Comparing Regional Organizations: Global Dynamics and Regional Particularities 9781529209488

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Comparing Regional Organizations: Global Dynamics and Regional Particularities
Copyright information
Table of contents
List of Figures and Tables
List of abbreviations
Preface
One Introduction
A brief overview of the state of the art
Major contributions
Outline of the book
Two Conceptual Framework and Measurement
A typology of ROs
The ROCO datasets
Summary
Three The Global Perspective
The creation and dissolution of ROs
Membership dynamics: how ROs grow over time
Policy competencies: how ROs evolve over time
Summary: global trajectories
Four Regional Organizations in Africa
Membership dynamics in African ROs
Policy competencies in African ROs
Summary: African particularities
Five Regional Organizations in the Americas
Membership dynamics in American ROs
Policy competencies in American ROs
Summary: American particularities
Six Regional Organizations in Asia
Membership dynamics in Asian ROs
Policy competencies in Asian ROs
Summary: Asian particularities
Seven Regional Organizations in Europe
Membership dynamics in European ROs
Policy competencies in European ROs
Summary: European particularities
Eight Conclusion
Discussion of findings and avenues for future research
Notes
References
Appendix
Index
Back Cover

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COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS DIANA PANKE, SÖREN STAPEL AND ANNA STARKMANN

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COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS Global Dynamics and Regional Particularities

DIANA PANKE, SÖREN STAPEL AND ANNA STARKMANN

DIANA PANKE, SÖREN STAPEL AND ANNA STARKMANN

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS Global Dynamics and Regional Particularities

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Bristol University Press 1-​9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK t: +44 (0)117 954 5940 www.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk

© Bristol University Press 2020 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-5292-0947-1 hardcover ISBN 978-​1-​5292-​0949-​5  ePub ISBN 978-​1-​5292-​0948-​8  ePDF The right of Diana Panke, Sören Stapel and Anna Starkmann to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press. Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If, however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the authors and not of The University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Bristol University Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by blu inc, Bristol Front cover image: Getty Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Bristol University Press uses environmentally responsible print partners

Contents List of Figures and Tables Abbreviations Preface one Introduction two Conceptual Framework and Measurement three The Global Perspective four Regional Organizations in Africa five Regional Organizations in the Americas six Regional Organizations in Asia seven Regional Organizations in Europe eight Conclusion Notes Appendix References Index

iii

iv vi x 1 15 29 45 65 83 101 119 133 137 147 169

List of Figures and Tables Figures 2.1 Typology of ROs 3.1 ROs over time, global perspective 3.2 RO size in global perspective 3.3 Average RO policy scope, global and regions 3.4 Cumulative RO competencies in 11 different policy fields (2015) 3.5 Trajectories of policy fields (1945–​2015) 3.6 A typology of ROs by region (2015) 4.1 African ROs in 2015 4.2 The size of African ROs over time 4.3 The policy scope of African ROs over time 4.4 Average number of policy competencies per policy field in African ROs (1945–​2015) 4.5 A typology of African ROs 5.1 American ROs in 2015 5.2 The size of American ROs over time 5.3 The policy scope of American ROs over time 5.4 Average number of policy competencies per policy field in American ROs (1945–​2015) 5.5 A typology of American ROs 6.1 Asian ROs in 2015 6.2 The size of Asian ROs over time 6.3 The policy scope of Asian ROs over time 6.4 Average number of policy competencies per policy field in Asian ROs (1945–​2015) 6.5 A typology of Asian ROs iv

19 30 32 35 36 38 41 49 49 52 53 61 70 71 73 74 80 86 88 90 91 98

List of Figures and Tables

7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 8.1 8.2

European ROs in 2015 The size of European ROs over time The policy scope of European ROs over time Average number of policy competencies per policy field in European ROs (1945–​2015) A typology of European ROs RO types in 1955, 1985 and 2015 Typology of ROs

104 105 108 110 116 123 128

Tables 4.1 ROs in Africa 47 4.2 Maximum number of policy competencies 55 covered by African ROs per policy field 5.1 ROs in the Americas 67 5.2 Maximum number of policy competencies 75 covered by American ROs per policy field 6.1 ROs in Asia 85 6.2 Maximum number of policy competencies 92 covered by Asian ROs per policy field 7.1 ROs in Europe 103 7.2 Maximum number of policy competencies 111 covered by European ROs per policy field A1 List of ROs 137 A2 RO policy competencies in the ROCO datasets 140

v

Abbreviations AC ACC ACD ACS ACTO AL ALADI ALBA AMU ANDEAN APEC ASEAN AU BEU BIMSTEC BSEC CACM CAEU CALC CAREC CARICOM CBSS CCTS CE CEEAC

Arctic Council Arab Cooperation Council Asia Cooperation Dialogue Association of Caribbean States Amazonian Cooperation Treaty Organization League of Arab States Latin American Integration Association Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas Arab Maghreb Union Andean Community Asia-​Pacific Economic Cooperation Association of Southeast Asian Nations African Union Benelux Economic Union Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-​Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation Black Sea Economic Cooperation Central American Common Market Council of Arab Economic Unity Latin American and Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Caribbean Community Council of the Baltic Sea States Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States Conseil de l’Entente Economic Community of Central African States vi

Abbreviations

CEFTA CELAC CEMAC CENSAD CEPGL CIS CoE CoP COMECON COMESA CSTO EAC EAEU EC ECSC ECO ECOWAS EEA EEC EFTA EU EURATOM G5S GCC GGC GUAM ICGLR IGAD

Central European Free Trade Agreement Community of Latin American and Caribbean States Central African Economic and Monetary Community Community of Sahel-​Saharan States Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries Commonwealth of Independent States Council of Europe Conference of the Parties Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Collective Security Treaty Organization East African Community Eurasian Economic Union European Communities European Coal and Steel Community Economic Cooperation Organization Economic Community of West African States European Economic Area European Economic Community European Free Trade Association European Union European Atomic Energy Community G5 du Sahel Gulf Cooperation Council Gulf of Guinea Commission Organization for Democracy and Economic Development International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Intergovernmental Authority on Development vii

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

IO IOC IORA LCBC MERCOSUR MGC MRC MRU MSG NAFTA NATO NC OAS OAU ODECA OECS OIC OSCE PA PIF RO ROCO SAARC SACU SADC SADCC SCO SEATO SELA SICA SPC

international organization Indian Ocean Commission Indian Ocean Rim Association Lake Chad Basin Commission Southern Common Market Mekong-​Ganga Cooperation Mekong River Commission Mano River Union Melanesian Spearhead Group North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Treaty Organization Nordic Council Organization of American States Organization of African Unity Organization of Central American States Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Organization for Security and Co-​ operation in Europe Pacific Alliance Pacific Islands Forum regional organization Regional Organizations’ Competencies (dataset) South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Southern African Customs Union Southern African Development Community Southern African Development Coordination Conference Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Southeast Asia Treaty Organization Latin American Economic System Central American Integration System Pacific Community viii

Abbreviations

SPECA UEMOA UNASUR UN UNSD WTO WWII

United Nations Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia West African Economic and Monetary Union Union of South American Nations United Nations United Nations Statistical Division Warsaw Treaty Organisation World War II

ix

Preface As a distinct type of international organization, regional organizations with their geographical membership criteria have a considerable impact on the lives of many people throughout all regions around the world. Therefore, regional organizations (ROs) have fascinated us for quite some time. Our collaboration started out a few years back with the idea of writing a short paper that happened to turn into a major data collection exercise that kept us busy for several years and culminated in a broad array of different research questions and interests. In this book, we have pursued a basic interest. Despite the high number of ROs that exist today, there are very few comparative studies. Hence, we wanted to contribute to the vibrant debate by mapping how ROs have developed over time in a systematic and comprehensive manner that still allows for in-​depth insights. Thereby we uncovered intriguing global trajectories and regional particularities that we present here. We are grateful to have received funding for our endeavours. This book brings together the work of two research projects dealing with regional organizations. The first project, Towards an Increasing Regionalization of International Politics? Comparing the Development of External and Internal Competencies of Regional Organizations over Time, was supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation (Az.10.16.1.012IB). It provided the resources necessary to collect the raw data for this book. The second project, Overlapping Regionalism in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe Compared, received funding from the German Research Council (DFG, grant number PA 1257/​7-​1; 421167407). This project allowed us to further work with, and build on, the database and to examine the implications arising from the complexity that characterizes contemporary regionalism around the globe. x

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preface

In addition, we would like to thank our colleagues who provided comments to initial project ideas as well as papers during various conferences and academic meetings. We are indebted to them for their various contributions; in particular, Tanja A.  Börzel, Cassandra V.  Emmons, Julia Gray, Yoram Haftel, Stephanie C.  Hofmann, Tobias Hofmann, Anja Jetschke, Arie M.  Kacowicz, Tobias Lenz, Mathis Lohaus, Johannes Muntschick, Nina Reiners, Frederik Söderbaum, Edward Stoddard and Patrick Theiner. Three reviewers from Bristol University Press (BUP) offered thoughtful and detailed comments. We would like to thank them for the opportunity to make this book more accessible and, hopefully, even more convincing. Our research assistants Nikolay Aleksiev, Ikram Ali, Lea Gerhard, Chiara Fury, Clara Hirschmann, Klara Leithäuser, Laura Lepsy, Laura Maghetiu, Paul Meiners, Leonardo Rey, Benjamin Schäfer, Edward Vaughan, Philipp Wagenhals and Ivan Zolotarevskii provided valuable support in researching sources, coding documents, supporting the databank management, searching for literature and proofreading. We would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their work. We are also glad to have Simone Ahrens on the team as she provides superb administrative support for all of our projects. We are thankful to Caroline Astley from BUP for guiding us through the publication process. Last but not least, this book would not have been written in this form without Stephen Wenham whose encouragement helped to develop the book project.

