Scholarly Essay

International Journal
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DOI: 10.1177/0020702020965267
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international politics?

Diana Panke
University of Freiburg

Abstract
States address many of today’s global problems in international organizations (IOs). At
the same time, regional international organizations (RIOs) play important roles in IOs,
as a series of case studies suggests. RIO member states can speak on behalf of an RIO in
IO negotiations. This paper explores under what conditions states voice RIO positions
instead of national ones in IOs and thereby turn into agents of regionalization. Based on
a novel dataset of more than 500 international negotiations and a quantitative analysis
of theory-guided International Relations hypotheses, this paper shows that states are
increasingly likely to negotiate on behalf of an RIO, when they regard grouping positions
into regional blocs in IO negotiations as more effective, when they have a formal role as
RIO chair, and when they possess financial and staff capacities needed in order to voice
a regional position in international negotiations.

Keywords
International organizations, regional international organizations, international negotia-
tions, regionalization, international politics, negotiations, groupings, capacities,
incentives

Corresponding author:
Diana Panke, University of Freiburg, Political Science, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, Systems
Belfortstraße 20, Freiburg, 79085, Germany.
Email: diana.panke@politik.uni-freiburg.de
2 International Journal 0(0)

Many of today’s global problems are addressed in international organizations

(IOs), such as malnutrition and epidemics at the World Health Organization
(WHO); violations of rights, such as free movement or freedom of speech at the
Human Rights Council (HCR); and the liberalization of trade in goods and serv-
ices at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Traditionally, states are members of
such IOs and cooperate in these arenas in order to pass binding or non-binding
international rules and norms.
Yet, increasingly, regional international organizations (RIOs), as institutional-
ized arenas in which three or more states from a geographically defined region
cooperate in several policy areas, also gain formal and informal access to such
multilateral negotiations. Only in a few exceptional instances have RIOs become
formal members with full speaking and voting rights, such as the European Union
(EU) in the WTO and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC). Often, RIOs can register themselves as observers and obtain
access to international negotiations, whereas only states with full IO membership
status have speaking and voting rights. Even if RIOs are not usually full members
of IOs, they still play a role in IOs, as their member states can—and as this paper
illustrates, do—speak on their behalf. Thus, a regionalization of international
relations has taken place, driven by RIO member states. This paper explores the
conditions under which states turn into agents of regionalization and voice region-
al instead of national positions in international negotiations. How often do states
speak on behalf of RIOs and how can differences between states be explained?
To address this research question, this paper proceeds in the following steps:
The second section reviews the International Relations literature and discusses
insights into the prevalence of RIOs in international relations. This review reveals
that RIOs are seldom full members of IOs, but their member states can neverthe-
less act in concert and vote as a bloc in international negotiations, suggesting that
the regionalization of international relations carries the potential to alter the
nature of formal state-centred international relations fundamentally. Yet, the
review of the literature also suggests that this process is to a considerable extent
driven by RIO member states. The third section investigates empirically whether
and which states contribute to the regionalization of international relations. To
this end, it presents a novel dataset that contains data on the speeches made in
more than 500 international negotiations in more than 20 different IOs between
2008 and 2012. A closer examination of the patterns of national positions voiced
by states and speeches in which RIO positions were articulated reveals that the
latter accounts for more than 8% of the contributions in international negotia-
tions. Yet, there is considerable between-state variation concerning their inclina-
tion to speak for an RIO in international negotiations rather than putting forward
national positions. France is the strongest driver of regionalization, while countries
such as Russia, Tunisia, or Yemen did not negotiate on behalf of an RIO at all.
Trinidad and Tobago voice RIO positions five times as often as Peru or Tonga.
Thus, states differ in the extent to which they push the regionalization of interna-
tional relations. The fourth section draws on rationalist liberal theoretical
Panke 3

approaches to capture theoretically state activity in multi-level contexts. It devel-

ops hypotheses on conditions under which states actively participate in interna-
tional negotiations and explicates when we expect that they voice regional instead
of national positions. The fifth section presents the empirical analysis of the
hypotheses and discusses the findings, revealing that states are drivers of a region-
alization of international relations. But not all states are equally likely to articulate
RIO positions in IO negotiations. Rather, states are increasingly likely to negotiate
on behalf of an RIO, when they regard grouping positions into regional blocs in IO
negotiations as more effective, have fewer free-riding opportunities, have a formal
role as an RIO chair, and possess the financial and staff capacities needed to act on
behalf of an RIO in an international negotiation.

States, RIOs, and international relations

Traditionally, international relations are characterized by interactions between
states. Early International Relations scholarship examined the conditions under
which states are increasingly likely to wage war with one another and when and
how peace could be pursued.1 In the 1970s and 1980s, the puzzle of cooperation
under anarchy was increasingly addressed.2 Hence, researchers examined the role
of power, interests, and institutions for interstate cooperation.3 The major focus
was on why, how, when, and where states cooperate with one another, either on an
ad hoc basis or in institutionalized arenas.4 IOs, as institutionalized arenas for

1. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948); Kenneth Waltz,
Man, the State, and War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959); Robert Gilpin, War and
Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Kenneth Waltz, Theory of
International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979); Stephen Walt, Origins of Alliances (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1987); and Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual peace. A philosophical
sketch,” In Lewis White Beck, ed., Kant. On History, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1963).
2. Robert A. Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984); Robert O.
Keohane, After Hegemony. Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1984); Robert A. Axelrod and Robert O. Keohane, “Achieving coop-
eration under anarchy: Strategies and institutions,” World Politics 38, no. 1 (1986): 226–254; and
Kenneth Oye, ed., Cooperation under Anarchy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986).
3. Robert O. Keohane and Jospeh S. Nye Jr., Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown,
1977); Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press,
1986); and Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power (Boulder, CO: Westview,
1989).
4. Andreas Hasenclever, Peter Mayer, and Volker Rittberger, Theories of International Regimes
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Robert O. Keohane, “The demand for interna-
tional regimes,” in Robert O. Keohane, ed., International Institutions and State Power (Boulder CO:
Westview Press, 1989), 101–131; Stephen D. Krasner, “Regimes and the limits of realism: Regimes
as autonomous variables,” in Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimges (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1993), 355–368; Peter Mayer, Volker Rittberger, and Michael Zürn, “Regime
theory: State of the art and perspectives,” in Volker Rittberger, Regime Theory and International
Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 391–430; John G. Ruggie, “International regimes, trans-
actions, and change: Embedded liberalism in the post-war economic order,” in Stephen D. Krasner,
ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983), 195–232; and James G.
March and Johan P. Olsen, “The institutional dynamics of international political orders,”
International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 943–969.
4 International Journal 0(0)

cooperation between three or more states, in which membership is not defined by

geographic criteria, not only increased in numbers in this period but also turned
into essential fora for negotiating the rules and norms of an international order.5
With the end of the Cold War, a wave of regionalization took place, as the
number of RIOs, as institutionalized arenas for cooperation between at least three
states from the same geographical region, increased to a total of more than 70
today.6 Initially, RIOs were in most cases created to foster cooperation between
their member states internally, in areas such as creating free-trade zones or
common markets and cooperating in agriculture or technology sectors.7 Yet,
most of them are now also engaged in external affairs, such as neighbourhood
policies and peace and security issues.8 In the last decades, comparative regional-
ism scholarship and EU researchers have studied how the RIOs turned into inter-
national actors.9 One strand of scholarship has pointed out that today RIOs play
de facto important roles in areas that were formerly in the realm of nation-states,10

