Research Projects
Research projects by Professor Dr. Christian Kreuder-Sonnen
| Current projects |
|
Emergency politics in international organizations (2012 – current) Cooperation partners (external): Tine Hanrieder (LSE), Jonathan White (LSE), Bernhard Zangl (LMU Munich) Crises often provoke political reactions that bend or suspend established norms and rules. This phenomenon has found constitutional expression at the domestic level in the ‘state of exception’. But contingencies that cross borders, such as the Euro crisis or Covid-19, nowadays also incite emergency politics beyond the state. From the European Union (EU) to the World Health Organization (WHO), from supranational institutions to state governments acting in concert, one sees the logic of emergency embraced in international contexts. What are the origins, forms, effects and normative stakes of this governing mode, and how can it be theorized in the global setting? These are the questions guiding the research program on emergency politics beyond the state. So far, the results of our comparative analyses show that (1) emergency politics represent a mode of empowerment for IOs by which they may effectuate ‘authority leaps’, that (2) emergency powers of IOs are likely to be normalized over time and are only rolled back if contestants succeed in portraying them as disproportionate, and that (3) the way emergency authority is wielded at the IO level introduces traits of authoritarianism to global governance. Ongoing research asks under what conditions IOs do or do not resort to emergency politics and how exceptionalism beyond the state may be contained institutionally. Key publications:
|
|
Institutional overlap, interface conflicts, and conflict management (2017 - current) Cooperation partners (external): Michael Zürn (WZB Berlin Social Science Center) Global governance is characterized by an increasing institutional density. A fast-growing set of formal and informal international institutions occupy a slower-growing global governance space. As a consequence, frictions between these institutions emerge. When norms and rules overlap and different international organizations (IOs) compete for authority over certain issues, conflict is not automatic, but more likely. In this project, which emerged from the DFG Research Group “Overlapping Spheres of Authority and Interface Conflicts in the Global Order (OSAIC)” headed by Michael Zürn, we investigate how so-called interface conflicts – conflicts among actors about the prevalence of norms or rules emanating from different international institutions – are managed in international politics. In order to gage both the practical and normative consequences of institutional overlaps, i.e. to what extent they allow states to circumvent international obligations and undermine the integrity of the international legal system, it is integral to establish when and how conflicts arise and how they are dealt with. So far, our research has shown that (1) by far not all overlaps lead to interface conflicts, that (2) interface conflicts are often managed in a cooperative way, that (3) for the outcome of a conflict it does not only matter what power resources the parties bring to the table, but also what argumentative resources, and (4) that conflicts are often productive of new order, rather than order-undermining. Key publications:
|
|
The crisis of liberal international order: endogenous sources of contestation (2018 - current) Cooperation partners (external): Stacie Goddard (Wellesley), Ron Krebs (Minnesota), Berthold Rittberger (LMU Munich), Bernhard Zangl (LMU Munich) The liberal international order (LIO), conceived as the ensemble of formal and informal international institutions wedded to economically and politically liberal social purposes, is widely seen to be in crisis. While accounts differ on whether the crisis is transitory or the order’s decline is irrevocable, it is indisputable that the LIO is currently facing an extraordinary amount of contestation from states and societal actors around the world. While one strand of research focuses on exogenous factors such as global power shifts and the rise of China, this project is dedicated to the study of contestation sources that are endogenous to the liberal order. That is, we foreground problems that inhere the institutional and ideational structure of the LIO as factors contributing to its decreasing legitimacy in the eyes of public and private actors. One important argument formulated so far is that the international institutions underpinning the LIO are increasingly authoritative but lack accommodating democratic responsiveness. Not only does this breed dissatisfaction with the enacted policies, but because IOs are locked in on their political paths it also leads to the contestation of the entire polity. Further studies will be devoted to the empirical substantiation of this claim as well as to analyses of cross-sectional variation. Key publications:
|
|
Crisis and change: effects of crises on the institutional design of international organizations (2020 - current) The institutional development of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the past two decades was markedly shaped by global public health emergencies. In the aftermath of the SARS crisis in 2003, the organization was delegated new legal authority to contain contagious disease outbreaks. In light of its contested performance during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009-10, however, member states cut WHO off the resources to fulfill its mandate. Finally, the coronavirus crisis has seen an intense politicization of the organization and the (preliminary) withdrawal of its most powerful member state. More often than not, IOs do not look the same before and after major crises in which they are involved. The shape of the European Union before and after the euro crisis attests to this as well as the International Organization for Migration in the context of the humanitarian crisis in Libya after 2011. However, the direction of change is undetermined. Broadly speaking, sometimes IOs emerge stronger form crises while sometimes they are weakened. How can this variation be explained? When are IOs able to use crises as opportunity and when do they function as constraint? What are the conditions under which crises either compel states to defer to the judgment of IOs or lead them to contest and defy? In this project, we intend to 1) gather data on comparable crises in world politics and IO responses to these crises; 2) theorize factors accounting for the different institutional IO trajectories; 3) test the theoretical expectations in both quantitative and qualitative studies. Key publications:
|