xi

ONE

Introduction

In his seminal work Beyond the Nation-​State:  Functionalism and International Organization, Ernst Haas argues that regional integration is not a phenomenon confined to the European continent (Haas, 1964). Although the European Union (EU) has become the most researched regional organization (RO), ROs have evolved in all parts of the globe. From a comparative regionalism perspective, the predominance of the EU in the literature is surprising given that it is neither the oldest of its kind nor the largest. ROs date back to 1910 when the predecessors of today’s Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) founded the South African Customs Union (SACU). ROs come in all shapes and sizes. For instance, the Organization for Security and Co-​operation in Europe (OSCE) with its 56 member states (as of 2012)  is the largest RO. The RO with the broadest scope of policy competencies is the African Union (AU), which reached 203 specific competencies in 2010. This book provides important and novel insights into the trajectories of RO development. We conceive of ROs as organizations that are based on a set of written legal rules (primary law) as well as headquarters or a secretariat in which at least three states cooperate with one another on the basis of geographic criteria in more than one narrowly defined issue area (Panke et al, 2017; Panke and Stapel, 2018a). Applying these criteria, our study includes 76 ROs (Table A1 in the Appendix).

1

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

This book offers a typology of ROs that captures important challenges and opportunities ROs face in their day-​to-​day operation and provides the most comprehensive comparative analysis of regionalism around the world to date. The typology builds on two dimensions: RO size and RO policy scope. The former captures the number of member states of an RO in a given year and the latter the number of primary law-​based policy competencies that ROs have obtained over time. On this basis, the book identifies four types of ROs, namely:  small selective ROs, which are characterized by few member states and a limited policy scope; small encompassing ROs, which have few members but are equipped with a wide range of policy competencies; large selective ROs, which have many member states but few policy competencies; and large encompassing ROs, which have many member states and a wide range of policy competencies. The book investigates the size and policy scope, both as individual characteristics and in combination, of each RO, starting after World War II (WWII) and ending in the year 2015. The analysis reveals four major findings. First, regionalism evolved in multiple waves. Second, ROs have become larger over time. Third, ROs have gained ever more competencies in a broader range of policy fields. Fourth, in spite of these increases, many ROs still only had a few members and a limited range of policy competencies by the end of the observation period, while others had multiplied in size and policy scope. This chapter reviews the literature on comparative regionalism and identifies major insights as well as gaps. One of the gaps in state-​of-​the-​art research is the lack of a comprehensive comparative analysis of the patterns and trajectories of RO development over a long period of time that includes all ROs and all policy areas. This book fills this gap by providing a comprehensive analysis of how ROs developed in different parts of the world with respect to their member state composition and policy scope. After summarizing the 2

Introduction

major contributions, Chapter 1 ends with a brief outline of the structure of the book. A brief overview of the state of the art Regionalism, ROs and regional integration have been the focus of research for several decades. While early research on regionalism was explicitly comparative in character, the study of regionalism increasingly fragmented over the subsequent decades (Söderbaum, 2016a). We take stock of this intellectual journey towards the newest wave of regionalism research, which returns to its roots of a rather comparative approach. Regionalism and ROs, as they are understood in this book, are predominantly a post-​World War II phenomenon. When ROs were established in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the phenomenon sparked the interest of numerous scholars. They sought to build insights on the inception and development of ROs and regional integration in all parts of the globe  –​ including controversial debates that characterize the scholarship on regionalism to this date, such as the definition of key concepts and the problem of comparability (Nye, 1968; see also Deutsch et al, 1957; Haas, 1961, 1967; Nye, 1965, 1971). However, regional integration did not progress steadily and uniformly in all parts of the world. Hence, one prominent figure in the debate even considered the ‘obsolescence of regional integration theory’ (Haas, 1975). In the following years, research on integration focused mainly on the EU and its predecessors as the primary successful RO in the world. EU scholarship first examined the motivations underlying its creation (Lindberg and Scheingold, 1970; Mitrany, 1998), pointing out that the major aims were to increase economic welfare, achieve security in the context of the emerging East–​West conflict and foster peace and stability among its member states. In the second wave of European integration research, scholars studied how EU primary law (its treaties) is created and has 3

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

evolved (Hoffmann, 1989; Moravcsik, 1998; Rosato, 2011) and how and which policies the EU and its member states pass on this basis (Rosenthal, 1975; Héritier, 1999; Kassim et al, 2001; Cini and Borragàn, 2015). In a third wave, Europeanization as well as compliance and implementation research studied and explained the varying impact of the EU on its member states and between policy areas (Knill, 2001; Grabbe, 2006, Börzel and Panke, 2010; Zürn and Joerges, 2011; Cremona, 2012). Work on EU enlargement, the EU neighborhood policy and the EU as an external actor further abroad or at the international level constituted the fourth wave of EU scholarship (inter alia Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2005; Smith, 2005; Lavenex, 2008; Kissack, 2010; Delreux, 2013; Wetzel et al, 2015). With focus on the EU as an external actor (inter alia Oberthür, 1999; Groenleer and Schaik, 2007; Panke, 2014), diffusion research became prominent, studying whether and how the EU ‘exports’ its norms and rules to other ROs (Börzel and Risse, 2012a, 2012b; Jetschke and Lenz, 2013). The latter strand of research in particular opened the doors for a more comparative approach to the study of ROs that positions the EU mainly as a shaper of norms and rules into comparison with other ROs mainly as takers of EU-​induced norms and rules. New regionalism research has long criticized the EU bias in regional integration research (Breslin and Higgott, 2003; Söderbaum and Shaw, 2003; Väyrynen, 2003; Gómez-​Mera, 2008; Söderbaum and Sbragia, 2010; Warleigh and Rosamond, 2010). Scholars pointed out that besides the EU not being the only RO, the insights gained by the different waves of EU scholarship do not easily travel to other ROs (Väyrynen, 2003; Sunkel and Inotai, 2016; Panke, 2017a). The EU is highly legalized and supranational in character and passes legally binding rules (Panke and Haubrich Seco, 2016). Many other ROs are more informal and less legalized, strongly based on intergovernmentalism, and geared towards passing symbolic 4

Introduction

decisions or declarations rather than creating legally binding and enforceable policies (inter alia Aris, 2011; Börzel and Risse, 2016a; Shaw, 2016). Thus, new regionalism approaches tend to focus on non-​ European ROs and regions (Bowles, 1997; van Nieuwkerk, 2001; Grant and Söderbaum, 2003; Chandra, 2004; Gómez-​ Mera, 2008; Naarajärvi, 2012; Krapohl, 2017). This strand of scholarship often conducts single case studies of a specific RO or a specific RO in a specific policy area or issue (Ngoma, 2003; Francis, 2009; Bereketeab, 2019), and is thus not comparative in nature. In addition, new regionalism approaches often put emphasis on reconstructing developments in a non-​European context rather than looking for patterns and seeking to explain observed variation (Panke, 2017a). In the newest wave of regionalism research, contributors seek to overcome these shortcomings. As such, contemporary comparative regionalism is neither exclusively EU-​oriented nor does it exclude this RO from the analysis (Börzel and Risse, 2016b). Instead, it seeks to make comparisons between ROs, identify patterns and explain how and why some ROs differ from others. This strand of research has become increasingly prominent in the past decade (Nolte, 2010; Jetschke and Murray, 2012; Breslin et al, 2013; Jetschke and Lenz, 2013; Weiffen et al, 2013; Koschut, 2014; Katzenstein, 2015; Börzel and Risse, 2016a; Panke et al, 2017; Panke and Starkmann, forthcoming). Thus, comparative regionalism provides a truly comparative analysis of Western and non-​ Western ROs in order to circumvent the EU bias prevalent in much of the regional integration literature, and includes the EU in order to address the non-​EU emphasis prevalent in much of new regionalism research (Acharya, 2012; Söderbaum, 2016b). In doing so, comparative regionalism scholarship has analyzed why states join different ROs (Panke, 2020), how the institutional set-​up of ROs developed in a comparative perspective (Acharya and Johnston, 2007b; Börzel and Risse, 2012a; Haftel, 2012; Spandler, 2019), 5

