The Effects of International Institutions

The Effects of International Institutions:

An Annotated Bibliography

Prepared by Liliana Botcheva, David Andrew Singer, and Lisa L. Martin

Harvard University

Revised September 1999

Please send comments and suggestions to:

Lisa Martin

WCFIA

1737 Cambridge Street

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA 02138

Tel: 617-495-1294

Please feel free to distribute this bibliography widely. Additional copies can be

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Contents:

Political Economy...... 3

Environmental Regimes...... 8

Security Institutions ...... 17

Human Rights...... 28

Other Relevant Literature...... 30

Political Economy

Bates, Robert H. 1997. Open-Economy Politics: The Political Economy of the World

Coffee Trade. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

The book explores the creation, impact and demise of the International Coffee

Organization (ICO). The ICO affected the world price of coffee by limiting coffee

exports, restricting arbitrage between member and non-member markets, and restricting

the competition among producers. It enabled cooperation by providing mechanisms for

monitoring and enforcement of compliance with quotas. It ensured against political

predation of big producers by small producers, and against exploitation of consumers.

Quotas allocated by the ICO had an impact on the welfare of exporters, and influenced

the development of domestic institutions that manage coffee exports.

Bird, Graham. 1996. "The IMF and Developing Countries: A Review of the

Evidence and Policy Options," International Organization, v. 50: 3, 477-513.

Review of studies on the role of the IMF in developing countries - its impact as a balanceof

payments-financing institution, and its influence over the design of economic policies.

There are also citations of the two main studies reviewed.

Burley, Anne-Marie and Walter Mattli. 1993. "Europe Before the Court: A

Political Theory of Legal Integration," International Organization. v. 47: 1, pp. 41-

76.

Offers a neofunctionalist account of legal integration, defined as penetration of EU

legislation into domestic law of member states.

Cohen, Benjamin. 1983. "Balance of Payments Financing: Evolution of a Regime."

Krasner, Stephen, ed. International Regimes. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Examines the creation and evolution of international regimes dealing with balance-ofpayments

financing. In two short sections, the article discusses the functions of these

regimes, and how they affect the behavior of borrowers.

Eichengreen, Barry. 1993. “European Monetary Unification.” Journal of Economic

Literature, 31.

Policy convergence and price stability are important conditions for the realization of the

European Monetary Union. The crisis in the EMS that erupted in September 1992

resulted in the disturbance of exchange rate stability achieved in the 1989-1992 period,

and in the reimposition of capital controls. This episode indicates that the illusion

developed between 1989 and mid-1992, that exchange rate stability, capital mobility and

political autonomy were easily reconciled was just that: an illusion.

Fratianni, Michele and Jurgen von Hagen. 1991. The European Monetary System

and European Monetary Union. Boulder: Westview Press

The book evaluates empirically two interpretations of the role of the EMS. The

cooperative interpretation views the fixed exchange-rate mechanism as a substitute for

welfare-improving policy coordination. The disciplinary view contends that the high

inflation countries have used the fixed exchange-rate mechanism to delegate the conduct

of their monetary policies to the Bundesbank, thereby signaling commitment to price

stability. The Bundesbank's greater credibility allows these central banks to reduce

inflation rates and to do it at a lower output and employment cost. The evidence presented

shows that the EMS’s greatest achievement has been to reduce exchange rate and

inflation uncertainty. In contrast, its success in promoting disinflation is much less

convincing. In fact, the reduction of inflation rates in the EMS turns out to be no

different from the inflation rate reduction achieved by countries outside the EMS, but the

loss of output and growth in employment have been larger in the EMS. Furthermore, the

evidence does not confirm the alleged hegemonic role of the Bundesbank.

Garrett, Geoffrey and Barry Weingast. 1993. "Ideas, Interests, and Institutions:

Constructing the European Community's Internal Market." In Judith Goldstein

and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy. Ithaca: Cornell University

Press.

