| 1. |
- Higham, Ian, 1989-
(författare)
-
Explaining Early Adoption : National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights
- 2021
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Diffusion of innovations theory concerns the process by which innovations are communicated through the members of a social system. Previous research has shed significant light on how public policies diffuse across governments over time, but there is little understanding of why they diffuse. The answer may lie in the motivations of early adopters. When governments are the first to adopt policy innovations, they lack knowledge about the political, economic, and other costs of adopting the policy. Given the potential risks, it is not obvious why a government would want to be the first to adopt a policy innovation. This thesis investigates the question of what explains early adoption of policy innovations. It contributes to the international relations literature on policy diffusion by proposing a theoretical framework for studying early adoption that consists of four motivations: 1) Normative – the government adopts a policy because of a normative position on a particular objective; 2) Reputation – the government seeks to improve its image or garner legitimacy in the international community; 3) Competition – the government seeks to gain a competitive edge on other states in “races to the top”; and 4) Domestic lock-in – the government adopts a policy to “tie the hands” of future national governments.The thesis has an empirical focus on public policies for regulating corporations on human rights issues: National Action Plans on business and human rights (NAPs). These plans are national governments’ strategies for implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), a set of global policy norms that provide guidance for states and corporations on addressing the human rights impacts of business. As this field is largely neglected by political scientists, the thesis makes an additional empirical contribution to the burgeoning interdisciplinary literature on business and human rights. The theoretical framework is applied in a two-step, mixed-methods research design that includes a global mapping of NAPs and hypothesis testing. The thesis then presents three sets of comparative case studies: Colombia/Ecuador, United States/Canada, and France/Sweden. In the first four case studies, the theoretical framework is used to compare early adopters and laggards. In the final case study chapter, two early adopters are compared to determine whether there is potential to explain variation within the adopter category.The findings lead to several conclusions. First, normative commitment can provide a strong motivation for early adoption, and domestic actors are particularly important for shaping a government’s normative preferences. Second, governments with concerns about their international reputations are more likely to be early adopters, especially if reputation gains are linked to a reward. Third, governments act strategically to trigger races to the top, especially when they are more economically powerful. They thus adopt particular styles of regulation early to influence the style of regulation adopted elsewhere. Fourth, the desire to lock a policy in place domestically is an especially powerful motivation for early adoption, although it is not essential. Governments may seek to lock policies in place both in advance of imminent political loss and in the wake of domestic political strife. Finally, interactions between these motivations may give them more explanatory power and may explain the relative stringency of the policy adopted. Reputational concerns and the desire to lock policies in place are especially mutually reinforcing.
|
|
| 2. |
- Koliev, Faradj, 1986-
(författare)
-
Naming and Shaming : The politics and effectiveness of social pressure in the ILO
- 2018
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the current international system, the use of centralized, hard enforcement mechanisms is often deemed either politically impossible or too costly. As a consequence, many international organizations (IOs) rely on so-called naming and shaming strategies as tools of political influence. Naming and shaming is the public exposure and condemnation of states that violate international rules and norms. It is not designed to simply renegade violators, but to produce compliance through reputational and status concerns. But how does naming and shaming work and what impact does it have on state behavior? In this dissertation, I adopt a comprehensive approach to the study of naming and shaming by examining its underlying politics and determinants as well as its impact on state behavior. In search for answers, I focus on the naming and shaming strategies employed in the International Labour Organization (ILO) during the period 1989-2011. Drawing on the theories of international politics, I develop a set of hypotheses that are tested by means of statistical as well as process tracing techniques. The overall conclusions of the dissertation are fourfold. First, the results indicate that ILO naming and shaming is used to punish violators of international labor standards. This implies that IOs, under the right conditions, can thwart the politicization of naming and shaming that has been observed in other IOs. Second, I find support for my argument that the decision to engage in naming and shaming primarily is determined by the democratic character of states. This enhances our understanding of when states participate in pressuring targets and the patterns of inter-state shaming. Third, the dissertation finds that ILO naming and shaming can improve international labor standards. The impact of ILO naming and shaming is stronger when target states are democratic and resourceful. This implies that IOs can overcome international collective problems without hard enforcement mechanisms and that IO naming and shaming, under certain propitious conditions, can produce compliance. Fourth, while democracies are more likely to respond to international criticism, not all democracies do. This dissertation demonstrates that ILO naming and shaming is a powerful tool among democracies that have strong and united labor unions. This implies that IO naming and shaming of democratic states is likely to work through domestic pressure mechanisms.
