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To date, there has been little research on how advocacy coalitions influence the dynamic relationships between norms. Addressing norm collisions as a particular type of norm dynamics, we ask if and how advocacy coalitions and the constellations between them bring such norm collisions to the fore. Norm collisions surface in situations in which actors claim that two or more norms are incompatible with each other, promoting different, even opposing, behavioural choices. We examine the effect of advocacy coalition constellations (ACC) on the activation and varying evolution of norm collisions in three issue areas: international drug control, human trafficking, and child labour. These areas have a legally codified prohibitive regime in common. At the same time, they differ with regard to the specific ACC present. Exploiting this variation, we generate insights into how power asymmetries and other characteristics of ACC affect norm collisions across our three issue areas.
Despite high institutional hurdles for constitutional change, one observes surprisingly many EU treaty revisions. This article takes up the questions of what determines whether a treaty provision is successfully changed and why provisions are renegotiated at subsequent Intergovernmental Conferences. The article presents an institutionalist theory explaining success and renegotiation and tests the theory using all core institutional provisions by means of Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The causal analysis shows that low conflict potential of an issue is sufficient for successfully changing the treaties. Furthermore, high conflict potential of an issue and its fundamental change are sufficient for it to be renegotiated.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the most important multilateral institutions having the ambition to shape global governance and the only organ of the global community that can adopt legally binding resolutions for the maintenance of international peace and security and, if necessary, authorize the use of force. Created in the aftermath of World War II by its victors, the UNSC’s constellation looks increasingly anachronistic, however, in light of the changing global distribution of power. Adapting the institutional structure and decision-making procedures of the UNSC has proven to be one of the most difficult challenges of the last decades, while it is the institution that has probably been faced with the most vociferous calls for reform. Although there have been changes to the informal ways in which outside actors are drawn into the UNSC’s work and activities, many of the major players in the current international system seem to be deprived from equal treatment in its core patterns of decision-making. Countries such as Brazil, Germany, India and Japan, alongside emerging African nations such as Nigeria and South Africa, are among the states eager to secure permanent representation on the Council. By comparison, selected BRICS countries, China and Russia - in contrast to their role in other multilateral institutions - are permanent members of the UNSC and with this, have been “insiders” for a long time. This renders the situation of the UNSC different from global institutions, in which traditionally, Western powers have dominated the agenda.
Almost twenty years after its recognition in international human rights law, the human right to water continues to spark discussions about its scope and meaning. This article revisits the evolution and contestation of the right's first international legal framework, General Comment No. 15 from the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The analysis highlights the contestation of economic and social rights as a universal phenomenon at multiple levels, but argues that these meaning-making practices can support their validation and recognition.
The United Nations (UN) policy agenda on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) promotes a “holistic” approach to counterterrorism, which includes elements traditionally found in security and development programs. Advocates of the agenda increasingly emphasize the importance of gender mainstreaming for counterterrorism goals. In this article, I scrutinize the merging of the goals of gender equality, security, and development into a global agenda for counterterrorism. A critical feminist discourse-analytical reading of gender representations in P/CVE shows how problematic imageries of women as victims, economic entrepreneurs, and peacemakers from both the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Women, Peace and Security agenda are reproduced in core UN documents advocating for a “holistic” P/CVE approach. By highlighting the tensions that are produced by efforts to merge the different gender discourses across the UN’s security and development institutions, the article underlines the relevance of considering the particular position of P/CVE at the security–development nexus for further gender-sensitive analysis and policies of counterterrorism.
World Bank evaluations show that recipient performance varies substantially between different projects. Extant research has focused on country-level variables when explaining these variations. This article goes beyond country-level explanations and highlights the role of World Bank staff. We extend established arguments in the literature on compliance with the demands of International Organizations (IOs) and hypothesize that IO staff can shape recipient performance in three ways. First, recipient performance may be influenced by the quality of IO staff monitoring and supervision. Second, the leniency and stringency with which IO staff apply the aid agreement could improve recipient performance. Third, recipient performance may depend on whether IO staff can identify and mobilize supportive interlocutors through their networks in the recipient country. We test these arguments by linking a novel database on the tenure of World Bank task team leaders to projects evaluated between 1986 and 2020. The findings are consistent with the expectation that World Bank staff play an important role, but only in investment projects. There is substantial evidence that World Bank staff supervisory ability and country experience are linked to recipient performance in those projects. Less consistent evidence indicates that leniency could matter. These findings imply that World Bank staff play an important role in facilitating implementation of investment projects.
During COVID-19, various public institutions tried to shape citizens’ behaviour to slow the spread of the pandemic. How did their authority affect citizens’ support of public measures taken to combat the spread of COVID-19? The article makes two contributions. First, it presents a novel conceptualisation of authority as a source heuristic. Second, it analyses the authority of four types of public institutions (health ministries, universities, public health agencies, the WHO) in two countries (Germany and the UK), drawing on novel data from a survey experiment conducted in May 2020. On average, institutional endorsements seem to have mattered little. However, there is an observable polarisation effect where citizens who ascribe much expertise to public institutions support COVID-19 measures more than the control group. Furthermore, those who ascribe little expertise support them less than the control group. Finally, neither perception of biases nor exposure to institutions in public debates seems consistently to affect their authority.
Mediating power?
(2022)
The selection of the executive heads of international organisations represents a key decision in the politics of international organisations. However, we know little about what dynamics influence this selection. The article focuses on the nationality of selected executive heads. It argues that institutional design impacts the factors that influence leadership selection by shaping the costs and benefits of attaining the position for member states’ nationals. The argument is tested with novel data on the nationality of individuals in charge of 69 international organisation bureaucracies between 1970 and 2017. Two findings stand out: first, powerful countries are more able to secure positions in international organisations in which executive heads are voted in by majority voting. Second, less consistent evidence implies that powerful countries secure more positions when bureaucracies are authoritative. The findings have implications for debates on international cooperation by illustrating how power and institutions interact in the selection of international organisation executive heads.
Based upon the current debate on international practices with its focus on taken-for-granted everyday practices, we examine how Security Council practices may affect member state action and collective decisions on intrastate conflicts. We outline a concept that integrates the structuring effect of practices and their emergence from interaction among reflective actors. It promises to overcome the unresolved tension between understanding practices as a social regularity and as a fluid entity. We analyse the constitutive mechanisms of two Council practices that affect collective decisions on intrastate conflicts and elucidate how even reflective Council members become enmeshed with the constraining implications of evolving practices and their normative implications. (1) Previous Council decisions create precedent pressure and give rise to a virtually uncontested permissive Council practice that defines the purview for intervention into such conflicts. (2) A ratcheting practice forces opponents to choose between accepting steadily reinforced Council action, as occurred regarding Sudan/Darfur, and outright blockade, as in the case of Syria. We conclude that practices constitute a source of influence that is not captured by the traditional perspectives on Council activities as the consequence of geopolitical interests or of externally evolving international norms like the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P).