Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T17:47:33.572Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Citizen-centred or state-centred? The representational design of International Parliamentary Institutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2020

Thomas Winzen
Affiliation:
Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom
Jofre Rocabert*
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

As a result of the spread of International Parliamentary Institutions (IPIs), international organisations face crucial questions of representational design. We introduce a distinction between citizen-centred and state-centred IPIs in international organisations (IO). Drawing on original data, we show that, even though parliaments might seem likely to foster citizen representation in the international realm, they in fact often follow state-centred representational designs. We further find that citizen-centred IPIs are a near exclusive phenomenon of a few, democratic regional integration projects. Given the prevalence of state-centred representational designs, we conclude that IPIs’ potential to represent different cross-border communities, concerns, and conflict lines than intergovernmental IO bodies remains institutionally limited. IPIs are thus unlikely to challenge these bodies in similar ways as often observed in the relationship between the European Parliament and the European Union's Council of Ministers.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the British International Studies Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Rapkin, David P., Strand, Jonathan R., and Trevathan, Michael W., ‘Representation and governance in international organizations’, Politics and Governance, 4:3 (August 2016), pp. 7789CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blake, Daniel J. and Payton, Autumn L., ‘Balancing design objectives: Analyzing new data on voting rules in intergovernmental organizations’, The Review of International Organizations, 10:3 (2015), pp. 377402CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Hooghe, Liesbet, Marks, Gary, and Lenz, Tobias, Community, Scale and the Design of International Organization: A Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance, Vol. 4 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017)Google Scholar.

3 Tallberg, Jonas, Sommerer, Thomas, Squatrito, Theresa, and Jönsson, Christer, ‘Explaining the transnational design of international organizations’, International Organization, 68:4 (2014), pp. 741–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lenz, Tobias, Bezuijen, Jeanine, Hooghe, Liesbet, and Marks, Gary W., ‘Patterns of international authority: Task-specific vs. general-purpose organizations’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 49 (2014), pp. 107–32Google Scholar; Šabič, Zlatko, ‘Building democratic and responsible global governance: The role of International Parliamentary Institutions’, Parliamentary Affairs, 61:2 (2008), pp. 255–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kraft-Kasack, Christine, ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies: A remedy for the democratic deficit of international governance?’, West European Politics, 31:3 (2008), pp. 534–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dri, Clarissa F., ‘Limits of the institutional mimesis of the European Union: The case of the Mercosur Parliament’, Latin American Policy, 1:1 (2010), pp. 5274CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Habegger, Beat, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations: Parliamentary control within the Council of Europe and the OSCE and the prospects for the United Nations’, Cooperation and Conflict, 45:2 (2010), pp. 186204CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jancic, Davor, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’, European Journal of International Law, 30:1 (2019), pp. 199228CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cofelice, Andrea, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance: Functions and Powers (New York: Routledge, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rocabert, Jofre, Schimmelfennig, Frank, Crasnic, Loriana, and Winzen, Thomas, ‘The rise of International Parliamentary Institutions: Purpose and legitimation’, The Review of International Organizations, 14:4 (2019), pp. 607–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance; Cutler, Robert, ‘The emergence of International Parliamentary Institutions: New networks of influence in world society’, in Smith, Gordon. S. and Wolfish, Daniel (eds), Who Is Afraid of the State? Canada in a World of Multiple Centres of Power (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2001), pp. 201–29Google Scholar; Stavridis, Stelios and Jancic, Davor (eds), Parliamentary Diplomacy in European and Global Governance (Boston, MA: Brill/Nijhoff, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Kraft-Kasack, , ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies’; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance; Christer Jönsson and Anders Johnsson, ‘Parliaments in global governance’, Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 24:3 (2018), pp. 309–20Google Scholar.

6 See, for example, Heinrich Klebes, ‘The development of International Parliamentary Institutions’, Constitutional and Parliamentary Information ASGP.-Geneva, 1st Series (159/1st) (Geneva: Association of Secretaries General of Parliaments, 1990); Claudia Kissling, ‘The legal and political status of International Parliamentary Institutions’, in Giovani Finizio, Lucio Levi, and Niccola Vallinoto (eds), The Democratization of International Institutions (New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 25–53; Šabič, ‘Building democratic and responsible global governance’; Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’; Rocabert et al., ‘The rise of International Parliamentary Institutions’.

