Regime Complex Research Articles

Keep it complex! Prodi’s curse and the EU fiscal governance regime complex

ABSTRACT The EU fiscal framework has gradually morphed into a regional regime complex through various reforms of the preventive and corrective arms of the Stability and Growth Pact. A regime complex encourages actors to arbitrage between partially overlapping, parallel and nested rules. By drawing on this central insight, this article demonstrates that regime complexity enables member states to respect the letter but not the spirit of the fiscal rules to lower the cost of compliance. It further shows empirically how regime complexity weakens technocratic enforcement capacity when authority is dispersed across multiple levels of governance by focusing on the example of the general escape clauses during the coronavirus pandemic.

A matter of information – The influence of international bureaucracies in global climate governance networks

International bureaucracies, also called International Public Administrations (IPAs), have been identified as potentially influential actors within the global climate change regime complex. To assess how these organizations exert influence, scholars have predominantly relied on case studies, interviews and descriptive (network) statistics. This article aims to contribute to this literature with a systematic analysis that is not limited to an organization, issue or region, but applies exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to data from an original large-N survey (n = 342) of participants of global climate negotiations. Our findings indicate that IPAs have a considerable potential to influence global climate policy outputs. This potential influence is associated with the information they provide to regime stakeholders.

The politics of multilateral environmental agreements lessons from 20 years of INEA

This review article addresses the question: What lessons can we learn from work published in International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics regarding the politics of multilateral environmental agreements? What are the implications of these lessons for those responsible for creating and administering these agreements? Based on an analysis of 147 articles published over the past 20 years, the article explores issues of institutional design, institutional politics, implementation, and effectiveness. It concludes that key conditions for success in this realm include: (a) developing a toolkit that is not limited to rules-based governance, (b) paying attention to matters of implementation, (c) bearing in mind the overall regime complex, (d) developing effective leadership based on credibility and accountability, and (e) allowing for institutional adaptation.

Pathologies of a Different Kind: Dysfunctional Interactions between International Organizations

AbstractThis article develops the concept of “interorganizational pathologies” as an extension of Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore's work on bureaucratic pathologies. Adopting an open system perspective, I argue that dysfunctional interactions may arise between international organizations (IOs) even when their cooperation is fairly institutionalized. To advance this line of reasoning, I examine interactions between the International Monetary Fund (IMF or Fund) and the World Bank (or Bank). Evidence from more than ninety stakeholder interviews indicates that the interactions have been marked by what Barnett and Finnemore call “insulation.” In particular, two opposing types of interorganizational insulation have been common in the context of Fund–Bank relations: (1) groupthink, or sustained intellectual decoupling by the two IOs from the outside world; and (2) silence, or (temporary) communicative disruption between them. This finding is partly puzzling because while we may expect IMF–World Bank interactions to produce groupthink given the organizations’ highly similar worldviews, we would expect them to prevent silence given established protocols for continuous cross-organizational information sharing. The analysis sheds fresh light on the promises and pitfalls of cogovernance by IOs as key players in regime complexes and transnational networks.

A Pandemic Instrument can Optimize the Regime Complex for AMR by Striking a Balance between Centralization and Decentralization.

Global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is currently governed by a decentralized regime complex composed of multiple institutions with overlapping and sometimes conflicting principles, norms, rules, and procedures. Such a decentralized regime complex provides certain advantages and disadvantages when compared to a centralized regime. A pandemic instrument can optimize the regime complex for AMR by leveraging the strengths of both centralization and decentralization. Existing climate treaties under the UNFCCC offer lessons for achieving this hybrid approach.

Governing complex environmental policy mixes through institutional bricolage: lessons from the water-foresty-energy-climate nexus

ABSTRACT Policy mixes come in many shapes and sizes. This poses many challenges to policy design, especially when mixes extend across sectors and have multiple levels. This is the case with the Water-Forest-Energy-Climate (WFEC) nexus, a complex policy mix that involves not only significant cross-sectoral linkages and the potential complementarities and conflicts which are examined in other articles in this special issue, but also deals with sectors which involve significant national and trans-national elements. This complex multi-sector, multi-level policy assemblage also lacks the cohesion provided by a treaty-based international regime which allows multi-level co-ordination and integration of policy designs in areas such as trade or finance. In such policy non-regime or weak regime complexes, regional agreements and the negotiated nature of interactions within such agreements (which we see as a form of ‘policy bricolage’) are critical but overlooked factors affecting policy success.