5. Ernst B. Haas, Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1964); Jos
e E. Alvarez, International Organizations as Law-Makers
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Ian Hurd, International Organizations: Politics,
Law, Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
6. RIOs such as the Arctic Council (AC), Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), Black
Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC),
Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), or Mercado Com
un del Sur
(Mercosur) were created in this period. See Diana Panke, S€ oren Stapel, and Anna Starkmann,
Comparing Regional Organizations: Global Dynamics and Regional Particularities (Bristol, UK:
Bristol University Press, 2020).
7. Joseph S. Nye, “Comparative regional integration: Concepts and measurement,” International
Organization 22, no. 4 (1968): 855–880; Joseph S. Nye, “Patterns and catalysts in regional integra-
tion,” International Organization 19, no. 4 (1965): 870–884; Ernst B. Haas, The Obsolescence of
Regional Integration Theory (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1975); James Caporaso
and John T. S. Keeler, “The European community and regional integration theory,” in Alan
Cafruny and Glenda Rosenthal, eds., The State of the European Community, Vol. 2: The
Maastricht Debate and Beyond (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993); Walter Mattli, “Explaining
regional integration outcomes,” Journal of European Public Policy 6, no. 1 (1999): 1–27; and Walter
Mattli, The Logic of Regional Integration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
8. Christian Kaunert, “Europol and EU counterterrorism: International security actorness in the
external dimension,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 33, no. 7 (2010): 652–671; Stephen Kingah and
Luk Van Langenhove, “Determinants of a regional organisation’s role in peace and security: The
African Union and the European Union compared,” South African Journal of International Affairs
19, no. 2 (2012): 201–222; and Diana Panke and S€ oren Stapel, “Exploring overlapping region-
alism,” Journal of International Relations & Development 21, no. 3 (2018): 635–662.
9. Ernst B. Haas and Edward Thomas Rowe, “Regional organisations in the United Nations—is there
externalisation?” International Studies Quarterly 17 (1973): 3–54; Louise Fawcett and Andrew
Hurrell, eds., Regionalism in World Politics: Regional Organization and International Order
(Oxford, New York, et al.: Oxford University Press, 1995); Robert Kissach, Pursuing Effective
Multilateralism: The European Union, International Organisations and the Politics of Decision
Making (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2010); Daniel Yew Mao Lim and James Raymond
Vreeland, “Regional organizations and international politics: Japanese influence over the Asian
Development Bank and the UN Security Council,” World Politics 65, no. 1 (2013): 34–72; and
Diana Panke, “Regional power revisited: How to explain differences in coherency and success of
regional organisations in the United Nations General Assembly,” International Negotiation 18, no.
2 (2013): 265–291.
10. Roy H. Ginsberg, “Conceptualizing the European Union as an international actor: Narrowing
the theoretical capability-expectations gap,” Journal of Common Market Studies 37, no. 3 (1999):
Panke 5

such as leaving regional imprints on international norms through voting align-

ments,11 and through participating in international negotiations themselves.12
RIOs became full members with speaking and voting rights in IOs only in a few
exceptional instances, such as the EU in the WTO and the UNFCCC. More often,
RIOs can register themselves as observers in IOs and thereby obtain access to
international negotiations, whereas only states with full IO membership status
have speaking and voting rights.13 However, it is not the case that RIOs are
unimportant for international negotiations in IOs even when they have no
formal status at all. Case studies have demonstrated that, even under such
conditions, RIOs play a role.14 Member states can speak on behalf of their RIO

429–454; Sebastian Oberthür, “The EU as an international actor: The protection of the ozone
layer,” Journal of Common Market Studies 37, no. 4 (1999): 641–659; J€ org Monar, “The EU as
an international actor in the Domain of Justice and Home Affairs,” European Foreign Affairs
Review 9, no. 3 (2004): 395–415; Martijn L.P. Groenleer and Louise van Schaik, “United we
stand? The European Union’s international actorness in the cases of the International Criminal
Court and the Kyoto Protocol,” Journal of Common Market Studies 45, no. 5 (2007): 969–998; and
Paruedee Nguitragool and Jürgen Rüland, Asean as an Actor in International Fora: Reality,
Potential and Constraints (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
11. For example, Helen Young and Nicholas Rees, “EU voting behaviour in the UN general assembly,”
Irish Studies in International Affairs 16, no. 1 (2005): 193–207; Megan Dee, “Standing together or
doing the splits? Evaluating European Union performance in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Review negotiations,” European Foreign Affairs Review 17, no. 2 (2012): 189–212; Xi Jin and
Madeleine O. Hosli, “Pre- and post-Lisbon: European Union voting in the United Nations
General Assembly,” West European Politics 36, no. 6 (2013): 1274–1291; and Nicolas Burmester
and Michael Jankowski, “Reassessing the European Union in the United Nations General
Assembly,” Journal of European Public Policy 21, no. 10 (2014): 1491–1508.
12. For example, Fawcett and Hurrell, eds., Regionalism in World Politics; Lim and Vreeland,
“Regional organizations and international politics,” 34–72; and Nguitragool and Rüland, Asean as
an Actor in International Fora.
13. Anne Wetzel, “Enter the EU—or not? The EU’s participation in international organisations,”
Paper presented at the workshop, “Regional organizations as global players: Active ¼ influential?’
KFG, “The transformative power of Europe,” Berlin, 28–29 October 2011; Thomas Gehring,
Sebastian Oberthür, and Marc Mühleck, “European Union actorness in international institutions:
Why the EU Is recognized as an actor in some international institutions, but not in others,” Journal
of Common Market Studies 51, no. 5 (2013): 849–865; and Amandine Orsini, “Membership: The
evolution of EU membership in major international organisations,” in Amandine Orsini, ed., The
European Union with(in) International Organisations: Commitment, Consistency and Effects Across
Time (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014), 35–55.
14. Especially on the EU as international actor, there is a large body of research (e.g., Ginsburg,
“Conceptualizing the European Union,” 429–454; Oberthür, “The EU as an international actor,”
641–659; John Peterson and Michael E. Smith, “The EU as a global actor,” in Elizabeth Bomberg
and Alexander Stubb, eds., The European Union: How Does It Work? Vol. 1. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2003), 195–215; Monar, “The EU as an international actor,” 395–415; Bj€ orn
Hettne and Fredrik Soderbaum, “Civilian power or soft imperialism? The EU as a global actor
and the role of interregionalism,” European Foreign Affairs Review 10, no. 4 (2005): 535–552;
Fredrik S€oderbaum and Luk Van Langenhove, “Introduction: The EU as a global actor and the
role of interregionalism,” European Integration 27, no. 3 (2005): 249–262; Eug
enia da Conceiç~ ao-
Heldt, “Taking actors’ preferences and the institutional setting seriously: The EU Common
Fisheries Policy,” Journal of Public Policy 26, no. 3 (2006): 279–299; Tom Delreux, “The
European Union in international environmental negotiations: A legal perspective on the internal
decision-making process,” International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 6,
no. 3 (2006): 231–248; Katie Verlin Laatikainen and Karen E Smith, The European Union at the
United Nations: Intersecting Multilateralisms (London: Palgrave, 2006); Karen E. Smith, “Speaking
6 International Journal 0(0)

(see the third section, “Regionalized international negotiations”) and can also vote
as a bloc in IOs.15 Thus, the increase in regime complexity in general and the rise of
RIOs in particular could suggest that, in the course of the last decades, a region-
alization of international relations has taken place and also that RIO member
states play an important role in this process (for details see the third section,
“Regionalized international negotiations”). Nevertheless, we do not know much
about the conditions under which states turn into agents of regionalization and
voice regional rather than national positions in international negotiations.