7 Some scholars distinguish organs, which are bodies of international organisations, and assemblies, which are not. We do not object to this distinction where a risk of confusion requires new labels, but prefer to use IPI as the more general and better-known term. Moreover, by referring to International Parliamentary Institution we highlight that these bodies share essential attributes with a well-known class, parliaments, but are not functionally equivalent – whether IPIs can or should grow similar to national parliaments in authority or other respects beyond the fundamental organisational traits that define them as parliamentary institutions is open for debate and analysis. See Schimmelfennig, Frank, Winzen, Thomas, Lenz, Tobias, Rocabert, Jofre, Crasnic, Loriana, Gherasimov, Cristina, Lipps, Jana, and Mumford, Densua, The Rise of International Parliaments: Strategic Legitimation in International Organizations (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2020)Google Scholar.

8 Malang, Thomas, ‘Why national parliamentarians join international organizations’, The Review of International Organizations, 14:3 (2019), pp. 407–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kissling, ‘The legal and political status of International Parliamentary Institutions’; Šabič, ‘Building democratic and responsible global governance’; Kraft-Kasack, ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies’; Dri, ‘Limits of the institutional mimesis of the European Union’; Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’; Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance; Rocabert et al., ‘The rise of International Parliamentary Institutions’; Lipps, Jana, ‘Intertwined parliamentary arenas: Why parliamentarians attend International Parliamentary Institutions’, European Journal of International Relations (2019)Google Scholar.

9 Šabič, ‘Building democratic and responsible global governance’; Kraft-Kasack, ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies’; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance; Falk, Richard and Strauss, Andrew, ‘Toward global parliament’, Foreign Affairs, 80 (2001), pp. 212–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Dri, ‘Limits of the institutional mimesis of the European Union’, pp. 65–70; Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’, pp. 188–9; Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance, p. 229.

11 Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’; Kraft-Kasack, ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies’; Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance.

12 Hix, Simon, ‘Parliamentary behavior with two principals: Preferences, parties, and voting in the European Parliament’, American Journal of Political Science, 46:3 (2002), pp. 688–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rittberger, Berthold, Building Europe's Parliament: Democratic Representation beyond the Nation State (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Rapkin, Strand, and Trevathan, ‘Representation and governance in international organizations’.

14 Blake and Payton, ‘Balancing design objectives’.

15 Rapkin, Strand, and Trevathan, ‘Representation and governance in international organizations’.

16 Hooghe, Marks, and Lenz, Community, Scale and the Design of International Organization.

17 Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’; Lenz et al., ‘Patterns of international authority’; Tallberg et al., ‘Explaining the transnational design of international organizations’; Šabič, ‘Building democratic and responsible global governance’; Kraft-Kasack, ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies’; Dri, ‘Limits of the institutional mimesis of the European Union’; Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’; Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance.

18 Rocabert et al., ‘The rise of International Parliamentary Institutions’.

19 Falk and Strauss, ‘Toward global parliament’; Rocabert et al., ‘The rise of International Parliamentary Institutions’.

20 Tallberg et al., ‘Explaining the transnational design of international organizations’.

21 Falk and Strauss, ‘Toward global parliament’; Kissling, ‘The legal and political status of International Parliamentary Institutions’; Šabič, ‘Building democratic and responsible global governance’; Kraft-Kasack, ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies’; Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’; Tobias Lenz, ‘The Politics of Institutional Symbolism: Parliamentarization in Regional Economic Organizations’, paper presented in the ‘(De-) Legitimation of Global Governance Organizations’ conference (Bremen: University of Bremen, 2013); Rocabert et al., ‘The rise of International Parliamentary Institutions’.

22 Šabič, ‘Building democratic and responsible global governance’, p. 267.

23 Vaubel, Roland, ‘Principal-agent problems in international organizations’, The Review of International Organizations, 1:2 (2006), pp. 125–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar (pp. 130–1). See also Kraft-Kasack, ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies’; Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’.

24 Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance, pp. 188–9.

25 Hall, H. Duncan, ‘The community of the parliaments of the British Commonwealth’, American Political Science Review, 36:6 (1942), pp. 1128–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Løchen, Einar, ‘A comparative study of certain European parliamentary assemblies’, in Landheer, B. and Carter, W. H. (eds), Annuaire Européen/European Yearbook (Dordrecht: Springer, 1958), pp. 150–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hovey, Allen J., The Superparliaments: Interparliamentary Consultation and Atlantic Cooperation (New York, NY: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966)Google Scholar.

