JIOS Issue Fall 2013

Journal of

International Organizations Studies

V O LU M E 4 , I S S U E 2 , FA L L 2 0 1 3

Journal of International Organizations Studies (JIOS)

The Journal of International Organizations Studies is the peer-reviewed journal of the United Nations Studies Association (UNSA), published in cooperation with the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies at Brigham Young University. JIOS provides a forum for scholars who work on international organizations in a variety of disciplines. The journal aims to provide a window into the state of the art of research on international governmental organizations, supporting innovative approaches and interdisciplinary dialogue. The journal’s mission is to explore new grounds and transcend the traditional perspective of international organizations as merely the sum of its members and their policies.

Details on Submission and Review

JIOS is published twice annually, in March and September, online and print-on-demand. Submission deadline for the Fall issue is 1 May each year and for the Spring issue is 1 November of the previous year. JIOS publishes three types of articles: • Research papers (8,000–10,000 words, including footnotes and references)

• Insider’s View (3,000–7,000 words, including footnotes and references): contributions from practitioners illuminating the inner workings of international organizations.

• Reviews of literature, disciplinary approaches or panels/workshops/conferences (single book reviews, panel or workshop reviews: 800–1,200 words, multiple book or subject reviews: 2,000–3,000 words, including footnotes and references)

Please send submissions to editors@journal-iostudies.org. For submissions and formatting guidelines, please see http://www.journal-iostudies.org/how-submit-your-paper. All papers will be reviewed by two or three external reviewers and then either accepted, rejected, or returned to the author(s) with the invitation to make minor corrections or revise and resubmit (medium to major changes). The final decision on acceptance of submissions rests solely with the editors.

Contact Information

UN Studies Association, c/o coconets, Hannoversche Str. 2, 10115 Berlin, Germany David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA E-mail: editors@journal-iostudies.org Web: http://www.journal-iostudies.org ISSN 2191-2556 (print)

ISSN 2191-2564 (online)

©2013 All rights reserved.

Editors

Editors-in-Chief

Kirsten Haack, Northumbria University; John Mathiason, Cornell University Review Editor

Klaas Dykmann, Roskilde University Insider’s View Editor

Nicola Contessi, McGill University Managing Editor

Cory Leonard, Brigham Young University Editorial Board

Christopher Ankersen, Royal Military College of Canada

Jonathan Koppell, Yale University

Donald C.F. Daniel, Georgetown University

Slawomir Redo, UN Office on Drugs and Crime

Malte Brosig, University of the Witwatersrand Martin S. Edwards, Seton Hall University

Dirk Growe, Global Policy Forum Europe Julia Harfensteller, University of Bremen Ian Hurd, Northwestern University

Adam Kamradt-Scott, University of Sydney Ina Klein, University of Osnabrück

Henrike Landré, DIAS/UN Studies Association

Manuela Scheuermann, University of Würzburg Tamara Shockley, Independent Researcher Kendall Stiles, Brigham Young University Jonathan R. Strand, University of Nevada

Markus Thiel, Florida International University Andrew Williams, University of St. Andrews

Journal of

International Organizations Studies

V olume 4 , I ssue 2 , fall 2 0 1 3

Table of Contents Contributors ...................................................................................................................... 4 EDITORIAL Understanding How International Organizations Function: Theory, Empirical Analysis, and History John Mathiason ................................................................................................................... 5 INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN ACTION The Status of Women: A Bridge from the League of Nations to the United Nations Jaci Eisenberg ..................................................................................................................... 8 Getting Ready to Negotiate in International Organizations? On the Importance of the Domestic Construction of National Positions Diana Panke ..................................................................................................................... 25 The Uniting of East Africa and the Uniting of Europe?

Stefan Plenk ..................................................................................................................... 39 Interregionalism at a Crossroads: African–European Crisis Management in Libya—a Case of Organized Inaction?

Malte Brosig....................................................................................................................... 57 REVIEWS Explaining WTO Negotiations by Domestic and International Factors Michael Strange ................................................................................................................ 75 Controlling Institutions: How Greater (and Lesser) Powers Govern International Organizations Lidiya Zubytska ................................................................................................................. 78

Contributors Malte Brosig is a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Brosig received a PhD from the University of Portsmouth. His main research interests focus on African–European security policy and the interplay of international organizations. He has recently been appointed associate editor at European Security and is an editorial board member of the Journal on International Organizations Studies.

Jaci Eisenberg received an AB in history (high honors) and French studies from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and an MA in international history and politics from the Graduate Institute (IHEID) in Geneva, Switzerland. Eisenberg is currently a PhD candidate in international history at the Graduate Institute. Her dissertation, “American Women and International Geneva, 1919–1939,” to be completed in 2013, examines sources at over fourteen archives to illuminate heretofore un-elucidated accounts of American women’s activism at the League of Nations in regard to education, disarmament, the fight for legal equality, and the quest for U.S. accession to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Diana Panke is a professor of multi-level governance at Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg, Germany. Panke’s research interests include the study of international and regional organizations, negotiations beyond the nation-state, small states in international affairs, compliance, and legalization, as well as EU politics and Europeanization.

She has recently published in peer-reviewed journals including the European Journal of International Relations, Comparative Political Studies, Review of International Studies, International Politics, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, West European Politics, Journal of Common Market Studies, and the Journal of European Public Policy.

Stefan Plenk is a PhD candidate at the University of the Federal Army of Germany and a lecturer at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. Plenk has worked and studied in Germany, Italy, Tanzania, and Botswana, and is author of several research articles on African studies. His areas of research include regional integration, international relations, African studies, and European studies. He has finished his dissertation on regional integration and cooperation in Africa south of the Sahara. He is the recipient of a scholarship program for graduate students from the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES).

Michael Strange is a senior lecturer at the Department of Global Political Studies at Malmö University in Sweden. Strange is the author of Writing Global Trade Governance (2013), of chapters in edited collections, and of numerous articles in international peer-reviewed journals. His research interests include the World Trade Organization (WTO), global political economy, and economic sociology.

Lidiya Zubytska is a PhD student of political science at the University of Kansas. Zubytska focuses on foreign policy analysis and Central and Eastern European politics. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame with an MA in international peace studies, she taught at the Ukrainian Catholic University and coordinated an EU technical assistance project in Kyiv, Ukraine. She also worked at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C., on issues and programs related to post-Soviet space. Her professional experience and research interests center on democratic and economic transition in Eastern Europe, EU enlargement, and international relations.

EDITORIAL Understanding How International Organizations Function: Theory, Empirical Analysis, and History

by John Mathiason, Cornell Institute for Public Affairs, Cornell University The four articles in this issue of the Journal of International Organizations Studies (JIOS) cover diverse subjects, but their main contribution is in applying different approaches in their analysis. Two apply approaches from international organization theory to understand how regional intergovernmental organizations grow and function—or not; a third uses empirical analysis to determine how national bureaucratic factors influence intergovernmental decision making; and a fourth uses historical analysis to document how the status of women issue transitioned from one international organization to its successor. Each makes a contribution to the literature but also raises questions about the theories employed, the analytical techniques used, and the extent to which history is correctly documented.

Malte Brosig’s “Interregionalism at a Crossroads: African–European Crisis Management in Libya—a Case of Organized Inaction?” is an analysis of the role of two intergovernmental organizations, the African Union and the EU, in the international response to political developments connected with Libya’s Arab Spring in 2012. These two organizations, in the author’s words, were “disenfranchised from this conflict despite Libya touching upon vital security interests of their member states.” The article documents how these organizations have developed a joint strategy, as part of interregional cooperation that includes peace and security as one of its pillars. In this sense, interactions between regional intergovernmental bodies are a new approach to achieving joint objectives. Brosig suggests that they, on the basis of the agreed strategy, should have cooperated more effectively in the Libyan situation. He looks at theoretical formulations to explain the inaction and settles on emerging institutionalist theories.

One problem with the analysis, which suggests an area for further work—both theoretical and practical—is that the EU and the African Union are qualitatively different organizations.

The EU, in many issue areas, has ceded sovereign authority by its member states as a result of agreements dating from the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, and in these it functions as though it were a government. In other areas, like foreign and security policy, it functions like an international organization, dependent on the agreement of its sovereign members to determine responses to crises. In security, the EU in practice defers to other agreements, like NATO, for policy and action. The African Union, in contrast, has adopted a policy of providing peacekeeping troops to enforce agreements reached. But this requires an agreement among the union’s member states for action to be taken. Brosig shows there was no basis of consensus in the African Union for action in Libya and, for the EU, response was determined at the national and NATO level rather than the EU. This would be consistent with the basis on which both the African Union and the EU, in the area of foreign and security policy, were established.

A second Europe–Africa comparison is found in Stefan Plenk’s “The Uniting of East Africa and the Uniting of Europe?” The article tests the use of the functionalist theory found in Ernst Haas’s 1958 study the Uniting of Europe in an analysis of the East African JIOS, VOL. 4, Issue 2, 2013

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Community (EAC). In the late 1960s, functionalism was a major theory applied to the creation of international organizations but went out of fashion. Unlike realist theory, which explained why states engaged in conflict in international relations, functionalism explained why states cooperated. Drawn initially from anthropology, it was given a major boost when the UN was formed by the work of David Mitrany.1 Plenk shows that Haas’s theory, developed to explain the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), may be applied to explaining the EAC’s creation. He also shows there are differences, primarily in the context, between the two institutions.

On a personal note, I first came across Haas’s theory when I taught a graduate seminar on international economic communities at the University of Washington in 1970 and followed it subsequently. As I noted in a paper in 2007, “While scholars like Ernst Haas (1964) pursued functionalism intellectually, this line of analysis seemed to fail when the expected functional relationships did not appear. The problem, as Ruggie, et al. (2005) put it was that states did not seem to behave as functionalist theories would suggest.”2 Ironically, what functionalist theory in the Uniting of Europe would have predicted eventually came true in the form of the EU, something that was so much larger than the ECSC that Haas himself would not have predicted it at the time. A problem with the theory was that it did not build in enough realist considerations to explain the context in which the organization developed. Regime theory was a valuable synthesis that could also be used to analyze the current and future growth of the EAC. A different approach to analysis is found in Diana Panke’s “Getting Ready to Negotiate in International Organizations? On the Importance of the Domestic Construction of National Positions.” Panke’s focus is on the relationship between national bureaucratic structures and the outcome of intergovernmental negotiations. Based on interviews with delegates to the UN General Assembly, the analysis looks at how states, required to be involved in an increasing number of multilateral negotiations, cope. More specifically, Panke looks at whether national positions in the negotiations are determined from capitals or are determined in local permanent missions to international organizations. It notes that while some countries, like the U.S., Germany, France, the UK, Japan, Canada, China, South Africa, India, and Brazil seek to have coherent, integrated positions in all negotiations, others do not have the luxury of a large staff at both mission and capital levels. An empirical analysis of voting in the General Assembly argued that absenteeism from voting was related to small delegations.

The issue of consistency across negotiations is an obvious concern of many states.

However, Peter Hansen, a former senior UN official who had also been a delegate, once argued that one reason progress was possible in negotiations was because many countries did not have consistent positions and, as a result, new breakthroughs were possible.3 The president of the General Assembly in 2013, John Ashe, from Antigua and Barbuda, is an example of someone who could adjust his national position to improve the likelihood of an agreement. In this context, in the UN General Assembly only about 23 percent of resolutions are put to the vote, and these are considered to be failures since those who vote against are not bound by those resolutions.4 The process of reaching consensus on the remaining 77 percent is typically complex and involves stages of agreement among groups. Even a small delegation may influence the basis for consensus (and, in fact, can refuse to join a consensus, thus forcing 1. Mitrany, David (1946) A Working Peace System: An Argument for the Functional Development of International Organizations, 4th Edition, London: National Peace Council.

2. Mathiason, John (2007) “Reviving Functionalism and Regime Theory to Explain the Role of International Secretariats,” paper prepared for the panel on the Agency and Influence of International Organizations at the 2007 Convention of the International Studies Association.

The references are to Haas, Ernst B. (1964) Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization, Stanford: Stanford University Press and to Ruggie, John Gerard, Peter J. Katzenstein, Robert O. Keohane and Philippe C. Schmitter (2005) “Transformation in World Politics: The Intellectual Contributions of Ernst B. Haas,” Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 8, pp. 271–96.

3. Hansen, Peter and John Mathiason (1987) “Coordination in the United Nations System,” in M.S. Rajan, V.S. Mani, and C.S.R. Murthy (eds.) The Nonaligned and the United Nations, Oceana Publications.

4 Mathiason, John (2012) “Commentary by John R. Mathiason: The General Assembly—The Future We Want,” in Joachim Müller and Karl P. Sauvant (eds.), Annual Review of United Nations Affairs 2011–2012, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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a vote) and does not need to be present for voting. Using analyses of votes, therefore, is not a good means for determining the role of delegations in reaching agreements.

Finally, Jaci Eisenberg’s “The Status of Women: A Bridge from the League of Nations to the United Nations” uses historical analysis to show how an issue can transition from one institution to its successor. Most scholars find the League of Nations was a flawed organization, but many of the present rules, regulations, and contexts were first found in the league. Mitrany’s study, already cited, as well as other analyses show how lessons from the league could be brought forward to the UN.5 Less has been presented about how the issue of the status of women transitioned from the League of Nations to the UN and, in fact, that the league even dealt with the issue is not well known. Eisenberg shows that at the very last period of the league, partly pushed by progress in regional organizations like the Organization of American States, it started an effort to define how it could deal with the issue. It created what would now be called an expert panel, composed of individuals, to study the issue and make recommendations. One of the members was an American lawyer, which was of some interest in that the U.S. was not a member of the league. Showing how this was connected to how the UN took up the issues is an important contribution, because the history of UN work on the advancement of women is not well known. Most of Eisenberg’s analysis is based on writings by and about Dorothy Kenyon, the American who served on the league body and, in fact, was the first U.S. representative on the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

One problem with studies of international organizations is that their histories tend to be drawn from individual’s papers or personal experience. The UN Intellectual History Project’s study on women was written by Devaki Jain, a nongovernmental organization activist, whose analysis was largely based on her own experience.6 There has not been as much interest in the history of how and why the UN took up this important issue with considerable success and the literature is not particularly rich. I made an effort to fill the gap with what was eventually a self-published study of the history of how women’s issues evolved from 1945 to 1993, mostly using official documents.7 One historical fact of particular relevance was the conversion of the body to deal with the status of women from a sub-commission of the Commission on Human Rights to the status of a full commission was opposed by the first chair of the Commission on Human Rights, Eleanor Roosevelt of the United States. The push for full status was in fact made by Bodil Begtrup, the Danish chair of the sub-commission.

The articles in this issue show progress in the analysis of international organizations in terms of connecting theories with observed events and processes and in filling gaps in history. They also show the need for more reflection to find the best means of analyzing the origins, evolution, current practices, and future probabilities for these increasingly important organizations.

5. Mathiason, John (2007) Invisible Governance: International Secretariats in Global Politics, Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.

6. Jain, Devaki (2005) Women, Development, and the UN: A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

7. Mathiason, John (2001) The Long March to Beijing: The United Nations and the Women’s Revolution, Vol. 1, The Vienna Years, Mt. Tremper, NY: Associates for International Management Services.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN ACTION The Status of Women: A Bridge from the League of Nations to the United Nations Jaci Eisenberg, the Graduate Institute (IHEID) The League of Nations and the UN are often considered distinct entities in scholarship. This work posits that these two entities should not be separated for study and illuminates one issue bridging the gap between these two institutions: the status of women. Work on the question of women’s status in national law across league member states began in the late 1930s, and though it was suspended with the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent dissolution of the League of Nations, similar work was taken up by the UN. Beyond continuity of issues studied, in the case of one figure, Dorothy Kenyon, there was also continuity of actors.

Examining the status of women can begin to close the gap between these two international organizations. It also has the benefit of adding women back into a field in which they are often forgotten or neglected: the study of international relations.

Introduction1* Historians and those in related fields have long tended to separate the League of Nations and the UN as objects of study, and this is only recently changing in a significant way (Pedersen, 2007; Mazower, 2009; Mazower, 2012). Many believe these two entities are to be studied apart, because the league failed unequivocally, and the UN still functions (Grigorescu, 2005).

In fact, the UN was born out of the ashes of the League of Nations, and the league’s failings provided valuable lessons for the foundation of the UN after World War II (Finch, 1945).

Moreover, some “new” concepts arising from this division, such as the impact of the “Third United Nations” of nongovernmental organizations and epistemic communities (Weiss et al., 2009), are actually a rehashing of related models drawn from the league’s experience and before (Pickard, 1936, particularly p. 462; Davies, 2012). Bit by bit, historians are beginning to concretely deconstruct the notion of the unsuccessful League of Nations, particularly in regard to its economic and financial section (Endres and Fleming, 2002; Clavin and Wessels, 2005), but works illustrating continuities between the two entities are largely the provenance of scholarship on specialized agencies, particularly the International Labor Organization (ILO) (Ghebali, 1989; Rodríguez-Piñero, 2006: Rodgers et al., 2009). Most new works in these areas cease discussion of the league in 1946 and begin discussion of the UN just before the 1945 San Francisco conference (Maul, 2007: Borowy, 2009; Jolly et al., 2009). *Thanks to Andre Liebich and the JIOS anonymous reviewers for their comments on drafts of this work. A first version of this paper was presented in the seminar on “The League of Nations and the United Nations: A Parallel History” convened by Jussi Hanhimäki and Davide Rodogno in spring 2010 at the Graduate Institute (IHEID) in Geneva. A draft of this paper won the Academic Platform Switzerland United Nations 2012 Prize for best doctoral essay. The author would like to acknowledge research support for this work from the Schlesinger Library on the History of the Women in America (Dissertation Grant) and the Sophia Smith and Smith College Archives (Caroline D. Bain Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship).

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This work breaks with the trends described above and shows one important point of continuity between the League of Nations and the UN, without having recourse to a specialized agency as a case study: examinations of the status of women. After much pressure from women’s equalitarian activist groups, the league took up the questions of the legal, political,social, and economic statuses of women. A committee was founded in 1937 to examine these points across league member states. With the difficulties faced by the league during World War II, the work of this committee appeared to be disbanded, both because of the practical difficulties of conducting a cross-cultural study during wartime, as well as the more overwhelming and permanent difficulty for the largely European league to accurately conduct cross-cultural studies. The UN founded a committee whose goals were similar, which is still discussed as a phenomenon largely distinct from the league committee (Jain, 2005).1 I propose to show that this is a mistaken view. There was continuity between the league and the UN on women’s issues, not only in terms of mission but also in regard to one actor.

Dorothy Kenyon (1888–1972), an American and the sole woman member of both the league and UN bodies on the status of women, was a great advocate for the League of Nations on the issue.2 With the work of the legal institutes analyzing the status of women around the world on hold due to war, Kenyon shopped the league project around to a number of internationalist institutes, hoping one would see merit in publishing the results already obtained. When the UN formed a status of women committee and did not include her on the original roster of members, it mattered little to Kenyon. She had become so involved in the cause she was willing to devote her energies to publicizing the important work, even without a seat on the body. Eventually, her perseverance was rewarded with a spot on this latter committee. Surveying Kenyon’s role across these two institutions provides one simple point of entry for examining discord and continuities in the question of the status of women across these two organizations.

The selection of Kenyon as a member on the league body was indeed unexpected.

International women’s groups had sought to influence women’s status in the league from its very foundation in 1919. Among other points, they sought equal rights regarding nationality, social and political status (Becker, 1982, pp. 163–185; C.A. Miller, 1994; Rupp, 1997; Bredbenner, 1998, pp. 195–242; Sandell, 2011), and employment (Berkovitch, 1999, pp. 86– 99; Wikander, 2010; Schoeni and Natchkova, 2011). However, Kenyon was not one of these activist women present in Geneva, though the American League of Women Voters (LWV), an organization to which she belonged, was involved in international issues through the umbrella of the International Women Suffrage Alliance (IWSA). Kenyon, as an American, was an unusual choice given the United States’ official absence from the league—but not so unusual when one thinks of the plethora of matters in which the U.S.—governmental and private entities alike—sustained unofficial cooperation with the league: disarmament (Eisenberg, 2013 forthcoming), philanthropic aid for league endeavors (Rietzler, 2011; Tournès, 2012), and advocacy for U.S. participation in the league (Kuehl and Dunn, 1997).

In examining this continuity between the League of Nations and the UN, this study not only starts to bridge the gap between these two institutions, it also corrects the ingrained gender 1. Jain’s work is the most egregious example, particularly problematic as it is part of a prominent series: the United Nations Intellectual History Project. Jain dances around the existence of the league committee: we hear of league delegates or committee members later serving on the UN committee (14), or how information on the status of women was requested and collected by the league (14, 17, 30, 60), but no actual declaration of its existence. Where it should have been mentioned—at least in passing—was after the sentence: “The UN was not the first international or intergovernmental body to deal with questions that affected the status of women.” (14) Yet, it is glaringly absent— though perhaps for the best, as Jain’s work is riddled with errors regarding the interwar period. She cited the Covenant of the League of Nations as dating from 1924 (14)—it was 1919—and wrote that the League of Nations was involved in the drafting of an equal rights treaty (20–21)—when in reality the equal rights treaty was a private initiative brought to the attention of the league. The league had nothing to do with the drafting process.

2. In the decade since Kate Weigand and Daniel Horowitz’s call to research on Kenyon (2002) was launched, scholars have eagerly answered the call. In particular, Karen Garner (2010, p. 141ff) focused on Kenyon’s role in the UN committee, Jo Butterfield recently used Kenyon as a case study in her dissertation to illustrate the argument that feminists’ postwar advocacy for human rights was very much shaped by the direction of women’s interwar activism (2012), and Carol Linsky is currently working on a dissertation at SUNY Binghamton entitled “American Women’s Internationalism and the Work of Dorothy Kenyon, 1933–1954.”

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imbalance plaguing the field of the history of international relations (F. Miller, 1986, p. 171).3 Examining women’s activism apart in order to reintegrate these stories into the mainstream narrative is a radical, yet necessary, project (Sluga, 2005, p. 312). It is dedicated research initiatives such as these that allow a different perspective of the history of the international system to be formed and eventually mix with more mainstream narratives, forever expanding this discipline for the better.

Women’s Rights as an Issue at the League of Nations The League of Nations, the outcome of discussions held in Paris in spring 1919 and enshrined in the Treaty of Versailles, did not have a large mandate for women’s issues. This was the case despite lobbying from women’s activists the world over, desirous to see pro-women planks included, particularly the women’s charter drawn up by the Women’s Peace Party at their conference in Zurich in May 1919 focused on economic equality (Chambers, 1991, pp.

151–157, 158–159). What was enshrined in the Treaty of Versailles was minimal on both the equality and mandate fronts. In the Covenant of the League of Nations, article 7 called for secretariat posts to be open to both men and women (but stopped short of mandating gender parity in posts). Article 23 included two conditions: part “A” called for “fair and humane conditions of labour for men, women, and children,” and part “C” gave the league competence in agreements against the traffic of women and children. The constitution of the ILO, also included in the Treaty of Versailles, went further, mentioning the protection of women in its preamble. The ILO constitution was both more and less progressive than the league covenant.

It was more progressive in the sense that article 389 of the ILO constitution declared when women’s questions were in front of the conference, one of the two allowed advisers should be a woman. But it was less progressive because, unlike article 7 of the league covenant, article 395 stated only “a certain number of [the employees in the ILO secretariat] shall be women.”

After this mitigated success at Paris, women’s rights activists turned inward to set their own agenda and lobbying program. In so doing a schism between two facets of activists, the equalitarians and the protectionists, became evident. Both factions held the belief that they were agitating for the best possible status and situation for women, and in this respect, both sides may be considered “feminist.” However, their belief as to what the best possible status entailed varied drastically. The equalitarians believed full political, social and economic equality for women could only come from complete legal equality—women had to be equal to men in every sense, with no special or protective regimes in place for any facet of life. Protectionists, on the other hand, saw an inherent difference between men and women—biological as well as in terms of temperament—and believed women should benefit from standards and legislation reflecting these special differences. One of the turning points in this schism was the 1926 Conference of the IWSA in Paris. An American equalitarian group, the National Women’s Party (NWP), applied for membership in the IWSA, which was, at the time, in the process of changing its name to the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship.

The NWP application was denied on two fronts (Becker, 1982, pp. 166, 168). First, the NWP had, since 1923, supported an equal rights amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Becker, p. 19).

This was a problem because of the second point. The one American entity, the LWV, a member of the IWSA at the time, was firmly protectionist. The LWV and the NWP never agreed on a common philosophy (Pfeffer, 1985, p. 462). As the IWSA was an international group, this American disagreement had international reverberations. The prominent British equalitarian Six Point Group split from this entity in protest (Becker, 1982, p. 168).

The first impact of this reverberation on the League of Nations was at The Hague Conference on the Codification of International Law, held in March and April 1930.

3. “There is perhaps no area of historical literature where women—other than monarchs and Mata Haris—have been less visible than in the literature of international relations” (F. Miller, 1986, p. 171).

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This conference aimed to begin unifying the national laws of its member states. On the agenda for 1930 were laws governing territorial waters, state responsibility for damage suffered by foreigners within its boundaries, and questions of nationality (Stienstra, 1994, p. 68).

The women activists, both equalitarian and protectionist, were keen to weigh in on issues of nationality, particularly the question of married women’s nationality—should a woman marrying a foreigner be allowed to keep or change her nationality as she pleased or should she be required to take her husband’s nationality for the unity of the family? The women activists managed to make themselves heard twice at the conference: once in front of the Bureau of the Conference on Codification of Law and once before the First Committee, charged with nationality issues (Stienstra, p. 70).

The countries debating at The Hague were not in agreement on how to best proceed.

Brazil and Chile brought to the table an argument for full legal equality between men and women—nationality should not be changed through marriage without consent of either party.

The Scandinavian countries were in favor of a woman’s choice when it came to nationality, yet if foreign women married nationals of their countries, these women were automatically given citizenship, more often than not stripping them of their native citizenship due to the incompatibility of dual citizenship in many national legal systems. Switzerland, the Netherlands, Egypt, Italy, Austria, and Nicaragua all came down strongly in favor of unity of nationality—what went for the husband, went for the wife. In discussion, many delegates expressed the belief that women in international marriages should have the right to choose their own nationality—whether to keep their birth nationality or to adopt that of their husband upon marriage. And yet the resulting Hague Convention on Nationality promoted unity. It tied a woman’s nationality to that of her husband, showing the delegates believed a woman’s individual rights were secondary to the rights of the family. As such, it demonstrated rather decisively, according to Dorothy Kenyon, that international law could not dictate to states whether men and women were equal in terms of nationality (Kenyon, 1948, pp. 30–31). The Hague Convention on Nationality eventually came into effect in 1937 with ten signatures (Pfeffer, 1985, p. 465).

