International Organizations and the Management of Regime Complexity: Ignorance, Confrontation, Coordination, and Cooperation

Given the growth of regime complexity, regional international organizations (RIOs) increasingly have member states and policy competencies in common. If such RIOs act concerning the same policy without managing their overlaps, this can bring about negative effects for both. Yet, RIOs faced with overlaps have no tied hands but can respond to the corresponding regional regime complexity in different manners. They can ignore overlaps or actively manage them by resorting to confrontation, coordination or cooperation. Ignorance is not geared towards preventing costs arising from overlaps such as wasted resources or duplicated efforts. Confrontation leads to an unequal distribution of costs and benefits to the advantage of the first mover. Coordination involves information exchanges or consultation and is thus suited to avoid negative effects from incompatible policies, while cooperation allows both RIOs to benefit from synergies, for instance based on joint activities. Hence, we address a series of research questions: Why do organizations differ in their responses to overlaps with one another? Why do some opt for ignorance while others choose confrontation or engage in collaboration? We put forward a novel selection model that captures the role of saliency, ideological fit and uncertainties at three junctures, which influences whether RIOs with common members and policy competencies opt for ignorance, confrontation, coordination or cooperation when addressing the corresponding regional regime complexity. Empirically, we map the trajectories of regional regime complexity between 1945 and 2020 for 73 RIOs based on a novel dataset that we compiled, which shows that the phenomenon evolved according to distinct geographic patterns and today has become a prevalent feature in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. In addition, we probe the plausibility of the selection model through comparative qualitative case studies on how different overlapping RIOs manage regional regime complexity. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this shows that overlapping African and American RIOs do not per se resort to confrontation, while European ones assume more collaborative approaches, and Asian RIOs are characterized by ignorance. It also demonstrates that RIOs do not have tied hands but have agency in whether and how to address overlaps and to compromise, preserve, or increase the effectiveness of regional governance. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to addressing overlaps. Rather, depending on the configuration of saliency, ideological fit, and uncertainty in the dyad, RIOs resort to ignorance, confrontation, or collaboration in the form of coordination or cooperation. These findings have important implications for the effectiveness of regional governance under conditions of regime complexity. Therefore the study complements state-of-the-art research on regime complexity, comparative regionalism and inter-organizational cooperation and contributes to a better understanding of the transformation of contemporary regional and global governance.