On the Performance-Based Legitimacy of Financial Action Task Force: A Quantitative Exploration

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Cheng, Guo; Wen, Bo
• 署名单位: University of Chicago; University of Macau
• 刊物名称: REGULATION & GOVERNANCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1748-5983
• DOI: 10.1111/rego.70088
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: international-organizations; governance; TRANSPARENCY; hard

摘要

How legitimate is Financial Action Task Force (FATF)? We address this question with cross-country evidence spanning performance-wise aspects-standards, evaluation, strategy. FATF's legitimacy needs strengthening. Standards-wise, compliance to FATF's Recommendations generally contributes to both FATF's and external effectiveness proxies, yet the latter has much weaker evidence. Granularly, FATF's Recommendations pose challenges for good-faith developing states, since capacity constraints hinder compliance and effectiveness conversion. Evaluation-wise, the effectiveness appraisal may be biased due to heavy reliance on compliance ratings, evidenced by weak correlations with external corruption control and financial transparency indicators. Strategy-wise, though enhanced follow-up boosts persistent compliance, the dominantly punitive strategy system is detrimental to good-faith yet low-capacity states. Theoretically, we build an extended framework on Mitchell's theory by deepening the analysis of effectiveness and justifying its applicability to non-binding institutions. We also enrich the dialogue on the legitimacy of international organizations by presenting a quantitative, objective approach using official data.