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Inken Von Borzyskowski and Felicity Vabulas, "Exit from International Organizations: Costly Negotiation for Institutional Change” (Cambridge UP, 2025)
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- [00:02]
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Eleonora Matiacci
hello and welcome to the New Books Network. I'm your host, Eleonora Matiacci, an associate professor of Political science at Amherst College. Today I'm here with Professor Felicity Vabilas and Professor Inken von Borsikowski. They are, respectively, the Blanche Sever Associate professor of International Studies at Pepperdine University and a Professor of International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University. Their new book is called Exit from International Costly Negotiations for Institutional Change. The book was published in 2025 by Cambridge University Press and the book just won the 2026 Chadwick Alger Prize for Best Book in International Organizations from the International Studies Associations. Wow. Professors Vabilas and von Borsikonski, congratulations on your award. Thank you for joining us and welcome.
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Professor Inken von Borsikowski
Thanks for having us.
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Professor Felicity Vabilas
Thank you so much. We're happy to be here.
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Eleonora Matiacci
Your book asks why states leave international organizations, and in just the last few years, we've watched many instances of that. Think about Britain leaving the eu, Russia getting expelled from the Council of Europe and other bodies, and the United States walking out of the who, UNESCO, the Paris Agreement, just to mention a few. What's the story that everyone is telling about these exits and where does this story go wrong?
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Professor Inken von Borsikowski
It's a great starter question, Eleanor. So, yeah, there's different views of IO exit that have really emerged over the last decade, and they include narratives about the causes of exit, the effects of exit, and also the frequency of exit over time and how that has developed. So maybe I should briefly tell you about these three sort of narratives and then how our book really casts doubt on those and puts forward its own sort of theory and documentation of the evidence. So in terms of the causes of exit, some people understand IO exit as backlash against international institutions and is caused by rising populism and rising nationalism. In terms of frequency, some Observers claim that IO Exit has really increased over time, especially the last 10, 15 years, and signifies a sea change and commitment to multilateral organizations and institutions after really what was for decades sort of a move towards more integration, more globalization, more cooperation. And then last, in terms of the effects, some really worry that exits pose a threat to continued international cooperation and also to the health and sort of very existence of these international organizations. So those are what Felicity and I would call some of the conventional understandings of IO exit. And our book corrects all three of these conventional understandings and then theorizes and documents what we think is a better and more generalizable account of state exiting international organizations. So our book, Sort of on the Frequency of Exit, says that we are correcting the view of exit as increasing in recent years. In contrast, we document with this new data set, the IO exit data set, that exit has really been quite a regular foreign policy strategy that member states have used for more than a century. So our first case is from 1914. So in absolute terms, just counting the exits over time, it has not increased in the last 10, 15 years. And even more so, really, when we're thinking about this in relative terms, taking into account the number of new international organizations and also the growth of member states in these international organizations, it has definitely not increased between 1914 and 2022. Then, on the causes, Felicity and I correct the view that I.O. exit is widely occurring because of this backlash against globalization or because of rises in nationalism and populism. We test for these alternative explanations with various measures, but we don't find support for them in terms of statistical evidence and the clear significant correlation in the timeframe from 1975 onwards to 2022, where we then handed in our book. So in contrast to that notion of nationalism and populism and globalization, we show that exit is often driven by power dynamics and really very specific sets of dissatisfaction with particular international organizations at the time. So we show, and this is really the main argument of the book, that exit is often used as a strategy to negotiate institutional policy change, either at the international level or at the domestic level. And then there's two pieces of evidence. I mean, there are many pieces of evidence throughout the book, but two that perhaps we would draw attention to are, in the case of withdrawal, we show that there's 2/3 of a withdrawals that are motivated by the desire to negotiate change. And in the case of suspension, actually all of the statements include requested changes that the violator state needs to make in order to return to the international organization. And then secondly, as another piece of evidence, many of these exits, both withdrawal and suspension, are temporary rather than terminal. So it's not a permanent departure away from international organizations. Instead, what we show is that half of of all the states that voluntarily withdraw return to the same organization later on, and 80% of suspension cases the states later on return to the same organization. So in short, just to wrap up, nationalism, populism, anti globalization sentiments are just two subtypes of dissatisfaction among many others. And an important contribution of the book is just to show that dissatisfaction, preference, divergence, drop drive many exits and take a very wide range of forms. And then maybe just the last one before I hand it over is in terms of the effects, because many people point to potential detrimental effects for the organizations themselves. Some of our previous articles have addressed that and show that actually it's quite a nuanced effect and that withdrawal does not cause iOS to die or dissolve or international cooperation necessarily to decline. So that's a much more nuanced picture. But I'm sure something that Felicity and I might get into more discussion with you towards the end of the podcast.
