research
book
- CUPMaking International Institutions Work: The Politics of PerformanceRanjit Lall2023
International institutions are essential for tackling many of the most urgent challenges facing the world, from pandemics to humanitarian crises, yet we know little about when they succeed, when they fail, and why. This book proposes a new theory of institutional performance and tests it using a diverse array of sources, including the most comprehensive dataset on the topic. Challenging popular characterizations of international institutions as ’runaway bureaucracies,’ Ranjit Lall argues that the most serious threat to performance comes from the pursuit of narrow political interests by states – paradoxically, the same actors who create and give purpose to institutions. The discreet operational processes through which international bureaucrats cultivate and sustain autonomy vis-à-vis governments, he contends, are critical to making institutions ’work.’ The findings enhance our understanding of international cooperation, public goods, and organizational behavior while offering practical lessons to policymakers, NGOs, businesses, and citizens interested in improving institutional effectiveness.
@book{lall2023cup, title = {Making International Institutions Work: The Politics of Performance}, author = {Lall, Ranjit}, year = {2023}, doi = {10.1017/9781009216265}, url = {https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/making-international-institutions-work/2B354270D50B9471D04529CD8D5C98F7}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, location = {Cambridge}, }
articles and book chapters
2025
- BJPSVarieties of Anxieties: Disaggregating Emotion and Voting Behavior in the COVID-19 EraRanjit Lall, and David VilaltaBritish Journal of Political Science 2025
How does anxiety influence voting behavior? Whereas anxiety is usually treated as a uni- dimensional emotion, we highlight the multiplicity of socially contingent forms it can assume in response to societal threats. Different anxieties, we posit, can create distinct axes of political competition along which anxious voters exhibit widely varying preferences. We illustrate our argument with unique observational and experimental survey data from Spain’s COVID-19 crisis, showing that individuals anxious about the pandemic’s health consequences favored parties advocating stringent lockdown restrictions, whereas indi- viduals anxious about its economic disruption preferred parties opposing such measures. Analyzing municipality-level results from Madrid’s 2021 regional election, we addition- ally provide evidence that COVID-19 boosted support for pro-lockdown parties in areas more exposed to its health effects and support for anti-lockdown parties in areas more ex- posed to its economic impact. Our findings point to the importance of disaggregating complex emotional states for understanding the determinants of voting behavior.
@article{lall2025bjps, title = {Varieties of Anxieties: Disaggregating Emotion and Voting Behavior in the COVID-19 Era}, author = {Lall, Ranjit and Vilalta, David}, journal = {British Journal of Political Science}, pages = {1--41}, year = {2025}, } - AJPSMaking Global Governance Accountable: Civil Society, States, and the Politics of ReformRanjit LallAmerican Journal of Political Science 2025
Recent decades have witnessed the adoption of unprecedentedly broad and inclusive accountability mechanisms by many major international institutions, from grievance redress systems to transparency policies. What explains the establishment of these mechanisms — and why have only some institutions embraced them? I argue that adoption is more likely when member states, in particular the most powerful, face “bottom-up” pressures for accountability from dense transnational civil society networks — networks with the capacity to build leverage through agenda setting, coalition building, and advocacy strategies — and when institutions perform governance tasks that are costly to monitor. Analysis of a rich new dataset shows that adoption is positively related to the density of international nongovernmental organizations in an institution’s issue area — including only those based in powerful member countries — and that this relationship is stronger when governance tasks entail high monitoring costs. Statistical tests are complemented by qualitative evidence from interviews and other primary sources.
@article{lall2025ajps, title = {Making Global Governance Accountable: Civil Society, States, and the Politics of Reform}, author = {Lall, Ranjit}, journal = {American Journal of Political Science}, volume = {69}, number = {1}, pages = {96--117}, year = {2025}, doi = {10.1111/ajps.12824}, url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12824}, publisher = {Wiley Online Library}, }
2023
- AJPSWhen Does Transparency Improve Institutional Performance? Evidence from 20,000 Projects in 183 CountriesDan Honig, Ranjit Lall, and Bradley C. ParksAmerican Journal of Political Science 2023
Access to information (ATI) policies are often praised for strengthening transparency, accountability, and trust in public institutions, yet evidence that they improve institutional performance is mixed. We argue that an important impediment to the effective operation of such policies is the failure of bureaucrats to comply with information requests that could expose poor performance. Analyzing a new data set on the performance of approximately 20,000 aid projects financed by 12 donor agencies in 183 countries, we find that enforcement matters: the adoption of ATI policies by agencies is associated with better project outcomes when these policies include independent appeals processes for denied information requests but with no improvement when they do not. We also recover evidence that project staff adjust their behavior in anticipation of ATI appeals, and that the performance dividends of appeals processes increase when bottom-up collective action is easier and mechanisms of project oversight are weak.
