Causes of Compliance: The EU and the WTO

International cooperation has become increasingly institutionalised. The significance of this development depends largely on whether governments conform to international rules when it is costly to do so. Although there are rival theoretical explanations for compliance, empirical evaluation of these accounts has been limited and has provided little insight into why a government would comply with a specific rule. This project will develop specific expectations for compliance based on the rival theoretical explanations: neo-realism (emphasising relative power); rational choice institutionalism (emphasising costs associated with others being encouraged to not comply or being unwilling to cooperate in the future) and constructivism (emphasising appropriate behaviour). It will test them with respect to the European Union’s compliance with World Trade Organisation rules. The project will combine a statistical analysis of the EU's compliance with WTO judgements; paired case studies of the politics of EU policy-making before and after EU rules were found incompatible with WTO disciplines; and a survey of EU-level associations to identify environmental or public-health proposals that were not adopted because of concerns about WTO compatibility. This project will thus analyse the political dynamics of compliance with international rules and explore the impact of international rules on EU policy-making.