A Quest for Harmony - Bureaucrats, Domestic Politics, and the Formation of International Agreements

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the connection between two areas: Bureaucratic decision-making and international law. I aim to offer a better understanding of the effects that bureaucrats exert on the emergence of international law and, especially, to demonstrate how bureaucrats may use international law and pressure in order to promote their domestic agenda. I present two cases where bureaucrats seem to have used international pressure for that purpose and thereby in order to promote their own domestic policies, and overcome domestic opposition: The Ozone Treaties, and the Basle Banking Accords. I suggest that the use of international pressure was evident specifically in the power of domestic bureaucrats to use international pressure in order to control domestic agendas. At the end of this paper I offer some preliminary suggestion emanating from these case studies. I posit that these observations should cause us to rethink both the delegation of authority to bureaucrats, and the democratic control over international and transnational decision making.