@article{honig2023ajps, title = {When Does Transparency Improve Institutional Performance? Evidence from 20,000 Projects in 183 Countries}, author = {Honig, Dan and Lall, Ranjit and Parks, Bradley C.}, journal = {American Journal of Political Science}, volume = {67}, number = {4}, pages = {829--1153}, year = {2023}, doi = {10.1111/ajps.12698}, url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12698}, publisher = {Wiley Online Library} } - JSSEfficient Multiple Imputation for Diverse Data in Python and R: MIDASpy and rMIDASRanjit Lall, and Thomas RobinsonJournal of Statistical Software 2023
This paper introduces software packages for efficiently imputing missing data using deep learning methods in Python (MIDASpy) and R (rMIDAS). The packages implement a recently developed approach to multiple imputation known as MIDAS, which involves introducing additional missing values into the dataset, attempting to reconstruct these values with a type of unsupervised neural network known as a denoising autoencoder, and using the resulting model to draw imputations of originally missing data. These steps are executed by a fast and flexible algorithm that expands both the quantity and the range of data that can be analyzed with multiple imputation. To help users optimize the algorithm for their particular application, MIDASpy and rMIDAS offer a host of user-friendly tools for calibrating and validating the imputation model. We provide a detailed guide to these functionalities and demonstrate their usage on a large real dataset.
@article{lall2023jss, title = {Efficient Multiple Imputation for Diverse Data in Python and R: MIDASpy and rMIDAS}, author = {Lall, Ranjit and Robinson, Thomas}, journal = {Journal of Statistical Software}, pages = {1--38}, year = {2023}, volume = {107}, number = {9}, doi = {10.18637/jss.v107.i09}, url = {https://www.jstatsoft.org/article/view/v107i09}, }
2022
- PAThe MIDAS Touch: Accurate and Scalable Missing-Data Imputation with Deep LearningRanjit Lall, and Thomas RobinsonPolitical Analysis 2022
Principled methods for analyzing missing values, based chiefly on multiple imputation, have become increasingly popular yet can struggle to handle the kinds of large and complex data that are also becoming common. We propose an accurate, fast, and scalable approach to multiple imputation, which we call MIDAS (Multiple Imputation with Denoising Autoencoders). MIDAS employs a class of unsupervised neural networks known as denoising autoencoders, which are designed to reduce dimensionality by corrupting and attempting to reconstruct a subset of data. We repurpose denoising autoencoders for multiple imputation by treating missing values as an additional portion of corrupted data and drawing imputations from a model trained to minimize the reconstruction error on the originally observed portion. Systematic tests on simulated as well as real social science data, together with an applied example involving a large-scale electoral survey, illustrate MIDAS’s accuracy and efficiency across a range of settings. We provide open-source software for implementing MIDAS.
@article{lall2022pa, title = {The MIDAS Touch: Accurate and Scalable Missing-Data Imputation with Deep Learning}, author = {Lall, Ranjit and Robinson, Thomas}, journal = {Political Analysis}, pages = {179–196}, volume = {30}, number = {2}, year = {2022}, doi = {10.1017/pan.2020.49}, url = {https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-analysis/article/abs/midas-touch-accurate-and-scalable-missingdata-imputation-with-deep-learning/5007854F57E88AF16D69BCCA4C5AF1FF}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press} }
2021
- ISQThe Financial Consequences of Rating International Institutions: Competition, Collaboration, and the Politics of AssessmentRanjit LallInternational Studies Quarterly 2021
The past 15 years have witnessed a striking trend in global governance: the creation of comparative indicators of the performance of international institutions by donor states seeking to allocate their resources more efficiently. Interestingly, however, not all highly rated institutions have been “rewarded” with increased contributions, while not all poorly rated institutions have been “punished” with funding cuts or freezes. I argue that the financial impact of performance indicators is contingent upon the relationshipbetween institutions and other actors within their environment, with stronger effects occurring when institutions (1) are subject to a higher degree of resource competition and (2) possess deeper and more extensive operational alliances with actors above and below the state. I test the argument using a mixed-methods strategy that draws on a variety of original sources, including key informant interviews and a new dataset covering fifty-three institutions over the period 2000–2016. The findings enhance our understanding of when and why comparative performance indicators influence resource flows to assessed entities.
