TY - JOUR
T1 - Inter-Governmental Regimes and Recruitment to Private Regimes
T2 - GATT/WTO and the ISO, 1951–2005
AU - Lim, Sijeong
AU - Prakash, Aseem
N1 - Funding Information:
2. For example, the Standardization Administration of the People’s Republic of China was set up by the State Council of China. The Bureau of Indian Standards is a part of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution. The description of all member bodies is available here: http://www.iso.org/iso/about/iso_members/
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Authors. Global Policy published by Durham University and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2018/9
Y1 - 2018/9
N2 - Scholars of international relations and public policy recognize that quasi-private actors supply governance services alongside governmental actors. We explore how membership in the dominant trade regime, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/the World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) influences countries’ incentives to join the quasi-private regime, International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Both global regimes seek to remove trade barriers; the former focuses on tariff and non-tariff obstacles, and the latter on technical barriers. While any firm can subscribe to over 18,000 ISO standards, only national standards bodies, one per country, can become ISO members. We posit that given the substantial political costs of joining GATT/WTO and the relatively low entry barriers to joining the ISO, high trading countries might view the ISO as a (partial) functional equivalent of the GATT/WTO. Our empirical analysis of ISO membership dynamics over the period 1951–2005 lends support to our argument.
AB - Scholars of international relations and public policy recognize that quasi-private actors supply governance services alongside governmental actors. We explore how membership in the dominant trade regime, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/the World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) influences countries’ incentives to join the quasi-private regime, International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Both global regimes seek to remove trade barriers; the former focuses on tariff and non-tariff obstacles, and the latter on technical barriers. While any firm can subscribe to over 18,000 ISO standards, only national standards bodies, one per country, can become ISO members. We posit that given the substantial political costs of joining GATT/WTO and the relatively low entry barriers to joining the ISO, high trading countries might view the ISO as a (partial) functional equivalent of the GATT/WTO. Our empirical analysis of ISO membership dynamics over the period 1951–2005 lends support to our argument.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85045124482&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/1758-5899.12554
DO - 10.1111/1758-5899.12554
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85045124482
SN - 1758-5880
VL - 9
SP - 352
EP - 364
JO - Global Policy
JF - Global Policy
IS - 3
ER -