Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T07:37:42.640Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pool or Duel? Cooperation and Competition Among International Organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Richard Clark
Get access

Abstract

International organizations (IOs) increasingly pool resources and expertise. Under what conditions do they pool rather than compete when their activities overlap? Drawing on elite interviews, I argue that even though many cooperation decisions are made by staff possessing high degrees of autonomy from member state principals, IOs are more likely to pool resources when their leading stakeholders are geopolitically aligned. Regardless of whether member states directly oversee the negotiation of these arrangements, staff design policies that are amenable to major stakeholders. I test this argument with regression analysis of an original data set that documents patterns of co-financing and information sharing among IOs in the development issue area. I further supplement these tests with an elite survey experiment deployed via LinkedIn to bureaucrats from various development IOs. Across the board, I find evidence consistent with my theory.

Keywords

International organizationsregime complexityWorld Bankdevelopment
Type
Research Note
Information
International Organization , Volume 75 , Issue 4 , Fall 2021 , pp. 1133 - 1153
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, Kenneth W., Genschel, Philipp, Snidal, Duncan, and Zangl, Bernhard, eds. 2015. International Organizations as Orchestrators. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Abbott, Kenneth W., and Snidal, Duncan. 1998. Why States Act Through Formal International Organizations. The Journal of Conflict Resolution 42 (1):3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aggarwal, Vinod K. 1998. Institutional Designs for a Complex World: Bargaining, Linkages, and Nesting. Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andersen, Thomas Barnebeck, Hansen, Henrik, and Markussen, Thomas. 2006. US Politics and World Bank IDA-lending. The Journal of Development Studies 42 (5):772–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, Michael A., Strezhnev, Anton, and Voeten, Erik. 2017. Estimating Dynamic State Preferences from United Nations Voting Data. Journal of Conflict Resolution 61 (2):430–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnett, Michael N., and Finnemore, Martha. 1999. The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations. International Organization 53 (4):699–732.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biermann, Rafael. 2015. Designing Cooperation Among International Organizations: The Quest for Autonomy, the Dual-Consensus Rule, and Cooperation Failures. Journal of International Organizations Studies 6 (2):45–66.Google Scholar
Brosig, Malte. 2011. The Emerging Peace and Security Regime in Africa: The Role of the EU. European Foreign Affairs Review 16 (1):111–15.Google Scholar
Busch, Marc L. 2007. Overlapping Institutions, Forum Shopping, and Dispute Settlement in International Trade. International Organization 61 (4):735–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnegie, Allison, and Carson, Austin. 2019. The Disclosure Dilemma: Nuclear Intelligence and International Organizations. American Journal of Political Science 63 (2):269–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnegie, Allison, and Clark, Richard. 2020. Security Through Solidarity: How Populism Reshapes Global Governance. Working paper. Available at <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3657329>.CrossRef.>Google Scholar
Clark, Richard. 2021. Bargain Down or Shop Around? Outside Options and IMF Conditionality. Unpublished essay. Available at <https://bit.ly/30GUWqg>..>Google Scholar
Clark, Richard, and Dolan, Lindsay. 2021. Pleasing the Principal: US Influence in World Bank Policymaking. American Journal of Political Science 65 (1):35–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clemens, Michael A., and Kremer, Michael. 2016. The New Role for the World Bank. Journal of Economic Perspectives 30 (1):53–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copelovitch, Mark S. 2010a. Master or Servant? Common Agency and the Political Economy of IMF Lending. International Studies Quarterly 54 (1):49–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copelovitch, Mark S. 2010b. The International Monetary Fund in the Global Economy: Banks, Bonds, and Bailouts. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Das, Jishnu, Joubert, Clement, and Tordoir, Sander Florian. 2017. Compensation, Diversity, and Inclusion at the World Bank Group. Technical report. Available at <https://ssrn.com/abstract=2967593>.CrossRef.>Google Scholar
Dechenaux, Emmanuel, Kovenock, Dan, and Sheremeta, Roman. 2015. A Survey of Experimental Research on Contests, All-Pay Auctions, and Tournaments. Experimental Economics 18:609–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreher, Axel, Fuchs, Andreas, Parks, Bradley, Strange, Austin M., and Tierney, Michael J.. 2017. Aid, China, and Growth: Evidence from a New Global Development Finance Dataset. AidData Working Paper 46.Google Scholar