By embodying, selecting and publicizing ideas or particular paths on which actors are

able to coordinate, institutions provide "constructed focal points." This helps actors

overcome the lack of unique path of cooperation which can be a barrier to realization of

collective gains. Case: the ECJ decision in "Cassis de Dijon" and the adoption of the

"mutual recognition principle.

Garrett, Geoffrey and George Tsebelis. 1996. "An Institutional Critique of

Intergovernmentalism." International Organization. v.50: 2, 269-299.

Different decision-making procedures in the context of the EU (consultation, cooperation

or codecision); as well as the preferences of the main actors determine the pace of

integration in different policy areas.

Giavazzi, Francesco and Alberto Giovannini. 1989. Limiting Exchange Rate

Flexibility: The European Monetary System. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Ch.5 evaluates the role of the EMS in the disinflation experience of European countries in

the 1980s. Most observers conclude that the exchange rate regime helped the highinflation

countries by allowing them to purchase a commitment to low inflation through

accepting German monetary policies. It is expected that the low inflation propensity of

the Bundesbank shifts the inflation expectation downward in other EMS countries. The

empirical results agree broadly with the theoretical presumption of the "disciplinary"

interpretation, but provide weak evidence of a shift in expectations associated with the

institution of the EMS. Inflationary expectations seem to have adjusted with a long lag:

4-5 years. One explanation might be that learning takes time. Another and more

appealing explanation is that some European governments might have used the EMS to

justify unpopular domestic policies. These policies, in turn, shifted expectations.

Giavazzi, Francesco and Marco Pagano. 1989. “The Advantage of Tying One's

Hands: EMS Discipline and Central Bank Credibility.” European Economic

Review. v. 32, No. 5.

Offers a formal statement of the argument that the EMS helps secure inflation discipline

in member countries, by enhancing the credibility of central banks' commitment to price

stability and low inflation. It also investigates the conditions under which the gains in

credibility delivered by membership in the EMS outweigh the implied losses.

Goldstein, Judith. 1996. "International Law and Domestic Institutions:

Reconciling North American ‘Unfair’ Trade Laws." International Organization. v.

50: 4, 541-64.

International rules can present solutions to domestic problems, and serve the purposes of

policy makers at home. Even a weak institution (such as the dispute settlement

procedures in NAFTA) can lead to significant change in the behavior of US bureaucracy

without change in legislation.

Gowa, Joanne. 1994. Allies, Adversaries, International Trade. Princeton: Princeton

University Press.

The book examines the impact of alliances on free trade. Free trade enhances the

resources and the potential military power of any country that engages in it. Trade with an

adversary produces security diseconomy, while trade with an ally produces a positive

externality. Thus, countries are more likely to trade within than across politico-military

alliances. Furthermore, intra-alliance trade is more likely in a bipolar system, since the

risk of exit is lower, and the security externalities are more likely to remain internalized.

The statistical analysis confirms these two hypotheses, and is complemented by a case

study of the impact of the Anglo-French Entente on British trade policy.

Lipson, Charles. 1983. "The transformation of Trade: The Sources and Effects of

Regime Change." In Krasner, Stephen, ed. International Regimes. Ithaca: Cornell

University Press.

Specifies the salient features of the liberal trade regime and the sources of its change and

continuity. The article then considers the regime's impact on commercial policy and trade

flows.

Lipson, Charles. 1986. "Banker's Dilemmas: Private Cooperation in Rescheduling

Sovereign Debts." In Oye, Kenneth, ed. Cooperation Under Anarchy. Princeton:

Princeton University Press

The article examines factors that facilitate and inhibit cooperation among creditors. It

shows the ways in which the IMF has been instrumental in helping overcome gaps in

cooperation among creditors.

Keohane, Robert O. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World

Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Ch. 10. "The Consumers' Oil Regime, 1974-81"

This chapter explores how the international energy regime centered around the IEA

affects cooperation. Considers the 1973-74, 1979, and 1980 oil crises. The regime was

set up under US leadership after the crisis in 1973-74. The history of the 1979 oil crisis

shows that regime-oriented efforts of cooperation don't always succeed. In 1980,

however, the IEA regime helped to prevent another disaster of uncoordinated responses to

a problem of collective action. It reduced the costs of coordination by providing

information and by mobilizing workable coalitions behind politically feasible policies.

