Do Treaties Enable or Convert?

Abstract

Do states bring international agreements into force when their interests converge or does negotiating and bringing treaties into force cause their preferences to converge? Some scholars assume preferences are fixed and reflect the distribution of power while others argue the distribution of preferences should be a key factor in whether states can identify mutually beneficial outcomes, with greater preference similarity permitting agreements to occur. Finally, still others argue that creating international agreements is a social act that establishes a coherent norm of behavior around which actor’s preferences can then converge. To test these arguments, this paper reports on new, issue-specific measures of preference similarity created from U.N. General Assembly voting data. It then analyzes the relationship between preference similarity and the likelihood of observing major multilateral human rights and nuclear arms control events from 1945-2008. The results show the distribution of overall and issue-specific interests is significantly associated with the likelihood that treaties will be concluded and enter into force, an effect that increases with the risk posed by asymmetric treaty accession and compliance. There is also evidence of the power of treaty events to cause changes in the distribution of interests. In short, this paper finds a complex but causal relationship between the distribution of interests and treaty behavior.

Keywords: international cooperation, Rational Design, Constructivism, preferences, NPT