Discusión

One major reason that states accept constraints on their autonomy and cede control rights to other parties is to gain tangible material benefits, which can partially offset the rise in sovereignty costs. Material interests of survival, security, and prosperity are the most important self-interests of states. Rational choice approaches often assume that actors are egoistic in nature and that self-interests are the fundamental motives of most social actions (Chong 1995; Green and Shapiro 1994; Ferejohn and Satz 1995). This subsection draws implications from rationalist literature, focusing on how material interests and self-oriented characteristics of states contribute to boundary-trespassing behaviors. Yet, material or self-interests are not the sole interests, but an important subset of states’ interests. The former mainly reflects egoistic attitudes of the self towards others and rules; while interests in general are more diverse and can also have social and non-egoistic connotations (Wendt 1999; Hurd 2007: 38)

State sovereignty has both material/egoistic and ideational/social connotations. Sovereign control rights and authority are historically and socially constructed; but the subjects of the control rights are material, such as territory, population, and all kinds of economic and political activities. On the one hand, the Westphalian norm strengthens the individualist and self-oriented characters of states, as it emphasizes state autonomy and the exclusive nature of control rights

34

within states’ territory. On the other hand, as one type of social norms regulating inter-state relations in the international society, it requires reciprocity and mutual respect for sovereignty among state actors.

States with self-oriented preferences are utility-maximizers: they participate in international organizations and follow rules as the result of an instrumental calculation of net material benefits. When states face enough material incentives for deviating from the Westphalian norm, they will act accordingly. Interactions among states can be viewed as transactions regulated by contracts. States choose to delegate certain degrees of sovereign control rights to international authorities, as international institutions, rules, and norms facilitate cooperation, enhance states’

self-interests, and have functional value for them. Some states may also elect to submit sovereign autonomy to another state and enter into a stable hierarchical relationship, if the dominant state or a hegemon can provide valuable goods such as security, prosperity, and social order, in the long run.

Keohane’s early work After Hegemony argues that self-interested states have incentives to participate in and uphold international institutions, because international regimes can help them to overcome market failure and collective action problems. As Keohane argues, egoistic states

“can rationally seek to form international regimes on the basis of shared interest” (1988: 107).

By providing information, reducing transaction costs, monitoring compliance, creating issue linkages, and preventing cheating and free-riding behaviors, international institutions can “render it possible for governments to enter into mutually beneficial agreements with one another”

(1988: 13). Keohane’s work indicates that as long as the material benefits of cooperation can outweigh the overall costs—including sovereignty costs—states will be willing to accept institutional constraints on their autonomy and maintain the function of international regimes.

35

In the past decade, rationalist studies on legalization and delegation have further extended the above theme in highly institutionalized settings. Researchers try to explain why states sometimes choose to cede a substantial amount of control rights to international authorities, signing legalized treaties that incur high sovereignty costs (see, for example, Abbott and Snidal 2000; Elkins et al. 2006; Simmons and Danner 2010). Abbott and Snidal summarize the role of hard law as a tool of signaling credible commitment, reducing transaction costs, modifying political strategies, and handling incomplete contracting problems (2000). In that sense, high sovereignty costs themselves can serve specific functions and help states to achieve more important national goals. Yet, no matter how high the sovereignty costs, the potential benefits of hard law must be great enough to offset those costs. For example, developing countries are often eager to sign legalized BITs and allow private actors to resort to international arbitration for dispute resolution, because they intend to use binding agreements to signal their credible commitment to protecting foreign investment (Elkins et al. 2006). The high sovereignty costs of delegation can be offset by the more valuable material benefits of increasing foreign investment and rapid economic development.

For egoistic states, the “legitimacy” of international institutions or norms is measured solely by self-interests and has only instrumental meaning. Encroachment on states’ sovereignty is perceived as “legitimate” only when states believe that their overall material well-being can be enhanced by ceding a certain amount of control rights. David Lake’s book Hierarchy in International Relations applies social contract theory and characterizes legitimacy as “relational authority.” Lake maintains that legitimacy follows from an exchange or bargain between two states: “Relational authority is premised on an exchange between ruler and ruled, in which A provides a political order of value to B sufficient to offset the loss of freedom incurred in his

36

subordination to A, and B confers the right on A to exert the restraints on his behavior necessary to provide that order” (Lake 2009: 29).

The “relational authority” in Lake’s theory can be characterized as instrumental legitimacy, as the subordinate must benefit from the social order provided by the dominant state. A social contract can be self-enforcing if the political order is desired by the subordinate. Nevertheless, the ruled party always has incentives to demand more autonomy and expand its range of free choices; and a dominant state also has the tendency to abuse its authority and encroach too much on the sovereignty of the ruled (Lake 2009: 32). Therefore, “legitimate” order among self-interested actors reflects a dynamic equilibrium that is constantly bargained and negotiated among states.

