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Should I stay or should I go? State Exits from Regional Organizations

DFG-Exit-Team2024

DFG-Exit-Team2024

Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) 

Project Leadership: Prof. Dr. Diana Panke 

Research Associates: Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi 

Student Assistants: Christina Augustin, Christina Görisch, Rouven Harms, Maarten van Melis, Tobias F. Sauer   

Abstract 

The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (EU) recently made headlines and attracted a lot of public and academic attention. BREXIT is not the only case in which a member state has left a regional organization (RO). Between 1945 and 2022, there were 55 withdrawals from ROs. Analyzing these withdrawals is important because departures can affect international cooperation and potentially lead to further disintegration, which could also challenge the current multilateral world order. 

 

Not all states are equally inclined to leave ROs. In fact, exits from ROs are mainly driven by smaller states. While some ROs experienced multiple exits (e.g. Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa), others experienced only one exit (e.g. the EU) and still others never lost members (e.g. MERCOSUR). Important findings on state withdrawals from international organizations (IOs) do not apply to ROs. Therefore, we do not yet know why states leave ROs and why some ROs are more affected by exits than others, although understanding exits is of great importance to society and academia alike. 

 

This project therefore aims to uncover the reasons for the phenomenon of state exits from ROs by answering the following research questions: 

  1. Why are some states more prone to leave ROs than others? 
  2. Why are some ROs more prone to state exits than others? 

 

Monographies

Journal articles (with peer review)

 

Chapters in edited volumes

 

Conference contributions

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2025): Exit from Regime Complexity? Regional International Organizations Under Scrutiny. Paper presented at the 66th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, March 2025, Chicago, IL.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2025): What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger? Exit-Related Challenges and the Resilience of International Organizations. Paper presented at the 66th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, March 2025, Chicago, IL.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2025): Escalating Contestations in Regional Organizations: Voicing Severe Dissatisfaction, Exit Threats and Exits. Paper presented at the DFG Project Workshop ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go? State Exits from Regional Organizations’, January 2025, Berlin, Germany.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2024): Exit-Related Contestations of International Organizations in the Face of Polycrisis. Paper presented at the 29th Triennial Convention of the German Political Science Association, September 2024, Göttingen, Germany.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2024): International Organizations in Turbulent Times: Exit-Related Challenges from Within. Paper presented at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research, August 2024, Dublin.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2024): Resilience or Decline? Contestations of Community Norms in Regional International Organizations. Paper presented at the 65th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, April 2024, San Francisco, CA.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2023): After the Pink Tide Ended: How Right-Wing Governments Challenge Left-Leaning Regional International Organizations in Latin America. Paper presented at the kick-off workshop of the ERC-project ‘The Far Right and International Organizations’, November 2023, Frankfurt, Germany.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2023): 'Tomorrow I’ll Be Gone': Exit Threats as Contestations of Regional Organizations. Paper presented at the 16th Pan-European Conference on International Relations of the European International Studies Association, September 2023, Potsdam, Germany.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2023): Contribution to the Roundtable: Contestation in Prism: Patterns of Norm Evolution, Consolidation, and Decay. Paper presented at the 16th Pan-European Conference on International Relations of the European International Studies Association, September 2023, Potsdam, Germany.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2023): Time to Leave! Studying State Exits from Regional International Organizations. Paper presented at the Conference on International Relations of the German Political Science Association, June 2023, Friedrichshafen, Germany.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2023): Between Crisis and Revival: The Effects of State Exits on Regional Organizations. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Working Group on European and Regional Studies of the German Political Science Association, May 2023, Saarbrücken, Germany.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2023): Ending Cooperation. A Comparative Analysis of State Exits from Regional International Organizations. Paper presented at the 18th Biennial Conference of the European Union Studies Association, May 2023, Pittsburgh, PA.

  • Diana Panke (2023): Populist and Nationalist Challenges All the Way? Why Member States Withdraw from Regional Organizations. Paper presented at the 18th Biennial Conference of the European Union Studies Association, May 2023, Pittsburgh, PA.

  • Diana Panke, Lukas Grundsfeld, Pawel Tverskoi (2023): Ending Cooperation: A Comparative Analysis of State Exits from Regional International Organizations. Paper presented at the 64th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, March 2023, Montréal, Canada.

We thank our former research assistants Léonie Berton, Antonia Damm, Luise Hartmann, Luise Kienel, Moritz Pohlner, Tim Rauschenberger, Mirjam Schellinger, Martin Stoll and Tim Vent for their valuable contributions to this project.