Intervention by international organizations in regime complexes
- PDF / 807,415 Bytes
- 32 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 26 Downloads / 199 Views
Intervention by international organizations in regime complexes Matias E. Margulis 1,2 Accepted: 29 September 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This article identifies the existence of a previously unknown but important type of selfdirected political behavior by International Organizations (IOs) that I term intervention. Intervention occurs when an IO secretariat acts with the intention of altering an anticipated decision at a partially-overlapping IO in a regime complex. Intervention is a distinct type of behavior by IOs that differs from either bureaucratic competition among IOs for mandates, resources and policy influence, or cooperation to achieve joint regulatory goals and enhance performance. I probe the plausibility of intervention through an analysis of three illustrative case studies in the regime complex for food security showing self-directed political actions by the secretariats of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) and Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) directed at altering decision-making by states at the World Trade Organization (WTO). I identify three distinct intervention strategies – mobilizing states, public shaming and invoking alternative legal frameworks – in which IOs utilize their material, ideational and symbolic capabilities to influence decision-making not within their own institutions, but at other, overlapping organizations in a regime complex over which they have no direct control. Keywords Regime complex . International organizations . Secretariats . Organizational
culture . International trade . WTO . FAO . WFP . OHCHR . Food security
CL codes F13 Trade Policy • International Trade Organizations F51 International Conflicts • Negotiations • Sanctions F53 International Agreements and Observance • International Organizations F55 International Institutional Arrangements K38 Human Rights Law • Gender Law Q17 Agriculture in International Trade Q18 Agricultural Policy • Food Policy
* Matias E. Margulis [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Margulis M.E.
1 Introduction Scholars now recognize that international organizations (IOs) do not operate in splendid isolation but are increasingly embedded in “regime complexes” in which their authority partially overlaps with other IOs and international agreements in the governance of an issue-area (Raustalia and Victor 2004; Alter and Meunier 2009; Alter and Raustiala 2018). Regime complexes matter because they can generate new, or amplify existing, political conflicts among states navigating non-integrated governance systems with diverse, and sometimes contradictory, rules, norms, and policy goals (Orsini et al. 2013; Margulis 2013; Gehring and Faude 2014; Gómez-Mera 2016). The lack of formal hierarchy among institutions in a regime complex means there is no definitive arrangement or meta-authority to which states can appeal to settle jurisdictional ambiguity or treaty conflicts (Alter and Meunier 2009; Keohane and Victor 2011; K
Data Loading...
