PS420/520: International Organization

I. NATO summary from last class

A. Institutional explanation as an alternative.

1. Institutions lead to explanation of "continued adherence to the status quo". That is, to creating stability in face of incentives for change.

2. Expectation that states conform to rules, as suggested by Chayes and Chayes

B. Why do states comply, according to Duffield?

1. Benefits of contributing

a) Direct -- your troops increase security of your country

b) Indirect -- by providing troops, it may lead other countries to provide troops too, since they now know that you are going to

2. Reputational effects -- may benefit in other areas of interaction with other states

3. These are based strictly on Existence of Rules

4. Internal forces within states may lead them to comply as well -

a) Strengthening substate actors who support status quo by making changes to it harder -- agencies become committed to value of regime

b) Make decisions that they don't want to remake

c) Agencies adopt habits in response to regime rules

d) Compliance may become a good in itself, even if it doesn't make sense

II. Legalization of International Monetary system

A. Major process by which legalization leads to compliance is, according to Simmons, "since the IMF is unlikely to enforce theses rules in a direct way, what explains compliance? The findings suggest that the desire to avoid reputational costs is crucial. Costs are higher if comparable countries are complying, and if a state has heavily invested in maintaining a strong reputation for respecting the rule of law. In short, legalizations strengthens commitment. It is this quality that makes formal treaty arrangements desirable in the first place."

B. Expect noncompliance when "unexpected economic pressures that make the maintenance of an open current account and unified exchange rates very difficult" (Simmons, 327-238).

1. Reputational effects are the answer to why comply

2. Reputation costs high if others appear to be able to comply in face of difficult economic pressures

3. Democracy and participation may force governments to comply and domestic commitment to rule of law, i.e., pacta sunt servanda

4. Basically, comply if others do and don't comply if others don't -- i.e., economic policies are driven not only by economic dictates but also by "standards of regional behavior" (Simmons, 331).

III. European Union is rest of lecture

IV. Problem structure

A. WHY in Europe and not in Asia, Africa, or Latin America?

B. Problem structure and the conditions for integration: economic equality across states involved; common value systems of elites in different countries; transnational associational groups support politicians pushing for integration; ability of governments to actually fulfill commitments they make; equitable distribution of benefits; response to external threats to status, if not survival; low initial costs; security issues not at stake

1. Conditions for integration, according to Haas:

a) Ideological fragmentation regarding the value of international integration

b) No strong international policy conflicts during 1950s

c) No strong cultural divisions across countries.

2. "A cursory look at the data confirms the importance of economic difficulties as a background condition of integration" (Mattli, 51). SEA response to slow European growth of early 1980s.

3. Mattli argues for two key ones:

a) Important gains available from integration

b) Uncontested regional leadership (Germany in EU case)

C. Strictly an institutional story? Also story of power with considerable realist components

1. Deutchmark and Euro

2. European central bank based on Deutche Banque

3. Leading power, and rules likely to reflect its interests more than others

D. Each country had to consider "whether it wished to remain poor and independent or whether it was willing to sacrifice some powers and be more prosperous" (Mattli, 58).

V. What kind of solution? How does this solution differ from others we have examined?

A. More extensive and institutionalized

B. Much more wide-ranging and less issue specific

C. Development of European Union

1. 1950s: Euratom Treaty (peaceful nuclear power)

2. 1950s: European Economic Community: Agreement to cut tariffs by 10% per year until reached zero (common market) while creating common tariff to outside world (customs union).

3. 1967: ECSC, Euratom, and EEC merged into European Community.

4. 1979: European Monetary System and Exchange Rate Mechanism to keep currency fluctuations in control.

5. 1985 - Single European Act passed by EC with target of 1992 for common market. "Europe 1992" guided by 300 directives of European Commission.

6. 1991: Maastricht - European Community to European Union. Monetary union; create European Central Bank (EuroFed); Political and military union attempted

7. 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 200s, increasing number of states join

8. Today – EU is making policies on: Agriculture, Competition, Economic and Financial Affairs, Education and Culture, Employment and Social Affairs, Energy and Transport, Enterprise, Environment, Fisheries, Health and Consumer Protection, Information Society, Internal Market, Joint Research Centre, Justice and Home Affairs, Regional Policy, Research, Taxation and Customs Union, Likely future

9. Economic and technical integration are going forward; political and military integration, the likely impacts of spillover are much slower.

10. Choice between broadening (adding new members) and deepening (greater integration) the EU.

VI. Effects and effectiveness

A. Losses in state autonomy and prerogatives of sovereignty: set tariffs and subsidies; print money and regulate economy; make foreign policy; make war.