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

whether and why ROs differ concerning the pooling and delegation of authority (Hooghe and Marks, 2015; Hooghe et al, 2017; Haftel and Hofmann, 2017), and how different ROs act in selected policy areas (Ribeiro Hoffmann and Bianculli, 2016; Coe, 2019; Lavenex, 2019; Lohaus, 2019). Moreover, this scholarship addresses the mutual entanglements, interactions and interdependencies between ROs (Doctor, 2015; Jetschke, 2017; Lenz and Burilkov, 2017; Agostinis, 2019; Bachmann, 2019 ; Meissner, 2019) as well as between ROs and international organizations (IOs) (Boulden, 2013; Gómez-​Mera and Molinari, 2014; Panke et al, 2018). Yet, most of these studies do not focus on today’s more than 70 ROs and do not examine them from a comprehensive comparative perspective, but rather from that of small subsets of ROs. Also, much of the comparative regionalism literature focuses on highly specific questions, such as how and under what conditions we see horizontal learning and diffusion among ROs (Börzel and Risse, 2012a) or whether and how legitimacy considerations affect RO designs (Panke, forthcoming). Addressing more general and more basic questions is crucial. As of yet we do not know which challenges different types of ROs face in their day-​ to-​day operation. This is surprising, not least since many ROs broaden their policy competencies and membership over time, thereby potentially running the risk of deadlock constellations and difficulties in effectively engaging with regional governance (see Chapters 2 and 8). This book adds to this body of scholarship by providing a comprehensive comparative study of 76 ROs between 1945 and 2015 in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe (see Table A1 in the Appendix). It focuses on trajectories of RO developments across time and space, identifies similarities and differences, and uses a typology that allows us to discuss the different challenges faced by various types of RO and their possible solutions. 6

Introduction

Major contributions Since there are many ROs in all parts of the world, a comprehensive analysis requires yardsticks for systematic comparison. To this end, this book introduces a typology that allows for capturing trajectories of all ROs over time (compare Chapter  2). While ROs are by definition multi-​ purpose organizations, differences in membership size and policy scope have important ramifications for the day-​to-​day operation of ROs. On the one hand, the number of member states influences the possibility of arriving at collective decisions. The larger ROs are in this respect, the higher the number of interests at stake, which can increase the time needed for making collective decisions or prevent them altogether. This reduces the ability of ROs to engage in collective action. On the other hand, the range of policy competencies with which an RO is equipped defines the realm of activities ROs can potentially pursue. In ROs with narrow scopes of competencies, the number of policy issues in which the RO can potentially get involved is limited. By contrast, ROs that are equipped with broader policy scopes have a greater potential to shape regional governance with respect to a wider range of different policies. Combining both dimensions provides a two-​by-​two typology that captures all ROs. Small selective ROs are characterized by a narrow policy scope and few members. Small encompassing ROs also have few members, but many competencies. Large selective ROs bring together many member states but remain limited in terms of scope of policy competencies. Large encompassing ROs combine a large membership with a broad policy scope. Following on from these considerations, the different types of ROs each face particular opportunities and challenges in their day-​to-​day operations. Small selective ROs are likely to arrive at collective decisions in a limited number of policies only. Small encompassing ROs are also unlikely to face deadlock or systematic delays in decision making, but can become active 7

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

concerning a broader number of policy issues. Large selective ROs face difficulties in arriving at collective decisions and their chances of engaging in regional governance are hampered by their limited policy scope. Finally, large encompassing ROs are also confronted with the risk of non-​decisions, but their broad policy scope makes issue linkages and package deals possible and helps to overcome gridlock. The typology is a useful tool for comparing ROs over time and space. On this basis, this book provides a novel empirical contribution to comparative regionalism, international relations, area studies and political science in providing a detailed comparative analysis of the development of 76 ROs with respect to membership size and competencies in a higher number of different policy areas over a long period of time (1945–​2015). The book’s systematic and comparative approach allows for overcoming some of the limitations in relevant RO scholarship by taking into account patterns and trajectories in all geographical regions of the world (Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe). Taken together, this book provides novel, timely and important insights into the creation and dissolution as well as the shape of 76 ROs. First, regionalism evolved in multiple waves. Taking a look at all ROs at once, we identify two waves of RO creation. One occurred after the end of WWII and one after the end of the East–​West conflict. However, this trend is not equally evident in all four regions of the world. While Europe follows the global trend, ROs in the Americas were founded in three distinct waves. By contrast, African and Asian ROs only emerged with a slight delay and the number of ROs in these regions increased incrementally over time. Irrespective of these differences, there is a spike of RO formation in all four regions during the 1990s when the Cold War ended. Second, ROs have become larger over time. After the end of WWII, ROs were typically very small in size with the Organization of American States (OAS) being a notable exception. In the following decades, the average RO size 8

Introduction

increased substantially. By the end of 2015, the average RO brought together 13 states. At the same time, some ROs even experienced losses of members. For instance, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) shrank to half its size when it lost members over time. This global trend of increasing RO size is present in all regions. Third, ROs have gained ever more competencies in a broader range of policy fields. Most ROs started out as either economic or security-​oriented organizations. Today they often deal with economy and trade, technology and infrastructure, and security and defense issues, while competencies in other policy fields feature less prominently, such as migration, health and agriculture. It is remarkable that the number of policy competencies ROs are equipped with has increased tremendously over time. Especially after the end of the Cold War, policy scopes broadened considerably. Nevertheless, some ROs resist the expansion of policy scopes over time and operate on the basis of their initial founding treaties instead. The extent of policy scope expansion varies between regions. Initially, African ROs have had the broadest mandate, whereas the policy scope champions of today are European ROs. Fourth, ROs are predominantly small selective organizations, and only few change types over time. When ROs were created, they usually resembled the small selective type, especially during the first wave of RO formation. This still holds true in 2015, when almost half of all ROs were still small selective in character. Although most ROs experienced increases  in size and policy scope over time, this did not necessarily result in a shift from one RO type to another. A  third of all ROs in the world have moved between types (27 out of 76 organizations). Most type changes took place in Europe, whereas African ROs experienced shifts between types least frequently. In between are American and Asian ROs. Starting from the small selective type, five ROs changed to the large selective type and 12 ROs changed to being small encompassing 9

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

in nature. Another five organizations turned from the large selective to the large encompassing type, while the shift from the small encompassing to the large encompassing type only occurred once. Most notably, a handful of organizations evolved from small selective into large encompassing ROs, namely the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the EU. Outline of the book The remainder of the book is organized as follows. Chapter 2 introduces the conceptual framework of the book as well as the dataset used and accompanying measurement decisions. The first part explains why the focus on policy competencies and membership can have important ramifications for the operation of ROs as these characteristics affect the potential reach of RO activities and decisions as well as the ability to arrive at such collective outcomes in the first place. Based on the two dimensions, RO competencies (policy scope) and membership (size), the section presents a two-​by-​two typology of ROs. There are small selective ROs, which only have a few competencies and are also small in size, ROs with many member states but only a few policy competencies (large selective ROs), small ROs with many competencies (small encompassing ROs), and large encompassing ROs, which combine many member states with a broad policy scope. This typology is used in the subsequent chapters to illustrate differences and similarities between ROs and developments over time as well as between regions. The second part of Chapter  2 introduces the Regional Organizations’ Competencies (ROCO) datasets. The ROCO II and III datasets form the empirical basis for the subsequent chapters. They cover 76 ROs in the period between 1945 and 2015 and entail information on state membership per RO and year as well as policy competencies per RO and year. 10

Introduction

The latter is based on RO primary law, which encompasses founding treaties, treaty changes and annexes or protocols. RO primary law is important as it constitutes the legal foundation that determines the decisions an RO can take and the issues with which it can engage on a day-​to-​day basis. Chapter 3 adopts a global perspective and maps RO creation and dissolution as well as membership developments and policy competencies for all ROs in general and for each of the four regions separately. It shows that there are two waves of regionalism at the global level, one in the aftermath of WWII and one after the end of the Cold War. Initially, ROs mainly resembled the small selective type, while the picture became more diverse as the numbers of small encompassing, large selective and large encompassing ROs increased by 2015. The chapter also points to regional particularities, such as ROs in Africa covering the highest absolute number of policy competencies, the Americas being home to the one RO resembling the global average in 2015, Asian regionalism taking off with a delay, and European ROs being the largest in membership size on average. Chapter  4 focuses on regionalism in Africa. It discusses the particularities of the development of African ROs with respect to creation, membership dynamics and RO policy scope. This reveals that while some of the oldest ROs in the ROCO dataset are located on the African continent, such as the League of Arab States (AL), the general pattern shows that regional cooperation only started with a delay once African states gained independence in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Chapter  4 illustrates that RO creation and regional cooperation before the end of the Cold War strongly reflects the fight against colonial legacies and the search for regional models of economic development on the African continent, but that regional governance becomes more encompassing in terms of membership and policy scope after the end of the Cold War. Compared with other regions, African ROs are especially well equipped with competencies in the good 11