26 Løchen, ‘A comparative study of certain European parliamentary assemblies’.

27 Stravidis, Stelios and Pace, Roderick, ‘Assessing the impact of the EMPA's parliamentray diplomacy in international conflict: contribution or obstacle?’, in Clariana, Gregorio Garzón (ed.), The Euro-Mediterranean Assembly (Barcelona: Marcial Pons, 2011), pp. 59105Google Scholar; Šabič, ‘Building democratic and responsible global governance’.

28 Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance; Grabendorff, Wolf, ‘The European Parliament and the Central American Parliament: The parliamentary dimension of relations between Central America and the European community’, in Roy, Juaquin (ed.), The Reconstruction of Central America: The Role of the European Community (Miami: North-South Center, University of Miami, 1992), pp. 95105Google Scholar; Kingah, Stephen and Cofelice, Andrea, EU's Engagement with African (Sub) Regional Parliaments of ECOWAS, SADC, the EAC and the AU (Belgium: United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies Potterierei, 2012)Google Scholar.

29 Klebes, ‘The development of International Parliamentary Institutions’; Cutler, ‘The emergence of International Parliamentary Institutions’, pp. 201–29; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance; Lenz, ‘The Politics of Institutional Symbolism’; Rocabert et al., ‘The rise of International Parliamentary Institutions’.

30 Densua Mumford, ‘The Power of Experts: Why Non-Democracies Create Regional Parliaments’ (PhD thesis, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, 2018); Navarro, Julien, ‘The creation and transformation of regional parliamentary assemblies: Lessons from the Pan-African parliament’, The Journal of Legislative Studies, 16:2 (2010), pp. 195214CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Verdoes, Alexander, ‘Explaining the emergence of international parliamentary institutions: The case of the Benelux Interparliamentary Consultative Council’, Parliamentary Affairs, 73:2 (2020), pp. 385407Google Scholar; Rittberger, Building Europe's Parliament; Dri, ‘Limits of the institutional mimesis of the European Union’; Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’.

31 Dri, ‘Limits of the institutional mimesis of the European Union’, pp. 65–70; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance, pp. 145–84; Malamud, Andrés and Sousa, Luís De, ‘Regional parliaments in Europe and Latin America: Between empowerment and irrelevance’, in Hoffmann, Andrea Ribeiro and van der Vleuten, A. (eds), Closing or Widening the Gap? (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016), pp. 109–26Google Scholar.

32 Rittberger, Building Europe's Parliament; Héritier, Adrienne, Explaining Institutional Change in Europe (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roederer-Rynning, Christilla and Schimmelfennig, Frank, ‘Bringing codecision to agriculture: A hard case of parliamentarization’, Journal of European Public Policy, 19:7 (2012), pp. 951–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Dri, ‘Limits of the institutional mimesis of the European Union’, pp. 65–70.

34 Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’, p. 224.

35 Michael Giesen, ‘Regional parliamentary institutions: Diffusion of a global parliamentary organizational design?’, Social Science Open Access Repository (SSOAR), available at: {https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/57748/ssoar-2017-giesen-Regional_Parliamentary_Institutions_Diffusion_of.pdf?sequence=1andisAllowed=yandlnkname=ssoar-2017-giesen-Regional_Parliamentary_Institutions_Diffusion_of.pdf} accessed 20 September 2020.

36 Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance, pp. 51–71.

37 Kraft-Kasack, ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies’.

38 Tallberg, Jonas and Zürn, Michael, ‘The legitimacy and legitimation of international organizations: Introduction and framework’, The Review of International Organizations, 14:4 (2019), p. 585CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’.

40 Kraft-Kasack, ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies’, pp. 537–8.

41 Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’, p. 226.

42 Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’.

43 Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance, pp. 188–9.

44 Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’, p. 229.

45 Kraft-Kasack, ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies’.

46 Ibid.

47 Rittberger, Building Europe's Parliament; Scully, Roger, Becoming Europeans? Attitudes, Behaviour and Socialization in the European Parliament (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 van der Schyff, Gerhard and Leenknegt, Geer-Jan, ‘The case for a European Senate: A model for the representation of national parliaments in the European Union’, Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht, 62:2 (2007), pp. 237–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 See, for example, Tallberg et al. ‘Explaining the transnational design of international organizations’.