The Hague lightning rod and other efforts led the League of Nations to establish, in January 1931, a Women’s Consultative Committee on Nationality (WCCN) to provide information to the league assembly on the question of independent nationality for women (Pfeffer, p. 464). Eight organizations initially composed the WCCN (LoN, 7 September 1932, p. 1). This body was quite privileged—entitled to hold its meetings in the secretariat and to have its correspondence passed directly to the assembly and council but powerless without official status (C.A. Miller, 1992, p. 197).4 The first meeting of the WCCN veered toward an equalitarian consensus (Stienstra, 1994, pp. 71–72), but the second meeting led to polarization, with some of the groups concluding The Hague standards on nationality were the most progressive achievable at the time (LoN, 7 September 1932, pp. 1–6). The protectionists, and eventually the league secretariat, came to believe that since the WCCN was no longer based on consensus, it had ceased to be a legitimate body (Ashby, 17 September 1932; Avenol, 27 September 1933, p. 1). The equalitarians continued to consider their role on the WCCN as active and used their membership on the body to mark their legitimacy, despite being continually rebuffed by the league regarding this point (McKinnon Wood, 6 June 1935).

The League of Nations Commission on the Status of Women The results of The Hague Convention on Nationality and the WCCN were deeply disappointing to the NWP. They returned to regional venues—the Pan-American Union and its InterAmerican Commission of Women—to build up sorely needed support. In regional venues, the NWP found success in December 1933, at the Seventh International Conference of American 4. Chapter 6 of Carol Ann Miller’s doctoral thesis was published as an article in 1994, which is more widely accessible to researchers than the dissertation itself (C.A. Miller, 1994).

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States in Montevideo, Uruguay. A majority of states present signed an Equal Nationality Treaty, which stated that men and women had equal rights in nationality and nationality could not be changed without either party’s consent. Four states present additionally adhered to an Equal Rights Treaty, which proclaimed men and women equal throughout the jurisdiction in question (Meyer, 1999, p. 63).

The Equal Nationality Treaty was of particular interest to the League of Nations. This measure was brought to the attention of the next session of the league assembly in September 1934 by a letter signed by the delegations of fifteen member states of the league. They requested it be placed on the agenda of the First Committee (in charge of constitutional and legal questions) at the next session of the assembly, a measure indeed adopted (LoN, September 1934, p. 205).5 This letter in particular illustrates the lengths to which women activists went to ensure this item was placed on the agenda. Though they had tried before the Montevideo conference—by using the WCCN in the September 1931, 1932, and 1933 sessions of the league assembly—prior attempts by women activists to put questions of equal legal status for women on the league agenda failed (Doty, 28 July 1934, p. 3). This successful effort in September 1934 relied, in large part, on the goodwill the women activists procured from Maxim Litvinoff, representing a new member state, the USSR, at the annual Assembly of the League of Nations (Lutz, between September 1934–1935, p. 3; Doty, 15 October 1934, pp. 3–4).

September 1935 marked a turning point for the league. The league assembly passed a resolution drawing the attention of its member states to the existence of the Montevideo Nationality Convention6 and to the fact it was open for accession by all states. The league was indeed impressed that via this instrument some American States members of the league had fulfilled recommendation no. 6 of the Hague Convention, which requested that equality of the sexes be taken into account when formulating or revising nationality laws. Nevertheless, the league still hoped that countries intending to ratify the Hague Convention on Nationality of 1930 would do so soon, ostensibly in order to speed its coming into force. Such a dual promotion—of an instrument already in force (the Montevideo Equal Nationality Convention) and of one still pending (The Hague Convention of 1930) effectively meant, for the time being, the Montevideo clauses had supplanted the Hague formulation as official league policy (LoN, 24 September 1935, p. 2). While certainly a victory on paper for equalitarian feminists, the broader question of women’s equality (beyond the sole facet of nationality) remained outstanding. Discussion of the Montevideo Equal Rights Treaty, also on the agenda at the watershed September 1935 league assembly session (Trigg, 1995, p. 63), prompted some tentative attempts to explore the question of women’s legal status in national law. A resolution called on the secretary-general to request league member states to submit observations on “the political and civil status of women,” to be discussed by a future session of the league assembly.

Also requested were observations on the role of women in national labor legislation, with a view to evaluating their economic status, left to examination by the ILO (LoN, September 1935, pp. 234–235).

The 1935 appeal for information, and the subsequent questionnaire circulated to states on the status of women in national law, resulted in the question of the status of women being placed, once again, on the agenda of the assembly, this time for September 1937. In discussion, the rapporteur for the question of the status of women in the first committee of the league presented a summary of the replies received from governments, showing very different policies toward women among league member states (Appendix 1). To build on the information received and to contextualize and understand it, the first committee proposed the assembly undertake a comprehensive scientific study of the status of women in national law and that it be carried out by a mixed committee of men and women, in consultation 5. Letter dated 21 September 1934 and signed by the delegations of Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Latvia, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Siam, Turkey, U.S.S.R., and Yugoslavia.

6. A shortened form referring to the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women (1933).

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with several legal institutes (Kenyon, 12 September 1945, p. 2).7 The assembly agreed (LoN, September 1937, p. 204) and charged the council with selecting the committee (LoN, October 1937, p. 259). The September 1937 Assembly of the League allotted a budget of 25,000 CHF (LNC, January 1938, p. 1–Point 5), earmarked as such: 20,000 CHF for the expenses incurred during two expert meetings (one to draw up a program of work and one to finalize the report of work), and 5,000 CHF reserved should the legal institutes assigned by the league to help with this task be unable to cover the costs through their own reserves (Lutz or Paul, 15 December 1937).

The council wasted no time, selecting three men and four women for the League of Nations Committee to Study the Legal Status of Women (LNC), after reviewing names suggested by women’s international organizations (Appendix 2). The American member, Dorothy Kenyon, was not favored by the equalitarian groups, who had lobbied hard to place the question of women’s full legal equality on the league agenda but enjoyed the support of the protectionists (Stienstra, 1994, p. 76). The equalitarians were represented by the Yugoslav Anna Godjevac.

Still, Kenyon’s inclusion on this body at all was extremely unusual, because the protectionist viewpoint was essentially promulgated by the LWV alone—no other national delegations were keen to support it (Trigg, 1995, pp. 63–64).8 Kenyon was a better fit than an equalitarian radical like Alice Paul of the NWP, because despite all of her judicial accomplishments, she was perceived as less threatening. As one profile phrased it, “[u]nlike most feminists, Judge Kenyon is feminine” (“Profane Profiles,” November 1940). The selection of Kenyon was also unusual because, like most Americans, she was not chiefly occupied with international activities. As a lawyer in New York, previously partnered with Dorothy Straus in the firm of Straus and Kenyon—colloquially known as “the two Dorothys”—state and local activities predominantly held her attention (Adams Kenyon, n.d. a, p. 94; “Association of the Bar of the City of NY,” 1972, p. 57). Yet she had an international background. Admitted to the bar in 1917, her first position was with Walter Lippmann’s committee gathering economic data for the Paris Peace Conference. In 1919, the Kingdom of Siam was her first private legal client, requesting a brief on territoriality and the opium trade (Limberg, ca. 1939, pp. 1–2).

The LNC met three times throughout 1938 and 1939 to discuss how to conduct the study and manage intermediate results. Several voluntary organizations with an interest in the status of women were included in these consultations, meaning non-league entities were now officially part of the decision-making process (LoN, January 1939, pp. 42–43). First, the committee compiled a list of questions for study under the headings of public, private, and criminal law (LNC, 12 April 1938).9 This work was then transferred to the legal institutes, who quickly discovered problems interpreting non-Western law (LoN, January 1939, pp. 42–43). The delay in finding an institute capable of dealing with such legal traditions caused the ultimate deadline for the LNC’s results to be pushed to 1941 (LoN, July 1939, pp. 296–297), at which point the work of the league had effectively been suspended for several months due to the European war.

World War II and the Foundation of the UN A newspaper recorded Dorothy Kenyon’s palpable excitement about being appointed to the LNC: “Imagine being able to do something for women in China and Japan and Germany 7. The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (Rome), the International Institute of Public Law, and the International Bureau for the Unification of Criminal Law (both in Paris) undertook the bulk of the work. Questions of Mohammedan and Hindu law were split between specialists in France and India after the fact when difficulties in interpreting these “foreign” laws were discovered (Kenyon, 12 September 1945, p. 2).

8. Paula Pfeffer offered a hypothesis as to why a protectionist was appointed rather than an equalitarian feminist. At the Eighth International Conference of American States in Lima, Peru, 9–27 December 1938, equalitarians Alice Paul and Doris Stevens faced competition from the U.S. State Department-backed protectionist League of Women Voters (LWV) to represent the U.S. in the Inter-American Commission of Women of the Pan-American Union (IACW). While the IACW did not take kindly to the agitation sparked by the LWV, the U.S. State Department maintained that representation on the IACW was appointed on a national basis, meaning its decision to have the LWV represent the U.S. in the IACW would stand (Pfeffer, 1985, p. 466; also, Trigg, 1995, pp. 64–65). From 1938, protectionists represented the U.S. in one of the most prominent women’s international organizations.

9. A sampling of the points to be covered: in public law, franchise and entitlement payments (e.g., pensions); in private law, right to enter into contracts and rights as a parent; and in criminal law, prostitution and the ability of women to participate in police work.

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and Italy. It’s staggering—it’s simply colossal” (Tribune, 20 January 1938). Serving on the committee was not only an opportunity to help others but also an opportunity for American self-reflection.

Americans are likely to be full of confidence about the legal status of their women, but this confidence may not be wholly justified after [the LNC] studies are completed.

Comparatively speaking, we lead the world; but when we stand in comparison with other countries we will get a true perspective of the whole question. It will be a good thing for us to see ourselves through the eyes of an objective, fact-finding commission (Petersen, 15 May 1938).

The many advantages made Kenyon keen to continue the committee’s work however she could, despite no scheduled meetings due to the war. In mid-1940, Kenyon offered her New York office as a safe repository for the LNC documents (Kenyon, 28 June 1940), and, at the end of the year, it was agreed she would receive a complete set of documents in both English and French (Unknown, 31 December 1940), which she eventually received in mid1941 (Habicht, 20 May 1941).

During the war years, in New York and working at her solo law practice, Kenyon did not forget the work begun in Geneva. She was keen to have LNC’s work published during wartime. However, the difficulties were many. All of the legal institutes were located in war theaters, and the league was quite diminished in Geneva, so fact-checking, translation, and publication could not be undertaken in Europe (Kenyon, 16 July 1943). As a solution, Kenyon sought an American publisher, and her first stop was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). Though the CEIP professed that the status of women was not of importance at the moment, Kenyon begged to differ, citing it essential for the shape of the postwar period.

The CEIP held its ground and chose not to fund the project (Kenyon, 16 July 1943; Kenyon, 24 July 1943; Finch, 30 July 1943; Unknown, 31 July 1943; Kenyon, 1 August 1943). After the CEIP failure, Kenyon tried such popular publishers as Harper’s Magazine and Funk and Wagnalls to no avail (Kenyon, 6 August 1943).

Designs for a postwar order were drawn up at a number of conferences: Dumbarton Oaks, Yalta, and finally the San Francisco Conference, generally recognized as the founding point of the UN. At San Francisco, women took part in discussions—unlike at Paris some twenty-six years earlier—and their input became part of the UN Charter completed on 25 June 1945, which entered into force four months later. Though a separate commission on the status of women was not enshrined in the charter, women activists found hope in the newly created Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and in the human rights clauses, which called for freedom on the basis of sex (Galey, 1995a, pp. 6–8). The Commission on Human Rights (CHR), created under the aegis of the ECOSOC, met for the first time on 18 February 1946, and on the same day, a UN Sub-Commission on the Status of Women (UNSC) was approved and placed under its tutelage. Nine countries were selected to appoint experts to the body; as the U.S. was not among the nine named, there was no opening for such representation at the time (Galey, 1995b, p. 13).

Despite this setback, Kenyon was steadfast in her support of an international legal commission on the status of women, most remarkable because she had no direct role to play on this body. Kenyon continued to spread the word about the work of this forgotten commission, pleading its necessity to relevant parties, and in so doing delicately made the case for her own participation (Smith College Spectator, February 1946, pp. 6–7). She courted the members of the UNSC by inviting them to a luncheon at the prominent New York women’s Cosmopolitan Club in April 1946, around the time of this body’s first official meeting (Adams Kenyon, n.d. b, pp. 114–115). In parallel, U.S. protectionists lobbied their government to secure Kenyon’s appointment (Laville, 2008, pp. 40–41).

The UNSC sat for its first session in April and May 1946, almost concurrently with the second session of the ECOSOC. Both bodies met in New York: ECOSOC at Lake Success, where the UN had established temporary headquarters, and the UNSC at Hunter College. After

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conferring with her commission counterparts, UNSC President Bodil Begtrup of Denmark was permitted, exceptionally, to address the ECOSOC (Stienstra, 1994, p. 83). There she presented the work completed to date by the UNSC. A review of the LNC’s work had judged it insufficient and limited: the LNC had focused on the content of laws; the UNSC hoped to focus on the application of legislation regarding women in practice (UNDPI, 1996, p. 111).10 In order to focus on the application of laws, the UNSC hoped to create a secretariat office headed by a woman, complete the LNC’s work and finish the worldwide survey on laws pertaining to women, agitate for equal access to education, and host a women’s conference under the aegis of the UN (Galey, 1995b, p. 13). Begtrup also requested the UNSC be promoted to a full commission, specifically as a reward for women’s service during World War II (Stienstra, 1994, p. 83).11 With the help of some behind-the-scenes opinion-swaying by equalitarian militants like Alice Paul (Stienstra, p. 84), the ECOSOC promoted the UNSC to full commission status—the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNC)—on 21 June 1946, by Resolution 2/11 (Galey, 1995b, p. 14).12 Elevation to a full commission opened the way for new membership. This new, broader commission proved different in composition than the LNC. Instead of a European contingent with one American, it was inching toward an international composition, with members from every continent except Africa (Adams Kenyon, n.d. b, p. 116).13 Kenyon was appointed the U.S. member of the UNC by President Harry Truman in a recess appointment on 7 November 1946. She was to serve for a period of three years (Adams Kenyon, n.d. b, p. 115). Her nomination was approved by the ECOSOC on 10 December 1946 (Byrnes, 6 January 1947).14 The first meeting of the UNC took place in February 1947, at which time its role as the “watchdog of women’s interests” was set (Kenyon, 1947, p. 43). As Begtrup had mentioned before ECOSOC the previous year, the UNC sought to trump the work of the LNC by examining not only the legal status of women but the effects stemming from that status in national law (Kenyon, 1947, p. 41). The UNC adopted the program of work prepared by the UNSC, and added the step of reporting directly on women’s issues to the ECOSOC, as well as preparing recommendations to be submitted to the ECOSOC for adoption (Kenyon, 1947, p. 39: Galey, 1995b, p. 14). For this reason, in terms of concrete action, the UNC aimed larger than any of its precursors.

Kenyon was indefatigable in her advocacy. Before the first meeting in January 1947, she hosted a tea for American women involved in women’s causes and internationalist organizations to drum up interest in the UNC (“Organizations represented,” 28 January 1947). In February, during the meeting, she lined up editors of the most prominent women’s magazines in the U.S.—Good Housekeeping, the Ladies’ Home Journal, Colliers, and others—to interview the delegates, in order to spread the message and work of the UNC to women all over her native country (“List of magazine editors,” 20 February 1947; Kenyon, n.d. b). This trend of informal courtship—through teas, luncheons, and meet and greet events—continued throughout her term on the UNC (Kenyon, n.d. a).

The first question for the UNC was political equality. As Kenyon wrote, “Democracy cannot be said to exist in a country which disenfranchises more than 50 percent of its people” (Kenyon, 1946?). It was not a trivial question, but one that persisted despite women’s increasing participation in economic life during wartime: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10. UN ref. no. E/PV.4, 28 May 1946.

11. Note that the argument used by Begtrup is not unlike one of the arguments used to justify the foundation of the ILO in 1919—that it was a gift to the workers who had sacrificed themselves during World War I. 12. American protectionists were opposed to the establishment of the UNC, whereas American equalitarians were not. Once the UNSC and, later, the UNC became realities, protectionists co-opted the system and supported Kenyon’s nomination to the UNC. Separately, equalitarians supported the idea of a UNC and the elevation of the UNSC to the UNC (Stienstra, 1994, p. 84; Laville, 2008, pp. 35, 41).

13. For a listing of the first iteration of the UNC, see Appendix 3.

14. N.B. Kenyon’s post was not renewed. She was replaced, later in the Truman administration, by Olive Remington Goodman, a Democratic stalwart (Adams Kenyon, n.d. b, p. 126).

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adopted in 1948, was only amended in its English version from “men” to “human beings” after pressure from the UNC—and even then one instance of “man” remained in the preamble (Jain, 2005, pp. 19–20). The UNC worked for several years on the issue of women’s political equality, preparing a draft Convention on the Political Rights of Women, submitted upward to the ECOSOC and then approved by the UN General Assembly (GA) in 1952 (coming into force in 1954), which gave women the right to vote, to hold public office, and to be public functionaries on equal terms with men (Galey, 1995b, p. 16). Other major accomplishments predominantly attributable to the UNC were a new Convention on the Nationality of Married Women—supplanting the Montevideo (1933) and The Hague (1930, in force in 1937) Conventions—passed by the GA in 1957 (coming into force in 1958), and a Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages, adopted by the GA in 1962 (coming into force in 1964) (Galey, 1995b, pp. 19–20). Several other questions pertaining to women were examined by various UN specialized agencies and received the support of the UNC (Galey, 1995b, pp. 17–19).

Conclusions The UNC was certainly a success. It represented great progress from interwar efforts. Compared to the league, the UN’s universal membership provided a greater audience to survey and from which to draw information and support. In contrast to the LNC, the UNC had an expanded mandate and the ear of an interested body (specialized ECOSOC instead of the all-inclusive league assembly). As an analytical, rather than solely information-gathering body, the UNC became the first international, truly intergovernmental “watchdog of women’s interests.”

Nevertheless, the relative success of the UNC does not diminish the contribution of the league to bringing women’s rights to fruition. On the contrary, it is one further step in the long narrative of women’s activism for legal equality, which had begun before the league and continued inside, outside, and beyond the league. It is not a question of only the league or only the UN being an appropriate lens through which to view the issue. Equality for women is an issue that cuts transversally through numerous countries and institutions over a long time span, and to view it any other way is only to understand the tip of the iceberg. In this manner, positing any discussion of women’s equality at the UN as the beginning of “a sixty-year quest for equality and justice” is to ignore the efforts of women activists as well as institutional efforts in the interwar period and before.15 This focus on successes to the exclusion of the complex processes that led to success is a reductionist version of history: the failures, discarded ideas, and fragile stepping stones all contributed to the accomplishments of the UNC. The UNC does not mark the end of the story. The UNC organized an International Women’s Year in 1975, marked by a first, important, agenda-setting, intergovernmental and international conference on women’s issues held in Mexico City. This was the very goal stated by the UNSC in 1946 coming to fruition almost thirty years later. The momentum continued through the UN Decade for Women (1975–1985) (Allan et al., 1995, p. 29). Here an uptick in engagement occurred. Beyond the LNC’s examination of content of national laws on the status of women and the UNC’s more intensive survey of their application, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was passed by the GA in 1979. The CEDAW went one step beyond the league and UN committees, enshrining anti-discriminatory measures as international law and provided for oversight of women’s status in signatory countries, which comprised almost all UN member states, as the mechanism by which nondiscrimination would be ensured. It is the chief instrument in force today advocating equality for women in all aspects of life (with exemption for maternity regulation).16 The second UN Decade for Women conference, held in Copenhagen in 1980, 15. The quotation is the subtitle of the Jain book in the UN Intellectual History Project series.

16. For a retrospective on the CEDAW, see Schöpp-Schilling and Flinterman, 2007. Note: the CEDAW has been only signed by the U.S., not ratified. In comparison, the BRICS have all signed and ratified the convention.

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provided the push for the third step in this international progression for women’s rights. It was the perfect opportunity for many UN member states to ratify the CEDAW, helping the convention to attain the minimum number of ratifications required to enter into force in 1981 (Fraser, 1995, p. 77). Though the discourse had changed from “equality” to “discrimination” over the course of the twentieth century, the impetus and fight behind it were the same.

Focusing on Dorothy Kenyon as a bridge between the League of Nations and the UN is one micro-level way to understand the question of the legal status of women, which has the benefit of allowing many relevant, complex points surrounding this question to be raised.

Kenyon represented one side of a fraught battle between protectionists and equalitarians, one that is often reduced in UN-only scholarship to reflect a march toward the triumph of the equalitarian viewpoint. In the LNC, she was an outsider by nationality, the lone non-European on the committee. This particularity was quite valuable during World War II. When she attempted to keep the work of the league committee alive, her nationality afforded a privileged situation away from hostilities, though in the end, none of her efforts came to immediate fruition. Though not a member of the first UN iteration of the legal status of women committee, she was appointed when the membership was expanded (UNSC versus UNC). This change highlights the differences in Euro-centric membership of the league and the global community forming the UN, as well as the connective role of certain individuals like Dorothy Kenyon in spanning these two institutions.17 By unearthing these important, yet largely heretofore unexamined connections, a more complete story of women’s involvement and influence in the UN and international relations can be written.

APPENDIX 1 Excerpt of Resolution taken during the September 1937 League Assembly: “STATUS OF WOMEN” The rapporteur for this question to the First Committee made a general survey of the present position of women under the law of different countries. This was based on information supplied by Governments and associations in respect of thirty-eight countries, including twenty-four in Europe, four in Asia, two in Africa, seven in American and Australia. It revealed that:

(1) Equality of right to their own nationality is allowed to women by ten countries and refused by twenty; (2) the right to vote in parliamentary elections and eligibility for election to parliament on an equal footing is enjoyed by women in twenty-four countries and refused in fourteen (nine in Europe); (3) an equal right to vote and eligibility in local government on an equal footing is accorded to women in twenty-nine countries, and refused in seven (four in Europe); (4) the equal right for married women to choose their domicile is given only in four countries and refused in twenty-four; (5) in seven countries married women have an equal right to the guardianship of their children; in twenty they are refused it; (6) fourteen countries seem to give a woman, married or unmarried, the right to engage in every kind of work, while restrictions of different kinds are imposed in sixteen countries; (7) equality of rights as regards property, income and earnings is given in twenty-four countries and refused in ten.

(8) The rapporteur was impressed by the process of evolution, many countries reporting recent or contemplated changes in their legislation.

—LoN, September 1937, p. 204 17. Appendix 3 shows that women of all continents, save Africa, were included in the first full UNC, compared to representation from only two continents in the LNC (Appendix 2).

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APPENDIX 2 Members of the League of Nations Committee to Study the Legal Status of Women Madame Paul Bastid (French) Professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Lyons Mr. de Ruelle (Belgian) Legal Adviser to the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration Madame Anka Godjevac (Yugoslav) Doctor of Law, Technical Adviser of the Yugoslav Delegation at the Codification Conference (1930) Mr. H.C. Gutteridge (UK) Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Cambridge Mademoiselle Kerstin Hesselgren (Swedish) Member of the Second Chamber of the Riksdag, rapporteur on the status of women to the First Committee of the Assembly (1938) Mr. Paul Sebestyen (Hungarian) Counsellor of Division, Head of the Treaties Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affaires [sic] Miss Dorothy Kenyon (American) Doctor of Law, Member of the New York Bar and Legal Adviser to a number of national organizations —LoN, January 1938, p. 22

APPENDIX 3 Members of the First United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, June 1946 Jessie Mary Grey Street (Australia) Campaigned for equality of women, equal pay, the status of Aborigines, and world peace; Secretary of the National Council for Women in 1920 Evdokia Uralova (Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic) A history teacher and a senior executive in the Ministry of Education Way Sung New (People’s Republic of China) Graciela Morales F. de Echeverria (Costa Rica) An executive in Costa Rica’s Social Security Office Bodil Begtrup (Denmark) Chief film censor for Denmark Marie Helene Lefaucheux (France) Vice President of the Assemblée de l’Union Française; led the French Resistance to the occupation of Paris in the 1940s Sara Basterrechea Ramirez (Guatemala) An organic chemist and the sole woman member of the faculty of the University of San Carlos Shareefah Hamid Ali (India) Organized the All India Women’s Conference in the 1920s and represented Indian women in many international gatherings Amalia C. de Castillo Ledon (Mexico) A playwright and active participant in women’s and social work Alice Kandalft Cosma (Syria) An educator and writer who organized the Arab Women’s National League in Syria Mihri Pektas (Turkey) University professor and former member of parliament Elizavieta Alekseevna Popova (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) Lawyer and trade unionist Mary Sutherland (United Kingdom) Leader in trade union activity and the chief woman officer of the Labour Party Dorothy Kenyon (United States)

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Former judge of the New York Municipal Court; active as a lawyer in civic and women’s organizations Isabel de Urdaneta (Venezuela) Teacher and diplomat active in the work of the Pan-American Union —Jain, 2005, pp. 15–16

REFERENCES Adams Kenyon, Mildred (n.d. a): Chapter 7: “Judge Kenyon, Delegate Kenyon,” Biography of Dorothy Kenyon by her sister-in-law, Folder 1, Box 4, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Adams Kenyon, Mildred (n.d. b): Chapter 8: “League of Nations to United Nations,” Biography of Dorothy Kenyon by her sister-in-law, Folder 2, Box 4, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Allan, Virginia R., Margaret E. Galey, and Mildred E. Persinger (1995): “World Conference of International Women’s Year”, in Anne Winslow (ed.): Women, Politics, and the United Nations, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Ashby, Margery Corbett (17 September 1932): Letter to the WCCN as well as the League SecretaryGeneral (for information), Registry no. 3E/25712/25640 J.2, Box R 2076, 3E—Legal— Codification of International Law (1928–1932), Fonds du Secretariat II, League of Nations Archive, United Nations Office at Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.

“Association of the Bar of the City of NY” (1972): Memorial Book, Folder 1, Box 1, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Avenol, Joseph (27 September 1933): Nationality of Women: Note by the Secretary-General, League doc. A.I/1.1933, Registry no. 3E/1791/887, Box R 3886, 3E—Legal—Codification of International Law (1933–1940), Fonds du Secretariat II, League of Nations Archive, United Nations Office at Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.

Becker, Susan D. (1982): The Origins of the Equal Rights Amendment: American Feminism Between the Wars, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Berkovitch, Nitza (1999): From Motherhood to Citizenship: Women’s Rights and International Organizations, Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Borowy, Iris (2009): Coming to Terms with World Health: The League of Nations Health Organisation, 1921–1946, Peter Lang.

Bredbenner, Candice Lewis (1998): A Nationality of Her Own: Women, Marriage, and the Law of Citizenship, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Butterfield, Jo E. (2012): “Gendering ‘Universal’ Human Rights: International Women’s Activism, Gender Politics, and the Early Cold War, 1928–1952,” Ph.D. Thesis, Department of History, University of Iowa.

Byrnes, James F. (6 January 1947): Letter to Dorothy Kenyon, Folder 1, Box 56, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Chambers II, John Whiteclay (1991): The Eagle and the Dove: The American Peace Movement and United States Foreign Policy, 1900–1922, Second Edition, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Clavin, Patricia and Jens-Wilhelm Wessels (2005): “Transnationalism and the League of Nations: Understanding the Work of its Economic and Financial Organisation” Contemporary European History 14 (4): 465–492.

Davies, Thomas Richard (2012): “A “Great Experiment” of the League of Nations Era: International Nongovernmental Organizations, Global Governance, and Democracy Beyond the State” Global Governance 18: 405–423.

