Responding to unilateral challenges to international institutions

How do international institutions respond to unilateral challenges by its member states, such as non-compliance, blocking of reforms, renegotiation requests, or withdrawal? This paper argues that this response depends on a trade-off between the risks of not accommodating the challenge, which could disrupt cooperation gains, and the risks of accommodating, which may embolden future challengers. International institutions aim to minimize costs, accommodating challenges when cooperation losses are high, and resisting when the risk of contagion is significant. When both risks are large, they face an “accommodation dilemma” and politically charged negotiations with the challenging country. We evaluate this framework with a comparative case study of fourteen referendum-endorsed challenges to international institutions, analyzing cases that varied in cooperation gains at risk and contagion risks. The analysis shows that across a range of different issues and institutions, the framework helps us better understand why member states respond differently to such challenges and why some challenges are resolved easily whereas others become conflictual. By developing a widely applicable theoretical framework and a versatile coding scheme, the paper contributes to a better understanding of how international institutions respond to contestation and the populist and nationalist backlash against global governance.