Understanding the Ties That Bind States: Institutions, Networks, and Community

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Despite calls for a retreat from interdependence, states remain locked in mutually beneficial relationships that are hard to abandon. As cooperation grows in complexity, states have more ways to interact from diplomatic networks and global governance to informal clubs. This panel looks at when and how states cooperate with attention to these different levels of interaction. What are the coalitions that matter for cooperation? What is the structure of cooperation networks and how do these ties influence each other? Using new datasets and analytical tools, the papers analyze the dynamic evolution of cooperation over time and across states. Davis and Liu examine latent groups in alliance, trade agreements, and diplomatic representation networks and how they shape coalitions. Edgerton and Pauselli analyze networks of co-sponsorship in the UN Human Rights Council and show how the structure of this network has evolved. Their study also demonstrates how the text of resolutions have changed. Milewicz et al. highlight how friendships shape cooperation in a study showing that social relations among states can lead them to be less likely to initiate formal disputes. Pratt argues that treaty architects can signal their support for the status quo by borrowing treaty language from core liberal institutions, and evaluates the conditions that increase the likelihood of such emulation. Finally, the paper by Ryu et al. develops hypotheses about the determinants of norm diffusion within different areas of international cooperation and uses methods of network comparison to study multilateral treaty ratification patterns.

Sub Unit

• Division 17: International Collaboration

Chair

• Julia Gray University of Pennsylvania

Discussant

• Julia Gray University of Pennsylvania

Individual Presentations

• The Structure of International Cooperation Networks - Christina Davis, Harvard University; Qi Liu, Harvard University

• A Network Analysis of Resolution Co-Sponsorship in the UN Human Rights Council - Jared Falkenberg Edgerton, University of Texas at Dallas; Gino Pauselli, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

• Friendship in International Trade - Karolina M. Milewicz, University of Bayreuth; Duncan Snidal, Nuffield College, Oxford; Kenneth Stiller

• Treaty Negotiation, Legitimacy, and Imitation of the Liberal Canon - Tyler Pratt, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

• The Structure of International Treaty Diffusion - Ki Eun Ryu, University of Iowa; Frederick J. Boehmke, University of Iowa; Olga Chyzh, University of Toronto; Zhanna Terechshenko, New York University; Bruce Desmarais, Pennsylvania State University; Jeffrey J. Harden, University of Notre Dame