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Eleonora Matiacci
Yeah, I want to pick up on that right away, actually. So the conventional view of exits is that they signal that international organizations are weakening or even falling apart. But your book argues something that is almost the opposite, that exit is actually a sign that these institutions matter a lot, which I found counterintuitive. Walk us through what you argue.
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Professor Felicity Vabilas
Sure, you're absolutely right, Eleonora. So let me walk you through this. I think the best way to start is to think about the idea that some realist and legal scholarship suggests that I owe membership and therefore exit is inconsequential for international relations. And you're right that our book corrects that view. But let me first explain what this counter narrative entails. So some studies in the realist tradition claim that iOS have little effect on states. I think this scholarship is fairly well known the idea that iOS are epiphenomenal and that they simply reflect state interests empowered. So if that's true, right, that IO membership is not consequential, then exit should not have consequences either. And a lot of the reasoning that these scholars give is that in international relations there's no neutral or authoritative enforcement mechanism to make offending parties pay separately. Some international legal perspectives are a little bit more innocuous. But still suggest that IO exit may not have reputational or cooperative harm. And that comes from the understanding that exit is often something perceived as sort of regular or legal foreign policy, and therefore departure might not generate any costs. And relatedly, there's been a lot of work recently on international regime complexity. And this scholarship emphasizes that states have an increasing number of institutional options right in global politics. And because of all the overlaps between institutions, this regime complexity literature suggests that exit from 1 IO may not have consequences because states can sort of substitute their lost membership through other institutions. And so put differently, just because a state departs, an IO doesn't set a precedent for backing out of commitments because they can establish their reputation by cooperating in other institutions. They also might have multiple reputations. If we look at the reputation literature, meaning that backing out of one commitment in one IO might not affect unrelated issue areas. So those are sort of the counter stories that we refute. And so, by contrast, our book underscores that IO Exit has very clear reputational and cooperative consequences for both kinds of exit for withdrawal as well as suspension. And we explain that this is because iOS fundamentally operate as a hand tying, credible commitment device. And so outside actors, other states, the international community, might regard exit as a state backing out of an international commitment. And so those different actors, market analysts, other states may reduce their trust in that withdrawing state or that state that's getting suspended, or their ability to follow through on future commitments. And we measure this in a number of different ways. We document that exit is associated with a state getting a worse perception of political risk and investor confidence. And that's how reputational consequences vary. Or sorry, those, those reputational consequences vary based on states and iOS pre existing reputations. Right? So there's a lot of heterogeneity there in terms of those cooperative consequences. Exit reduces the chance of a state being elected to the UN Security Council as a non permanent member. And it also makes other states less likely to sign future treaties with them. So a host of different cooperative and reputational consequences. So while some of those counter narratives worry that, you know, iOS don't matter without a centralized enforcement mechanism, our study really shows that I.O. exit can help uphold international rules through what we call diffuse enforcement mechanisms, right. That flow through effect of other states and market actors caring about the reputation and the cooperative ability of that state.
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Eleonora Matiacci
So walk us through the mechanism here a little bit, because you told us that I O's exits have clear reputational and practical consequences for states, because I OS work as credible commitment devices. But when a State threatens to leave an organization, what's the chain of events that follows inside that organization?
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Professor Inken von Borsikowski
Yeah, so let me try to tackle that. So big picture. So in general terms, right? So the process of exit usually starts with withdrawal threats or actual several threats in most instances, then follow sometimes actual withdrawal announcements, official notices, which usually lead to some sort of bargaining during the waiting period, and then in some cases actual leaving actual withdrawal. So let me talk about each of those steps in a little bit more detail. So withdrawal threats can just be a statement. And not all threats necessarily trigger reactions by the international organization staff or bureaucracy or even remaining member states. In our book, we've actually been quite conservative in how we code and how we count these threats of withdrawal. So in the book we count threats only if they were made by a member of the executive and if they were made in public so they can be observed. And this is because we think then these threats are more credible and also more plausible to actually come to fruition. Of course, this is quite conservative. And threats can also be made by individual lawmakers or members of parliament. So these can be meaningful. But such threats from individual legislators would first need to garner sufficient coalitions and support to really become more than cheap talk. So for example, if, like Rand Paul in the case of the US makes a statement about the US leaving some organization, that's certainly noteworthy and it may trigger alarm among many audiences, but it's not as credible as when the President of the US or a White House spokesperson makes the same statement. So that's threats. And usually we see several threats preceding any exit. If that exit actually happens, then these threats can be followed by withdrawal announcements. So these are the sort of official statements where the state submits official notice to leave the IO. And these announcements are often accompanied by a statement of grievances or dissatisfaction of what exactly would need to change in order for the state to avoid exit and stay in or potentially to return to the organization later on and after that announcement of withdrawal. Many organizations have waiting periods, so the states cannot leave overnight. But typically they must wait a specified time, which is often, but not in all organizations noted in the charter of these organizations. So the founding documents or the amendments to that, and we've documented that usually that waiting period is about one year, but it varies widely. It can be from very short period to several years waiting period. So for example, in a recent case, United Arab Emirates leaving OPEC, making the announcement of leaving OPEC 28 April, that