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

governance, agriculture and migration fields. By 2015, most African ROs still resemble the small selective type, although several ROs have gained new members and additional policy competencies over time. Chapter  5 sheds light on regional cooperation in the Americas. Two of the 18 American ROs in the dataset were dissolved but provided the grounds for future regional cooperation in new ROs. The chapter points out that many ROs have been created and cooperation has pushed forward while excluding the United States (US) not the least because the continental OAS is often perceived as being dominated by US-​A merican interests and hegemony. Concerning membership dynamics, American ROs were subject to three waves over time. Compared with other regions, ROs in the Americas have the most competencies in the field of economy and trade in 2015, but lag behind in the field of security and defense. Taken together, equally many ROs subscribe to the small selective and the small encompassing type, while the other types are rare. Most notably, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) reflects the global average of ROs in terms of size and policy scope. Chapter 6 focuses on regionalism in Asia. Asian ROs have been created with a delay, as regionalism in Asia only took off at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s and developed incrementally over time with respect to membership size and policy scopes. Asia lacks an RO with continental reach and in some sub-​regions there are no ROs at all, most notably in North-​East Asia. Moreover, in Asia, ROs place emphasis mainly on economy and trade, as well as technology and infrastructure policies, and states are reluctant to equip their ROs with encompassing policy scopes. Accordingly, Asian ROs started mainly as small selective ones and still predominately resemble this type by 2015. Chapter 7 discusses the trajectories of RO development in Europe. Although regional cooperation started early in Europe, it is the region with the lowest absolute number of ROs and 12

Introduction

with the highest share of ROs that have lost member states over time. Nevertheless, European ROs tend to be large in size and many of them have broad policy scopes. European regionalism has long been influenced by the Cold War, resulting in separate patterns of regional cooperation in East and West. After the end of the Cold War, some ROs, such as the EU, underwent enlargement processes, leading to state membership from Eastern and Western Europe. There are two waves of regionalism with respect to RO policy competencies. Within European ROs, economy and trade policy competencies are most prevalent, while in global comparison European ROs are champions in the field of security and defence. European ROs mainly reflect the small selective and the small encompassing type in 2015. Nevertheless, the share of ROs that shifted between types over time is highest in Europe. In conclusion, Chapter 8 provides a summary of the major findings and discusses which types of ROs should be expected to be formed in the first place and why not all types are equally likely to emerge. It also discusses when to expect which shifts from one RO type to another. The chapter ends by pointing to avenues for future research.

13

TWO

Conceptual Framework and Measurement The first part of this chapter presents the conceptual framework of the book. It discusses why policy competencies and membership of ROs can have important ramifications for their operation. Policy competencies define the issues in which an RO can become potentially active in practice, while the size of an RO, in terms of the number of member states, has implications for the RO’s ability to engage in collective action. Based on these two dimensions, RO competencies and RO size, the chapter introduces a two-​by-​two matrix that provides a typology of ROs, distinguishing between small selective, small encompassing, large selective and large encompassing ROs, and discusses potential implications. The second part of Chapter 2 introduces the ROCO datasets, which entail information on RO policy competencies and state membership as the two core variables of the RO typology put forward in this book.1 A typology of ROs ROs come in different shapes and forms. Some are old (SACU was created in 1910), others are new (UNASUR was created in 2008); some are large (AU), others are small (the Mekong River Commission [MRC]); some are supranational (the EU), others mostly intergovernmental (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation [SCO]); some are based on colonial patterns (West African Economic and Monetary Union [UEMOA]),

15

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

others lack a common identity (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization [SEATO]), to name but a few differences. This section introduces an RO typology based on two important dimensions and discusses how this typology can be used not only to systematize and compare ROs across time and space, but also to discuss the challenges faced by ROs and the potential solutions. Defining membership is crucial for the operation of organizations as it explicates who may or may not benefit from cooperation (Koremenos et al, 2001). Along these lines, international organization (IO) scholarship differentiates between universal and particularistic membership of organizations. The former IOs can be potentially joined by all states, whereas the latter place restrictions on who gets in based on geographic, functional or ideational criteria (Archer, 2014). This book focuses exclusively on ROs that are crucially based on geographical criteria (but can be combined with other particularistic criteria). Nevertheless, ROs are not all the same when it comes to membership. Some consist of only three states, while others have 20 times more member states. RO size, as the number of member states, matters for a variety of reasons. International relations and international negotiation literature emphasizes that membership size has implications for the possibility of collective action within organizations (Barnett and Finnemore, 1999, 2004; Kelley, 2013; Panke 2013). The more member states an organization has, the more difficult it is to arrive at collective decisions (Cox et al, 1973; Axelrod, 1984; Martin, 1994; Aggerwal, 1998). With a higher number of member states, the number of interests at stake at a negotiation table increases, slowing down decision making or even bringing it to a halt. This reduces the ability of an IO or an RO to either pass policies or engage in activities (Zielonka, 2004; Slapin and Gray, 2014). Thus, the larger an RO is in terms of membership size, the higher the risk that it

16

Conceptual Framework and Measurement

faces a limited capability to arrive at collective decisions and engage in collective actions. Due to the importance of this aspect, the first dimension of the typology focuses on the size of ROs. Size is a relative concept as who is small and who is big essentially depends on the yardstick used (Panke, 2010). In order to compare 76 ROs over time and space, this book distinguishes on an empirical basis between small and large ROs. ROs are regarded as small when they have less than the average number of member states and large when they have more than the average number of members. In this regard, we calculate the arithmetic mean. The number and composition of ROs varies over time and while this book seeks to make cross-​time comparisons, it is essential to use one specific reference point in time to measure the size of an RO. The year 2015 serves as reference point. In this year, 71 ROs exist and their average size is 12.12. Thus, all ROs with 12 and fewer than 12 member states at a specific point in time are regarded as small at that point in time, while all ROs that have 13 and more member states at a given point in time are large in size in this specific year. A second parameter of IOs  –​ policy scope  –​ has no implications for whether a collective decision can be reached in the first place, but has important ramifications on what IO activities might look like (Pollack, 1994; Koremenos et  al, 2001). The range of policy competencies an IO is equipped with in its primary law influences those issues in which it can become active. Thus, scholarship often focuses on differences in the breath of policy covered by organizations (Lindberg and Scheingold, 1970, Koremenos et al, 2001; Börzel, 2005; Acharya and Johnston, 2007a; Haftel, 2013; Lenz et al, 2015). The distinction between general-​purpose and task-​specific organizations captures whether IOs engage in many policy areas or only in a specific issue (Hooghe and Marks, 2015; Lenz et al, 2015). Most importantly, task-​specific organizations only have the competency for policy making and activities in a

17

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

specific, narrowly defined topic, but not in a range of different policy areas. On the contrary, general-​purpose organizations are more encompassing as they are characterized by covering a broad range of different policy fields. These organizations are therefore not limited to getting involved in a selected policy issue only. Per definition, ROs are multi-​purpose in character as they encompass more than one policy competency. ROs can differ concerning the number of policy competencies they are equipped with in their primary law (founding treaties, treaty changes, annexes, protocols) (Börzel, 2005; Haftel, 2013; Hooghe et al, 2019). The policy scope, conceptualized as the number of policy competencies an RO is equipped with, has important implications for the operation of the RO. The scope of policy enables RO activity on the day-​to-​day basis. The larger the policy scope, the broader the realm of potential RO decision making and activity. Vice versa, in ROs with limited policy scopes, the number of policy issues in which the RO can potentially get involved and become active is limited. In other words, when ROs have a broader policy scope they have more opportunities for actions in different policy fields and accordingly a greater potential to shape regional politics and domestic politics of their member states. Due to the importance of this aspect, the second dimension of the typology focuses on the policy scope of ROs. This is defined as the number of individual policy competencies a RO has on the basis of its respective primary law as laid out in founding treaties, treaty changes, amendments, or primary law protocols. This book distinguishes between 11 different policy fields, each of which entails between 14 and 17 individual competencies (the next section provides more details). In order to compare 76 ROs over time and space, this book distinguishes between selective and encompassing policy scopes of ROs. Similar to RO size, this book draws this distinction on the basis of the average number of policy competencies ROs are equipped with in 2015, calculated as the arithmetic mean. In this year, the average RO has a policy scope of 53.18. 18

Conceptual Framework and Measurement

Figure 2.1: Typology of ROs

Large selective

Large encompassing

Small selective

Small encompassing

Size

Policy scope

Accordingly, a selective policy scope signifies that a specific RO has 53 or fewer individual policy competencies. Vice versa, if a RO has 54 or more policy competencies in a given year, it is characterized by an encompassing policy scope. Bringing together both dimensions allows identifying four types of ROs (see Figure  2.1). In the lower left corner are small selective ROs, which only have a narrow policy scope and are small in size. On the lower right side are small ROs with many competencies (small encompassing ROs). On the upper left side are ROs with many member states but a narrow policy scope (large selective ROs). Finally, in the upper right corner are large encompassing ROs that are characterized by their large membership size and broad policy scope. Each type of RO faces specific challenges in its day-​to-​day operation because both the membership and the policy scope dimension have ramifications for cooperation beyond the nation state. The larger an RO is in terms of membership size, the higher the risk that it faces a limited capability to arrive at collective decisions and engage on this basis in collective action. Other things being equal, it is more difficult for a higher number of member states to agree on an RO decision or activity on a 19

