Institutional Design of Intergovernmental Organizations: Cooperation, Vitality, and Evolution

Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) are critical institutions in the international system through which states cooperate and compete. Much scholarship has examined the role and operation of IGOs, but many questions about how they facilitate cooperation, their vitality, and their evolution remain. The functions of IGOs are impacted by their institutional design, which then affects operation and vitality. IGO’s perform their roles through multiple mechanisms that facilitate state interaction. IGOs enable states to overcome credibility issues and cooperate. The institutional design of IGOs, their membership, their resources, and their institutionalization, all impact the functioning of the IGO. I examine empirically how joint membership in more institutionalized IGOs impacts general cooperation between member states. I then test how institutionalization affects the survival of IGOs comprised of non-democratic members. Finally, I examine IGO succession using a novel sample of 44 IGO pairs and show that institutional design evolves through successor institutions. These analyses provide evidence demonstrating the importance of institutional design on the functioning, vitality, and evolution of IGOs and contributes to our understanding of the important role that IGOs play in the international system.