Explaining Textual Ambiguity in International Organization: Rational Design and Political Community

How “incomplete” or ambigious are agreements setting up international organizations (IOs)? Does ambiguity vary across IOs and, if yes, how can this variation be explained? These are the questions at the center of this article. We define ambiguity as language that, intentionally, leaves a wide margin of interpretation for the actors involved to construe its intended meaning after documents are first drawn up. This article offers the first comprehensive empirical and theoretical of textual ambiguity in international organization. The analysis builds on a novel dataset, covering the textual ambiguity of 71 IO treaties. We identify the most profound patterns in textual ambiguity across world regions and historical periods, and statistically test two complementary explanations of variation in textual ambiguity. The central results are twofold. First, the empirical data reveal that textual ambiguity is a characteristic feature of international cooperation, pervading IOs from different world regions and historical periods. Second, variation in textual ambiguity across IOs is mainly explained by a combination of three factors. In line with rational design theory, primary institutional design features, such as authority delegation to international agents and the presence of a hegemon lead to more textual ambiguity. In addition, in support of social-constructivist work highlighting the effects of political community, we find that states rooted in common law traditions tend create more ambiguous IO treaties.