became official on 1 May, so just three days later, but that's really an outlier. Most of these cases are a year plus plus of actually having to wait. And during that waiting period, leaving states are often required to continue to pay dues, make their financial contributions, and settle any kind of outstanding dues or other legal obligations that they have to the international organization. And so it is these threats and these kinds of announcements that then can trigger other member states and staff in the organization to really start to discuss whether they want to keep the state in, how they want to try to keep the state in, that might be dissatisfied with what's currently going on, or whether they will try to win them back afterwards. And I think our book has some really nice documentation of some of these negotiation dynamics that are going on after these announcements of threats and withdrawals. So there's a case that we have in chapter Felicity, help me out. You have, I think, five as the case study shifter of the US leaving the International Labor Organization. And so the US announced leaving in 1975, then actually left after the two year waiting period in 1977, came back in 1980. And after the announcement, there was really much diplomatic effort in discussions before summit meetings, during summit meetings, and also afterwards trying to address very specific requests that the US had made in order for changes in the IO. So often this negotiation really follows for making these changes. States are trying to lobby others for change. The ones who want to leave, and then other states who want the leaver to remain also lobby and try to build coalitions or either incentivize or persuade other states to potentially give in and make some of these changes. And then after this bargaining process, which can be very short or extended, it really depends on the case, and much of it really behind closed doors, states then must decide whether to follow through on their announcement and actually leave, or to rescind the threat or the announcement and stay in the organization. And so Felicity and I like to think of this as like a bargaining process that then can have certain outcomes. So bargaining can be successful in the sense that the state may then change its mind and decide to stay and remain in the organization. Or bargaining might fail in which the case may decide or, sorry, the state may decide to actually leave the international organization. And then even after exit, sometimes bargaining continues with changes inside the organization, lobbying efforts both by the leaver and by the remaining member states, which can motivate the state to return to the club. So maybe a state calculates that it has overplayed the hand and sort of the request for changes that it tried to push, or it sees that the Benefits of membership really are larger than the costs of being an outsider. So those would be sort of the usual chain of events. And again, this doesn't happen in every single exit case, but in many of them, that's what we see playing out across states.
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Eleonora Matiacci
Exit is a very complex process. I was getting tired, just, I can't imagine like leaving an organization, I would never do it. But international organization scholarship, what we read in classes that we take in graduate school and we, what we did on peer reviewed journals, usually that kind of scholarship focuses on why states join international organizations, why they comply. You go the opposite direction, you look at exits. You just walked us through this very complex process. Why does focusing on the question of exit matters? How does it change the way we should think about international cooperation more broadly?
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Professor Felicity Vabilas
Eleanor, you're right. You're starting in the exact same place that Inkin and I did when we began our research, right, to notice that researchers have extensively examined a session design, the performance of iOS. And you're right that until our research we didn't have a solidly grounded theory about why IO exits occur, what effects they have. And so when we started our analysis, we were convinced that if a state has a lot to consider when it joins an IO, then it must certainly be a significant event to decide not to participate. So it was, it was natural for us to think about all of these theories that, you know, we're so accustomed to in our classes and our scholarship about joining. And that was really helpful. But we also realized that exit is not just a mirror image or a reverse of accession. So let me walk you through that a little bit. I think the accession literature really helps us remember some, some important things. State join. States join iOS to derive a lot of benefits. And the list is really extensive, but things like centralization, information provision, signaling, credible commitments that we've already talked about. And this literature also reminds us that IO membership comes with costs, right? The decreased flexibility you're agreeing to, that restrictions on sovereignty and also free riding concerns. And so we really think about states joining iOS as a balance of those benefits and costs and it representing an equilibrium compromise, at least at the outset, from this diverse set of member states that often want different things. So in short, we think about IO membership as a trade off. IOS are not perfect, but some states conclude that it's better to be at the table than to be an outsider. But then turning this around, you asked us to sort of explain why centering the question on exit is important. I think that it makes us realize that, that IO equilibrium, if we will can be really tenuous. IOS that start out as positive sum may become really dissatisfying to some member states as their preferences diverge, as their power shifts and really as the iOS themselves evolve. And so we had to think a lot about that process of what do states do when they're discontent? The literature already goes through a number of different productive ways that states voice their discontent, right? Right through voting, using flexibility mechanisms, opt out procedures. But states aren't always successful at doing that. Institutions are sticky path dependent. Change is not easy for any of us. And so voicing dissent doesn't always generate desired institutional changes, particularly when you're an outlier state. And so when those voices,
- [22:53]
Professor Inken von Borsikowski
when that
- [22:53]
Professor Felicity Vabilas
