The Self-Selection of Democracies into Treaty Design: Insights from International Environmental Agreements

Generally, democratic regime type is positively associated with participating in international environmental agreements. In this context, this study focuses on the legal nature of an agreement, which is linked to audience costs primarily at the domestic level that occur in case of non-compliance and are felt especially by democracies. Eventually, more legalized (\hard-law") treaties make compliance potentially more challenging and democratic leaders may anticipate the corresponding audience costs, which decreases the likelihood that democracies select themselves into such treaties. The empirical implication of our theory follows that environmental agreements with a larger share of democratic members are less likely to be characterized by hard law. This claim is tested using quantitative data on global environmental treaties. The results strongly support our argument, shed new light on the relationship between participation in international agreements and the form of government, and also have implications for the \words-deeds" debate in international environmental policy-making

The Rise and Fall of the Aid Effectiveness Norm

This article analyzes the rise and fall of the aid effectiveness norm, using the lens of Finnemore and Sikkink’s norm ‘life cycle’. I argue that, although donors and recipients endorsed the founding principles, the norm was only feebly internalized: they were unwilling to overcome their reluctance—and important disincentives—to substantially change their practices on the ground. After the norm cascaded, the donor-led process sought to gain legitimacy and diffuse the norm more broadly by trying to bring in a wider range of actors through norm substitution. These changes failed to convince emerging donors to engage and caused the norm to decay to the point where it ceased to constitute a norm. This case highlights the importance of refining the life cycle model to take into account weak internalization and the potential existence of a second phase in which norms decline and potentially die

Global Consensus Is a Dream, but Twitter Is Real:Simulating a Sustainable Development Goals Summit Through Interdisciplinary Classroom Politics and negotiation by Social Media

Rio+20 saw commitment from the international community to develop Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to shape the global efforts towards sustainable development. As part of an interdisciplinary curriculum innovation module at the University of Southampton, students take part in a ‘SDGs Summit’. Interdisciplinary student groups represent nation ‘blocs’ attempting to reach consensus on six priority SDGs, from a starting set of sixteen, through personal and social media negotiation. The exercise requires students to inhabit the perspectives of different ‘blocs’, challenging them to extend their understanding and application of sustainable development beyond their own discipline. This paper shares best practice on this innovative vehicle for teaching students the complexities surrounding international political negotiation and agreement where the outcomes will have differing social, economic and environmental consequences for the ‘blocs’, depending on their economic prosperity, natural resources, states of development, and political ideologies. The paper also explores how the summit incorporates the challenges around inequality of access and influence on the global negotiating platform. The adaptation of existing simulation and negotiation pedagogies to address current global political concerns and the use of Twitter in the classroom is considered to be a suitable approach to address the complex interdisciplinary subject area of sustainable development. Although initially focused at ESD practitioners, the interdisciplinary, social media and international focus of the SDGs Summit renders this approach relevant for pedagogical innovators and students across the glob

ENVIRONMENTAL AND TRADE REGIMES: COMPARISON OF HYPERGRAPHS MODELING THE RATIFICATIONS OF UN MULTILATERAL TREATIES

International audienceIn analyzing the ratifications of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and United Nations-based trade agreements, this study pursues two goals: first, to provide evidence of the limitations of the role played by the United Nations in promoting sustainable development as a bridge between both regimes, although member states are roughly the same; second, on a methodological side, to contribute to the exploration of the use of hypergraphs to model a dynamic in International Relations, as illustrated by analyzing empirical data easily accessible and available on the web. We use 3550 ratification dates of MEAs (1979-2015) and 834 ratifications of trade agreements (1963-2014) available on the website of the United Nations Treaty Collection. The hypergraph-based analysis of the temporal successions of ratifications highlights informal communities of countries whose contours emerge through this uncoordinated process of ratification. The European countries and more specifically members of the European Union, and their Atlantic allies stand out as having the leadership of the construction of a global environmental order. However, no formally established community of countries emerges from the chronology of ratification of the United Nations trade agreements. In this particular UN context, none of the contemporary trade powers is even central to this dynamic. Indeed, most trade negotiations take place outside the United Nations arena, particularly in the framework of the World Trade Organization, or in regional, bilateral, or even minilateral partnerships