Hello, Goodbye: When do States Withdraw from International Organizations?

• In Event: Populist Challenges to International Organizations

Abstract

Under what conditions do states withdraw from intergovernmental organizations (IOs)? Recent events such as Brexit, the US withdrawal from UNESCO, and US threats to withdraw from NAFTA, NATO, and the WTO have triggered widespread concern because they appear to signify a backlash against the international order. Some observers attribute this recent surge to increasing nationalism. But does this explanation hold up as a more general explanation for IO withdrawals across time and space? Despite many studies of why states join IOs, we know surprisingly little about when and why states exit IOs. We use research on IO accession to suggest explanations for IO withdrawal related to domestic politics, IO characteristics, and geo-politics. We quantitatively test these potential explanations for withdrawal in an original dataset of more than 400 IOs since 1945, documenting more than 200 cases of withdrawal. We find that nationalism is not the key driver of IO withdrawals in the past. Instead, we show that geopolitical factors – such as preference divergence, contagion, and the IO’s democratic density – are the main factors linked to IO withdrawals. These findings have important implications for research on the vitality of international organizations, compliance, contested multilateralism, and the liberal world order.

Authors

• Inken von Borzyskowski, Florida State University

• Felicity Vabulas, Pepperdine University