Regional organizations and democratic conditionality: Family resemblances and shaming

Abstract

The six major regional organizations (ROs) covered in this special issue all originated prior to the rise of liberal internationalism, and were repurposed by it. After 1989 they converged towards a common discourse on democratic conditionality, and developed a capacity to discipline and sanction non-compliance, preferring persuasion and appeals to regional norms rather than coercion. This concluding overview highlights the relevance of such metaphors as ecosystem, family resemblance, and peer review; and directs attention to the temporal and spatial scope conditions of the cases considered; and to the bargaining involved. As the ecosystem of liberal internationalism and regional democratic solidarity has faded, ‘pushbacks’ have appeared from regimes ‘targeted’ for sanctions and/or ‘shaming.’ Since states must coexist in permanent interaction with their neighbors, and because the democratic ‘like-mindedness’ of regions fluctuates, such RO stigmatization cannot be a one-shot game. Rather, it will be interactive, and contextually negotiated over time.