The Reform of Nigerian Intellectual Property Law in Perspective

As Africa’s most populous nation and its largest economy, Nigeria occupies a strategic position in the Continental architecture of human capital. As the powerhouse of Africa’s creative and entertainment industries and better than half of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) subregional economic bloc, Nigeria is arguably the hub of the Continent’s pool of creativity and innovation in search of a dynamic intellectual property (IP) system to deliver on national developmental aspirations. Given that the IP system rests eminently at the commanding heights of the new global order, intellectual property right (IPR) protection has assumed greater prominence at the international and national levels. The fundamental role of IP in harnessing creative and innovative enterprises has never been more significant than today. In the words of Michael A. Gollin (Driving Innovation: Intellectual Property Strategies for a Dymanic Word, Cambridge University Press 2008, p. 1) IP is the invisible infrastructure of innovation and a source of hidden wealth worth trillions of dollars. With the crises of access around the increasing intersectionality of IP and access to knowledge, and the spirited pursuit of global development policies, IP has become intensely existential to humanity and the flourishing of society. In the areas of health, education, agriculture, traditional knowledge, climate-crisis innovation including frontier technologies and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, these normative debates present an enduring test of the strength of IP institutions in meeting the challenges of public welfare, especially for indigenous societies who have been caught up in the systemic imbalance in the global IP regime complex.

Hierarchy in Regime Complexes: Understanding Authority in Antarctic Governance

Abstract Many scholars argue that regime complexes are nonhierarchical. However, if that is true, then how does authority function? This article argues that the conceptualization of regime complexes as largely devoid of hierarchy is mistaken. Instead, it offers a new definition of regime complexes: emergent patterns of authority among state and non-state actors, which vary in their degree of hierarchy. Hierarchy in regime complexes looks different from political scientists’ traditional conceptualization. It is systemic, emergent, and positional. I present two dimensions of variation in hierarchy: deference and autonomy. These dimensions provide both a conceptual and an empirical strategy for understanding how authority relations are constituted. Conceptually, they allow us to “see” hierarchy in regime complexes. Empirically, they provide transparent, replicable and variable measures, which have eluded much of the work to date. I use topic modeling coupled with network analysis to detect hierarchy in the regime complex for Antarctica. I demonstrate that the inclusion of non-state actors and their governance activities changes our understanding of the Antarctic regime complex. This approach reveals a hierarchical regime complex, where some non-state actors have considerable authority and are governing issues not regulated by formal rules.

China engages the Arctic: a great power in a regime complex

ABSTRACT As global warming accelerates the melting of Arctic ice, opportunities for new transport routes open along with new strategic interests. This article examines how China pursues its interests in the Arctic and, specifically, the degree to which it seeks to work through the existing regime complex versus engaging in bilateral cooperation with Arctic states. China’s willingness to work through the regime complex or use bilateral cooperation depend on the specific issue. We find that China relies on global regimes regarding navigation issues, prefers bilateral cooperation for purposes of resource extraction, and prioritizes Arctic regimes to justify the pursuit of dual-use scientific research. We conclude that as a great power, China is well-positioned to use institutional complexity to its advantage. China uses existing regimes when it benefits Chinese interests, supplemented by bilateral initiatives as appropriate.

Norm convergence and collision in regime overlaps. Business and human rights in the UN and the EU

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how practices of (de)legitimation deal with regime overlaps by invoking the convergence or collision of norms, rules and procedures in regime complexes. It brings together two strands of International Relations literature – the concept of regime complexes and (de)legitimating practices in global governance institutions – to analyse the UN Treaty Process as a case study in the field of business and human rights. It makes three main arguments. The first is that regime complexes can be characterized by the concomitance of a collision and convergence of norms, rules and procedures. Second, regime overlaps and the collision of norms and rules may appear within a single international institution. Third, norm collision and convergence are inferred in (de)legitimation practices that characterize contestations in regime complexes. The UN Treaty Process demonstrates convergence and collision as (de)legitimation in light of the UN Guiding Principles (intra-organizational overlap) and the European Union (inter-organizational overlap).