Regionalized international negotiations and the role of RIO

member states—the pattern
To examine the role of states in pushing a regionalization of international rela-
tions, a dataset on international negotiations is needed that captures who speaks
up in formal IO negotiations and whether the position expressed is national or
regional in character. We compiled a dataset that encompasses 21,194 observa-
tions, tracing the activity of 205 states and state-like actors16 within

with one voice? European Union co-ordination on human rights issues at the United Nations,”
Journal of Common Market Studies 44, no. 1 (2006): 113–137; Groenleer and van Schaik, “United
we stand?” 969–998; Tom Delreux, “The EU as a negotiator in multilateral chemicals negotiations:
Multiple principals, different agents,” Journal of European Public Policy 15, no. 7 (2008): 1069–
1086; Kissach, Pursuing Effective Multilateralism; Spyros Blavoukos and Dimitris Bourantonis,
“The EU’s performance in the United Nations Security Council,” Journal of European
Integration 33, no. 6 (2011): 731–742; Tom Delreux, The EU as International Environmental
Negotiator, Global Environmental Governance, edited by John Kirton and Miranda Schreurs
(Farnham/Burlington, UK: Ashgate, 2011); Robert Kissach, “The performance of the European
Union in the International Labour Organization,” Journal of European Integration 33, no. 6 (2011):
651–665; Vaughne Miller, “The European Union at the United Nations,” SN5975, International
Affairs and Defence Section, House of Commons, UK Parliament, 20 May 2011; Robert Kissach,
“The EU in the negotiations of a UN General Assembly resolution on a moratorium on the use of
the death penalty,” in Jan Wouters, Hans Bruynickx, Sudeshna Basu, and Simon Schunz, eds., The
European Union and Multilateral Governance: Assessing EU Participation in United Nations Human
Rights and Environmental Fora (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), 103–121; Louise van Schaik and
Simon Schunz, “Explaining EU activism and impact in global climate politics: Is the Union a
norm- or interest-driven actor?” Journal of Common Market Studies 50, no. 1 (2012): 169–186;
Jan Wouters, Hans Bruynickx, Sudeshna Basu, and Simon Schunz, eds., The European Union
and Multilateral Governance: Assessing EU Participation in United Nations Human Rights and
Environmental Fora (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012); Karen E. Smith, “The European Union and
the politics of legitimization at the United Nations,” European Foreign Affairs Review 18, no. 1
(2013): 63–80; Robert Kissack, “Labour standards: An historical account of the EU involvement
with(in) the ILO,” in Amandine Orsini, ed., The European Union with(in) International
Organisations: Commitment, Consistency and Effects Across Time (Farnham/Burlington, UK:
Ashgate, 2014), 75–93; and Diana Panke, “The European Union in the United Nations: An effective
external actor?” Journal of European Public Policy 21, no. 7 (2014): 1050–1066.
15. Young and Rees, “EU voting behaviour in the UN general assembly,” 193–207; Dee, “Standing
together or doing the splits?” 189–212; Jin and Hosli, “Pre- and post-Lisbon,” 1274–1291; Panke,
“Regional Power Revisited,” 265–291; and Burmester and Jankowski, “Reassessing the European
Union,” 1491–1508.
16. State-like actors that are members of at least one of the IOs in our dataset and voiced positions
during the respective international negotiations include the British Virgin Islands, Cook Islands,
Curaçao, Faroe Islands, Holy See, Niue, Palestine, Sint Marteen, and Taiwan.
Panke 7

27 international negotiation arenas and covering a broad variety of different policy

areas (a list of IOs is provided in Table A1 in the Appendix). To examine the
prevalence of regional positions in international negotiations, IOs must provide
detailed information on who spoke up in negotiations and what the speech made
was about. Unfortunately, such information is not available for the large majority
of IOs covered in the Correlates of War (COW) dataset. Thus, we included in our
dataset those intergovernmental IOs that maintained a functioning and updated
website, had IO legislative bodies in regular session, and in which states negotiate
and pass IO outputs (e.g., decisions, regulations, resolutions) on a frequent basis in
the period under examination (2008–2012). In addition, these intergovernmental
IOs needed to provide sufficiently detailed negotiation information (e.g., in verba-
tim protocols, detailed records, or reports).
The dataset relies on a subsample of IOs that are active rather than those that
are no longer or only rarely used by member states, in order to negotiate interna-
tional rules and norms or engage in operational activities. Thus, the findings of this
paper do not apply to “zombie” or inactive IOs.17 Similarly, this paper includes
only IOs that exceed a certain degree of transparency of negotiations and omits
IOs that do not allow public access to information on who was active in putting
forward which positions in negotiations. Accordingly, inferences to nontranspar-
ent IOs, which do not provide sufficiently detailed information on negotiations,
need to be avoided as well.
For each of the international negotiation arenas in the dataset in each of the
four years (2008–2012), four negotiations on substantive issues typical for the
policy area of the respective IO were included. IOs differ in the number and
volume of output documents they pass. For IOs in which legislative bodies con-
vened fewer than 16 times or produced fewer than 16 output documents, we includ-
ed as many negotiations as possible. On the whole, the dataset includes 512
negotiations.
Depending on the IO’s reporting system and institutional structure, we collected
information on which actor spoke and what type of position they expressed from
officially available reports, minutes, and press releases from the negotiations taking
place in the IO’s main legislative arena (usually the assembly and respective com-
mittees) in which the bulk of negotiations takes place. The speech acts of a specific
negotiation were coded manually, based on a content analysis, including silent but
present actors, voiced national positions of states, and speech acts by states on
behalf of RIOs. We operationalized negotiation activity on the speech level. For
example, if a state representative declares that he/she is speaking “on behalf of” an
RIO, that “the RIO agrees to/disagrees with/objects/supports/proposes/recom-
mends, etc.,” the speech is counted as voicing a regional position, while the absence

17. Julia Gray, “Life, death, or zombie? The vitality of international organizations,” International
Studies Quarterly 62, no. 1 (2018): 1–13; and Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, “Death of international
organizations: The organizational ecology of intergovernmental organizations, 1815–2015,” The
Review of International Organizations 15 (April 2020): 339–370.
8 International Journal 0(0)

of a reference to the regional position or preference is counted as voicing national

positions. Thus, our analysis captures negotiation activity as well as the type of
intervention for each actor.
The dependent variable of this study, the negotiation behaviour of RIO mem-
bers, has three empirical expressions: 0, 1, and 2. Values 1 and 2 indicate that the
state in question has made a formal speech in the IO negotiation, whereas 0
indicates that a state is a member of an IO but remains silent in a negotiation.
If a speech made by a state is national in character, it is coded with 1, whereas a
speech in which a state expresses an RIO position is coded with 2.18
Of the 21,194 observations in the dataset, the actors were silent in 16,292
instances and spoke up in 4901 instances. Of the 4901 speech acts made, 409
expressed RIO positions (8.3% of all speeches made). As Table 1 shows, not all
states spoke up equally often and not all states were equally inclined to voice RIO
positions instead of national ones. In absolute terms, France voiced a total of 25
RIO positions, whereas Zimbabwe spoke on behalf of an RIO only once. In
between are countries such as Mozambique, Uruguay, and Vietnam (four RIO
positions each) or Brazil, Barbados, and Singapore (five RIO positions each).
Somalia, Uzbekistan, and Togo did not negotiate on behalf of an RIO at all.
Table 1 shows cross-country variation. States vary in the extent to which they
became active in international negotiations to which they had access as well as the
extent to which they negotiated on behalf of an RIO. When France, Sweden, and
Belgium spoke up in IO negotiations, they expressed RIO positions (in this case,
EU positions) more than 10 percent of the time. Denmark, Thailand, Jamaica, and
Singapore voiced RIO positions about 6% of the time each of the countries spoke
up. Whereas Denmark spoke for the EU, Thailand and Singapore voiced positions
of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Jamaica negotiated
on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Overall, the positions of 25
different RIOs were expressed in the international negotiations (see Table A2). The
EU position is most prevalent, followed by CARICOM and ASEAN, with about
30 speeches. The South African Development Community (SADC), the African
Union (AU), the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and
Mercosur have 10 or more positions voiced.
States are drivers of regionalization in IOs. This could suggest that states can
benefit from acting in concert rather than negotiating on their own. Yet, if this
were true, it is puzzling that not all states make use of the opportunity to use RIOs
as a means to leverage up in IO negotiations. To shed light on this issue and
examine the factors behind the phenomenon that states drive international-level
regionalization, the subsequent sections address the following questions: Why do
states speak for RIOs in international negotiations and why do they differ in the
extent to which they do so? These questions will be answered in the remainder of
this paper.