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Doty, Madeline Zabriskie (28 July 1934): The Women’s Consultative Committee on Nationality Created by the Council of the League of Nations, Geneva, Folder 114, Box 7, Alma Lutz Papers (MC-182), Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Doty, Madeline Zabriskie (15 October 1934): The Women’s Consultative Committee on Nationality Created by the Council of the League of Nations Information Bulletin, Folder 114, Box 7, Alma Lutz Papers (MC-182), Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Eisenberg, Jaci (2013 forthcoming): “American women and international Geneva, 1919–1939,” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of International History, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.

Endres, Anthony M. and Grant A. Fleming (2002): International Organizations and the Analysis of Economic Policy, 1919–1950, London: Cambridge University Press.

Fraser, Arvonne S. (1995): “The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (The Women’s Convention),” in Anne Winslow (ed.): Women, Politics, and the United Nations, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Finch, George A. (30 July 1943): Letter to Dorothy Kenyon, Folder 13, Box 39, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Finch, George A. (1945): “Preface,” in Egon F. Ranshofen-Wertheimer: The International Secretariat: A Great Experiment in International Administration, Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Galey, Margaret E. (1995a): “Forerunners in Women’s Quest for Partnership,” in Anne Winslow (ed.): Women, Politics, and the United Nations, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Galey, Margaret E. (1995b): “Women Find a Place,” in Anne Winslow (ed.): Women, Politics, and the United Nations, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Garner, Karen (2010): Shaping a global women’s agenda: women’s NGOs and global governance, 1925–85, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

Ghebali, Victor-Yves (1989): The International Labour Organisation: A Case Study on the Evolution of UN Specialized Agencies, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

Grigorescu, Alexandru (2005): “Mapping the UN-League of Nations Analogy: Are There Still Lessons to Be Learned from the League?” Global Governance 11 (1): 25–42.

Habicht, Max (20 May 1941): Letter to Dorothy Kenyon, Folder 13, Box 39, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Jain, Devaki (2005): Women, Development, and the UN: A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Jolly Richard, Louis Emmerij, and Thomas G. Weiss (2009): UN Ideas that Changed the World, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Kenyon, Dorothy (28 June 1940): Letter to Hugh McKinnon Wood, Ref. no. 3A/38289/30999, Folder 13, Box 39, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Kenyon, Dorothy (16 July 1943): Letter to Malcolm Davis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in New York, Folder 13, Box 39, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Kenyon, Dorothy (24 July 1943): Letter to George A. Finch, Folder 13, Box 39, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Kenyon, Dorothy (1 August 1943): Letter to George A. Finch, Folder 13, Box 39, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA.

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Kenyon, Dorothy (6 August 1943): Letter to various publishers, Folder 13, Box 39, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Kenyon, Dorothy (12 September 1945): History of Committee on Legal Status of Women Appointed by the League of Nations in 1938, Folder 2, Box 53, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Kenyon Dorothy (1946?): “United Nations Commission on the Status of Women,” document pencildated 8 September 1944 but content indicates is from mid-1946 or later, Folder 7, Box 20, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Kenyon, Dorothy (1947): “The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women” Women Lawyers Journal 33: 37–44.

Kenyon, Dorothy (1948): “Some Problems in the Nationality of Married Women” Women Lawyers Journal 34 (3): 3–5, 30–33.

Kenyon, Dorothy (n.d. a): passim., Folder 12, Box 53, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Kenyon, Dorothy (n.d. b): passim., Folder 2, Box 56, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Kuehl, Warren F. and Lynne K. Dunn (1997): Keeping the Covenant: American Internationalists and the League of Nations, 1920–1939, Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press.

Lake, Marilyn (2001): “From Self-Determination via Protection to Equality via Non-Discrimination: Defining Women’s Rights at the League of Nations and the United Nations,” in Patricia Grimshaw, Katie Holmes, and Marilyn Lake (eds.): Women’s Rights and Human Rights: International Historical Perspectives. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave.

Laville, Helen (2008): “A New Era in International Women’s Rights? American Women’s Associations and the Establishment of the UN Commission on the Status of Women” Journal of Women’s History 20 (4): 34–56.

League of Nations (LoN) (7 September 1932): Nationality of Women: Observations by the Committee of Representatives of Women’s International Organisations, League doc. A.23.1932.V, Folder 114, Box 7, Alma Lutz Papers (MC-182), Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. League of Nations (LoN) (September 1934): The Monthly Summary of the League of Nations 14 (9).

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League of Nations (LoN) (24 September 1935): Nationality of Women: Convention on the Nationality of Women Concluded on December 26th, 1933, at the Conference of American States at Montevideo, League doc. A.53.1935.V, Folder 118, Box 7, Alma Lutz Papers (MC-182), Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. League of Nations (LoN) (September 1937): The Monthly Summary of the League of Nations 17 (9).

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League of Nations (LoN) (July 1939): The Monthly Summary of the League of Nations 19 (7). Geneva: League of Nations.

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League of Nations Committee on Status of Women (LNC) (January 1938): Facts Concerning the Committee, Folder 119, Box 7, Alma Lutz Papers (MC-182), Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. League of Nations Committee on Status of Women (LNC) (12 April 1938): Confidential: Not for Publication—Scheme of Work, League doc. C.S.F./13, Folder 9, Box 39, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Limberg, Herman (ca. 1939): Guildites, Folder 1, Box 1, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. “List of magazine editors” (20 February 1947): “List of magazine editors to meet with members of the commission (5pm, 20 February 1947, Delegates lounge),” Folder 8, Box 4, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Lutz, Alma (between September 1934–1935): International Action on the Status of Women, Folder 109, Box 7, Alma Lutz Papers (MC-182), Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Lutz, Alma or Alice Paul (15 December 1937): Letter to Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence in London, Folder 119, Box 7, Alma Lutz Papers (MC-182), Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Maul, Daniel (2007): Menschenrechte, Entwicklung und Dekolonisation – Die Internationale Arbeitsorganisation (IAO), 1940–1970, Essen: Klartext Verlag.

Mazower, Mark (2009): No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Mazower, Mark (2012): Governing the World: The History of an Idea, London: Allen Lane.

McKinnon Wood, Hugh (6 June 1935): Letter to Dorothy Evans, XXXVIII, Box R 3886, 3E—Legal— Codification of International Law (1933–1940), Fonds du Secretariat II, League of Nations Archive, United Nations Office at Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.

Meyer, Mary K. (1999): “Negotiating International Norms: The Inter-American Commission of Women and the Convention on Violence against Women,” in Elisabeth Prügl and Mary K. Meyer (eds.): Gender Politics in Global Governance, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Miller, Carol Ann (1992): “Lobbying the League: Women’s International Organizations and the League of Nations,” D. Phil. Thesis, St. Hilda’s College, University of Oxford.

Miller, Carol Ann (1994): “‘Geneva, The Key To Equality’: Inter-War Feminists and the League Of Nations” Women’s History Review 3 (2): 219–245.

Miller, Francesca (1986): “The International Relations of Women of the Americas 1890–1928” The Americas 43 (2): 171–182.

“Organizations represented” (28 January 1947): Organizations represented at Judge Dorothy Kenyon’s Tea, at the Women’s City Club of NY, Folder 12, Box 53, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Pedersen, Susan (2007): “Review Essay: Back to the League of Nations” The American Historical Review 112 (4): 1091–1117, available at http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/112.4/ Pedersen.html, last accessed 13 September 2012.

Petersen, Anne (15 May 1938): “League of Nations World-Wide Study of Women’s Status Hailed,” Folder 6, Box 1, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Pfeffer, Paula (1985): “‘A Whisper in the Assembly of Nations’: United States Participation in the International Movement for Women’s Rights from the League of Nations to the United Nations” Women’s Studies International Forum 8 (5): 495–471.

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Pickard, Bertram (1936): “The Greater League of Nations: A brief survey of the nature and development of unofficial international organisations” Contemporary Review 150: 460–465.

“Profane Profiles” (November 1940): “Profane Profiles…. Dorothy Kenyon,” Folder 8, Box 1, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Rietzler, Katharina (2011): “Experts for Peace: Structures and Motivations of Philanthropic Internationalism in the Interwar Years,” in Daniel Laqua (ed.): Internationalism Reconfigured: Transnational Ideas and Movements Between the World Wars, London: I.B. Tauris.

Rodgers, Gerry, Lee Swepston, Eddy Lee and Jasmien van Daele (2009): The ILO and the Quest for Social Justice, Geneva: ILO. Rodríguez-Piñero, Luis (2006): Indigenous Peoples, Postcolonialism, and International Law: The ILO Regime (1919–1989), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rupp, Leila J. (1997): Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Sandell, Marie (2011): “Regional versus International: Women’s Activism and Organisational Spaces in the Inter-war Period” The International History Review 33 (4): 607–625.

Schoeni, Céline and Nora Natchkova (2011): “L’Organisation internationale du travail, les féministes et les réseaux d’expertes. Les enjeux d’une politique protectrice (1919–1934),” in Isabelle LespinetMoret and Vincent Viet (eds.): L’Organisation internationale du travail—Origine, Développement, Avenir, Rennes : Presses universitaires de Rennes.

Schöpp-Schilling, Hanna Beate and Cees Flinterman (eds.) (2007): The Circle of Empowerment: Twenty-Five Years of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, New York: The Feminist Press at the CUNY. Sluga, Glenda (2005): “Gender,” in Patrick Finney (ed.): Palgrave Advances in International History, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Smith College Spectator (February 1946): “Smith Woman at Work: Judge Kenyon,” Folder 14, Box 1, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Stienstra, Deborah (1994): Women’s Movements and International Organizations, Hampshire: Macmillan.

Tournès, Ludovic (2012): “La philanthropie américaine, la Société des Nations et la coproduction d’un ordre international (1919–1946)” Revue Relations Internationales 151: 25–36.

Tribune (20 January 1938): “Dorothy Kenyon Thrilled Over League Post,” Folder 6, Box 1, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Trigg, Mary (1995):“‘To Work Together for Ends Larger than Self’: The Feminist Struggles of Mary Beard and Doris Stevens in the 1930s” Journal of Women’s History 7 (2): 52–85.

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Unknown (31 December 1940): Letter of unknown, employee at the League of Nations Secretariat, to Dorothy Kenyon, Folder 13, Box 39, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Unknown (31 July 1943): Letter to Malcolm Davis, Folder 13, Box 39, Dorothy Kenyon papers, Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Weigand, Kate and Daniel Horowitz (2002): “Dialogue. Dorothy Kenyon: Feminist Organizing 1919– 1963” Journal of Women’s History 14 (2): 126–131.

Weiss, Thomas, Tatiana Carayannis and Richard Jolly (2009): “The ‘Third’ United Nations” Global Governance 15: 123–142.

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Wikander, Ulla (2010): “Demands on the ILO by Internationally Organized Women in 1919,” in Jasmien van Daele, Magaly Rodríguez García, Geert Van Goethem, and Marcel van der Linden (eds): ILO Histories: Essays on the International Labour Organization and Its Impact on the World During the Twentieth Century, Bern: Peter Lang.

Getting Ready to Negotiate in International Organizations? On the Importance of the Domestic Construction of National Positions

by Diana Panke, University of Freiburg The rise of globalization in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries went hand in hand with an increase in state cooperation with international organizations (IOs). This paper sheds light on the capacity requirements of states to participate actively and effectively in multilateral negotiations across a broad range of policy areas. By drawing on more than one hundred interviews, it explores the procedures and capacities states employ to develop national positions and to do so quickly for a broad range of issues on the international agenda. Findings show significant variation between states, as some formulate national positions for each item on the negotiation table swiftly, while others have to be very selective and, consequently, often lack national positions completely. This paper analyzes the effects of this variation on the active and the effective participation of states in IO negotiations.

Introduction: Globalization and the Rise of Interstate Cooperation in IOs Globalization is by no means a new phenomenon, as cross-border interactions have created complex economic, societal, and political interdependencies over centuries (Baylis, Smith, and Owens, 2011; Keohane, 1984, 1989). Yet, in the last one hundred years, technological changes in transportation and communication have intensified cross-border interactions and interdependencies (Keohane, 2001; Krasner, 1991). Accordingly, the number of regimes and international organizations (IOs) multiplied after World War II compared with earlier decades. Today, states cooperate across a wide range of policy areas in more than 7,000 intergovernmental IOs and regimes (Union of International Associations, 2005/2006: 2966).

Students of international relations have focused extensively on the emergence of cooperation (e.g., Adler, 1992; Axelrod, 1984; Axelrod and Keohane, 1986; Keohane, 1984; Oye, 1986) as well as on the dynamics and outcomes of cooperation (Berton, Kimura, and Zartman, 1999; Drahos, 2003; Fearon, 1998; Martin, 1992; Plantey, 2007; Zartman and Rubin, 2009). At the same time, it is often overlooked that active participation in the increasing number of IOs and regimes is capacity-intensive for the states concerned, since they need a well-staffed and functioning domestic apparatus to formulate national interests and a well-staffed and well-functioning diplomatic corps to act on behalf of these national positions. Also, the very fact that some states might grapple with capacity shortages more strongly than others is not usually stressed in the research.1 Thus, this article sheds light not only on the capacities necessary for the participation of states in negotiations beyond the nation-state but also explores the effects of capacity shortages on the prospects of states to actively and effectively engage in international cooperation. Successful negotiations depend on many additional variables, including the distribution of positions among the states, the ability to use a broad array of different negotiation strategies, the ability to enter coalitions or use group membership 1. Some studies focusing on the foreign policy of individual small states observe that these countries often opt for selective engagement in international relations (e.g., Hey, 2003; Goetschel, 1998; Ingebritsen, Neumann, Gstoehl, and Beyer, 2006).

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as leverage, as well as incentives to become active (on the state level this includes active civil societies or the general importance placed on UN and international affairs and on the individual level it includes, for example, the personality of diplomats). This article does not seek to explain negotiation success per se, but analyzes the effect of domestic coordination on the prospects for active and effective participation in international negotiations under ceteris paribus conditions.

In negotiations beyond the nation-state it is essential for the diplomat at the negotiation table to know what the national position is in order to make the voice of one’s country heard.

Based on more than one hundred interviews with diplomats from UN member states,2 this article begins by exploring the procedures and capacities of states to develop national positions and to do so quickly for a broad range of issues on the international agenda. The findings show there are considerable variations among states. Some swiftly formulate national positions for each item on the negotiation table of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), while others are very selective and, consequently, often lack national positions completely. Most strikingly, states with limited financial means, staff shortages in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), and bottlenecks of administrative capacities back home, as well as slim diplomatic missions on the ground, such as Kiribati or the Central African Republic, are in the worst position to quickly develop national positions on a wide range of items on the multilateral agenda. By contrast, states such as the U.S., Japan, or Germany, are well equipped to formulate national positions on each and every draft since the MFAs and missions are not only well-staffed but also have very effective working-routines in place.

In a second step, the paper analyzes the effects of variation in capacity among 193 sovereign states on their ability to participate actively and effectively in multilateral negotiations. In doing so, it clarifies a set of expectations on how different types of capacities influence the behavior of states in negotiations within IOs and regimes. These are subsequently put to an empirical plausibility probe by combining interview insights with regression analysis. The major findings are that states are more active the better their country’s capital is at swiftly formulating national positions on a broad range of issues. By contrast, states with limited financial means, limited staff in ministries, and ineffective government apparatuses are absent most often from multilateral negotiations—although they are formally members. Moreover, active and effective participation are linked. Not being present to make one’s country’s voice heard hinders the chances of states with difficulties in quickly formulating national positions across a broad range of items to shape the content of international norms.

Domestic Preference-Formation Official national positions are essential for international negotiations. If a delegate does not know what position her state holds, she cannot actively voice her country’s national interest in negotiations beyond the nation-state. Accordingly, various diplomats reported that due to a lack of national positions “some colleagues come along and they may sit there and not have much to say” (interview UNmission#10, 15-11-10, similarly UNmission#36, 07-03-11, UNmission#48, 09-03-11).

As second-image approaches of international relations point out, national positions are not just out there but rather they need to be constructed in the domestic realm (Moravcsik, 1997; Panke and Risse, 2006; Putnam, 1988). Formally, the MFA is the institution usually responsible for the domestic formulation of national positions.3 However, there is considerable variation in the actual practices according to which states de facto develop national positions 2. The UN is selected because it is the IO with the most encompassing membership, entailing states with a broad range of capacity differences. Moreover, it covers a wide range of policy areas (disarmament and international security, economic, development and financial issues, social, cultural and humanitarian matters, special political issues, decolonization, administrative, budgetary and legal issues).

3. If issues are very important, the head of government usually has the final say over national interests. In instances where issues are less salient, the MFA may also coordinate with relevant line ministries in developing the national position.

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and according to which they adapt4 them to changing negotiation dynamics. Interviews conducted between 2010 and 2012 with more than one hundred diplomats from large and small countries from all geographical areas of the world reveal there are basically two ideal models for how national positions are constructed: In capital-based coordination systems, it is the MFA who develops national positions (dark arrows, Figure 1) and in mission-based coordination systems it is the diplomats dealing with the negotiation in question who—in effect—formulate a major share of national positions (light arrows, Figure 1).

Figure 1: Two Ideal Types of Coordination Systems

Capital-Based Coordination Systems In capital-based coordination systems, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) is the central actor. It is not only formally responsible for discerning and formulating national positions, which usually encompasses ascertaining major aims, red lines, speaking points, and often includes indications about the diplomat’s leeway on the issue concerned. The MFA also exercises its competencies concerning the writing and adaptation of instructions in practice.

This does not, however, render the diplomatic missions on the ground passive. The diplomats can and do provide input on the issue at hand, on related and past negotiations, on the distribution of preferences among other states, and they sometimes make proposals for the formulation of the initial national position or its update during the course of negotiations to the MFA (black curved arrow in Figure 1).5 However, in the end it is the MFA in the capital and not the diplomats on the ground that takes the decision over the content of the national 4. Changes in national positions may become necessary when negotiations take an unexpected turn and the agenda items discussed in an IO at a given point are not covered by an initial position anymore.

5. E.g., “We don’t formulate any policy in the mission at all although we advise back to [the capital, insertion by the author] on what we think is a sensible course of action. And the timing, I mean there’s on-going research on their level, you’d have to ask them how they formulate, but on our side it’s very quick. We receive a resolution in draft form, go through it ourselves and highlight the areas we think look good and send it back to [the capital, insertion by the author] with our advice. We have a turnaround of 24 hours, a maximum a week to get their input on it” (interview UNmission#71, 22-03-11). Also, “In cases where they [the colleagues in the capital, insertion by the author] do not have the capacity, they rely on the input from the New York missions, recommendations are put to them from the UN missions. And then they act on that. They might have some ideas, but for better background and context, they rely on input from the missions” (interview UNmission#61, 11-03-11). In capital-based systems, missions are in contact with their respective MFAs during negotiations, reporting on negotiation dynamics and—possibly also asking for updated instructions: “Usually it’s a long standing negotiation, the technical delegates in time become colleagues and contacts and they are doing a lot of scientific and technical exchanges.

If one of them can convince that their policy position is based on correct science or needs to be changed, they feed that into the government situation” (UNmission#25, 03-12-10).

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position: “The final decision is going to be MFA. We have input in providing advice, proper policy that we need to take. It is not necessary that the ministry takes the position we propose to them” (interview UNmission#68, 18-03-11). 6 Only once the diplomats in the missions in New York receive their instruction from the MFA or get authorization to go ahead with a proposal7 can they officially speak up for their country in international negotiations (black arrow, Figure 1). Otherwise, the diplomats on the ground do not actively participate: “The MFA sends instructions to New York. We cannot do anything without instructions” (interview UNmission#57, 11-03-11, similarly UNmission#36, 07-03-11).8 Mission-Based Coordination Systems Similar to capital-based systems, in mission-based coordination systems the MFAs or governments are also officially responsible for the formulation of national interests. In practice however, the missions on the ground have much greater influence over national positions. In mission-based coordination systems, the MFAs concentrate de facto only on selected issues of high political importance (e.g., interviews UNmission#14, 24-11-10, UNmission#24, 02-12-10, UNmission#160, 15-03-12).9 Resulting from this prioritization, the MFAs do not deliver national positions for many of the items on the negotiation agenda in the IO or regime, which creates a window of opportunity for the diplomatic missions on the ground (yellow arrows, figure 1). In instances where the capital remains inactive, the delegations can in effect decide to stay silent or they can decide on the content of the national position and act accordingly in multilateral negotiations (interviews UNmission#13, 23-11-10, UNmission#14, 24-11-10, UNmission#31, 16-12-10, UNmission#65, 14-03-11, UNmission#2, 03-06-10, UNmission#10, 15-11-10, UNmission#11, 16-11-10).10 The diplomats in the mission might notify the MFA in the capital of which stance they are taking, but unlike capital-based systems the missions are usually not obliged to ask for clearance prior to their engagement in multilateral negotiations.11 6. Other diplomats explained, “Of course the instructions will be at the end of the day formulated way back in [the capital, insertion by the author] by the MFA, but they are very much based on the recommendations of the delegation in New York and of the ambassador in question, the input from there” (interview UNmission#102, 27-06-11). Also, “The MFA plays a key role, decisions are always coming from the MFA. There is widespread coordination, though MFA makes the final decisions. Sometimes there are some highly political decisions, you will find that those decisions emitting from the office of the Prime Minister” (interview UNmission#79, 31-03-11).

7. Some countries rely on rules of silent-procedures: “As a general rule it will always be the MFA in [the capital, insertion author] that gives the instructions to New York. They ask for instruction, and we give it. But depending also on who is in charge of the case, you know this person might have been there for years and might actually know this area better than the person in [the capital, insertion by the author]. And then the person in New York will write an email saying that the Permanent Mission will do so and so . . . and if we don’t hear from you this is what we are going to do. In some cases they would say they suggest to do so and so, but ask for specific instruction, and we would write back the instruction. Especially when it comes to new positions on issues, then the Permanent Missions would very seldom formulate themselves” (interview UNmission#101, 24-06-11).

8. Moreover, if a MFA is slow in formulating a national position, instructions arrive in the mission only after the negotiations have already started, as a consequence of which delegations face a situation where their hands are tied for some time and in which they can only participate actively with a delay (interviews UNmission#91, 01-04-11, UNmission#107, 20-07-11).

9. “Sometimes when minor question or the substance is very important we receive instruction but it’s not always the case because we ambassadors, we know our instructions in general so we know what to do. But in some special cases, yes we have precise instructions” (interview UNmission#13, 23-11-10).

10. E.g., “There’re no instructions from your capital. You just do what you think you have to do. You have your general instructions and you know what your position is and you do it. You check with your ambassador and your ambassador checks with his officers and basically it’s decided in New York what to do in each case” (interview UNmission#26, 04-12-10). Similarly, “an ambassador will have instructions on many subjects and will be able to make his own decisions on tactics or details within set lines, but the autonomy of ambassadors of the south is much greater” (UNmission#23, 02-12-10). Moreover, “The U.S. would get very detailed instructions, pretty much like a script, where if somebody responds this, you say that, somebody does this, you do that. We don’t have those detailed instructions. We have more leeway in the sense that we have main objectives that we are told to do, and we must move within those objectives (..)There is quite a degree of flexibility compared to bigger missions, yes” (UNmission#66, 16-03-11). “I think if there are no instructions found then at least as a representative of your country you will not go wrong if you align yourself with a certain group” (UNmission#154, 26-01-12).

11. E.g., “There’re delegates who put their hand up and they’re speaking because they just had a bright idea at the moment and they had no instructions except for do what you think is best” (interview UNmission#25, 03-12-10). The same holds true for the adaptation of positions during the course of negotiations should debates develop in unexpected directions and focus on items that are not covered at all by the national positions. Unlike in the capital-based systems, the missions in New York do not have tied hands if the capital does not do its share of the coordination work but can step in and develop and adjust positions by themselves (e.g., interviews UNmission#6, 21-10-10, UNmission#10, 15-11-10, UNmission#44, 08-03-11, UNmission#106, 19-07-11).

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The Empirical Pattern and its Explanation Empirically, practices for developing coordination on negotiation positions differ widely and can be placed on a continuum between the capital-based and the mission-based formulation of national positions. At one extreme, most of the bigger, better-resourced countries have capital-based coordination systems. Examples include the United States of America (US), Germany (DE), France (FR), the United Kingdom (UK), Japan (JP), Canada (CA), China (CN), South Africa (ZY), India (IN), and Brazil (BR).1 These countries have very active MFAs which usually develop national positions swiftly for a broad range of issues on the basis of which diplomats on location can actively participate in negotiations.2 In these systems, diplomats do not make their country’s voice heard in multilateral negotiations without having obtained clearance to do so from the capital.

At the other extreme of the continuum countries, such as Kiribati (KI), Ecuador (EC), Bangladesh (BD), Albania (AL), Guatemala (GT), Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LA), Yemen (YE), Seychelles (SC), Malawi (MW), Mozambique (MZ), Indonesia (ID), Jamaica (JM), Trinidad and Tobago (TT), the Philippines (PH), El Salvador (SV), Tuvalu (TV), the Republic of Timor-Leste (TL), and Uganda (UG), and many of the smaller, less- developed countries strongly resemble mission-based systems.3 In these countries, the MFA (or the foreign affairs branch of the government) is not very active and develops national positions only in regard to a very selective range of usually new agenda items. Without receiving instructions, ambassadors and diplomats have de facto freedom to act on their own (or to follow alliance partners or follow the country’s stance in related issues). Nevertheless, they are not active in all negotiations because the missions themselves face constraints on capacity (interviews UNmission#2, 03-06-10, UNmission#7, 22-10-10).

In-between countries such as Denmark (DK), New Zealand (NZ), Norway (NO), Finland (FI), Belgium (BE), Singapore (SG), Croatia (HR), Ireland (IE), Poland (PL), the Netherlands (NL), and Italy (IT), are much closer to the capital-based ideal type of coordination than to the mission-based ideal-type.4 In these states, the MFA is relatively active but does not usually cover all the items on the agenda of an IO or regime. In the rather rare instances in which instructions are missing, ambassadors and diplomats have the leeway to act without instructions from their capitals but only within limited margins based on general policy guidelines and often on the basis of clearance requests that work as silent procedures or in exceptional instances (e.g., issues of very low priority). In these systems, not only the 1. Interviews UNmission#71, 22-03-11, UNmission#75, 25-03-11, UNmission#7, 22-10-10, UNmission#3, 08-09-10, UNmission#59, 1103-11, UNmission#37, 07-03-11, UNmission#39, 07-03-11, UNmission#45, 08-03-11, UNmission#46, 08-03-11, UNmission#50, 09-03-11, UNmission#127, 29-11-11, UNmission#140, 01-12-11, UNmission#142, 01-12-11, UNmission#151, 08-12-11, UNmission#154, 26-01-12 2. E.g., “We certainly have a lot of back and forth with the Ministry, usually we keep them apprised of all resolutions when they do come in and then we work along that prioritization system and decide we are going to engage on a resolution that has come out. Then we go to those informal meeting usually from instructions that have come to us from capital. And the ministry has gone and carried out its consultations with divisions within the ministry, as well as with other ministries, should that be necessary. So, we have quite a bit of support I would say from headquarters” (UNmission#3, 08-09-10).