@article{lall2021isq, title = {The Financial Consequences of Rating International Institutions: Competition, Collaboration, and the Politics of Assessment}, author = {Lall, Ranjit}, journal = {International Studies Quarterly}, volume = {65}, number = {2}, pages = {343--359}, year = {2021}, doi = {10.1093/isq/sqaa082}, publisher = {Oxford University Press} }
2020
- CUPAssessing International Organizations: Competition, Collaboration, and Politics of FundingRanjit Lall2020
@incollection{lall2020cup, title = {Assessing International Organizations: Competition, Collaboration, and Politics of Funding}, author = {Lall, Ranjit}, booktitle = {The Power of Global Performance Indicators}, editor = {Kelley, Judith G. and Simmons, Beth A.}, pages = {300--338}, doi = {10.1017/9781108763493.011}, url = {https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/power-of-global-performance-indicators/assessing-international-organizations/C8E47ACB33BE9C68D9E8FAB50A8E97DF}, year = {2020}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, address = {New York} }
2017
- IOBeyond Institutional Design: Explaining the Performance of International OrganizationsRanjit LallInternational Organization 2017
International organizations (IOs) have long been a central focus of scholarship in international relations, yet we know remarkably little about their performance. This article offers an explanation for differences in the performance of IOs and tests it using the first quantitative data set on the topic. I argue that the primary obstacle to effective institutional performance is not deviant behavior by IO officials — as conventional “rogue-agency” analyses suggest — but the propensity of states to use IOs to promote narrow national interests rather than broader organizational objectives. IOs that enjoy policy autonomy vis-à-vis states will thus exhibit higher levels of performance. However, in the international context policy autonomy cannot be guaranteed by institutional design. Instead, it is a function of (1) the existence of (certain types of) institutionalized alliances between IOs and actors above and below the state; and (2) the technical complexity of IO activities. I provide empirical evidence for the argument by constructing and analyzing a cross-sectional data set on IO performance — based in part on a new wave of official government evaluations of IOs and in part on an original survey of IO staff — and conducting a comparative case study in the realm of global food security.
@article{lall2017io, title = {Beyond Institutional Design: Explaining the Performance of International Organizations}, author = {Lall, Ranjit}, journal = {International Organization}, volume = {71}, number = {2}, pages = {245--280}, year = {2017}, doi = {10.1017/S0020818317000066}, url = {https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/beyond-institutional-design-explaining-the-performance-of-international-organizations/EA20B0FA16A6AC9AABAFC4E27DCC605B}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press} } - CPSThe Missing Dimension of the Political Resource Curse DebateRanjit LallComparative Political Studies 2017
Given the methodological sophistication of the debate over the “political resource curse” — the purported negative relationship between natural resource wealth (in particular oil wealth) and democracy — it is surprising that scholars have not paid more attention to the basic statistical issue of how to deal with missing data. This article highlights the problems caused by the most common strategy for analyzing missing data in the political resource curse literature — listwise deletion — and investigates how addressing such problems through the best-practice technique of multiple imputation affects empirical results. I find that multiple imputation causes the results of a number of influential recent studies to converge on a key common finding: A political resource curse does exist, but only since the widespread nationalization of petroleum industries in the 1970s. This striking finding suggests that much of the controversy over the political resource curse has been caused by a neglect of missing-data issues.
@article{lall2017cps, title = {The Missing Dimension of the Political Resource Curse Debate}, author = {Lall, Ranjit}, journal = {Comparative Political Studies}, volume = {50}, number = {10}, pages = {1291--1324}, year = {2017}, doi = {10.1177/0010414016666861}, url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0010414016666861}, publisher = {Sage Publications Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA} }
2016
- PAHow Multiple Imputation Makes A DifferenceRanjit LallPolitical Analysis 2016
Political scientists increasingly recognize that multiple imputation represents a superior strategy for analyzing missing data to the widely used method of listwise deletion. However, there has been little systematic investigation of how multiple imputation affects existing empirical knowledge in the discipline. This article presents the first large-scale examination of the empirical effects of substituting multiple imputation for listwise deletion in political science. The examination focuses on research in the major subfield of comparative and international political economy (CIPE) as an illustrative example. Specifically, I use multiple imputation to reanalyze the results of almost every quantitative CIPE study published during a recent five-year period in International Organization and World Politics, two of the leading subfield journals in CIPE. The outcome is striking: in almost half of the studies, key results “disappear” (by conventional statistical standards) when reanalyzed.