18. As this paper focuses on RIOs, we omitted all statements made by states on behalf of other regional
actors, such as UN regional groups or ad-hoc regional alliances.
Panke 9

Table 1. The relative share of RIO positions voiced by countriesa

% RIO % % RIO % % RIO % RIO
country % silent positions country silent positions country silent positions country % silent positions

FRA 50.96 15.92 ECU 61.98 1.65 BOL 75.79 0.00 MAR 63.36 0.00
SWE 63.64 13.64 CHL 61.29 1.61 BRN 95.00 0.00 MCO 95.24 0.00
BEL 73.85 10.00 ZAF 56.82 1.52 BWA 84.38 0.00 MDA 86.14 0.00
ESP 60.63 8.66 USA 31.34 1.49 CAF 95.79 0.00 MDG 91.00 0.00
CYP 85.19 8.33 Total 77.29 1.38 CHE 50.00 0.00 MDV 83.52 0.00
HUN 82.50 7.50 TON 90.79 1.32 CHN 35.94 0.00 MEX 50.74 0.00
CZE 79.65 7.08 BTN 92.41 1.27 CMR 83.76 0.00 MHL 96.51 0.00
DNK 74.17 6.67 GRD 92.05 1.14 COG 88.68 0.00 MKD 91.95 0.00
THA 50.00 6.14 PNG 87.91 1.10 COK 96.49 0.00 MLI 87.25 0.00
JAM 78.57 6.12 DMA 94.57 1.09 COL 62.18 0.00 MNG 84.31 0.00
SGP 76.92 5.49 KWT 84.78 1.09 COM 93.18 0.00 MRT 96.36 0.00
BRB 79.79 5.32 VCT 95.70 1.08 CPV 95.65 0.00 MUS 88.68 0.00
SVN 84.35 5.22 BHR 81.91 1.06 CUB 58.25 0.00 NER 91.92 0.00
POL 75.00 5.17 MNE 87.37 1.05 CUW 95.65 0.00 NGA 63.78 0.00
IDN 43.22 5.08 ARM 85.42 1.04 DJI 90.00 0.00 NIU 96.49 0.00
TTO 82.86 4.76 LTU 91.67 1.04 DZA 60.66 0.00 NPL 70.00 0.00
GUY 93.33 4.44 GEO 85.57 1.03 EGY 67.21 0.00 NRU 98.63 0.00
VNM 74.76 3.88 KHM 93.88 1.02 ERI 93.41 0.00 PAK 56.25 0.00
MYS 53.33 3.81 HND 85.86 1.01 FJI 86.32 0.00 PAN 82.57 0.00
MOZ 84.91 3.77 OMN 91.92 1.01 FRO 95.65 0.00 PCN 76.27 0.00
BRA 42.03 3.62 SRB 82.00 1.00 FSM 93.06 0.00 PHL 56.52 0.00
NLD 72.27 3.36 AZE 82.18 0.99 GAB 86.84 0.00 PLW 96.25 0.00
ARE 79.35 3.26 BFA 84.16 0.99 GHA 81.58 0.00 PRK 78.38 0.00
SUR 91.30 3.26 DOM 78.43 0.98 GIN 88.68 0.00 ROU 84.35 0.00
AUS 39.02 3.25 SLV 79.61 0.97 GMB 90.53 0.00 RUS 51.88 0.00
DEU 61.29 3.23 ETH 80.00 0.95 GNB 93.62 0.00 RWA 90.82 0.00
URY 65.60 3.20 ZWE 70.75 0.94 GNQ 95.35 0.00 SDN 69.00 0.00
MMR 80.85 3.19 EST 89.81 0.93 GRL 77.78 0.00 SEN 74.17 0.00
GBR 52.31 3.08 SVK 87.96 0.93 GTM 78.38 0.00 SLB 94.37 0.00
BLZ 91.26 2.91 TZA 72.48 0.92 HKG 96.23 0.00 SLE 84.47 0.00
FIN 80.00 2.61 IRL 75.68 0.90 IND 38.02 0.00 SMR 96.47 0.00
VEN 63.64 2.48 COD 86.73 0.88 IRN 44.59 0.00 SOM 93.20 0.00
NOR 55.73 2.29 ZMB 79.65 0.88 IRQ 69.23 0.00 SSD 96.97 0.00
BHS 91.30 2.17 ISL 86.09 0.87 ISR 62.71 0.00 STP 98.84 0.00
SWZ 88.30 2.13 PER 71.30 0.87 JOR 79.05 0.00 SXM 95.65 0.00
MLT 82.11 2.11 CIV 85.34 0.86 JPN 36.72 0.00 SYC 92.31 0.00
ATG 93.81 2.06 TUR 54.31 0.86 KAZ 81.51 0.00 SYR 75.00 0.00
PRY 81.44 2.06 NZL 52.10 0.84 KEN 66.39 0.00 TCD 88.66 0.00
HTI 87.76 2.04 ARG 60.16 0.78 KIR 96.47 0.00 TGO 88.12 0.00
QAT 77.55 2.04 CAN 42.19 0.78 KNA 94.32 0.00 TJK 94.51 0.00
MWI 81.37 1.96 KGZ 88.42 0.53 KOR 52.00 0.00 TKM 96.84 0.00
GRC 82.52 1.94 AFG 75.76 0.00 LAO 88.89 0.00 TLS 86.08 0.00
SAU 77.67 1.94 AGO 78.85 0.00 LBN 76.00 0.00 TUN 76.47 0.00
UKR 73.33 1.90 ALB 92.71 0.00 LBR 89.36 0.00 TUV 96.25 0.00
NAM 76.85 1.85 AND 100.00 0.00 LBY 76.47 0.00 TWN 84.78 0.00
PRT 80.53 1.77 BDI 89.58 0.00 LCA 92.05 0.00 UGA 80.19 0.00

(continued)
10 International Journal 0(0)

Table 1. Continued.
% RIO % % RIO % % RIO % RIO
country % silent positions country silent positions country silent positions country % silent positions

AUT 71.30 1.74 BEN 86.36 0.00 LIE 91.30 0.00 UZB 98.85 0.00
NIC 85.22 1.74 BGD 58.41 0.00 LKA 62.39 0.00 VAT 44.68 0.00
HRV 82.76 1.72 BGR 87.39 0.00 LSO 83.50 0.00 VGB 94.44 0.00
ITA 73.11 1.68 BIH 90.63 0.00 LUX 89.52 0.00 VUT 96.67 0.00
CRI 71.67 1.67 BLR 66.96 0.00 LVA 94.74 0.00 WSM 90.24 0.00
a
The country abbreviations follow the ISO-3 code, accessible under https://unstats.un.org/unsd/tradekb/
Knowledgebase/50347/Country-Code

