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

该项目将从理论上阐述和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和自主权方面获得集体代理。我们将理论化自主产生和权威获取的机制，并在混合方法设计中对其进行实证检验。这两个政策领域的特点是存在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（FCCC）及其《巴黎协定》、巴塞尔银行监管委员会（BCBS）和国际会计准则理事会（IASB）。这些机构被授权制定和执行规则，但与成熟的国际组织相比，它们缺乏强大的官僚机构，并由其成员主导。根据詹姆斯·科尔曼（James Coleman）的基于资源的企业行为理论，我们认为，尽管受到其成员的密切控制，但这些横向组织像任何其他组织一样，凭借自己的权利成为行动者，并可以获得自主权（一种特定的组织原理）。该项目有三个目标：首先，我们将发展理论机制，展示如何以及在何种条件下，即使是横向组织的战略行动成员也可以被期望融入产生组织自治或决策权的制度过程中。相关假设将反映横向组织新兴代理的一般模式。其次，构建制度特征数据库，定量考察两个政策领域40个横向组织的资源禀赋和自治模式及其长期发展。第三，在选定的案例研究中，我们将研究开发的机制是否以及如何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.