国际制度设计视角下的澜湄合作

Institutional Design of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation

为什么在湄公河流域已经存在数十个国际合作机制的情况下,还要建立澜湄合作(LMC)这一新型次区域合作机制?既有研究大多强调湄公河流域大国国际制度主导权竞争的宏观背景因素,而较少关注澜湄合作机制的新制度特征及其形成原因,即澜湄新型次区域合作机制究竟"新在何处"。与大湄公河次区域经济合作机制(GMS)等既有国际机制相比,澜湄合作机制具有两大新的制度特征:一是议题范围更加广泛,除了传统的区域经济合作议题外,还增加了区域安全合作以及水资源合作等新议题;二是集中程度更高,与之前合作机制主要由"职能部门引领"以及"借用"亚洲开发银行作为国际秘书处的做法不同,澜湄合作机制采取了"领导人引领、各部门参与"的机制运行模式,并逐步建立独立的国际秘书处。通过运用国际制度理性设计的理论模型,本文考察了在湄公河流域国际合作中上游国家与下游国家之间所面临的日益严峻的分配问题和执行问题,并以此解释了澜湄合作新制度特征的形成原因。

Why was Lancang-Mekong Cooperation(LMC)created when there were over ten international institutions already in the sub-region of Mekong River?Most researchers have paid attention to the geopolitical background of the initiative and institutional competition among great powers.This paper focuses on the new institutional features of the LMC.Compared with the existing international institutions such as the Greater Mekong Sub-region Economic Cooperation(GMS),the LMC has two new institutional features:wider issue scope and higher level of centralization.Besides regional economic cooperation issues,the LMC also put regional security cooperation and water resources cooperation issues on its agenda.Meanwhile,the LMC is a leaders-driven institution and is working hard to build its independent international secretariat,whereas the GMS serves only as a functional ministerial-level institution and uses the ADB as its secretariat.Applying the rational design theory,this paper argues that the increasing severity of distribution problem and enforcement problem in the international cooperation in the Mekong sub-region has led to the establishment of the LMC with new institutional features.