Accounting for variation in states as drivers of regionalization

This section theorizes the conditions under which states are likely to speak on
behalf of RIOs in IOs. We use rationalist liberal International Relations theory
in order to first theorize under which conditions states are likely to be silent in
international negotiations, and, in a second step, theorize when non-silent states
voice regional rather than national positions. Liberal internationalist approaches
open the black box of unitary states and theoretically capture in a first step wheth-
er and how state positions are developed domestically.19 In a second step, liberal
internationalist approaches capture how states, as strategic rational actors, pursue
their stances on the international level.20
Liberal theories of international cooperation argue that a state’s foreign policy
positions are not naturally given and not simply “out there,” but need to be for-
mulated in the domestic realm first.21 Only when the domestic construction of a
national position is completed, is the position communicated to the diplomats at
the IO negotiation tables and a state can start to actively voice its positions.22 For
the development of national positions in governments and foreign ministries,
capacities are essential. With respect to policy expertise, the better resourced a
state is financially, the better the internal governance processes work in order to

19. Robert Putnam, “Diplomacy and domestic politics: The logic of two-level games,” International
Organization 42, no. 3 (1988): 427–460; Robert O. Keohane, “Neoliberal institutionalism: A per-
spective on world politics,” in Robert O. Keohane, ed., International Institutions and State Power.
Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1989), 35–73; and Andrew
Moravcsik, “Preferences and power in the European community: A liberal intergovernmental
approach,” Journal of Common Market Studies 31, no. 4 (1993): 473–524.
20. Putnam, “Diplomacy and domestic politics,” 427–460; Keohane, “Neoliberal institutionalism: A
perspective on world politics,” 35–73; Moravcsik, “Preferences and power in the European
community,” 473–524.
21. Putnam, “Diplomacy and domestic politics,”427–460; Moravcsik, “Preferences and power in the
European community,” 473–524; Diana Panke and Thomas Risse, “Classical liberalism in IR,” in
Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith, International Relations Theory, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006), 89–108.
22. Diana Panke, Unequal Actors in Equalising Institutions: Negotiations in the United Nations General
Assembly (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2013) and Diana Panke, “Getting ready to negotiate in
international organizations? On the importance of the domestic construction of national positions,”
Journal of International Organizations Studies 4, no. 2 (2013): 25–38.
Panke 11

formulate national positions swiftly for all issues that are on an IO’s negotiations
agenda at a given point in time.23 In contrast, states with insufficient governance
capacities are more likely to encounter situations in which the domestic formula-
tion of national positions is either delayed or—worse—cannot be accomplished for
all issues on the negotiation agenda of IOs.24 As a consequence, diplomats of states
with lower governance capacity are more likely to face situations in which their
capitals did not provide a national position and are, consequently, less often
authorized to articulate a position in an IO. As a consequence, states in which
diplomats do not know the national position are more often silent in international
negotiations than states with higher levels of governance capacity.25 Thus, hypoth-
esis 1 expects that states with lower governance capacity are more likely to be silent
in international negotiations in IOs.
If states are not silent in international negotiations, they can voice national
positions or regional positions. Hence, the next paragraph also draws on liberal
rational choice approaches to hypothesize under what conditions states are likely
to speak on behalf of an RIO rather than articulate a national position. To this
end, it distinguishes between incentives and resources as factors impacting the
international conduct of states.26
First, IOs differ in size. Some are small and have fewer than 50 member states,
whereas others are encompassing and have more than 190 members. Similar to
other institutional design features, the openness for state membership can have
important consequences for IO internal dynamics.27 In larger IOs, the number of

23. Deborah Br€autigam, “State capacity and effective governance,” in Benno Nedulu and Nicolas van
de Walle, eds., Agenda for Africa’s Economic Renewal (Washington, D.C.: Overseas Development
Council, 1996).
24. Diana Panke, “Absenteeism in the General Assembly of the United Nations: Why some member
states do hardly vote,” International Politics 51, no. 6 (2014): 729–749.
25. Diana Panke, “Speech is silver, silence is golden? Examining state activity in international
negotiations,” The Review of International Organizations 12, no. 1 (2017): 121–146.
26. William Mark Habeeb, Power and Tactics in International Negotiation: How Weak Nations Bargain
with Strong Nations (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1988); George Tsebelis, Nested
Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990);
Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism and Politics and Other Essays (London: Liberty Press, 1991); Lisa
L. Martin, “The rational state choice of multilateralism,” in John Gerard Ruggie, ed.,
Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Practice of an International Forum (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1993), 91–121; Br€ autigam, “State capacity and effective governance”;
Duncan Snidal, “Rational choice and international relations,” in Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse,
and Beth Simmons, eds., Handbook of International Relations (London: SAGE, 2002), 73–94; and
William I. Zartman and Jeffrey Z. Rubin, eds., Power and Negotiation (Ann Arbor, MI: University
of Michigan Press, 2009).
27. Robert E. Goodin, ed., The Theory of Institutional Design (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995); Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal, “The rational design of interna-
tional institutions,” International Organization 55, no. 4 (2001): 761–799; Peter Rosendorff and
Helen Milner, “The optimal design of international trade institutions: Uncertainty and escape,”
International Organization 55, no. 4 (2001): 829–957; Jonas Tallberg, Thomas Sommerer, Theresa
Squatrito, and Christer J€ onsson, The Opening Up of International Organizations: Transnational
Access in Global Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); and Diana Panke,
“Living in an imperfect world? Incomplete contracting & the rational design of international
organizations,” Journal of International Organizations Studies 7, no. 1 (2016), 25–38.
12 International Journal 0(0)

members that can participate in the negotiations by voicing a position is high,

which can render such multilateral negotiations time consuming and possibly
also inefficient if every single state were to articulate its own positions. Thus, in
negotiation arenas with many participants, states should have incentives to group
their positions in order to reduce the number of speeches made and increase the
efficiency of the negotiation process. If RIO member states have coordinated them-
selves and formulated a common regional position rather than each RIO member
articulating a national position, this behaviour not only increases the speed of
international negotiations, but also could increase the chances for negotiation
success, as the collective bargaining power reinforcing the position is higher
when a state speaks on behalf of an RIO rather than expressing a national posi-
tion. According to hypothesis 2, an increasing number of negotiation participants
in IOs should increase the likelihood that states voice regional positions instead of
national ones.
Second, all states are members of several RIOs,28 but the number of RIO
memberships varies. Some states, such as Tuvalu, have joined only a few RIOs,
whereas others, such as Russia, have become members in eight or more RIOs. The
number of RIOs a state has joined could influence its incentives to invest its own
resources and voice a position in IO negotiations on behalf of an RIO. The rational
choice literature has long ago identified the problem of free riding,29 which sug-
gests that states’ incentives to produce a common good and articulate a regional
position declines in cases where the RIO position does not adequately reflect the
national position. The more RIOs a state has joined, the higher the number of
potential regional positions that a state could voice and the more likely that the
position of at least one RIO to which a country belongs is sufficiently close to its
national position. Hence, hypothesis 3 expects that, with an increasing number of
RIO memberships, states are more likely to voice a regional position than a nation-
al one.
Third, regardless which RIO states joined, they retained their sovereign
decision-making authority regarding which position to pursue in IO negotiations
in which they are full members. Thus, similar to national positions in states,
regional positions of RIOs for issues on an IO negotiation agenda are not just
out there but need to be formulated by the RIO member states.30 Usually, one RIO
member has a chair position for a given period of time and organizes RIO coor-
dination meetings either at the RIO headquarter location or at the location in

