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Self-Reporting Compliance in International Institutions: Beyond the Bureaucratic Capacity Perspective

Governance
Institutions
International Relations
Public Administration
Quantitative
Policy Implementation
Theoretical
Jan Karlas
Charles University
Jan Karlas
Charles University

Abstract

One of the key obligations of states in international institutions is their self-reporting obligations, i.e. their duty to provide information about their implementation of collectively agreed decisions. Self-reporting also represents the basic and most widespread tool of the monitoring function of international institutions. In spite of the key importance of self-reporting, considerable differences in compliance with self-reporting obligations can be observed both across states, as well as across institutions. Yet, a theoretically informed research on self-reporting compliance is still very limited. The existing studies reduce their attention to single issue areas, namely human rights and trade. They also highlight the role of bureaucratic capacity as the key determinant of self-reporting compliance. What remains underexplored is the impact of specific incentives that motivate states to report, as well as the effects of the design of reporting mechanisms on reporting. In this paper, I considerably extend the study of self-reporting in international institutions, both theoretically and empirically. At the theoretical level, I construct new theoretical hypotheses on self-reporting compliance that provide an alternative to the dominant explanation stressing bureaucratic capacity. On the contrary, the new hypotheses that I put forward claim that self-reporting compliance is also significantly affected 1) by a state’s foreign policy orientation and, more specifically, its interest in multilateral cooperation and in a liberal international order, and 2) by the procedures of self-reporting mechanisms, in particular the number of reporting states and the frequency of reporting. To test these propositions, I use a new and extensive dataset that maps self-reporting compliance related to a sample of multilateral treaties. The sample includes 39 multilateral treaties spanning over four key areas of multilateral cooperation: arms control, environment, human rights, and trade. The dataset documents how states fulfilled their reporting obligations associated with the respective treaties during the years 2000-2015. Several regression models that I utilize demonstrate that the degree to which states meet their reporting requirements is not only influenced by their capacities, but also by their foreign policy orientation and the design of reporting mechanisms. From these findings, I draw a number of important implications for the monitoring function of international institutions.