Book Project
Regional Organizations as Democracy Enforcers: Designing Effective Toolkits
Democratic systems are under attack around the world. Democracy's contemporary adversaries have devised highly legalistic tactics to consolidate power, dismantle checks and balances, and infringe upon hard-won civil rights. I contend that regional intergovernmental organizations (RIOs) are uniquely positioned to defend democratic values and governance in their member states. RIOs can deter democratic decay by designing and employing their individual democracy enforcement toolkit. This book project asks two related questions about the design and development of these toolkits.
Part I: Why do democracy enforcement toolkits vary across time and place?
I argue collective experiences with democratic transitions and stability in a region shape treaty designers' preferences and outcomes at specific points in time. When collective, formidable experiences in a region include democratic erosion and instability, the designers will be more inclined to delegate democracy enforcement capabilities to the RIO. Alternatively, when the collective experiences in the region suggest unilateral transitions and democratic stability, fewer mechanisms are designed in the interest of sovereignty. Taking an historical institutionalist approach based on archival research in Europe and Washington, DC, I find evidence supporting this collective democratic experience hypothesis in comparative case studies of the Organization of American States and the European Union.
Part II: Which toolkits effectively deter democratic decay?
I conjure four versions of the toolkit design hypothesis, which explore whether individual toolkits, individual mechanisms, or the compound effects of RIO toolkits in the democracy enforcement regime complex are better deterrents of democratic decay. These hypotheses are tested on the original Democracy Enforcement Toolkit Dataset, which traces the development of democracy enforcement mechanisms in twelve RIOs from 1948 to 2017. Through statistical analyses, I surmise incorporation of monitoring, mediation, and regional courts renders RIOs more effective as deterrents of democratic erosion. Counter to expectations, economic sanctions and suspension clauses are irrelevant at best and counter-productive at worst in the effort to counter democratic decay. Given these findings, RIO and state leaders should reconsider their regional democracy enforcement toolkits before the liberal world order is vanquished.
The Democracy Enforcement Toolkit (DET) Dataset observes 12 RIOs in Europe, Africa, and the Americas between 1948 and 2017. To build this dataset, I consulted the legal corpus of each of these RIOs over this 70 year period, beginning with the founding charter, and including amending protocols or additional treaties; agreements, resolutions, or declarations taken by the intergovernmental bodies; and rules of procedure for any relevant institutions; 103 documents are cited in Version 1 of the DET Dataset (2019). The Dataset indicates when new democracy enforcement mechanisms are added or eliminated and quantifies specific qualities about each, many of which – such as the conditions under which monitors are permitted to enter a state and the various forms economic sanctions can take – are quantified here for the first time. The DET Data is being updated to version 2.1, and will be introduced in a research note.
Forthcoming Publications & Working Papers
Responding to COVID-19 with States of Emergency:
Reflections and Recommendations for Future Crises
forthcoming in The Routledge Handbook on Law and the COVID-19 Pandemic, Joelle Grogan & Alice Donald (eds.), expected February 2022
Abstract: In responding to COVID-19, state governments faced the unique task of balancing commitments to individual human rights with the collective public good. International human rights law establishes clear guidelines for states that wish to limit or derogate from certain rights in order to address a threat to the nation, but so far states have selectively participated in these regimes. In this chapter, I assess how diligently states complied with their reporting requirements as they limited rights. In the conclusion, I offer four suggestions for amending the role international bodies such as the World Health Organization can play in defining public health crises, developing procedures for the use of limitation clauses, improving monitoring networks and partnerships, and providing up-to-date information to the public.
Immigration States of Emergency and Abuse of Executive Prerogative
In progress
Abstract coming soon
Democratic Lock-in and the American Convention on Human Rights
with Andrew Moravcsik & Francesca Parente, in progress
Abstract: Why do states delegate to high-cost international human rights regimes? The extant literature proposes these institutions reflect coercion by powerful states, normative suasion according to global liberal norms, instrumental issue linkage, or efforts to lock-in domestic democratic gains. We probe the degree to which these theories explain the historical development of the Inter-American human rights system and delegation to the Court – which states supported creating the regime, ratified the American Convention on Human Rights, and granted the Court jurisdiction and under what conditions. In evaluating this case, we propose a more nuanced measure for classifying “weak” versus “strong” democratic regimes. By applying this new measure and observing the states over a longer time period, we are able to explain why certain transitioning states joined the American human rights regime when they did, as well as why the two longest-standing democracies in the region (the United States and Canada) have thus far remained outside of the institution’s reach, and why some non-democratic states lent their support to the regime. We support our argument using qualitative and historical evidence evaluating position statements during the Convention negotiations as well as ratification and jurisdiction records.
Work with the Research Cluster on Regions in a Multipolar World
Survey on Subjective Regions
As one part of this project, we are developing a multi-national survey on participants' understanding of their transnational region. The surveys early rounds will include countries in Latin America and Southeast Asia, with planned expansions to the Middle East and North Africa.
Regionalization Index
We are developing a new regionalization index, based on the political, economic, and cultural ties across state borders. This has involved both data wrangling and data generation/quantification.
Headquarters Database
As part of the data generation efforts, we created a spatial dataset of the main and regional headquarters for the largest multinational corporations, academic associations, and intergovernmental organizations.