@article{lall2016pa, title = {How Multiple Imputation Makes A Difference}, author = {Lall, Ranjit}, journal = {Political Analysis}, volume = {24}, number = {4}, pages = {414--433}, year = {2016}, doi = {10.1093/pan/mpw020}, url = {https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-analysis/article/how-multiple-imputation-makes-a-difference/8C6616B679EF8F3EB0041B1BC88EEBB9}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press} }
2015
- RegGovTiming as a source of regulatory influence: A technical elite network analysis of global financeRanjit LallRegulation & Governance 2015
Rules governing the international financial system are the subject of some of the most intense distributional battles waged in any area of global governance. Who wins and who loses such battles – and why? I develop a novel analytical framework – technical elite network (TEN) theory – which explains the widely varying levels of influence that stakeholders enjoy over global financial standards. TEN theory draws attention to how issue-specific characteristics of international finance – in particular, its highly technical and complex nature – shape the distributional consequences of global regulatory processes. It posits that such characteristics influence distributional outcomes by (i) affecting who claims first-mover position and, thus, sets the agenda in global financial rulemaking, and (ii) ensuring that proposals made by first movers are increasingly difficult to alter at later stages of rulemaking. I provide empirical evidence for the theory by examining two regulatory regimes that are central to the efficiency and stability of the global financial system: the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the International Accounting Standards Board.
@article{lall2015rg, title = {Timing as a source of regulatory influence: A technical elite network analysis of global finance}, author = {Lall, Ranjit}, journal = {Regulation \& Governance}, volume = {9}, number = {2}, pages = {125--143}, year = {2015}, doi = {10.1111/rego.12050}, url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rego.12050}, publisher = {Wiley Online Library} }
2012
- RIPEFrom Failure to Failure: The Politics of International Banking RegulationRanjit LallReview of International Political Economy 2012
It is now clear that Basel III, a much discussed set of proposals to govern the international banking system drawn up by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, has fallen far short of its creators’ aims. Even more puzzlingly, this is not without precedent. Eleven years ago, partly in response to the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Basel Committee attempted to overhaul global banking rules in order to enhance the stability of the global financial system. The culmination of its five-year efforts, the Basel II Accord, was abandoned by regulators before ever being fully implemented. In this paper, I ask why Basel II failed to meet the Basel Committee’s original objectives and why Basel III has met a similar fate. Drawing on recent work on the politics of global regulation, I present a theoretical framework which emphasizes the importance of timing and sequencing in determining the outcome of rule-making in global finance. The success of this framework in explaining the failure of Basel II and Basel III is an invitation to scholars in the field of International Relations to take ‘time’ seriously as an analytical variable.
@article{lall2012ripe, title = {From Failure to Failure: The Politics of International Banking Regulation}, author = {Lall, Ranjit}, journal = {Review of International Political Economy}, volume = {19}, number = {4}, pages = {609--638}, year = {2012}, doi = {10.1080/09692290.2011.603669}, url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09692290.2011.603669}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis} }
2011
- PMReforming Global Banking Standards: Back to the Future?Ranjit Lall2011
@incollection{lall2011pm, title = {Reforming Global Banking Standards: Back to the Future?}, author = {Lall, Ranjit}, booktitle = {Governing through Standards: Origins, Drivers and Limitations}, editor = {Ponte, Stefano and Gibbon, Peter and Vestergaard, Jakob}, pages = {75--101}, url = {https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230295407}, year = {2011}, publisher = {Palgrave MacMillan}, address = {Basingstoke} }
policy reports
- AIGIThe Future of the AI Summit SeriesLucia Velasco, Charles Martinet, Henry Zoete, Robert Trager, Duncan Snidal, Ben Garfinkel, Kwan Yee Ng, Haydn Belfield, Don Wallace, Yoshua Bengio, Benjamin Prud’homme, Brian Tse, Roxana Radu, Ranjit Lall, Ben Harack, Julia Morse, Nicolas Miailhe, Scott Singer, Matt Sheehan, Max Stauffer, Yi Zeng, Joslyn Barnhart, Imane Bello, Xue Lan, Oliver Guest, Duncan Cass-Beggs, Lu Chuanying, Sumaya Nur Adan, Markus Anderljung, and Claire Dennis2025
The AI Summit series – initiated at Bletchley Park in 2023 and continuing through Seoul in 2024 and Paris in 2025 – has become a distinct forum for international collaboration on AI governance. Its early achievements, including the Bletchley Declaration, the Frontier AI Safety Commitments, and the International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI, are a result of its unique format, regular schedule, and ability to secure concrete commitments from governments and industry. To ensure its continuing impact, the Summit series must now transition from an improvised sequence of summits towards a more formalized structure. For this evolution to succeed, organizers must carefully examine past successes and realistically assess future challenges. This report examines both, with particular attention to a set of core summit design elements: hosting arrangement, secretariat format, participant selection, agenda setting, and summit frequency. Based on this analysis, we present six recommendations to strengthen the summit series’ impact.
