Suchergebnisse

"The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the Committee of the Regions (CoR)" published on by Oxford University Press.

Most international organizations are based on the principle of equality of states. Their institutional design grants all member states the same formal rights. Although formally equal, states differ immensely concerning their power capacities and size. Can institutional designs of international organizations mitigate real-world power- and size-related differences between member states, and if so, to which extent? To provide an answer, this article focuses on the United Nations General Assembly, which combines an equalizing institutional design with a large very heterogeneous membership. It shows that the strength of the equalizing effect varies across stages of the policy cycle. It is the weakest in the negotiation stage and the strongest in the final decision-making stage, while institutional design of international organizations has a de facto equalizing effect of medium strength in the agenda setting stage. Thus, while power and capacity differences matter, larger powerful states are not systematically better off throughout the entire policy cycle.

There are hardly any instances of international negotiations, in which states do not at least partially recur to bargaining strategies. This article argues that bargaining power is ultimately a social construction, depending on perceptions about the plausibility of the realisation of a threat. Effective bargaining rests on the credibility of the threats made (e.g. no-vote, veto). Thus, even weak states can sometimes manipulate the threat-potential of seemingly more powerful actors and, thereby, punch above their weight in international negotiations. To trigger a loss of bargaining power, these states need to apply lock-in strategies that create linkages between the issue on the international negotiation agenda and other international or sub-level norms or policy commitments. Once such linkages are made, international-level bargaining threats of formerly powerful actors lose credibility as carrying them out would bring about severe reputation damages. This article distinguishes between different lock-in strategies and draws on three case studies (UNGA resolutions on African descend, on Myanmar, and on the Latin American Nuclear-Weapons-Free-Zone) to provide an empirical plausibility probe on the scope conditions under which the lock-in strategies are effective in reducing the power of seemingly strong actors in international negotiations.

The European Union (EU) is becoming increasingly active in international negotiations, not the least because speaking with one voice is a chance for Member States to increase their leverage. Yet in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the EU is a comparatively small group which often faces opposition from considerably larger groups, most notably the G77 and the Non-Aligned Movement. Since the EU is smaller in size than its counterparts, being influential on the basis of voting alone is unlikely to work well. Thus, this article inductively examines how the EU can be turned into an effective communicative power that manages to influence UNGA resolutions. Most importantly, bypassing a larger opposition requires bilateral lobbying, whilst facing the opposing group en bloc in multilateral negotiations should be avoided. On this basis, even smaller groups can become effective communicative powers by disseminating novel arguments or making normative appeals.