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

day-​to-​day basis than for a lower number of member states. At the same time, when an RO has a limited policy scope it has fewer opportunities for actions in different policy fields and accordingly less potential to shape regional politics. Vice versa, an RO with a broad policy scope has more opportunities to engage in governance within and beyond its borders. The typology combines both aspects and provides insights into the different challenges and opportunities faced by ROs in each of the four quadrants. The large selective type is confronted with both challenges at once. This combines and potentially amplifies the risk of deadlock due to dissent among state actors, reduces the potential for package deals and issue linkages, and limits the potential scope for regional governance. On the contrary, small encompassing ROs are in a good position to become active on a day-​to-​day basis as they are less likely to be hampered by disagreements among state members and have ample engagement opportunities based on their broad policy scope. Large encompassing ROs face the difficulty of dissent among state members. Yet, the broad policy scope offers opportunities for issue linkages and package deals, and even if states disagree concerning one issue, they could still cooperate with respect to any of the other competencies. Small selective ROs should be in a good position to arrive at collective decisions, yet this applies only to a limited number of policy issues. Thus, these ROs are less likely to leave an imprint on the overall regional order. The typology captures not only opportunities, but also challenges in the day-​to-​day operation of ROs. Yet not all ROs of a particular type are equally affected by the latter in practice. International Relations research has pointed out that institutional designs can be used in order to counterbalance specific difficulties (Goodin, 1995; Koremenos et  al, 2001; Haftel, 2012; Lenz and Marks, 2016; Panke, 2017b). For instance, organizations with many member states can adjust the decision-​making rules and related provisions in order to 20

Conceptual Framework and Measurement

limit the chances for deadlock. Two institutional choices stick out in this respect. First, an organization can shift decision-​ making rules from a consensus-​based to a majority-​voting mechanism (Goodin, 1995; Fedeli and Forte, 2001; Snidal, 2002). However, ROs rather refrain from adopting this remedy as this institutional choice places severe sovereignty costs on their member states. Second, an organization can create agents and agencies to which they delegate contentious issues (Pollack, 1999; Hawkins et al, 2006; Hooghe and Marks, 2015; Lenz and Marks, 2016). Yet, this solution is costly with regard to both material and political resources, and is therefore not used frequently either. Thus, while the challenges confronting the different types of RO can be addressed by institutional remedies, each comes with strings attached. Moreover, the presence and role of a regional hegemon and external powers may operate as mediating influences. When it is in their interest, hegemons can use their political clout and material resources to exert leadership and coercion in order to overcome deadlock and facilitate decision-​making processes (Mattli, 1999; Beeson, 2006). Additionally, external actors or regional hegemons can function as paymasters for regional cooperation and provide the necessary resources in exchange for the support of pivotal actors in ROs (Gilpin, 1987; Mattli, 1999). While this allows ROs to further their interests, this strategy is limited to being adopted on a case-​by-​case basis at best, as even the resources of hegemons or external powers are not endlessly available. In sum, ROs can be distinguished according to their membership size and the scope of their policy competencies, which leads to four different types:  large selective ROs, large encompassing ROs, small encompassing ROs and small selective ROs. Each of these types faces particular challenges and opportunities in shaping regional governance in their day-​ to-​day operation, which can only partially be mediated by additional institutional design choices or potent actors under enormous political, material and sovereignty costs. Thus, the 21

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

following chapters of this book use the typology as a tool to illuminate the fundamental characteristics of ROs –​size and scope –​and sheds light on their trajectories. The ROCO datasets This section introduces the ROCO datasets (Panke and Starkmann, 2019). They form the empirical basis for the subsequent chapters as they entail information on RO policy scope and RO membership size. The inclusion of ROs in the ROCO databases is based on the following definition: ROs are organizations with a set of primary rules, headquarters or a secretariat, in which at least three states cooperate with one another in more than one specific issue. Unlike international organizations, the membership in ROs relates to geographical criteria.2 Applying this definition, the ROCO datasets include all 76 ROs for which primary law documents are available (see Table A1 in the Appendix).3 We code predecessors/​successors as one RO if they have common institutions, membership and a common headquarter or secretariat.4 Organizations are not included in the dataset when membership criteria are not related to geography, but to other features, such as ideology (communism in case of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance [COMECON]) or religion (Islam in case of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation [OIC]).5 The geographic location of ROs is defined on the basis of the United Nations Statistical Division’s (UNSD) classification of standard country or area codes for statistical use, which distinguishes between four broad regions:  Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe (UNSD, 2019). This definition applies to countries, not ROs. Hence, in order to determine to which one of these four regions a specific RO belongs, 22

Conceptual Framework and Measurement

the ROCO datasets use the location of the RO headquarter office. If an RO headquarter office is located in Cairo, Egypt (as is the case for the AL or the Council of Arab Economic Unity [CAEU]), the respective RO is considered to be based in Africa. The ROCO datasets cover the period between 1945 and 2015. This time period was selected in order to capture the entire period of regional cooperation starting after the end of WWII and ending 25 years after the Cold War was over (1989/​ 90). This long time period allows for diachronic comparisons covering the different phases that characterized international relations in the 20th century and beyond. Thus, the dataset entails information on state membership per RO and year as well as policy competencies per RO and year for each year between 1945 and 2015. RO policy competencies are based on RO primary law, which encompasses founding treaties and treaty changes as well as annexes or protocols that are part of RO treaties. RO primary law constitutes the legal foundation on which ROs can act on a day-​to-​day basis, as it defines the institutional set-​ up (rules of the game) of ROs as well as the policy fields in which they can engage through making collective decisions, passing secondary law, or taking joint actions. Thus, the ROCO datasets are not only novel, but also encompassing, as they cover 344 specific policy competencies in 11 different policy areas, namely agriculture, development, economy and trade, energy, environment, finance, good governance, health, migration, and security and defence, as well as the policy area of technology, infrastructure and science. The ROCO datasets are based on the body of RO primary law, which encompasses founding treaties and treaty changes as well as annexes and protocol that are part of RO treaties and specify those areas of day-​to-​day operation in which the RO can engage. Our focus is on policy competencies of ROs, which includes policy mandates for collective day-​to-​day decisions, and the creation of secondary and soft law, as well 23

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

as competencies allowing for collective or joint actions of RO members, or for other RO activities. Since the nature and extent of primary law varies considerably between ROs, with some ROs producing a large amount of primary law documents concerning specific policy issues or institutional rules. Four organizations in particular –​the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), AU, East African Community (EAC) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) –​have set up a large body of additional protocols, conventions and so on that refer to very specific and detailed policy issues, but can nevertheless be described as primary law according to our definition. To acknowledge these differences and to maintain comparability among different organizations and treaties at the same time, we compiled two datasets, which consequently can be used for different research questions. The dataset used for this book entails all available primary law sources for the 76 ROs (ROCO II; see Panke and Starkmann, 2019). Thus, the database includes additional documents for ASEAN, AU, EAC and ECOWAS (protocols, conventions and so on that fall within our definition of primary law). The other dataset only includes the main treaties and treaty changes of ASEAN, AU, EAC and ECOWAS but not the additional primary law sources (ROCO I; see Panke and Starkmann, 2019). The basis on which policy competencies are coded is a body of RO primary law documents. Primary law provides the legal foundation on which ROs operate on a daily basis, as it defines the institutional set-​up of ROs as well as the policy fields in which ROs can engage in practice.6 Primary law is created through intergovernmental negotiations or intergovernmental conferences and changed over time by the same procedure or by ‘extraordinary procedures’ that are explicitly designed to amend or change primary law and are usually specified by the founding treaty. To capture RO policy competencies (described in more detailed in the following paragraphs), we only coded the substantive paragraphs of RO primary law. Preambles and 24

Conceptual Framework and Measurement

declaratory parts were excluded, since they do not transfer policy competencies to ROs. The ROCO I and II datasets include the issues and policy competencies discussed in the literature (for example, Falkner et al, 2005; Börzel, 2005; Hooghe and Marks, 2015; Hooghe et  al, 2019) and therefore distinguish between a total of 11 different substantive policy fields. For the coding of RO policy mandates, we first distinguished between 11 different policy areas. These are agriculture, development, economy and trade, energy, environment, finance, good governance, health, migration, and security and defence, as well as technology and infrastructure. In these policy fields, we distinguish between several specific policy competencies or policy mandates that legally allow ROs to become active. In these policy fields, the number of competencies ranges between 14 and 17 (see Table A2 in the Appendix). The number and content of the different policy competencies in our dataset was constructed by a multi-​stage inductive strategy, which allows capturing the legal basis for RO action comprehensively and without bias, while comparing the 76 ROs with each other. We started with a template of policy areas and competencies based on the EU and refined this scheme in an initial test coding of other, non-​Western ROs. The result is sufficiently fine-​tuned to capture differences between ROs and at the same time sufficiently broad to capture similarities, thus allowing for meaningful comparisons. The final composition and number of policy competencies per policy field is based on a theory-​driven clustering of coding buzzwords. The policy areas of economy and trade, environment, good governance, and security and defence, as well as technology and infrastructure, are broad in character and capture the ability of the ROs to act in these fields through 17 policy competencies each (see Table A2). Compared with this, the policy fields of agriculture, finance, health and migration are less broad and entail 14 policy competencies respectively. 25

