Compliance (International)

Power is a key concept in international politics, not only in realist thinking. Although power-based theories of international relations stress the relevance of power in explaining war and stability in the international system, institutionalist approaches focus on the exercise of power in both the formation and maintenance of institutions, and through institutions and within and among institutions. Recently, the legalization literature has triggered a debate about the extent to which international institutions mitigate the influence of powerful states.

Irrespective of their theoretical approach, most scholars tend to treat power as a property focusing on a particular type of power resource, such as gross domestic product (GDP), demography, or military force. Compliance, defined as rule-consistent behavior, by contrast, lends itself to a more relational concept of power. Following Max Weber, power can be understood as the probability of getting an actor to comply against his or her resistance. Compliance is then a manifestation of power. Conversely, power becomes a major prerequisite to ensure compliance with international institutions.

The so-called enforcement school in international compliance research assumes that states violate international norms and rules because they are not willing to bear the costs of compliance. This is particularly the case if international norms and rules are not compatible with national arrangements, as a result of which compliance requires substantial changes at the domestic level. From this rationalist perspective, noncompliance can only be prevented by increasing the costs of noncompliance. Realist approaches point to hegemonic states, which in the absence of an international monopoly of legitimate force are the only actors with sufficient power to effectively sanction noncompliant behavior. Institutionalist approaches, by contrast, emphasize that international institutions can serve as substitutes for the enforcement powers of hegemonic states. Noncompliance or free riding becomes less attractive to states if they are likely to be caught and punished. International institutions can then provide mechanisms for monitoring compliance and for coordinating sanctions against free riders.

Several studies have confirmed the importance of enforcement power, both of states and third-party authorities, for ensuring compliance with international institutions. At the same time, the original power-based argument of the enforcement school has been differentiated by various strands of the international relations literature. First, liberal theories draw attention to the domestic power of states to legally ratify and enforce international agreements. Domestic veto players can create problems of “involuntary defection” where states are willing to comply but lack the power to overcome domestic resistance against required legal and political changes. For instance, the U.S. president had signed the Kyoto Protocol but could not get the required two-thirds majority in the U.S. Senate to ratify it. Overall, however, compliance studies have found little support for the relevance of institutional veto players in explaining compliance.

Second, powerful states do more than enforce compliance; they may also be less sensitive to costs imposed by sanctions and, hence, more resistant to external enforcement pressures. This can be called the power of recalcitrance. The United States is simply more capable of coping with punitive tariffs authorized by the dispute settlement procedure of the World Trade Organization (WTO) than are Kenya and Austria. The same applies to reputational costs caused by a loss of credibility (or social sanctioning). Weak states can hardly afford to exclude powerful states from international agreements, even if the latter have the reputation of being unreliable partners.

...