Domestic Interest Groups Research Articles

India and the Redistribution of Power and Resources

India's spectacular growth in the last 15 years and its increasing integration into the world economy should have influenced the country's foreign policy goals away from the isolationist stance of former times. The government should also have become more interested in the distributional effects of global integration, become more assertive in demanding influence within global governance institutions and more sensitive to the demands of domestic interest groups affected by the actions of other countries. This is indeed the case, as we aim to show in this article. The government is still insulated to a certain but declining degree against the influence of specific interest groups on foreign policy strategies, however. Redistribution at the domestic, regional and international levels is a concern of the political elite, but activities at the domestic level target those important as voter groups more than those affected by globalisation. Regional activities are only partly proactive, while those at the global level do not challenge the existing international economic order but mostly intend only to carve out a better position for India itself.

Adjusting Norwegian Agricultural Policy to the WTO through Multifunctionality: Utilizing the Environmental Potential?

This article deals broadly with the receptiveness of domestic institutions to international regimes, applying an organizational theoretical approach. More specifically, the aim is to explore how international obligations emanating from multilateral agreements on environment and trade affect Norwegian agricultural policy. Multifunctionality has been portrayed as an adept way of adjusting agricultural policy to the World Trade Organization by tapping into the environmental potential. However, closer scrutiny disclosed that this potential for environmental improvements has hardly been utilized. Partly accounting for this situation is the relatively weak role of the Ministry of the Environment in policy-making compared to the highly institutionalized domestic interest groups associated with agriculture. The organizational field of agriculture has remained very strong, and hardly subject to normative persuasion from relatively weak international environmental regimes. Moreover, while Norwegian environmental non-governmental organizations do have the potential to affect policies, there is very little evidence of pressure for utilizing the environmental potential of multifunctionality. This study points out the strong alliance between rural and environmental grassroots organizations in Norway, with more harmonious relations than those at the ministerial level.

The European Court of Justice and the Challenge of Human Rights: A Case of Functional Majoritarian Activism

This thesis explores the challenges that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) faces as its human rights practice continues to grow, along with the ECJ’s strategy to address these difficulties. Human rights adjudication is different from the other forms of judicial review because it directly implicates conflicting normative considerations. This combines with the public salience of human rights cases to render supranational human rights adjudication a potentially controversial and politically explosive undertaking. In response, the ECJ has sought to minimize the threat of backlash to its decisions through majoritarian activism. Majoritarian activism allows the Court to reduce the appearance of supranational activism by portraying itself as merely enforcing and solidifying the status quo rather than advancing it through egotistical self- empowerment. This reduces the likelihood that domestic interest groups, activists, and private litigants interpret a decision as undermining their interests, sheltering the Court from political attacks that could harm its reputation. This minimizes the threat of ‘reverse spillover’ – that is, private litigants no longer invoking EU law and domestic courts no longer referring cases to the Court or upholding its rulings. Further, because majoritarian activism pressures minority practices to accord with those of the majority, the ECJ maintains its ability to promote European integration. In other words, majoritarian activism is functional in light of the unique sets of challenges stemming from the Court’s expanding human rights practice. Yet the normative desirability of this strategy remains questionable, and as the ECJ’s human rights practice expands, the Court will have to balance the positive functionality of majoritarian activism with the normative concerns the strategy invites.

The Violent Consequences of the Nation

Many scholars assume that nationalism is inherently aggressive without systematically exploring the relationship between nationalism and interstate war initiation. Thus, many questions are unanswered. Does nationalism increase the risk of war and if so, how? Which types of nationalism are most likely to trigger warfare? The author argues that nationalist persuasion campaigns produce several mechanisms that encourage conflict. Nationalism provokes “national enemies” and their foreign allies, generates biased strategic assumptions, creates domestic interest groups that favor war, permits the suppression of opposition groups, and promotes “nationalist bidding wars.” When these processes exist, nationalism should increase the probability of war initiation. But, different forms of nationalism may not have similar effects. Using original data on the existence and type of state-level nationalism from 1816 to 1997, the author finds that nationalism significantly increases the probability of interstate war initiation. However, not all forms of nationalism are created equal in this regard.

Interest groups in Russian foreign policy: The invisible hand of the Russian Orthodox Church

Among the domestic interest groups that play a role in influencing Russian foreign policy the Russian Orthodox Church has become an important actor. Its most important role has been that of supporting the emergence of a new nationalist Russian identity to undergird Russian policy. On specific policy issues, it has advocated the political reunification of Eastern Slavic Orthodox peoples, the emergence of a multipolar international system and the restatement of traditional values as the foundation for the pursuit of global human rights.

