Is there a ‚Depth versus Participation‘ Dilemma in International Cooperation?

Much of the International Relations literature assumes that there is a “depth versus participation” dilemma in international politics: shallower international agreements attract more countries and greater depth is associated with less participation. We argue that this conjecture is too simple and probably misleading because the depth of any given cooperative effort is in fact multidimensional. This multidimensionality manifests itself in the design characteristics of international agreements: in particular, the specificity of obligations, monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, dispute settlement mechanisms, positive incentives (assistance), and organizational structures (secretariats). We theorize that the first three of these design characteristics have negative and the latter three have positive effects on participation in international cooperative efforts. Our empirical testing of these claims relies on a dataset that covers more than 200 global environmental treaties. We find a participation-limiting effect for the specificity of obligations, but not for monitoring and enforcement. In contrast, we observe that assistance provisions in treaties have a significant and substantial positive effect on participation. Similarly, dispute settlement mechanisms tend to promote treaty participation. The main implication of our study is that countries do not appear to stay away from agreements with monitoring and enforcement provisions, but that the inclusion of positive incentives and dispute settlement mechanisms can promote international cooperation. In other words, our findings suggest that policymakers do not necessarily need to water down global treaties in order to obtain more participation.

Low-Income Developing Countries and WTO Litigation: Why Wake Up the Sleeping Dog?

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the most judicialized dispute settlement systems in international politics. While a general appreciation has developed that the system has worked quite well, research has not paid sufficient attention to the weakest actors in the system. This paper addresses the puzzle of missing cases of least-developed countries initiating WTO disputes settlement procedures. It challenges the existing literature on developing countries in WTO dispute settlement which predominantly focuses on legal capacity and economic interests. The paper provides an argument that the small universe of ‘actionable cases’, the option of free riding and the assessment of the perceived opportunity costs related to other foreign policy priorities better explain the absence of cases. In addition (and somewhat counterintuitively), we argue that the absence of cases is not necessarily bad news and shows how the weakest actors can use the dispute settlement system in a ‘lighter version’ or in indirect ways. The argument is empirically assessed by conducting a case study on four West African cotton-producing countries (C4) and their involvement in dispute settlement.

Reactive, Slow and...Innovative? Decision-making Structures and Policy Outputs

Consensus democracies like Switzerland are generally known to have a low innovation capacity (Lijphart 1999). This is due to the high number of veto points such as perfect bicameralism or the popular referendum. These institutions provide actors opposing a policy with several opportunities to block potential policy change (Immergut 1990; Tsebelis 2002). In order to avoid a failure of a process because opposing actors activate veto points, decision-making processes in Switzerland tend to integrate a large number of actors with different - and often diverging - preferences (Kriesi and Trechsel 2008). Including a variety of actors in a decision-making process and taking into account their preferences implies important trade-offs. Integrating a large number of actors and accommodating their preferences takes time and carries the risk of resulting in lowest common denominator solutions. On the contrary, major innovative reforms usually fail or come only as a result of strong external pressures from either the international environment, economic turmoil or the public (Kriesi 1980: 635f.; Kriesi and Trechsel 2008; Sciarini 1994). Standard decision-making processes are therefore characterized as reactive, slow and capable of only marginal adjustments (Kriesi 1980; Kriesi and Trechsel 2008; Linder 2009; Sciarini 2006). This, in turn, may be at odds with the rapid developments of international politics, the flexibility of the private sector, or the speed of technological development.

The Extensive (but Fragile) Authority of the WTO Appellate Body

The authority of an international court (IC) is not necessarily evolutionary and its development unidirectional. This article addresses the authority of the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and shows how it rapidly and almost immediately became extensive, but has since exhibited signs of becoming more fragile. The article applies a typology of IC authority developed by Alter, Helfer and Madsen (2014) and explains the transformation from narrow authority (a dispute resolution venue under the GATT based on political negotiations) to extensive authority (a judicialized WTO dispute settlement system with a sophisticated case law) and presents empirical indicators of the rise of the AB’s authority. Such rapid development of extensive authority is arguably a unique case in international politics at the multilateral level. That authority nonetheless remains fragile, and shows signs that it could decline significantly for reasons we explain.

Handbook of Swiss Politics

Approaching Switzerland as a “laboratory” for democracy, this Handbook contributes to a refined understanding of the res publica. Over the years, the Handbook of Swiss Politics has established itself as a classic work. This new and extended second edition of the Handbook comprises 32 chapters, all by leading Swiss political scientists. The contributors write about fundamentals, institutions, interest groups, political parties, new social movements, the cantons and municipalities, elections, popular votes, policy processes and public policies. They address several important issues in the current international debates, such as the internationalization of domestic politics, multi-level governance, and the role of metropolitan agglomerations. Nine new chapters enrich this second, completely updated version. The section on public policies has been significantly extended, and covers a dozen of policy domains. Grounded on the latest scientific knowledge, this volume also serves as an indispensable reference for a non-academic audience of decision-makers, diplomats, senior officials and journalists.

Agents, Trustees, and International Courts: Nomination and Appointment of Judicial Candidates in the WTO Appellate Body

Scholars have increasingly theorized, and debated, the decision by states to create and delegate authority to international courts, as well as the subsequent autonomy and behavior of those courts, with principal–agent and trusteeship models disagreeing on the nature and extent of states’ influence on international judges. This article formulates and tests a set of principal–agent hypotheses about the ways in which, and the conditions under which, member states are able use their powers of judicial nomination and appointment to influence the endogenous preferences of international judges. The empirical analysis surveys the record of all judicial appointments to the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization over a 15-year period. We present a view of an AB appointment process that, far from representing a pure search for expertise, is deeply politicized and offers member-state principals opportunities to influence AB members ex ante and possibly ex post. We further demonstrate that the AB nomination process has become progressively more politicized over time as member states, responding to earlier and controversial AB decisions, became far more concerned about judicial activism and more interested in the substantive opinions of AB candidates, systematically championing candidates whose views on key issues most closely approached their own, and opposing candidates perceived to be activist or biased against their substantive preferences. Although specific to the WTO, our theory and findings have implications for the judicial politics of a large variety of global and regional international courts and tribunals.