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Individual Leadership and Structural Power*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon
Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
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Abstract

This article examines the interrelationship between and the relative importance of individual leadership and structural power in promoting (or impeding) regime implementation. The theoretical debates on structural power and individual leadership are related to a particular case of regime implementation: the efforts of the Preparatory Commission on the International Seabed Authority and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to make the international seabed regime operational. The article concludes that hegemonic stability theory highlights a variable—structural power—which in this case is the key determinant of the ability to exert influence. On the other hand, hegemonic stability theory fails to establish causal links and it ignores other important variables, such as the constraints imposed by changes in the domestic environments of leading states as well as in the international environment. In the pulling and hauling of international negotiations aimed at regime implementation, individuals can and do play significant roles as structural, intellectual and, most particularly, entrepreneurial leaders.

Résumé

Cet article se penche sur la corrélation entre la conduite individuelle et le pouvoir structurel, ainsi que leur importance relative, dans la promotion (ou l'entrave) de la mise en place d'un régime. Les débats théoriques portant sur le pouvoir structurel et le leadership individuel sont reliés à un cas particulier de l'implantation d'un régime, à savoir les efforts de la Commission préparatoire sur l'autorité internationale sur les fonds marins ainsi que du Tribunal international de la loi sur la mer pour établir un régime international opérationnel des fonds marins. Cet article conclut que la théorie de la stabilité de la suprématie soulève une variable—le pouvoir structurel—qui, dans ce cas, est déterminante quant à la capacité d'exercer une influence. D'autre part, la théorie de la stabilité de la suprématie ne réussit pas à établir des liens de causalité et ne tient pas compte d'autres variables importantes telles que les contraintes découlant des transformations survenues aussi bien au sein des États dominants que de Penvironnement international. Dans le sillage des négociations internationales visant la mise en oeuvre d'un régime, les individus peuvent jouer et, de fait, jouent un rôle signiftcatif comme leaders sur les plans structurel, intellectuel et, plus particulièrement, à titre de chefs d'entreprises.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , June 1997 , pp. 257 - 283
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1997

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References

1 Urquhart, Brian and Childers, Erskine, A World in Need of Leadership: Tomorrow's United Nations (Uppsala: Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, 1990), 7–8.Google Scholar

2 For Oran Young, leadership is “a critical determinant of success or failure in the processes of institutional bargaining that dominates efforts to form international regimes” ( Young, Oran, “Political Leadership and Regime Formation: On the Development of Institutions in International Society,” International Organization 45 [1991], 281CrossRefGoogle Scholar). The nature and role of individual leadership is also discussed by Coate, Roger in “Leadership Dynamics in International Institutions,” paper presented to the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., April 1990, 2.Google Scholar

3 This reticence to tackle the subject may be due in part to the difficult nature of such research. Data on material resources and their distribution are more readily available and easier to analyze than is information on the relative importance of individual actors in negotiations. For the latter, the researcher must rely heavily on interviews with participants who may be reluctant to discuss their own performance, or that of other individuals, who may be inclined to exaggerate, and whose perceptions of events and developments may be faulty.

4 Examples of this approach can be found in Gilpin, Robert, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987CrossRefGoogle Scholar), and War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Kindleberger, Charles P., “Dominance and Leadership in the International Economy: Exploitation, Public Goods and Free Riders,” International Studies Quarterly 25 (1981), 242–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The World in Depression, 1929–1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973); Krasner, Stephen D., ed., International Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983Google Scholar); and Dcenberry, G. John and Kupchan, Charles A., “Socialization and Hegemonic Power,” International Organization 44 (1990), 283–315.Google Scholar

5 For a more in-depth examination of this case from 1983 to 1990, see Riddell-Dixon, Elizabeth, “The Preparatory Commission on the International Sea-bed Authority: ‘New Realism?’” International Journal of Estuarine and Coastal Law 7 (1992), 195–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 The Group of 77 is a coalition of developing countries, which was formed in 1964 to pressure the developed states for a more equitable distribution of the world's wealth. Its membership now numbers over 125 countries. The deep seabed mining states are countries with enterprises (private or state-owned) that have the financial and technological capability to mine the international seabed unilaterally.

7 The Pioneer Investors refer to the first group of applicants to register sites with the Preparatory Commission. They comprise France, Japan, India, Russia (formerly USSR), China and a consortia established by the governments of Russia, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Of these states, France, Japan and the USSR were the most vocal advocates of the rights of Pioneer Investors. Since India and China were considered developing countries, they did not face the same financial obligations as did the other three. The original rights and obligations of Pioneer Investors are outlined in Resolution II of The Law of the Sea: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea with Index and Final Act of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (New York: United Nations, 1983), 177–82.