voice effort and the attempt to change institutions from within fails, we look at this as states sometimes resorting to the process of IO exit as that sort of last ditch Hail Mary approach to invoke change. So threatening and even enacting exit and continuing to bargain afterward can accelerate a tipping point by presenting remaining states with this reality of a future without the exiting state, which could reduce the institutional benefits all round. So returning back, before I end here and turn it back over to a point I made earlier, there are a number of different ways that exit is very different from accession. So even when states are dissatisfied, even when they feel like they've exhausted their voice options internally, there's a number of different friction points that Inka and I have outlined, both at the domestic level and the international level that can actually prevent or inhibit or delay exit from happening, right? It's not an automatic thing. I think the rarity that we've already talked about or the infrequency underscores that. And so some of the hurdles that can keep states inside the IO mean that IO exit is not simply the reverse of accession. Four different things to think about here are states sunk costs. Right? States might be reluctant to exit or force other states to exit because they've invested substantial resources in, in establishing membership in the first place. So that sunk cost fallacy. Second, bureaucratic challenges are real. So on the one hand, vague rules can really complicate state action, but also really specific rules can make the process really complex if there are things like voting thresholds that need to be met, extensive waiting periods or other hurdles that create administrative burdens. Third, status quo bias. We're all humans, right? And the inertia of membership and sort of things just continuing on may override that dissatisfaction. And really here we pay a lot of attention to loss aversion theories, prospect theory, right? This idea that explains that states sometimes hold on to losing ventures much longer than rationality would predict. And last but not least, if we go back to Hirschman's Exit voice and loyalty framework, loyalty is important here. So states loyalty to the institution can also act as a break on the decision to exit.
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Eleonora Matiacci
I think it's a fascinating process that you describe and you really give us, you know, exit is not the reverse of accession. We can't just look at accession and understand what exit looks like. And I think the book is very convincing when he makes this point. Even so, we need to talk about the empirics, because the amount of work, the scope of the book is enormous. You have 198 states that you look at 534 organizations, more than 100 years of history. How did you build a data set like that? You just explained to us why it matters, that we know, we understand Exit, that we don't just apply the framework of accession to exit. But why did you build this data set to do that? In other words, what type of patterns only become visible when you zoom out that far?
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Professor Inken von Borsikowski
Yeah. So why we did that? I mean, I think part of it, I would go back and say data like, we can't make bricks without clay. You really need to understand the empirical landscape. And so we really needed comprehensive data to answer our research question, which is not just about Brexit or just one particular country's administration. Right. So our research field studies international organization as a general phenomenon. And so we really wanted to have generalizable answers. And we actually started out a little bit frustrated because when some of these really high profile exits happened in 2016 with Brexit or the 2020 Trump administration, the media and observers and think tanks were sometimes quite quick to draw fairly broad inference or conclusions using just a few data points and really a lot of recency bias. And so Felicity and I were skeptical that we should be really inferring things about our exit from just one or two anecdotes and really important high profile cases. And we were skeptical about just one or two anecdotes alone when we wanted to really build a full data set that we could just then tell the world something very systematic and very comprehensive and something consistent about exit from iOS, and we're also sort of skeptical of taking a sample. So at that point, then we were all in with trying to get something really comprehensive and sort of building on some of the earlier data efforts, we then built on that corpus. So that's why we did it. In terms of how we did it. The big point where we started out is that we used Factiva, which is sort of a meta search engine or like a newspaper clearinghouse of sorts, using the name of each international organization and different iterations, including the acronyms or sort of shorteners for these organizations. And we searched for media coverage of these exits. And originally we started out with data collection squarely focused on suspension, but then including words like departure, exit, et cetera in our search terms showed us that withdrawals are actually much more common than suspensions were. And media was a great place to start, we thought, because countries and international organizations are usually having press releases, issue press releases from the foreign offices, etc. When they announce exit, and media usually picks up on these press releases and moments in time. But then we went beyond just the media landscape and really supplemented media data in several ways. So one of the things we did is that we went through each of the international organization's website because oftentimes they actually have a landing page related to membership changes, where they list changes in their memberships. We scoured also their online archives and then sent copious emails to staff at international organizations, sort of like info at to try to get more information about membership changes. And then we also set up during our field work and during our interviews over the last few years, talks with IO staff to really get a more comprehensive picture and make sure we didn't miss out on particular cases of exits to sort of verify the list. And then last we relied on basic secondary literature and other peer reviewed journals and other books, case studies of these international organizations that were already circulating. And then maybe so that's why we did it and how we did it in terms of the pattern, sort of what we can only infer once we have this sort of bigger picture overview. So I think there's three Felicity and I would like to point out. One, as I mentioned early on, is that exit has been quite a regular feature. So many commentators were paying much attention to those recent exits and it wasn't clear until we really looked at the full data set that exit has been regular foreign policy strategy for more than 100 years, since 1914. And so exit is not new. Our first case goes back quite a long way and uncovering those trends and understanding sort of with the mirror interdependence and larger geopolitical shifts over time really brought some of these dynamics to the fore. Secondly, exit is infrequent. So we document 488 exits from international organizations between 1914 and 2022, 387 of those are withdrawals, 101 of those are suspensions. So that's about four exits per year on average. And also something we realized quite quickly is that about 70% of these suspensions are for political backsliding. So things like a coup d', etat, a reduction in democracy, reduction in human rights, manipulated elections, et cetera. Then the last thing, the last pattern that we found, and that actually had us be a little bit more optimistic, is that exit is often temporary. So many of these exits, as I mentioned early on, are actually temporary. So 80% of suspensions, 50% of withdrawals. These states return later on. And so having this broad grasp across all I os, across all states and over time allows us to have these larger patterns that really we can now put particular instances or particular cases in this larger historical perspective.