International regime complexes and corporate crime: a research agenda based on the Volkswagen diesel fraud case

Criminological literature has often pointed to the absence or weakness of existing international regulation as important explanatory factors of corporate crime in global markets. This paper addresses the presence of multiple parallel, nested and overlapping regulatory regimes, and explores how such international regime complexity creates pathways to corporate crime. We use the Volkswagen diesel fraud case as a plausibility probe to illustrate such pathways to corporate crime. Our tentative analysis suggests that Volkswagen’s fraud in the US cannot be seen as independent of the EU regulatory regime, which was more lenient and offered various opportunities for creative compliance. We conclude that a regime complexity perspective is a promising addition to existing explanations of corporate crime in international settings and suggest a research agenda for future in-depth analyses of the implications of parallel and conflicting regulatory regimes for corporate crime.

Next steps in Arctic Ocean Governance Meeting the challenge of coordinating a dynamic regime complex

Successful efforts to address specific needs for governance have given rise to an Arctic Ocean regime complex encompassing a sizable collection of individual elements not related to one another in any hierarchical fashion. The density of this regime complex is likely to increase during the coming years. At the same time, the globalization of the Arctic has altered conditions affecting the complex in ways that require attention. As a result, we argue, a coordination mechanism is needed to ensure the efficacy of this dynamic complex going forward. Following a survey of the evolving seascape of Arctic maritime cooperation, we assess the roles the Arctic Council and other non-state actors are playing in the development and implementation of individual elements of this regime complex. These roles are significant. But these actors lack both the authority and the capacity to coordinate the Arctic Ocean regime complex effectively. The negotiation of an Arctic Ocean Treaty to meet this need is not feasible at this juncture. We conclude that it would be helpful at this time to organize a high-level but informal Arctic Ocean Governance Conference including representatives of a broad selection of stakeholders to explore options for addressing the growing need for coordination of the Arctic Ocean regime complex.

Introduction

Introduction

Massive Institutional Structures in Global Governance

Abstract Global governance consists of elementary regimes that form regime complexes, which in turn give rise to what we call superclusters around broad policy domains. In recent years, scholars have explored what these macroscopic structures look like and how they evolve over time. Yet the complex ways in which entire governance superclusters interact and coevolve, and what might emerge through this process, have not received much attention. In this article, we expand the ontological frontier of global governance research by offering a first bird’s-eye view on supercluster-level institutional interaction with an empirical focus on trade and environment. We constructed and analyzed a dynamic network-of-networks model, revealing a supercluster complex, a massive institutional structure in global governance consisting of two or more interlocking superclusters that exert a measurable influence on each other’s course of development. We theorize that the supercluster complex serves as an institutional fabric that enables the degree of self-organized coordination observed between the trade and environment policy domains. Our preliminary findings warrant more research on supercluster complexes as an important but little-noticed phenomenon in global governance.

The ‘China’ Question in Mobile Internet Standard-Making: Insights From Expert Interviews

This article explores the actions of Chinese stakeholders as norm entrepreneurs in mobile Internet standard-making within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Through semi-structured interviews with key experts from the Internet stakeholder communities, this article contextualises a rapidly transforming and increasingly politicised issue in the broader context of China’s engagement with the global multistakeholder Internet governance architecture, as well as the debate on China’s rise in the Liberal International Order. Furthermore, it incorporates the views and experiences of technologists working first-hand in standard-making, as they are often disregarded in political-scientific literature. Through the analytical lens of cognitivist regime theory, this article argues that the stronger China and Chinese stakeholders grow economically and politically, the more they become involved in the existing Internet governance regime complex, increasing their influence in the existing institutional arrangements without necessarily acting for changing their norms, rules, and principles. Through these theoretical and methodological approaches, new light is shed on the role of private and public Chinese stakeholders and on the relation between them.

What can we learn about ocean governance from the performance of the Arctic Council’s Task Force on Arctic Marine Cooperation?

