The institutions of international treaty organizations as evidence for social contract theory

Roger Congleton

European Journal of Political Economy, 2020, vol. 63, issue C

Abstract: Treaty organizations are formed via voluntary contracts among national governments that address policy issues of mutual concern. As such, treaty organizations provide evidence about the kinds of institutions that might be adopted via social contract. This paper develops a theory of the design of treaty organizations and examines the domains of authority and decision-making procedures of 22 treaty organizations to determine if any general traits are in evidence. It turns out that most treaty organizations rely upon unanimity or supermajorities for their major decisions and usually have quite narrow (bounded) policy domains.

Keywords: Social contracts; Treaty organizations; Treaties; Trust; Unanimity; Bounded policy domains (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F5 H1 H7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:63:y:2020:i:c:s0176268020300392

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2020.101891

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