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Despite the Kantian Peace association, the effect of multiple IGO memberships on state behaviors and interactions is less than clearly understood despite its popularity as a control or explanatory variable. This study proposes that variation in organizational design accounts for a portion of the ambiguity inherent in these IGO-effects studies, particularly with regard to conflict. The convention in the quantitative IGO literature to treat IGOs as homogeneous and equivalent, and thus measures state participation in organizations as a function of the total number of IGOs in which a state has membership. By measuring IGOs in this manner, researchers lose significant variance and information, rendering the entire IGO population as substitutable. In actuality, it is likely that there is some degree of substitutability between types of organizations. However, by making this research design decision a priori, the potential causally-complex issue of meaningful substitutability among types of organizations is obscured. The way we measure state participation in IGOs AND how we measure IGOs not only prevents us from understanding what the numbers "mean" but skews our understanding of how IGOs impact other major international processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the intense proliferation of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) over the past century, research has been less than decisive as to how IGOs matter, particularly with regard to IGOs' effects on conflict. Though theoretically IGOs are often delegated a pacifying role within international interaction, the international relations literature has demonstrated contradictory results that are only partially remedied by focusing on institutional design characteristics. In seeking to tease apart the causal arrows associated with IGOs and conflict, we focus on new and transitioning states. Looking at new and transitioning states allows us to capture a unique point at which strategic calculations are made about what aspects of the web of IGOs to join while also allowing us to look at the effects of these choices on foreign policies of those states that come to the international system with a relatively new slate. States may choose to join existing organizations or participate in creation of new IGOs. While policy makers' resources are limited, their choices are much broader. As state decision makers pursue their foreign policy objectives, they are also engaged in strategic choices about which and how many, if any, organizations to join. Drawing from the liberal peace literature, we explore the differential influences associated with mutual membership in different types of IGOs as they relate to conflict within dyads. Last in our calculus is an eye toward state preferences. Though preferences are a noteworthy element of the calculus of decision makers, both the national and international levels (Bueno de Mesquita 1981, 2000; Lemke 2002),"preferences" remain an ambiguous and often overlooked term in the realm of international relations (particularly due to the difficulty associated with capturing these preferences). To what degree state preferences account for states' IGO joining strategies and the amount of conflict within them is of paramount concern within our study. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While general explanations expect capabilities to dictate the variation in IGO joining behavior, a theoretically grounded explanation of how and why state joining behavior varies so widely among different kinds of organizations remains largely untested. A ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As early as 1986, Jacobson et al. noted the growing differentiation of IGOs in the international system (1986:147). While policy makers’ resources are limited, their choices are much broader. As state decision makers pursue their policy objectives, they ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the ambiguity associated with this amorphous entity, scholars, policy makers and laymen alike find themselves embedded in the language of "regions." In particular, regions hold a special place in studies of intergovernmental organizations. In a previous study Shanks et al (1996) noted significant differences in the joining behaviors of states across regions for the Cold War period. A recent project by Volgy et al (2005) identifies asimilar trend in the post-Cold War environment. Rather than attribute such differences to the intrinsic qualities of particular regions, this paper develops a preliminary theory behind regional differences in state joining behaviors. Utilizing data gathered through the Volgy et al project, this analysis makes use of duration techniques to trace and compare important developments in institutional formation among regions by taking into account regional capabilities, the conflict within regions and the extent of great power control of and penetration into regions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to show the extent to which regional architectural membership changed as a function of the end of the Cold War and as resistance to American hegemony increased across regions outside of Europe. The paper builds on two previous efforts to map IGO architectural arrangements prior to the end of the Cold War era. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]