Lukas Grundsfeld’s research while affiliated with Freie Universität Berlin and other places

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Publications (3)


Exit from Regime Complexity? Regional International Organizations under Scrutiny
  • Article

December 2024

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25 Reads

Global Studies Quarterly

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Lukas Grundsfeld

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Pawel Tverskoi

Regional regime complexity has long been on the rise and carries a series of potential negative effects, such as waste of resources or reduced effectiveness of regional governance. This article investigates a specific strategy of how states cope with regime complexity, namely by exiting regional international organizations (RIOs). We develop hypotheses on how different types of regional regime complexity influence the chances for exits to occur and theorize interaction effects. The analysis reveals that higher levels of membership- and competency-based regime complexity as well as RIO incompatibility increase the likelihood of state withdrawals. In addition, state characteristics moderate this effect and influence who leaves which organization. Most importantly, smaller rather are less able to shape RIO policies and activities and have fewer capacities to implement them and are thus more likely to exit one of the organizations when being member in many overlapping RIOs. By contrast, powerful states can better navigate regime complexity and avoid negative side-effects and are therefore less inclined to withdraw from RIOs in situations of high regional regime complexity.


Between Crisis and Revival: Withdrawal Threats, State Exits, and Institutional Change of Regional International OrganizationsZwischen Krise und Aufschwung: Rückzugsdrohungen, Staatsaustritte und institutioneller Wandel von regionalen internationalen Organisationen
  • Article
  • Full-text available

August 2024

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45 Reads

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1 Citation

Politische Vierteljahresschrift

Since 1945, there have been more than 120 instances of states threatening to withdraw from international organizations with regional membership criteria (RIOs) and over 50 cases in which states in fact left RIOs. Recent examples include withdrawal threats by Qatar toward the Gulf Cooperation Council and Brazil toward MERCOSUR, as well as the actual exits of the United Kingdom from the European Union (EU) and of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from the Economic Community of West African States. Withdrawal threats and exits represent shocks with potentially significant implications for RIOs and their integration projects. While existing research has focused on the future of EU integration after Brexit, this paper is the first to analyze the effects of threats to leave and the realization thereof on RIOs and regional integration from a broader comparative perspective. RIOs can respond to exit-related challenges through institutional change, which can take the form of institutional strengthening or weakening. Having conducted a series of explorative qualitative case studies, we find that while (1) the extent of problem pressure induced through exit-related challenges influences institutional change, (2) the materialization and directionality of these changes also depends on other factors, such as external windows of opportunity and the distribution of power and preferences within the RIO. Furthermore, (3) institutional change often takes the form of institutional strengthening, indicating the general resilience of international organizations in the context of exit-related challenges.

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Citations (2)


... Contestation from highly dissatisfied and materially powerful member states poses a significant challenge to institutional institutions. It threatens to harm the viability and legitimacy of contested institutions and may even lead to their decline and 'death' (Eckhard, Patz and Schmidt 2018;Eilstrup-Sangiovanni 2018;Deitelhoff and Zimmermann 2019;Debre and Dijkstra 2020;Hirschmann 2021;Sommerer et al. 2022;Dijkstra, Debre and Heinkelmann-Wild 2024;Gray 2024;Panke, Grundsfeld and Tverskoi 2024a;Schmidt 2024;Dijkstra et al. 2025). ...

Reference:

How negative institutional power moderates contestation: Explaining dissatisfied powers’ strategies towards international institutions
Between Crisis and Revival: Withdrawal Threats, State Exits, and Institutional Change of Regional International OrganizationsZwischen Krise und Aufschwung: Rückzugsdrohungen, Staatsaustritte und institutioneller Wandel von regionalen internationalen Organisationen

Politische Vierteljahresschrift

... While our research remains limited to identifying specific institutional responses by RIOs in reaction to exitrelated challenges, evaluating whether and how specific institutional changes are put into practice and impact the performance, stability, and resilience of RIOs opens up a promising avenue for future research. However, despite this differentiation, the manner in which RIOs responded to exit-related challenges indicates that RIOs and their member states, far from remaining passive, display agency in reacting to exitrelated challenges (Panke and Grundsfeld 2024). Our research thus aligns with recent scholarship emphasizing the overall resilience of IOs (Debre and Dijkstra 2021;Kruck and Zangl 2019). ...

Epilogue—Responses to Brexit: insights from small EU member states and lessons for exits from other regional organizations
  • Citing Chapter
  • March 2024