Tying down Gulliver: How weak states control the design of international institutions

When do international regimes reflect the preferences of the less powerful? What are the strategies of weak states for overcoming the objections of major powers? In this dissertation I address these questions in light of the bias against weak states present in the literature on regime formation and institutional design. Extant literature has emphasized the role of major powers as the primary architects of institutional design. Contrary to the assertion that they can do little to affect the development of international regimes, I propose that weak states can extract gains and limit the influence of their more powerful of their more powerful counterparts in the design process. An analysis of the international regime for adjudicating large-scale violations of human rights, and specifically, the formation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) reveals that the negotiated outcome over the ICC's design advanced the interests of weak states relative to the major powers on the UN Security Council that stood in opposition to the Court. I show how less powerful states swayed France and the United Kingdom to support the ICC, despite their initial opposition.;In order to explain how weak states achieve advantageous institutional designs, I offer a theory of issue linkage that explains how states connect disparate issues across intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). This form of issue linkage, via institutions, resembles logrolling and is one way in which weak states can use nontraditional sources of bargaining power to influence design outcomes and the overall trajectory of international regimes. Logrolling coalitions based on shared institutional memberships allow states to link issues from one IGO to another, extracting concessions from otherwise recalcitrant actors.;To test the predictions of this theory, I assess state decisions to ratify the Rome Statute of the ICC using three different and original data sets. An analysis of state negotiations over a three year period, which places states on a spatial model according to their preferences for an independent ICC, demonstrates the logic of trans-institutional linkage orchestrated by weak states. Quantitative tests confirm that shared membership in IGOs leads to increased rates of acceptance of the negotiated outcome. A final quantitative analysis reveals that states' attempts to influence a regime extend beyond the initial creation of an institution and when trans-institutional linkage attempts fail, the most powerful states in the international system have recourse through bilateral linkage strategies. This dissertation contributes to an understanding of the politics of the ICC directly, to the design of international institutions and regime development more generally, as well as to the role played by weak states in international politics.