Towards a Global Script? Governance Transfer by Regional Organizations

The dark side of regionalism: how regional organizations help authoritarian regimes to boost survival

“…Autocratic members of ASEAN, ECOWAS or the African Union for instance have increasingly been constrained by institutional requirements for good governance that have strengthened civil society actors, resulting in differential empowerment. 106 Further exploring scope conditions of regime-boosting is also important given the growing debate on challenges to democratic lock-in and legitimacy even in democratic ROs such as the EU, with populist leaders increasingly questioning and subverting democratic norms. 107 EU and international relations scholars could thus also profit from these comparative insights for their future research to identify under which conditions populist parties and leaders might be able to successfully exploit European institutions to further their non-democratic goals.…”

“…39 Finally, I argue that external pressures from democratic powers and donors can be mitigated through international appeasement. This strategy essentially either involves signalling compliance with demands for democratic governance without jeopardizing core powers of the regime 40 or devaluing the applicability of democracy and human rights. 41…”

“…42 Second, autocrats can also transfer commitments to democracy, human rights, or the rule of law to mere declaratory regional treaties to fend off pressure for democratization, to contain negative externalities and subsequent loss of international recognition, or to satisfy international donor communities. 43 Due to the lack of enforcement mechanisms, they do not, however, run the risk of having to follow through with extensive domestic implementation. The Arab League has, for instance, reacted to international pressure to up their human rights practice by passing a Human Rights Charter in 2004 and even approving the establishment of an Arab Court of Human Rights in 2014, however without including any form of conditionality.…”

The Diffusion of Regionalism

“…For example, the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) of the EU with the various African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) ROs in the framework of the Coutenou Agreement which have been concluded or are still being negotiated, 3 include provisions for human rights promotion and sustainable development. In addition, the EU seeks to promote good governance and regional security and stability in its dealings with other ROs (Börzel and Van Hüllen, 2015). And it has instituted migration clauses in its trade agreements with regional partners (Chapter 20 by Lavenex et al, this volume;Jurje and Lavenex, 2014).…”

“…I have already dealt with the diffusion of institutional designs for PTAs where two global scripts emanating from the Global North compete, namely the NAFTA and the EU designs. In addition, the promotion of democracy, human rights, and good governance has become a global script which ROs increasingly try to foster with regard to their member states and in their external relations (Chapter 21 by Pevehouse, this volume;Börzel and Van Hüllen, 2015;Pevehouse, 2005;McMahon and Baker, 2006;van der Vleuten and Ribeiro Hoffmann, 2010). The same holds true for gender rights (Chapter 18 by van der Vleuten, this volume).…”