In fact, instrumental legitimacy is a stretch of the concept of legitimacy, as legitimacy cannot be reduced to self-interests. As Ian Hurd defines, legitimacy is “an actor’s normative belief that a rule or institution ought to be obeyed” (2007: 7). Similarly, Buchanan and Keohane maintain that “an institution is legitimate in the normative sense is to assert that it has the right to rule” (2008: 25; italics in original). Once actors take an international order, norm, or institution for granted, their free agency decreases, and their interests take on more social and normative meanings other than material self-interests. If states are egoistic in nature, “legitimacy” is always instrumentally gauged by self-interests, and they will not accept the social and normative legitimacy of an international order, norm, or institution.

Therefore, as long as states cede control rights to other parties for material gains, their beliefs in the Westphalian norm do not change, nor do the values of normative premiums (W).

Material benefits and instrumental legitimacy merely offset, but do not reduce the sovereignty costs of delegation. Nevertheless, the congruence of states’ material interests and

boundary-37

trespassing forces can facilitate socialization and increase the chance that states will accept the social and normative legitimacy of boundary-trespassing norms, institutions, and trends. In contrast, if states believe that their self-interests are harmed in the process, the chances that they will accept the legitimacy of boundary-trespassing forces will decrease, and strong socialization will be unlikely.

4.1.1 The Impacts of Material Interests on China’s Approaches to Delegation

Increased material benefits are direct and root causes of China’s shifts towards delegation over time in the UNCLOS and the BITs cases. The structural change in China’s relative position in the international system has led to the expansion of China’s self-interests, which could not be pursued when China was weak, but can now be enhanced by relevant treaty provisions. Increased material benefits can offset some portions of high sovereignty costs (S) of delegation, but cannot have direct impact on China’s sovereignty belief and the normative premiums (W) of deviating from the Westphalian norm.

In the early decades of China’s integration with the world, Chinese leaders had no confidence in China’s ability to survive a new social environment. The external world was full of uncertainty; Chinese official discourses described international situations as “undergoing tremendous changes” or “experiencing a period of transition and turbulence” (Wang, J. 1994:

488). At that time, China took a gradualist, trial-and-error approach towards international institutions. Such an approach reveals the same pragmatic logic as China’s domestic economic reform: China does not follow any canons or norms without first testing their effects against China’s self-interests in practice. Samuel Kim characterizes the experimentalist approach as a

“maxi-mini” strategy, as China often tries to maximize tangible material gains and selectively accept rules and regulations that are beneficial, but at the same time minimize the obligations and

38 costs of participation (Kim 1994: 419).

For example, when China was mainly a capital-importing state in the 1980s and early 1990s, it was reluctant to grant national treatment to foreign investors and to delegate all investment-related disputes to independent international arbitration. At that time, Chinese leaders believed that legalized BITs penetrated the sovereignty of host countries too much and served the interests of developed more than developing countries. Nevertheless, as China began to expand its overseas investments and became a major capital-exporting economy in the late 1990s, it intended to make use of hard BITs to protect its own investments in other countries. Since then, China has started to sign legalized BITs with both developing and developed countries, granting national treatment to private investors and delegating all investment-related disputes to autonomous international arbitration. All new BITs signed before 2009 have now been ratified and entered into force.

Similarly, China signed the UNCLOS in 1982 but did not ratify the Convention until 1996 because, when China was poor and weak, it was unwilling to bear distributive consequences and to accept treaty provisions that were beneficial to developed countries. This was particularly the case for the section on deep-seabed mining. When negotiating the Convention in the 1970s, China did not have enough material capability or advanced technologies to exploit deep seabed resources; it therefore advocated a more centralized seabed mining system to prevent developed countries from extracting resources freely. Yet, as China’s economy continued to grow, along with its demands for natural resources, its interests became more aligned with developed countries, and its strategies toward deep-seabed mining changed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. China was then willing to accept a renegotiated section of seabed mining, which adopted a more market-based regime and accommodated even more the interests of developed countries.

39

Such changes paved the way for China to eventually ratify the UNCLOS in 1996.

Expanded self-interests due to China’s rise allow China to reevaluate the benefits and costs of participating in legalized treaties and further deepening its integration with international regimes. Although increased material benefits can only partially offset the high sovereignty costs of delegation, the congruence between international institutions and China’s rise boosts China’s confidence in thriving in the established international order, facilitates its socialization into the international society, and increases the chance for it to accept the social legitimacy of boundary-trespassing norms and institutions.