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

In between are the areas of development (15) and energy (16 competencies). Each policy competency consists of several logically related buzzwords, linguistic, culturally sensitive synonyms, and alternative spellings, in English, French, Spanish and Russian. For instance, the competency ‘arms’ in the policy area security and defence entails the buzzwords ‘arms’, ‘firearms’ and ‘weapons’; in the policy field of good governance, the competency ‘fundamental rights’ consists of the buzzwords ‘fundamental rights’ and ‘basic rights’, which describe identical or very similar concepts, but are usually used in different contexts; and within the policy area of trade and economy, one competency is ‘trade’, which entails the buzzwords ‘trade’ and ‘commerce’.7 Furthermore, we distinguish between an external and an internal domain because it makes a difference whether an RO has the competency to engage in disarmament policies internally (with respect to the RO member states) or externally (in developing common positions and articulating them in international negotiations; see Panke et al, 2018). The internal and external policy dimensions include the same 11 policy areas and the same substantive policy competencies respectively. The internal and external policy competencies are distinguished by buzzwords that define the context of application. External policy competencies turn the RO and its member states into actors beyond their borders, while internal policy competencies allow ROs and their member states to create common rules and norms or act in concert within their borders.8 The policy scope captures the range of different policies a RO can act on. It is defined as the number of different policy competencies a RO covers in a given year and ranges from two to 344. A third dataset (ROCO III; see Panke and Starkmann, 2019) entails information on RO size as it provides data on which state was a member of an RO for each year of observation (1945–​2015). The membership information has been obtained 26

Conceptual Framework and Measurement

from RO homepages and official RO sources (treaty signatories and so on) as well as secondary literature. Summary This chapter introduced the analytical framework of the book. It provides the basic definition of ROs as organizations with a set of primary rules, headquarters or a secretariat, in which at least three states cooperate with one another in more than one specific issue and in which membership criteria relate to geography. It also presented a typology of ROs that focuses on size and policy scope as two dimensions with important ramification for the day-​to-​day operation of organizations. There are four types of RO: small selective, small encompassing, large selective and large encompassing ROs. In order to make use of this typology, the book introduces the ROCO datasets that entail the empirical information on policy scope and membership size per RO and year for all 76 ROs and over a period of 70 years (1945–​2015). The subsequent chapters apply the typology in order to shed light on global trajectories of RO development, and analyse regional particularities in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe.

27

THREE

The Global Perspective

Comparative regionalism has illustrated that there are ROs in all parts of the globe (Börzel and Risse, 2016a; Söderbaum, 2016b). While there are detailed case studies on some of these organizations, as of yet, a comprehensive analysis of all ROs over a large period of time is lacking. In order to detect global trajectories of RO development, this chapter sheds light on all 76 ROs at once in focusing on both dimensions that constitute the RO typology: policy scope and size (see Chapter 2). It describes RO creation and membership dynamics as well as the development of RO policy competencies over time (1945–​2015). This reveals first that the number of ROs has steadily increased over time. While there were only two ROs in 1945, states maintain 71 such organizations in 2015, while five ROs were dissolved. Second, regional cooperation takes place in all parts of the globe. There are 23 ROs in Africa, 18 in the Americas, 19 in Asia, and 16 in Europe (see Table A1 in the Appendix). Third, the average size of ROs has risen over time. Fourth, a broadening of RO policy competencies can be witnessed, which is important since such competencies provide the legal ground on which ROs can act on a daily basis. While, for instance, the average RO covered 14.8 specific policy competencies in 1950, this number slowly increased until the end of the Cold War (28.9) and then skyrocketed afterwards (78 in 2010). In short, the proliferation of newly created ROs and their policy competencies took place in two waves of regionalism, one in the aftermath of WWII and one after the end of the Cold War.

29

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

The creation and dissolution of ROs Regional cooperation began in the early 20th century, when the oldest still existing organization, SACU, was created in 1910 by the predecessors of today’s Botswana, the Kingdom of Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa (Panke and Stapel, 2018a). It remained the only RO until the AL was founded in 1945, according to the ROCO dataset. In this decade, four additional ROs came into being, thereby starting the first but rather weak wave of regional cooperation. As the dotted line in Figure 3.1 illustrates, the first wave of regional cooperation in which an incremental increase in the cumulative number of ROs can be observed ended with the end of the Cold War in 1990/​91. After the end of the Cold War, new regional cooperation proliferated all over the globe (Börzel and Risse, 2016a; Panke and Stapel, 2018a), bringing about a steeper increase in the number of existing ROs. One reason behind this increase in regional cooperation is that newly independent states came into existence. These states, as well as the ones that remained

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Number of ROs

Figure 3.1: ROs over time, global perspective

The Global Perspective

neutral and therefore refrained from joining ROs, were now in a position to act on their interests after the end of the Cold War and could join already existing ROs and/​or create new ones. As Figure 3.1 shows, these dynamics faded out and the number of ROs began to stabilize in the 2000s. Zooming in on the first wave of regional cooperation, Figure 3.1 shows that seven additional ROs were created in the 1950s, nine ROs in the following decade and six more in the 1970s. Before the Cold War ended in 1990/​91, seven more ROs came into being. In the second and steeper wave of regional cooperation, a total of 23 new ROs were founded in the 1990s, thus increasing the number of ROs in the international system by 50 per cent within one single decade. In the 15 years following the year 2000, 14 additional ROs were created. The minor decreases in the cumulative line in Figure 3.1 indicate that regional cooperation is not a one-​way street, leading to an ever-​increasing number of ROs. Not only did the number of existing ROs stabilize around 70 in the 2000s as the number of newly added ROs decreased after the almost exponential growth of new ROs after the end of the Cold War, but some ROs were also dissolved over time. A total of five ROs did not last until the end of the observation period in 2015. The most short-​lived RO was the Arab Cooperation Council (ACC), which was already disbanded one year after its creation in 1989. The Latin American and Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development (CALC) did not last much longer. It was created in 2008 and dissolved two years later in 2010. The Organization of Central American States (ODECA) and SEATO existed for more than 20 years each. ODECA was created in 1951 and disbanded in 1973. SEATO existed between the years 1954 and 1977 and was dissolved after US-​American strategic interests in the region changed, more reasons being its general dysfunctionality and a lack of collective identity (Buszynski, 1981; Hemmer and Katzenstein, 2002). The last RO that was disbanded was the Warsaw Treaty Organisation (WTO), which existed between the years 1955 31

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

and 1991 and was dissolved after it became obsolete with the end of the Cold War (Matějka, 1997). Regional cooperation is a universal phenomenon as states cooperate in ROs all over the globe, bringing about ROs in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. This led to 23 ROs in Africa (none of which was dissolved over time), 18 in the Americas (of which two were disbanded), 19 in Asia (two of which did cease to exist over time), and 16 in Europe (of which one was dissolved). Membership dynamics: how ROs grow over time Not only did the number of sovereign states increase over time, but states also became increasingly willing to join ROs in order to further their interests (Panke, 2020). As a result, the average size of ROs has risen (see Figure 3.2). The typical membership size of an RO in the 1950s was 9.8 and the total number of state memberships in the five existing ROs was 59. Ten years later, the total number of memberships had doubled

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32

Number of RO member states (cumulative)

Number of RO member states (average)

Figure 3.2: RO size in global perspective

The Global Perspective

(124) and the average RO entailed 7.7 states. By 1970, this has increased to a mean RO size of 9.68 and 213 state memberships in these 20 ROs. In 1980, all of the 25 existing ROs together had a total of 346 state memberships, leading to an average size of 11.9. In the following decades, the total number of state memberships in the system of all ROs together increased considerably to 427 (1990) and 713 (2000). The average RO size steadied, with 11.5 for the 37 ROs in the year 1990 and 11.9 for the 59 ROs that existed in the year 2000. Zooming in on the four regions reveals that ROs were the largest in the Americas (20 member states on average), followed by Europe (13 member states), Asia (six), and Africa (3.5) in 1950. Ten years later, several smaller, newly created ROs led to a decrease in the average size of ROs in two of the regions, as it dropped to 9 in the Americas and to 8.5 in Europe. At the same time, there were slight increases in Asia (to an average of seven member states) and Africa (to an average of five member states). In the subsequent two decades, the average RO size increased in all regions. In 1990, the typical RO had 13.4 members in the Americas and in Europe, 11.4 members in Africa and 8.4 in Asia. A period of enlargement dynamics followed, in addition to the creation of numerous additional ROs of varying size (see Figure 3.1). By 2010, the average size of an RO had increased to 10.2 in Asia and 16.9 in Europe. At the same time, it decreased in Africa and in the Americas, to 12.3 and 12.1 respectively. By 2015, RO membership stabilized again. In this year, European ROs were the largest on average (17 members), followed by the Americas (13.3), Africa (12.2) and Asia (10.2). Thus, while Europe has the smallest number of ROs compared with the other three regions, the ones that exist tend to attract more member states on average. In sum, while the number of ROs increased considerably between the years 1945 and 2015, the average RO grew to a more limited extent from 3.5 member states in 1945 to 12.97 members in 2015. This reflects the fact that some 33

