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This book explores when, why, and how regional organizations adopt and design institutions to promote and protect fundamental standards of democracy, human rights, and rule of law in their member states. These regional institutions have spread globally. While their institutional designs have become increasingly similar over time, regional particularities persist. The book identifies factors that generate the demand for regional institutions and shape its institutional design. The argument combines hitherto juxtaposed explanatory factors of demands and diffusion by integrating them in a single framework and clarifying under what conditions the interplay between demands and diffusion plays out in the adoption and design of regional institutions. The book provides a comprehensive overview of regional democracy, human rights, and rule of law institutions based on two original datasets and draws on multivariate statistical analysis as well as case studies on the making and change of regional institutions in the Organization of American States and the Organization of African Unity/African Union. Sören Stapel is postdoctoral researcher at the University of Freiburg, Germany. His research interests include global and regional governance, norm and policy diffusion, human rights, and overlapping regionalism. He recently published Comparing Regional Organizations (Bristol University Press, 2020, with Diana Panke and Anna Starkmann).

AbstractRegime complexity characterizes the international system, as many international organizations (IOs) overlap in membership and competencies at the same time. Unmanaged overlaps endanger the effectiveness of IOs. Inter-organizational cooperation can mitigate such negative consequences. However, a novel dataset reveals that not all overlapping IOs cooperate with each other and the institutionalization of cooperation agreements varies. Why do some but not all overlapping IOs opt for cooperation agreements, and why do their designs vary? The analysis of a demand–supply–restraint model shows that increased exposure to overlaps creates a demand for IOs to reach cooperation agreements and for their strong institutionalization. States respond more favourable to the supply of cooperation agreements when they are used to international cooperation and internal authority-delegation. The restraint component underscores that IOs are less inclined to cooperate when ideological differences and power differentials between them are greater and that IOs choose highly institutionalized cooperation agreements when their ideological differences are limited.

The number of regional organizations in Europe has increased in the aftermaths of the Second World War and the Cold War. Whenever regional organizations share member states and are equipped with identical policy competencies at the same time, regime complexity comes into play. Unmanaged regime complexity has not only increased over time but can also bring about negative consequences that can reduce the effectiveness of regional governance. To address these challenges, regional organizations can turn into external actors and cooperate with each other. While some of these cooperation agreements are shallow, others are deep and differ in the specification of policy scopes, instruments, and designated arenas. Thus, we pursue the following research questions: (a) How frequently does the EU cooperate with other regional organizations in the regional regime complex? (b) How does the design of cooperation differ? We show that the EU is an active shaper of regime complexes, not only when it comes to constructing them in the first place, but also with respect to navigating complexity. The EU has entered formal cooperative agreements with most of the regional organizations with which it overlaps. The EU concluded many agreements because it possesses the necessary capacities and is able to speak with one voice externally. We show that the design of agreements is influenced by ideological distances with the other regional organizations.

Multilateral cooperation in international organisations is characterised by regime complexity. The literature usually adopts a policy-focused perspective studying the properties, effects, and dynamics within given regime complexes for different policy areas. Yet few accounts of why states drive regime complexity have been provided in the literature. Therefore, we adopt a state-focused perspective and observe how states differ in the extent to which they foster complexity through overlapping memberships and policy competencies in international organisations. In order to explain this variation, we extract state motivations from the regime complexity literature, but also incorporate the role of geopolitical opportunity structures for complexity as well as interactions between both elements. The empirical analysis reveals that the power to pursue self-interests leads to duplicated policy competencies, whereas duplicating international organisation memberships by creating new international organisations or joining existing ones is costly and a less favoured route towards pursuing substantive gains. The motivation to gain external reputation also positively influences the overlap in membership and policy competencies. Moreover, the number of neighbouring states and the disappearance of deep-rooted ideological cleavages are important opportunity structures for states furthering complexity. Opportunity structures also reinforce the positive effect of power to pursue self-interests and external reputation motivations on complexity. Thus, we contribute to regime complexity research in showing that not all states equally foster regime complexity and this relationship is dependent on a specific context.

European states have not only joined several regional organizations (ROs) over time, but ROs' policy competencies have also broadened in scope. As a result, states are exposed to overlapping regionalism, defined as the extent to which ROs share member states and policy competencies at the same time. First, this article identifies patterns of overlapping regionalism in Europe. In second step, it sheds light on consequences from overlapping regionalism for RO effectiveness, more particularly non-compliance. We argue that an increase in the extent to which a member state is exposed to overlapping regionalism increases its probability for violations of RO norms and rules, which reduces RO effectiveness. When states have joined more ROs with similar policy competencies, the number of rules and norms that need to be complied with is higher. Non-compliance also becomes more likely when these rules and norms are not identical or even incompatible.

Foreign aid to regional international organizations (RIOs) has increased tremendously in recent decades. The vast differences between RIOs give rise to the question of why some RIOs attract considerable amounts of aid while others attract much less, or even nothing at all. To address that question, this article sets out and examines a set of hypotheses that focus on various characteristics of RIOs that allow donors to reduce transaction costs. Empirically, the analysis proceeds via two steps: the hypotheses are first subjected to an empirical plausibility probe based on quantitative methods and then illustrated based on case study of the Southern African Development Community. The findings reveal that RIOs are most attractive when they operate in a range of policy fields, involve many member-states and are engaged in long-lasting collaborations with donors. By contrast, there is little support for conventional explanations as to why RIOs attract funding – for instance, claims that being democratic, being most in need or providing donors with market access will lead to greater funding. The rather disturbing policy implication is that a small number of RIOs are likely to continue to attract the bulk of funding, whereas poorly funded RIOs are unlikely to attract significant amounts of aid.

Foreign aid to regional international organizations (RIOs) has increased tremendously in recent decades. The vast differences between RIOs give rise to the question of why some RIOs attract considerable amounts of aid while others attract much less, or even nothing at all. To address that question, this article sets out and examines a set of hypotheses that focus on various characteristics of RIOs that allow donors to reduce transaction costs. Empirically, the analysis proceeds via two steps: the hypotheses are first subjected to an empirical plausibility probe based on quantitative methods and then illustrated based on case study of the Southern African Development Community. The findings reveal that RIOs are most attractive when they operate in a range of policy fields, involve many member-states and are engaged in long-lasting collaborations with donors. By contrast, there is little support for conventional explanations as to why RIOs attract funding – for instance, claims that being democratic, being most in need or providing donors with market access will lead to greater funding. The rather disturbing policy implication is that a small number of RIOs are likely to continue to attract the bulk of funding, whereas poorly funded RIOs are unlikely to attract significant amounts of aid.