Institutional Design for a Post-Liberal Order: Why Some International Organisations Live Longer Than Others

Many international organisations are currently under pressure. From the United Kingdom leaving the European Union to emerging powers challenging the international financial institutions, and the Trump administration causing havoc across the global governance landscape, many observers now talk about a post-liberal international order. Such external challenges can potentially have severe consequences for organisations, and might ultimately lead to IOs becoming dormant or disbanded all-together. This article argues that the institutional design, particularly institutional flexibility and organisational size, is critical to understanding whether international organisation are able to resist external challenges such as those currently presented by a post-liberal order. Based on event history analysis of more than 70 IOs in existence between 1815 and 2015, the article tests to what extent more flexible and larger IOs are more resilient, while controlling for alternative explanations presented by IR theories, organisational ecology perspectives, and public administration studies. The article thereby contributes to the emerging academic literature on the decline and death of international organisations.