Suchergebnisse

First published online 14 January 2016 ; An emerging research programme on diffusion across regional international organisations (RIOs) proposes that decisions taken in one RIO affect decision-making in other RIOs. This work has provided a welcome corrective to endogenously-focused accounts of RIOs. Nevertheless, by focusing on the final design of policies and institutional arrangements, it has been conceptually overly narrow. This has led to a truncated understanding of diffusion's impact and to an unjustified view of convergence as its primary outcome. Drawing on public policy and sociological research, we offer a conceptual framework that seeks to remedy these weaknesses by disaggregating the decision-making process on the 'receiving' side. We suggest that policies and institutional arrangements in RIOs result from three decision-making stages: problematisation (identification of something as a political problem), framing (categorisation of the problem and possible solutions), and scripting (design of final solutions). Diffusion can affect any combination of these stages. Consequently, its effects are more varied and potentially extensive than is currently recognised, and convergence and persistent variation in scripting are both possible outcomes. We illustrate our framework by re-evaluating research on dispute settlement institutions in the EEC, NAFTA, and SADC. We conclude by discussing its theoretical implications and the conditions that likely promote diffusion.

This article contributes to the growing comparative scholarship on regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the dynamics they engender in national and local life. An objective of that scholarship is to identify patterns across RTAs. We investigate the following question: how have RTAs helped separatist and autonomous movements in their ambitions? We propose that both the left- and right-leaning movements have successfully appropriated, in positive and negative language, RTAs in their rhetoric to articulate not only their goals against their nation states but also their claims against those who oppose them. We identify four factors that might explain the observable differences in rhetorical approaches. The empirical evidence concerns the Quebecois nationalists in Canada, Convergencia i Unio in Spain, the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Lega Nord in Italy. We conclude by reflecting on the possible local and regional impact of the observed rhetorical leveraging across RTAs. Adapted from the source document.