How Domestic Lobbying Groups Shape Behavior in IGOs

• In Event: US Bureaucratic and Legislative Politics in International Organizations

Abstract

Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) are established by their member states to achieve goals that member states cannot achieve alone. Existing scholarship on the design of intergovernmental organizations has focused on how member state preferences have determined the initial design of IGOs but has not examined how and why these preferences change over time. We argue that domestic lobbying groups shape member-state preferences in much the way as they shape the preferences of domestic legislators. Through the case study of the US Congress’s policies toward the United Nations since the end of the Cold War, we used mixed methods to demonstrate that specific policies advanced by US NGOs and lobbying groups helped to determine US policy toward the UN, moderating the influence of even the most domestic opponents of IGOs. These findings bridge the American Politics and International Relations literatures and have important implications our understanding of member state preferences during the lifecycle of IGOs, not just at their origin.

Authors

• Felicity Vabulas, Pepperdine University

• Susanna Campbell, American University