Abstract:How does publicizing states' illicit activities affect the stability of international order? What does this relationship tell us about how governments react to violations of international rules? In contrast to the conventional wisdom that transparent monitoring strengthens the normative legal order, we argue that these activities often undermine it. We develop two mechanisms through which this occurs: by raising the known rate of noncompliance, and by sharpening the threat that deviance poses to other states. … Show more
“…Alternatively, states may fear that exposing deviant behavior of adversaries will normalize transgressions in ways that undermine international regimes (Carnegie and Carson 2019). Exposing information about rivals can also trigger destabilizing security competition, both by provoking other states to respond to a rival’s behavior and by fueling domestic pressures for more confrontational policies among hawkish elites and the general public (Carnegie and Carson 2018; Carson 2018).…”
Section: Theorymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In some cases, keeping information secret minimizes scrutiny of norm-violating behavior or circumvents political pressure to take action in situations that leaders would rather avoid (McManus and Yarhi-Milo 2017; Carson and Yarhi-Milo 2017; Carson 2018). In other cases, states may choose to disclose information in ways that serve their interests, either through public announcements or selective disclosure to international monitoring agencies (Carnegie and Carson 2018, 2019).…”
How do emerging technologies that erode governments’ near-monopolies on intelligence information affect public support for leaders and their foreign policies? Technologies—like imagery satellites—that were once the domain of state governments are now increasingly available to commercial and private actors. As a result, non-government entities can now exercise the disclosure decision, publicly divulging information whose release was once controlled by states. We argue that non-government entities with access to these technologies serve as alternative information sources that can verify government claims or reveal activities governments have not previously acknowledged. Using original survey experiments we find that commercial satellite imagery can serve as an informational cue that shifts public opinion, and, depending on its content, either attenuates or bolsters the effect of similar cues from government sources. The findings advance debates over secrecy in international relations and on the effect of emerging technologies in the security domain.
“…Alternatively, states may fear that exposing deviant behavior of adversaries will normalize transgressions in ways that undermine international regimes (Carnegie and Carson 2019). Exposing information about rivals can also trigger destabilizing security competition, both by provoking other states to respond to a rival’s behavior and by fueling domestic pressures for more confrontational policies among hawkish elites and the general public (Carnegie and Carson 2018; Carson 2018).…”
Section: Theorymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In some cases, keeping information secret minimizes scrutiny of norm-violating behavior or circumvents political pressure to take action in situations that leaders would rather avoid (McManus and Yarhi-Milo 2017; Carson and Yarhi-Milo 2017; Carson 2018). In other cases, states may choose to disclose information in ways that serve their interests, either through public announcements or selective disclosure to international monitoring agencies (Carnegie and Carson 2018, 2019).…”
How do emerging technologies that erode governments’ near-monopolies on intelligence information affect public support for leaders and their foreign policies? Technologies—like imagery satellites—that were once the domain of state governments are now increasingly available to commercial and private actors. As a result, non-government entities can now exercise the disclosure decision, publicly divulging information whose release was once controlled by states. We argue that non-government entities with access to these technologies serve as alternative information sources that can verify government claims or reveal activities governments have not previously acknowledged. Using original survey experiments we find that commercial satellite imagery can serve as an informational cue that shifts public opinion, and, depending on its content, either attenuates or bolsters the effect of similar cues from government sources. The findings advance debates over secrecy in international relations and on the effect of emerging technologies in the security domain.
“…IIGOs also bypass transparency requirements that have become standard with FIGOs (Grigorescu, 2003), which promotes frank discussions and information-sharing because states typically do not have to record formal votes or leave paper trails. The large number of security-related IIGOs also challenges arguments that FIGOs ‘with strong institutional capabilities to share information’ are uniquely well suited to keeping clandestine information (Carnegie & Carson, 2018). Figure 3. Age of IIGOsInstead, the predominance of nuclear-related IIGOs shows that in high security settings, states guard their sovereignty not by delegating to a strong FIGO secretariat, but by using an IIGO to maintain secrecy.…”
Section: Iigos Are For ‘High’ Politics
12mentioning
Informal intergovernmental organizations (IIGOs) such as the Proliferation Security Initiative and G20 increasingly play a central role in governing international relations. IIGOs are based on recurrent meetings among high-level state representatives but are not legalized through a treaty and have no permanent secretariat. They allow states to organize internationally without sacrificing autonomy to a supranational entity. We present the IIGO 2.0 dataset, the most comprehensive compilation of these institutions to date, and illustrate the significance of IIGOs through several key empirical findings. First, while the creation of formal IGOs (FIGOs) has plateaued, states are increasingly creating IIGOs to address critical global issues. Second, states disproportionately use IIGOs for high politics issue areas including peace, security, and political agenda-setting which challenges conventional wisdom that IGOs (intergovernmental organizations) are less relevant in the security realm. Third, IIGOs are remarkably durable. Although states could readily formalize or abandon IIGOs, they generally organize cooperation informally for long periods. Finally, IIGOs are typically smaller than FIGOs and this design choice is increasingly used by states of all levels of development, power, and region. The availability of the IIGO 2.0 dataset will promote further analysis on the growing diversity of international institutions.
“…New agendas for studying diplomacy have recently arisen in the area of security studies (e.g., Carnegie and Carson 2018;Carson 2016;Lebovic and Saunders 2016;Trager 2010Trager , 2017Holmes 2013;Potter 2016), but they are far less common in the study of international economic relations. There are, however, a few prominent exceptions.…”
Section: Dispute Settlement In International Tradementioning
How do countries settle disputes in the shadow of the law? Even in the presence of legalized dispute settlement, countries still rely on diplomatic channels to resolve conflicts. But it can be difficult to assess diplomacy’s impact on dispute resolution because those channels tend to be opaque. We present both an original theory of the impact of diplomacy on dispute resolution and a novel measure of diplomacy. If countries with close or, conversely, distant relationships use legal channels for dispute resolution, diplomacy will have little impact on dispute settlement; resorting to legal recourse among friends or adversaries likely means that the dispute is intractable. However, diplomacy can increase the chances of settlement between countries with moderate levels of affinity. We test this argument using a protocol-based proxy for diplomatic interactions—gifts given at the occasion of meetings between diplomatic counterparts—that would otherwise be difficult to observe. Using the case of the United States and its disputes in the World Trade Organization, we find support for our argument. This suggests that even when countries resort to legalized methods of dispute settlement, bilateral dealmaking still plays an important role.
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