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Eleonora Matiacci
So you explained very well how you built this massive data set and all the actions that entailed and the way that we understand exit afterwards. As you said, regular feature, infrequent and temporary. Tell us more now about the case studies. In addition to the data set, you also have six case studies with extensive interviews and fieldwork. As you just mentioned, was there a single conversation or an archived document or a moment in the field that crystallized the argument for you or that surprised you?
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Professor Inken von Borsikowski
It's interesting. Maybe Felicity and I have our different high moments for this one. So I'll start, and then I'll hand it to Felicity. So in terms of maybe what crystallized it for me or what surprised us? So, in terms of fieldwork, several of the interviews we did really illustrated and brought to life what we had theorized. So in terms of they crystallized that this is really about negotiation process within these international organizations. So, for example, our field trip and our interviews at the African Union when we went to Addis in Ethiopia were super educational and quite successful. And I think we'll always be grateful for the African Union staff who just gave their time and insights and their professionalism, even though we did not end up writing a whole chapter just on the African Union, that was actually super important for our background research. So maybe give a specific example. The African Union Peace and Security Council always discusses potential suspension cases when states have had a coup d'. Etat. And that's because a coup violates the African Union Charter, which rejects unconstitutional changes of government. So if a coup happens, the Peace and Security Council has a session where the coup sort of state and the potential reactions are being discussed. So the violator state, or the coup state in this case, gets in essence, like A hearing where they can explain what happened. And it seems that in many of such instances, it takes the form of states trying to justify why things happen the way they did. Sometimes even states trying to argue that it was not actually a coup that says some other event, or perhaps that the coup was by popular demand rather than done by the military for other purposes, or that external states maybe sometimes cannot fully understand the complexity or the nuances of the situation. And so essentially, to us, to Felicity and me, these were all sort of types of arguments to try to say they really should not be punished, right? They're trying to push back on the pressure that is building up inside these organizations. And it seems that at least sometimes there's quite some deliberate lobbying efforts where violated states approach others to try to insulate themselves from that pressure. And in rare cases, it can also lead to a discussion on, as we said, whether or not it actually has been a coup that happened. But overall, what our data shows in terms of comparing the African Union also with other international organizations is that the African Union is actually one of the most consistent, stringent, almost technocratic actors in this field. So that made it to us a really fascinating place to go and have interviews. And maybe just something short that surprised me. Maybe Felicity would have known better and anticipated this, but even in hindsight, maybe it should have had not surprised me so much. But some organizations have specific staff members only responsible for member state relations. So for example, one of the organizations, so we also did interviews, and that was one of the most frequent organizations where states leave is the World Tourism Organization. And they have a special staff person responsible for member relations for addressing issues, for trying to avoid states leaving, and for getting states back if they have left. So that was super fascinating.
- [35:48]
Professor Felicity Vabilas
Eleanora, do you, do you mind if I jump in and tell you a little bit about the IO archives too? Because I know this sounds very nerdy, but we had some really memorable moments pouring through documents and they helped us understand, you know, actors intents, their incentives related to exit. And so this comes out in the book. We have a case study on the ILO when the US withdrew. And we found all the US governmental archival communications which showed that the US was really quite explicit that it wanted to negotiate IO change after it announced its withdrawal. So it made clear that that two year waiting period was meant to help them avoid withdrawal in 1977. So if you're, if you'll bear with me, I pulled up the book here and I just want to read the US Secretary of State Kissinger, what he said in 1975, in his withdrawal announcement, he said, rather than express regret at this action, I would prefer to express confidence in what will be its ultimate outcome. The US does not desire to leave the ilo. The US does not expect to do so. But we do intend to make every possible effort to promote the conditions which will facilitate our continued participation. If this should prove impossible, we are in fact prepared to depart during the next two years. The United States, for its part, will work constructively within the ILO to help the organization or return to its basic principles and to a fuller achievement of its fundamental objectives. End quote. So for us, that is just a quintessential example of what we mean by this bargaining and the negotiation that really takes place and that discontent within with the institution.
