Illiberal Regimes and International Organizations Workshop

The growing influence of illiberal regimes is reshaping global and regional organizations, and poses challenges to U.S. foreign policy and to liberalism and democracy more broadly. International organizations once largely shaped by democracies are being compelled to manage authoritarian members and democratic back-sliders. Elsewhere, regional organizations created and dominated by illiberal powers are cooperating in new ways, with meaningful effects on governance from Central Asia to sub-Saharan Africa.

On March 15, the Foreign Policy program at Brookings will host a network of scholars from the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation who study the effects of illiberal and authoritarian regimes’ strategies and international and regional organizations.

This workshop will bring together scholars and practitioners of international relations and organizations to address two related topics: (1) The efforts by illiberal and authoritarian governments at international organizations (both global and regional) to contest the norms that undergird existing organizations and the liberal dimensions of international order. (2) The efforts by these governments to use the transnational effects of international organizations to contest democracy itself, or to extend authoritarian regimes.  

The session is invite only and will be held under the Chatham House rule.

Featured Experts

Stephan Haggard, Research Director for Democracy and Global Governance, IGCC

Christina Cottiero, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Utah