@misc{velasco2025aigi, title = {The Future of the AI Summit Series}, author = {Velasco, Lucia and Martinet, Charles and de Zoete, Henry and Trager, Robert and Snidal, Duncan and Garfinkel, Ben and Ng, Kwan Yee and Belfield, Haydn and Wallace, Don and Bengio, Yoshua and Prud'homme, Benjamin and Tse, Brian and Radu, Roxana and Lall, Ranjit and Harack, Ben and Morse, Julia and Miailhe, Nicolas and Singer, Scott and Sheehan, Matt and Stauffer, Max and Zeng, Yi and Barnhart, Joslyn and Bello, Imane and Lan, Xue and Guest, Oliver and Cass-Beggs, Duncan and Chuanying, Lu and Adan, Sumaya Nur and Anderljung, Markus and Dennis, Claire}, year = {2025}, archiveprefix = {Oxford Martin School AI Governance Initiative Policy Memo}, url = {https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/the-future-of-the-ai-summit-series}, } - International Governance of Civilian AI: A Jurisdictional Certification ApproachRobert Trager, Ben Harack, Anka Reuel, Allison Carnegie, Lennart Heim, Lewis Ho, Sarah Kreps, Ranjit Lall, Owen Larter, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, Simon Staffell, and José Jaime Villalobos2023
This report describes trade-offs in the design of international governance arrangements for civilian artificial intelligence (AI) and presents one approach in detail. This approach represents the extension of a standards, licensing, and liability regime to the global level. We propose that states establish an International AI Organization (IAIO) to certify state jurisdictions (not firms or AI projects) for compliance with international oversight standards. States can give force to these international standards by adopting regulations prohibiting the import of goods whose supply chains embody AI from non-IAIO-certified jurisdictions. This borrows attributes from models of existing international organizations, such as the International Civilian Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). States can also adopt multilateral controls on the export of AI product inputs, such as specialized hardware, to non-certified jurisdictions. Indeed, both the import and export standards could be required for certification. As international actors reach consensus on risks of and minimum standards for advanced AI, a jurisdictional certification regime could mitigate a broad range of potential harms, including threats to public safety.
title = {International Governance of Civilian AI: A Jurisdictional Certification Approach}, author = {Trager, Robert and Harack, Ben and Reuel, Anka and Carnegie, Allison and Heim, Lennart and Ho, Lewis and Kreps, Sarah and Lall, Ranjit and Larter, Owen and hÉigeartaigh, Seán Ó and Staffell, Simon and Villalobos, José Jaime}, year = {2023}, archiveprefix = {arXiv}, doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2308.15514}, } - DIISReforming Global Banking Rules - How the G20 Can Save the Global EconomyJakob Vestergaard, Ranjit Lall, and Martin Højland2010
At the September 2009 Pittsburgh Summit the leaders of the G20 set out a series of far-reaching regulatory reforms to “tackle the root causes of the crisis and transform the system for global financial regulation.” The centrepiece of the reform effort was Basel III, a new set of capital adequacy rules to be drawn up by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), a group of international banking regulators, by the end of 2010. As the G20 convenes in Toronto almost one year later, Basel III is entering a critical phase in the reform process – a phase which will determine whether we see fundamental reform of the international banking system or merely a return to ‘business as usual.’ Drawing on the experience of the previous attempt to overhaul global capital standards, Basel II, this DIIS policy brief proposes a set of institutional and structural reforms to the BCBS to ensure that it succeeds in realizing the G20’s vision for a sounder and more resilient financial system.
@misc{vestergaard2010diis, title = {Reforming Global Banking Rules - How the G20 Can Save the Global Economy}, author = {Vestergaard, Jakob and Lall, Ranjit and Højland, Martin}, year = {2010}, archiveprefix = {DIIS Policy Brief}, url = {https://www.diis.dk/en/research/financial-reform-banking-lobbies-are-still-in-control}, }