The Rational Design of International Institutions
2001/01/01 by Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, Duncan Snidal · 2,329 citations
Mathematics · Social Sciences · #Computer science #Computer security #Distribution (mathematics) #Economics #Enforcement #Epistemology #Face (sociological concept) #Falsifiability #Flexibility (engineering) #International Development and Aid #International Relations and Foreign Policy #Key (lock) #Law #Management #Management science #Mathematics #Political Conflict and Governance #Political science #Positive economics #Public economics #Rational choice theory (criminology) #Scope (computer science) #Social science #Sociology #Variation (astronomy)
paper · doi:10.1162/002081801317193592
published in International Organization 55(4), 761-799 (University of Cambridge)
openalex publication_date 2001/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract
Why do international institutions vary so widely in terms of such key institutional features as membership, scope, and flexibility? We argue that international actors are goal-seeking agents who make specific institutional design choices to solve the particular cooperation problems they face in different issue-areas. In this article we introduce the theoretical framework of the Rational Design project. We identify five important features of institutions—membership, scope, centralization, control, and flexibility—and explain their variation in terms of four independent variables that characterize different cooperation problems: distribution, number of actors, enforcement, and uncertainty. We draw on rational choice theory to develop a series of empirically falsifiable conjectures that explain this institutional variation. The authors of the articles in this special issue of International Organization evaluate the conjectures in specific issue-areas and the overall Rational Design approach.
Cited by
- Historical Institutionalism in International Relations
- In the Shadow of Law or Power? Consensus-Based Bargaining and Outcomes in the GATT/WTO
- Refugee flows and state contributions to post-Cold War UN peacekeeping missions
- The effectiveness of treaty design in addressing water disputes
- Dispute Settlement Mechanisms in Preferential Trade Agreements
- Why Institutional Overlap Matters: CSDP in the European Security Architecture
- Preferences, Power and Institutions in 21st‐century Europe
- Intelligence‐Sharing in the European Union: Institutions Are Not Enough*
- Reliability, Reputation, and Alliance Formation1
- Governmentality
- Formal governance matters: when, how, and why states act on the IMF Executive Board
- Balancing International Commitments and Democratic Accountability: Exit Clauses in Investment Agreements
- Setting targets: Abatement cost, vulnerability, and the agreement of NATO’s Wales Pledge on Defense Investment
- IO Overlap and the Allocation of Delegation: Evidence from the African Organizational Complex
- Fair is Fair: social Preferences and reciprocity in international Politics
- Play the scramble, avoid the backlash? Partisan dynamics in the negotiation of bilateral investment treaties
- Reaching for the Threshold: How Minimum Participation Rules Facilitate Multilateral Treaty Ratification
- Innovation and Interdependence: Evidence from Gene-Editing Technology
- Private goods for peace: Economic provisions of peace agreements and the durability of peace
- Smoke and Mirrors: Strategic Messaging and the Politics of Noncompliance
- Critical junctures in International Relations: antecedents, contingency, and change in world politics
- The Saavedra Lamas Peace: How a Norm Complex Evolved and Crystallized to Eliminate War in the Americas
- Positioning among International Organizations: Shifting Centers of Gravity in Global Health Governance
- When do regional organisations shame? Non-Western responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
- Politicizing International Cooperation: The Mass Public, Political Entrepreneurs, and Political Opportunity Structures
- How negative institutional power moderates contestation: Explaining dissatisfied powers’ strategies towards international institutions
- Reconceptualising burdens – NATO centres of excellence: club goods, informal institutions, and partner contributions
- Power, Control, and the Logic of Substitution in Institutional Design: The Case of International Climate Finance
- Risky Business: Organizational Challenges in International Support for Civilian Self-Protection
- Insuring the Weak: The Institutional Power Equilibrium in International Organizations
- Assessing the impact of NGOs on intergovernmental organizations: The case of the Bretton Woods Institutions
- Making Global Norms
- The European Union in a Geo‐Economic World: Towards a New Inter‐Institutional Balance?
- From contest to convergence in East Asia: why do regional challengers end up resembling incumbent institutions?
- Adaptation-exaptation in international politics: UNRWA as the substitutive-compensatory pivot of the Palestinian condition
- Rewarding loyalty: Selective reassurance and enforcement of asymmetric alliances
- The Effects of Naming and Shaming on Public Support for Compliance with International Agreements: An Experimental Analysis of the Paris Agreement
- Overlapping Regionalism and Security Cooperation: Power-Based Explanations of Nigeria's Forum-Shopping in the Fight against Boko Haram
- Overlapping Institutions, Forum Shopping, and Dispute Settlement in International Trade
- Barbara Koremenos. 2016. The continent of international law. Explaining agreement design. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
- Rule tensions and the dynamics of institutional change: From ‘to the victor go the spoils’ to the Stimson Doctrine
- Open economy politics: A critical review
- The new interdependence approach: theoretical development and empirical demonstration
- International reputation and alliance portfolios: How unreliability affects the structure and composition of alliance treaties
- Death of international organizations. The organizational ecology of intergovernmental organizations, 1815–2015
- What Are International Institutions?
- If Only Half of International Agreements Have Dispute Resolution Provisions, Which Half Needs Explaining?
- Explaining Institutional Change: Policy Areas, Outside Options, and the Bretton Woods Institutions
- The IMF as a global monitor: surveillance, information, and financial markets
- Making Sense of the Design of International Institutions
- Nonstate Actors and Compliance with International Agreements: An Empirical Analysis of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention
- The Inter-American Commission of Women and Women's Suffrage, 1920–1945
- India, Pakistan and cooperation along the Indus River system
- How International Actors Help Enforce Domestic Deals
- Duncan Snidal [wikipedia]
- New institutionalism [wikipedia]
- International organizations and migrant health in Europe. [europepmc]
- How Will COVID-19 Impact on the Governance of Global Health in the 2030 Agenda Framework? The Opinion of Experts. [europepmc]
- Foundations for the future: institution building for the purpose of artificial intelligence governance. [europepmc]
- Discovering cooperation: Endogenous change in international organizations. [europepmc]
- Constraints on cooperation shape hierarchical versus distributed structure in human groups. [europepmc]
- International Trade Norms in the Age of Covid-19 Nationalism on the Rise? [europepmc]
Related