State participation when IOs move to virtual platforms

How is state participation in international relations affected by the fora relations take place within? In this article, we present a theoretical framework that outlines how a move from face-to-face meetings to virtual meetings may impact states' ability and willingness to participate in international organizations. In our framework, we identify incentive structures that may impact participation at three levels: micro-level individual incentives; meso-level relational incentives; macro-level structural incentives. We then use this theoretical framework to formulate a set of specific hypotheses about how state participation in multilateral meetings may be impacted when the forum shifts from physical meeting venues to virtual meeting platforms. To test our hypotheses, we use a mixed-methods design that leverages the COVID-19-pandemic as a natural experiment. First, we conduct a quantitative analysis of state participation before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic in the ongoing multilateral negotiations on reform of investor-state dispute settlement under the United Nations Conference on International Trade Law. To complement our quantitative analysis, we use primary and secondary sources of qualitative data to probe how negotiators themselves experienced the shift of negotiating mode during the COVID-19 pandemic.