Survival of international organizations and institutional complexity: the more overlap, the merrier?

• Grant number: 23/13558-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2024
• End date: December 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Cristiane de Andrade Lucena Carneiro
• Grantee: João Pedro Glória Martins
• Host Institution: Instituto de Relações Internacionais (IRI). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Faced with the crisis of the liberal international order, two major concerns arise regarding the future and sustainability of the current global governance structure: the growth of international institutional complexity and the dynamics of survival and death of international organizations (IOs). Since these two characteristics have not yet been clearly related by the literature on international relations, this research aims to investigate the nature of this interaction. Thus, would the increase in institutional complexity, i.e., the overlap of membership and issue areas, be a factor that increases or decreases the hazard of a given international organization failing? To do this, a survival analysis, also known as event history analysis, will be conducted to measure the impact of the independent variable "institutional complexity" on the dependent variable "IO survival" through a Cox regression. It is expected, therefore, to quantitatively test a hypothesis emerging in complexity studies that institutional overlap may not be an inherently negative phenomenon.