- [37:49]
Eleonora Matiacci
I believe we call that a smoking gun.
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Professor Inken von Borsikowski
Right?
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Eleonora Matiacci
It's perfect.
- [37:56]
Professor Inken von Borsikowski
That's perfect.
- [37:57]
Eleonora Matiacci
I want to move to the next phase of this interview, which is talking about the implications of your argument, policy recommendations, and so on and so forth. One of the most counterintuitive findings in the book is that exits are usually temporary because most states that leave end up coming back. I never knew that. What does that pattern force the field to rethink about how international institutions actually work?
- [38:29]
Professor Inken von Borsikowski
So let me squeeze in here once more. So I think for us, it really underscores just how valuable both multilateralism and international institutions are. So even if many international organizations need reforms in our globalized world, it's pretty difficult to have a go it alone strategy. And most states still want a seat at the table, even if the club is imperfect and if it doesn't always serve their immediate interests in the short term. Another thing that the sort of temporary nature of exit underscores for us is that institutions in particular are really sticky. So even with ups and downs, they tend to be quite resilient, right? Individual member states leaving, but then returning to the institution, carrying on in most instances. And perhaps the exit stokes some changes. But really, we see these exits and their temporary nature as states trying to reshuffle the institutional bargain, as preferences and power shifts, as Felicity has explained. So exit doesn't usually trigger IO def or IO demolition or sort of collapse. And maybe thirdly, the temporary nature of exit also helps us reconceptualize what exit really is. Right? It means that we shouldn't think of it as a terminal endpoint and departure in the lifecycle of international organizations, but instead realize that members should exit can occur in various lifecycle stages associated oftentimes with these processes of change. Not always, but oftentimes. Tied to a reshuffling.
- [39:56]
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- [40:56]
Eleonora Matiacci
That's. That's, that's very interesting. That's very interesting. It's an immense contribution that the book makes. Let's switch to implications you show us throughout this impressive book. That exit is quite costly. As you said since the beginning of this interview, there is reputational damage but also higher perceived political risks in the market and so on. For a foreign minister or a diplomat reading your book, what's the practical lesson that they should take from the book? Question one and question two. What about a citizen watching their government threaten to walk out of some treaty? How should they read that threat?
- [41:46]
Professor Felicity Vabilas
I'll try to tackle this. Let's start with diplomats knowing that, as Inkin and I have underscored, all these cases have a lot of nuance and difference. But let's focus on the similarities. I think the first thing that our book really emphasizes is that IO withdrawals the importance of those treaty outlined waiting periods that specify when and how those announced withdrawals become effective. And so in crafting IO agreements, we would encourage policymakers to think about the importance of those waiting periods, to purposefully discuss them, document them, if not at the design stage, then as charter amendments, clarity is likely beneficial. When their waiting periods are sufficiently long, they allow for more international negotiation and domestic changes in power, and they therefore stabilize membership. There's a trade off though, right? If these waiting periods are too long, that might unintentionally make a lot more states use withdrawal as a negotiation tactic if they don't think that it's really a final moment. So really, we want diplomats to think about the negotiation that's possible to help quell dissatisfied states and to think about how to reconfigure that IO bargain and equilibrium, not to give extra weight to the country that's threatening to leave, but to take it as a real sign that IO reform or change might be needed. And in a related way, diplomats should really be thinking about including more options for what we call voice inside the IO so that states can have a way to productively negotiate change short of being disruptive and engaging in costly exits. Again, there's a trade off though, right? Too many flexibility devices may incentivize states to opt out and sort of engage in a la carte cooperation rather than fully committing to the IO rules. And that's actually something that Inkin and I are starting to study now, that voice options aren't always productive. It seems that more and more so, states are voicing their dissents in obstructionist ways. And so I think we all need to be on the lookout for these strategies to really understand why states are trying to sabotage. I know that's a harsh word, but sabotage, iOS as a way of getting their point across in terms of suspensions, I think that diplomats should really know that suspension can at times be a useful tool to shame a violator state. We underscore throughout the book that we should think about suspension as a form of multilateral diplomatic sanction. And we all know that that's what diplomats are trying to do, right? To find strategies to nudge state behavior in ways that fall short of costly economic pressure or military intervention. Let me switch to citizens, because there is a really important role here at the domestic level. So we would encourage citizens to think about IO exits as a political strategy, right? That involves a lot of rhetoric and saber rattling that that threat stage that Inkin talked about earlier to achieve a more desirable foreign policy objectives. Citizens should remember that politicians aim for exit threats to be powerful as a brinksmanship strategy. They want to stoke some flames. And as we mentioned before, the reality is that 90% of threats don't become real. Politicians also have an international negotiation in mind, but citizens should remember that there are important domestic political consequences related to exit. So, for example, even though most Americans don't know much about iOS, we're the exception here, right? We find, and it's in separate work from the book, that politicians can gain policy approval and support at the ballot box by framing IO withdrawal around US national interests, for example. And we think that talking about Exit on the campaign trail for politicians is actually really powerful because membership can be thought of in binary terms, right? You're in or you're out. And psychology research actually shows us that it's easier for voters to remember binary things like this. And so we think of this with Trump's recent announcement that the U.S. is going to withdraw from 66 different, quote, international institutions. And a large part of that story is that he seeks to curry favor with voters who want to see the administration sort of doing something about WOKE policies or government waste. They're banking on this helping them at the ballot box. So really, to sum up, citizens should really think about who is making the exit threat. Can they actually execute it, and why, what are their incentives and also what the effects might be, right? How might this hurt or help Americans in the short or long term?