Flashback: Financial Liberalization in Mexico and South Korea

This paper investigates financial liberalization in Mexico and South Korea from a comparative international political economy perspective. Though the two countries have a different political economy background, their experiences with financial repression and liberalization were similar, as was the manner in which they handled the subsequent huge inflow of capital. During the process of financial liberalization, both governments had their policy autonomy undermined by strong domestic interest groups as well as by influential international actors. Similar situational effects also prevailed during these two countries’ financial crises: both experienced surges of international financial capital, had presidential elections during the crisis, and joined the OECD around that time. This paper sheds light on how the two countries experienced macroeconomic imbalances and financial crisis as a result of financial liberalization. The experience suggests meaningful lessons for other developing countries regarding the policy dilemmas that can arise from financial liberalization.

Domestic Embeddedness and the Dynamics of Multilevel Venue Shopping in Four EU Member States

This article describes and explains the variable extent to which domestic interest organizations seek access to the multiple venues provided by the European system of governance. A multivariate analysis of data collected in four member states—France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany—reveals substantial variance in multilevel venue shopping, differences that disconfirm some descriptive accounts reported in the Europeanization literature. Surprising is that French organizations develop extensive multilevel strategies while the strategies of Dutch organizations are rather weakly Europeanized. Our analyses offer a better understanding of the factors that stimulate domestic interest groups to seek access to European Union‐level policy venues. Factors such as the nature of policy issues in which groups are involved, the group's relation with domestic parties, and overall domestic embeddedness significantly explains multilevel venue‐shopping. In contrast, other factors such as policy sector or the group's resources generate little explanatory power.

National Security or Special Interests? US Support for the Panama Canal Expansion Programme

Of all the countries whose trade relies on the Panama Canal, it is the United States which took the deepest interest in its expansion. Washington gave an enthusiastic reception to the approval, in 2006, of a US$5.25 billion programme for enlarging the waterway. US endorsement primarily stemmed from a desire to promote international trade, a traditional foreign policy goal and an objective of influential domestic and transnational interest groups. Secondary aims included facilitating US investment and fostering stability in Panama. But the megaproject's hasty approval and incomplete nature may have unintended consequences that could affect conditions in Panama and US relations with that republic.

China’s First Loss

The China Auto Parts case is a historic one set in the broad context of the political economy and hard-line development policies of China. Through this case, trade policy makers in Beijing learned the lesson of the golden rule of international trade law, which is helping the Chinese Communist Party overcome domestic interest group pressure and get on with the job of reform. China could also learn that World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement provides a good channel through which trade disputes among superpower countries could be solved with efficacy and alacrity. A shift toward consistent non-discriminatory behaviour will help one of the fastest-growing developing countries emerge into a responsible stakeholder on the world economic stage.

Politics, People and Passports: Contesting Security, Travel and Trade on the US-Canadian Border

This article examines the politics of border management in North America, particularly the United States' northern border with Canada, as a by-product of competing and overlapping domestic political discourses. It considers these perspectives in the context of US state-society relations and cross-border relations with Canada, focusing particularly on a case study on expanded requirements for personal identification for domestic and international travellers by Americans and their North American neighbours under the “Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative” (WHTI). It demonstrates the capacity of domestic and cross-border interest groups to mobilize political and bureaucratic support through American political processes to modify US domestic security rules, and the factors which contributed to these policy shifts.

What Drives the Development of US Missile Defense and Space-Based Weapons? The Role of US Domestic Interest Groups

Whereas much attention is devoted to negotiating norms and formal agreements for the peaceful use of outer space, domestic factors that push for the development of space-based weapons receive minimal attention. Despite serious doubt about the effectiveness of missile defense and the technical feasibility of space-based weapons, the United States has spent well over $130 billion on research and development of them, including at least $10 billion currently. This article examines four domestic drivers that may explain why such investment persists: the defense perspective and ideology of the Republican Party; the belief that US satellites may require space-based protective weapons; the huge investment of the military contractor corporations, including their efforts to influence legislation and cultivate contacts; and the private advocacy groups that support US military domination of space. A number of countervailing drivers exist to mitigate against development of these weapons, with perhaps the most powerful factor restraining space-based weapons development being their wildly high costs.

EU decision-making: reinforcing interest group relationships with national governments?

