NGO monitoring and the legitimacy of international cooperation: A strategic analysis |
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Authors: | Christopher L Pallas Johannes Urpelainen |
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Institution: | (1) International Conflict Management Program and Department of Political Science, Kennesaw State University, 1000 Chastain Rd, MD 2201, Kennesaw, GA 30144, USA;(2) Department of Political Science, Columbia University, 420 W 118th St, 712 IAB, New York, NY 10027, USA |
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Abstract: | States often invite NGOs to monitor international cooperation. Under what circumstances are states likely to take this step?
We argue that NGO monitoring allows states to provide domestic publics with credible evidence regarding successful cooperation,
but that this credibility carries a cost: if states fail to cooperate, a participating NGO will expose this failure and thus
delegitimize the cooperation effort. Our formal analysis indicates that states obtain a dual benefit from NGO participation:
in addition to enhanced legitimacy, NGO scrutiny helps states credibly commit to high cooperation levels vis-á-vis each other.
The increased costs of failure, however, may deter state use of NGO monitoring. Surprisingly, we find that NGO monitoring
is the most useful for states when the cooperation cost is relatively low. We explore the empirical relevance of our theoretical
argument in NGO monitoring of World Bank development projects and compliance with the Kyoto Protocol. We also explain why
NGO monitoring has been disallowed in the Global Environment Facility. Our analysis provides a firm strategic foundation for
the idea that NGO participation sometimes confers benefits to states, and our theory has several empirically falsifiable implications. |
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