Incoherence in Regime Complexes: A Sentiment Analysis of EU‐IMF Surveillance

Abstract

The proliferation of international institutions means that states can be subject to multiple, overlapping and potentially incoherent international obligations. The regime complexity literature draws attention to this problem but says little about its character and causes. This article investigates whether and why two key components of the international economic surveillance regime – the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU) – impose conflicting obligations on the same states. Based on a comparative sentiment analysis of more than 400 surveillance documents and using differences in tone as a proxy for incoherence, our results show that the IMF was more pessimistic about member states' economic policies before the global financial crisis but less so thereafter. Our results suggest that differences in discretionary authority rather than the distribution of power drove such incoherence, with the EU's fiscal rules encouraging less pessimism before the global financial crisis and more pessimism thereafter.

Explaining sentiment shifts in UN system annual reporting: a longitudinal comparison of UNHCR, UNRWA and IOM

“…Diverging from previous contributions (e.g. Breen et al, 2020;Busch and Pelc 2019;Duval et al, 2021), we argue that UN bureaucracies modulate positive and negative sentiment separately (Patz et al, 2021).…”

“…While previous research on sentiment use by public administrations has focused on the effect of sentiment in press releases on media reporting (Duval et al, 2021) or sentiment congruence in the news room (Meyer-Gutbrod and Woolley, 2021), our argument follows recent discussions on the context-dependent use of sentiment by IOs. International organizations are found either to respond to stakeholder expectations (Breen et al, 2020) or to strategically increase sentiment to engage political stakeholders (Busch and Pelc, 2019). Because annual reporting is a routine exercise that allows year-to-year comparison for drafters and stakeholders, substantive shifts in sentiment use from one year to another can be considered conscious linguistic choices that UN agencies make with the aim of gaining or maintaining support.…”

Regime complexity and managing financial data streams: The orchestration of trade reporting for derivatives

“…Scholars have identified regime complexes in a variety of policy areas, ranging from climate change (Keohane & Victor 2011;Widerberg & Pattberg 2017), intellectual property rights (Urpelainen & van de Graaf 2015), trade (Alter & Meunier 2006), and the Troika in dealing with the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area (Henning 2017). However, international finance has mostly been overlooked by the literature on regime complexity so far (with the exceptions of Heldt & Schmidtke 2019;Breen et al 2020;Quaglia 2020). Yet, regime complexity increased considerably in finance after the 2008 crisis, particularly in areas, such as derivatives markets, which were not subject to public regulation previously.…”

“…However, international finance has mostly been overlooked by the literature on regime complexity so far (with the exceptions of Heldt & Schmidtke 2019; Breen et al . 2020; Quaglia 2020). Yet, regime complexity increased considerably in finance after the 2008 crisis, particularly in areas, such as derivatives markets, which were not subject to public regulation previously.…”

Themulti‐agenciesdilemma of delegation: Why do policymakers choose one or multiple agencies for financial regulation?

“…Given the institutional density of most domestic societies, with several institutions operating simultaneously in the same issue area (see Breen et al . 2019), policymakers also often face an institutional choice: they have to decide which agency – or agencies – to delegate to.…”