Linkage as Leverage: OECD Accession as an Informal and Indirect Graduation Mechanism in the International Climate Regime
Type
conference contribution
Date Issued
2026-06
Author(s)
Abstract
As global power is shifting, international institutions face a challenge: estab-lished powers will often request that rising powers no longer continue to benefit from their status as ‘developing countries’. Yet only few institutions have formal rules in place to organize this transition. As a result, tracing the informal pathways through which change occurs becomes relevant. In this article, we study one such mechanism in the international climate regime. In that regime, the so-called Annex I countries agreed ‘to take the lead’ in reducing greenhouse gas emissions while developing countries re-mained exempt from a similar obligation. Because Annex I was hard to amend, the re-gime has frequently been said to lack graduation mechanism. Yet, once we take the interaction between the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its broader institutional environment into account, the process of acced-ing to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) comes into view as one indirect and informal graduation mechanism. We examine the effects and limitations of this mechanism in relation to the accessions processes of Mexico (1994), South Korea (1996) and Chile (2010). Our analysis leads to two main results. First, we establish that a graduation mechanism based on ‘linkage as leverage’ existed. Second, we sketch three distinct causal pathways that lead to three different outcomes, ranging from the absence of graduation (Mexico, pathway 1) to partial graduation (South Korea, pathway 2) and more complete graduation (Chile, pathway 3). Overall, our study suggests that the strength of graduate based on ‘linkage as leverage’ depended on three conditions. OECD members had to activate the mechanism in accession talks. Domestic support was required to implement and sustain graduation. And major emit-ters had to develop an interest in joining the OECD.
Funding(s)
Funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) is gratefully acknowledged (Grant No. 100017L_175887).
Language
English
Keywords
climate politics
global governance
OECD
developing countries
power shift
global environmental politics
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
No
Pages
38
Event Title
Dreiländertagung der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft (DVPW), der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Politikwissenschaft (ÖGPW) und der Schweizerischen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft (SVPW/ASSP) "Europas Zukunft – Zukunft Europa: Innere Spannungen und äußere Herausforderungen"
Event Location
Zeppelin Universität Friedrichshafen, Deutschland
Event Date
17.-19.06.2026
Subject(s)
Division(s)