Rooting for culture: a study of the agency of the governed in international organisations

How can states conventionally characterised as “weak” shape international policy and legal frameworks within international organisations? Based on a qualitative case study analysis of two case studies using causal process tracing, this thesis explores developing states’ strategies to institutionalise the protection and promotion of their local cultural assets at the international level. The first case study examines the World Bank’s commitment to preserving and promoting developing countries’ cultural assets beginning in the 1990s. The second case study explores the WIPO’s commitment to the protection of traditional knowledge and cultural expressions beginning in the late 1990s, and the consecration of this process with the adoption of the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge in May 2024. By exploring two original historical episodes based on extensive archival research, this thesis draws attention to the creative potential and activism of a large number of states that have too often been portrayed as passive actors on the international scene, at the mercy of more powerful member states and the dictates of the Secretariats of major international organisations. In choosing to focus on how developing states have institutionalised the protection and promotion of their local cultural assets, this thesis not only sheds light onto a policy domain that is of common interest to many of the world’s countries but that has escaped the radar of IR scholars, but also portrays the institutionalisation of novel and controversial ideas in contestation of long-standing norms, policies and practices. This contrasts with a large portion of the specialised literature that focuses on the co-constitution of norms, the examination of negotiations on discrete items, the resistance against the progress and implementation of existing norms and policies, or their local adaptations. More specifically, by focusing on the agency of the governed within international organisations, this thesis contributes to deepening our understanding of the specific strategies used by relatively weak states, and in particular how they take advantage of their institutional environment to propose new initiatives that serve their interests, offering an account that transcends state-to-state level interactions.