July 1: What is the role of international organizations and do they really matter? - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 37
About This Presentation
Title:

July 1: What is the role of international organizations and do they really matter?

Description:

July 1: What is the role of international organizations and do they really matter? Abbot, Kenneth and Duncan Snidal. 1998. Why States Act through Formal Organizations. – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:140
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 38
Provided by: UIS5
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: July 1: What is the role of international organizations and do they really matter?


1
July 1 What is the role of international
organizations and do they really matter?
  • Abbot, Kenneth and Duncan Snidal. 1998. Why
    States Act through Formal Organizations. Journal
    of Conflict Resolution 423-32.

2
Last class take-home point
  • Analytical tool
  • Time inconsistent preference problem
  • A.K.A. (also known as)
  • Commitment problem
  • Present bias

3
Do IOs matter?
4
Dramatic action
  • United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions
    on Libya
  • International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
    inspectors in North Korea
  • United Nations (UN) peacekeepers in the Middle
    East
  • North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in
    Bosnia
  • The Uruguay Round the World Trade Organization
    (WTO) the dispute settlement mechanism

5
Ongoing action
  • Global health policy (the WHO)
  • Development (the World Bank)
  • Monetary policy (the International Monetary Fund)
  • Participation reduces the chances of war among
    members
  • Participation increases the chances of democracy

6
Various sizes
  • From
  • Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) -
    2 million budget (pays for their annual
    meeting?)
  • To
  • European Union (EU) - verging on a sovereign
    state
  • World Bank - gt10,000 employees from 160 countries
    (2/3 in Washington)
  • IMF (Aug. 2008 341 billion)

7
Specialized agencies
  • ILO
  • http//www.ilo.org/global/What_we_do/lang--en/inde
    x.htm
  • ICAO
  • http//www.icao.int/icao/en/howworks.htm
  • FAO
  • http//www.fao.org/about/about-fao/en/
  • Others
  • UNEP
  • http//www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default
    .asp?DocumentID43
  • EBRD
  • http//www.ebrd.com/about/index.htm

8
Finding research on IOs
  • Google Scholar!!! http//scholar.google.com/
  • ISI Web of Science http//isiknowledge.com/

9
IOs allow for
  • CENTRALIZATION
  • A concrete and stable organizational structure
    and an administrative apparatus managing
    collective activities
  • May allow for immediate action (UN Security
    Council)
  • Or for specialization (OECD has gt200 working
    groups)
  • May have flexible design (IMF voting structure)
    or be rigid (UN Security Council)
  • INDEPENDENCE
  • The ability/authority to act with a degree of
    autonomy within defined spheres

10
Rational choice perspective
  • LEADERS found/use IOs when benefits of
    cooperation outweigh (sovereignty) costs
  • IOs produce collective goods in PD settings
    solve coordination problems
  • Coordination problems?
  • E.g., Battle of the sexes game

11
PD settings?
  • Prisoner's dilemma
  • http//www.youtube.com/watch?vED9gaAb2BEwfeature
    related
  • http//www.youtube.com/watch?vp3Uos2fzIJ0

12
Prisoner's Dilemma
  • A non-cooperative, non-zero-sum game. (Mixed game
    of cooperation and conflict.)
  • Individual rationality brings about collective
    irrationality.

13
  • Example
  • You're reading Tchaikovsky's music on a train
    back in the USSR.
  • KGB agents suspect it's secret code.
  • They arrest you a "friend" they claim is
    Tchaikovsky.
  • "You better tell us everything. We caught
    Tchaikovsky, and he's already talking"

14
  • You know that this is ridiculous they have no
    case.
  • But they may be able to build a case using your
    testimony and "Tchaikovsky's."
  • If you "rat" out your "friend" they will reduce
    your sentence.
  • If not, they will throw the book at you.

15
Player 2
Player 1 Cooperate w/friend Defect (rat)
Cooperate w/friend -3, -3 -25, -1
Defect (rat) -1, -25 -10, -10
16
  • The same situation can occur whenever "collective
    action" is required.
  • The collective action problem is also called the
    "n-person prisoner's dilemma."
  • Also called the "free rider problem."
  • "Tragedy of the commons."
  • All have similar logics and a similar result
  • Individually rational action leads to
    collectively suboptimal results.

17
Is cooperation ever possible in Prisoner's
Dilemma?
  • Yes ?
  • In repeated settings
  • Axelrod, Robert M. 1984. The Evolution of
    Cooperation. New York Basic Books.

