| Governments have attempted a variety of measures in the last 70 years to protect international common-pool resources. Frequently, these measures involve international treaties which commit the signatories to the protection of the common-pool resource through restrictions on use: either quotas or targets. However, one sees demonstrable empiric variation in compliance with these treaties.;Why does cooperation with international treaties vary? One factor might involve domestic special interests; deviation from a common-pool resource management regime benefits some minority of people in the near term, usually regular users of the regime. It is clear that small, well-organized groups can receive favors from the government. But under what conditions will governments grant favors to special interests? Do electoral systems matter? Previous work has offered contradictory theories; empirical evidence, depending on the issue area, is muddled.;This dissertation seeks to determine the scope conditions under which previous theories apply through the concept of marginal costs. Some favors for special interests are costly, whether in terms of future support from voters, or in terms of direct budgetary cost. Others are cheap; perhaps they cost a government nothing, or voters do not notice.;Three empirical domains are examined: the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy, where marginal costs are anticipated to be low; the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, where marginal costs are anticipated to be very low; and the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, where marginal costs are anticipated to vary due to weather patterns in Europe.;The theory is tested using three separate datasets newly-constructed from archival research. In all three domains, the quantitative evidence is supplemented with short qualitative case studies and elite interviews. The results show that states in low-marginal-cost situations provide private goods to special interests in different ways than states in high-marginal-cost situations. A concluding chapter offers possible solutions to problems facing international common-pool resource regimes and directions for future research. |
