Scholars commonly hypothesize that enhanced capacity—improved ability to do as agreed—increases states’ compliance with international agreements. In contrast, using a novel dataset that covers 31 states and three decades of cooperation, I find a negative effect of capacity on compliance. To help explain this seemingly counterintuitive finding, I offer a novel conjecture of the capacity–compliance relationship. In particular, I argue that the effect of capacity may vary substantially across states, because states’ intention to comply constitutes a crucial intervening variable. Among reluctant states pursuing policy goals that affect compliance negatively, high capacity may in fact cause noncompliance. I exemplify the conjecture through evidence from a high-capacity noncompliant state (Norway).

中文翻译：

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容量是否会增加合规性？审查欧洲合作应对空气污染的证据

学者们普遍假设，增强能力——提高按约定行事的能力——会增加国家对国际协议的遵守。相比之下，使用涵盖 31 个州和三个十年合作的新数据集，我发现能力对合规性的负面影响。为了帮助解释这个看似违反直觉的发现，我提供了一个关于容量-合规关系的新猜想。特别是，我认为能力的影响可能因州而异，因为州遵守的意图构成了一个关键的干预变量。在不情愿追求对合规性产生负面影响的政策目标的国家中，高产能实际上可能会导致不合规。我通过来自高容量不合规国家（挪威）的证据来举例说明这一猜想。