Theories of interest intermediation in the European Union (EU) increasingly emphasize how domestic embeddedness influences the strategies of domestic interest groups. This article investigates a number of hypotheses advanced in this area empirically, based on analysis of the mobilization of local government interests in Denmark, Ireland and the Britain in relation to EU environmental directives. Interest groups that have a weak influence over national governments may be tempted into a ‘by-pass’ strategy, while interests that have a privileged position in domestic policy networks may be initially reluctant to embark on EU-level strategies. However, such strategies are not static but rather evolve and change over time – there is evidence of policy learning and a trend towards ‘venue shopping’ at both national and EU levels. On the other hand, those interests that remain weak at national level may also remain weak at European level.

Two Cheers for Bargaining Theory: Assessing Rationalist Explanations of the Iraq War

The Iraq War has received little sustained analysis from scholars of international relations. I assess the rationalist approach to war—or, simply, bargaining theory—as one possible explanation of the conflict. Bargaining theory correctly directs attention to the inherently strategic nature of all wars. It also highlights problems of credible commitment and asymmetric information that lead conflicts of interest, ubiquitous in international relations, to turn violent. These strategic interactions were central to the outbreak of the Iraq War in 2003. Nonetheless, bargaining theory is inadequate as an explanation of the Iraq War. Although the problem of credible commitment was real, it could not be solved because of the prior beliefs of the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein was uniquely evil and because of Saddam's inability to signal accurately to multiple audiences, both factors now outside bargaining theory. Nor was the problem of private information an important impediment to bargaining; rather, the information failures observed in both Washington and Baghdad were of their own making as each formed self-deluding beliefs and expectations. Bargaining theory also ignores postwar governance costs and domestic interest groups, both of which contributed to the war. All of these problems require either considerable amendments to the theory or the revision of core assumptions. Drawing on this critique, the final sections draw out the analytic and policy lessons of the Iraq War and suggest, most importantly, the need for a new behavioral theory of war.

Conviction or Coercion? Peru on the Road to Trips-Plus

Notwithstanding Peru's attempts to reign in ever-heightening IP protection standards at the multilateral level, Peru has adopted domestic IP standards that are TRIPS-Plus. This paper explores the development of IP standards in Peru, focusing on bilateral linkages of IP disciplines with trade and finance agreements, and domestic interest group pressures. On balance, it is clear that Peru did not adopt TRIPS-Plus standards because of normative conviction or pressure from domestic IP interest groups, but because IP protection has been linked explicitly with trade and finance agreements with the US upon which Peru depends for economic growth.

Combating Financial Crisis: Building Super-Structures of International Financial Regulation

The architecture of international financial regulation consists of structures built through a number of crises. Subsequent to Bretton Woods, the world witnessed the globalization of finance which highlighted the increased risks which follow in cross-border financial activity. National regulators started to develop cooperative solutions to mitigate these cross-border risks. Nascent and informal regulatory structures were formed by organizations of national regulators and standard setters such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. In the wake of the Latin American debt crisis and East Asian financial crisis of the 1990s, these structures started to take on a more Byzantine form. The various groupings of industrialized states such as the G-7, G-8, G-10 and G-20 and Financial Stability Forum, together with international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank started to play a larger role in international standard setting. The current financial crisis (the “Crisis”) provides another opportunity to reexamine existing structures of international financial regulation. It has provoked intensified calls for increased international cooperation in the regulation of international finance on a number of hierarchical levels and with respect to a variety of substantive issues. Broadly, this paper examines the prospects for such cooperation. First, it seeks to examine the structural aspects of international financial regulatory reform in the wake of the Crisis. It reviews ongoing efforts at constructing international financial regulatory structures in the form of the G-20 through the Financial Stability Board and in the EC. It argues that three distinct kinds of integration are taking place through these efforts: horizontal integration between various international financial institutions; cross-sectoral integration between different sectoral regulators having to collaborate to formulate cross-cutting norms; and vertical integration between actors of different hierarchies which set standards with different degrees of binding-ness and specificity. Second, this paper discusses the prospects for continued international cooperation in the wake of the Crisis. This section examines prevailing theories of international financial cooperation as well as political economy theories of economic crisis. It is argued that prospects for continued international cooperation rest on two factors. Foremost, the opportunity for international cooperation presented by the Crisis rests on whether domestic interest groups and coalitions have re-aligned themselves in favor of regulatory structures which are more stringent. If so, this re-alignment should point toward international cooperation to building structures of international financial regulation which provide higher standards of regulation and/or more enhanced enforcement or compliance mechanisms. Next, it is also argued that international financial reform is highly dependent on the domestic politics of dominant states. In other words, the viability of international cooperation is dependent on the extent in which domestic interest groups and coalitions in dominant states have re-aligned themselves in favor of higher standards of regulation. Third, this paper takes a closer look at the three kinds of integration that are taking place and examines their implications for international cooperation. Finally, this paper concludes by examining some policy options for the creation of structures of international financial regulation.

