In defence of assessed contributions: Explaining International Organizations’ sanctions against arrears

A steady flow of resources is indispensable for international organizations (IOs). While many IOs have shifted to project-based and voluntary funding modalities, statutory membership fees in the form of assessed contributions continue to constitute an essential part of many IOs’ funding. They are even making a comeback in some organizations, such as the WHO and the African Union. However, assessed contributions are often not paid on time. In dealing with these arrears, IOs exhibit strikingly different reactions. Some have automatic suspension mechanisms; others leave considerable room for case-by-case and politicized reactions. Theorizing these sanction regimes as expressions of IO resilience, this paper unpacks the variation in how IOs use sanctions against non-payment of assessed contributions. We argue that differences are rooted in the budgetary resilience of IOs and the member states’ contestation of IO norms. We develop two distinct causal mechanisms that build a theory of the strength of reaction to unpaid assessed contributions. The empirical part of the paper applies the argument to four IOs with global, European, and African membership. This comparative approach involving organizations in the Global North and South allow us to identify generalizable dynamics of IO resourcing and resilience. This paper contributes a new conceptualization of IO resilience to the extant literature and is innovative in comparing sanctions for arrears across cases.