Autocratization in International Organizations: Driver of Institutional Change?

Democratization scholars are currently debating if we are indeed witnessing a third wave of autocratization which is driven particularly by democratic recessions and breakdowns in established democracies. While this has led to an extensive debate about the future of the liberal international order, we still know relatively little about consequences that episodes of autocratization both amongst democratic and autocratic member states might have for international organizations (IOs). In this paper, we explore to what extent autocratization leads to changes in the composition of IO membership, and theorize under which conditions these might affect institutional design aspects of IOs. We argue that due to different domestic constraints, growing autocratization leads to variation in international preferences which are consequential both for state accession and withdrawal decisions, as well as for institutional design dimensions such as delegated and pooled authority, openness and transparency, and policy scope. We build on updated membership data for 70 IOs through 2020 to map membership configurations based on the V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index. With a specific focus to shifts from liberal democracy to electoral democracy, we add to a more fine-grained understanding of the role of domestic conditions in change of global governance by moving beyond a dichotomous understanding of regime type and regime change.