3. E.g., interviews UNmission#6, 21-10-10, UNmission#25, 03-12-10 UNmission#119, 23-0911, UNmission#145, 02-12-11, UNmission#37, 07-03-11, UNmission#154, 26-01-12, UNmission#32, 16-12-10, UNmission#33, 21-12-10, UNmission#44, 08-03-11, UNmission#69, 22-03-11, UNmission#68 18-03-11, UNmission#96, 12-04-11, UNmission#117, 06-09-11, UNmission#120, 29-09-11, UNmission#121, 14-10-11, UNmission#125, 28-11-11, UNmission#160, 15-03-12, UNmission#164, 19-03-12, UNmission#165, 1903-12. “Especially among the small countries from Africa, it’s difficult to expect they get their instructions from the capitals” (interview UNmission#50, 09-03-11). “Yes in case the people back home do not adequately or on time when you normally align yourself with positions of the region. Like if instructions are not clear it’s safe to say well then we are going to take an alignment with for instance East African communities. So if we wouldn’t get any instructions then it’s safe to say “OK we’ll align ourselves with that position,” and if by the end of the negotiations we still haven’t received any instructions then we just go by that” (interview UNmission#154, 26-01-12).

4. E.g., interviews UNmission#9, 04-11-10, UNmission#10, 15-11-10, UNmission#25, 03-12-10, UNmission#58, 11-03-11, UNmission#29, 10-12-10, UNmission#38,07-03-11, UNmission#48, 09-03-11, UNmission#50, 09-03-11, UNmission#51, 09-03-11, UNmission#67, 17-03-11, UNmission#94, 06-04-11, UNmission#101, 24-06-11, UNmission#102, 27-06-11, UNmission#104, 14-07-11, UNmission#106, 19-07-11.

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MFA but also the missions are relatively active and seek to systematically provide detailed recommendations on possible positions to the capital (interviews UNmission#5, 05-10-10). 12 Finally, Argentina (AR), Andorra (AD), Iceland (IS), Micronesia (FMS), Malta (MT), Cyprus (CY), Georgia (GE), Luxembourg (LU), Portugal (PT), Mexico (MX), Chile (CL), and Peru (PE) are also systems with mixed practices, which are however more closely located at the mission-based rather than the capital side of the continuum.13 The diplomats on the ground act on their own only if an issue is relatively important but the capital did not send instructions as such (e.g., concerning items that have been reoccurring on the negotiation agenda over the years).

Figure 2: How States Develop Negotiation Positions: The Empirical Pattern

As Figure 2 illustrates, states differ in how they formulate national positions for multilateral negotiations. The further a country is located on the left side of Figure 2, the more active MFAs are in developing specific instructions (ideal and fallback positions, red lines, expertise and arguments related to the specific item on the international agenda). At the same time, MFAs cover a decreasing number of items on the international negotiation agenda, which are often also more general in character (outlining the broad stance of the government on the policy area as such), the further we move to the right of the spectrum. The further a state is located on the right side of the continuum, the more limited the number of instructions arriving from the capital in time for the beginning of multilateral negotiations or at all. Thus, the activities of the diplomatic missions change with regard to the domestic preference-formation process to some extent as well. Toward the left side of the continuum, diplomats tend to mainly provide information on the distribution of preferences among other states and on other insights they obtained on location and possibly make proposals for national positions and updates to 12. “Of course the instructions will be at the end of the day formulated way back in [country made anonymous by the author] by the MFA, but they are very much based on the recommendations of the delegation in New York and of the ambassador in question, the input from there” (interview UNmission#102, 27-06-11). E.g., “Before each General Assembly, the Mission in collaboration with the Ministry, works out what we call an ‘instruction for the [country made anonymous by the author] delegation for the 65th General Assembly.’ And that is a 50–60 pages document that deals with all the issues in the UN that [country name made anonymous by the author] feels are important.

That is everything from development to human right, to reform of the Security Council, institutional issues, reform issues—all those kind of things. That instruction is our bible, that spells out [country name made anonymous by the author] position on all political issues for the 65th General Assembly. That is what we have in our back pocket, so we can always refer to that. But of course when we go into negotiations, if things get increasingly complicated or they take a turn that was not expected or there is an EU split, then we would have to refer back to capital to get their go-ahead. Those communications with capital are often, what you would call, “self-instructions,” where we, let’s say it was me, consult my ambassador to get a feel of what our position should be and then him and me, or just me, would write back to capital saying that, unless the ministry objects, then it is the intention of the mission to do A, B, or C. That is often because, when you are on the ground in the actual negotiations, you often find that you are more an expert than your colleague is back in capital and they have difficulties in giving you instructions, because they do not have the overall picture. Therefore, we lay out a line, that the Mission and [country name made anonymous by the author] would follow, and unless we get objections from capital, that is what we do” (interview UNmission#5, 05-10-10).

13. E.g., interviews UNmission#1, 23-03-10, UNmission#4, 28-09-10, UNmission#24, 02-12-10, UNmission#26, 04-12-10, UNmission#27, 06-12-10, UNmission#30 13-12-10, UNmission#31, 16-12-10, UNmission#35, 07-03-11, UNmission#113, 29-07-11, UNmission#118, 23-09-11, UNmission#128, 29-11-11, UNmission#129, 29-11-11.

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them to the MFAs. By contrast, the diplomats toward the right side of the continuum tend to act more autonomously in the negotiations themselves. The further we move to the left side of the figure, diplomats on the ground have increasing leeway in terms of which position (if any) they may pursue in negotiations in the absence of concrete instructions from the capital due to the lower number of national positions developed by the MFAs. Why do states differ in their practices of how to develop negotiation positions, despite the fact that formally it is the capital that should formulate national interests? Interviews repeatedly point to capacities. If a state has less financial resources, then fewer staff working in the MFAs result in a less-effective government apparatus. Therefore, the state is unable to cover all the items on the international agenda at once and the capital needs to be more selective.

States with limited budgets14 tend to grapple with shortcomings in experts in the ministries and tend to not buy additional legal or technical knowledge, if lacking, for a specific item in the ministry itself.15 As a consequence, in mission-based systems the capitals formulate negotiation positions for a more limited number of issues than the MFAs in capital-based systems (interviews UNmission#7, 22-10-10, UNmission#14, 24-11-10, UNmission#48, 09-03-11).16 Moreover, states with inefficient government apparatuses are slower in producing policy guidelines and can—with only a given number of staff—only cover a more limited number of items than comparable states with higher levels of government effectiveness.17 Inefficient ministries reduce the speed and scope of states for developing stances in regard to items on the multilateral negotiation agenda of an IO or regime (interviews UNmission#25, 03-12-10, UNmission#27, 06-12-10, UNmission#37, 07-03-11, UNmission#59,11-03-11, UNmission#67, 17-03-11).18 Because of bottlenecks in government capacity, MFAs need to engage in prioritization and develop national negotiation positions only for a limited number of priority issues. By contrast, states with capital-based coordination systems tend to have more capacities in government and since the government apparatus works more efficiently, 14. This paper uses a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) as proxy for budgets. Among the UN member states, the average GDP is 214.56 billion USD, which is distributed with great disparity among the states. The five countries with the biggest GDPs are the US (11,533.23 billion USD), Japan (4,409.088 billion USD), Germany (2,580.661 billion USD), China (2,151.853 billion USD), and the UK (2,030.029 billion USD), while the five smallest ones are Tuvalu (0.021 billion USD), Nauru (0.022 billion USD), Kiribati (0.058 billion USD), Sao Tome and Principe (0.109 billion USD), and the Marshall Islands (0.130 billion USD). The data on GDP (in current USD) between 1999 and 2008 stems from http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/downloads/Download-GDPcurrent-USD-countries.xls (accessed in January 2011). There is no large-N data available for staff in MFAs in the countries but available only on the staff in national missions in New York (see footnote 26). As expected, the budget and the staff a state can afford to place in diplomatic missions are highly correlated (0.7893).

15. Asked whether the MFA has enough experts, an official from a country with a mission-based system replied, “I would say no. In our case, there is only one person back home working on our issues, not even full time” (interview UNmission#66, 16-03-11). Similarly, “I mean one of these foreign ministries are half a dozen people. And, if you deploy some of your staff not just for UN meetings but for other environmental meetings around the world, then you’re actually depleting the environment section which might be two people” (interview UNmission#25, 03-12-10, also interviews UNmission#77, 28-03-11, UNmission#107, 20-07-11, UNmission#37, 07-03-11, UNmission#59, 11-03-11, UNmission#71, 22-03-11, UNmission#75, 25-03-11, UNmission#3, 08-09-10, UNmission#96, 12-04-11).

16. In line with this, a diplomat from a capital-based coordination state reported that the MFA is well-staffed and usually formulates national positions swiftly: “We tend to have a pretty good relationship with colleagues in [the capital, insertion author]. If you follow a specific resolution for a number of years you get to know the colleagues you’re dealing with (..) it’s pretty easy to get them to respond, sometimes there are delays but if you call them up and talk to them that’s the best way to get instructions” (interview UNmission#71, 22-03-11). A member of a mission-based system reported, “Some try to specialize here and there. So we did have capacity constraints in terms of people but we tried to work on that to try and cover the most important things that we want and that’s what you call prioritization” (UNmission#3, 08-09-10).

17. Government effectiveness is an indicator covering perceptions about the quality of public and civil services, the quality of policy formulation and implementation and the credibility of the government to provide high quality services and policies. Data for the variable ranges from -2.5 (lowest) to +2.5 (highest), covers the period from 1998–2009 and stem from (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi, 2009) (http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/mc_countries.asp latest access August 2010). For example, Canada has a government effectiveness score of +1,77, Germany of +1.49 and the UK of +1.48, the US +1.39, while others have considerable lower scores, such as Timor-Leste (-1.13), Yemen (-1.12), or Lao People’s Democratic Republic (-1.03).

18. “I think for most missions, except those with highest numbers of staff and extremely efficient MFA, for most missions there is usually a delay [in the development of national positions, insertion by author]” (interview UNmission#96, 12-04-11). Another official stated, “Obviously, if the government is ineffective, they’re really not going to care about some little resolution that in the UN and taking a position on it, quite frankly” (interview UNmission#7, 22-10-10).

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the MFAs are in a better position to formulate instructions for a broader range of items on the international negotiation agenda.19 Unfortunately, states with limited budgets and ill-equipped MFAs tend to lack the financial means to maintain big diplomatic missions on the ground as well.20 As a consequence, the diplomats in mission-based systems are not adequately staffed to systematically compensate for the deficiencies in the capital by formulating national positions for all the items that the MFAs did not cover (e.g., interviews UNmission#10, 15-11-10, UNmission#23, 02-12-10).21 In sum, states are increasingly likely to have capital-based coordination practices in place the bigger their budgets are and, linked to this, the more staff they can employ in MFAs. In addition, states are more likely to have capital-based practices in place the more efficiently the government apparatus works in the development of policies. By contrast, smaller states with limited budgets and slim ministries that are also grappling with low levels of government effectiveness are increasingly likely to resemble mission-based coordination systems. Thus, Kiribati (KI), Ecuador (EC), Bangladesh (BD), Albania (AL), Guatemala (GT), Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LA), Yemen (YE), Seychelles (SC), Malawi (MW), Mozambique (MZ), Indonesia (ID), Jamaica (JM), Trinidad and Tobago (TT), the Philippines (PH), El Salvador (SV), Tuvalu (TV), the Republic of Timor-Leste (TL), and Uganda (UG) all have mission-based coordination practices in place, while the de facto role that the MFA plays in the formulation of national positions is much stronger in the United States of America (US), Germany (DE), France (FR), the United Kingdom (UK), Japan (JP), Canada (CA), China (CN), South Africa (ZY), India (IN), and Brazil (BR), which operate on the basis of capitalbased coordination practices.

Comparing Mission- and Capital-Based Coordination System In capital-based systems, MFAs develop national positions usually for the bulk or even all the agenda points and pass them on to the respective diplomats in the form of instructions. The diplomats then take them to the negotiation table in IOs or regimes. The negotiation positions usually define ideal points and red lines, which specify and restrict the leeway of a diplomat regarding the issue at stake in a multilateral negotiation. Also, instructions often include technical, legal, or other reasons for certain positions, which the diplomats can draw on to effectively make their country’s voice heard in negotiations (interviews UNmission#92, 01-04-11, UNmission#106, 19-07-11, UNmission#132, 30-1111).22 In states that resemble mission-based systems on the other hand, MFAs cover only a very limited number of items and do not develop national negotiation positions for the whole range or even the majority of items on the international negotiation agenda. Thus, the diplomats on the ground, who are usually generalists and not experts—especially in small missions—face considerably more situations where they lack the background information and technical or 19. Diplomats from states with capital-based systems also emphasize that without a national position their country is unable to actively participate in multilateral negotiations (e.g., interview UNmission#57, 11-03-11). Diplomats from mission-based systems stress that nondelivery of instructions by the MFA is not conducive to their country’s activity level (e.g., interview UNmission#44, 08-03-44).

20. On average, a diplomatic mission in New York has 12.44 staff members. The USA (126), Russia (88), China (72) and Germany (63) have the biggest missions, while Kiribati has no delegates in New York at all. Others such as Somalia, Central African Republic, GuineaBissau, or Nauru have just one staff member. Data on the number of diplomats stems from the UN bluebook (Executive Office of the Secretary-General, 2010).

21. E.g., “Exactly but there are some topics, even a country like ours does not have anyone dealing with at some. (. .) You must say this is not a priority, we have seven diplomats, we have seven agencies, ministers back home, we are really not interested in something that does not affect us as a country or as a region or on an ideological level like human rights or something. It doesn’t affect us at all so we have no standpoint at all” (interview UNmission#134, 30-11-11).

22. E.g., “The U.S. would get very detailed instructions, pretty much like a script, where if somebody responds this, you say that, somebody does this, you do that. We don’t have those detailed instructions. We have more leeway in the sense that we have main objectives that we are told to do, and we must move within those objectives (..)There is quite a degree of flexibility compared to bigger missions” (interview UNmission#66, 16-03-11); “the big countries have always more detailed (..) instructions” (interview UNmission#15, 24-11-10).

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legal expertise.23 This in turn is likely to hinder their ability to exert influence via persuasion in multilateral negotiation settings.24 In case the negotiation dynamics render old instructions obsolete, a diplomat needs to request adaptations of positions (or perhaps even completely new ones) from the MFA in capital-based coordination systems. This can be time-consuming and it can reduce the ability of a diplomat to actively engage in ongoing multilateral negotiations for a certain period of time. By contrast, in mission-based systems, diplomats can be considerably more flexible and spontaneous in multilateral negotiations: “It also happens that some delegations are very active in New York because they don’t have instructions, I believe. So they have a very, a great latitude to decide which position they are going to take because of the structure back home being so deficient, people here in New York basically can tell what they’re going to do” (interview UNmission#142, 01-12-11).25 Greater leeway can be an advantage for diplomats, as they will not find themselves in situations in which they have to remain silent and unable to promote their country’s position in negotiations until the position update or clearance from the MFA back home arrives.

However, there is a downside as well. Since the MFAs do not often develop national positions at all in mission-based coordination systems, the workload de facto shifts to the diplomatic missions on the ground. While this gives individual diplomats flexibility, it also puts considerable requirements on their capacities, especially if the workload in the IO or regime is high, as many items are negotiated in parallel (as it is usually the case in IOs). In order to formulate national positions themselves, the missions need to have the necessary financial resources and staff to cover all the items on the international negotiation agenda, as well as technical and legal expertise. Thus, effective participation in negotiations of diplomats from mission-based systems requires not only enough staff to physically attend the negotiations.

Also important are financial means and administrative support to accumulate knowledge on the subject-matter and the legal norms involved, as well as insights about the potential costs and benefits of different substantive takes on an issue (interviews UNmission#51, 09-03-11, UNmission#59, 11-03-11). Yet states with MFAs that do not cover a broad range of agenda items tend to be very selective in the first place, because they lack the capacity to develop national positions for all the issues at stake in an IO or regime. If financial means as well as staff and administrative capacities are in short supply back home, then it is very likely that the missions abroad are also grappling with limited staff, financial, and administrative capacities: “There’s a lack of resources on the New York end and (..) chances are if they’re poorly resourced in New York, then they’re often poorly resourced in the capital. It’s a kind of vicious cycle of under-resourcedness” (interview UNmission#10, 15-11-10, also UNmission#25, 0323. E.g., “And for us we are just generalists, we are not specialists. I mean, as a diplomat you were a generalist per se.

But then if you are facing that negotiating team with all these experts you are baffled, often you are baffled and you are often intimidated. Intimidated because you don’t have the same knowledge that they have and therefore you are in a much weaker position. A much weaker position, no doubt” (interview UNmission#154, 26-01-12). “The other issue would be clearly, in negotiations, and this is true for a lot of countries frankly, we don’t necessarily have positions on every issue. On some of them we honestly don’t care either way and we can let it go. Maybe a lot of countries are like that. So if you had to participate in negotiations, you’ve got that problem. Because of resource constraints we generally would not be real experts, and you know, if you’re covering disarmaments, you have to really know the subjects. And I’d say that most small states, have generalists, not specialists, so they go into committees or particular negotiations on a resolution knowing broadly what their position is on the issue, but when it comes down to debating a particular point, you would probably be a bit lacking there” (interview UNmission#7, 22-10-10). “In small countries you’d have many good qualified generalists and a few highly qualified specialists” (interview UNmission#14, 24-11-10). “The bigger your mission, the more specialized your people are” (interview UNmission#26, 04-12-10).

24. Officials from mission-based systems also report that even the limited number of instructions coming from the capital is not always well backed up by profound expertise, which reduces the effectiveness of the diplomats’ arguments in negotiations (e.g., interview UNmission#165, 19-03-12).

25. “South Africa for example, you know that they [the diplomats in the missions, insertion by the author] will always have to go back [to the MFA in the capital to obtain updated instructions, insertion by the author] because they have a very organized structure. But there are some countries, especially if the issue is not so important, they can decide on their own” (interview UNmission#7, 22-10-10).

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12-10).26 Thus, although in mission-based coordination systems diplomats on-location would often have great leeway in their choice of which position to pursue, they tend to lack the resources to systematically compensate for capacity shortcomings back home, because they cannot develop positions for all the agenda items and have to be very selective.27 Compared to mission-based systems, the MFAs in capital-based systems tend to be better equipped with staff and financial and administrative capacities. They are also considerably more active and formulate national positions for a much broader range of agenda items (interviews UNmission#37, 07-03-11, UNmission#59, 11-03-11, UNmission#71, 22-03-11, UNmission#75, 25-03-11, UNmission#3, 08-09-10, UNmission#96, 12-04-11, UNmission#107, 20-07-11). In addition, the missions of these states tend to grapple less often and less severely with capacity shortcomings than the embassies of mission-based coordination systems (interviews UNmission#37, 07-03-11, UNmission#26, 04-12-10, UNmission#15, 24-11-10). Thus, the diplomats on the ground are in a better position to provide additional information to the MFAs in the capitals, which improves the development of national positions back home even further (interviews UNmission#105, 19-07-11, UNmission#29, 10-12-10).

While mission-based systems face a vicious cycle of lacking capacities in the capitals and the missions, capital-based systems are better off capacity-wise and tend to have mutually positively reinforcing missions and MFAs. As a result, states with capital-based coordination systems can be expected to engage more actively over a broad range of different items on the international negotiation agenda.

From Preference-Formation to Active and Effective Participation in IO Negotiations Based on the above discussion, we expect states with capital-based coordination systems to participate more actively in international negotiations, while states with mission-based coordination systems should be absent more often. Likewise, diplomats from capitalbased systems are more likely to be better equipped with good instructions that outline ideal points, fall back options, red lines, and possible technical or legal arguments than their colleagues from mission-based systems. Therefore, we would expect that the former are more influential when it comes to persuading other states and shaping the outcomes of multilateral negotiations.

This section does not seek to comprehensively explain participation and success differences between states in multilateral negotiations but instead follows the x-centered research design and illustrates the difference that the coordination-system makes for the active and effective participation of states.

Active and Effective Participation In the final stage of negotiations, states take decisions, usually by some form of voting. Thus, participation in the final decision-taking stage is the litmus test for states’ active engagement in negotiations, as the incentives to be present and participate in casting a vote to express national interests should be the greatest. In order to analyze whether the domestic coordination practices make a difference for active participation, this section examines the extent that 26. “The number of people in the ministry is small (..) I’ve had this discussion with other small states. You don’t have so many experts in every issue under the international agenda, you can imagine so sometimes you have to discuss these things more in depth but perhaps others will have specialized people in the ministries” (interview UNmission#24, 02-12-10). Similarly, “I think that that’s a resource constraint, and frankly, they have a very very selective range of issues and that is it—they just don’t show-up for the rest” (interview UNmission#7, 22-10-10).

27. E.g., “So you have to prioritize and sometimes and even within that prioritization, critical things get left behind. It doesn’t happen very frequently because when you prioritize you try to take in the most important issues and even after you prioritize you have to look at the quality of how you’re able to cover the issue which is also another problem, something I complain about all the time” (interview UNmission#162, 16-03-12). Similarly, “So we did have capacity constraints in terms of people but we tried to work on that to try and cover the most important things that we want and that’s what you call prioritization” (interview UNmission#2, 03-06-10). Also, “Prioritization helps as well. If you are a small country, we have seven diplomats here, we can’t cover everything but we have neighbors here who have only one member. Marshall Islands for example, they have one person. He can’t cover everything, so he must say ‘priority for my country is climate change or whatever. I don’t care about Sudan or responsibility to protect, I don’t care about anything else. I don’t care about plus 20 development because I can’t cover it and there’s no one at home in my ministry who does.’ If you are the UK or France or Germany, you’re interested in everything and you have 20, 30, 50 diplomats here. Not to mention some which have 400” (interview UNmission#134, 30-11-11).

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financial means (see footnote 20), staff in national missions as a proxy for the staff in MFAs back home (see footnote 26), and government effectiveness (see footnote 23), (which are higher in capital-based and lower in mission-based systems), influence the likelihood of states being present (pressing yes, no, or abstention buttons) or being absent during voting in an IO.28 Since the UN General Assembly (UNGA) is the international institution with the broadest membership in the world, encompassing today a total of 193 states with broad variation in financial means and government effectiveness, it represents a good testing ground. In UNGA, states vote on all the resolutions that prove controversial, while the items in which disagreement was fully resolved are de facto adopted by consensus. The dataset covers all 994 voted resolutions over the period from 1999/2000 to 2009/2010 in which membership was relatively stable.29 The dependent variable is the average absence-rate in voting in General Assembly sessions 54 (1999/2000) to 64 (2009/2010) for the OLS regression analysis (N=192) and the total number of absence counts for all voting instances in this period for the binominal logistic analysis (1=absence; 0=presence). Budgets and staff are highly correlated30 and are tested in separate models to avoid problems with multicolinearity.

Table 1: Regression Analysis—Absenteeism model 1 (OLS)

model 2 (OLS)

model 3 (OLS)

model 4 (binom. logit) -0.000*** (0.000)

Budgets -0.000 -0.003* (in billion USD) (0.001) (0.001) Staff in Mission -0.263** (proxy for staff in MFA) (0.076) Government Effectiveness -7.183*** -6.249*** -0.712*** (1.152) (1.117) (0.011) Constant 11.214*** 14.479 12.090*** -2.085*** (1.118) (1.434) (1.202) (0.011) Observations 190 190 192 184481 Adjusted R² 18.13 22.98 1.62 LL -58673.06 AIC 117352

model 5 (binom. logit)

model 6 (binom. logit) -0.000*** (0.000)

-0.148*** (0.002) -0.744*** (0.010) -1.115*** (0.015) 184481

-1.699*** (0.008) 186465

-55073.84 110154

-61394.74 122793

As expected, Table 1 illustrates that financial capacities, staff capacities, and government effectiveness influence the activity-pattern of states in multilateral negotiations and do so robustly across the models. Altogether, an increase in budgets and staff capacities reduces the absenteeism of countries in UNGA decision taking. In other words, states that are best equipped with these capacities are most likely to participate actively in the crucial voting stage of multilateral negotiations. Likewise, states are increasingly absent from the final stage of multilateral negotiations the less effective their government apparatuses are.

Interviews with diplomats shed light on the underlying causal mechanism for these robust and significant correlations. As expected, the likelihood that an MFA has developed national positions influences the level at which countries participate actively in the voting stage of multilateral negotiations. Diplomats explain that budgets are important and positively affect the participation-rates of countries in multilateral negotiations but they do so indirectly, as financial capacities influence the number of qualified staff in missions and MFAs.31 In 28. This section uses capacities as proxies for the coordination systems, as there is no large-N data available on how each of the UN member states develops its national positions.

29. The data is computed on the basis of the UNGA session reports, available from http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/resguide/gares1.htm (latest access 10-05-2011).

30. The fewer financial capacities are available in a state, the slimmer its diplomatic mission.

31. E.g., interviews UNmission#9, 04-11-10, UNmission#11, 16-11-10, UNmission#47, 09-03-11, UNmission#27, 06-12-10, UNmission#3, 08-09-10, UNmission#14, 24-11-10.

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addition, interviewees report that delegations from countries with big MFAs receive positions for a wide range of items, without delays that prevent the diplomats from casting votes (interviews UNmission#37, 07-03-11, UNmission#59, 11-03-11, UNmission#71, 22-03-11, UNmission#75, 25-03-11, UNmission#3, 08-09-10). By contrast, less well-staffed MFAs are more selective and develop a fewer number of national positions: “The Third Committee has over 60 resolutions; we have an interest in many. We cover as many as we can. We don’t cover as many of them as we would like to, or with as much depth. So we have to be very light footed. We have a small team back in our capital that gives us instructions so we have to really choose when we would like instructions because the team has a limited capacity” (interview UNmission#65, 14-03-11, similarly UNmission#14, 24-11-10, UNmission#109, 21-07-11, UNmission#96, 12-04-11). As a consequence, countries lacking national positions on a wide range of resolutions tend to be absent more often and participate less in multilateral negotiations (e.g., interview UNmission#3, 08-09-10): “If you don’t have instruction and you’re not sure how to vote, you can also decide not to be there, because you didn’t have the instruction from back home, because lack of preparedness you didn’t have the right instruction, or if it came it came too late. And that has to do with capacity because people with more capacity will certainly give instructions on all issues, on time, so that you’re able to do the full thing” (interview UNmission#11, 16-11-10). 32 States with capital-based coordination systems can develop specific instructions for a broader range of items on the international agenda and tend to back them up with legal and technical expertise, while states with mission-based systems need to be more selective and tend to develop broad general policy positions rather than specific instructions. Conse-quently, these states have national positions for fewer issues and their location-based diplomats participate, on average, less actively. Active and effective participation are linked. If a diplomat does not voice her country’s interest, she cannot influence the content of the outcome of the multilateral negotiations. Yes-votes are an expression of congruence between a national position and a policy outcome. It is striking that absenteeism and yes-votes are strongly negatively correlated (-0.6894), indicating that active participation is conducive to the ability of diplomats to reduce a mismatch between national positions and negotiation outcomes. Moreover, zooming into negotiation dynamics more closely, case studies show that participants who actively use a broad variety of different negotiation strategies and who have compelling arguments to back up their positions have greater chances of exerting influence than actors who are largely passive or only come in at the very final stage of negotiations and who tend to have more limited legal and technical expertise to back up their arguments (e.g., Panke, 2013; Moravcsik, 1998; Plantey, 2007). In line with this, diplomats who were asked for the recipe for success in multilateral negotiations repeatedly flagged not only the necessity of getting support from their capitals but also staff capacities and the willingness of individual diplomats to engage actively in the negotiations. This encompasses not only the actual attendance of the meetings, coffee breaks, and working lunches but also includes talking to as many people as possible in order to make an impact in the final negotiation outcome (interviews UNmission#65, 14-03-11, UNmission#102, 27-06-11, UNmission#106, 19-07-11, UNmission#107, 20-0711, UNmission#118, 23-09-11, UNmission#119, 23-09-11, UNmission#120, 29-09-11).33 32. An official explained in respect to states with inefficient bureaucracies: “They don’t know what their position is so they don’t participate; it happens a lot” (UNmission#7, 22-10-10).