18
  • So, IOs facilitate cooperation by coordinating
    states on superior equilibria/outcomes
  • And lower the transaction costs of doing so

19
Alternatives to the rational-institutionalist
perspective
20
Realist theory
  • States do not cede to supranational institutions
    the strong enforcement capacities necessary to
    overcome international anarchy
  • Thus, IOs and similar institutions are of little
    interest
  • They merely reflect national interests and power
    and do not constrain powerful states
  • Does realism rational choice?
  • Realism focuses on state interests - ignores
    microfoundations (leader incentives, domestic
    politics)

21
Constructivist theory
  • Where to ideas and preferences come from?
  • Focus on norms, beliefs, knowledge, and (shared)
    understandings
  • IOs are the result of international ideas, and in
    turn contribute towards shaping the evolution of
    international ideas
  • Vital for the understanding of major concepts
    such as legitimacy and norms

22
Abbot Snidal
  • States use IOs to
  • Reduce transaction costs
  • Create information, ideas, norms, and
    expectations
  • Carry out and encourage specific activities
  • Legitimate or delegitimate particular ideas and
    practices
  • Enhance their capacities and power

23
Principal-Agent framework
  • IOs are thus "agents"
  • Their (biggest) members are the "principals"
  • Agency slack? ?
  • "bureaucratic" perspective

24
The principal-agent problem
  • The agent works for the principal
  • The agent has private information
  • The principal only observes an outcome
  • Must decide to reelect/pay/rehire/keep the agent
  • If standards are too low, the agent shirks
  • If standards are too high, the agent gives up
  • We need a Goldilocks solution set standards
    just right.
  • We may have to accept some an information rent
  • Either pay extra or accept agency slack
    (corruption?)

25
(No Transcript)
26
  • If reelection criteria are too high, the
    government will not supply effort when exogenous
    conditions are bad.
  • If reelection criteria are too low, the
    government will not supply effort when conditions
    are good.
  • What should you do?
  • Intuition It depends on the probability of
    good/bad conditions on the difference in
    outcomes when conditions are good/bad

27
Solution?
  • TRANSPARENCY?

28
Public choice/Bureaucratic theory
  • IOs are like any bureaucracy
  • Allow governments to reward people with cushy
    jobs
  • The bureaucracy is essentially unaccountable
  • Seek to maximize their budgets
  • Look for things to do

29
Back to rational-institutionalist view
30
What do IOs do for their members?
  • Pooling resources (IMF/World Bank, World Health
    Organization) - share costs, economies of scale
  • Direct joint action - e.g., military (NATO),
    financial (IMF), dispute resolution (WTO)

31
LAUNDERING
  • Allow states to take (collective) action without
    taking direct responsibility (or take
    responsibility with IO support)
  • Examples
  • The IMF does the dirty work
  • UN Security Council resolutions - a form of
    laundering?
  • When an IO legitimates retaliation, states are
    not vigilantes but upholders of community norms,
    values, and institutions
  • Korean War - The United States cast essentially
    unilateral action as more legitimate collective
    action by getting UN Security Council approval

32
Neutrality
  • Providing information
  • Really? http//www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jrv24/I
    MFforecasts.html
  • Collecting information
  • Really! http//www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jrv24/t
    ransparency.html
  • Example
  • Blue helmets
  • http//www.youtube.com/watch?vO0n2-YpwPWYfeature
    PlayListpBBF5269792FC9ED6playnext1playnext_f
    romPLindex15

33
Community representative
  • ? Legitimacy
  • Articulate norms? http//goodliffe.byu.edu/papers/
    catcascade2.pdf
  • Universal Jurisdiction (more than a norm - a
    legal standard) The CAT
  • Honduras and the OAS??

34
Enforcement?
  • The problem of endogeneity
  • 100 Compliance may mean the IO is doing
    nothing
  • Be careful what conclusions we draw from
    observations
  • Compliance is meaningful only if the state takes
    action it would not take in the absence of the IO
  • IMF/World Bank CONDITIONALITY

35
Answers to today's question
  • IO's reduce transaction costs - costs of doing
    business coordinate on superior equilibria
  • Enabling members to have
  • LAUNDERING
  • Neutrality
  • Community representative
  • Enforcement
  • Legitimacy - shared beliefs that coordinate
    actors regarding what actions should be accepted,
    tolerated, resisted, or stopped
  • To these ends IOs are created centralized
    independent

36
Analytical tools
  • Time inconsistent preference problem / Commitment
    problem / Present bias
  • Research networking
  • Prisoners dilemma
  • Principal-Agent framework
  • Realist theory
  • Constructivist theory
  • Public choice/Bureaucratic theory

37
Thank you
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com