How Is Co-Governance Of Overlapping Institutions Possible?

The functional overlap of international institutions has become increasingly common with their growth and expansion.However,institutional overlap in a certain issue domain does not necessarily lead to the interaction of conflict and confrontation among institutions,but may contribute to their cooperation.In view of this phenomena,the question raised in this paper is:why and how to cooperate among international bureaucracies with overlapping activities in the same issue domain,so as to form non-conflicting interinstitutional relations and achieve their joint governance?Based on the analysis of international bureaucracies,which are independent of other actors,this paper holds that international bureaucracies can selectively shape overlapping institutions through conscious strategic behaviors,thus affecting the evolution of interinstitutional relations.Therefore,this paper develops a theoretical framework according to organizational resource dependence theory and organizational ecology theory to explain the results of interactions among overlapping institutions.Specifically,when dealing with institutional overlap,international bureaucracies will make strategic choices in two dimensions,namely,pursuing organizational autonomy or inter-organizational resource dependence,and shaping inter-organizational hierarchical relationship or non-hierarchical relationship.Thus,there are four kinds of institutional interaction with overlapping functions.Among them,institutional conflicts like "turf wars" may occur only when organizations choose to shape inter-organizational hierarchy and pursue organizational autonomy.The other three results of organizational strategy selection constitute three different manifestations of inter-institutional synergies—division,deference and pooling.The approach of this paper is to explore the behavior strategies of international bureaucracies to shape the development of inter-institutional relations through case comparison and process tracking of overlapping institutional interactions in various issue domains.In this paper,international bureaucracies working in energy,intellectual property,security and defense are selected to serve as the cases of different international institutions.In the first part,this paper defines the concept of international bureaucracies,determines its core characteristics,and divides the different types of relations among overlapping institutions.On the basis of clarifying relevant concepts,this paper explains the theoretical framework of how international bureaucracies shape institutional overlap in detail by combining with organizational theory.The second part takes the institutional relationship between the International Energy Agency and the International Renewable Energy Agency working in energy as an example,and analyzes the process from their early "turf war" to the later institutional pooling.The third part takes the institutional relationship between the World Intellectual Property Organization,the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization working in intellectual property as a case,and traces the gradual deepening of their institutional division.The fourth part takes the institutional relationship between NATO and the European Union working in security and defense as an example,and studies the process from the early institutional deference to the later "turf war".This paper draws the conclusion that,international bureaucracies choose different strategies in the two dimensions of organizational autonomy and organizational authority,so the interactions among overlapping institutions will accordingly present various forms;Moreover,institutional interactions develops dynamically,and the direction will also be affected by the strategic choices of international bureaucracies.The change of organizational strategies when international bureaucracies cope with institutional overlap can turn inter-institutional synergies into disruptions,and vice versa.The specific forms of inter-institutional synergies can also become different.Therefore,the realization of "cogovernance" among overlapping institutions lies in the fact that international bureaucracies have adopted appropriate strategies to deal with the overlap,thus shaping a specific form of order in this issue domain.This indicates that the institutional overlap does not mean the disruptions of the system,and the relationship among overlapping institutions can be managed by the bureaucracies under certain conditions,so as to realize synergies and cogovernance among the institutions and improve the governance efficiency of the international system.The revelation provided by this conclusion is that the overlap of institutions may be inevitable when establishing new institutions or expanding the functional scope of the existing institutions.However,if the interaction process of international bureaucracies can be managed reasonably and the strategic choice of bureaucracies can be adjusted in an appropriate direction,a variety of overlapping institutions can also move towards "co-governance".