33. E.g., “It is a long term influencing, knowing beforehand what you’re aiming at and then starting the discussions soon with each and every (..) well in advance and listen to their opinion, and start by selling your own opinions” (UNmission#16, 25-11-10). Another diplomat explained, “Be as vocal as possible in the group dynamics. My PR always says this. You want to always be in a room when they pick a small group, when they pick out a small group of negotiators, because often this happens, often they pick a select group of 10–15 countries, key players from key countries always give a position and always make sure that your position is a valid position that you are not just speaking for the sake of taking the floor and hearing your own voice. Make sure that it is backed, you back up your national position that you argue well you present this argument well. You show yourself and make yourself visible within the NAM and within the sub-region, and that way you ensure when they do the closed-door negotiations you are invited, you are in the room, and you are part of the decisionmaking clique” (UNmission#60, 11-03-11).

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Conclusions Going hand in hand with globalization, cooperation beyond the nation-state has mushroomed over the last century. The number of items on the international agenda is vast, the range of issues broad, the workload high, and time pressures often severe. Active and effective participation in multilateral negotiations places enormous demands on member states’ capacities in various IOs and regimes, and some states are better equipped to face these requirements than others.

While often overlooked, this paper sheds light on the various capacities relevant for domestic preference-formation. It formulates two ideal models of how states develop national positions for international negotiations. In capital-based systems, the MFA formally and de facto plays a dominant role in formulating often very detailed and well backed up instructions for a broad range of items, which define the leeway the diplomats have and provide them with negotiation tools. Mission-based systems are less hierarchical. In these coordination systems MFAs are less active in practice and provide—often rather general—national positions only for a limited number of items and also often with a delay. In the absence of guidelines from the capital, the diplomats on the ground can step in and de facto formulate national positions themselves and act on them.

Which coordination system states resemble empirically depends on the available financial, staff, and government capacities. States that are well equipped in all respects have capital-based practices in place in which the MFA does the lion’s share of work for the construction of national interests. By contrast, states with small budgets, slim ministries, and an ineffective political apparatus closely resemble mission-based systems. Their MFAs simply lack the means to cover all the items on the negotiation agenda, which in practice shifts policyformulation work to the diplomats on the ground for all items for which the capital did not deliver instructions.

A state’s coordination system influences its conduct in multilateral negotiations. States with mission-based systems tend to be less active and, on average, also less influential, because the diplomats on the ground cannot systematically compensate for capacity shortcomings in the capitals. Due to a lack of national positions, states with mission-based systems are less active overall in negotiations in IOs and regimes. Being silent or even completely absent in turn hinders the chances a diplomat can leave a mark and influence international norms. By contrast, states with capital-based coordination systems are in a better position to make the most of their membership in IOs or regimes. Diplomats are not only present and equipped with instructions—usually national positions developed in capital-based systems also specify ideal and fallback outcomes, red-lines, and technical and legal arguments the diplomats can draw on to effectively influence the course of negotiations (Panke, 2013).

Most IOs and regimes are based on the principle of sovereign equality, according to which each state has equal rights in multilateral negotiations. Yet, some states are better equipped to actively engage and effectively operate in these arenas than others. Although it is difficult, not the least because of the zero-sum game characteristic of domestic resource allocation, in order to catch up and move from the mission-side toward the capital-side of preferenceformation, states would need to redirect more of their available resources into MFAs and diplomatic missions.

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Axelrod, R.A. (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.

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Axelrod, R.A., and Keohane, R.O. (1986). Achieving Cooperation under Anarchy: Strategies and Institutions. World Politics, 38(1), 226–254.

Baylis, J., Smith, S., and Owens, P. (Eds.). (2011). The Globalization of World Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Panke, D. (2013): “Unequal Actors in Equalising Institutions. Negotiations in the United Nations General Assembly,” Basingstoke: Palgrave.

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The Uniting of East Africa and the Uniting of Europe?

by Stefan Johann Plenk, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) This article will try to explain some aspects of the integration process within the second East African Community (EAC), using major reflections of the theory of Neofunctionalism (NF). To assess NF’s validity, it is used not in its “original” environment, namely the European context, but rather “out of area.” The author attempts to explain the foundation of the EAC through an NF lens of analyzing and discovers some parallels with the early years of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Three main axioms of the theory are taken and projected onto the East African case study. The main thesis asserts that NF explains parts of the integration process in East Africa and furthermore reveals parallels between the EAC and the EU. Although the European integration process is an extraordinary development, it can be said that in the global context it is in fact not a unique phenomenon (Varwick, 2004: 162). In Africa, beginning in the late 1990s, and in particular after the reorganization of the African Union (AU) in 2002, regional integration has become a new trend among nation-states (Musonda, 2004: 44).

Introduction: Africa as a “Spaghetti Bowl” Currently, there are about fourteen regional integration organizations (RIOs) in Africa overlapping and maintaining competition with each other (Asche and Bruecher, 2009:174).

The situation is often illustrated with the picture of a “spaghetti bowl” (Draper, Halleson and Alves, 2007). This metaphor refers to the complexity and lack of clarity of tangled spaghetti (representing RIOs) sharing one bowl (representing fifty-four African nationstates and their multiple memberships), which hinders positive economic integration (Qobo, 2009: 57). The African RIOs overlap each other, which means (in addition to remaining in competition with one other) they are creating artificial production areas, hindering liberal economic development (Bhagwati, 2003:1128ff.). Within East Africa, the area that forms the focus of this article, there are about five main RIOs (EAC, SADC, COMESA, IGAD, IOR; see Abbreviations); however, some of them are more advanced than others in terms of their institutional and functional development (Asche and Bruecher, 2009). The most well-established of the region—or consistent with the metaphor: the thickest of the pieces of spaghetti—is known as the East African Community (EAC). It is a RIO, which was refounded

by Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda in 1999 after one decade of loose multilateral cooperation (Hofmeier, 2005: 210). Now the EAC has approximately 130 million inhabitants, and since 2007, it includes Rwanda and Burundi as well (World Development Report, 2010: 420). The EAC nowadays has an institutionalized decision-making framework (Summit, Secretariat, Legislative Assembly, Court of Justice), the aim of which is to create a political federation via several integration steps (free trade area → customs union → common market → single currency → federation) (EAC Treaty, 1999: §5/2). Since EAC is probably the most ambitious African integration project, it is important to explain and understand its development, for example via the application of a theory of regional integration.

Referring to this, the paper seeks to follow some aspects of such an EAC integration process by using the analytical tools of the theory of Neofunctionalism (NF). In combining JIOS, VOL. 4, Issue 2, 2013

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a well-established integration theory with an empirical case that is still unfolding, the aim is to determine whether the East African integration pasta can be partly understood by using NF developed by Ernst B. Haas (Haas 1958; 1964; 2004). As a theory originally conceived to explain the European integration process, it might have the potential to reveal analogies between the uniting of Europe and other integrating regions elsewhere, especially if NF is taken “out of area” to explain phenomena like the uniting of East Africa (Haas, 1961:366).

Compared to other integration theories, the theory proposed by Haas has significant advantages in offering an adequate and abstract theoretical framework as well as a dynamic process character and a modern view of different actors in several political settings. It is neither “obsolete nor obsolescent” (Haas, 2004: liii) but an appropriate theoretical basis that has the strength to analyze other regional integration phenomena even beyond Europe (Jaspert 2009).

Hence, the author tries to comprehend the specific case of the uniting of East Africa, via the projection of the most important elements of NF. For this purpose, in the second part of this paper the central ideas of NF are elucidated. The main section then takes a closer look at EAC from an NF perspective, one aim of which is to draw some comparisons with the integration process in Europe in the 1950s. As regional integration in East Africa is a complex process, this paper examines only some aspects of the current development, such as the main actors and their motives, the process character, as well as the finality of EAC. Finally, the conclusion attempts to show perspectives regarding the explanation of the development of empirical cases of regional integration via the application of NF and EAC’s future.

The Theory of Neofunctionalism: Paradigm and Applications Thus, it is important at first to outline NF’s basic assumptions. Therefore, in the first subsection, the main axioms of NF will be outlined, as well as its major items and characteristics. Then, in the second subsection, the first and probably the most famous application of the theory—the development of the ECSC—will be outlined briefly in order to understand how Haas used it to explain regional integration in praxis.

Basic Assumptions of the Theory First, according to NF, it is very important to understand the reasons why nation-states are keen to integrate and create RIOs. Therefore, it is useful to introduce Haas’ definition of regional integration (Haas, 1970: 610). For Haas, integration is a mixture of common ideas, necessities, internal and external constraints, and the political will to find new solutions for national and regional problems (Haas, 2004: 51). He defines the origin of motives as a combination of political calculations, national and/or regional interests, constraints and the socially constructed shift of loyalties, and activities of diverse actors involved in the process (Haas, 2004: 16). For NF, regional integration is a mixture of voluntary and forced cooperation, which can lead to deeper integration via the loss of national sovereignty if interests and/or constraints are complementary and if the RIO solves problems better than the national entities (Haas, 2004: 51). Through spillover and spillback effects between various levels of functional intrastate politics, regional integration then becomes a process of institutionalization and regionalization of the societies that can ultimately lead to the construction of a new supranational unity (Haas, 2004: 297). Hence, the basic assumptions of Haas’ main book the Uniting of Europe are that regional integration finally is a supranational overlay atop former intergovernmental cooperation (Haas, 2004: 4). This means that even the fact that states started to integrate more or less voluntarily, it would not prevent them from a dynamization of an integration process through their loss of sovereignty (Schmitter, 1969). Such a deepening is not only linked with constraints and interests states are faced with but also with the rise of alternative actors. Second, this leads to the political actors involved in the decision-making processes. According to NF, it can be said that, as Haas declared in his book, nation-states are no longer the only decision makers (Haas 2004: 113). Their role

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is not only challenged by the rise of national and transnational interest groups but also via the establishing of regional institutions. In this regard, it is important to note how strong the influence of civil society and/or other political actors is on important decisions (Haas 2004: 5). Furthermore, Haas illustrated that shared interests and ideas, as well as common constraints, can speed up integration, whereby an active and supranational regional institution is also capable of intensifying such a process (Haas, 2004: 19). Altogether, the performance of institutions regarding their capacity to solve cross-border problems and the activities of non-state actors (combined with the other factors explained) can push nation-states forward toward deeper integration (Haas, 2004:51). Third, in this regard, it is obvious that Haas did not consider regional integration as a grand “bargaining game” (Hoffmann, 1983:29) but as a detailed process with various actors, influences, and decision-making levels. Therefore, each integration process has its own process-related “logic of sector integration” according to NF (Haas, 2004: 238). This means states are likely to begin their coordination within politically non-sensitive areas with potentially high absolute gains such as economy, infrastructure, or energy politics (Haas, 2004: 240). After a process in which states make profits, learn from and increase in trust for each other, the initial cooperation can spill over to other policy areas through the state actors but also via pressure from interest groups or the ruling of regional institutions (Haas, 2004: 313). In cases of economic gains, overlapping interests and trust are very likely; Haas even presumes that an automatism of the process can develop via spillover (Haas, 2004: 103). According to Haas and Schmitter, regional integration is in this sense much more than negotiations; it is a long-lasting, complex, and dynamic process with different types of actors and influences acting between them (1964). Hence, in between grand, steps-based approaches like intergovermentalism (Hoffmann, 1959) and detail focused theories without a particular paradigm, like new regionalism (Cox, 1995; Söderbaum, 2002), NF offers a third and second image paradigm to provide an overview, as well as insights into the black box (Rosamond, 2000: 146).

In part three of this paper, these three important NF axioms already explained will be projected onto the EAC case in the following way: First, regarding the role of actors and their interests, second, with focus on the process character, including spillover dynamics, and in the end, the question of finality and automating of the integration process. Before starting the main analysis, the next part depicts how NF empirically explains the development of ECSC. This modus operandi does make sense not only because a first application helps to understand the theory but also since comparative insights in the European and East African integration processes will be given as well.

First Application: The Case of ECSC In brief, Haas explains the process of integration leading to the ECSC as having occurred in the following steps (Haas, 2004: 283–440). First, political pressure from the coal and steel industries, along with other state reasons (economic interests, post-war constellations etc.) in favor of a new form of collaboration, led to European coordination within this sector (Piazolo, 2006:17). A new regional and partly supranational institution, namely the ECSC High Authority, was founded to manage and oversight (Haas, 2004: 32). After some time governments and other interest groups assessed that this functional cooperation worked well, and they argued for the intensification of cooperation in other areas, for example, the nuclear energy sector (Weidenfeld, 2004: 428). In such an environment (ideally a pluralistic), bottom-up pressure from interest groups as well as the experiences of regional cooperation of state actors (or efficacy in terms of solving problems) can provoke an expansion of the cooperation toward more integration (Haas, 2004: 297). Following this so-called spillover effect, the European integration process took place in a dynamic institutional environment, and due to linkages between sectors, cooperation spilled over from steel to energy politics to economics and later on to other sectors (Haas, 2004: 314). In the end, a supranational

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political organization—EEC and later on the EU—was created through more spillover, and a geographically extendable economic, and then later also political, community was born (Haas, 2004: 38). Is this theoretical paradigm useful to explain an African integration process, or is it only useful for the European case?

The Uniting of Europe = The Uniting of East Africa?

Answers are sought to the question whether NF could be useful in explaining new developments in global south integration phenomena in particular, through exploring the theory’s potential in the EAC case study. Since NF has been revived as a relevant paradigm and is again used to explain regional integration in Europe, Latin America, and East Asia, it is legitimate to project the paradigm onto African integration processes as well (Mattli, 1999; Zimmerling, 1989). Three important variables of the theory will be projected onto the EAC integration process to determine whether NF is still an appropriate tool to analyze integration phenomena or not. Since the theory has a very specific definition of actorhood combined with the role of their interests and constraints, the first subsection will show whether East Africa is characterized by a similar constellation as Europe in the 1950s. Furthermore, one of the strengths of NF is that it has a focus on process dynamics within integration through spillover and the logic of sector integration (Haas, 2004: 283). According to that, the second subsection examines whether such effects occur in East Africa, too. The final subsection will then project the importance of idealism and finality posited by NF onto the EAC case. The analysis concludes with a summary, including an outlook.

European and African Integration: Actors and Motives THE QUESTION OF ACTORHOOD

Since on the one hand NF does not deny the importance of state actors, while on the other hand it opens the black box regarding CSOs and NGOs, it seems to offer an adequate medium for explaining the integration processes in Europe and East Africa (Dunn and Heutz, 2007: 181).

In the EAC case, three interdependent countries that are very vulnerable to external influences created a RIO in order to better respond to several international trends like globalization, liberalization, and interdependencies but also to internal developments (Mair, 2001:12; Musonda, 2004). Furthermore, beyond the interests and constraints that East African nationstates were dealing with, external donors and national interest groups pushed integration forward (Kopsieker, 2007). These included trade unions, business groups, labor unions as well as international social and economic NGOs and donors (EAC Update, No. 35/2010:10).

Since state actors recognized that regional integration will not be successful without NGOs (EAC, 1997:2), several interest groups, including the East African Law Society (EALS) and the East African Business Council (EABC), accompanied and monitored the initiation of EAC in the 1990s (Odhiambo, 2010: 55). Because of the early inclusion of CSOs, EAC was one of the first African RIOs that created an ascertained status for non-state actors embedded in the integration process (Dähne, 2007). Due to the newly guaranteed status of NGOs and donors, interest groups as well as foreign stakeholders are now directly involved in the decision-making processes (EAC, 2001). For example regarding the decisions of the EAC Summit, business organizations as well as humanitarian CSOs have increased their influence and now play a decisive role in the implementation of regional integration schemes, e.g., in the fields of customs harmonization or poverty reduction (FES, 2009: 8). Overall, a mixture of political will combined with internal and external interest pressures has shaped the integration in East Africa over the last fifteen years (Speiser, 2003: 8). In this regard, the initiation of EAC can be compared with the development of ECSC, where nation-states as well as non-state and external actors pushed the integration forward, due to economic needs and interests (Haas, 2004: 283–440). These empirical observations are concordant to the definitions of actorhood made by NF, since Haas declares that nation-states are no longer the only decision-makers (Haas, 2004:113).

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Furthermore, African state actors are not only the main drivers of new integration processes regarding internal pressure, but they are also forced to do so in an environment of globalization and interdependence, due to their limited stateliness. According to the book the New Regionalism in Africa, “the ability [of nation-states] to negotiate transfers of sovereignty is frequently emerging as the only alternative to de facto disempowerment” (Grant and Söderbaum, 2003: 24). In other words, regionalism is often the only way to avoid further vulnerability and to create positive economic, social, and political changes (Fugazza, 2008: 154). Faced with such challenges, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda also founded EAC in 1999 to escape from the vulnerability trap concerning external economic or political shocks (Kibua and Tostensen, 2005). In the end, in the EAC context the process of regionalization has not only been driven by the interests of states but also by those of NGOs and external forces, a development that Haas describes exactly as the establishment of a regional political community (Haas, 2004:5). When state actors try to solve problems and push the creation of synergetic solutions through the establishment of regional institutions forward, NGOs are animated to do the same (Akokpari, 2002: 89). There is the same mix of political actors as in Europe (CSOs, states, external forces), although the origins of their influence, of course, vary (Piazolo, 2006; Haas, 1968: 297). Since state actors still play the most decisive role in the process, while NGOs begin to create their own political agenda, the actor definition of NF appears to fit very well (Haas, 2004: 113). The broader definition of actorhood offered

by NF is hence very useful, especially compared to the state- or to the society-based focus of other approaches (Moravcsik, 1998; Söderbaum, 2005: 221).

THE MAIN DRIVING FORCES

Moreover, it is important to mention that NF has an alternative emphasis on the role of interests, reasons, and constraints that motivate or force actors to engage within integration.

Haas’ definition, therefore, goes beyond the pure game of will and looks for the roots of integration on different decision-making levels (Haas, 1970:611). In East Africa, there is evidence of a mixture of precisely the same reasons for integration as those that played a role in Europe in the 1950s, along with those factors, which have influenced shifts towards the new regional entity in both regions (Sperling et al., 2007). Some of the main motives of states and NGOs are: • Regional constraints like water or food supply, strong economic, social, and financial dependencies on international partners (Nohlen, 2000: 459, 774, 821) and responsibilities that can only be fulfilled in cooperation (like resource management or the HIV issue) (Tietze, 2006).

• National problems, such as how to attain economic growth through new resources and markets (Musonda, 2004:122).

• The will of political actors (including preserving aspects of their sovereignty) confronted with interest conflicts and constraints (Mehler et al., 2004: 260).

While reasons for integration vary in detail, all significant regional integration processes share a high synergetic potential of multidimensional endogenous needs and constraints, mixed with political will (Haas, 2004:16) and exogenous pressure (Zimmerling, 1989). Whether in Africa, Europe, or Latin America, the main reasons for voluntary integration are similar, and if the relevant constraints, needs, and will are highly complementary, advances in the process are probable (Haas, 1967). Additionally, in both the European and East African case, external sponsorship of RIOs accompanied the nexus of will, enforcements, and problems (Repinski and Stahl, 2005:17). Just as the U.S. formerly supported Europe to stabilize the continent and to foster economic and political relationships, the EU (and other donors) nowadays try to strengthen EAC through funding, technical and knowledge transfer, as well as the establishment of an Economic Partnership Agreement (Eid, 2008:103). Whether it is accurate or not, donors in particular do often see economic integration as one of the few options available for developing regions to escape the poverty trap (Makgoeng, 2007:44).

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As a result, both exogenous or endogenous motives for or aims of regional integration are similar in Europe and East Africa. From that point of view, it can be said NF provides an appropriate definition regarding the role of actors and motives. Nevertheless, when it comes to the examination of motives, classical NF has a very endogenous focus on integration and mentions external factors only in passing (Schmitter, 1970:854). Therefore, a reformed paradigm has to be amended by adequate concepts on external influences (Zimmerling, 1991).

PEACE, SECURITY, AND THE SPAGHETTI BOWL

Returning to the EAC case, another main motive, namely the interest in national security, has to be mentioned (Nye, 1968). The context giving rise to this motive is to some extent comparable to the security situation in post-war Europe. Core EAC members are not challenged by an intraregional post-war situation; however, they are confronted with the unstable and warlike environment of the Horn of Africa (Matthies, 2006: 25) and the Great Lakes Region (Njoume Ekango, 2001: 154). Given the region’s conflict ridden neighbors, namely the Democratic Republic of the Congo, (South) Sudan and Somalia, EAC members are almost required to deepen their liaisons (Matthies, 2005). Thus, in East Africa as well as in Europe (East-WestConflict; post-war), grave security problems in the direct neighborhood were a decisive catalyzing factor. EAC as an “island of stability” (Saligmann, 2001:29) is also a reaction to the menacing environment the nation-states are facing. Particularly for the consolidation of the post–civil war regimes in Rwanda and Burundi, it is of essential importance to build up an active regional bloc within the unstable meta-region (Repinski and Stahl, 2005). Thus, the integration process geographically spilled over onto them, as EAC became economically and politically successful (Asche and Bruecher, 2008: 175). Hence, Rwanda and Burundi joined EAC in 2007, since EAC became a more attractive economic market (free trade area, planned common market), which extended its work on foreign and security politics (Kerler and Roggenkamp, 2007: 27f). One can determine the spillover by using the “spaghetti bowl” picture, since both states would have had the opportunity to join other similar RIOs that offer economic and security politics in the subregion (Asche and Bruecher 2009: 174). Compared to the other five organizations in East Africa, EAC is the most advanced RIO regarding economic and political integration (Hofmeier, 2008: 233). While neighboring RIOs in Central Africa (CEEAC, CEMAC) and the Horn (IGAD) are not more than “paper tigers” (Donaiski 2010: 70), and IOR is only a loose regional forum, Southern African RIOs are almost too far away to be relevant (SACU, SADC) (Mair, 2001: 405). The only competing piece of “spaghetti” was COMESA, although it does not have a strong focus on security politics (Sidiropoulos and Meisner, 2005: 1). In the end, Rwanda and Burundi both chose EAC, since the RIO is more dynamic than the others are. Nevertheless, all old EAC member states at least have a double membership regarding one of the already mentioned competing organizations (Hofmeier, 2008: 234).

Since EAC, COMESA, and SADC in particular are trying to create the same type of regional economic bodies with the same aims and similar designs, an overlapping membership gives rise to significant economic, fiscal, and political contradictions (Mashindano, Rweyemamu and Ngowi 2007). This situation is completely different to the constellation in Europe in the 1950s, where only two organizations shaped the region, whereby EEC served for economic and NATO for security politics. However, it can also be assumed that since WEU was established and extended in 1991, a situation of competition with NATO became obvious, a problem that has never been resolved (Piazolo, 2006: 171). While the coordination between NATO and WEU is still in its infancies, EU states tend to split into two fractious cases of conflicts like Bosnia, Iraq, or Libya. In this regard, the East African states seem to be more unified in times of conflicts (Hofmeier, 2004:211). Thus, even if such EAC members have additional memberships in other RIOs, in times of contradictions, e.g., during EPA negotiations or the DRC conflict, they appear to prefer the East African option (Adelmann, 2003:36). In the end, even if the situation is quite complex due to the overlapping membership issue, EAC at

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least does not have an organizational nemesis, as ESCS/EEC plus NATO had until the Warsaw Pact ended in 1990. Compared to other African Regions—particularly West and Southern Africa—EAC is in the special position of being an economically and institutionally advanced RIO, capable of harmonizing with competing organizations from a strong position (OtienoOdek, 2005). Unfortunately, NF does not consider the issue of overlapping memberships since the theory insists that integration is a unique process. At least the paradigm mentions that the perspective of peace and security through integration may be decisive for states to go ahead (Haas, 2004: 5).

Integration beyond Summits and Negotiations A CONNECTING HISTORY

Furthermore, EAC members are in the unique position of having a second opportunity to create a regional political body. Since the first EAC, founded in 1967, broke down in 1977—due to diametrically opposed political nation-building processes and economic developments— member states are now trying to avoid the failures of the past, especially those associated with economic and security factors (Musonda, 2004: 74). Consequently, NF considers the second EAC not as an isolated integration experiment but rather as socially “loaded” with the legacy and knowledge of the prior attempt (Haas, 2004: xiii). Several institutions, like LVFO or EADB, survived the decline of the first EAC, whose collapse was provoked by bad political leadership (Kiwanuka, 1979). Moreover, the strong intraregional economic and sociocultural trade continued across the borders, ignoring the political ice age between the dictatorship in Kampala, the authoritarian government in Nairobi and the socialist regime in Dar-es-Salaam (Nassali, 2003: 124). Beyond the transient political leadership, a strong tradition of informal and institutional cooperation—a sense of “East African identity”—still existed after 1977 (Hofmeier, 2007: 426). In the end, the second EAC must always be seen as a construction influenced by its predecessor, as well as yet to be established common norms and values (Dietrich, 1998: 188). Today the member states, that is, the political systems, the conduct of leadership, and the economic alignments, are much more similar (Meyns, 2006: 5), as is the relative power among the member nations and their motives to cooperate (Musonda, 2004: 106). Therefore, the states now try to harmonize their economies, build compensation mechanisms, and strengthen regional institutions, as well as the role of NGOs, in order to avoid a second collapse (EAC, 1997: 3). NF works very well in this context, since it recognizes increasing confidence and a learning effect, as well as “shadows of the future” and the past, as decisive multiplying factors for integration (Haas 2004: xvii). The theory goes deeper into the process than other paradigms, without getting stuck in bottom-up details (Rosamond 2000: 146). Compared to Europe—where states have mostly been linked by conflicts before the 1950s—the lower degree of intricacy of the regional constellation eases the integration, although the spaghetti bowl simultaneously complicates it.

East African Integration as a Process Above all, it ought to be noted that the current EAC secretary has claimed one of the main reasons for the collapse of the first EAC was its state, actor-centered approach toward integration (EAC, 1997). This means a strategy to build a stable people-centered integration process beyond the main negotiations between state leaders was completely missing (Odhiambo, 2010: 8). Now it seems the states have learned from their mistakes, trying to make the integration more open and people-centered (EAC, 1997: 2). Therefore, the second EAC commenced with loose coordination in sectors like infrastructure, energy supply, and telecommunications while embedding decisive CSOs (Hofmeier, 2005: 43). Through the remaining institutions, such as EADB and LVFO, the states as well as the participating NGOs (EABC, EALS) tried to solve regional issues that could not be managed unilaterally (Dietrich, 1998: 188). In this framework, it is important to know the institutional heritage of the first EAC, as well as the

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participating NGOs, played a particularly critical role in preparing and paving the way for new negotiations on the second integration attempt (Odhiambo, 2010: 50). The result was the EAC treaty implemented in 2001, which was extended to all economic sectors and introduced social and security politics as well, because the states proclaimed the more cooperation is intensified, the more problems can be solved effectively on a regional level (Smith, 2011: 22).