ABSTRACT In the 2015 Iqaluit Declaration, the Arctic Council created a Task Force on Arctic Marine Cooperation (TFAMC) ‘to assess future needs for a regional seas programme or other mechanism, as appropriate, for increased cooperation in Arctic marine areas,’ and ‘to make recommendations on the nature and scope of any such mechanism.’ After working for two years, the Task Force came back to the council with a request that the TFAMC be renewed for a second two-year term with a more limited mandate focused on coordinating the efforts of the Arctic Council itself, a request approved in the 2017 Fairbanks Declaration. The eventual result was the establishment in 2019 of ‘a SAO-based mechanism to guide the marine work of the Arctic Council and improve coordination on marine issues in the Arctic Council.’ The SMM, whose ongoing place within the family of Arctic Council arrangements remains to be determined, held its first meeting in September-October 2020. Due to the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, this meeting took the form of a series of webinars held over the course of a month with the overall goal of bringing together marine experts ‘to discuss among themselves, and with the SAOs and Permanent Participants, how the Council and its cooperation partners could jointly pave a way forward on some of the Arctic’s most pressing marine-related issues.’ This article provides a critical assessment of the performance of the TFAMC, asking what we can learn from the work of the task force about Arctic Ocean governance, the role of the Arctic Council in this realm, and the management of regime complexes more generally.

Evaluating EU responsiveness to the evolution of the international regime complex on climate change

Evaluating EU responsiveness to the evolution of the international regime complex on climate change

Participation, equity and access in global energy security provision: Towards a comprehensive perspective

The multilateral institutions of global energy governance consider energy security a key aspect for achieving greater coordination in the energy transition. However, the public good characteristics of energy security and its implications for global energy governance have not been systematically analyzed. This article discusses the concept of energy security within the global energy governance literature and the public character of the “energy regime complex” in the area of energy security. We define the requirements for considering energy security as a global public good. Then, we apply this theoretical framework and assess the levels of publicness of consumption, benefits, and decision-making of the various global energy security approaches. The results show that institutional arrangements for the governance of the security of supply and demand should be conceptualized as transnational public goods rather being considered within a more global cooperative energy security approach. We discuss the implications of the results for other global energy governance domains, finding that the extension of the public character of energy security may limit coordination in other areas of energy governance, such as climate change mitigation.

Hybrid institutional complexes in global governance

Most issue areas in world politics today are governed neither by individual institutions nor by regime complexes composed of formal interstate institutions. Rather, they are governed by “hybrid institutional complexes” (HICs) comprising heterogeneous interstate, infra-state, public–private and private transnational institutions, formal and informal. We develop the concept of the HIC as a novel descriptive and analytical lens for the study of contemporary global governance. The core structural difference between HICs and regime complexes is the greater diversity of institutional forms within HICs. Because of that diversity, HICs operate differently than regime complexes in two significant ways: (1) HICs exhibit relatively greater functional differentiation among their component institutions, and hence suffer from relatively fewer overlapping claims to authority; and (2) HICs exhibit greater informal hierarchy among their component institutions, and hence benefit from greater ordering. Both are systemic features. HICs have characteristic governance benefits: they offer good “substantive fit” for multi-faceted governance problems and good “political fit” for the preferences of diverse constituents; constrain conflictive cross-institutional strategies; and are conducive to mechanisms of coordination, which enhance substantive coherence. Yet HICs also pose characteristic governance risks: individual institutions may take on aspects of problems for which they are ill-suited; multiple institutions may create confusion; HICs can amplify conflict and contestation rather than constraining them; and the “soft” institutions within HICs can reduce the focality of incumbent treaties and intergovernmental organizations and forestall the establishment of new ones. We outline a continuing research agenda for exploring the structures, operations and governance implications of HICs.

Regime Complexity and Complex Foreign Policy: China in International Development Finance Governance

AbstractThis paper examines China’s involvement in the governance of international development finance (IDF), analyzes its approach to the IDF regime complex, and explains its strategic policy incoherence. It shows that in recent decades China has actively engaged with the elemental IDF regimes at multiple levels – global, regional, cross‐regional, subregional, and bilateral. It argues that the Chinese government has been strategically incoherent in its policy toward IDF governance, lending support to competing models and norms. China’s ‘forum linking’ strategy with regard to multilateral development banks has enhanced international cooperation while its unconventional bilateral development assistance programs have facilitated ‘forum shopping’ by the recipient countries, thus undermining the traditional IDF framework. There are multiple sources of China’s strategic policy incoherence. Besides the country’s multiple identities and complex interests, this paper highlights the impact of the fragmented nature of the regime complex and Chinese perception of this fragmentation.