Dreher, Axel, Sturm, Jan-Egbert, and Vreeland, James Raymond. 2009. Development Aid and International Politics: Does Membership on the UN Security Council Influence World Bank Decisions? Journal of Development Economics 88 (1):1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faude, Benjamin. 2018. How the Fragmentation of the International Judiciary Affects the Performance of International Judicial Bodies. In The Performance of International Courts and Tribunals, 234–260. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleck, Robert K., and Kilby, Christopher. 2006. World Bank Independence: A Model and Statistical Analysis of US Influence. Review of Development Economics 10 (2):224–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gehring, Thomas, and Faude, Benjamin. 2014. A Theory of Emerging Order Within Institutional Complexes: How Competition Among Regulatory International Institutions Leads to Institutional Adaptation and Division of Labor. The Review of International Organizations 9 (4):471–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gest, Nathaniel, and Grigorescu, Alexandru. 2010. Interactions Among Intergovernmental Organizations in the Anti-Corruption Realm. Review of International Organizations 5 (1):53–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goertz, Gary, Diehl, Paul F., and Balas, Alexandru. 2016. The Puzzle of Peace: Explaining the Rise of Peace in the International System. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Jessica. 2020. Complexity and Hierarchy in Global Governance. Unpublished manuscript. Available at <https://bit.ly/33AkHKF>..>Google Scholar
Henning, Randall, and Pratt, Tyler. 2020. Hierarchy and Differentiation in International Regime Complexes: A Theoretical Framework for Comparative Research. Unpublished manuscript. Available at <https://www.peio.me/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/PEIO13_paper_66.pdf>..>Google Scholar
Hofmann, Stephanie C. 2009. Overlapping Institutions in the Realm of International Security: The Case of NATO and ESDP. Perspectives on Politics 7 (1):45–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooghe, Liesbet, and Marks, Gary. 2015. Delegation and Pooling in International Organizations. Review of International Organizations 10 (3):305–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Tana. 2014. Organizational Progeny: Why Governments Are Losing Control over the Proliferating Structures of Global Governance. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jupille, Joseph Henri, Mattli, Walter, and Snidal, Duncan. 2013. Institutional Choice and Global Commerce. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keohane, Robert O., and Victor, David G.. 2011. The Regime Complex for Climate Change. Perspectives on Politics 9 (1):7–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kersting, Erasmus, and Kilby, Christopher. 2021. Do Domestic Politics Shape US Influence in the World Bank? The Review of International Organizations 16:29–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kilby, Christopher. 2009. The Political Economy of Conditionality: An Empirical Analysis of World Bank Loan Disbursements. Journal of Development Economics 89 (1):51–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kilby, Christopher. 2013a. An Empirical Assessment of Informal Influence in the World Bank. Economic Development and Cultural Change 61 (2):431–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kilby, Christopher. 2013b. The Political Economy of Project Preparation: An Empirical Analysis of World Bank Projects. Journal of Development Economics 105 (4):211–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeds, Brett Ashley, Ritter, Jeffrey M., Mitchell, Sarah McLaughlin, and Long, Andrew G.. 2002. Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions. International Interactions 28 (3):237–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mearsheimer, John J. 1995. The False Promise of International Institutions. International Security 19 (3):5–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Stephen C. 2017. The Currency of Confidence: How Economic Beliefs Shape the IMF's Relationship with Its borrowers. Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parizek, Michal. 2017. Control, Soft Information, and the Politics of International Organizations Staffing. Review of International Organizations 12 (4):559–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pratt, Tyler. 2018. Deference and Hierarchy in International Regime Complexes. International Organization 72 (3):561–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Christina J., and Tobin, Jennifer L.. 2016. Portfolio Similarity and International Development Aid. International Studies Quarterly 60 (4):647–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, Randall W. 2008. The Scope of IMF Conditionality. International Organization 62 (4):589–620.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, Randall W. 2011. Controlling Institutions: International Organizations and the Global Economy. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urpelainen, Johannes, and Johnson, Tana. 2012. A Strategic Theory of Regime Integration and Separation. International Organization 66 (4):645–77.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Clark Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/0JFJ5V
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Clark supplementary material

Clark supplementary material

Download Clark supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 968.8 KB