Institut Barcelona Estudis Internacionals (IBEI)

URI permanent per a aquesta comunitat http://hdl.handle.net/10230/37232

Recent Submissions

Dynamic legitimacy in territorial conflicts
(Taylor & Francis, 2026) Daniels, Lesley-Ann ; Sanjaume Calvet, Marc
Legitimacy plays a critical role in secessionist conflicts, which are per se a struggle about the territorial status of the people and its government alongside the degree of international recognition. This article examines how legitimacy is claimed by political actors during and after conflict, using the case study of Aceh secessionism. Taking a relational interpretation of legitimacy, we argue that rebels create it using different legitimacy resources and dependent on the audience and the context. During conflict, rebels use parallel narrow legitimation strategies that do not overlap. In the post-conflict period, rebels need to appeal to a broader audience but there is more competition for legitimacy. When rebels prioritise a restricted audience, this strategy requires trade-offs and carries substantial costs, and so stores up illegitimacy for the future. Our findings build on the previous literature on the dynamic nature of legitimacy changes in conflicts and suggest that legitimacy is more malleable and fluid than previously recognised. These findings have implications for international support for post-conflict groups in clashes on territorial status.
Does the European Union 'rule the world'? Competition law diffusion to Singapore and Hong Kong
(Wiley, 2026) Karagiannis, Yannis
This article examines why Singapore and Hong Kong adopted competition law by testing four diffusion mechanisms: coercion, competition, learning, and the Brussels Effect. Using structured process tracing and extensive archival evidence, it evaluates the distinct observable implications of each mechanism. Singapore-often cited as a most-likely case for the Brussels Effect-adopted competition law only when the United States made it a requirement of the USSFTA. Hong Kong, despite its greater exposure to EU competition enforcement, resisted reform for nearly 15 years and shifted only when Beijing signaled support for a general competition law. In both jurisdictions, firms did not internalize EU standards or lobby for EU-style rules, and neither regime adopted EU-type merger control. Competitive interdependence receives no empirical support, while learning operates mainly as an adaptive tool once external pressure is present. The findings refine the scope conditions of market-driven regulatory diffusion and highlight the political foundations of 'economic constitutions'.
The 'Geopolitical Commission': 40 years in the making?
(Wiley, 2026) Kissack, Robert
In 2019, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised MEPs she would deliver a 'Geopolitical Commission' during the five years of her term in office, unbeknown that the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine were around the corner. High Representative Borrell heralded Europe's 'geopolitical awakening' through enhanced military co-operation, increased defence spending and drawing on the European Union (EU) budget to arm Ukraine. These policies, and the rationale behind them that the EU must become a more transactional, interests-driven actor in an increasingly conflictual international system, clash with an idea of Europe grounded in regional integration, peace and a rejection of power politics. Whilst exogenous shocks can explain institutional change, this article argues that endogenous factors are important. It asks to what extent was the establishment of the 'Geopolitical Commission' in 2019 made possible by transformative discourse within the European institutions? Drawing on discursive institutionalism and presenting original archival research from the EUR-LEX database tracing the origins of geopolitical discourse through five EU institutions back to 1978, the article identifies nine frames consistently used in support of cognitive and normative arguments in the co-ordinative discourse over the last 40 years, and how they were integrated into the presentation and justification for the Geopolitical Commission and its policy goals.
Bilateralism in multilateralism: France-Germany in Europe and the interlinking of institutional forms in regional order and world politics
(SAGE Publications, 2026) Krotz, Ulrich; Schramm, Lucas
Regional integration scholars have long stressed the role and importance of bilateral and other minilateral relations between states for multilateral politics in a regional organisation. However, the literature on bilateralism and multilateralism mostly evolves separately from one another, both conceptually and empirically. To bridge this divide, this article develops a tripartite differentiation of competing, coexisting and complecting relations or, correspondingly, of bilateralism or, and, as well as in multilateralism. It then scrutinises the bilateral link between France and Germany as a particularly developed case of minilateral relations mingling with the multilateral politics of the European Union. Analysing three pivotal episodes which span 50 years of European integration and different policy domains, we document why and how France and Germany repeatedly came together bilaterally to promote multilateral European polity stabilisation and development. The article contributes to an emerging but so far dispersed scholarship on bilateralism within multilateralism in Europe and beyond.
Formal governance matters: when, how, and why states act on the IMF Executive Board
(Taylor & Francis, 2025) Forster, Timon; Honig, Dan; Kentikelenis, Alexandros
International financial institutions (IFIs) are central actors shaping global development. Scholarship on these institutions' governance has primarily explored unequal voting rights and informal channels of decision-making. Much less is known about the actual decision-making processes that transpire in the IFIs' formal governance structures, where votes are rarely taken. This article redirects academic scrutiny to these structures to reveal hitherto unobserved state behavior. Empirically, we examine decision-making at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a key actor in the diffusion of market-oriented reforms. We introduce a novel dataset systematizing all comments of IMF Executive Board members over 3,111 developing-country-specific discussions between 1995 and 2015. First, regression analysis reveals that the interventions by the IMF's most powerful member-states-the United States, Germany, Japan, France, and the United Kingdom-correlate with their bilateral trade and aid interests. Second, these countries frequently reference each other in debates, demonstrating how coalitions work in practice. Third, we find that the preferences they express for market liberalization vis-à-vis countries in the Global South are associated with an increase in market-liberalizing conditions in subsequent lending programs. Taken together, this article reveals the usefulness of examining formal deliberations in IFIs, contributing to a fuller understanding of decision-making processes in the international political economy.

Institut Barcelona Estudis Internacionals (IBEI)

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