Turning Commons into Clubs : Harmonization Upwards Via Issue Structure

Issues of international cooperation are plagued by the possibility of free-riders; in the case of public goods, cooperative outcomes, although underprovided, may nevertheless be effected by a sufficiently motivated subset of relevant actors. Global common pool resources, on the other hand, are rival, and therefore lack of participation by all significant actors can undermine the ability of anyone to address the problem in question, as efforts to mitigate climate change suggest. Lessons from recent work on Flag-of-Convenience shipping suggest that changing the point of regulation to one involving a club good (like access to ports) rather than a common pool resource (such as protection of the ocean from pollution) can lead to more successful cooperation. This paper examines the conditions under which issues may be amenable to changing issue structure via point of regulation