- [47:05]
Eleonora Matiacci
So we talked about what foreign ministers or diplomats should think about. We talked about what citizens should think about when they witness these threats. Tell us about international organizations themselves. So those that are on the receiving end of an exit, what does your book say that they should do? Is there a smart institutional response that keeps states in the tent?
- [47:33]
Professor Felicity Vabilas
Yeah. So I will admit, Eleanora, that most of our research really focuses on the states that leave, what drives them, what the consequences are for them. But a big follow on project for us will be to think about what exit does to the IO itself, right? The operations, the funding, and even how staff and bureaucrats do their work. Some of our colleagues have started to look at this, and a big part of their takeaway message so far is all about I o resilience that many of the IO staffers who are committed to the mission and mandate of iOS are trying to find and have found creative strategies and workarounds to keep institutions going. We do have some separate work looking at how I os respond to withdrawal threats, and I think that that's really relevant to the question that you asked. IO staff should really be thinking about whether they're better or worse off without the exiting state. Right? Some states are critical, many are important, but not everyone is a net contributor, facilitating cooperation. And in fact, if you think about our research, we find that preference outliers are the ones who are most likely to withdraw. And what that means is that their absence could actually leave behind a more cohesive group of member states. Perhaps progress has been thwarted for some time with that instigator inside and with them outside. New opportunities for progress might emerge in their absence. And so that might sound counterintuitive, but there's reason to think that we might not need to push all states to stay in the tent, as you put it. And so I think a key example that we've thought about recently is the who, the pandemic treaty. And really, I think that there's reason to think that perhaps it might not have been signed with the US still in the room. And so, in essence, IO vitality really depends on what the remaining states do. Do they bridge the gap, do they fall away? And whether or when the leaving state returns and who that is. And if, if I can just one last thing to remember is that our book emphasizes that exit is sort of a binary option, or at least that's the way we frame it versus membership. But there's a lot of nuance related to participation, right? There's a lot of gray in that spectrum. And so a lot of IO bureaucrats are discussing right now that the IO that the US is still engaging in a lot of iOS, even, even if they're officially exiting them. And I think that that's really important.
- [50:17]
Eleonora Matiacci
This is a very nuanced take on my question, and I'm grateful that you gave this answer. We're gonna move on soon to what's next on your plate, and I'll ask to look back at this book before we do. So I'm going to ask you to give us one sentence that our listeners should think about when remembering this conversation, say a year from now, for example, the next time they see a headline about a country threatening to walk out of some treaty organization, or remember this interview. What's the one sentence they should think about, you would like them to think about?
- [51:00]
Professor Inken von Borsikowski
I'm not sure if we have the same in mind, but I'll give mine. I think for me it would be that many exits are trying to negotiate institutional change, and many exits are temporary and not a permanent departure because of nationalism, populism, law backlash.
- [51:19]
Professor Felicity Vabilas
All right, I'll weigh in as co author with a really long winded sentence that I would probably edit if a student gave it to me, but here it goes. IO exit is rarely aimed at being a terminal ending in the state's relationship to the IO. Instead, states usually use the process of exit threat, the waiting period and implementation, and sometimes a return as a last ditch strategy to negotiate institutional change which can otherwise be pretty hard to achieve.
- [51:52]
Eleonora Matiacci
Those are perfect. Those are perfect. You spent over a decade on writing this. Very impressive.
- [52:01]
Professor Felicity Vabilas
Thanks for reminding us.
