PS420/520: International Organization

I. Intro

A. This lecture is overview of whole structure of class

II. Four Major Aspects of Problem Structure

A. First, what is a problem? As mentioned last class, problems are simply "suboptimal outcomes."

1. In anarchic international system, the absence of any pre-existing government or governance system to solve problems requires some degree of "self-organization" by the actors involved to either "make bad things ok" or "make good things better"

2. No objective definition of a problem. Only a problem if at least one actor thinks there is one.

B. Second, what is "problem structure"? Problem structure are the characteristics of the "pre-institutional" setting. That is, how do things (or did things) look BEFORE (or in the ABSENCE OF) any international institution existed?

C. Think of "problem structure" as the answer to the question "What type or kind of problem is this?"

D. Types of actors involved

1. Types of actors causing the problem

2. Types of actors necessary for resolution of the problem

3. Answers to types of actors questions:

a) Governments

b) NGOs

c) Corporations

d) Individuals

e) Networks (drug and sex trade traffickers, Al Qaeda, etc.)

f) Religions

g) Mixes of these and other types

E. Aspect #1: Opportunities, Capacity, and Power structure

1. What type of problem states face depends on what states can and cannot do.

2. Capacity elements

a) Can all states engage in the bad behavior? Example: The fact that only a few states can build nuclear weapons makes nuclear proliferation different than landmines or conventional weapons, which most, if not all, states can make.

b) Can all states engage in the good behavior? Example: All states can, presumably, refrain from violating their citizens civil and political rights but many developing states lack the technical, financial, and administrative capacity to provide their citizens with even the most basic health care for malaria, dysentery, AIDS, etc.

c) Related issue: is the problem caused by:

(1) Acts of commission: problem arises because states actively do the wrong thing

(2) Acts of omission: problem arises because states fail to do the right thing

3. Power elements

a) Asymmetries in power may create or avert problems:

(1) Powerful countries may start wars or use their economic power to take resources from lesser countries

(2) Large asymmetries in power may avert war between the powerful state and the less powerful

(3) Powerful countries can benefit enough from resolution of a problem that they address it without other countries contributing, e.g., post-WWII US actions such as Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe or Bretton Woods agreements to build a post-war economic order

b) Symmetries in power may create or avert problems

(1) Balance of power may avert war -- Cold War

(2) Balance of power may create problems -- Tragedy of the commons in which no actor has the power to solve the problem on its own so everyone has to work together and that is difficult internationally

F. Aspect #2: Incentive structure and interests

1. What are incentives to engage in "bad" behavior, i.e., the behavior that other actors see as suboptimal?

2. What are "natural"/"pre-institutional" incentives to engage in "good " behavior, if any?

a) Are there no positive incentives, or are they simply outweighed by negative ones?

3. What types of incentives are there?

a) Domestic or international

b) Material or social or ideational/normative

4. Perpetrators vs. victims distinction

a) Perpetrators - those who are BOTH capable and have incentives to contribute to the problem

b) Victims - those who are EITHER incapable or lack incentives to contribute to the problem

G. Aspect #3: Informational structure and transparency

1. Regarding the bad behavior, how easy is it to tell:

a) If the bad behavior was engaged in

b) Who engaged in it, when they engaged in it, how much they engaged in it

c) What the effects of the behavior were

d) Whose behaviors caused the effects

2. Likewise for the good behaviors

3. Consider the difference between arms races and trade wars. In trade wars, everyone always knows how high the other state's tariffs are. But in arms races there is considerable uncertainty about the other state's armaments.

H. Aspect #4: Normative structure

1. Is the "bad" behavior normatively defensible within existing rhetoric or, even before a solution is created, is the behavior in question considered bad?

2. E.g., compare tariffs and acquiring landmines to torture or genocide -- it is normatively defensible for a government to set any tariff levels it likes or to acquire and use landmines prior to an agreement banning such behavior. It is NOT (or far less) normatively defensible for a government to engage in torture or genocide, whether or not any agreement banning such behavior exists.

3. What sorts of arguments do actors make in response to being accused of having done certain things?

III. Solution types

A. Aspects of institutional design and "what is required to solve the problem

B. Membership issues -- who needs to be involved to resolve the problem?

1. Compare nuclear non-proliferation to tariff levels -- in the former, you can create an effective international institution (an export control regime) that does not include any of the "targeted" actors. In the latter, an effective institution must include all, or at least many, of the targeted actors.

C. Capacity issues -- what capacities does the institution need to develop or undercut to resolve the problem?

1. Is there any need for solution to address capacity issues? Are all actors capable of complying and can violation be assumed as due to lack of incentives?