50 See, for example, Döring, Herber (ed.), Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press 1995)Google Scholar; Fish, M. Steven, and Kroenig, Matthew, The Handbook of National Legislatures: A Global Survey (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin, Shane, Saalfeld, Thomas, and Strøm, Kaare (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Legislative Studies (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Krehbiel, Keith, Information and Legislative Organization (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Strøm, Kaare, ‘Parliamentary committees in European democracies’, The Journal of Legislative Studies, 4:1 (1998), pp. 2159CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bowler, Shaun and Farrell, David M., ‘The organizing of the European Parliament: Committees, specialization and co-ordination’, British Journal of Political Science, 25:2 (1995), pp. 219–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 Powell, G. Bingham, Elections as Instruments of Democracy: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 2046Google Scholar.

53 A good example of this is budget data. We have been able to obtain information on the size and sources of IPI budgets for a dozen bodies, mostly in Europe, for very recent years. However, such information is rarely available for IPIs from less wealthy or stable regions and IOs, especially for longer periods of time.

54 George Tsebelis and Bjørn Rasch, ‘Patterns of bicameralism’, in Döring (ed.), Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe, pp. 365–90.

55 Cheneval, Francis, The Government of the Peoples: On the Idea and Principles of Multilateral Democracy (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Alternative labels such as direct v. indirect, democratic v. demoi-cratic, or individual v. clustered, group- or jurisdiction-based would be conceivable. However, these labels are less intuitive and specific as they do not directly refer to the different assumptions underlying alternative representational designs.

57 Benz, Arthur, ‘Compound representation in EU multi-level governance’, in Kohler-Koch, Beate (ed.), Linking EU and National Governance (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 82110CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rittberger, Building Europe's Parliament.

58 Baltic Assembly, ‘Statutes of the Baltic Assembly’, available at: {http://www.baltasam.org/images/2017/Session_36/Statutes_2017.pdf} accessed 20 September 2020.

59 Community of Portuguese Language Countries, ‘Regimento da Assambleia Parlamentar da CPLP’ (2009), p. 1.

60 El Nacional, ‘TSJ Decide En Abril Sobre Elecciones Del Parlatino’, available at: {https://www.elnacional.com/venezuela/politica/tsj-decide-abril-sobre-elecciones-del-parlatino_38581/} accessed 20 September 2020.

61 Schimmelfennig et al., The Rise of International Parliaments, pp. 134–5.

62 Proportional representation can have a regressive element. This means that large jurisdictions obtain somewhat fewer and small ones somewhat more seats than proportionality would require. Even under regressive proportionality, the difference to equal seats per country is typically clearly evident, however, as in the case of the European Parliament.

63 Schimmelfennig et al., The Rise of International Parliaments, p. 184

64 Christopher Kam, ‘Party discipline’, in Martin, Saalfeld, and Strøm (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Legislative Studies, pp. 1–21.

65 Carey, John M., ‘Competing principals, political institutions, and party unity in legislative voting’, American Journal of Political Science, 51:1 (2007), pp. 92107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Ibid.; Carey, John M. and Shugart, Mathew Soberg, ‘Incentives to cultivate a personal vote: A rank ordering of electoral formulas’, Electoral Studies, 14:4 (1995), pp. 417–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 See, for example, Tsebelis and Rasch, ‘Patterns of bicameralism’.

68 Hix, ‘Parliamentary behavior with two principals’.

69 Guerrieri, Sandro, ‘The start of European integration and the parliamentary dimension: The Common Assembly of the ECSC (1952–1958)’, Parliaments, Estates & Representation, 28:1 (2010), pp. 183–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 Hix, Simon, Noury, Abdul G., and Roland, Gérard, Democratic Politics in the European Parliament (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Kissling, ‘The legal and political status of International Parliamentary Institutions’.

72 See, for example, Cutler, ‘The emergence of International Parliamentary Institutions’, pp. 201–29; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance.

73 As noted earlier, for this reason some scholars might prefer to refer to the IPIs in our study as international parliamentary organs to underline their affiliation to an IO, but the more widely known term, IPI, while being more general, remains accurate nonetheless.

74 The IPI of the Eurasian Economic Community was dissolved in 2014, bringing down the number of existing IPIs.

75 A. Bustamante, ‘Elección de diputados al Parlacen divide la CNRE’, La Prensa/Panorama, available at: {https://impresa.prensa.com/panorama/Eleccion-diputados-Parlacen-divide-CNRE_0_4285071538.html} accessed 20 September 2020.

