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"Burden-Sharing": The International Politics of Refugee Protection
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An Alternative Approach: Multiple Burden-Sharing Dimensions, Comparative Advantage and Contribution Trading
There have been other challenges to the 'exploitation model' (Connolly 1970, 1972; 1976; Kiesling 1974; Loehr 1973; Boyer 1989, 1993). Boyer questions several of the model's restrictive assumptions. The following three stand out:
(1) that public/collective goods are produced with equal degrees of economic
efficiency in different counties
(2) that the costs borne by provider countries are only economic or monetary(3) that countries make contribution decisions without consulting one another (taking
regard of each others actions).
The following will look at each of these challenges in turn.
Countries have varying degrees of economic efficiency in producing
collective goods
Public goods tend to be more complex than suggested in the Olson and Zeckhauser framework. Take the example of security. Boyer reminds us that ‘security not a one-dimensional concept, and nations define security across economic, military, political, environmental, and even social dimensions’ (Boyer 1993: 3). But Boyer remains rather vague in his characterization of the international collective good provided. It is useful to draw a distinction between ‘intermediate’ and final public goods as done by Kaul, Grunberg and Stern (1999: 13). They distinguish between ‘final public goods’ which refer to outcomes (say enhanced security/stability) and ‘intermediate public goods’ that refer to institutions or initiatives that contribute to the provision of final public goods. They use the following example of environmental protection to illustrate this point. To achieve the final public good of a protected ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol could usefully be regarded as the most relevant intermediate public good. The main benefits of such institutions/regimes are the reduction of transaction costs, enhanced predictability of interaction and the reduced risk of misunderstanding and conflict. Applying this categorization to the case of forced migration, enhanced security/stability due to the elimination/minimization of forced migratory flows constitutes would constitute the final public good, measures to prevent refugee crises or to regulate refugee flows would constitute intermediate public goods.
Multiple contribution dimensions then has a number of theoretical implications. Doing away with the standard model's assumption that all countries can provide particular public goods with the same degree of economic efficiency, Boyer (1989; 1993) puts forward an alternative model that is based on the idea that countries have a comparative advantage in providing certain types of (intermediate) collective goods over others. According to David Ricardo's seminal model of comparative advantage, every country is endowed with varying amounts and qualities of different factors of production (such as land, labor, capital or technology). As a result, each country can produce some goods
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| | Authors: Thielemann, Eiko. |
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An Alternative Approach: Multiple Burden-Sharing Dimensions,
Comparative Advantage and Contribution Trading
There have been other challenges to the 'exploitation model' (Connolly 1970, 1972; 1976;
Kiesling 1974; Loehr 1973; Boyer 1989, 1993). Boyer questions several of the model's
restrictive assumptions. The following three stand out:
(1) that public/collective goods are produced with equal degrees of economic
efficiency in different counties
(2) that the costs borne by provider countries are only economic or monetary
(3) that countries make contribution decisions without consulting one another (taking
regard of each others actions).
The following will look at each of these challenges in turn.
Countries have varying degrees of economic efficiency in producing
collective goods
Public goods tend to be more complex than suggested in the Olson and Zeckhauser
framework. Take the example of security. Boyer reminds us that ‘security not a one-
dimensional concept, and nations define security across economic, military, political,
environmental, and even social dimensions’ (Boyer 1993: 3). But Boyer remains rather
vague in his characterization of the international collective good provided. It is useful to
draw a distinction between ‘intermediate’ and final public goods as done by Kaul,
Grunberg and Stern (1999: 13). They distinguish between ‘final public goods’ which
refer to outcomes (say enhanced security/stability) and ‘intermediate public goods’ that
refer to institutions or initiatives that contribute to the provision of final public goods.
They use the following example of environmental protection to illustrate this point. To
achieve the final public good of a protected ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol could
usefully be regarded as the most relevant intermediate public good. The main benefits of
such institutions/regimes are the reduction of transaction costs, enhanced predictability of
interaction and the reduced risk of misunderstanding and conflict. Applying this
categorization to the case of forced migration, enhanced security/stability due to the
elimination/minimization of forced migratory flows constitutes would constitute the final
public good, measures to prevent refugee crises or to regulate refugee flows would
constitute intermediate public goods.
Multiple contribution dimensions then has a number of theoretical implications. Doing
away with the standard model's assumption that all countries can provide particular
public goods with the same degree of economic efficiency, Boyer (1989; 1993) puts
forward an alternative model that is based on the idea that countries have a comparative
advantage in providing certain types of (intermediate) collective goods over others.
According to David Ricardo's seminal model of comparative advantage, every country is
endowed with varying amounts and qualities of different factors of production (such as
land, labor, capital or technology). As a result, each country can produce some goods
9
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