Rivalry and Overlap: Why Regional Economic Organizations Encroach on Security Organizations

Abstract

The proliferation and scope expansion of regional organizations (ROs) is one of the most prominent features in contemporary international politics. In particular, many regional economic organizations (REOs) have expanded into the security realm. This trend has often resulted in an overlap with regional security organizations (RSOs) already in place. This study sheds light on this phenomenon by identifying the conditions under which REOs trespass into the security policy domain despite the fact that preexisting RSOs already fulfill security functions. We argue that the presence of strategic rivalries is an important driver of the creation and depth of organizational overlap through scope expansion. Specifically, RSOs that include significant interstate rivalries propel a subgroup of like-minded states to advance and deepen security cooperation through their existing REOs. Using an original data set of security cooperation within economic and security ROs and a quantitative analysis, we find substantial support for this argument.

Ordering global governance complexes: The evolution of the governance complex for international civil aviation

“…But when preferences differ over which institutions to keep and which to reform (and how) barriers to restructuring mount. 8 In such conditions, top-down restructuring may either fail altogether or be limited to the creation of cross-cutting coordinating institutions alongside existing designs, consistent with notions of “institutional layering” (Fioretos 2017 :15–19, 2020; Hofmann 2013 ; Haftel and Hofmann 2019 ). In this case, ordering effectively goes hand-in-hand with institutional proliferation; the system is growing simultaneously more complex and more ordered.…”

What makes a “regime complex” complex? It depends

“…It highlights the importance of studying the conditions under which proliferation leads to linkage (e.g. Hofmann, 2019), and linkage leads to different degrees of dependence (e.g. Oberthür & Gehring, 2006).…”

Measuring institutional overlap in global governance

“…As new transnational problems arise, states regularly expand the policy competency of an existing institution to address them, rather than creating a new one (Jupille et al 2013). Alternatively, like-minded states in a gridlocked institution may employ a different institution in which they are members in order to tackle a broader set of policies (Haftel and Hofmann 2019). An example of such a process is the expansion of the EU into the security realm with the Common Security and Defence Policy in 1993, which made it overlap with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (Hofmann 2019).…”

“…Regarding the consequences of governance complexity for institutional design, recent research suggests that IGO design depends on the institutional environment in which an IGO is embedded (Copelovitch and Putnam 2014;Haftel and Hofmann 2019;Lenz and Burilkov 2017;Reinsberg and Westerwinter 2019), and that this environment increasingly includes institutional overlap between distinct international institutions. For example, Hofmann (2011) argues, with reference to security in Europe, "Once institutional overlap exists, it becomes a crucial independent variable explaining […] the development of international institutions occupying the same policy domain."…”

“…However, these analyses tend to be rich qualitative descriptions that do not rest on a generic measure suitable for applications across issue areas and geographical regions, and also commonly provide snapshot pictures that neglect the evolution of complexity over time. Other scholars have focused on specific institutional types, such as technical assistance providers in intellectual property (Morin 2020), regional organizations (Haftel and Hofmann 2019;Panke and Stapel 2018), or multi-stakeholder initiatives in international development (Reinsberg and Westerwinter 2019;Westerwinter 2021). What is missing, however, is systematic knowledge of institutional complexity, and achieving this knowledge requires paying closer attention to questions of measurement.…”