | (0.100) | (0.101) | (0.129) | |
Aid dependence | 0.985* | 0.985** | 0.985** | 0.984** | 0.984** |
(0.006) | (0.006) | (0.006) | (0.006) | (0.006) | |
Majoritarian system | 0.741** | 0.741** | |||
(0.080) | (0.080) | ||||
Programmatic parties | 0.938 | 0.948 | |||
(0.090) | (0.091) | ||||
CCP-approve | 0.948 | 0.951 | |||
(0.051) | (0.052) | ||||
CCP-initiate | 1.070 | 1.079 | |||
(0.067) | (0.068) | ||||
CCP-revoke | 0.900(*) | 0.896(*) | |||
(0.056) | (0.057) | ||||
Judicial independence | 0.105* | 0.107* | |||
(0.116) | (0.116) | ||||
Judicial independence2 | 3.768(*) | 4.028(*) | |||
(2.951) | (3.133) | ||||
Observations | 2158 | 2158 | 2158 | 2158 | 2158 |
Countries | 99 | 99 | 99 | 99 | 99 |
Region fixed effects | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Decade fixed effects | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Time trend | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Log-likelihood | −5314 | −5318 | −5316 | −5315 | −5309 |
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Kiesow Cortez, F., Gutmann, J. (2021). Domestic Institutions and the Ratification of International Agreements in a Panel of Democracies. In: Kiesow Cortez, F. (eds) The Political Economy of International Agreements. International Law and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85194-1_3
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