28. Panke and Stapel, “Exploring overlapping regionalism,” 635–662.

29. Charles P. Kindleberger, “Dominance and leadership in the international economy: Exploitation,
public goods and free rides,” International Studies Quarterly 25, no. 2 (1981): 242–254; Axelrod, The
Evolution of Cooperation; Axelrod and Keohane, “Achieving cooperation under anarchy,” 226–254;
and Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
30. Smith, “The European Union and the politics of legitimization at the United Nations,” 63–80 and
Eug
enia da Conceiç~ao-Heldt and Sophie Meunier, “Speaking with a single voice: Internal cohe-
siveness and external effectiveness of the EU in Global Governance,” Journal of European Public
Policy 21, no. 7 (2014): 961–979.
Panke 13

which the IO is based. In these meetings, regional positions are developed by

member states. The state holding the RIO chair has not only obligations in respect
to the organization of group coordination meetings but also incentive to voice the
regional position in subsequent IO negotiations. Thus, according to hypothesis 4,
states holding the RIO chair are more likely to voice a regional position than a
national one in international negotiations.
In addition to these incentives, resources could also impact the likelihood that a
state voices a regional position in IO negotiations. Deciding whether to voice a
regional or a national position is not capacity neutral. Rather, the former requires
greater financial and staff capacity than the latter. The state that commits itself to
push the RIO position in international negotiations needs to maintain a channel of
communication with the other RIO member states in order to flexibly adapt the
regional position to the evolution of international negotiation dynamics. In addi-
tion, the state voicing a regional position in the formal IO negotiation arena is
often also using its financial and staff capacities to promote the regional position in
informal venues, such as coffee breaks, bilateral meetings, and diplomatic recep-
tions. Finally, hypothesis 5 expects that an increase in financial resources and an
increase in the diplomatic size of a state increases the likelihood that it negotiates
on behalf of an RIO in IO negotiations.

Empirical analysis and discussion

The independent variables are operationalized as follows: Data on government
effectiveness (hypothesis 1) was provided by the World Bank, capturing the per-
ceived quality of public services, civil service and degree of independence, quality
of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of government com-
mitment.31 The information on the variable IO size (hypothesis 2), which captures
the number of IO members participating in the international negotiations under
scrutiny, for each of the IOs in the dataset, was obtained through the respective IO
home pages and negotiation protocols or reports (accessed October 2013).
Hypothesis 3 focuses on the number of RIO memberships a state holds. These
data were obtained through the respective RIO home pages (accessed December
2014). Data for which states hold RIO chair positions and for how long (hypoth-
esis 4) were collected based on the respective home pages of the RIOs in the dataset
(accessed October 2013). Financial capacities (hypothesis 5) are measured by the
natural logarithm of gross domestic product (GDP) covering the years 2008–2012
(in million US$, based on current US$), and the data stem from the World Bank.32
Finally, diplomatic staff capacities (also hypothesis 5) capture the number of

31. Daniel Kaufmann, Aart Kraay, and Massimo Mastruzzi, “Governance matters VIII: Governance
indicators for 1996–2008,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3106, World Bank,
Washington, D.C., 2009.
The index ranges from –2.5 to 2.5 (http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/worldwide-governance-
indicators). For descriptive statistics, see Appendix.
32. Accessible under http://data.worldbank.org/indicator
14 International Journal 0(0)

diplomats posted in New York per state as a proxy for the diplomatic capacities of
states.33 The data stem from the United Nations (UN) bluebooks. In addition to
the variables stemming from the hypotheses, the models on the probability of
remaining silent also control for financial and socio-economic capacities.
Whereas financial capacities capture the economic power of a country (log GDP
in billion US$, see above), socio-economic capacities capture the level of socio-
economic development in a country. It is measured by GDPpc, the data of which
also stem from the World Bank. The descriptive statistics as well as a correlation
table are provided in Tables A3 and A4 in the Appendix.
The dependent variable of this study, the negotiation behaviour of RIO member
states, has two empirical expressions: 0, 1, and 2. (See also the third section,
“Regionalized international negotiations.”) When a state is member of an IO
but remains silent in a negotiation, this behaviour is coded with 0, whereas 1
and 2 indicate that the country in question has made a formal speech in the IO
negotiation. When the speech made is national in character, it is coded with 1. If
the speech is regional in character, as the state explicitly speaks on behalf of the
RIO, it is coded with 2. The dependent variable data are of count nature and have
ordered response variables (0, 1, and 2). As states are often silent in international
negotiations,34 a zero-inflation model is suitable, as this allows us to capture
whether or not a state speaks up at all or remains silent in a given negotiation.
Because of the ordered nature of the variable of interest (no position voiced,
national position voiced, regional position voiced), zero-inflated ordered probit
models are estimated.
Table 2 presents the empirical findings of the regression analysis. The upper part
of the regression table captures whether states voice regional rather than national
positions, and the lower part of the table captures the probability of states not
voicing any position at all but remaining silent.
The regression analysis reveals that, consistent with the expectation of hypoth-
esis 1, an increase in government effectiveness reduces the likelihood of states being
totally silent in IO negotiations. The covariate for government effectiveness is
robustly negative in all models (1, 4, and 5 of Table 2) but highly significant
only in models 1 and 5. Models 4 and 5 include financial and socio-economic
capacities, respectively, as control variables to check for the robustness of the
effect of government effectiveness. The lack of significance in model 4 is because
the correlation between government effectiveness and socio-economic capacities
exceeds 0.7 and brings about problems of multicollinearity. (Nevertheless, model 4

33. Despite extensive data collecting efforts, we could, unfortunately, not obtain data on how many
diplomats each of the 193 states had posted at each of the IO headquarter locations for the entire
dataset. Especially smaller states do not provide such information, and it is not the case that all IOs
provide diplomatic information such as the UN does in the bluebook. As many of the IOs in the
dataset are based in New York, we use the information collected from the UN bluebooks as a proxy
for the overall diplomatic staff resources of each country.
34. Panke, Unequal Actors in Equalising Institutions; Panke, “Absenteeism in the General Assembly of
the United Nations”; and Panke, “Speech is silver, silence is golden?”
Table 2. Zero-inflated Ordered Probit regressions.
Panke

model 1 model 2 model 3 model 4 model 5

IO size 0.002*** 0.002*** 0.002*** 0.002*** 0.002***

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
number of RIO memberships 0.032*** 0.031*** 0.040*** 0.033*** 0.050***
(0.006) (0.006) (0.007) (0.006) (0.008)
RIO chair position 3.329*** 3.327*** 3.293*** 3.327*** 3.281***
(0.133) (0.133) (0.127) (0.133) (0.127)
financial capacities 0.165*** 0.167*** 0.044** 0.166*** 0.047**
(0.007) (0.007) (0.017) (0.007) (0.018)
diplomatic staff capacities 0.005*** 0.005*** 0.006*** 0.005*** 0.006***
(0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001)
inflate – probability of being silent
government effectiveness 0.137** 0.070 0.132***
(0.042) (0.062) (0.028)
socio-economic capacities 0.000*** 0.000
(0.000) (0.000)
financial capacities 0.266*** 0.271***
(0.017) (0.017)
Constant 1.046*** 1.117*** 0.649*** 1.082*** 0.736***
(0.082) (0.089) (0.125) (0.089) (0.124)
cut 1 1.462*** 1.479*** 0.712*** 1.465*** 0.640***
(0.055) (0.055) (0.130) (0.056) (0.136)
cut 2 3.376*** 3.394*** 2.683*** 3.380*** 2.637***
(0.065) (0.065) (0.114) (0.066) (0.118)
Observations 20099 19943 20306 19821 20099
BIC 21247.976 21041.901 21258.067 21001.966 21169.369
LL 10579.400 10476.398 10584.400 10451.510 10535.142
Clustered standard errors in parentheses with *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001
15
16 International Journal 0(0)

