University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation

Research has demonstrated how membership in democratic regional organizations can strengthen prospects for democracy. However, a significant number of regional organizations are dominated by autocratic members who have very different preferences: to limit democratic contagion and consolidate authoritarian rule against democratic challengers. We outline a menu of mechanisms through which regional organizations with authoritarian members might have pernicious effects on the prospects for democratic rule. We use cross-national quantitative analyses to demonstrate that membership in deeply authoritarian international organizations is associated with autocratization. We supplement the quantitative results with an analysis of 29 of the most authoritarian regional organizations and illustrative case studies. The multi-method approach strengthens inference by showing that authoritarian international organizations do in fact engage in behaviors inimical to democratic rule.