8 There are a few exceptions to this generality: Kindleberger, Charles, for instance, discusses individual as well as state leadership in The International Economic Order (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1988Google Scholar), esp. chap. 14.

9 Hawes, Michael K., “Structural Change and Hegemonic Decline: Implications for National Governments,” in Haglund, David G. and Hawes, Michael K., eds., World Politics: Power, Interdependence and Dependence (Toronto: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990), 201.Google Scholar

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12 It must, however, be noted that concern for retaining the security provided by the American military umbrella did play a significant part during the Cold War in encouraging allies of the US, especially those in Western Europe, to cooperate in economic arrangements promoted by the United States.

13 Keohane, Robert O., After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 33–34.Google Scholar It should be noted, however, that Keohane is generally regarded as a critic of hegemonic stability theory.

14 Nonetheless, Keohane, like Gilpin, specifies that hegemony requires the political will to lead as well as the capacity to do so (see Keohane, After Hegemony, 35, and Gilpin, Robert, The Political Economy of International Relations [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987], 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

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17 See Keohane, After Hegemony, 31.

18 Grunberg, Isabelle, “Exploring the ‘Myth’ of Hegemonic Stability,” International Organization 44 (1990), 439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an insightful discussion of both coercive and benevolent perceptions of hegemonic power, see Snidal, Duncan, “The Limits of Hegemonic Stability,” International Organization 39 (1985), 579–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, 73.

20 Ibid., 74; and Kindleberger, , “International Public Goods without International Government,” American Economic Review 76 (1986Google Scholar), esp. 7–13. There are some variations on this theme even among mainstream theorists of hegemonic stability. For example, Robert Gilpin argues that the hegemon's motives are not altruistic: “In every political system the dominant actors assert their rights and im-pose rules on lesser members in order to advance their particular interests” (Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, 36).

21 Keohane distinguishes between hegemonic leadership, based on mutual cooperation, and imperial power, based on coercion (see Keohane, After Hegemony, 46).

22 Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, 73. This aspect of hegemonic leadership is also discussed by Keohane in After Hegemony, 45.

23 The advantages accruing from the ability to shape the environment within which international relations are conducted are recognized both by proponents of hegemonic stability theory and by its critics. For instance, both Gilpin (The Political Economy of International Relations, 73) and Keohane (After Hegemony, 44–45) refer to the need for ideological consensus. Strange stresses the importance of structural power: “the power to choose and to shape the structures of the global political economy within which other states, their political institutions, their economic enterprises, and (not least) their professional people have to operate” (Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” 565).

24 Ikenberry and Kupchan, “Socialization and Hegemonic Power,” 283.

25 Ibid., 315.

26 Ibid., 284.

27 Nye, “The Changing Nature of World Power,” 181.

28 Ibid., 182.

29 See Grunberg, “Exploring the ‘Myth’ of Hegemonic Stability”; Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony”; Snidal, “The Limits of Hegemonic Stability”; Conybeare, John A. C., “Public Goods, Prisoners’ Dilemmas and the International Political Economy,” International Studies Quarterly 28 (1984), 5–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gowa, Joanne, “Rational Hegemons, Excludable Goods, and Small Groups: An Epitaph for Hegemonic Stability Theory?” World Politics 41 (1989), 307–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Keohane, After Hegemony, 34–35.

31 For an insightful discussion of the interplay of domestic and international politics, see Putnam, Robert D., “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization 42 (1988), 427–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 Keohane, Robert O., “The Demand for International Regimes,” International Organization 36 (1982), 326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Young, Oran, “The Politics of International Regime Formation: Managing Natural Resources and the Environment,” International Organization 43 (1989), 353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Krasner, Stephen, “State Power and the Structure of International Trade,” World Politics 28 (1976), 335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The empirical validity of hegemonic stability theory is also challenged by Keohane, After Hegemony, esp. 31–32, 35, 38, 182–216; and Gowa, “Rational Hegemons,” 310.

35 Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” 560.

36 Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, 365.

37 Young, “Political Leadership and Regime Formation,” 288.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 The discussion of the case, particularly of the roles played by state actors (269–71) and individual actors (277) draws heavily on Riddell-Dixon, “The Preparatory Commission on the International Sea-bed Authority.”

41 The Russian Federation abstained because it disapproved of the interpretation given to the common heritage of humanity principle, the efforts to minimize the International Seabed Authority's expenses and the decision to grant the Potential Investors treatment similar to that granted to the Investors, Pioneer (“UNGA Debate on UNCLOS,” Oceans Policy News 11 [1994], 2Google Scholar).