- [52:04]
Eleonora Matiacci
I mean, it shows. I mean the book is great, the empirics are rich and very well thought out, but the book is out now and the world looks the way it does. Though I'm mindful of your reminder to watch out against recency bias. Do you feel more optimistic or more pessimistic about the future of international organizations than when you started almost a decade ago?
- [52:38]
Professor Inken von Borsikowski
Yeah, I think that might be another nuanced answer here, or sort of a typical economist two handed answer. So on the one hand we are more pessimistic about the future of international organizations than when we started in 2011. And we actually spent a good chunk of our books, particularly the concluding chapter, chapter nine, grappling with this very question, trying to foresee what's coming in 2024, 25 and how that's going to change international cooperation and IO exits in particular. So while IO exits have been infrequent and have been relatively steady over the last century, of course the rise and return of President Trump, isolationism more generally, and also declines in democracy around the world and contested forms of governance all rattle how we think of the continued steadiness of international organizations and multilateralism as we know it and as we show it in the book and document it with data. On the other hand, Felicity and I think do remain somewhat optimistic about the future of international organizations because of that historical large end analysis across states, across iOS, across time, reminding us to not just look at recent or individual anecdotes. And that really underscores that exits rarely trigger IO collapse and that many exit threats don't come true. As Felicity just mentioned, over 90% do not because there's a bargaining tactic and that many exits are temporary. And I know we sort of start sound like a broken record, but those are big findings. Those are things that are important to correct perception oftentimes of these things. And so many commentators seem to be discussing iofdrawal and particularly threats. And so that gives rise to this perception of the increase in recent years. But we actually think also a potential decline in the use of suspensions could be on the horizon and is similarly concerning. So we should not just be concerned about a rise in potentially withdrawals, but also a decline potentially in suspensions. So shrinking patterns of IO exit because particularly we showed that a large chunk, 70%, are triggered by political backsliding regressions in democracy and human rights. So when states know longer hold these shared values of democracy, which are ingrained in many of the treaties and chartered underlying international organizations, then members will also no longer be able to use membership suspension as a carrot or a stick to continue enforce compliance. And at least when it comes to these charter clauses on democracy, human rights and rule of law, that's really a big deal. So this could fundamentally change how we think about international organizations as hand tying mechanisms and sort of commitment devices that the literature has highlighted for decades.
- [55:26]
Eleonora Matiacci
These are important questions, important issues to bring up at the end of the interview. And this is the end of the interview, I always ask one last question, which is perhaps the most unfair of them all. What's on your plate right now? What are you working on?
- [55:44]
Professor Felicity Vabilas
So I, I am so appreciative that you ask this because we have such a great partnership that we couldn't let this die. And it actually stems right from the book, right? So what our book shows, right, is that states are seeming to be increasingly dissatisfied with iOS. But on the same hand, right, IO Exit is quite infrequent. And so our next big project tries to tackle those two patterns and how they fit with each other. How do we know that multilateralism is under siege if IO exit is not a good indicator of that? What metrics and behaviors should we instead be studying? And our loose hypothesis is that state strategies to voice their IO dissatisfaction are not always positive diplomatic forms of negotiation. And instead we think that states are increasingly engaging in and getting pretty creative with embarking on strategies of IO obstructionism. So that's what we're trying to study, how states are contesting iOS in ways that fall short of exit while they remain members of these clubs. For example, you know, how are states delegitimizing iOS? Are they showing up for IO votes but but then derailing their proceedings to prove a different point? Are they creating friction filled coalitions meant to subvert IO outcomes? Are they delaying or reducing funding? Yes. And are they using IO meeting spaces as platforms for soliloquies, advancing their own visions of new international orders and so on? So we think that these obstructionist strategies might be even more prolific and consequential for global governance. And in this vein, our immediate project examines what factors lead sub national bodies to decrease or cancel IO funding and how variability in state level IO funding affects institutional performance.
- [57:51]
Eleonora Matiacci
This is a great topic and it sounds like it will lead to a very rich empirical part of the book and a very nuanced theory. And you must, must come back to tell us all about it.
- [58:03]
Professor Felicity Vabilas
We'd love to.
- [58:04]
Eleonora Matiacci
Thank you so much, Professors Vabulas and von Borsikonski, for taking the time to talk with us today. My guests have been Professor Felicity Babilas and Inken von Borskykowski. They are the authors of a new book, Exit from International Costly Negotiations for Institutional Changes. The book was published in 2025 by Cambridge University Press and was just awarded the 2026 Chadwick Alger Prize for Best Book in International Organizations from the International Studies Association. I'm your host, Eleonora Mattiacci.
- [58:40]
Professor Inken von Borsikowski
Until next time, thank you for listening
- [58:42]
New Books Network Host
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