Replication Data for: The Institutionalization of a Cleavage: How Differential Treatment Affects State Behavior in the Climate Negotiations

Differential treatment is a key norm in multilateral environmental agreements. Its main objective is to increase compliance and reduce the free-rider problem by apportioning the costs and benefits of implementation more equitably across the parties in an agreement. The question of how to differentiate those burdens is inextricably linked to national interests, and while in some instances differential treatment is well designed and facilitates cooperation, in other cases a rigid divide—or cleavage—leads to a stalemate and constant conflict. This article studies the consequences of differential treatment as institutionalized under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Previous research has shown that the separation of UNFCCC parties into two opposing groups has deepened the polarization in the negotiations. We identify two causal mechanisms that may have driven this polarization, namely socialization through material incentives and the formation of group identity. We draw on an original dataset that records (dis)agreements between country pairs, coded from negotiation summaries between 1995 and 2013. Using a relational events model, we show that the division of UNFCCC parties into Annex I (with obligations) and non-Annex I (without obligations) is related primarily to material incentives and less to group identity formation.