Moravcsik, Andrew. 1991. "Negotiating the Single European Act: National

Interests and Conventional Statecraft in the European Community." International

Organization. v. 45: 1, 19-56.

Explicitly argues that the EU institutions and supranational actors did not affect the

negotiation of the SEA in ways that the supranational institutionalism would predict.

Short discussion of the possible influence of the EU on bureaucratic interests, which in

turn might feed into increasing support of European integration.

Moravcsik, Andrew. 1994. "Why the European Community Strengthens the State:

Domestic Politics and International Cooperation." presented at APSA, Sept. 1994.

The EU empowers the executive branch and bureaucrats by redistributing domestic

political resources (agenda setting power, ideological legitimacy, asymmetric

information) toward the executive.

Nweke, Aforka G. 1987. "The Organization of African Unity and Intra-African

Functionalism." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social

Science. v. 489 (January), p. 133.

The Organization of African Unity (OAU) attempted to advance intra-African

cooperation by shifting the focus of African diplomacy from divisive ideological and

political issues to relatively uncontroversial economic, social, cultural, and technological

matters. However, the inherent contradictions of the ideas, behavior, and interests of

member states in conjunction with the dynamics of international politics, limited

significantly the effectiveness of this effort.

Strang, David and Patricia Mei Yin Chang. 1993. "The ILO and the Welfare State:

Institutional Effects on National Welfare Spending, 1960-80." International

Organization. v. 47: 2, pp. 235-263.

Discussion of the impact of the ILO on the expansion of the ideologies of the modern

welfare state. Explores the interaction between international and domestic institutions.

Sandholtz, Wayne. 1993. "Institutions and Collective Action: The New

Telecommunications in Western Europe." World Politics. v. 45: 2, 242.

Analysis of the conditions under which international organizations can exercise

leadership and organize collective action. The case study shows how the Commission of

the European Communities led the collective action in liberalizing telecommunications.

Weber, Axel. 1991. "Reputation and Credibility in the European Monetary

System." Economic Policy. v. 12, pp. 57-102.

Argues that the empirical analysis does not provide support for the "credibility

hypothesis", which views the EMS as an institutional arrangement that enables EMS

members to borrow the reputation of the Bundesbank by credibly pegging their exchange

rates to the DM. The evidence provided in the paper points to an alternative view. It

appears that after a short early phase, the EMS has functioned as a bipolar system with a

hard currency option offered by the Bundesbank and a soft currency option supplied by

the Banque de France. By adopting the soft currency option of a crawling peg vis-a-vis

the DM, Belgium, Denmark and Ireland have actually shared the inflation "reputation" of

France. At a later stage, however, the soft currency block has disintegrated and some

countries have shifted toward the hard currency standards. At least for the smaller EMS

members, interest rate targeting is just an operational procedure to control the exchange

rate.

Environmental Regimes

Bernauer, Thomas. 1995. "The Effect of International Environmental Institutions:

How Do We Learn More." International Organization. v. 49: 2, p. 351.

This is not an empirical article, but reviews studies on the impact and effectiveness of

international environmental institutions. Analyzes the relationship between institutional

effectiveness and specific dimensions of institutional design.

Haas, Peter. 1989. "Do Regimes Matter? Epistemic Communities and

Mediterranean Pollution Control." International Organization. 43: 3, 377-405.

Although the negotiation of the Med Plan (1975) was difficult and had to overcome

resistance on the part of less developed Mediterranean countries, it was effective in

contributing to the improvement of the Mediterranean water quality. The key to this

success was that the regime empowered a group of experts (ecologists and marine

scientists, many of them associated with the UNEP secretariat), who then contributed to

the development of convergent state policies in compliance with the regime.

Haas, Peter. 1990. Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International

Environmental Cooperation. New York: Columbia University Press.