is reported here in the interest of comprehensiveness.) Hence, we can infer from the
regression analysis that the more government capacity a state possesses, the more
likely that state is to develop a position that the national delegate can present in the
IO. Consequently, states are more likely to voice either a national or a regional
position in international negotiations when they do not grapple with shortages of
domestic coordination capacity. For instance, countries with very low levels of
government effectiveness, such as Rwanda and Suriname, are silent more than
90% of the time. By contrast, countries with high levels of government effective-
ness, such as Canada, Japan, and Austria, encounter less often situations in which
their delegates cannot speak up in international negotiations because they did not
receive instructions on what position to put forward. They are, therefore, more
active in IO negotiations. This finding is consistent with the literature on absen-
teeism in IOs and negotiation participation more generally35 and accounts for the
large number of zeros in the dataset.
Hypotheses 2 to 5 theorized conditions under which states are likely to adopt
regional rather than national positions in international negotiations. Given that
the variables do not correlate strongly (below the 0.7 threshold), all independent
variables of the hypotheses are placed in each of the upper parts of the regression
models at once. (All findings remain equally robust and significant when the two
variables that correlate at 0.6—staff capacities and financial capacities—are placed
in separate models.) The empirical analysis lends support to most of the
hypotheses.
Consistent with hypothesis 2, an increase in the number of participants in IO
negotiations increases the probability that a state articulates a regional position.
This finding is robustly significant in all five models presented in Table 2. To
provide an example in larger IOs, such as the International Labour
Organization (ILO), the number of regional positions put forward is considerably
higher, 49, than in the much smaller dependent variable International Whaling
Commission (IWC), 4, which has fewer member states. This indicates that the
extent to which international negotiations are regionalized varies between negoti-
ation arenas; states are more inclined to voice RIO positions in larger IOs, in which
a tour de table of national positions would take a very long time and hamper the
efficiency of IO negotiations.
The third hypothesis also focused on state incentives to voice regional rather
than national positions in international negotiations. The empirical evidence does
not support hypothesis 3, as the sign points robustly in the wrong direction. States
that have joined an increasing number of RIOs do not have higher propensities to

35. Habeeb, Power and Tactics in International Negotiation; Victor Kremenyuk, ed., International
Negotiation: Analysis, Approaches, Issues (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991); Peter Berton, Hiroshi
Kimura, and William Zartman, eds., International Negotiation: Actors, Structure/Process, Values
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Alain Plantey, International Negotiation in the Twenty-First
Century (New York: Routledge, 2007); Rikard Bengtsson, Ole Elgstr€ om, and Jonas Tallberg,
“Silencer or amplifier? The European Union presidency and the Nordic countries,” Scandinavian
Political Studies 27, no. 3 (2004): 311–334; and Panke, “Speech is silver, silence is golden?”
Panke 17

voice regional positions in international negotiations. Instead, models 1–5 suggest

that the probability that a state negotiates on behalf of an RIO rather than voice a
national position declines as the number of RIO memberships the state holds
increases. This counterintuitive finding might be due to states guarding their
own—ultimately limited—capacities cautiously. States that are members of
many RIOs do not speak up for all of them at once but, at most, for one RIO
in one international negotiation. Furthermore, the significantly negative finding of
the regression analysis might indicate that states with many RIO memberships
could even engage in free-riding behaviour when they have more opportunities
to do so and when they can better diffuse potential sanctions for free riding.
Hypothesis 4 formulated an institutional incentive for states to become active
on behalf of their RIO: states should be more likely to voice a regional position
while they hold the office as RIO chair. Table 2 lends support to this expectation.
Thus, an institutionalized division of labour is at play in RIOs, according to
which the state chairing the internal RIO meetings should also represent the
RIO position (if there is one) in the international negotiation arena. While respec-
tive states hold the chair position in an RIO, the probability that they become
active for their RIO and voice a regional position increases. For instance, while
New Zealand was operating as chair for the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) meetings
in 2012, it subsequently voiced the PIF positions in the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT)
negotiations.
Finally, resources matter as well. Expressing regional positions and negotiating
for their RIO in IOs is capacity intensive for the states concerned. All five models
in Table 2 show positively robust and significant covariates for both types of
capacities. This finding is consistent with hypothesis 5 and lends support to the
expectation that the more financial and diplomatic staff capacities a state pos-
sesses, the higher the chances that this state articulates a regional position in an
IO. Thus, states with very small diplomatic bodies, such as Nauru or Tuvalu, or
with slim budgets, such as Suriname or Sudan, are considerably less inclined to
invest their limited resources for voicing regional positions than countries with
larger diplomatic bodies (e.g., Japan or Brazil) and larger budgets (e.g.,
Germany or India).
Similar to other pieces of comparative IO scholarship,36 this paper is not based
on the universe of IOs but a subsample, which has implications for the generali-
zation of the findings. Because of the nature of negotiation information needed,
this paper’s insights relate to IOs that are active and that exceed a certain degree of
transparency in negotiations. For these types of IOs, the analysis of this paper

36. Michael Zürn, Martin Binder, and Matthias Ecker-Ehrhardt, “International authority and its
politicization,” International Theory 4 (2012): 69–106; Tallberg et al, The Opening Up of
International Organizations; Liesbet Hooghe, Gary Marks, Tobias Lenz, Jeanine Bezuijen, Besir
Ceka, and Svet Derderyan, Measuring International Authority: A Postfunctionalist Theory of
Governance, Volume III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); and Tobias Lenz and Lora
Anne Viola, “Legitimacy and institutional change in international organisations: A cognitive
approach,” Review of International Studies 43, no. 5 (2017): 939–961.
18 International Journal 0(0)

suggests that states are important agents of the regionalization of international

relations that we currently observe. Yet, this process is not driven by all states to
the same extent. States are inclined to push RIO positions in IO negotiations when
they expect benefits from doing so, which is the case when IOs are large in size. In
addition, states are motivated to voice regional positions in international negotia-
tions when they have a formal role in the RIO with respect to organizing coordi-
nation meetings between RIO member states. Also, resources matter for a state’s
decision to voice a regional position. When more diplomats are available and when
the budgets are larger, a state is better able to perform the extra legwork and acting
on behalf of the RIO. At the same time, states are sensitive to the opportunity
structures provided by multiple RIO memberships. If states can save capacities and
rely on the negotiation efforts of fellow RIO members, they are less inclined to
voice a regional position themselves.

