Sequencing binding and non-binding agreements: the case of outer space governance
Why this work is in the frame
A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Two states can have several bilateral agreements between them, some of which are legally binding and others are not. Is there a discernible pattern to how states structure the chronological sequence of binding and non-binding agreements governing a specific issue area? For example, do states prioritise a framework treaty to establish the foundation of their cooperation and let bureaucrats iron out details in non-binding instruments? Or do they first experiment with low-commitment agreements before eventually settling on a more permanent treaty? This paper explores these questions using the example of space governance, which is characterised by a high number of bilateral agreements. Examining space agreements between 287 state dyads, it argues that a combination of power asymmetry and trust levels influences the likelihood of certain types of sequences of binding and non-binding agreements. These findings are particularly relevant to the literature on informal governance, regime complexes, and space politics.
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Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it