The Politics of International Regulatory Standards: An Eclectic Framework of Standard Development Process

Policymaking processes at global level have serious implications for domestic policymaking processes. One of the most obvious and significant policy areas in this regards relates to international (bank) regulatory standards, which define the terms and conditions of banking across the world. This project aims to study international politics of bank regulatory standards, in particular Basel standards, which are negotiated, formulated at the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), a specialised committee of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Since the late 1980s Basel standards have constituted a basis for international bank regulatory standards. While much have been written on international politics of Basel standards as well as domestic politics of compliance with the standards, the literature is scattered with a focus on structural power of major powers, bank lobbying, local politico-economic drivers, or within-BCBS politics. As such, there is a lack of an eclectic framework to understand institutional, structural drivers of standard-making at the global level while also informing about the interlinkages between the domestic and international drivers of standard-making.
In light of this gap in the broad literature on the political economy of global standard-making process, this project asks the following questions:

• How do members of the BCBS reconcile diverging interests on Basel standards?
• How do power politics play out during negotiations?
• What are the sources of power?
• How do national and international institutional and structural contexts determine power politics within the BCBS? 

Exploring answers to these questions involve a two-stage process. In the first two weeks, we will conduct a bibliometric search to identify relevant studies. The following step will include reading and coding those studies to identify variables, processes, mechanisms. The last four weeks are devoted to write-up, mapping out the eclectic framework, and presentation of preliminary findings during student presentations (Week 5).
Ultimately, the aims to produce a review journal article.