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

ROs experienced enlargement dynamics over time, while many of the newer ROs started with a comparatively larger membership size. Policy competencies: how ROs evolve over time Not only did the number of ROs multiply in the period of observation, but their policy competencies also expanded. RO policy competencies are based on RO primary law (treaties, protocols, annexes) and form the very basis for RO decisions and their day-​to-​day activities. The trajectory of the global development of RO policy competencies closely reflects the two waves of regional cooperation witnessed with respect to the creation of ROs in general. Taking all ROs together, the number of policy competencies with which they are equipped increases incrementally after the end of WWII and until the end of the 1980s. Following the end of the Cold War, the total number of covered competencies skyrocketed. This trend prevailed until the end of the 2000s, while after 2010 ROs obtained additional policy competencies at a slower pace. Comparing the four regions reveals that European ROs were policy competency champions between 1955 and up until the end of the 1980s in absolute terms. At that point in time, African ROs surpassed European ROs. In comparison, Asian ROs had the lowest cumulative number of policy competencies until 2004, before American ROs assumed this position. Figure 3.3 focuses on competencies of the average RO in a given region, thereby controlling for the fact that the number of ROs varies across the four regions. In 1950, the average RO in the Americas was equipped with 20 different policy competencies, while European ROs had on average only 8.5 competencies. Africa and Asia occupied the midfield, with average policy scopes of 15.5 and 13. The average policy competencies of Asian ROs remained limited

34

The Global Perspective

Figure 3.3: Average RO policy scope, global and regions

Average policy scope

60 50 40 30 20 10 1945

1955

1965

1975 1985 Year

Average Average Average Average Average

1995

2005

2015

RO policy scope (global) policy scope Asian ROs policy scope European ROs policy scope African ROs policy scope American ROs

until 1980 (lower than 20 on average), while the other regions experienced a similar growth in competencies earlier on (see Figure 3.3). ROs in Europe reached an average of 20 or more competencies already in 1958, and the average African RO had 20 or more competencies by 1968. While ROs in the Americas were bestowed with the broadest range of competencies for their day-​to-​day operations in 1950, African ROs swiftly overtook them, and in the 1960s European ROs led the field, closely followed by African ROs. The pattern changed once again in the early 1990s, when African ROs surpassed European ones with respect to their average policy scopes. This lasted until 2011, when European ROs once again had the most primary law policy competencies on average. In 2015, African ROs had on average 55 competencies, American ROs 50.6, Asian ROs 47.5 and European ROs 59.4.

35

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Shifting the focus towards the 11 policy areas reveals that at the global level, ROs have acquired by far the most competencies in the economy and trade field (see Figure 3.4), followed by technology and infrastructure, and security and defence. The policy domains with the lowest number of primary law competencies on which ROs can base their day-​to-​day operations in the year 2015 are migration, health and agriculture. There are also differences between the regions. In absolute numbers, African ROs together have more competencies in each of the 11 policy fields than the ROs in each of the other regions respectively. This is more pronounced in some areas than others. Most notably, Africa has more than twice as many policy competencies in the field of agriculture (84) than ROs in the Americas (34), Asia (33) and Europe (30). By contrast, the gap is less pronounced in the policy domains economy Figure 3.4: Cumulative RO competencies in 11 different policy fields (2015) 800 600 400 200

on

De

Ec

Ag

ric

ul ve ture lo om pm y an ent d tra de En En er gy vi ro nm en Go t od Fin go anc e ve rn an ce H Te Se e a ch M lth no cur ity ig lo ra gy a tio an nd de n d in f fra enc e st ru ct ur e

0

36

The Global Perspective

and trade (Africa 227, Americas 207, Europe 192, Asia 186), development (Africa 87, Asia 71, Europe 57, Americas 53), or security (Africa 167, Asia 140, Europe 124, Americas 112). Yet, this does not control for the varying number of ROs in the regions and reflect that Africa is home to the most ROs (23 compared with only 16 in Europe). Taking a glance at the policy competencies of the average RO in each region in 2015 reveals that in most policy fields, European ROs are equipped with more policy competencies compared with ROs in the other regions. Controlling for the number of existing ROs per region, European ROs have on average more competencies in the policy areas of energy (3.7), environment (5.7), finance (5.5), migration (2.6), security and defence (8), and technology and infrastructure (8.3) than the average RO in Africa, the Americas and Asia. In 2015, in the economy and trade policy area, American ROs have the highest average number of competencies (12.9), followed by European ROs (12.8), Asian ROs (10.9) and African ROs (9.9). In the agricultural policy and the good governance realm, African ROs have the most mandates with averages of 3.6 and 5 respectively, followed by the Americas with 2.1, Europe with 2 and Asia with 1.9 in the agricultural field, and by Europe with 4.1, the Americas with 4 and Asia with 2.8 in the good governance domain. In the development field and concerning health policies, Asian ROs have on average more competencies (4.2 and 2.9) than have ROs in the other regions on average in 2015. Figure  3.5 sheds light on how the different policy fields developed over time. This provides several interesting insights. First, regional cooperation took place mainly in the economy and trade as well as the security and defence realms, with both fields being close in the first decade (Adler and Barnett, 1998; Acharya, 2009; Koschut, 2014; Kacowicz and Press-​Barnathan, 2016; Kim et al, 2016). While regional cooperation was predominantly economic between the years 1945 and 1947, the security aspect becomes dominant up 37

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Figure 3.5: Trajectories of policy fields (1945–​2015)

Average number of policy competencies

12

10

8

6

4

2

1945 1947 1949 1951 1953 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015

0

Economy and trade Security and defence Finance Good governance

Technology and infrastructure Environment Development Agriculture

Energy

Migration

Health

until the end of the 1950s. From the late 1950s onwards, ROs obtained by far the highest number of competencies to pass secondary law and other rules or to enable day-​to-​day operations in the policy area of economy and trade. By 2015, the average RO was equipped with 11 specific competencies in this policy field, and between one and seven on average in other policy fields. Second, the field of security and defence remains an important focus of regional cooperation throughout the entire period, but its second place gets taken over by the technology and infrastructure field towards the end of the 1970s. While ROs that were created early in the first wave of regional cooperation were frequently equipped with competencies in the security and the defence field, those founded after the 38

The Global Perspective

mid-​1950s had fewer competencies in this realm, leading to a drop in the number of competencies for the average RO after this point. The second wave of regional cooperation that started after the end of the Cold War is again characterized by the creation of new ROs that are equipped with security and defence competencies as well, leading the curve for this policy field to increase again after the 1990 turning point. Third, some policy areas were late bloomers. Most notably, equipping ROs with environmental policy competencies became fashionable only after 1975 and increased considerably over time (Haas, 2016). From 1990 onwards, the environment turned into the field with the fourth highest number of competencies per average RO, even surpassing the domain of finance. Similarly, ROs were not equipped with competencies in the energy realm before 1975, but unlike in the environmental policy field, the subsequent increase in energy competencies was only incremental. Fourth, migration and health are two policy areas in which the number of competencies for the average ROs was initially low and barely increased over time (from one in 1945 to two and three in 2015 respectively). Summary: global trajectories The analysis of regional cooperation around the globe reveals an interesting temporal pattern as there are two distinct waves in which ROs are created. The first wave started after the end of WWII and ended with the beginning of the 1990s. In this first wave, there has been an incremental and steady increase in the number of ROs over time. The second wave of regional integration started in 1990/​91 with the end of the Cold War. This period is characterized by a steep increase in new ROs that stabilized in the 2000s when about 70 ROs were present in the global system (Figure 3.1). By 2015, there were 71 ROs. Similar to these two waves of RO creation, there are two waves with respect to the total number of policy competencies 39

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

of all 76 ROs. After the end of WWII, an incremental and steady growth in the number of competencies covered by ROs took place. This changed after the end of the Cold War, when the total number of competencies increased rapidly (Figure 3.2). The cumulative policy scope development is to a large extent driven by the number of ROs in the system. Furthermore, over time, the size of ROs has increased as well. While the average membership size was 3.5 in 1945, in 2015 the average RO had 12.1 members. This increase was mainly incremental, with the biggest enlargements taking place around the 1980s. Thus, unlike with the number of ROs in the system and the total number of policy competencies, there is only one wave of growth, not two, in terms of RO size. Apart from these global dynamics, there are also differences between the four regions. In total, Africa has the highest number of ROs (23), followed by Asia (19), the Americas (18) and Europe (16). While none of the African ROs in our dataset was disbanded, one European and two ROs in Asia and in the Americas were dissolved over time. Moreover, membership sizes differ between regions. In 2015, the average European RO has 17 member states, the average American RO 13.3, the average African RO 12.2 and the average Asian RO 10.2. While Asian ROs have always had the narrowest policy scopes compared with the average ROs in the other regions, ROs in the Americas and in Africa had the broadest average policy scopes for a long period of time. After 2010, however, European ROs obtained the most policy competencies on average. Zooming in on the 11 different policy fields reveals that in absolute terms, African ROs together have more competencies than the ROs in any of the other regions. This is due to Africa being the region with the highest number of ROs in place. Controlling for differences in this regard shows that in 2015 specific policy areas are more pronounced in some regions. For instance, the average European RO has the highest 40

The Global Perspective

numbers of policy competencies in the energy, environment, finance, migration, security and defence, and technology and infrastructure domains. The average Asian RO is policy scope champion in the health and development fields, the average American RO in the economy and trade field, and the average African RO in the policy domains of agriculture and good governance. This already suggests that ROs from all four regions populate the typology introduced in Chapter 2. As Figure 3.6 illustrates, most ROs belong to the small selective type, placed in the lower left quadrant in 2015. While some of the European and American ROs are small in membership size and have a narrow policy scope as well, most of these ROs are from the Asian and African regions. These ROs are characterized by the absence of considerable membership enlargements as well as no or only limited changes in RO primary law that maintain a limited policy scope. The second highest number of ROs is located in the lower right quadrant, belonging to the small encompassing type. Most ROs in this quadrant stem from the Americas and Europe (five Figure 3.6: A typology of ROs by region (2015) Large selective

Large encompassing

Africa 4 Americas 3* Asia 1 Europe 2

Africa 4 Americas 2 Asia 3 Europe 3

Small selective

Small encompassing

Africa 12 Americas 5 Asia 10 Europe 5

Africa 3 Americas 5 Asia 3 Europe 5

Size

Policy scope * UNASUR resembles the average RO and is therefore in none of the boxes.

