Disarmed principals: institutional resilience and the non-enforcement of delegation

Abstract

Governments across the world increasingly rely on non-state agents for managing even the most sensitive tasks that range from running critical infrastructures to protecting citizens. While private agents frequently underperform, governments as principals tend nonetheless not to enforce delegation contracts. Why? We suggest the mechanism of institutional resilience. A preexisting set of rules shapes non-enforcement through the combination of (i) its structural misfit with the delegation contract and (ii) asymmetric interdependence that favors the agent over time. To demonstrate the plausibility of our argument, we trace the political process behind Europe’s largest military transport aircraft, the A400M. Governments delegated the development and production of this complex program to a private firm, Airbus. They layered a ‘commercial approach’ onto traditionally state-run defense industries. Yet, resilience caused these new formal rules to fail and eventually disarmed principals. Our mechanism constitutes an innovative approach by theorizing an alternative path toward dynamic continuity.

Indirect Governance at War: Delegation and Orchestration in Rebel Support

“…Path-dependence might thus be at work within the two modes of indirect war. Indeed, historical-institutionalist approaches would suggest that governance arrangements are characterized by endogenous stability over time due to increasing returns, socialization, and other positive feedback effects (see, Hall and Taylor 1996; Pierson 2004; Fioretos 2011; Weiss and Heinkelmann-Wild 2020). For instance, in delegation relationships, a rebel group might, over time, specialize its income to the sponsor’s support while losing support among the local population.…”

“…Future studies could unpack the time-dependent dynamics of indirect warfare and examine why sponsors often stick to their initial support mode. Do support relationships constitute efficient equilibria or are other mechanisms at work that reinforce the chosen mode of support (see, e.g., Weiss and Heinkelmann-Wild 2020)? Moreover, while our paper focused on the control opportunities enabled or constrained by different support types, future research could examine how powerful states’ capacities allow them to issue credible threats to induce rebels’ compliance while tapping into the benefits of “hands-off” orchestration.…”