International agreement design and the moderating role of domestic bureaucratic quality

Much of international cooperation research has long assumed that building and deepening (i.e. institutionalizing) international agreements can substitute for weak domestic bureaucratic capacity when it comes to promoting cooperative policies between countries. Qualifying this assumption, we argue that domestic bureaucracies are a key piece of international cooperation: the cooperation-inducing effect of international institutions is conditional on the quality of domestic bureaucracies. We examine this relationship in the context of the politics of interstate cooperation over transboundary rivers, an important test case given concerns about looming water conflict in the face of increasing water scarcity. Using data on freshwater-related events, 1984–2006, on the level of institutionalization of river treaties, and on the quality of domestic bureaucracy, we find that domestic bureaucracies moderate the ability of international institutions to elicit cooperative interstate behavior. The finding is robust to a multitude of specifications and provides important implications for institutional research and policy approaches to cooperation problems beyond freshwater.