Thus, loose cooperation in specific sectors spilled over into a multidimensional integration treaty, influenced by interest groups (Speiser, 2003: 23). Compared to the development in Europe, it can be assumed, that from an NF standpoint the initiation process of EAC and ECSC were quite similar, even if the bottom-up pressure was higher in Europe (Piazolo, 2006: 20). Therefore, the initiation of the second EAC, theoretically, speaks strongly in favor of NF, which emphasizes the process character of integration, in contrast to approaches focusing on summits and negotiations (Haas, 1976: 173-212). This logic becomes much more important, because organizations like EAC have their own institutional framework, with partly independent regional decision-making bodies (Meyns, 2009: 219). With the EAC treaty, several supranational institutions were established, such as the emergent regional court EACJ or the parliament EALA (EAC Treaty, 2001: para. 16). As both tried to find and foster their own role regarding the integration process and the treaty allowed them to do so, EAC received a sort of inner life that judges, plans, or implements also beyond the “bargaining game” (Hoffmann, 1983: 29). This continuing process led to a bottom-up dynamic, with new national and regional NGO actors seeking influence (Dähne, 2007: 5). For example, after the establishment of the EAC secretariat, the number of regional NGOs fighting poverty increased while their level of effectiveness also improved through the new coordination center (Eberlein, 2001: 37). In fact, as Haas describes in the Uniting of Europe, EAC appears to be at the center of a new dynamic integration process with various actors and regional institutions that are trying to extend their influence (Haas, 2004: 30). Thus, EAC currently enjoys its first spillover effects. Today, economic integration is still developing, while regional cooperation was extended geographically as well as politically, e.g., toward attempts in favor of a coordinated foreign and security policy (Wapakhabulo, 2002: 7). The new members and politics areas have again seen a rebounding spillover effect toward economic integration.

It is worth mentioning that the joining of Rwanda and Burundi in July 2007 and subsequent commencement of implementation of Customs Union in July 2009 has bolstered the EAC market and further unleashed the opportunities of the expanded market to the people of EAC. (Bagamuhunda, 2010: 2) Finally, EAC is on its way toward a common market, as the free trade area and the customs union have at least formally come into force. The discrepancy between ratification and implementation in East Africa, which will be shown by the two following examples, underlines, however, that NF ideals often do not occur in reality. In this regard, there is a big gap between EAC and ECSC, since ECSC members tended not only to ratify documents but were also bothered to implement them (Piazolo, 2006: 25).

THE EXPANSIVE LOGIC OF SECTOR INTEGRATION

Regarding this, another very important point within NF is the “expansive logic of sector integration,” which becomes apparent on closer examination of the integration process (Haas 2004: 283). Several years before EAC was founded, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda were already cooperating informally on issues including road building, the management of Lake Victoria, and energy supply (www.lvfo.org/, 12.13.2008:14.14). This flexible coordination led to a more clearly defined and institutionalized integration body, and spillover effects in the telecommunication, transport, and economic cooperation sectors could be observed (Kopsieker, 2007:3). From this point, the states tried to create a market focused economic organization with several integration steps (http://www.eac.int/index.php/home.html, 12.12.2008:15.25).

Although according to that, the EAC integration scheme seems to reflect the expansive logic

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of sector integration on paper, economic vulnerabilities and lack of political will slowed down the integration in reality.

Therefore, it was especially the weak and unprepared business groups of Tanzania and Kenya that caused a spill back regarding the development of the free trade area (Dähne, 2007:3).

Due to a lack of information about the advantages of a free trade area and an undiversified economic development, business groups urged their governments to maintain NTBs to protect their economies (Musambayi, 2006:30). Even if the customs union now officially works, there are still NTBs and other protectionist policies that hamper economic integration, also because ruling elites try to maintain neo-patrimonial rent-seeking systems (Kopsieker, 2007). Furthermore, the main impact on the degree of integration is still made by inter-state political coordination (Musonda, 2004). Thus, against the predictions of Haas, pressure exerted by the economy or CSOs was merely of secondary importance (Dähne, 2007: 4). In this case, the partly dogmatic NF and its economy-based logic is indeed a disadvantage compared to other integration theories (Söderbaum, 2002: 28). In contrast to Europe, the ECSC, and its industries, East Africa does not have a strong economic development status, which could generate a primary functional spillover for integration (Rosamond, 2000: 51–54).

Furthermore, due to limited pluralism, political will dominates the regional landscape.

In such an environment, “low” politics areas, like economics, soon become quite sensitive, whereby the idea of automatic sector integration fails (Mehler et al., 2006: 316). Interestingly, an expansive logic of sector integration may also be observed in EAC but more through political cooperation than through CSOs such as in Europe in the 1950s (Haas, 2004:103).

Over the last fifteen years, EAC member states have intensified their political cooperation and, thereby, avoided further internal conflicts jamming the integration process (Bagamuhunda, 2010). Given that armed conflicts have taken place in the region, particularly in the 1970s, it ought to be underlined that peaceful co-existence is one of the most powerful reasons for further integration (EAC, 1997: 2). In EAC, these political circumstances led to further economic cooperation and not vice versa as suggested by the expansive logic of sector integration (Kerler and Roggenkamp 2007). In any case, the primacy of economics sounds dissonant within a theoretical composition that has its roots in political cooperation for peace (Haas, 2004: 103). Even if for Haas integration is the perfect means “for resolving conflicts between” states (Haas, 1967: 610), the theory underemphasized this political issue and remains focused on economics. This reason for regional integration is not merely an idealistic one, since in both regions intrastate wars have not occurred after the initiation of cooperation, a fact that is often forgotten (Kiwanuka, 1979). It is of course not clear whether the integration process directly or indirectly provoked the absence of war. Nevertheless, the fact that no conflict has occurred anymore to this date underscores the status of the European and East African states as constituting cohesive communities (Saligmann, 2001: 29). Therefore, a strength of NF is its capacity to take into account political as well as economic motives, although it tends to place too much emphasis on economics (Haas, 2004: 283). Why should the expansive logic of sector integration not work the other way round? The primacy of economics seems to posit an incorrect initial causality, but it has its roots in the development of the EU as well as the functionalist heritage of NF (Mitrany, 1966). Hence, to ease the application of the theory beyond Europe, a broader definition of the logic of sector integration is required.

THE ROLE OF REGIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Another critical item of the process framework applied to the East African context is the institutionalism that stands behind NF. For example, EALA, initially created as a weak institution, is now an active and important actor, struggling against the decisions of the summit or the Council of Ministers (EAC Treaty, 1999: para. 48).

Compared to other regional parliaments in Africa South of the Sahara, EALA was able to extent its capacities and to ascertain its authority especially struggling against the council of ministers. (Dähne, 2007: 5)

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At the same time, EACJ started to rule critically against EAC members and increasingly asserted its supranational human rights competences, which are still icebound (Lamin, 2008: 236). Given these examples of emancipation of regional institutions, the establishment of an East African Civil Society Forum (EACSOF) and the increasing number of CSOs trying to get influence (Onyango-Obbo, 2007: 57), it cannot be denied that regional institutions and CSOs do matter (North, 1980). However, in Europe and in East Africa, the roles as well as the effects CSOs and institutions have on the integration often remain unclear (Przeworski, 2004: 2). The institutional framework of EAC—even if it is one of the most advanced African RIOs—is still dominated by intergovernmental decision making (EAC Treaty, 1999: para. 11–16). Against the ideas of Haas, it was not the strong supranational institutions that caused spillover but rather interest analogies and learning effects by state actors (Haas, 2004: 60). Again, NF is too dogmatic, overemphasizing the role of regional institutions. Thus, even in Europe—despite the fact there are strong supranational institutions like the European Court of Justice or the EU Commission—it can be argued the regional arena is still partly dominated by state actors.

INFORMAL INTEGRATION

Another drawback of NF is that even if it is focused on integration as a process, it only considers formalized developments while paradoxically overlooking informal cooperation (Boås, 2003: 43). Especially in the EAC case, informal dynamics such as intraregional (black) trade, social mobility, or transnational networks are so important the focus on institutions appears to be far away from reality (Onyango-Obbo, 2007: 57). In this dynamic context, regional institutions do play an important role in generating a platform for decision making and interests. However, again, the primacy of institutions can be denied (Haas, 2004: xvii). In reality, regional integration in East Africa also goes beyond interactions of states, institutions, and CSOs, due to high informal cultural, economic, and social exchanges (Onyango-Obbo 2007). This factor is important, however, it is not part of NF, which puts emphasis on formal and official interactions. In this regard, EAC cannot be compared with ECSC, since states are weaker and the transnational, cultural, and social exchange is higher than it has been with the case in Europe (Zartman, 2007).

Altogether, one can assume the spillover dynamics, together with the notion of actors and their interest and constraints are partly inadequate to explain EAC integration (Söderbaum, 2002). While state actors are often led by realpolitik, their political will usually dominates, even if overlapping interests or constraints exist in a politics area (Musambayi, 2006: 30).

Thus, the logic of sector integration, as well as the focus on rational choice as major acting principle, and institutions is defined too narrowly to be satisfying. Is the third key aspect, namely the finality of integration, more useful?

The Finality of Regional Integration The third axiom dealt with here will refer to the idea of finality—looking at the idealist side of NF. In this regard, Haas predicts that ultimately a successful economic integration will lead to a new supranational “political community” with regional identities and loyalties (Haas, 2004: 16). Interestingly, Rolf Hofmeier points out that in the EAC case the process of regionalization is accelerated by “a commune and existing regional East African identity” (Hofmeier, 2007: 426). While the initiation of a new supranational community is still in its infancy in regard to the building of identities and loyalties, East African integration seems to be more advanced than European unification (Onyango-Obbo, 2007). Several observations support this proposition.

First, the region is more homogenous than Europe ever was, which means any reluctance to cooperate may be more easily overcome (Mair and Peters-Berries, 2001: 91). Second, a shared history and shared languages, remarkable cross border trade and socio-cultural exchange as well as the normative heritage of Pan-Africanism, make East Africa a sort of cultural and linguistic entity (Nassali, 2003:124). Third, while the regional languages officially used

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are Kiswahili and English, the complementarities between the bureaucracies, as well as the broadly spread feeling of regional solidarity, may ease the integration process (Mair, 2001: 91). Especially due to the common colonial history and the languages, the administrative, educational, and judicial systems of EAC member states are much more homogenous than in ECSC (Dietrich, 1998: 189). That is why cross-border communication, cultural exchange, and regional media or social mobility are more advanced than in Europe to this date, even if East Africa is still relatively poor and underdeveloped (REED, 2005). Although the creation of a regional political community is still far away, some shards of this idea may be found (Odhiambo, 2010: 60).

From this point of view, NF has a significant advantage in offering a paradigm that may be used to understand the empirical case (Haas, 1992: 224). Nevertheless, against NF propositions, it remains unclear whether such dynamics will lead ultimately or taxonomically toward a new political entity (Haas, 2004: 5). The final stage of NF integration would see—under ideal conditions—islands of regional integration merging into a bigger unit (Schmitter, 1969). In this context, it is crucial to note the EAC Island grew in 2007 through geographical spillover by about 20 million inhabitants and still has the final aim of a federation within approximately thirty years (von Soest, 2008:2). Although theory and practice seem to be similar in this case, it also reveals the discrepancies between policies and politics in Africa’s integration contexts (Djadjaglo, 2009:261). While the extension of the EAC made the mastering of the first important tasks toward an economic community initially more difficult, ideas like the political federation vegetated on paper (Dähne, 2007:4). On the contrary, political will controlled many decisions made by heads of states who are primarily looking out for securing their own regimes (http://www.dailynews.co.tz/business/?n=19675&cat=business, 06.16.2011:10:32).

Since regional institutions are still not strong enough, such “empty chair policies” may hinder or stop the integration process (http://www.ena.lu, 06.16.2011:10:46). The big difference between the two cases is that in the EAC region such strategies may be more destructive than in Europe, as the regional institutions still remain weak and the “sacrifice” of national sovereignty required by membership in the community is still at a low level (Lamin, 2008: 236). Currently, there exists an extended conflict between, on the one hand, the necessities that force states to cooperate, and on the other hand, the political will to preserve sovereignty (Söderbaum, 2002: 176). At the same time an empty chair policy may serve as a convenient strategy for the political elites, the potential for new resources or influence through integration may also be very attractive (Dähne, 2007). As in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, overbearing national interests are still regulating East African integration (Hrbek, 2004: 98). The lack of will and the incapacity to go ahead with too few financial resources may only be balanced by more sensible pragmatism on the part of the members, pressure from the societies, inherent necessities, and perhaps support from donors (Qobo, 2009: 59). While ECSC and its members had the Marshall Plan to support development and integration, a consequent external support is still missing in EAC (Murray 2008: 273). Generally, EAC could be an interesting counterpart to the EU, because the community is between states of being a weak intergovernmental arena and a new supranational actor (Hofmeier et al, 2005: 46).

Nevertheless, the EU support of EAC, unlike SADC, remains inchoate, especially because EAC does not yet represent an attractive market to invest in (Eid, 2008). Therefore, and because of other constraints mentioned above, it is highly questionable whether EAC can generate an automatic integration process toward its final stage of a political federation. In this regard, the NF axiom of finality and automatism preliminary stays untouched.

Conclusion: Similar in Context, but Different in Detail The aim of this article was to answer the question, “Is this theoretical paradigm of NF also able to explain an African regional integration process or is it only useful for the European case?” through some arguments that sought to strengthen the analytical potential of NF without

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being too uncritical. In the EAC case, the broader definition of actors, the involvement of interests, and constraints, as well as learning, ideas, and experiences, the dynamic process character and the peace perspective of NF are its strengths. Furthermore, the social constructive components expressed by spillover and spillback dynamics and the idea of an identity shift that speeds up integration are valuable aspects. Admittedly, there are some weak points, such as the expansive logic of sector integration, rational-choice and automatism, the ignorance regarding exogenous and informal integration, or the focus on institutions. Especially in developing areas, weak states often create weak institutions, which cannot fulfill their basic duties (Ressler, 2007: 255). In this context, the theory’s European roots in the analysis of pluralistic, post-war welfare states and industrialization is very apparent (Haas, 2004: 17).

Thus, in order to use NF on a broader analytical level, the disadvantages mentioned have to be set aside, e.g., by using the new regionalism with different standpoints on institutional and informal matters (Boås, 2003) or the focus of intergovermentalism on external influences (Hofmann, 1959). However, the dynamic character, the mixture between constraints, needs and political will, and the different roles of various actors in the East African context in particular reflect the experience of European integration in the 1950s. East Africa is also a developing region with a democratization process underway and intensified cooperation on political, economic, and social problems. Furthermore, member states need each other for overlapping reasons, while being confronted with unexpected external influences and consequences. A less conflict prone relative constellation of powers, the vulnerability of the member states and fewer geo-strategic interests in the region by external actors could at least theoretically make the integration process even easier than in Europe. In addition, the core region offers a high level of cultural, economic, and political homogeneity between states, which have not yet finished their own nation-building processes (Boås, 2003: 42). Although economic development is not comparable to that of Europe, EAC members appear to have more in common (Hofmeier, 2007: 426). Further, while economic development remains relatively limited, “the [informal] cross-border flows that are truly bottom-up constitute a significant bottom-up pressure for regionalism” (Iheduro, 2003: 59).

Altogether, the region has significant potential for deeper integration if nation-states, emerging institutions, and other actors are able and also willing to use it to their advantage.

Nevertheless, a purely economic integration model cannot be the universal remedy for the massive socio-political and economic problems faced by East Africans (Balassa, 2011). There is no equivalent to the Marshall Plan in place to promote the prosperous economic development, hence alternative external funding has to be obtained and a balancing and a redistributing integration model that ensures advantages for all members needs to be maintained (Asche, 2009: 80). Furthermore, the CSO role will also be relevant, since only the participation of such actors could avoid an elite-driven and, in the long run, unstable integration (Mehler et al., 2006: 405).

To answer the question stated at the beginning with regard to East Africa, it must be said that Haas’ basic assumptions may be transferred to EAC as a regional body. Although spillover may thus far be seen only between the political nation-state actors— and not in a functional sense by interest groups or economic pressure—small steps to create supranational institutions and a political community are evident (Odhiambo, 2010). The stronger the influence of CSOs and regional institutions becomes, the more the integration process moves toward a political union (Ocitti, 2007). In this regard, the aims of EAC are currently very ambitious while integration is still ongoing (Smith, 2011: 24).

EAC countries established a Customs Union in 2005 and are working towards (. . .) a Common Market in 2010, subsequently a Monetary Union by 2015 and ultimately a Political Federation of the East African States (http://www.eac.int/about-eac.html, 03.13.2010:10.43).

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Regarding the future of the process as well as the engagement of the political actors, EAC currently appears to be a unique phenomenon in Africa (Hofmeier, 2007:426). Even if it is still hampered by a lack of will or capacity, the RIO has a broad agenda and relatively strong institutions with an emerging number of CSOs, which altogether could push the project forward as it has been in Europe. Therefore, the well-established paradigm of NF, its dynamic process character and its broad perspective on actors and interactions make the theory again an attractive framework. Since NF can explain integration only if some steps towards deeper cooperation has been undertaken, it is questionable whether the paradigm traces weaker RIOs. With focus on the African spaghetti bowl of integration, such “paper tigers” (Donaiski, 2010:70) are still more the rule than the exception. Further analysis is nevertheless required using the theory on other RIOs, including beyond Africa and Europe.

ABBREVIATIONS COMESA: Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa CEEAC: (French) Economic Community of Central African States CEMAC: (French) Monetary Union of Central African States CSOs: Civil Society Organizations EABC: East African Business Council EADB: East African Development Bank EAC: East African Community EALA: East African Legislative Assembly EACJ: East African Court of Justice EACSOF: East African Civil Society Forum EEC: European Economic Community ECSC: European Community for Steal and Coal EPA: European Partnership Agreements IGAD: Intergovernmental Authority on Development LVFO: Lake Victoria Fisheries Commission NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization NF: Neofunctionalism NTBs: Non-Tariff Trade Barriers RIO: Regional Integration Organization SADC: Southern African Development Community SACU: Southern Africa Customs Union U.S.: United States WEU: West European Union

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Interregionalism at a Crossroads: African–European Crisis Management in Libya—a Case of Organized Inaction?

by Malte Brosig, University of the Witwatersrand Since the Africa–EU Summit in 2007, the African Union (AU) and European Union (EU) have crafted a dense, interregional network expressing the hope to solve pertinent security challenges both continents face. However, despite the emergence of an elaborate institutional framework in the form of the Joint Africa–EU Strategy (JAES), both organizations remain without much political clout if put to a hard security test, such as the popular uprising in Libya in 2011. Instead, African–European interregionalism constitutes a state of organized inaction. This article aims at exploring why the AU and EU have been disenfranchised from this conflict, despite Libya touching upon vital security interests of their member states. It will be argued that a lack of problem-solving competence and significantly deviating political perspectives on military interventions for the protection of civilians are key to understand inaction between institutions.

Introduction Formal trade agreements, such as Yaoundé, Lomé, and Cotonou, have long dominated African– European relations. Only with the AU and EU becoming more prolific in their management of foreign affairs and security policies on their own continent have they provided the preconditions for systematic interinstitutional cooperation. The 2000 Cairo Summit laid the foundations for closer interinstitutional contacts but only during the second Africa– EU summit in 2007 did an extensive joint institutional framework develop in the security domain that this article will focus on. However, despite the existence of these elaborate joint institutional structures, the two organizations, if facing a hard security threat such as the Libyan crisis in 2011, remain without much influence. If contrasting the interinstitutional structures in place with the performed individual/collective output observable, the results are meager. A significant discrepancy between the degree of institutionalization and performance becomes visible, which warrants further analysis. The case of Libya is also astonishing, because it would have constituted an ideal test case for effective interregionalism as the country is geographically located close to Europe, and Gaddafi was one of the founding fathers of the AU. For Europe and Africa, the political consequences of Gaddafi’s removal or a prolonged civil war were manifold, ranging from expected refugee streams, feared Islamist terrorism, loss of investments, and a further destabilization of Sahel countries. If the existence of hard security and political interest is a catalyst for joint, or at least coordinated action, between Africa and Europe, as most foreign policy analysts would claim, then the empirical observation of organized institutional inaction requires more systematic attention.

This article aims at exploring why both organizations have not been engaged in solving the Libyan crisis to an extent that corresponds to their interregional ties, collective/individual ambitions in the security domain, and their vital security interests. The case of Libya was chosen because it constitutes a hard test case in which we can expect both continents to have JIOS, VOL. 4, Issue 2, 2013

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a keen interest in engaging and solving the conflict. If interregional institutions have any significant political meaning, this would best be explored in a case of high political stakes such as Libya. Primarily, cases of high political importance reveal the potential and limitations of interregional security arrangements. Considering the relative newness of African–European interregionalism in the area of security cooperation, not many cases appear as suitable study objects. Without a doubt, the Libyan crisis was by far the most serious interregional threat both organizations were facing, which warrants conducting a single case study.

Explaining Organized Inaction: A Theoretical Approach Explaining institutional inaction has often not been of interest for scholars of international organizations (IOs). In most cases, scholarship strives to explore the underlying logic of action and influence of IOs. A wealth of institutionalist research is testament to this trend. Most research focuses extensively on decision and policy making, the delegation of power to IOs (Tallberg 2002), investigating IOs as norm entrepreneurs (Finnemore 1993), discussing their actorness (Groenleer and van Schaik 2007), or their power to socialize states (Risse and Sikkink 1999), and more recently an interorganizational turn has emerged (Koops 2012). Research is thereby implicitly biased toward exploring what IOs achieve, largely leaving out cases of institutional pathology or inaction, with Barnett and Finnemore (1999) being a prominent exception. It might, however, be equally important to investigate cases in which IOs have been disengaged or are malfunctioning; researching issues of global or regional governance is not exhausted in examining what IOs accomplish but could also usefully look at what they cannot achieve and exploring those conditions that bear responsibility for their inaction.

In principle, theories that have been developed to explain how and why IOs act the way they do can also explain the opposite. For example, we can expect the absence of certain conditions provoking an institutional response to an imminent issue can be an important factor exploring IO inaction. There is no specific need for new theories to be developed.

Thus, this article takes recourse to interregional studies and new institutionalism, particularly highlighting rational and sociological institutionalism.

Interregionalism as a single field of IO studies has so far only been a niche topic. It is, however, important to set into context the extension of regional organizations into areas of global governance. The evolving literature on interregionalism, IO interplay, and regime complexes commonly analyze boundary spanning institutions that cannot always be clearly delimited from each other (Raustialia and Victor 2004: 277–78). For the analysis of African–European interregional relations, this means that “although interregionalism should be seen as a distinct phenomenon, it cannot be understood in total isolation from regionalism” (Söderbaum and Van Langenhove 2006: 254). Interregional relations encompass individual as well as joint action or a mix of both. At the heart of interregional studies is the analysis of governance systems, which are “multilateral, transnational, global, continental, regional, interregional, national, and subregional levels which are overlapping interrelated and interconnected (. . .)” (Roloff 2006: 18, 24). In other words, the institutional external space in which IOs operate is becoming increasingly dense. Furthermore, regional IOs have started to transcend their traditional fields of action, internal integration, and are expanding beyond their region (Söderbaum and Van Langenhove 2006: 256–57). Increasingly, we can observe overlapping and intersecting IOs as an issue, which is of particular relevance for Africa with its dozens of Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and its dependence on international donor support (Brosig 2011). This also means states may choose between various institutions and select those that appear as more favorable for them. It opens up opportunities for forum shopping in which IOs are placed in a competitive situation. It is important to inquire why some institutions have been preferred over others. While the literature on interregionalism has not produced a parsimonious theory in its own right (Hänggi, Roloff, and Rüland 2006: 10), it has contributed significantly to our understanding about how and why interregional

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institutional ties come about and are maintained. Quite a number of these conditions are connected to rational and sociological institutionalism.

Traditionally, rational institutionalism explains the existence and importance of IOs through their problem-solving competence. IOs are functionally useful for those who set them up, and states will only delegate authority to IOs if they can expect to profit from them. In principle, we can expect the same logic to be applicable to interregional relations. Rationalism inherently applies an individualistic approach. The rational school of thought assumes that actors follow a logic of consequences in which action is deliberate and purposeful resulting from the individual calculation of cost and benefit. Often IOs are understood as a form of aggregation of state decision making reflecting their interests (Shepsle 2006: 26). Institutions and action are sustained as long as their member states perceive them as profitable. Underlying this theoretical thinking is the idea that institutions are there for a purpose, to solve a collective problem or to follow a specific goal.

Based on the rational logic of interaction, we can draw a connection between expected interinstitutional gains versus cooperative costs. In the case of inactive interregional relations, we should assume cooperative gains are disproportionately low compared to individual costs.

However, such an equation would certainly oversimplify interregional relation. Therefore, Doidge (2007) has identified IO actorness as a key variable. He argues that meaningful interregional relations are facilitated by a symmetrical power/capacity distribution.

Accordingly, an asymmetrical relationship would dilute effective cooperation, because the partner organization might lack power/capacity to implement joint policies effectively, and the stronger partner can dictate decisions because of its supreme capabilities. Doidge predicts, “The dialogue within these institutions will remain constrained by the capacity of the regional actors involved, but the creation of the structures themselves is a simple way for partners to give the impression that the interregional process is producing results (Doidge 2007: 243). In other words, strongly asymmetrical relations are very likely to support the proliferation of interregional institutions at the cost of truly joint programs. What remains are capacity-building initiatives supporting the weaker partner (Ibid., 242). Thus, under certain circumstances we can expect interregionalism to take the form of organized inaction. One may add that organized inaction may also result from both organizations lacking crucial resources and capabilities to execute common policies. If incapabilties are jointly shared, institutions will find it difficult to act but might not disappear easily either and, thus, leave institutional structures behind without them achieving very much.

Repeatedly, interregional studies have tried to set dyadic or bi-regional relations in context with broader global governance structures. AU–EU relations are no exception. In the security policy field, both organizations are confronted with a number of potential competitors, such as the UN, NATO, and RECs. From a rational institutionalist perspective, we may ask which of these institutions is best satisfying member states’ needs? Dyadic interregionalism becomes less attractive if states can follow their interests more effectively elsewhere. A comparative element cannot be ignored. We can assume that when African–European relations have not contributed much to the solution of the Libyan crisis it is because they failed to provide the necessary conflict-solution capabilities to tackle the crisis in comparison to alternative IOs. The value added by activating and using the cooperative structures in place between the AU and EU has not been sufficient, and thus, other IOs which better satisfy the interest of AU and EU member states are preferred.

The rational institutionalist school has been challenged by both historical and sociological institutionalism. Perceiving IOs as servants to states that completely reflect member state interests has rightly received criticism (March and Olson 2006: 4). At the forefront of developing a sociological institutionalist approach are Finnemore and Barnett. They have shown that IOs are not always efficient output maximizers and are not important only for what they do (output). The sociological school grants IOs importance for what they represent and

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stand for normatively and the social purpose they occupy (Barnett and Finnemore 1999: 703).