42 LOS/PCN/WP52, Add. 1–3.

43 Statement by Madeleine K. Albright, US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, at the Secretary-General's Consultations on the Deep Seabed Mining Provisions in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, April 27, 1993.

44 Article 308 specified that the Law of the Sea Convention was to enter into force one year after it received the sixtieth ratification or accession (Law of the Sea, 106).

45 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 48/263.

46 The importance of the health of the global economy—rather than the strength or actions of the hegemon—in influencing policies is stressed by Susan Strange in “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” 560.

47 United States, Senate, 97th Congress, 2nd Session. Committee on Foreign Relations, Law of the Sea Negotiations, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Arms Control, Oceans, International Operations and Environment, “Statement by Theodore G. Kronmiller,” September 15, 1982, 8.Google Scholar

48 The “like-minded states” include Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. All have corporations with the technology and financial resources needed to proceed unilaterally with deep seabed mining and they agreed to respect titles to mine that each grant under domestic legislation.

49 Under the original parallel system, applicants were to submit two sites of equal value and the International Seabed Authority would select one for the Enterprise, its operating arm, to develop, and allocate the other to the applicant (see Resolution II of The Law of the Sea, 106).

50 Unlike the former USSR, Russia assumed a low profile in the negotiations.

51 The Expanded Midnight Group evolved from the negotiations to resolve the overlapping claims of US-based consortia and the USSR. These negotiations, conducted entirely outside the Preparatory Commission, produced the “Agreement on the Resolution of Practical Problems with Respect to Deep Seabed Mining Areas,” colloquially known as the “Midnight Agreement.” The group's membership comprised Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States.

52 India and China are Pioneer Investors, having had sites registered by the Prepara-tory Commission in 1987 and 1991, respectively. Cuba is a member of the Rus-sian-led consortium, Interoceanmetal Joint Organization, whose site was registered in 1991.

53 Not only are Pioneer Investors now able to select their own sites (as discussed earlier) but they are no longer required to pay an annual fee of US$1 million from the date of registration. Furthermore, the requirements for training personnel from less developed countries in deep seabed mining technology have been limited. See the “Understanding on the Fulfilment of Obligations by the Registered Pioneer Investors and their Certifying States” of August 30, 1990, LOS/PCN/L.87.

54 On August 17, 1967, before the United Nations General Assembly, Maltese Ambassador Arvid Pardo declared that the ocean floors and the resources therein were the “common heritage of mankind” (United Nations, General Assembly, 22nd Session, “Declaration and Treaty Concerning the Reservation Exclusively for Peaceful Purposes of the Sea-bed and the Ocean Floor Underlying the Seas beyond the Limits of Present National Jurisdiction, and the Use of Their Resources in the Interests of Mankind” [A/6695]). The common heritage of humanity became the guiding principle in the deep seabed negotiations at UNCLOS III.

55 For a discussion of the importance of preference intensity, see Blair, David J., Trade Negotiations in the OECD: Structures, Institutions and States (London: Kegan Paul, 1993), 31–33.Google Scholar

56 Ironically, the Reagan Administration's rejection of the Convention in 1982 was justified on the grounds that the deep seabed mining provisions, including those based on Kissinger's proposals, were “fatally flawed.”

57 Roger Coate outlines three stages of the regime process: agenda setting, legitimation and formation, and implementation. He concludes that intellectual leadership is most evident in agenda setting, although it can also occur at the legitimation and formulation stages. On the other hand, it is in the stage of legitimation and formulation that entrepreneurial leadership is most prevalent, while structural leadership may arise in all three stages (see Coate, “Leadership Dynamics in International Institutions,” 21).

58 This proposition supports Oran Young's basic message that “the establishment of effective international institutions ordinarily requires the interplay of at least two forms of leadership, and it is not uncommon for all three forms of leadership to come into play in the effort to form specific institutional arrangements” (Young, “Political Leadership and Regime Formation,” 302).

59 In a similar vein, Haggard and Simmons argue, “Overly broad jurisdictions raise administrative costs and the complexity, but overly narrow agreements may allow little room for bargaining and issue linkage” ( Haggard, Stephen and Simmons, Beth A., “Theories of International Regimes,” International Organization 41 [1987], 497CrossRefGoogle Scholar). See also Tollison, Robert and Willet, Thomas, “An Economic Theory of Mutually Advantageous Issue Linkages in International Negotiations,” International Organization 33 (1979), 425–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar