Fears of peers? Explaining peer and public shaming in global governance

Abstract

This article conducts a comparative analysis of peer and public pressure in peer reviews among states. Arguing that such pressure is one increasingly important form of shaming in global politics, we seek to understand the extent to which five different peer reviews exert peer and public pressure and how possible variation among them can be explained. Our findings are based on responses to an original survey and semi-structured interviews among participants in the reviews. We find that peer and public pressure exist to different degrees in the peer reviews under study. Such differences cannot be explained by the policy area under review or the international organization in which peer reviews are organized. Likewise, the expertise of the actors involved in a peer review or perceptions of the legitimacy of peer review as a monitoring instrument do not explain the variation. Instead, we find that institutional factors and the acceptance of peer and public pressure among the participants in a peer review offer the best explanations.

Shaming by international organizations: Mapping condemnatory speech acts across 27 international organizations, 1980–2015

“…Kelley (2012) studies IO shaming in the context of election monitoring and Sharman (2009) looks at the ‘blacklisting’ of tax havens by IOs. More recently, some scholarship has looked at shaming through IOs’ peer-review mechanisms (Carraro et al, 2019; Terman and Voeten, 2017). Despite these few exceptions, research on the politics of shaming has not placed IOs at the centre of analysis.…”

(Un)Democratic change and use of social sanctions for domestic politics: Council of Europe monitoring in Turkey

“…In order to be effective, the RO needs to be perceived as a ‘legitimate normative authority’ when applying social sanctions to its member states (see Hellquist, this special issue). The legitimacy of the RO is enhanced when the sanctions are targeted in an impartial, transparent and formal manner (Carraro et al., 2019; Terman and Voeten, 2018) and applied consistently (Sedelmeier, 2017: 34). However, a closer look at the relevant data in the case of Turkey reveals that legitimacy-based arguments remain limited in terms of explaining the outcomes of the CoE’s social sanctions.…”

“…The literature on external social pressure and shaming acknowledges the status of the RO in world politics, its reputation and expertise, and its established moral/legal authority as important determinants of its external legitimacy and its sanctioning power (Carraro et al, 2019;Hafner-Burton, 2008;Kelley and Simmons, 2015;Lebovic and Voeten, 2009). The CoE, as the oldest RO in Europe, used to enjoy a high level of 'respect' due to its legal expertise and dedication to the protection and promotion of democracy in the continent.…”

“…As one of the oldest ROs in Europe, founded in 1949 in Strasbourg, the Council of Europe (CoE) has well-established mechanisms to monitor the obligations and commitments of member states. ROs gain leverage to publicly expose and condemn countries that violate or poorly implement community rules through regularly monitoring their members (Carraro et al., 2019; Gustafsson, 2015; Hafner-Burton, 2008).…”

“…Existing theoretical accounts of international socialisation, external social pressure and shaming identify various factors that can be used to explain the impact of ROs on domestic policy change, such as the credibility of the regional sanctions (Hovi et al, 2005;Schimmelfennig et al, 2006), legitimacy and authority of the RO (Carraro et al, 2019;Hafner-Burton, 2008;Kelley and Simmons, 2015;Lebovic and Voeten, 2009) or identification with the RO's values (Checkel, 2001;Johnston, 2001;Sedelmeier, 2017).…”