Conclusions
International relations have traditionally been the prerogative of states. In the
overwhelming majority of IOs, RIOs cannot acquire full membership status. In
some IOs, RIOs can register as observers and gain access to international nego-
tiations, but this comes without voting competencies and usually also without
speaking rights in IO negotiations. Nevertheless, RIOs can play an important
role in international negotiations taking place in IOs, as case studies have already
evidenced. Yet, up to now we did not know that the regionalization of interna-
tional negotiations is driven by states. Irrespective of an RIO formal status, its
member states can and do speak on its behalf in international negotiations. In fact,
in more than 8 percent of all speeches made, RIO positions were expressed. Yet,
the regionalization of negotiations is not brought about by all states to an equal
extent.
The analysis demonstrated that states are more likely to make active use of their
IO memberships and participate in negotiations by making formal speeches when
they possess greater governance capacity. If states cannot develop national posi-
tions for all agenda items on an IO’s negotiation table, their diplomats are more
often silent and express neither national nor regional positions in international
negotiations. By contrast, states with higher levels of governance capacities are less
often silent in IOs but may voice either national or RIO positions. This choice is
driven by incentives and resources of the states in question.
This paper shows that states are more likely to negotiate on behalf of RIOs
when the IO in question is larger, as voicing group positions instead of national
ones reduces the total number of positions articulated and thereby increases the
efficiency of multilateral negotiations. Hence, the negotiation arena’s character-
istics form an important incentive structure for states’ decisions about whether to
voice regional instead of national positions. A second important incentive for
states to turn into agents of regionalization in IOs is linked to the formal role
Panke 19

they have in RIOs. Whenever a state serves as RIO chair, the likelihood increases
that this particular state voices a regional position.
In addition to these incentives, state resources also play a role. Expressing a
regional instead of a national position is not resource neutral for the actors
involved. Negotiating on behalf of an RIO often requires several RIO coordina-
tion meetings in the course of IO negotiations in order to update the negotiation
position and/or strategy in IO negotiation dynamics. This requires resources that
states could save if they articulate a national position instead of a regional one.
Accordingly, this paper shows that states are less likely to voice an RIO position in
an IO when they possess lower diplomatic staff capacity and slimmer financial
budgets.
The regionalization of international relations that we witness today can have
important consequences not only for the dynamics of international interactions
but also for outcomes of IO policy-making. Case studies have already demonstrat-
ed that when RIOs are active in IOs through their member states, they often leave
regional imprints on international negotiation outcomes.37 For instance, The
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and CARICOM are
both affected by gun-related violence and therefore placed great emphasis on
including ammunition into the ATT.38 The two RIOs managed to achieve this
goal, thereby substantively altering the negotiation outcome.39 To give another
example, in the negotiations on the Rome Treaty on Nutrition, the EU single-
handedly pre-empted attempts of African states and RIOs to include the phrase
that “trade forms an obstacle to food systems” into the Rome Treaty of 2014.40
Rather than framing trade as having negative implications for food systems, the

37. For example, Ginsberg, “Conceptualizing the European Union as an international actor,” 429–454;
Oberthür, “The EU as an international actor,” 641–659; Peterson and Smith, “The EU as a global
actor,” 195–215; Monar, “The EU as an international actor,” 395–415; Hettne and Soderbaum,
“Civilian power or soft imperialism?” 535–552; S€ oderbaum and Langenhove, “Introduction: The
EU as a global actor and the role of interregionalism,” 249–262; da Conceiç~ ao-Heldt, “Taking
actors’ preferences and the institutional setting seriously,” 279–299; Delreux, “The European Union
in international environmental negotiations,” 231–248; Laatikainen and Smith, The European Union
at the United Nations; Smith, “Speaking with one voice?” 113–137; Groenleer and van Schaik,
“United we stand?” 969–998; Delreux, “The EU as a negotiator in multilateral chemicals
negotiations,” 1069–1086; Kissach, Pursuing Effective Multilateralism; Blavoukos and
Bourantonis, “The EU’s performance in the United Nations Security Council,” 731–742;
Delreux, The EU as International Environmental Negotiator; Kissach, “The performance of the
European Union in the International Labour Organization,” 651–665; Miller, “The European
Union at the United Nations”; Kissach, “The EU in the negotiations of a UN General Assembly
resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty,” 103–121; van Schaik and Schunz,
“Explaining EU activism and impact in global climate politics,” 169–186; Wouters, Bruynickx,
Basu, and Schunz, The European Union and Multilateral Governance; Smith, “The European
Union and the politics of legitimization at the United Nations,” 63–80; and Robert Kissack,
“Labour standards: An historical account of the EU involvement with(in) the ILO,” 75–93.
38. Diana Panke, Stefan Lang, and Anke Wiedemann, Regional Actors in Multilateral Negotiations:
Active and Successful? (London: ECPR Press, 2018).
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
20 International Journal 0(0)

EU successfully pushed a positive frame in this respect, and the final Treaty states
that “trade is a key element in achieving food security and nutrition.”41
Whether and how the regionalization of international relations will develop in
the future, whether this leads to an increased importance of RIOs over time, and
whether this phenomenon has lasting changes on the effectiveness and legitimacy
of international negotiations is an open question, which is worthwhile to be studied
in future work.
Diana Panke is Professor of Political Science with a Chair in Multi-Level
Governance at University of Freiburg.

Funding Statement
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft PA 1257/3-1.

ORCID iD
Diana Panke https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4434-1478

Author’s Biography
Diana Panke is a Professor of Political Science with a Chair in ‘Multi-Level
Governance’ at University of Freiburg. Her research interests include institutional
design of international organizations, international negotiations, multilateral
diplomacy, international norms, comparative regionalism, small states in interna-
tional affairs, governance beyond the nation state, European Union politics as well
as compliance and legalization. In these fields, she has published eight monographs
(amongst them BUP, MUP, ECPR Press, Sage) and more than 50 peer-reviewed
journal articles (in outlets including RIO, BJPIR, EJIR, IPSR, CPS, IP, IR,
JCMS, or JEPP).

41. Ibid.
Panke 21

Appendix

Table A1. List of IOs.

IO

ATT Arms Trade Treaty

CD Conference on Disarmament
ECOSOC Economic and Social Council
FAO Food and Agricultural Organization
HRC Human Rights Council
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
IBRD/IMF International Bank for Development and Reconstruction
ICCAT International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna
ILO International Labour Organisation
IOM International Organisation for Migration
ITTO International Tropical Timber Organization
IWC International Whaling Commission
NASCO North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation
OPCW Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
SC Security Council
UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UNEP United Nations Environmental Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNGA C1 United Nations General Assembly, Disarmament and International
Security
UNGA C2 United Nations General Assembly, Economic and Financial Issues
UNGA C3 United Nations General Assembly, Social, Humanitarian & Cultural Issues
UNGA C4 United Nations General Assembly, Special Political and Decolonization
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
WHO World Health Organisation
WIPO World Intellectual Property Organisation WTO World Trade
Organisation

Table A2. RIO positions expressed.

RIO regional positions expressed

ALBA 5
Arab League 11
ASEAN 33
AU 15
CARICOM 36
CELAC 5
CIS 9
(continued)
22 International Journal 0(0)

Table A2. Continued.

RIO regional positions expressed

CoE 6
CSTO 2
EAC 1
ECOWAS 8
EFTA 1
EU 211
GCC 10
IGAD 2
Mercosur 10
NATO 1
NC 9
OAS 1
OSCE 1
PIF 7
SAARC 1
SADEC 16
SCO 1
UNASUR 6

Table A3. Descriptive statistics.

Variable Observations Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

number of participants in IO 21,195 1.392.098 5.366.841 7 223

number of RIO memberships 21,195 5.188.535 1.934.921 0 11
RIO chair position 21,195 .009389 .0964432 0 1
financial capacities 20,448 3.585.045 2.487.452 4.749.041 107.074
diplomatic staff capacities 20,88 1.426.351 1.682.905 0 146
government effectiveness 20,509 .0429857 .9929987 2.450.037 2.429.651
socio-economic capacities 20,102 13895.42 21092.42 1.868.717 193892.3
 Panke

Table A4. Correlation matrix.

number of number
participants of RIO RIO chair financial diplomatic government socio-economic
in IO memberships position capacities staff capacities effectiveness capacities

number of participants in IO 1
number of RIO memberships 0.0137 1
RIO chair position 0.0021 0.0023 1
financial capacities 0.0591 0.2233 0.0607 1
diplomatic staff capacities 0.0562 0.1671 0.0176 0.6389 1
government effectiveness 0.0309 0.3494 0.0610 0.4485 0.2360 1
socio-economic capacities 0.0306 0.2061 0.0384 0.4586 0.2564 0.7357 1
23