Empty Promises and Nonincorporation in Mercosur

Why do the member states of the world’s fourth-largest trading block incorporate only about two-thirds of all policies they adopt? This article argues that empty promises are an important reason for Mercosur’s incorporation problems and that Mercosur’s institutional design furthers such a defective behavior. Member governments easily sign agreements whenever they are rewarded for the mere act of doing so. However, if they expect high costs from implementing these policies, they try to avoid incorporation. Since only the last state to incorporate a policy triggers its overall legal validity, Mercosur’s members can easily veto any agreement ex post. In addition to empty promises, mismanaged drafting and incorporation and the abuse of negotiation power also pose important obstacles to incorporation. Free riding, however, does not play a role. Due to the incorporation rules, there can be no externalities that incentivize unilateral defection. The article substantiates the arguments empirically with the multivariate analysis of the complete incorporation record of 1,033 policies adopted between 1994 and 2008.

作为全球第四大贸易集团的成员国，为何仅将其所通过政策中的约三分之二予以纳入执行？本文认为，空泛承诺是导致南方共同市场（Mercosur）政策纳入执行难题的重要原因，而南方共同市场的制度设计更是助长了这种不当行为。成员国政府往往仅因签署协定这一行为本身就能获得回报，便会轻易签署协定。但倘若预计执行这些政策将付出高昂成本，它们便会竭力规避政策的纳入执行。由于仅当最后一个成员国完成政策纳入执行时，该政策才会整体生效，因此南方共同市场成员国可在事后轻易否决任何协定。除空泛承诺外，政策起草与纳入执行流程管理失当以及谈判权力滥用，同样是政策纳入执行的重要阻碍。不过，搭便车行为并未对政策纳入执行产生影响。由于纳入执行规则的存在，不存在能够激励单方违约的外部性因素。本文通过对1994年至2008年间通过的1033项政策的完整纳入执行记录开展多元分析，从实证层面验证了上述论点。