US Bureaucratic and Legislative Politics in International Organizations

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Research in the study of international organizations increasingly relies on principal agent frameworks and US politics as part of their theoretical frameworks. This panel brings together research in international organizations that brings the United States, and theories from American politics, squarely in focus. One paper utilizes bureaucratic politics approaches: Stanescu examines the competing pressures from industries and bureaucracies as determinants of international economic policy in the United States. Two papers look at the role of Congress in the ratification of international agreements in the early 20th century: Arias and Gray examine position-switching across parties in the eventual jettisoning of the League of Nations, while Carson and Conklin look at the role of executive strategy in engineering eventual Congressional approval of the United Nations. Finally, Campbell and Vabulas look at the influence of lobbing from domestic interests in US policies toward the UN after the Cold War. Together, these papers point to a fruitful overlap between theories of US politics and international collaboration.

Sub Unit

• Division 17: International Collaboration

Individual Presentations

• Voting Against Cooperation: Congressional Opposition to the League of Nations - Julia Gray, London School of Economics; Sabrina Beth Arias, University of Pennsylvania

• Agents or Advisers? Bureaucratic Structure and the Politics of Protection - Diana Stanescu, Princeton University

• How Domestic Lobbying Groups Shape Behavior in IGOs - Felicity Vabulas, Pepperdine University; Susanna Campbell, American University

• Cooptation at the Creation: Elite Consensus on US Participation in the UN - Austin Carson, University of Chicago; Matthew Conklin, University of Chicago

Chair

• Dan Honig University College London

Discussants

• Rachel Augustine Potter University of Virginia

• George A. Krause University of Georgia