76 Federico Rivas Molina, ‘El Mercosur suspende la elección directa de los diputados de su Parlamento’, El País, available at: {https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/04/16/america/1555374301_791741.html} accessed 20 September 2020; Patricia Blanco, ‘La Cámara Electoral aceptó un pedido del Frente de Todos y le ordenó al Gobierno que convoque a elecciones para elegir diputados del Parlasur’, InfoBae, available at: {https://www.infobae.com/politica/2019/10/22/la-camara-electoral-acepto-un-pedido-del-frente-de-todos-y-le-ordeno-al-gobierno-que-convoque-a-elecciones-para-elegir-diputados-del-parlasur/} accessed 20 September 2020; Parlamento del Mercosur, ‘REC.05 2019 – Elecciones Directas En El Parlamento Del Meracosur’, available at: {https://www.parlamentomercosur.org/innovaportal/file/16585/1/rec.05-2019.pdf} accessed 20 September 2020.

77 Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’.

78 Navarro, ‘The creation and transformation of regional parliamentary assemblies’; Börzel, Tanja A. and Risse, Thomas, ‘When Europeanisation meets diffusion: Exploring new territory’, West European Politics, 35:1 (2012), pp. 192207CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lenz, Tobias and Burilkov, Alexandr, ‘Institutional pioneers in world politics: Regional institution building and the influence of the European Union’, European Journal of International Relations, 23:3 (2017), pp. 654–80CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Cofelice, Andrea and Stavridis, Stelios, ‘European Parliament as an International Parliamentary Institution (IPI)’, European Foreign Affairs Review, 19 (2014), pp. 145–78Google Scholar.

79 Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’.

80 Ibid., p. 229.

81 Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governances, pp. 188–9.

82 Mumford, ‘The power of experts’, p. 163.

83 Verdoes, ‘Explaining the emergence of international parliamentary institutions’.

84 Rittberger, Building Europe's Parliament.

85 Falk and Strauss, ‘Toward global parliament’; Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’, pp. 197–9.

86 There are only six design changes in our data. Three involve the (partial) introduction of direct elections. Moreover, Mercosur Parliament and the Nordic Assembly shifted to ideological factions. The Mercosur Parliament also moved to proportional seat allocation.

87 Mantilla, Pico, ‘Declaración de Caracas (1979)’ (Quito, Ecuador: Cámara Nacional de Representates, 1981), p. 89Google Scholar.

88 Tallberg, Jonas, Sommerer, Thomas, and Squatrito, Theresa, ‘Democratic memberships in international organizations: Sources of institutional design’, The Review of International Organizations, 11:1 (2016), pp. 5987CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rocabert et al., ‘The rise of International Parliamentary Institutions:’.

89 Börzel, Tanja and Risse, Thomas, ‘Identity politics, core state powers, and regional integration: Europe and beyond’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 58:1 (2020), pp. 2140Google Scholar, available at: {doi:10.1111/jcms.12982}.

90 Lenz et al., ‘Patterns of international authority’.

91 See the Preamble and Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union, available at: {https://eur-lex.europa.eu/collection/eu-law/treaties/treaties-force.html} accessed 4 May 2019.

92 Koenig-Archibugi, Mathias, ‘Is global democracy possible?’, European Journal of International Relations, 17:3 (2011), pp. 519–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

93 See, for example, Cheneval, Francis and Schimmelfennig, Frank, ‘The case for demoicracy in the European Union’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 51:2 (2013), pp. 334–50Google Scholar; Hale, Thomas and Koenig-Archibugi, Mathias, ‘Are Europeans ready for a more democratic European Union? New evidence on preference heterogeneity, polarisation and crosscuttingness’, European Journal of Political Research, 55:2 (2016), pp. 225–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94 Börzel and Risse, ‘When Europeanisation meets diffusion’; Lenz and Burilkov, ‘Institutional pioneers in world politics’.

95 Hooghe, Marks, and Lenz, Community, Scale and the Design of International Organization; Cofflice and Stavridis, ‘European parliament as an International Parliamentary Institution (IPI)’.

96 Rittberger, Building Europe's Parliament.

97 Navarro, ‘The creation and transformation of regional parliamentary assemblies’, pp. 206–08.

98 Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’.

99 Marshall, Monty G., Polity V Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2018: Dataset Users’ Manual (Maryland: University of Maryland, 2020)Google Scholar.

100 Michael Coppedge, John Gerring, et al., ‘V-Dem [Country–Year/ Country/Date] Dataset v10’, Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project (2020), available at: {doi:10.23696/vdemds20}.