Multilateral versus Bilateral and Regional Trade Liberalization: explaining China's pursuit of free trade agreements (FTAs)

In recent years, at the same time it has pursued multilateral trade negotiations via membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), China has embraced a regional approach to trade liberalization by negotiating a number of bilateral or regional free trade agreements (FTAs) with its trading partners. This paper examines China's increasingly active FTA diplomacy and seeks to explain China's motives for pursuing expanded FTAs. Specifically, this paper argues that while China's FTA activism reflects considerations about enhancing China's influence in the Asia–Pacific region, capturing the economic gains of FTA participation, and minimizing the trade and investment diversion resulting from the competitive dynamics of regional trade liberalization, the move toward expanded FTAs is also consistent with the desire to create alternative bargaining forums over trade issues that could help to stabilize expectations as well as the need to use FTAs to control the pace of trade liberalization so as to accommodate protectionist pressure emanating from domestic interest groups. In particular, this paper highlights the impact of domestic politics on China's FTA negotiations through a detailed discussion of how pressure from protectionist seeking interests influences the scope and depth of China's FTAs.

ACQUIRING FOREIGN NUCLEAR ASSISTANCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has laid out an ambitious plan to become the first Arab country to possess a civilian nuclear energy program. Central to that effort has been the Emirati government's ability to obtain foreign nuclear assistance. This article traces the UAE's strategies for overcoming the obstacles that stood in the way of nuclear suppliers providing assistance. It examines the approach taken by the UAE to assuage the safety and security concerns of nuclear suppliers, how the UAE leveraged its alliances with France and the United States to obtain their cooperation, and its strategies for engaging domestic interest groups in supplier states. The generalizable elements of the UAE's strategies are discussed and used to provide insight into the prospects for other Middle Eastern states' bids to obtain similar assistance. The article concludes with a discussion of the potentially transformative aspects of the strategies employed by the UAE in shaping other countries' pursuit of nuclear energy in the region.

Conditionality, compliance, and domestic interests: State capture and EU accession policy

States and international organizations often attempt to influence the behavior of a target government by employing conditionality—i.e., they condition the provision of some set of benefits on changes in the target’s policies. Conditionality may give rise to a commitment problem: once the proffered benefits are granted, the target’s incentive for continued compliance declines. In this paper, I document a mechanism by which conditionality may induce compliance even after these benefits are distributed. If conditionality alters the composition of domestic interest groups in the target state, it may induce permanent changes in the target government’s behavior. I construct a dynamic model of lobbying that demonstrates that conditionality can reduce long-term levels of state capture. And I test the model’s predictions using data from the accession of Eastern European countries to the EU.

Democratic Competition and Terrorist Activity

Why is terrorist activity more prevalent in democracies than in nondemocracies? I argue that the main motivation for terrorist attacks in democracies is intergroup dynamics, with terrorist groups of various ideologies competing with one another for limited political influence. I conduct a cross-national, longitudinal analysis of 119 countries for the period 1975–97, using political competition as the key independent variable and the number of transnational terrorist incidents originating in the country as the dependent variable. I find preliminary support for the hypothesis that intergroup competition, motivated by the competition of the political regime, explains an increase in terrorist incidents originating in a state. Evidence also reveals a positive relationship between political competition and the number of terrorist groups that emerge within a state and a positive relationship between the density of domestic interest group participation and terrorist activity. Officials should consider intergroup ...

On the Political Substitutability between Tariffs and Subsidies

This paper provides a simple model that highlights the political substitutability between import tariffs and production subsidies.1 When taxes are distortionary, political pressures by domestic interest groups representing the import competing sector induce the government to set inefficiently high tariffs and subsidies. If the government commits the tariff to a lower level - for instance by signing a binding commitment in a trade agreement - interest groups demand (and in the political equilibrium obtain) a larger production subsidy. This political substitutability between tariffs and subsidies is shown to reduce social welfare.