Indeed even rationalists have admitted the rational logic of cost-benefit calculations needs a substantive normative theory to give meaning to rational action (Snidal 2002:74).

Likewise, the literature on interregionalism has conceptualized the social side of IO interaction. In particular, a connection has been drawn between the need for regional identities to be expressed in interregional relations. As Rüland stated, “Regional identities are strengthened if interregional interaction sharpens differences between the regional self and regional other(s), generating and internalizing a repository of shared norms and beliefs and thus enhancing regional cohesion” (2010: 1278). Consequently, most of the literature exploring the EU as an external actor highlights the importance of expressing its own values and identities vis-à-vis other regional partners (Söderbaum, Stålgren, and Van Langenhove 2005: 372–73).

Research on the normative or civilian power of the EU is moving in a similar direction. The social purpose of interregional relations rests with its ability to create and legitimatize regional actors in international relations (Ibid., 373). Thus, even if interregional institutions appear as only semi-functional or inactive, they might still be relevant in terms of their capacity to solidify regional values and provide for political symbolism of collective cooperation.

In fact, in situations of high complexity and ambiguous or even erratic actors, as we will find them in fairly large regional organizations, the attempt and expectation to craft jointly shared political solutions for a certain crisis is rather ambitious. Practically speaking, what is left are often symbolic acts. Olsen (2006:199–214) has argued that African–European relations are specifically rich in symbolic action due to the absence of effective functional output.

From the normative perspective, we can assume that effective and output-oriented interregional relations also require a common normative basis. Thus, the social function of interregionalism does not exhaust itself in processes of delimitation to reassure regional distinctiveness. At least highly institutionalized relations provide the chance of developing common positions. As a result, we can expect the functional output and problemsolving capacity of interregional relations not only being a phenomenon sui generis but also being related to the absence of substantive, common normative grounds. If there is no visible common normative framework to provide the necessary social purpose, joint structures will remain relatively empty.

In conjunction with sociological institutionalism, the constructivist school has explored IOs as vehicles for processes of norm creation. The latest constructivist literature views norms not as static objective facts but as being in a constant development process (Brosig 2012).

Norms, in order to be meaningful, have to undergo a validation process that can be defined as social recognition and acceptance of a norm (Wiener and Puetter 2009). Acceptance may only be reached if a norm is not only translated into any kind of legally or politically binding agreements “but into culturally understandable and acceptable” context (Zwingel 2012: 125). For the case of African–European interregionalism, interinstitutional relations may be understood as a forum for joint norm creation and validation. At least interinstitutional relations have the potential to function as cultural bridges and mediation hubs between two very diverse continents and two fairly large and heterogeneous regional IOs. Thus, we may assume institutional inaction is related to the ability of interregional institutions to create, mediate, and transfer potential common or conflicting norms and values into an interregional context that finds mutual recognition (validation).

This article proceeds in the following steps: The subsequent section provides an overview of the extensive interregional framework that developed between the AU and EU since 2007.

The second section explores the sociological institutionalist assumption that IOs, to be effective performers, must connect to a normative framework that commits their member states to truly shared norms. Section three analyzes to what extent the existing institutional framework is capable of solving a security crisis such as the one in Libya. The emphasis will be on the conflict-management capabilities of the two organizations within the framework of JAES.

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The State of Interinstitutional Relations Following the 2007 second EU–Africa Summit, which established the Joint Africa–EU Strategy (JAES), a sophisticated institutional framework between the two organizations developed. According to the Lisbon Declaration, JAES is built on the idea of “partnership of equals” and “building on common values and goals.” Of all the bilateral relationships the EU has crafted, the relationship with the AU is one of the most institutionalized, reaching from parliamentary meetings between the EU and Pan-African Parliament to AU–EU Summits of Heads of State (see Figure 1) (Brosig 2013). At the center of this institutionalized cooperation is JAES, composed of eight pillars, of which “Peace and Security” forms one section. The first action plan (2008–2010) has identified three priority areas: First, enhancing political dialogue between the AU and the EU on security matters; second, providing EU support for the full operationalization of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA); and third, providing for predictable funding for AU peace operations. The last AU–EU Summit in November 2010 reinforced the importance of these three areas.

Figure 1: Institutional Linkages between the AU and the EU

Source: http://europafrica.net/jointstrategy/diagram-on-the-jaes/

Political dialogue is facilitated through a number of institutional joint meetings and initiatives. In the area of peace and security and under the framework of JAES, the most essential institutional fora enabling political dialogue are the joint meetings between the AU Peace and Security Council (AU/PSC) and the EU Political and Security Committee (EU/PSC), which take place once a year, the annual College-to-College meetings of the EU and AU Commissions, the EU–AU Joint Expert Group on Peace and Security, the Joint Africa–EU Task Force (JTF), and the six monthly ministerial troika meetings. In 2011, members of the AU Military Staff Committee (MSC) and EU Military Committee (EUMC) planned to meet for the first time and establish a regular exchange. In summary, multiple institutional channels exist that allow for a frequent exchange of positions. According to JAES, African–European political dialogue seeks to “reach common positions and implement common approaches” in security matters on the basis of the principle of African solutions for African problems (JAES 2nd Action Plan).

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However, this does not mean interregional institutions cannot be used to coordinate, deliberate, and reinforce individual or collective action. Quite the contrary, interregional institutions should be expected to do exactly this. Joint institutional structures such as AU/ PSC and EU/PSC meetings, which are equipped with considerable decision-making powers, would be the first organs for developing and coordinating political leadership, yet they have not delivered joint solutions, as will be demonstrated in the Libyan case.

Are AU–EU Relations a Politically Empty Vessel?

From the constructivist and sociological institutionalist perspective, interregional institutions are important because they can perform two functions: First, they can be places for common norm creation and joint norm validation translating and mediating between culturally and politically diverse organizations. Second, alternatively, they can be places in which existing differences in political preferences and viewpoints are reiterated and strengthened. In this context, organizational inaction may be explained by an absence of truly shared political norms and the inability to mediate between conflicting African–European perspectives. This section explore the political ambivalence of African–European relations by analyzing existing differences in political viewpoints and argues that interregional institutions will remain of secondary importance politically in fostering organized inaction, because they fail to mediate between contradictory positions and are, consequently, not capable of crafting common positions.

In November 2010, AU and EU heads of state met in Tripoli Libya for the third Africa– EU summit. In the concluding declaration, the heads of state “attach[ed] utmost importance to all efforts of conflict prevention, reconciliation, justice and post conflict reconstruction and development for the sake of people undergoing conflict . . .” and reiterated that “our cooperation will continue to build on our common values and goals in pursuit of good governance, democracy and the rule of law” (Tripoli Declaration 2010). What followed in the coming months, however, is an example of division and noncooperation between the two continents and a series of missed opportunities to search for common solutions.

For Europe, Gaddafi’s rule conveniently provided security from uncontrolled migration and opened investment opportunities in Libya’s oil and gas industry. After Gaddafi’s retreat from state-sponsored terrorism, his dictatorial government style appeared useful in suppressing potential radical Islamist movements. In fact, neither Africans nor Europeans seemed to have bothered too much about the autocrat and his suppressive regime until spring 2011, despite reiterating the importance of allegedly common values, such as human rights and democracy. We might ask, why should there suddenly be a substantial normative basis for cooperation if neither Europeans nor Africans have truly lived up to their rhetorical declarations of the past?

Despite the many institutional linkages, the political substance on which JAES is built is astonishingly thin. In the documents these joint meetings produce, one hardly finds more than rather flowery declarations making reference to supposed common values, such as democracy and human rights, and reference to rather broad mutual interests (Joint Declaration Collegeto-College meeting 1 June 2011). A common strategic view underpinning truly common projects based on a shared normative perspective in conflict resolution is largely missing. At the moment, institutional relationships between the AU and EU largely focus on establishing “structural and systematic linkages between decision-making organs” (2nd JAES Action Plan 2011–2013) but have not yielded to the draft of a shared political agenda.

Assuming on both continents governments are true believers in those norms expressed in JAES, which is clearly not the case in some countries, is a bold move. Democracy is a case in point. Whereas all EU member states may be considered consolidated democracies, the same cannot be said about all AU member states. This led to some conceptual tension in the AU’s Constitutive Act (Art. 4(p)), which is banning unconstitutional regime changes but is not, per se, sanctioning undemocratic regimes. Furthermore, Article 4p can potentially

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cover and protect undemocratically sustained governments by discrediting democratic or popular revolutions, such as those during the Arab Spring. “The problem [. . .] is that constitutional democracy is seldom firmly in place prior to the “unconstitutional change” (Sturman 2011: 2). Additionally, the Constitutive Act does not explicitly clarify that the ban of unconstitutional changes of government only refers to democratic systems (Ibid. 3). For Omorogbe (2012: 155–159), this has fostered the AU’s tendency to prefer incumbent rulers over opposition movements with Libya fitting into this scheme.

More importantly, these general norms are not operationalized into a more specific strategy expressing a shared strategic view of European and African security concepts. In the absence of a solid codex that could be used in crisis situations, which very often require a rapid and decisive answer in order to tame a looming conflict from spreading, states do not feel bound to the existing institutional structures.

A good example is the concept of the responsibility to protect, which has been invoked in the Libyan context. It has been adopted in 2005 and introduced in the UN World Summit Outcome Document equally agreed upon by African and European countries. The document makes explicit reference to the obligation of states to protect their populations against mass atrocities, such as genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

If a state does not follow this obligation and peaceful means appear as “inadequate,” the international community is “prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner” (World Summit Outcome Document 2008, para. 139). Without being explicit on what enforcement measures might be adopted under which conditions, it remains largely unclear how the concept of responsibility to protect is operationalized. Although the AU has acknowledged it in its Constitutive Act article 4(h) and the EU endorsed it, this does not mean Europe and Africa agree on how the concept is utilized in practice.

As Barnett and Finnemore have argued, IOs are important for what they represent and not exclusively for how useful they can be. In the case of AU–EU relations, this is exactly the problem. It is difficult to extrapolate what this elaborate interregional framework stands for—which norms and values is it truly representing beyond their declaratory and symbolic value? While the African–European interregional structures do not represent very much besides some general declarations, both the AU and EU find it difficult to coordinate their policies, and states do not feel the need to cooperate through the existing institutional structures. The vagueness of the concept of responsibility to protect is leaving further room for contestation. As a consequence, the lack of a common normative framework provides space for political divisions that declaratory statements and expressions of political harmony at summit meetings cannot conceal.

Protecting Civilians vs. Regime Change: The Military Intervention in Libya In February 2011, the Arab Spring led to the expulsion of long-standing autocrats Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, while in Libya, Gaddafi started to smash the protest movement against his regime by applying ruthless violence and threatening to exterminate the protestors, labeling them “cockroaches” (BBC, 23 Feb. 2011), an epithet used during the genocide in Rwanda. As the security situation in Libya deteriorated further, the protests continued, and Gaddafi was willing to forcefully put an end to them; international condemnation was initially fairly united. On 23 February, the AU the AU/PSC (216th meeting 23 Feb 2011) condemned “the indiscriminate and excessive use of force against peaceful protesters, in violation of human rights (. . .)” and “call[ed] on the Libyan authorities to ensure the protection and security of its citizens (. . .).”On the same day, the EU warned Gaddafi “that those responsible for the brutal aggression and violence against civilians will be held to account”(Ashton 23 Feb 2011), also calling for an end of violence, “including through national dialogue” (EU 28 Feb 2011). The AU’s and EU’s positions early in the conflict both condemn the use of force against civilians and reiterated the responsibility

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of the government to protect its citizens. However, differences between the two continents started early, too. The EU threatened Gaddafi with legal prosecution and sanctions that the AU did not.

Only a few days later, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1970 unanimously.

Thus, all African and European members consented to its wording, imposing sanctions against Libya. The EU imposed an arms embargo only a few days later and froze personal assets of the Gaddafi family (EU Council Decision 2011/137CSDP). While the UN suspended Libya from its Human Rights Council and the Arab League (AL) suspended Libya’s membership, no such immediate action followed from the AU. At the beginning of the crisis, the EU and AU started a two-track approach. On the one hand, they clearly condemned any violence against civilians and recognized their legitimate concerns and finally called for a mediation solution.

On 10 March, the AU established an ad hoc High Level Committee, which was supposed to negotiate a political solution, and which later led to the formulation of the AU roadmap for Libya. In the same document, the AU recognized the democratic aspirations of the rebels and condemned the use of “force and lethal weapons, whoever it comes from” (AU/PSC 265th meeting 10 March, para. 5). It reminds demonstrators to only use peaceful means of protest at a time when this would still have led to their crumbling and very likely physical destruction. Most importantly, the AU rejects foreign military interventions “whatever its form” (Ibid., Para. 6). With these positions, the AU deviation and alienation from the later Western-led intervention in Libya started to take its course. The AU’s attempt to negotiate peace from an impartial position and rejecting military intervention has largely not been shared by the EU. In a much quicker and more decisive manner the EU called on Gaddafi to “relinquish power” and recognized the NTC as “political interlocutor” (European Council 11 March 2011, para. 7–8) even before UN Resolution 1973 was adopted but following suit with France, which unilaterally recognized the NTC on 9 March. Likewise, UK Prime Minister Cameron (28 Feb. 2011) demanded Gaddafi’s departure from power in late February. The growing differences between European and African leaders on how to engage the Libyan crisis became apparent. No serious attempt has been made to reconcile AU mediation efforts with the UK and France’s position, which favored the anti-Gaddafi movement very early.

As the crisis deepened, with Gaddafi showing no signs of stepping down and mediation efforts did not lead to any positive development, Arab countries called for a no-fly zone.

On 12 March, the AL suspended Libya’s membership and demanded the immediate imposition of a no-fly zone, including the establishment of “safe areas” for civilians (Council Resolution 7360, para. 1). The AL’s vote not only surprised the Western world but was also taken without coordinating with the AU or the EU. It increased pressure on the West to act swiftly. Subsequently, France, the UK, and the U.S. pushed for a UN Security Council resolution that provided for protection of civilian protesters and implemented a no-fly zone, which led to resolution 1973. The implementation of this resolution finally divided the AU and EU. When the UN Security Council passed resolution 1973 on 17 March 2011, all three African non-permanent members (South Africa, Nigeria, and Gabon) voted in support of the resolution, despite the AU’s previous rejection against of any kind of intervention. In Europe, three countries voted in favor (France, Great Britain, and Portugal) and two abstained (Germany, Russia). Thus, one might assume there is a fairly large majority across the two continents in support of the resolution and its execution. The opposite was the case.

The wording of Resolution 1973 includes reference to AU positions. For example, in the preamble the obligation to protect civilians refers not only to the Libyan government but also to “parties to armed conflicts.” Furthermore, the UN explicitly recognizes the AU High Level Committee “with the aim of facilitating dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and sustainable solution.” With the passing of this resolution, African states surely assumed the AU was going to play an important part in finding a negotiated peace.

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However, this endeavor failed with the beginning of the airstrikes against Gaddafi’s troops, which started directly after the adoption of the resolution. Resolution 1973 authorized “all necessary measures” to protect civilians and established a no-fly-zone.

Many African states quickly felt betrayed by its implementation and the underlying political agenda of forceful regime change in a sovereign country by using humanitarian arguments for a military operation of which the main aim was to topple Gaddafi (Tull and Lacher 2012: 11 and Dembinski and Reinold 2011:30). Ugandan President Museveni (24 March 2011) bluntly stated, “I am totally allergic to foreign, political and military involvement in sovereign countries, especially in African countries” clearly “rejecting external meddling” and accusing the West of opportunistic and selective interventionism. The South African president Zuma (21 March 2011) “reaffirmed (. . .) Africa’s rejection of any foreign military intervention, whatever its form. . . . As South Africa we say no to the killing of civilians, no to the regime change doctrine (. . .).” Breaking out of the front of anti-intervention voices was the Rwandan President Kagame (24 March 2011) by stating: “Our responsibility to protect is unquestionable—this is the right thing to do.” Still, the primarily Franco-Anglo intervention in Libya and in the same year also in Côte d’Ivoire, has fuelled resentments against European military engagement in Africa and is recalling postcolonial political paternalism of African states (Mbeki 29 April 2011).

The conviction that the Western-led intervention was primarily driven by a doctrine of regime change was reinforced by a joint statement of U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy on 14 April (New York Times) saying that “so long as Qaddafi is in power, NATO must maintain its operations.”

On 22 May, the EU High Representative for Foreign Relations traveled to Benghazi to open an EU office signaling that the EU would recognize the rebels as legitimate representatives of Libya. Additionally, in April the EU offered to launch a humanitarian support mission, EUFOR Libya, at the request of the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Such a request never reached Brussels and no mission was deployed during the conflict. Only in 2013 when worried about uncontrolled refugees entering Europe did the EU send a border mission to Libya.

AU mediation attempts in April, when the rebel movement was very fragile and still at the brink of collapsing, to seek a diplomatic solution in the civil war also did not shed a completely positive light on the AU, as a ceasefire at this moment would have been only profitable for Gaddafi. Not surprisingly the NTC rejected the AU’s roadmap for peace by arguing it one-sidedly favored Gaddafi. This feeling was underpinned by Zuma only visiting Tripoli but not Benghazi, the TNC stronghold. AU mediation efforts have not been seen as impartial. De facto the AU’s roadmap and EU’s humanitarian mission both failed, strangely barring both organizations from playing a more important role in their region.

Meanwhile, the diplomatic climate deteriorated further. The AU Assembly on 25 May clearly formulated what it thought of NATO’s intervention in Libya. Accordingly it “defeats the very purpose for which it was authorized (. . .) the protection of the civilian population” (AU Assembly 25 May 2011, para. 5) describing NATO’s involvement as a “dangerous precedence being set by one‐sided interpretations of these resolutions [UNSC Res 1970 and 1973], in an attempt to provide a legal authority for military (. . .) clearly outside the scope of these resolutions” (Ibid., para. 7). During the following months, the AU Commission issued its concern about civilian casualties as a consequence of NATO’s airstrikes (AU 16 Aug 2011). Communiqués passed by the AU were strongly recalling the international principles of national sovereignty and were hardly concealing the AU’s bitterness over NATO’s regime change approach.

Not surprisingly, Europe and Africa have been divided on the issue of the official recognition of the NTC. Many African countries recognized the NTC with the fall of Tripoli in August. The AU, under South African leadership, refused to recognize the NTC until the very last minute of Gaddafi’s final fall on 20 October 2011. When the UN General Assembly

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recognized the new Libyan government, with 117 votes in favor on 12 September, not all African countries did (UNGA 16 Sep. 2011). Even today, a number of African countries have not recognized the new Libyan government. In Europe, a much quicker path to full recognition has been chosen. While France was the first European country to recognize the NTC in early March, even before military engagement started, all EU countries followed shortly. No European country has rejected the transferral of sovereignty rights to the NTC. Even Germany and Russia, which did not vote in favor of Resolution 1973, recognised the NTC earlier than many African states.

Deviations between the two continents also became apparent on the question of criminal prosecution of the Gaddafi clan. While the EU early on made it clear that criminal prosecution is inevitable, the AU issued “serious concerns” over the ICC arrest warrant. African leaders argued that it “seriously complicates the efforts aimed at finding a negotiated political solution to the crisis in Libya,” leading to the AU Assembly deciding not to cooperate with the ICC (17th AU Summit Malabo 1 July 2011). The political rift between Africa and Europe could not be deeper considering the strong European support for the ICC. Despite these visible differences between the continents, there have been disagreements within the EU and AU on Libya, too. The strong anti-interventionist stand of South Africa is not shared by all African countries. Nigeria has continuously demonstrated its support for Resolution 1973 and the ICC (Permanent Mission Nigeria 4 May 2011). In fact, the AU struggled internally with formulating a coherent approach to Libya. In Europe, the strong role France and the UK were playing left the impression of a fully united Europe. This was not necessarily the case, support for France and the UK was not unequivocal. Of the twenty-seven EU member states, nine supported the military enforcement of the no-fly-zone actively. The problem for African–European relations in the case of the Libyan crisis seems to be that the countries which held opposing views, either favoring a mediation or intervention approach, have been dominating the discourse in Africa and Europe, not leaving much space for alternative debates that could have been nurtured within the existing structures of JAES. The Libyan crisis very bluntly demonstrated institutional pathologies of African– European interregionalism. While the crisis in Libya unfolded, a number of joint AU–EU meetings took place within the framework of JAES. In April 2011 the Africa–EU joint task force meeting took place, which was followed in May by the Fourth Annual Joint Consultative Meeting in Addis Ababa of the AU and EU/PSC, followed by the fifth Collegeto-College meeting of the AU and EU Commissions, which took place in June in Brussels. None of these meetings resulted in a substantive joint statement or dialogue. The joint task force meeting was only referring to Libya as a tragic event. The joint declaration of the Collegeto-College meeting did not mention Libya, but referred to the Ivory Coast and Sudan. Only the meeting of the AU and EU/PSC made reference in a slightly more substantial manner by stating “that the AU Roadmap contains key components for a political solution” (AU and EU PSC meeting 16 May 2011). On average, the impression prevails that the Libyan issue was not adequately tabled or discussed at joint meetings. The opposite seemed to be the case. Shinkaiye (Opening Remarks 4 April 2011) from the AU Commission in April 2011 criticized the Joint Task Force as focussing “more on meetings and not enough on concrete outcomes or results.” In the end, existing interinstitutional channels have not been used effectively leaving African–European relations in a state of organized inaction.

One may conclude that JAES is hardly suitable for emergency crisis management. The Libyan crisis disguises the AU’s political impotence globally and bluntly revealed existing power asymmetries between the continents and considerably deviating perspectives on crisis management, military interventions, and protection of civilians. Principles of equal partnership and African solutions for African problems, as proclaimed in the JAES and reiterated in the joint meetings taking place during the Libyan crisis, have not materialized or become credible.

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Without serious efforts to craft common and substantial approaches to grave events such as in Libya, the AU’s and EU’s approach to crisis management showed significant deviations that institutionalized interregionalism cannot easily reconcile. On the one side, the AU strongly favored negotiation and nonmilitary solutions, which might have led to a cease-fire and power-sharing agreement, rejecting criminal prosecution and foreign military intervention in any form. On the other side, the EU supported the criminal prosecution of the Gaddafi clan and its removal from power as the only viable option to protect the protesting population. These two approaches are difficult to reconcile and early on incapacitated any potential attempt to find a transcontinental solution.

The normative poverty of interregional relations ultimately inhibited the search for a common solution. Deviating political perspectives have become sharper through the crisis and have alienated both continents instead of crafting a joint reaction. Despite the fact that both organizations formally acknowledge the need to protect civilians, the main failure of the AU–EU institutional framework is that it could not address the deviating perceptions of how this concept should be applied. While it is easy to agree that civilians must not be willfully massacred, it is significantly more challenging to agree on the measures to prevent or stop such atrocities (Bellamy and Williams 2011: 826). There is currently no joint concept, equally shared by African and European countries, which is operationalizing the responsibility to protect in such a way that it is applicable in crisis situations, such as in Libya.

In Europe, a liberal human rights approach, which proactively supports sanctions, interventions and the legal prosecution of perpetrators of severe cases of human rights violations, and the political interests of former colonial powers have merged. In the case of the AU, the legacy of colonialism and the still mostly insecure and unstable character of many African states make them more vulnerable to external interference and almost naturally lead toward preferring norms of sovereignty and nonintervention. While the EU fully supports the prosecution of the Gaddafi clan, the AU withheld its support despite the fact that a majority of African states have ratified the Rome Statute. It is apparent the institutional framework established between the AU and EU does not engage in normative bridging between the continents. It is explicitly not a forum for joint norm creation transcending intercontinental cleavages. However, if this important normative cleavage is not addressed in the common institutional framework, interregionalism runs the risk of marginalizing itself instead of solving a common major crisis. Especially when JAES raised such expectations at the declaratory level.

Are AU–EU Relations Bureaucratic and Incapable?

With the establishment of an African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), African states are showing a serious commitment to managing Africa’s conflicts through African institutions.

APSA plans to cover the most important areas of security policies from conflict prevention to peacekeeping and post-conflict reconciliation. The AU has set up a Peace and Security Council (AU/PSC), which is the central organ for managing security matters within the AU, comparable to the UN Security Council and the EU Political and Security Committee (EU/ PSC). A Continental Early Warning System (CEWS) and a Panel of the Wise (POW) have been designed as conflict prevention and mediation tools. Central to APSA is the African Standby Force (ASF), which, when operational, is planned to provide the AU with a rapidly deployable peacekeeping force of up to twenty-five thousand troops. APSA is a system of regional governance in which the AU and RECs are intimately interwoven. For example, in order for ASF to become operational, five RECs have been entrusted to build up regional standby forces, which are deployed under AU supervision. Despite APSA not fully being operational, the AU has deployed peacekeeping operations in Burundi, Darfur, Somalia, the Comoros, and Mali. As a result, the AU has become an important security provider on its home continent. Despite this, there are a number of deficiencies that decrease the attractiveness

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to partner with AU in an operational setting. The 2010 African Peace Facility (APF) report finds the AU Commission lacks efficient control over the tasks and role it is supposed to play. Indeed, one of the biggest challenges of APSA is the mismatch of available capacities when compared with the security challenges the African continent poses to the AU. The 2010 APSA Assessment Report (para. 68) openly speaks of a “mandate-resource gap” pointing to the ability and willingness of the AU/PSC to mandate peacekeeping missions but the lack of resources to maintain them.

The EU has supported APSA capacity building through the Amani Africa–Euro RECAMP initiative, which aims at “strengthening the political-strategic capabilities” of APSA and in particular the Peace Support Operations Division (PSOD), which is managing the AU’s peacekeeping operations (Factsheet EURO RECAMP 2009). Its most recent exercise in October 2010 was successfully conducted but revealed a number of significant limitations, too. Besides the over-focus of the ASF on military capabilities in comparison to police and civilian functions, the PSOD is limited in its ability to manage several peacekeeping missions concurrently, insufficient logistical support and a lack of effective communication systems have been detected, and there is legal uncertainty about when RECs are obliged to deploy their regional standby forces (AMANI Africa Cycle CPX 3 Nov. 2010).

The AU has made significant progress in the operationalization of APSA, but how capable is the AU in managing conflicts? Despite the obvious progress, there remain equally significant capability limitations. On its own, the AU is not capable of running large, long-term operations. Practically no AU operation has been independently organized without external donor support. Either the EU has funded large parts of the operation, as in Somalia, or the AU operation was transformed into a UN mission (Burundi, Darfur, Mali). The targeted maximum troop strength for ASF will be around twenty-five thousand strong including military and policing capabilities. When the AU reaches this number, it will be a major contributor of peacekeepers. However, in February 2012 the UN deployed 86,414 peacekeepers in Africa (UN Factsheet Peacekeeping, 29 February 2012) alone, and it is apparent the AU will remain dependent on UN support for the foreseeable future. In fact, the peacekeeping capabilities the AU has demonstrated so far are bridging capabilities.

Long-term comprehensive operations have mostly been conducted by the UN. De facto there remain very little or no capabilities that are rapidly deployable and that could apply robust and offensive force for example to protect civilians or implement a no-fly zone as required in Libya.