101 Lenz et al., ‘Patterns of international authority’.

102 The scale of the decision-making authority index is: (0) no formal rights; (1) information about IO agenda; (2) obligatory consultation; (3) right to a response to consultation; (4) veto rights; (5) exclusive IPI decision. In the appendix we provide further detail on this indicator.

103 Kissling, ‘The legal and political status of International Parliamentary Institutions’; Falk and Strauss, ‘Toward global parliament’; Kraft-Kasack, ‘Transnational parliamentary assemblies’; Šabič, ‘Building democratic and responsible global governance’; Rocabert et al., ‘The rise of International Parliamentary Institutions’; Lenz, ‘The Politics of Institutional Symbolism’.

104 Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’, p. 229; Dri, ‘Limits of the institutional mimesis of the European Union’, pp. 65–70; Habegger, ‘Democratic accountability of international organizations’; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance, pp. 188–9.

105 Hix, ‘Parliamentary behavior with two principals’; Rittberger, Building Europe's Parliament.

106 Larry Diamond, ‘Facing up to the democratic recession’, Journal of Democracy, 26:1 (2015), pp. 141–55; Nancy Bermeo, ‘On democratic backsliding’, Journal of Democracy, 27:1 (2016), pp. 5–19; but see also Levitsky, Steven and Way, Luca, ‘The myth of democratic recession’, Journal of Democracy, 26:1 (2015), pp. 4558CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

107 Zürn, Michael, ‘The politicization of world politics and its effects: Eight propositions’, European Political Science Review, 6:1 (2014), pp. 4771CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Börzel, Tanja and Risse, Thomas, ‘Introduction: Framework of the handbook and conceptual clarifications’, in Börzel, T. A. and Risse, T. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 315CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

108 Tallberg et al., ‘Explaining the transnational design of international organizations’.

109 Raymond, M. and DeNardis, L., ‘Multistakeholderism: Anatomy of an inchoate global institution’, International Theory, 7:3 (2015), pp. 572616CrossRefGoogle Scholar, available at: {doi:10.1017/S1752971915000081}.

110 Michael Giesen, ‘Regional Parliamentary Institutions: Diffusion of a Global Parliamentary Organizational Design?’, Social Science Open Access Repository (SSOAR), no. 80 (August 2017), available at: {https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/57748/ssoar-2017-giesen-Regional_Parliamentary_Institutions_Diffusion_of.pdf?sequence=1andisAllowed=yandlnkname=ssoar-2017-giesen-Regional_Parliamentary_Institutions_Diffusion_of.pdf} accessed 21 September 2020; Jancic, ‘Regional parliaments and African economic integration’; Cofelice, Parliamentary Institutions in Regional and International Governance; Schimmelfennig et al., The Rise of International Parliaments.

111 Parlamento do Mercosul, ‘No hubo acuerdo para la aprobación de Protocolo constitutivo de Parlamento de UNASUR’, Parlamento del Mercosur (2010), available at: {https://www.parlamentomercosur.org/innovaportal/v/4174/2/parlasur/no-hubo-acuerdo-para-la-aprobacion-de-protocolo-constitutivo-de-parlamento-de-unasur.html} accessed 21 September 2020; Los Tiempos, ‘Bolivia gastó Bs 470 millones en Parlamento que Unasur no usa’, Los Tiempos (27 April 2018), available at: {http://www.lostiempos.com/actualidad/pais/20180427/bolivia-gasto-bs-470-millones-parlamento-que-unasur-no-usa} accessed 21 September 2020.

112 Lisanda Paraguassu and Daniela Desantis, ‘Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay y Perú suspenden participación en bloque Unasur’, Reuters (20 April 2018), available at: {https://lta.reuters.com/articulo/topnews/idltakbn1hr2j3-ouslt} accessed 21 September 2020; Télam Agency, ‘Uruguay abandona la Unasur’, La Nación (10 March 2020), available at: {https://www.lanacion.com.ar/el-mundo/uruguay-abandona-unasur-nid2341906} accessed 21 September 2020.

113 Senado Federal do Brasil, ‘Reativado Parlamento Amazônico para evitar desmatamentos e queimadas’, TV Senado (21 February 2020), available at: {https://www12.senado.leg.br/tv/programas/argumento/2020/02/reativado-parlamento-amazonico-para-evitar-desmatamentos-e-queimadas}accessed 21 September 2020.

114 Marshall, Polity V Project.

115 Michael Coppedge et al., ‘V-Dem [Country–Year/ Country/Date] Dataset v10’.