B. Progress of different communities. From one to next, each with more power and more integration

C. EEC treaty does not require amendment to deal with new conditions but can be voted on by Commission. Essentially this is one of key things that makes it supranational vs. intergovernmental. Likewise, numerous opt out and escape clauses are all subject to review by the Council voting by majority rather than by unanimity. So other states have right to veto opt out, in contrast to whaling case.

D. EC directives and state responses.

E. Individuals and corporations can bring governments to court in ECJ which would not be previously possible.

VII. European Court of Justice

A. Key point about how institutions influence states from these articles: It’s a long-term dynamic process rather than a strictly enforcement based system. Things take time and change over time

B. Functionalism: a process "whereby political actors in several distinct national settings are persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations, and political activities toward a new and larger center, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the pre-existing national states" (Haas, International Integration, 1961, 366).

1. How EU influence works: functional linkage of tasks; cultivated linkages and political coalitions; elite socialization; group formation to use new forum as source of power if possible; ideology and identity appeal; over time, fewer alternatives.

2. Actors: above (EC, ECJ, CoM, etc.) and below (businesses, people bringing governments to court, etc.) the state. The state becomes responsive to these actors. Haas mainly focused on role of elites.

3. Motives: self-interest. Nobody is striving for "Europe." Each is striving for self-interest. Economic and other actors for particularistic interests. Court and Commission to expand its jurisdiction. Mattli discusses as: "as new technologies increase the scope of markets beyond the boundaries of a single state, actors who stand to gain from wider markets will seek to change an existing governance structure in order to realize these gains to the fullest extent" (Mattli, 46).

4. Process: spillover - economic and political. Economic as good place to start because not politically charged. Then, as can't integrate in one economic sector by itself because of interdependence (coal and steel lead to transportation). Shift from quasi-technical tasks to political union

5. Context: nominally apolitical. Technocratic or economic but not political. Judges making judicial decisions, not political ones. Bureaucrats making decisions about administrative regulations not shaping the economy. But technocratic decisions led to major political and economic changes.

C. Alter argument

1. Alter provides good example of how ECJ penetrated the state by making linkages with national courts who supported the "rule of law" and legal process norms more than temporary political concerns of politicians. "Because of national court support, politicians were forced to play by the legal rules of the game, where precedence (legal doctrine) matters, and any position must be justified in legal terms in a way that is credible within the legal community" (Alter, 1998, 135).

2. Judges and politicians have different time horizons: judges don't care as much about immediate case and policy so much as about long term precedents, while politicians care about immediate effects. Courts introduce new doctrines slowly and develop them over time (Alter, 1998, 183). Fly slow and under the radar.

3. ECJ gains power not by national governments deferring to it directly, but rather by national courts deferring to ECJ and national governments deferring to national courts. Governments willing to disobey ECJ but not to disobey own court's decisions. National judges have as much or more allegiance to the legal system (including ECJ) as to their own governments) -- they are, in many ways, judges first and Italians/French/German/Dutch/etc second

4. ECJ interpreted EU policies in unexpected ways that governments, when they approved them, did not foresee or intend. But when objections to decisions came up, they were generally not shared objections but objections of individual countries and so they couldn't get the votes to overturn EU policies. Basically, initial collective agreement on policies, but subsequent individual disagreement with interpretations of policies means they do not get overturned.

5. ECJ does not decide national rules are incompatible with EU law but issues preliminary rulings that clarify EU law and then urges national courts to set aside national policies that are inconsistent with EU law.

6. Important institutional element -- policies that are not overruled stay in place. Joint decision trap where easy to control and prevent adoption of new policies but very difficult to pull back existing policies. This is a common institutional theme -- also true in whaling case.

7. Direct effect – "EC law created legally enforceable rights for individuals, allowing individuals to draw on EC law directly in national courts to challenge national law and policy" (Alter, 1998, 178).

8. Key finding of Alter: institutions can have unintended effects, i.e., effects that were not intended by the states who are members. Institutions can create processes that turn out different than expected.

a) "One could hypothesize that international norms will influence national politics when they are drawn on or pulled into the domestic political realm by domestic actors" (Alter 1998, 144).

b) Similar dynamics to those likely to see in human rights and other arenas.

c) Extensive literature on domestic politics and international relations that we don’t cover in this course.

D. "Spillover" or the expansion of integration beyond its initial bounds = "suggests that enhanced cooperation is likely to occur when dissatisfaction with the results of cooperation in one area leads actors to realize that the limits on their success are due to insufficient cooperation in another, functionally related area" (Grieco, 1995, 33). Process by which economic imperatives to integrate roll over into other political and social arenas where economic necessity does not provide explanation of need for integration.

1. Technological and economic development lead to desire to meet functional needs, e.g., mail, phone and telegraph services for starters. As these began to proliferate would see political integration that would remove transborder threats. Essentially it was a way to achieve national security through a means other than war and defense preparation.