The book describes the evolving forms of cooperation for treating pollution in the

Mediterranean Sea (the Mediterranean Action Plan). The Med Plan, developed under the

auspices of UNEP, is widely regarded as a success: without it the Mediterranean would

be much more polluted than it is now. It served as a model for arrangements for nine

other regional seas. The regime influenced government policy mainly through

empowering a network of "epistemic communities" which contributed to the

reformulation of state interests and policies.

Haas, Peter, Marc A. Levy, and Robert O. Keohane. 1994. Institutions for the Earth:

Sources of Effective International Environmental Protection. Cambridge: MIT Press.

The book explores the impact of international environmental institutions on three

conditions that are deemed essential for effective action on environmental problems:

governmental concern; hospitable contractual environment; and political and

administrative capacity. Each chapter is a case study of an environmental regime, and

institutional effectiveness is judged by the extent to which institutions perform functions

that boost the three Cs. Summaries of the empirical chapters follow:

Ch. 2. Parson, E. "Protecting the Ozone Layer."

The chapter concludes that international ozone institutions have had increasing effects on

national actions over time. The treaty control measures adopted in 1987 and 1990

brought about national controls in countries where weaker controls or none would have

occurred otherwise. In the negotiations for the 1990 amendments, the institutional

combination of assessment panels, periodic treaty review by meetings of the parties, and a

strong secretariat were necessary conditions for achieving a prompt agreement. The

multilateral fund made CFC phaseouts possible in countries where they were not

previously so. The risk remains open, however, that even the seemingly rapid

international progress will be insufficient to revert serious ozone loss.

Ch. 3. Levy, Marc A. "European Acid Rain: the Power of Tote-Board Diplomacy."

The effect of the European acid regime on the policies of member countries varied across

cases. The poorest West European countries and the East European Countries failed to

reduce emissions. The hard-core environmentalists (Norway, Sweden, Germany) reduced

significantly, but well in advance of international rules; they would have undertake

reductions in the absence of the regime. In a group of countries (Austria, Finland,

Netherlands; Switzerland; Denmark, the UK, and the USSR) the regime affected

domestic policies by creating knowledge of domestic damage and by facilitating issue

linkage b/w acid rain and other foreign policy issues. Domestic proponents of action used

the rules of the regime to magnify pressure on recalcitrant governments.

Ch. 4. Haas, Peter. 1994. "Protecting the Baltic and North Seas.”

The regime created to control marine pollution in the North and the Baltic Seas helped to

amplify environmental concern in lateral countries. High-profile Ministerial Conferences

made it difficult for environmental ministries from laggard countries to oppose measures

proposed by leader countries. Institutional change became self reinforcing as national

bodies became better equipped to protect the environment and as public expectations of

their accountability mounted.

Ch. 5. Mitchell, R. "International Oil Pollution of the Oceans."

Efforts to achieve international regulation of oil pollution from ships had no impact on

improving the marine environment until the 1973 and 1978 agreements came into force.

The institution's success after the 1970s derived from its ability to take advantage of

exogenous increases in concern to enhance the contractual environment and remove

constraints on capacity that had previously impeded effective enforcement of the

agreements. In this issue, the institution's success resulted from rather than created

concern over oil pollution. Stringent measures were agreed only after strong public

concern in a powerful country like the US met with willing support from states concerned

over the problem or little affected by the proposed solutions.

Ch. 6. M.J. Peterson. "International Fisheries Management."

The article examines the performance of the institutional arrangements for international

fisheries management. Overall, the record of the pre-1977 international fisheries

Commissions was dismal. The bargaining dynamics of open access common pool

resources were too strong for these institutions; they were unable to provide mechanisms

for reconciling the strong divergence of interests. Yet, the pre-1977 record would have

been even worse if the international fisheries commissions had not existed. The

commissions contributed to spreading awareness of the issue and of new perspective on

dealing with them, keeping pressure on laggard countries. Fisheries regulators have been

somewhat more successful at avoiding overfishing and stock depletion since 1977. Most

of the credit for this change must go to the change in the broader law of the sea that

transformed most fishing from open-access common pool to enclosed resource. The

extent to which fisheries management improved has depended heavily on the preferences