In the case of Northern Africa, the absence of a functioning African security organization is even more apparent. In Northern Africa the sub-regional APSA component is hardly existent. Whereas Western and Southern Africa have managed to set up a regional standby force that is operational and has been deployed, as in the case of ECOWAS, the northern part of Africa is barely integrated into APSA. While ECOWAS and SADC are relatively functional RECs, no such organization exists in Northern Africa. Neither the AL nor the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) has shown interest in operationalizing the Northern African components of APSA. Due to the lack of a regional host for ASPA, a new institution had to be founded. The North African Regional Capability (NARC) has been entrusted with operationalizing ASPA. Only in December 2008 did NARC defense ministers agree to a permanent secretariat based in Tripoli (APSA Assessment Study 2010, para.131). This office has been staffed only by Libyan nationals appointed by Gaddafi, and NARC opened a liaison office during the course of 2011 at the AU headquarters as one of the last RECs in Africa (APSA Roadmap 2011–2013, para. 41). While all other RECs have conducted ASF exercises, there is no ASF in Northern Africa. Its regional components are lagging significantly behind the rest of the continent and, where efforts to operationalize ASF have been made, these efforts have been neutralized by the uprising in Libya and neighboring countries.

Thus, no Northern African security structure was in place that could be entrusted with peacekeeping, mediation, or intervention force in a situation of crisis. Instead the gatekeeping

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role envisioned for NARC as part of ASPA structure has been filled by AL, a TransAfrican-Arabian organization, with much looser ties to the AU. However, even if NARC had been operational in spring 2011, it would have been incapacitated just by the outbreak of the civil war in Libya. Thus, the AU has very little institutional leverage over Northern Africa and its political authority has been equally weak in this part of Africa. De facto in the case of Libya, the AU was left with basically only one capability: political mediation.

Coincidentally, the AU and EU deployed their first African peacekeeping missions in the same year (2003) in Burundi and the Congo. In 2003, the EU issued its first ever European Security Strategy (ESS), which fostered “early, rapid, and when necessary robust intervention,” promoting the idea of “an international order based on effective multilateralism” in which regional organizations and the UN would play a key role in maintaining peace and stability.

Impressively, since 2003 the EU has deployed fifteen military and civilian missions to Africa more than the combined number of AU and UN operations. EU Battle Groups have been operational since 2007, providing the EU with a rapid reaction tool. They largely function as a rapid reaction force for small- to medium-size operations. Each BG is fifteen hundred soldiers strong. Of the fifteen EU BGs, two are on standby and may be deployed concurrently (Keukeleire and MacNaughtan 2008: 179). Although the EU BGs have not yet been deployed, they are indicative of what the EU can provide. Like the AU, the EU has specialized in shortterm support missions. All of its operations in Africa have been deployed in cooperation with the UN. In no case has the EU taken responsibility for a long-term comprehensive mission on its own. The 2004 joint UN–EU declaration on peacekeeping cooperation expresses the preferred EU contribution to peacekeeping operations.

Table 1: EU Deployment Scenarios Scenario 1

Stand alone mission: under political and strategic control of the EU but mandated by the UN.

Scenario 2

Modular approach: the EU provides specialised support in a confined area.

Scenario 3

Bridging model: foresees a limited temporal, but rapid deployment of EU troops within a larger mission.

Scenario 4

Standby model: EU provides for an “over the horizon reserve” force which intervenes on the request of the UN

Source: EU–UN co-operation in Military Crisis Management Operations Elements of Implementation of the EU–UN Joint Declaration Adopted by the European Council, Brussels (17–18 June 2004).

As illustrated in Table 1, the EU favors four models of peacekeeping: stand alone missions, complementary support for existing operations, providing bridging capabilities, or an “over the horizon” reserve force. Thus, it clearly prefers short-term, limited support missions with a bridging character. Despite these deployment scenarios, the EU BG concept has been widely criticized for lacking the formulation of strategic vision and political mandate, which is what has incapacitated its deployment so far (Ballosi-Restelli 2011). The BGs do not provide the EU with offensive military capabilities. They are lightly armed and act defensively. The BGs would simply not be able to conduct a NATO-like operation, such as those in Kosovo or Afghanistan or the implementation of a no-fly zone over Libya.

Both the AU and EU have made significant progress in developing crisis response forces and have embarked on a number of peacekeeping operations in Africa. Nonetheless, their

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ability to intervene militarily in ongoing conflicts to stop mass atrocities remains limited. Both organizations have specialized in lower-scale operations that often have a bridging character, and in most cases, require cooperation with external partners, most prominently the UN or NATO. Neither the AU nor the EU possess the military capabilities displayed by NATO in its air campaign in Libya.

JAES has also not facilitated conflict-solution operational capabilities; for example, in the form of joint operations. While the EU since 2003 deployed fifteen peacekeeping missions to the African continent, and the AU has deployed missions to five countries, the influence by joint interinstitutional setups is marginal, because in no case have the AU and EU cooperated operationally. Peacekeeping capabilities and their use remain largely under the tutelage of the respective headquarters. In fact, JAES provides for very few if any joint conflict-solving instruments that could be applied in crisis situations. Crisis reaction of the AU and EU usually remains an individual one.

In this context, France’s full return to NATO in March 2009 played a crucial role (Irondelle and Merand 2010: 39–40). The traditional divide between France and Britain on the role the EU and NATO should play for Europe has finally been buried, with France very pragmatically opting for the deployment of NATO capabilities instead of crafting an EU intervention force in cooperation with political support from the AU. In fact, France was the driving force behind the Libyan intervention, as America and Britain did not demonstrate much leadership interest.

One immediate trigger for the French-driven intervention in Libya results from a foreign policy disaster in Tunisia in early 2011. The democratic revolution in Tunisia not only expelled the long-standing autocratic regime of Ben Ali but also disguised the very close ties France was entertaining with his regime. Diplomatically, France lost credibility but was eager to redeem itself, and supporting the anti-Gaddafi movement seemed to provide an adequate opportunity.

However, despite the fact that NATO’s intervention in Libya was primarily driven by France, this does not in itself explain why AU–EU cooperation has performed so poorly in this conflict.

The security structures developed in Africa and Europe are mainly a substitute for UN peacekeepers, to allow for more regional ownership and to relieve the UN from its chronic overstretch (Gowan 2008). Both African and EU military capabilities rely heavily on cooperative relations with the UN, because on their own they are often insufficiently equipped.

Furthermore, the capabilities they have developed are not geared toward joint deployment.

Cooperation in the field has so far not been a priority or an end in itself. From the French perspective, using NATO comes with at least two advantages: First, NATO provides for a range of military capabilities from low- to high-intensity operations, which the EU BGs or the AU do not possess. Second, NATO deployment traditionally does not conduct bridging operations but executes its missions much more independently. Needless to say, with France opting for NATO as its institution of choice, the potential to activate existing interregional links between the EU and AU automatically declined. Third, with France using NATO, it got access to vital military equipment from NATO’s champion, the United States. The military bombing campaign in Libya would very likely not have been possible without U.S. support.

In summary, for France, the driving force behind EU foreign policy on Libya, the EU did not provide the necessary military assets to enforce a no-fly zone and assist in removing the Gaddafi regime. Thus, the EU was not the preferred foreign policy option in this case. In Africa, the AU could not develop the needed political clout to promote its diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis and get support for its Libyan roadmap effectively. Not only because NATO sidelined the AU completely but also because ASPA is very weakly anchored in Northern Africa (politically and institutionally), and NARC could not fulfil a position of gatekeeper for the AU. Furthermore, there also appears to be a political rift between the AU’s negotiation approach and the AL. The latter three in contrast to the AU very quickly decided to oust Gaddafi and supported the idea of a no-fly zone, giving crucial political and military momentum for

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the rebels. The AU’s attempts to negotiate a peace solution between Gaddafi and the rebels also failed, because it was not adequately coordinated with Arabic institutions (Abass, Kingah, Nita 2011: 2–3). In addition to this, both sides—Gaddafi and the rebels, showed no substantive interests to agree on a peace deal. In such a context, activating joint AU–EU institutional ties did not seem very attractive. Additionally, the peacekeeping orientation of the ASF and BGs primarily but not exclusively builds on the idea of playing a stabilizing role in the transition period between the end of a conflict and the beginning of a peace-building process, but not during an ongoing military conflict. Although AU is involved in peace enforcement operations in Somalia, the deployment of troops was slow and not suitable in the Libyan case.

Furthermore, the EU has not shown any sign it would be willing or interested in engaging in peace enforcement in Africa. None of its fifteen missions on the continent have done so.

Conclusion This article addressed the issue of interregional inaction, a phenomenon that so far had not found much attention in the academic literature. The observed noncooperation between the AU and EU during the Libyan crisis is remarkable because both continents pledged to engage in common security matters and have developed an elaborate system of interinstitutional relations. Furthermore, the Libyan crisis has interfered with vital African and European interests and one can expect that both continents would take the chance and craft a common solution. However, the opposite was the case. Therefore, the article relates to what can be called a rational functional and sociological approach to institutionalism and interregionalism.

The potentially greatest stumbling block for a joint African–European initiative for engaging the Libyan crisis is rooted in the normative emptiness of institutionalised interregionalism. Beyond the initial agreement to rhetorically condemn targeting civilians, there was no agreement between Africa and Europe on how to engage with Libya. The AU’s fierce opposition against any intervention, whatever its form, is hardly reconcilable with the European regime change and criminal justice approach. These differences proved to be too far reaching to be moderated by existing interinstitutional ties. The fundamental agreement that civilians should be protected led to deviating assessments on how this goal may be achieved.

Consequently, both organizations had little to talk about to formulate a joint strategy.

Actually, the Libyan crisis reinforced old patterns in European–African relations. On the one side, sovereignty rights in Africa still seem to trump over humanitarian considerations.

While on the other side, European countries cared little about African ownership and very quickly intervened militarily and openly endorsed a regime change policy, which given the colonial history of France and the UK can hardly be expected to resonate well in Africa.

Taking the perspective of a functional utility approach, African–European interregionalism faces a number of problems that deincentivized member states to use existing interregional institutions. From a capacity perspective, both the AU and EU have not been adequately equipped to solve a major security crisis within their political sphere. Peace enforcement capabilities have been scantly developed by the AU or EU. Neither organization would have effectively implemented a no-fly zone over Libya, which the AL requested and the UN mandated. De facto both organizations have very limited capabilities suitable to enforce a mandate protecting civilians. Although the AU complained about NATO having sidelined its peace efforts, the AU had very little means to respond to the very likely case of failed peace talks. For the EU, a similar scenario developed. While it used the rhetoric of protection of civilians and regime change early in the conflict, it did not have the necessary enforcement capacities to impose its agenda.

For France, the EU did not provide for the desired military capabilities to implement a no-fly zone and topple Gaddafi. In the case of Africa, ASPA failed, because it did not develop strong enough ties in Northern Africa and was outperformed by AL and later NATO. While the first surprisingly quickly promoted the idea of a no-fly zone, the latter executed it without

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coordination or supervision from the AU, leading to the AU’s political marginalization. For leading European countries, the interregional solution was not attractive, because alternative avenues have been available in the form of NATO. NATO was chosen because it provided the necessarily institutional capacities and monopolized the execution of UN Resolution 1973.

Last, the political consequences of the military removal of the Gaddafi regime for the joint African–European institutional framework should not be underestimated. Bypassing existing common institutional frameworks can hardly empower them. At worst, it demonstrates that single EU member states do not need or want to rely on them in matters of high political stakes and thereby undermines the idea of equal partnership and African solutions to African problems as written into JAES. At best, it disguises the incapacity of these structures to craft common solutions. Both do not raise expectations for African–European interregionalism to solve common future crises effectively.

The Libyan example clearly demonstrated that JAES is primarily a technical tool for structural cooperation such as capacity building support from the EU for ASPA, but it failed as a venue for politically dialogue on more political sensitive issues of regime change and protection of civilians. What bedeviled the joint institutional structures is the absence of a truly shared strategic view providing specific guidance for conflict resolution and the lack of adequate resources on both sides of the Mediterranean for it to prop up peace enforcement measures when necessary. Libya certainly is a case of high political stakes, and in other less contested areas, security cooperation between the EU and AU has been less problematic.

Nonetheless, the Libyan case visibly revealed existing shortcomings of interinstitutional frameworks and their condition as organized inaction.

REFERENCES Abass, Ademola, Kingah, Stephen and Nita, Sonja (2011): “Regional Responses to the Libyan Crisis,” UNU-CRIS Policy Brief. Bruges, September 2011.

Balossi-Restelli, Marchi (2011): “Fit for what? Towards explaining Battlegroup inaction,” European Security 20(2): 155–84.

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Brosig, Malte (2011): “Overlap and Interplay between International Organisations: Theories and Approaches,” South African Journal of International Affairs 18(2): 147–67.

Brosig, Malte (2012): “No Space for Constructivism A Critical Appraisal of the European Compliance Research,” Perspectives on European Politics and Society 13(4): 390–407.

Brosig, Malte (2013): “The African Union A Partner for Security,” in Biscop and Whitman (eds) The Routledge Handbook of European Security, London and New York: Routledge, 292–301.

Dembinski, Matthias and Reinold, Theresa (2011): “Libya and the Future of the Responsibility to Protect—African and European Perspectives,” Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, PRIF-Report No. 107, p. 30.

Doidge, Mathew (2007): “Joined at the Hip: Regionalism and Interregionalism,” Journal of European Integration, 29(2): 229–48.

Finnemore, Martha (1993): “International organizations as teachers of norms: the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and science policy,” International Organization 47: 565–97.

Gowan, Richard (2008): “The strategic context: peacekeeping in crisis,” International Peacekeeping 15(4): 453–69.

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Groenleer, Martin and van Schaik, Louise (2007): “United we Stand? The European Union’s international actorness in the cases of the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol,” Journal of Common Market Studies 45(5): 669–998.

Hänggi, Heiner, Roloff, Ralf and Rüland, Jürgen (2006): “Interregionalism: A New Phenomenon in International Relations,” in H. Hänggi, R Roloff and J. Rüland (eds) Interregionalism and International Relations. London and New York: Routledge, 3–14.

Irondelle, Bastian and Merand, Frederic (2010): “France’s return to NATO: the death knell for ESDP?” European Security 19(1): 39–40.

Keukeleire, Stephan and MacNaughtan, Jennifer (2008): The foreign policy of the European Union, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Koops, Joachim (2012): “Inter-Organisational Approaches,” in Knud E. Jørgensen and Katie V. Laatikainen (eds) Routledge Handbook on the European Union and International Institutions.

London, New York: Routldge, 71–85..

March, James and Olsen, Johan, (2006): “Elaborating the new institutionalism,” in Rhodes, Binder and Rockman (eds) Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3–22.

Museveni, Yoweri Kaguta (2011) “Reflections on the Libyan crisis,” The Herald Online, 24 March 2011.

Olsen, Gorm Rye (2006): “The Africa-Europe (cairo summit) process, An expression of ‘symbolic politics,’” in H. Hänggi, R Roloff, and J. Rüland (eds) Interregionalism and International Relations. London and New York: Routledge, 199–214.

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Roloff, Ralf (2006): “Interregionalism in theoretical perspective,” in H. Hänggi, R Roloff and J. Rüland (eds) Interregionalism and International Relations. London and New York: Routledge, 17–30.

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REVIEWS Explaining WTO Negotiations by Domestic and International Factors Michael Strange, Malmö University Da Conceição-Heldt, Eugénia (2011) Negotiating Trade Liberalization at the WTO— Domestic Politics and Bargaining Dynamics, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-0230273566, 275 pages.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is frequently credited as the savior of our global economy—the bulwark that stems the tide of economic nationalism, keeping back a second “Great Depression.” Whether and to what extent that credit is deserved, it is no doubt a landmark achievement in the history of not only global economic governance but also intergovernmental negotiations. The continually expanding notion of what is “trade” has seen its jurisdiction expand considerably with huge social significance at all levels. Nothing else like it exists. And it is for this reason that the WTO—at the epicenter of global trade governance—attracts both heartfelt praise and criticism. It is also why since its formal inception on 1 January 1995, the body of academic literature studying the WTO has grown to constitute a respectably sized library in its own right. Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt’s Negotiating Trade Liberalization at the WTO is a welcome addition to that body of work, delving deeper into the engine of global economic governance—that is, the black box of international negotiations. The value of her contribution lies in synthesizing a comparative analysis (the U.S., the EU, Brazil, and Australia) with a two-level game model in which the domestic and international levels are seen to affect the outcome of those negotiations. Ongoing stalemate in the Doha Round of negotiations, long overdue for completion, underlines the importance of such understanding.

The book’s central thesis is that the negotiations at the heart of global trade governance cannot be understood without analyzing the combination of both domestic institutions within those member states and the time dimension of those negotiations. In her analysis, da ConceiçãoHeldt disaggregates domestic institutions into three key actors: the executive, the legislature, and interest groups, and asks to what extent their domestic-level interactions determine a member state’s behavior at the WTO. The time dimension refers to the degree of pressure placed on actors by negotiation deadlines and how this impacts member states’ behavior and, in particular, their willingness to make concessions that might favor agreement. Her comparative approach on the EU, the U.S., Brazil, and Argentina includes cross-temporal analysis of negotiating behavior across five WTO ministerial meetings—Seattle 1999 to Geneva 2006—focusing on the issue of agriculture. Overall, da Conceição-Heldt describes her method as a rational choice approach in that actors are treated as preference-maximizing with clearly expressed interests.

The most thorough part of the research is dedicated to the domestic level, which is entirely logical given the amount of relevant material necessary to examine the executive, legislature, and interest groups within such a disparate set of member states that includes the EU. Focusing on these three domestic institutional actors, her study proposes three hypotheses: 1) member states are less able to make concessions where the legislature and the executive share decision-making power and their preferences differ, 2) it is also harder to make concesJIOS, VOL. 4, Issue 2, 2013

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sions if the member state includes, at the domestic level, a large number of institutional and partisan veto players, and 3) if a member state’s executive follows the policy of specific domestic interest groups where those groups have strong links to the ruling party. With respect to the international level, da Conceição-Heldt makes three further hypotheses: 4) as member states get closer to a deadline there is pressure to take a softer approach to negotiations, including lowering demands and offering greater concessions, 5) time pressure is removed where a member state has a good alternative to any negotiated agreement, and 6) member states will take a harder approach where any agreement is expected to impact future negotiations.

Given the importance of these hypotheses to not just WTO-specialists but anyone interested in the workings of international organizations, including the impact of domestic politics, da Conceição-Heldt sensibly supports her detailed commentary with a concluding table (pp.

216–17) that neatly summarizes whether or not they are supported in the cases of each member state at each of the five WTO ministerials examined. First, regarding domestic institutions, the strongest finding was that in nearly all the cases examined, the hypothesis that interest groups with close links to the ruling party greatly impact the state’s behavior in WTO negotiations was supported. The only exception to this was the EU due to its very particular decision-making structure in which key policy makers are not directly elected and where the influence of agricultural interest groups is often contained at the lower national level. It was also found that it is harder for member states to make concessions where decision-making power is divided between their executive and legislature. This was most marked in the case of the U.S. where Congress is well known to act as a significant restraint on the flexibility of the executive in WTO negotiations. One finding the book highlights concerns the EU in particular and shows how increased disagreement amongst EU member states leads to the commission gaining increasing autonomy in negotiating at the WTO that favors agricultural trade liberalization.

Also of interest, da Conceição-Heldt’s analysis did not support the hypothesis that a greater number of institutional and partisan veto players reduced the ability of member states to offer concessions in negotiations.

Regarding the international level, there was mixed evidence that time pressure had an impact on how hard a stance member states would take in negotiations. Much more salient was whether or not the four member states studied had an alternative to any negotiated agreement; those that did experience much less pressure to make concessions and accept high demands.

Such a conclusion suggests that states wishing to better represent their interests should ensure their involvement within multiple negotiating situations simultaneously so there is always an alternative, while those seeking to support any given international negotiation should encourage member states to dedicate themselves exclusively to that particular forum. This would seem to confirm those who argue that the growing mass of regional and bilateral trade agreements threatens the WTO. Equally important but rather unsurprisingly, da Conceição-Heldt’s research also confirms that member states take a tougher stance in negotiations that are expected to influence later bargaining interactions.

All of these findings contribute both to the study of the WTO and international organizations. The book is somewhat let down due to some of its assumptions, particularly regarding how it conceptualizes the domestic level. For example, da Conceição-Heldt writes on page 19: “(u)nlike security issues, changes in trade policy inevitably create winners and losers at the domestic level,” with the assumption that these will advocate for their interests accordingly.

The problem is that frequently actors are unaware of whether they are winners or losers—and it is no less true with security issues. Equally, many campaigners on trade issues have no direct material interest in trade politics, as in the cases of groups focused on issues to do with development, the environment, and democracy. Though a comparative approach makes it hard to do, a thicker qualitative analysis would have been welcomed here so as to better understand the domestic politics in each case. The book also inaccurately presents the WTO as tasked to promote trade liberalization. While this may be its informal role, formally speaking it is

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tasked to promote the harmonization of international trade policies. The difference is significant given the frequent accusation that the WTO is ideologically driven. That said, overall this book is to be welcomed for both its cross-country and cross-temporal analysis of a significant aspect of global trade governance and will be of value to both WTO specialists and advanced research students.

Controlling Institutions: How Greater (and Lesser) Powers Govern International Organizations Lidiya Zubytska, University of Kansas Stone, Randall W. (2011) Controlling Institutions: International Organizations and the Global Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1107005402, 256 pages.

The dominance of the U.S. in the International Monetary Fund is not a novel argument in the existing literature on international organizations. Both practitioners and scholars have made the control over international organizations in global economic policy by powerful states a subject of plentiful research, staunch criticism, and political protest. After all, for decades neoliberal institutionalism has argued that international organizations reflect the preferences of those agents that possess greater capacities, i.e., the interests of greater powers. Randall Stone, a professor of political science at the University of Rochester, departs from this conventional theoretical wisdom in his book Controlling Institutions, in an effort to demonstrate how the U.S. dominates IMF with only 17 percent of vote shares. His theoretical break from the concept of anarchy and a much more nuanced analysis of the mechanisms of control within an international organization stands out as a compelling theoretical advancement in the field.

The book is structured in three parts. First, the author presents his theoretical framework of analysis stemming from rational choice approach and proposes a new “model of informal governance” of an international organization conceived in game theoretic terms. In Part II, the author presents three cases: the IMF, WTO, and EU, to illustrate how his model of informal governance works in these institutions. Finally, Stone conducts statistical tests for three working hypotheses derived from the model and finds evidence from IMF data to support his conceptual model. Admittedly, Stone is best familiar and brings most of his statistical evidence to bear from his experience with the Evaluation Office of the IFM: a wealth of interviews, archival data, and new documents is provided to reveal the U.S. influence over IMF lending programs in Mexico, Russia, Korea, Indonesia, and Argentina.

Mile Kahler endorses the book, because for the first time, the very sources of powerful states’ influences over global governance were given such rigorous treatment in the current literature on international organizations. To elaborate, the strength of the book lies in the innovative formal model based on the game theory of equilibrium of institutions that the author develops around the concept of “informal governance” in Part 1 of the book.

To structure his argument, Stone distinguishes between the formal rules of cooperation, enshrined and endorsed within an international organization (e.g., voting rules, property rights, status quo distribution of costs and benefits) that are still an underlying element in global affairs; and informal rules—unwritten rules of exception for powerful principal states to protect their threatened core interests—that prevail in extraordinary circumstances.

The gist of Stone’s theoretical argument is that international organizations are hybrid institutions, inevitably operating under two sets of rules applicable either in normal conditions (formal governance) or in extraordinary circumstances (informal governance): Indeed, in the international system, formal and informal governance represent two sides of a social contract between strong and weak states, and the equilibrium outcomes JIOS, VOL. 4, Issue 2, 2013

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requires that both parties benefit enough from their interactions to make the contract profitable (Stone 2011:21).

At first examination, such argument is fully consistent with the expectations of rational choice logic applied to international organizations. However, Stone’s proposition is novel in the way he further presents the cost-benefit analysis of cooperation for both the strong and the weak states: it is not merely the lower transaction costs for both sides achieved with the creation of an international organization that motivate states to cooperate, he argues. According to the author, leading states acknowledge that in order to reap benefits from converging interests as is, for instance, in the case of liberal market economy principles espoused by IMF, all participation in an organization needs to be voluntary, for only then may it be perceived as legitimate by weaker states. Recognizing the weaker states may be potentially overpowered within an organization, all sides concede to a degree of codification of their interactions in a set of formal rules designed to protect the interests of lesser powers.

In exchange, given that leading states may pursue many attractive options outside cooperative arrangements, lesser powers, on their part, “tacitly agree” to informal channels of influence exercised by leading states in cases when their essential interests are threatened within a policy-making decision process of an organization. This, however, often leads to “credibility problems” of international organizations being overpowered by leading states’ strong-handed interventions. Regrettably, such is “the inescapable consequence of the fact that international organizations exist in a system of states with unequal resources” (Stone 2011: 224). Nevertheless, Stone is hopeful that as the competing power centers (that he leaves unspecified) become more diverse, rather than dominated by the U.S., the distribution of power will become more egalitarian in the twenty-first century, allowing for greater formalization of international organizations.

At the present point, as long as there is a discernible pattern of domination within an international organization, Stone’s logical model of equilibrium institutions based on subgame perfection remains highly testable for those familiar with logical terms of game theory, which the author employs in Part I of the book. Although testing this model on examples other than IMF, WTO, and the EU is beyond the scope of this book review—indeed, such an endeavor would require a separate monograph to support or contradict Stone’s arguments—the applicability of the model of informal governance, however, may foreseeably be questionable in the cases of those organizations that are structured and governed differently, without a clear pattern of domination by superpowers, such as Mercosur, ASEAN, and many others.

Further, whereas the UN in general with the Security Council member states’ dominating major decision-making processes would appear to be an excellent example to further explore Stone’s informal governance model, it may require more elaborate game theoretical extensions to explain the functioning of other UN agencies, e.g., UNESCO, UNDP, and others. These theoretical propositions, however, merit a separate research project to reflect on the novelty or generalizability of Stone’s theoretical arguments that are currently bound only to the three cases of Western-dominated organizations linked with financial interests that are discussed in Part II of the book, where Stone supplies in-depth case studies of how the informal governance is exercised alongside formal rules inside IMF, WTO, and the EU. Whereas the author acknowledges that power distribution varies between international organizations, he nonetheless argues that since informal governance is ubiquitous, most international organizations may be discerned under the same logical model (with variations) that assumes full and perfect information and conceives of institutions and institutional design as endogenous. Stone’s model does not recognize that international organizations may act in world politics in and of themselves, sometimes independently of states, as constructivist approaches would argue. To him, international organizations are rather well-behaved agents to whom the principals (member states) may delegate without second thoughts and scruples: “delegation is not costly for the principals because the agent’s type is known” (Stone 2011:

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26). Surely, such an assertion is relevant in the analysis of the IMF, but more diversely sampled research could reveal a wealth of intricate dimensions of relations between member states and international organizations in the area of delegation of authority, as the recent work in principle-agent analysis demonstrates. With such promising directions of future research and replication, Randall Stone’s book stands out as a noteworthy extension and theoretical advancement in the tradition of rational choice analysis of international organizations. The book is an insightful read for scholars and graduate students of international relations and international organizations in particular.