Deterring Democratic Decay? Regional Organizations and Democracy Enforcement (Pre-Recorded)

• In Event: Challenges to the Rule of Law in Europe

Abstract

Despite some regional Intergovernmental organization's (RIOs) successful democracy promotion globally after the Cold War, these same RIOs did not automatically become successful democracy enforcers among their own member states. Recent work has called attention to the use of IOs’ suspension clauses for democracy enforcement, doubting their efficacy. Other work suggests IOs will never be able to prevent their members from backsliding because they lack independent militaries. Suspension clauses and military force, however, are not the only – or necessarily the appropriate – methods of enforcement (R)IOs have at their disposal. Disparate literature on multilateral economic sanctions, international monitoring, and international courts, for instance, also suggest RIOs can pressure their member states when they do not comply with common rules or violate group principles. This piece asks how RIOs can effectively deter democratic backsliding in their member states. I propose an institutional design explanation, suggesting certain combinations of enforcement tools are more effective deterrents than others. Using an original panel dataset tracing changes to the “democracy enforcement toolkits” of 12 RIOs in Europe, Africa, and the Americas from the time of their founding to the present, I find certain combinations of non-military tools are more effective deterrents of democratic decay than only the most extreme reactions, suspension or military intervention. The quantitative results are supplemented by shadow cases of regional IOs’ enforcement attempts in the European Union, the Organization of American States, and Economic Community of West African States.

Author

• Cassandra V. Emmons, Harvard University