Towards an increasing regionalization of international politics? An analysis of external competencies of regional international organizations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Around the world, states cooperate in Regional International Organizations (RIOs). Although most RIOs were created to foster cooperation between their members, most of today’s RIOs are also equipped with external policy competencies, allowing them to become active beyond their borders. This paper sheds light on the evolution of external policy competencies of 76 RIOs over time and between policy areas. It shows that RIO’s external policy competencies increase over time and that some cover a broader range of external policy fields than others. The paper draws on a rational choice framework and develops RIO- and policy-level hypotheses to account for observed variation. A multilevel analysis reveals that RIOs have more external policy competencies when they are more exposed to interdependence in their neighbourhood and when they also have many internal competencies.