extent to which a case has a high or low membership in a set can then be determined.
The data retrieved for all of variables are also based on a time dimension from 1970 to 2009. This period was selected for three reasons. First, it includes the entire period of regional DRM cooperation for the selected cases. Second, all of the cases, except for SADC and Mercosur, have an institutional memory that goes back at least to the 1970s.137 Third, a period of 40 years provides for a broader interpretation of events by tracing the growth or decline of each condition in relation to the emergence of regional DRM. These motivations provide increased variation on the conditions, and also minimize the chance of idiosyncratic results that may emerge in a particular year.
While fsQCA remains somewhat limited when including a temporal dimension, this study conducts separate analyses for different time periods and compares these results by performing two fsQCA analyses.138 The first is calculated when each region-al organization begins cooperation on DRM either through declarative statements or other more advanced forms of cooperation. This is generally made before the year 2000. The second calculation is made when each region passes the threshold from
‘more out than in’ of the set of regional DRM cooperation to ‘more in than out’ of the set. This episode is generally situated in the period after 2000.139
The following section explains the background motivations for the selection of each condition, what indicators have been selected to represent each condition, and how the indicators are calibrated.
136 The direct method of calibration is translated in the following formula: degree of member-ship = exp (log odds)/[1+exp(log odds)] (Ragin 2008a, p. 91). This is simplified by using the fsQCA 2.0 software (version date: January 2009), which has an automated procedure that translates raw data into fuzzy sets.
137 Mercosur is the youngest regional organization selected in this analysis, which was estab-lished in 1991. While this may conflict with other explanatory variables (such as the geopoliti-cal power shift during the end of the Cold War), it is nevertheless selected precisely because of its outlier status: it does not cooperate, or cooperates at a very low level, on regional DRM.
Mercosur’s predecessor – Programa de Integración y Cooperación Argentino-Brasileño (PICAB) – can also be taken into account, which began in 1986 (cf. Malamud 2003, p. 56).
138 Some scholars have attempted to include time as a new operator in addition to AND and OR (cf. Caren and Panofvky 2005). The current proposal for T-QCA, however, remains in its infancy as it has trouble accounting for the extra logical remainders that time introduces into the analysis.
139 As data for the capacity of regional organizations is scarce, this condition is only included for the period 2000-2009.
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3.1.3.1. Motivation and selection of conditionsThe selection of conditions for explaining the emergence of DRM cooperation is in-formed through the pragmatic prioritizing of theoretical commitments and substan-tive knowledge. As illustrated in Chapter 2, four central and relevant causal condi-tions were derived from neoliberal institutionalism. These material-related condicondi-tions are considered fundamental for determining the interests for state cooperation in regional DRM. These are interdependencies, expectations, asymmetries, and power.
These conditions direct attention toward broader causal features in favour of time-specific explanations, such as leadership or critical shocks. This does not mean, how-ever, that the importance of agency or an attachment to methodological individualism is in any way reduced. Rather, the broader cost-benefit calculations that an agent makes, and is affected by, assumes the primary focus for the selection of explanatory variables in this study.
Even if a theory-based process can reduce the number of possible variables, a bal-ance must still be reached that does not tip the scales towards a ‘degree of freedom’
problem (George and Bennett 2005, pp. 28-30) or that it does not exhaust the re-searcher’s time-limits and capacity. Accordingly, a number of variables that are not included in this study are briefly mentioned. First, the existing institutional landscape that regional DRM agreements are set within can affect the extent to which DRM is institutionalized. As all agreements that are investigated already exist within a re-gional organization the importance of this variable over others is reduced. This does not mean that all regional organizations are homogeneous but that all DRM agree-ments are supported by an initial institutional structure. It is, therefore, assumed that a certain level of cooperation, commitment, and a high level of information (trust) has been attained between its members. Second, policy ‘entrepreneurs’, leaders or net-works are often given a leading role by academics in explaining the emergence of a new institutional policy space (Stone Sweet, Fligstein and Sandholtz 2001, p. 19). This variable is also omitted as the study is primarily focused on investigating the condi-tions that motivate states to cooperate on regional DRM rather than emphasising the individual initiators. It is presumed that nation states – as rational actors – have a set of incentives that are determined by the four causal factors under investigation. In this sense, time-specific variables help to stimulate cooperation based on existing underlying conditions that can be skilfully used by the entrepreneur, but these condi-tions must be already present for cooperation to commence. Thus, even if a regional secretariat is highly developed, DRM cooperation will only emerge and develop when
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the hypothesized conditions are present. Third, one of the most well-known explana-tions given by practitioners and academics alike, especially in the area of natural cri-ses, is external shocks to the system. The bracketing of this variable is based on the assumptions mentioned above concerning time-specific explanations. The same logic can be also applied to explanations based on domestic preference structures that, while considered important, are insufficient to explain cooperation without the pres-ence of the four hypotheses presented in this chapter.3.1.3.2. The inter-relationship between the conditions
The selected conditions – interdependence, asymmetries, expectations, and power – are not considered autonomous but interdependent. It is hypothesized that each con-dition is an INUS concon-dition for the emergence of regional DRM. That is, ‘an insuffi-cient but necessary part of a condition which is itself unnecessary but suffiinsuffi-cient for the result’ (Mackie 1965, cited in Mahoney et al. 2008, p. 125). This means, for exam-ple, that neither an interdependent group of states (Xi) nor a regional organization with high power disparities (Xiv) is necessary or sufficient for an outcome. Instead, they are both two conditions, which are part of a larger combination that is sufficient but not necessary for the emergence of regional DRM. This is depicted below in the form of a Boolean equation. The signifier (Y) represents the outcome, (Xi-iv) repre-sents the conditions, (→) reprerepre-sents the correlation pathway, and the operator (∗) represents the logical AND function.
Y → Xi∗Xii∗Xiii∗Xiv
Cooperation on regional DRM (Y) is thus possible if interdependencies (Xi), expecta-tions (Xii), asymmetries (Xiii), and power disparities (Xiv) are present.
The reason the conditions are conceptualized as INUS conditions rather than suffi-cient or necessary conditions is based on the logical and theory-based connections made between the selected conditions. For example, if there is high interdependence and high expectations but low power disparities, it is unlikely that states will cooper-ate on regional DRM because there is no identifiable stcooper-ate or entrepreneur that has the capacity and incentive to coordinate regional cooperation. If interdependencies were low and asymmetrical risk was high, there would be no incentive to cooperate because the costs to each member state would not be affected by another’s loss from a natural disaster. These examples and others ought to become clear in the following section that describes the four explanatory conditions. As the inter-relationship
be-A rational explanation