41

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

each), followed Asia as well as Africa (three each). These ROs were either created by few member states and from the start were equipped with a broad range of policy competencies, or over time underwent policy scope broadenings through primary law changes that were not accompanied by massive rounds of membership enlargements. Third, large encompassing ROs are located in the upper right quadrant. This type is represented by four African, three Asian and three European ROs as well as two American ROs. Given that the total number of European ROs is the lowest in absolute terms (15 ROs in 2015), European ROs are slightly overrepresented in this box, while American ROs are underrepresented. Finally, the least populated quadrant is that for large selective ROs, which are characterized by a large membership and a limited policy scope. In this quadrant, there is only one RO from Asia, two from Europe, three from the Americas and four from the African region. Asian and European ROs are underrepresented, indicating that either hardly any ROs have been created with many member states and a limited policy scope in the first place or that such ROs broadened their policy competencies further after their foundation, thus moving into the quadrant to the right. This chapter illustrates that on average ROs have increased in size and have considerably broadened their policy scopes. Although the regional and international cooperation literature often stresses that it is important to study whether, to what extent and why organizations are successful (Gutner and Thompson, 2010; Tallberg et al, 2016; Panke, forthcoming), there are no comparative assessments of RO performance for all ROs over a long period of time. Yet, the fact that member states often invest time and political resources to change RO primary law through adding additional policy competencies can be regarded as an indication of RO appeal. Similarly, if RO membership developments were a proxy for RO success,

42

The Global Perspective

as the RO in question is sufficiently attractive for third-​party states to express an interest in joining, this book shows that most ROs could be regarded as instances of successful regional cooperation as many have experienced enlargement processes over time.

43

FOUR

Regional Organizations in Africa

ROs have proliferated around the globe, becoming larger in size and broader in policy scope over time (see Chapter 3). This chapter examines whether there are regional particularities in the development of African ROs. To this end, it sheds light on patterns and trajectories of regional cooperation in Africa by putting all 23 African ROs in comparative perspective. Thus, this chapter complements the various case studies on selected individual ROs (Mazzeo, 1984; Söderbaum, 1996, 2003; Bach, 2016; Hartmann, 2016). In a first step, the chapter introduces the various African ROs and presents information regarding their creation. The focus lies on membership dynamics in the period between 1945 and 2015. The subsequent descriptive analysis zooms in on the policy competency dynamics, thereby providing a detailed account of the scope of regional cooperation in Africa. In the final section, the chapter situates African organizations in the typology of ROs. The chapter shows that regional cooperation has taken hold in Africa. While two of the oldest organizations covered in the ROCO dataset are located in Africa (AL and SACU), there has equally been a slight delay in the creation of ROs as decolonization did not occur until the early 1960s in Sub-​ Saharan Africa. Subsequently, there has been an increase in the number of formal, state-​led ROs and a considerable increase in membership size and policy scope. These developments started to take place in the late 1960s and early 1970s in particular, and regional cooperation has flourished ever since. Today, most

45

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

of Africa’s ROs resemble the small selective type. Large selective, small encompassing, and large encompassing ROs also occur, albeit less frequently. Membership dynamics in African ROs Twenty-​three multi-​purpose ROs created in Africa up to 2015 are covered in the ROCO dataset –​the highest number of ROs of all four regions. The oldest African RO is SACU, which was founded in 1910 between the Union of South Africa and the High Commission Territories of Bechuanaland, Basutoland and Swaziland. After independence, Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa and the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) kept the customs union in place, and Namibia joined the organization after formal independence from South Africa in 1990 (Gibb, 2006). Another long-​lasting organization is the AL, which was the first RO to be created after the end of World War II. The AL harbours states from the Arabian Peninsula in addition to member states from North Africa and the Horn of Africa (Hourani, 1947; Khadduri, 1946). Whereas the number of ROs in the European and American regions developed in waves, the number of ROs in Africa increased incrementally over time (Table 4.1). Beyond SACU and the AL regional cooperation kicked off comparatively late and slow in the beginning (Mazzeo, 1984; Mistry, 2000; Grant and Söderbaum, 2003; Bach, 2016). A limited number of new organizations in Sub-​Saharan Africa were founded shortly after many states gained independence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, for instance the Conseil de l’Entente (CE), Organization of African Unity (OAU), CAEU and Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC). Regional cooperation then took a hold on the continent when nine additional ROs followed them in the 1970s and 1980s in all sub-​regions. After the end of the Cold War, eight more organizations were set up in only about ten years. The youngest RO is the West African G5 du Sahel (G5S). Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger 46

Regional Organizations in Africa

Table 4.1: ROs in Africa RO

Full name

AL

League of Arab States

Founded 1945

AMU

Arab Maghreb Union

1989

AU

African Union

1963

CAEU

Council of Arab Economic Unity

1964

CE

Conseil de l’Entente

1959

CEEAC

Economic Community of Central African States

1983

CEMAC

Central African Economic and Monetary Community

1991

CENSAD

Community of Sahel-​Saharan States

1998

CEPGL

Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries

1976

COMESA

Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa

1993

EAC

East African Community

1999

ECOWAS

Economic Community of West African States

1975

G5S

G5 du Sahel

2014

GGC

Gulf of Guinea Commission

2001

ICGLR

International Conference on the Great Lakes Region

2004

IGAD

Intergovernmental Authority on Development

1986

IOC

Indian Ocean Commission

1984

IORA

Indian Ocean Rim Association

1997

LCBC

Lake Chad Basin Commission

1964

MRU

Mano River Union

1973

SACU

Southern African Customs Union

1945

SADC

Southern African Development Community

1980

UEMOA

West African Economic and Monetary Union

1994

established this organization to coordinate on developmental and security matters. African ROs differ considerably in size. The largest RO is the continental AU. The AU spans the whole continent and therefore includes 54 independent states. Morocco withdrew in 1984 over a dispute regarding the admission of Western Sahara as a member to the AU’s predecessor (the OAU) but 47

COMPARING REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

reapplied 30 years later and was admitted as a member state on 30 January 2017 (for an overview, see Tieku, 2019). A number of organizations are large in membership size. In 2015, these included the Community of Sahel-​Saharan States (CENSAD, 27 member states), AL (21 members), Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA, 20 states), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA, 19 member states), CAEU (16 members), ECOWAS (15 states) and SADC (15 members). At the other end of the spectrum, several ROs are comparatively small. The Mano River Union (MRU) brings together four member states (Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone) and the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries’ (CEPGL) three member states (Burundi, DR Congo and Rwanda). The headquarters of the 23 ROs are spaced out evenly over the African continent (Figure  4.1). They are located in 21 different countries in all of Africa’s sub-​regions. Both regional powers and smaller states accommodate ROs, such as Nigeria’s ECOWAS headquarters and Djibouti being home to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). Only Egypt (AL, CAEU) and Mauritius (Indian Ocean Commission [IOC], IORA) host the headquarters of two ROs respectively. Figure  4.2 illustrates the membership developments of African ROs over time. While average membership size took a leap in the 1960s and then remained stable from the mid-​1970s, the cumulative size of ROs increased gradually over time. The average RO size initially remained at five member states per RO in the 1950s. With the inception of the OAU, the average membership size increased to about 12 in the mid-​1960s. When new ROs emerged in the 1970s, the membership size of African ROs reached its highest point of 14.5 member states per RO in 1972. The subsequently established organizations varied in size, and the average membership size therefore slightly decreased. When the IOC was established in 1984, it involved the five African Indian Ocean states:  Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion 48

Regional Organizations in Africa

Figure 4.1: African ROs in 2015 AMU

CENSAD CAEU AL

GSS LCBC IGAD

ECOWAS UEMOA MRU

AU

CE

CEMAC

CEPGL

CEEAC >30 members 20–30 members

EAC

GGC

ICGLR COMESA IORA

SACU

IOC

15–19 members

SADC

10–14 members 5–9 members 30 members

ALBA ACTO

20–30 members

ALADI

15–19 members

MERCOSUR

10–14 members 5–9 members 30 members

APEC

20–30 members 15–19 members 10–14 members 5–9 members 30 members 20–30 members

AC

15–19 members 10–14 members 5–9 members CBSS CSTO EAEU