Dissertation
Dynamics of international treaty diffusion
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Summer 2020
DOI: 10.17077/etd.005580
Abstract
How do international treaties spread across countries? The dissertation explores how diffusion models explain the spread of treaties. Building on four widely known diffusion models - coercion, competition, learning, and emulation - I examine which model provides a better explanation for the diffusion of a certain type of treaties. In a treaty-level analysis, I study the variation in the shape of international treaty diffusion and factors that shape this variation. Economic treaties spread more immediately than security, environmental or human rights treaties because competition mechanism is at work for the diffusion of economic treaties. Human rights treaties which mainly spread by learning mechanism show the slowest spread. Treaties led by major powers are more likely to diffuse immediately.
In state-level analyses, I explore domestic and interstate factors that shape the mechanisms of treaty diffusion focusing on human rights and security treaties. The results show that human rights treaties spread by emulation mechanism among democracies, while they spread by learning mechanism among non-democracies. Authoritarian regimes wait and see the results of other autocracies’ treaty ratifications before they decide to join the treaties. I also found that whether non-democracies follow democracies or non-democracies is dependent on the sub-issue of the human rights treaty. For civil/political treaties, for example, non-democracies are more likely to follow other non-democracies, especially those which haven’t experienced democratic transition as a result of the treaty adoption.
The analysis on security treaty diffusion reveals that the diffusion of security treaties is worked by coercion and emulation mechanism. The pressure from major powers including the United States pushes countries to participate in the treaties. I found some evidence that countries depending heavily on a limited number of their allies are more susceptible to the allies’ ratification decisions, while countries that have a lot of alternative connections in alliance network are less subject to major powers’ or allies’ decision and, thus, can ratify slowly on their own pace.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Dynamics of international treaty diffusion
- Creators
- Ki Eun Ryu
- Contributors
- Brian Lai (Advisor)Sara Mitchell (Committee Member)Elizabeth Menninga (Committee Member)Frederick Boehmke (Committee Member)Marina Zaloznaya (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Political Science
- Date degree season
- Summer 2020
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.005580
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- vii, 135 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2020 Ki Eun Ryu
- Language
- English
- Description illustrations
- illustrations
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 106-118).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
How do international treaties spread across countries? The dissertation explores how diffusion models explain the spread of treaties. Building on four widely known diffusion models - coercion, competition, learning and emulation - I examine which model provides better explanation for diffusion of certain type of treaties.
Unlike the existing studies that focus on a small number of treaties, this research examines diffusion dynamics of multiple treaties over time. The new comprehensive treaty data used in this dissertation covers various issue areas. The dissertation provides more generalizable explanation by comparing over 500 treaties in various issue areas.
Aside the academic findings, this study has contribution in policy making as well. Rejecting the assumption that all the countries react the same way in the process of treaty diffusion, the study shows that treaty characteristic can affect the counties behavior and the overall diffusion pattern and speed. The future treaties can be designed to have most effective structure and characteristic to facilitate quick cooperation across countries.
Last but not least, this dissertation emphasizes the important role of great powers. Active participation of major powers in a treaty helps the treaty to spread fast across countries. In human rights treaty diffusion, the leading role of major powers increases the ratification both in democracies and non-democracies. Also, for the security treaties, the leadership of major powers stimulates countries’ ratification. This results hint that it would be very important to persuade major powers to join the treaty quickly if we want a treaty to widespread quickly across countries.
- Academic Unit
- Political Science
- Record Identifier
- 9983987894502771
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