Contested multilateralism as credible signaling: how strategic inconsistency can induce cooperation among states
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Contested multilateralism as credible signaling: how strategic inconsistency can induce cooperation among states Benjamin Faude 1
& Michal
Parizek 2
Accepted: 3 September 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This paper analyzes how patterns of international cooperation are affected if a group of states, led by a major power, pursues a strategy of “contested multilateralism” (CM). We conceptualize CM as a reaction to deadlock in institutional adjustment bargaining where CM lowers the gains actors can reap from cooperation in the short run. We demonstrate that, in the long run, CM nevertheless can have positive effects on international cooperation and specify when this is the case. Because of the costs associated with it, CM conveys a credible signal of the resolve of a dissatisfied group of states to contest the institutional status quo. Due to this capacity, CM alters the institutional and strategic environment within which institutional adjustment bargaining takes place. As a result, CM opens up the possibility for inter-institutional accommodation that increases realized cooperation gains. We probe the plausibility of our theoretical reasoning with empirical case studies on competitive regime creation in multilateral development finance and on regime-shifting in the governance of international trade in genetically modified organisms. Keywords Regime complexes . Contested multilateralism . International cooperation .
Thickly institutionalized international system . Credible signaling
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-02009398-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
* Benjamin Faude [email protected] Michal Parizek [email protected]
1
London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Department of Government and Department of International Relations, Houghton Street, Holborn, London WC2A 2AE, UK
2
Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Studies, Charles University, Pekarska 16, 15800 Praha 5Jinonice, Czechia
Faude B., Parizek M.
1 Introduction World politics is replete with international institutions which create joint gains, but distribute those gains unevenly among states (Krasner 1991). An uneven distribution of cooperation gains often creates tensions in which those states gaining less than others demand institutional change. The most prominent case in point is the attempt of rising powers to induce change in the core institutions of the existing international order so that cooperation gains may be more evenly distributed among established and rising powers (Zangl et al. 2016). Over the past decade, rising powers have been acting to induce institutional change in major international institutions, including the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) (Hopewell 2015; Vestergaard and Wade 2015). Since established powers defended the institutional status quo rather successfully, China and its partners decided more recently
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