|
|
| 3. |
- Sundström, Karin, 1982-
(författare)
-
Watchdogs or Lapdogs? : National Human Rights Institutions in Africa
- 2022
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- National human rights institutions (NHRIs) have important roles to play for the protection, promotion, and monitoring of human rights. These institutions are set up by governments that have a special role in upholding human rights but at the same time violate these rights. This book tells a story of the choices that governments have made when it comes to establishing and changing their NHRIs and how these choices affect the ability of the institutions to be effective and to fulfil their roles.The book argues that while previous research has emphasised the homogeneity of NHRIs, these institutions vary considerably in their type, design, and strength – and, at least partly as a consequence, in their capacity to hold actors to account for violations and transgressions. While some institutions have been designed to be little more than lapdogs, firmly controlled by the government, others have been designed, and proven to function, as true watchdogs, holding governments to account for their actions.Drawing on an ambitious mixed-methods research design, using quantitative methods to describe and explain the establishment and change of NHRIs and qualitative methods to trace how the design of NHRIs matters for their effectiveness, the dissertation makes three main contributions. First, theoretically, it presents a new conceptualisation on NHRIs, their design, and their strength. Second, it studies institutions that have rarely been studied and thereby makes an empirical contribution through both a descriptive and explanatory analysis using a new dataset on the design of 88 institutions in all African countries, from 1960 to 2014, and in-depth case studies on the NHRIs in Namibia and South Africa. Finally, the study presents a methodologically innovative approach to the research on NHRIs, especially in Africa, in its careful combination of quantitative techniques, used to describe and explain the variation within and among institutions, and qualitative techniques, used to trace how design matters for effectiveness.The dissertation presents three principal sets of findings. First, it finds that practically all countries have come to have an NHRI, with many having two (or even more) institutions. These institutions, however, have differed in terms of type, design, and, as a result, strength, even if institutions tend to be increasingly strong already when established. The analysis indicates that ties to other countries, whether in the shape of membership in international organisations (IO) or diffusion from other countries, may affect the establishment of NHRIs. Second, it finds that NHRIs are far from static as most see their design change, typically in ways that makes them more independent and more authoritative. Diffusion, official development assistance, and the respect for human rights are linked to regimes having stronger NHRIs, while IO membership see the opposite relationship. Such membership, however, is linked to a higher propensity to change institutions. Finally, the study finds that the variation in the design of institutions matters for their effectiveness, but that it often interacts with other factors, such as regime type. These findings have implications for both research and policy, for instance for the study of politicisation and backlash of both human rights in general and for NHRIs specifically.
|
|
| 4. |
- Vikberg, Carl, 1991-
(författare)
-
Non-State Participation in International Organizations : Patterns, Drivers, and Consequences
- 2023
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Over recent decades, one of the most prominent developments in global governance has been the expanded involvement of non-state actors (NSAs) in the policy-making bodies of international organizations (IOs). This trend is expected to have positive implications for democracy and effectiveness in global governance by improving participation, accountability, and representation, and by allowing IOs to draw on NSA resources to improve policy-making. Yet to date, we lack systematic knowledge about three factors with fundamental implications for the extent to which promises of democracy and effectiveness hold true. First, we know little about the patterns of NSA participation in IOs. Second, we know little about the drivers of NSA participation in IOs. Third, we know little about the consequences of NSA participation for IO policy-making. Across five independent papers, this dissertation offers the most comprehensive analysis to date of the patterns, drivers, and consequences of NSA participation in IOs. Empirically, the dissertation adopts a comparative approach and engages in extensive new data collection on NSA participation in IOs. Theoretically, the dissertation develops novel theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the drivers and effects of NSA participation in IOs. The dissertation generates three main findings. First, patterns of participation display considerable variation across issue areas, policy stages, and time. The typical population of NSA participants in an IO body is small, and mainly includes NSAs representing specific interests and NSAs from the global North. Yet the patterns across issue areas and policy stages suggest that existing research on NSA participation have focused on IOs, issue areas, and policy stages where participation is particularly high, and where participation patterns are comparatively less skewed. Second, access rules, governance problems, and issue salience are important drivers of participation patterns. Reforms expanding NSA access to IOs have positive effects on NSA participation, but different types of access reforms have markedly different effects. Specifically, a deepening of the level of access has a positive effect on NSA participation, whereas a broadening of the range of NSAs with access has a negative effect. Furthermore, the nature of the governance problems and the salience of the issues an IO body addresses are central drivers of what categories of NSAs participate in IOs. Whereas participation from specific interest NSAs is comparatively high in IO bodies addressing technical issues, participation from diffuse interest NSAs is comparatively high in IO bodies addressing publicly salient issues. Third, increased NSA participation generally has positive consequences for IO policy-making performance. However, the effect of increased participation is conditional both on the initial level of participation, and on the categories of NSAs that participate. Together, these findings have implications for scientific and policy debates on NSA participation in IOs, NSA access to IOs, and democracy and effectiveness in global governance.
|
|
