International Organisations and the Reassertion of National Sovereignty

While the current multilateral system is certainly not without its flaws, multilateral institutions are widely regarded as an essential tool to enhance interstate cooperation and restrain the excesses of self-interested state behavior. This requires that states transfer parts of their sovereignty to international organizations (IOs). However, whereas IOs have become more influential over time, states have repeatedly tried to limit this influence and to reclaim their sovereignty. Recent reassertions of national sovereignty have culminated in a new crisis of multilateralism that challenges the role and even the very existence of IOs: The United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union (EU), several African states threatened or decided to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC), the United States government is massively reducing its funding to leading IOs, and Hungary and Poland have been consistently refusing to comply with core EU norms and policies. In the current public discourse, this phenomenon is discussed as being exceptional and unprecedented in its extent and degree. However, we know that the continuous struggle between the delegation and the preservation of national sovereignty has characterized the relationship between IOs and their member states for decades. In this paper, I therefore ask to what extent the current actions by states constitute an unprecedented challenge. To answer this question, I develop a conceptual framework to analyze the patterns of the reassertion of national sovereignty. I propose four different types of acts through which states reassert their sovereignty vis-à-vis IOs, namely budget cuts, staff obstruction, non-compliance with core norms and membership withdrawal. By taking into consideration the justifications of member states for reasserting their sovereignty, I distinguish these acts from the instrumentalization or the politicization of an IO. I illustrate this with first empirical insights into the patterns of sovereignty challenges against IOs between 1920 and 2018.