2. E.g., contrast ability to comply with agreements on civil/political rights (where capacity to comply is not an issue) to agreements addressing economic/social/cultural rights (where capacity to comply *may* be an issue)

D. Incentive issues -- what sort of incentive structures does the institution need to establish to resolve the problem?

1. Ongoing incentives to violate or not, once agreement is reached?

2. Contrast solutions to coordination problems where, once language of air traffic control or side of sea-lane is agreed upon, there are no cheating problems, to collaboration problems (e.g., tariffs or arms control agreements), where even after agreement is reached there are ongoing incentives to cheat.

E. Primary rule system structure:

1. Behavioral definition issues -- what sorts of definitions of good or bad behavior need to be established to resolve the problem?

2. Do the rules define "bad" behavior and limit or ban it

3. Does it outline or define "good" behavior and seek to encourage it?

4. Is it vague or specific?

F. Information system structure (monitoring and verification)

1. What information must the institution ensure gets produced? Contrast institutions addressing coordination problems (e.g., which language to use for air traffic control or which side to have ships "drive on" when in sea-lanes) vs. those addressing high-transparency collaboration problems (e.g., limits on tariffs or quotas) vs. those addressing low-transparency collaboration problems (e.g., nuclear proliferation or torture). In some institutions, "natural"/pre-institutional processes generate the needed information, in others they don't.

2. What actors and technologies can be used to get requisite information? Do targeted actors have to cooperate in providing information or not? E.g., compare satellite monitoring of arms control agreements vs. on-site inspections of arms control agreements - need cooperation in latter case but not in former. Likewise, contrast human rights where NGOs may be able to get better information than governments with arms control where even foreign governments are granted more access than NGOs.

G. Response system structure

1. Is system based on sanctions, rewards, prevention, facilitation, labels, or sermons?

2. Does retaliatory non-compliance make sense? Will specific, direct tit-for-tat be used and effective? E.g., in arms control and trade, responding to a violation with a corresponding violation makes sense: if you buy more weapons or increase your tariffs, it makes sense for me to do the same to induce you to stop doing it in the future. In human rights and environmental protection, those seeking to promote these goals would never respond to a violation by engaging in a similar violation themselves.

3. What are goals of response system? Is the goal of the response structure to allow measured and proportional responses but prevent retaliatory noncompliance from leading to a spiral back to the original "pre-institutional" situation (as in tariff agreements) or is it to provide a large response that serves as a major deterrent to other actors (as in nuclear non-proliferation) or is it to try to make sure that at least some response, even if only diplomatic, occurs at all (as perhaps in human rights and environmental agreements)?

4. Can response be targeted to the actor in question?

a) In arms control, weapons built in retaliation against one actor threaten all actors.

b) In trade, tariffs can be raised only against the actors that violated the tariff rules.

5. Do actors have incentives to punish non-compliance? When using economic sanctions to punish, there may be strong domestic political incentives not to sanction, since domestic exporters will be harmed. Economic sanctions also tend to be plagued by collective action problems (every state wants other states to impose sanctions)

6. Are there incentives to reward good behavior? Linked to normative defensibility of problem structure -- if "bad" behavior is normatively defensible, then rewards may be provided for good behavior; if "bad" behavior is normatively NON-defensible (e.g., human rights abuses), then strong reasons not to reward good behavior since doing so undercuts the efforts to strengthen a norm that sees "good" behavior as expected rather than as something that deserves special treatment.

IV. Institutional Effects

A. Overall effectiveness

1. Is there less of the "bad" behavior or more of the "good" behavior after then agreement is enacted than there was before it was enacted?

2. Are any reductions in bad behaviors or increases in good behaviors due to the agreement?

3. How violation tolerant is situation? Can institution still be effective if it is frequently violated? Some can, some can't. Compare one violation of non-proliferation treaty to frequent violations of tariff agreements that do not bring agreement into question and violations of human rights and environmental agreements that are frequent but often go unnoticed.

B. Numerous criteria for evaluating effects

1. Sources of criteria:

a) Criteria of states involved

b) Criteria of outside activists

c) Criteria of academic analyst

2. Some criteria:

a) Have rules been complied with?

b) Has behavior changed?

c) Has problem been resolved?

d) Have attitudes about "bad" behavior changed, even if behavior hasn't?

e) Equity, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, etc.

f) Speed of influence -- does it work quickly or slowly? Compare impacts of human rights agreements with Montreal Protocol on ozone with European Union tariff levels