Refining domestic politics theories of IPE: A societal approach to governmental preferences
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395719896980 |
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
896980POL0010.1177/0263395719896980PoliticsSchirm
research-article2020
Article
Politics
2020, Vol. 40(4) 396 –412
Refining domestic politics
© The Author(s) 2020
theories of IPE: A societal
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approach to governmental
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395719896980
DOI: 10.1177/0263395719896980
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preferences
Stefan A Schirm
Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Abstract
Domestic politics theories of international political economy and the recent disruptions in
international cooperation and trade apparently induced by domestic discontent have shown
the crucial role domestic forces play in influencing governmental preferences. This article
contributes to this theoretical school, first, by assessing seminal works on the ideational, material,
and institutional dimensions of domestic politics, and second, by conceptualising the ‘societal
approach’ to fill a major gap in domestic politics theorising. The societal approach asks under
which conditions value-based societal ideas, domestic institutions, and material interests matter in
shaping governmental preferences. When do ideas prevail over interests and vice versa? How do
they interact with each other and with domestic institutions? The societal approach includes all
three domestic variables as potential driving forces for governmental preferences and conceives
them both as individual and as interacting forces. Most importantly, it complements domestic
politics theories by proposing hypotheses on the conditions for the influence of each variable on
governmental preferences. The article brings together previously conceived parts of the societal
approach and considerably expands it.
Keywords
domestic politics theories, governmental preferences, ideas, interests, and institutions,
international political economy, societal approach
Received: 19th June 2019; Revised version received: 6th September 2019; Accepted: 15th November 2019
Introduction
Current international economic disruptions such as the trade war between the United States
and China, the frequent disputes in the G20, the Brexit, and the Eurozone crisis shed a
bright light on the crucial role of domestic politics in shaping preferences towards the gov-
ernance of international economic relations. Political science theories that focus on domes-
tic politics to explain the foreign economic preferences of governments belong to the core
Corresponding author:
Stefan A Schirm, Ruhr-University Bochum, GD 2/279, Universitätsstraße 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany.
Email: stefan.schirm@rub.de
Schirm
397
of international political economy (IPE) for decades. Widely cited seminal works have been
published, for instance, on domestic forces of foreign economic policy (Katzenstein, 1977),
internationalisation and domestic politics (Frieden and Rogowski, 1996; Keohane and
Milner, 1996), ideas and foreign policy (Goldstein and Keohane, 1993), interests, institu-
tions, and information (Milner, 1997), the liberal theory of international politics (Moravcsik,
1997), and on domestic institutional sources for multilateral preferences (Fioretos, 2001).
Recently, this theoretical school was further developed, for example, by the open economy
politics theory (Lake, 2009), by foreign policy analysis (Kaarbo, 2015; Krotz, 2015), and
historical institutionalism (Farrell and Newman, 2010; Fioretos, 2011).
While some publications concentrated on diplomacy or on the interaction between the
international and domestic levels, others specifically focussed on how domestic forces
influence the government’s preferences. The latter, however, left considerable space to
further conceptualise domestic variables and thereby complement the theories with what
I named the ‘societal approach’. The literature especially shows a conceptual gap regard-
ing the conditions for the bearing of the different domestic politics variables. Theories of
domestic politics have conceived three dimensions of domestic forces that influence gov-
ernmental preference formation: material interests/lobby groups, ideas/belief systems,
and political/socio-economic institutions. The theories, however, left room for a system-
atic exploration of the conditions under which each of the three individual domestic
forces matters more than the other(s) in shaping governmental preferences. The societal
approach addresses this gap by conceptualising the conditions for the prevalence of either
domestic ideas, or institutions, or interests in governmental preference formation and by
further exploring the interaction among and plurality within the variables.
In complementing and building upon domestic politics theories, I developed and applied
the societal approach over the last decade to analyse specific empirical puzzles (Schirm,
2009, 2013, 2016, 2018). The present theoretical article brings together the previously con-
ceived and empirically tested parts, and considerably expands the approach. The article
proceeds in four steps. The next section discusses several core works of domestic politics
theorising, focussing on the conceptual gaps left by these theories. In a second step, I pre-
sent the societal approach with definitions of the variables, the hypotheses, and their opera-
tionalisation. Furthermore, the analytical strategy, the changeability of the variables, their
inter-relationship, and plurality will be elaborated. The conclusion highlights the novelties
and limitations of the societal approach and proposes areas for further research.
Domestic politics theories of IPE
The seminal works which constitute much of domestic politics theorising in IPE until
today share the argument that the explanation of governmental preferences has to start
with investigating domestic societal influences in form of interests, ideas, or institutions.
While many works focus on only one or two domestic variables, most agree that:
[. . .] states do not automatically maximize fixed, homogeneous conceptions of security,
sovereignty, or wealth per se, as realists and institutionalists tend to assume. Instead, [. . .] they
pursue particular interpretations and combinations of security, welfare, and sovereignty preferred
by powerful domestic groups. (Moravcsik, 1997: 519)
Katzenstein (1977: 601–602) argues that societal influences may consist of ‘mass prefer-
ences [. . .] translated via elections into government policy’ or reflect the efforts of ‘inter-
est groups’: ‘In sum, in both the interest group model and the democratic model, foreign
398
Politics 40(4)
economic policy is seen primarily to reflect societal pressures’. In developing a ‘theory of
domestic politics’, Milner writes on domestic interests:
[. . .] cooperation among nations is affected less by fears of other countries’ relative gains or
cheating than it is by the domestic distributional consequences of cooperative endeavours.
Cooperative agreements create winners and losers domestically; therefore, they generate
supporters and opponents. (Milner, 1997: 9)
The open economy politics (OEP) theory focusses on trade and finance and analyses
how the power of interest groups is aggregated by domestic institutions in the process of
influencing intergovernmental bargains about international institutions that, in turn, shape
domestic interests (Lake, 2009; Rogowski, 1989). More recent publications emphasise
the influence of interest groups and domestic ideational interpretations on governmental
preferences for the realm of both political economy and foreign policy analysis alike
(Kaarbo, 2015; Krotz, 2015). Cross-country comparisons have frequently validated the
crucial relevancy of both ideational and material domestic level factors. It holds true even
regarding governmental preference formation under the deep international institutionali-
sation of common rules in the European Union. Regarding the IPE of EU’s two core driv-
ers, Krotz and Schild (2013: 181) conclude, ‘The structures of their economies, the
relative sectoral competitiveness, and the differences in economic thought more often
than not placed France and Germany in opposite camps’.
Domestic politics theories, however, do not negate the possible impact of the interna-
tional distribution of power, of international institutions, and transnational interdepend-
ence for governments, societies, and private actors. Rather, these theories maintain that
domestic politics and societal influences must be considered analytically prior to other
variables when explaining governmental preferences.
Moravcsik (1997, 2008, 2010) offers a comprehensive version of the domestic ‘liberal
theory’ relevant for international relations (IR) and/IPE by developing three variants:
commercial, ideational, and republican liberalism. Commercial liberalism shares its core
argument with authors concentrating on international economic competition and interest
groups, such as Milner (1997), Frieden and Rogowski (1996), and much of the OEP lit-
erature. It argues, that ‘changes in the structure of the domestic and global economy alter
the costs and benefits of transnational economic exchange, creating pressure on domestic
governments to facilitate or block such exchanges’ (Moravcsik, 1997: 528). Ideational
liberalism in turn argues that societal actors support the government when the latter pro-
vides positions and institutions that are in accordance with their identity-based prefer-
ences and are therefore perceived as legitimate by individuals. Finally,...
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