Abstract
The political regime of member countries is a major factor determining the evolution and the type of the regional organization. The main focus of this chapter is to study the distinction between autocratic and democratic countries. It suggests that autocracies and democracies have different preferences regarding the regional organization type. The chapter pays particular attention to understanding under which conditions authoritarian states can create a regional organizations characterized by successful economic cooperation across members. It also studies the preconditions under which both democracies and autocracies will sustain a regional organization dominated in particular by the rhetorical goals and objectives.
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Notes
- 1.
Gehlbach and Simpser 2015.
- 2.
Mansfield et al. 2002.
- 3.
Fang and Owen (2011) suggest that non-democracies still can be interested in using an RO as a credible commitment device, e.g., to target foreign investors. However, in this case they are more likely to join well-established organizations created by democracies, which can provide them with the necessary credibility. They are less likely to cooperate with other non-democracies.
- 4.
Gaubatz 1996.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
Neumayer 2002.
- 8.
Poast and Uperlainen 2013.
- 9.
- 10.
Garriga 2009.
- 11.
Simmons 2000.
- 12.
Remmer 1998.
- 13.
Mattes and Rodriguez 2014.
- 14.
Solingen 2015.
- 15.
Peceny et al. 2002.
- 16.
A discussion of authoritarian regimes’ impact on the mode of regionalism in Eurasia is offered in Libman and Vinokurov 2016.
- 17.
Libman 2011a.
- 18.
Sloan and Tedin 1979.
- 19.
Besley and Kudamatsu 2008.
- 20.
Gehlbach and Keefer 2011.
- 21.
Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2005) express these differences in terms of variations in the size of the electorate and winning coalition among non-democracies.
- 22.
A country’s decision to join an RO are driven not only by dependence on partners within the organization but also on other external players who may affect negotiations.
- 23.
Hancock 2009.
- 24.
We acknowledge that determining this corridor empirically may be very difficult. Let us provide a specific example: on the one hand, there are mutual projects to be implemented by countries (e.g., transportation corridors), but on the other hand, none of the countries crucially depends on implementing any of these projects, and there are alternative projects available, and possibly implemented, at any point of time (Janeba 2000).
- 25.
This case is problematic in that it is very hard to tell whether a regional organization is purely rhetorical or not. Thus, to make the commitments to the RO credible, countries have to signal to each other that the cooperation is purely rhetorical, e.g., by paying more attention to rituals and public statements and keeping the texts of agreements vague and the deadlines imprecise.
- 26.
More advanced cooperation in the face of open rebellion will also be short term, since it serves to deal with the extreme circumstances. Of course, the hegemon could use the opportunity to maintain a larger military presence in other states in the long run – with or without their regimes’ support.
- 27.
The regimes do not have to seek external support for legitimacy and survival. They may still participate in these ROs for ideological reasons or if they perceive these ROs as a useful part of a ‘bigger game’ they are playing against more powerful players. For example, Russia may favor even purely rhetorical ROs if it views them as useful in developing its position relative to the United States.
- 28.
Again, we assume that for autocrats ideological motives, although important, play a lesser role than the desire to maintain power. This is plausible for many regimes, which have proven highly adaptive to changing circumstances when their main goal is to stay in power. Of course, there are exceptions when ideology trumps the survival instinct.
- 29.
Lake (1997) shows that these organizations might undermine themselves in the long run due to shifts in the balance of power, so that case (1) seems to be the only viable scenario.
- 30.
Libman and Vinokurov (2016) discuss the case of compliance of post-Soviet countries with their commitments in the Customs Union of 2010 and the Eurasian Economic Union, taking into account the authoritarian nature of these states. Obydenkova and Libman (2016), furthermore, conceptualize and advance a theory of a non-democratic regional organization, discussing its specific features, long-term evolution and ability to affect regimes of the member states.
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Vinokurov, E., Libman, A. (2017). Political Regime. In: Re-Evaluating Regional Organizations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53055-0_6
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