Working group

From club to common resource pool

Effects of enlargement and resource sharing on international organisations

Add to calendar 2023-12-07 16:00 2023-12-07 17:30 Europe/Rome From club to common resource pool Hybrid Event Refectory (Badia Fiesolana) and Zoom YYYY-MM-DD

Scheduled dates

Dec 07 2023

16:00 - 17:30 CET

Hybrid Event, Refectory (Badia Fiesolana) and Zoom

Organised by

Department of Political and Social Sciences

This session of the EUI International Relations Working Group features a presentation by Veronica Anghel, Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre.

Regional organisations are a type of international organisation with limited or selective membership. As a result, scholars tend to study regional organisations as 'clubs'. Theorising regional organisations as clubs, however, obscures an important aspect of their evolution. How do we account for the effects of resource sharing and enlargement when an organisation becomes less exclusive than a club is expected to be? Using the economic theory of goods and the experience of the European Union (EU), we show how the loss of exclusivity vis-à-vis outsiders and the increase in rivalry transforms a regional organisation from a 'club' to a 'common resource pool'. We also highlight the shift in the governance structure of a regional organisation from ensuring positive net benefits to managing negative externalities. The transformation from a 'club' to a 'common resource pool' requires more self-discipline and greater multilateral surveillance. The experience of membership changes fundamentally as a result.