Collective Agency of Horizontal Regulatory Organizations in Global Environmental and Financial Market Governance

该项目将从理论上阐述并实证研究全球政治的两个重要领域-环境保护和金融市场监管-的横向监管组织是否以及如何在决策权力和自主权方面获得集体代理权。我们将理论化的权力产生和权威收购的机制，并在一个混合的方法设计进行实证检验。这两个政策领域的特点是存在着许多专门的国际或跨国治理机构，包括《联合国气候变化框架公约》及其《巴黎协定》、巴塞尔银行监督委员会和国际会计准则理事会。这些机构被授权制定和执行规则，但与成熟的国际组织不同，它们缺乏强大的官僚机构，并由其成员主导。与詹姆斯科尔曼的资源为基础的理论的公司行动，我们认为，这些横向组织成为演员在自己的权利像任何其他组织，可以获得自治权（一个特定的组织的理由），尽管他们的成员密切控制。该项目有三个目标：第一，我们将开发理论机制，显示如何，以及在何种条件下，即使是横向组织的战略行为成员可以被期望陷入产生组织自主权或决策权的制度过程。相关的假设将反映横向组织的新兴代理的一般模式。其次，我们将编制一个机构特征数据库，并对来自两个政策领域的40个横向组织的资源禀赋和自主权模式及其随时间的发展进行定量研究。第三，在选定的案例研究中，我们将研究是否以及如何开发的机制转化为实际的组织自治。

The project will elaborate theoretically and investigate empirically whether and how horizontal regulatory organizations in two important areas of global politics – environmental protection and financial market regulation – gain collective agency along the dimensions of decision-making authority and autonomy. We will theorize mechanisms of autonomy-generation and authority acquisition and subject them to an empirical test in a mixed methods design. Both policy fields are characterized by the presence of numerous specialized, international or transnational governance institutions, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and its Paris Agreement, the Basel Committee of Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). These institutions are authorized to produce and administer rules, but, in contrast to full-fledged international organizations, lack powerful bureaucracies and are dominated by their members. In line with James Coleman’s resource-based theory of corporate action, we argue that these horizontal organizations become actors in their own right like any other organization and can acquire autonomy (a specific organizational rationale), despite close control by their members. The project has three objectives: First, we will develop theoretical mechanisms showing how, and under which conditions, even strategically acting members of horizontal organizations can be expected to be enmeshed in institutional processes that generate organizational autonomy or decision-making authority. Related hypotheses will reflect general patterns of emerging agency of horizontal organizations. Second, we will compile a database of institutional characteristics and quantitatively examine patterns of resource endowment and autonomy and their development over time for a set of 40 horizontal organizations from the two policy fields. Third, in selected case studies we will examine whether and how the developed mechanisms translate into actual organizational autonomy.