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Papers by Giovanni Agostinis

European Journal of International Relations, 2022

Why do democracies agree with contested illiberal regimes on the creation of regional institution... more Why do democracies agree with contested illiberal regimes on the creation of regional institutions for election monitoring? This article tackles this puzzle by analyzing the creation of the Union of South American Nations' (UNASUR) Electoral Council (ECU) and its electoral "accompaniment" missions. The case of the ECU is particularly relevant, since its missions allowed for the legitimization of illiberal electoral practices in a region predominantly populated by democratic states that have pursued democracy consolidation through regional cooperation. We show that the emergence of the ECU resulted from the interaction of the following conditions: Venezuela's leadership; the mobilization of the transgovernmental network of South American electoral authorities; and the interaction between different sets of state preferences regarding election observation, which reached an equilibrium around an institutional design that did not impose a diminution of sovereignty on the contracting states. The article sheds light on the genesis of sovereignty-protective institutional designs, showing how they allow for the reconciliation of non-coincident preferences even in a sensitive field like election observation. The article also contributes to the literature on international election observation by explaining why democratic states may favor the emergence of monitoring mechanisms that contribute to the erosion of democracy in a region. In so doing, the

International Relations , 2021

Latin American regionalism displays a long history of crises, which have affected almost all regi... more Latin American regionalism displays a long history of crises, which have affected almost all regional organisations (ROs) across different waves of regionalism. The article conducts the first comparative analysis of the outcomes of crises in Latin American ROs across time, tackling the following questions: What have been the outcomes of the crises faced by Latin American ROs? Under what conditions does a crisis result in the survival or breakdown of the affected RO in Latin America? We adopt a multi-method approach that combines QCA with process tracing to identify the causal pathways to the survival or breakdown of ROs across a universe of eight crises. The findings show that Latin American ROs have been resilient to crises, which resulted in RO survival in seven cases out of eight. The QCA reveals how the distributive nature of interstate conflicts and the availability of majority voting are both sufficient conditions for Latin American ROs to survive a crisis. Analysis of the outlier case of UNASUR shows that normative conflicts that take place in the absence of majority voting constitute a ‘perfect storm’ configuration that can lead to RO breakdown. The findings also show that Latin America ROs’ tendency to survive crises is associated with the preservation of the status quo in terms of institutional design, which in some cases is achieved through the temporary flexibilisation of existing rules. Differently from the case of the EU, then, the crises of Latin American ROs have not led to the deepening of regional integration, but rather to institutional inertia.

International Studies Review

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected virtually every aspect of life, for individuals, communities, ... more The COVID-19 pandemic has affected virtually every aspect of life, for individuals, communities, nations, regions, and the international system. In this forum, scholars from around the world with diverse areas of expertise consider the contributions of international relations (IR) scholarship in our understanding of the politics and governance challenges surrounding the pandemic. The seven essays that follow together examine how our current state of knowledge speaks to the theme of ISA 2020: “Multiple Identities and Scholarship in a Global IR: One Profession, Many Voices.” Each essay features a research area and body of scholarship that both informs our understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic and reflects on how the pandemic challenges us to push our scholarship and intellectual community further. Together, these essays highlight the diversity of our discipline of IR and how its many voices may bring us together in one conversation. La pandemia de COVID-19 ha afectado prácticamente a...

Problems of Post Communism , 2021

This article explores the growing environmental activism of nondemocratic regional organizations ... more This article explores the growing environmental activism of nondemocratic regional organizations (NDROs) by investigating the case of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), addressing the following questions: What explains the emergence of environmental regionalism in the SCO? What are its characteristics and e ects? We show that China has acted as the driver of environmental regionalism in the SCO-whose members rank among the world's top CO 2 emitters-providing positive incentives for the establishment of regional environmental institutions and fostering member states' green energy transition through the top-down deployment of Chinese nancial institutions and construction companies. In so doing, China has sought to consolidate its regional leadership in Eurasia, while promoting its economic statecraft and its bid for global environmental leadership.

Review of International Studies , 2021

International Studies Review, 2021

Governance, 2020

Under what conditions does one transnational governance mode evolve into another? Under what cond... more Under what conditions does one transnational governance mode evolve into another? Under what conditions does a transnational governance initiative break down? The article addresses these questions through the analysis of the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA), showing how delegation, orchestration, and intergovernmental (direct) governance can be linked to one another, creating a chain of governance modes in motion. By reconstructing IIRSA's trajectory, we illuminate the orchestrating role of regional development banks, and explore the conditions leading to the break-down of transnational governance. The article contributes to the indirect governance literature by complementing prevailing functionalist accounts with a power-based perspective that underlines the impact of intergovernmental conflicts and power asymmetries on transnational governance. The article also bridges the gap between the international relation governance scholarship and comparative regionalism, providing new insights on the logics of transnational governance in world regions characterized by limited state capacities.

Journal of Common Market Studies, 2019

Why do member states of regional intergovernmental organizations (RIOs) voluntarily adapt their p... more Why do member states of regional intergovernmental organizations (RIOs) voluntarily adapt their policies and institutions to the norms and procedures implemented in other member states? I tackle this puzzle by investigating the domestic effects of health cooperation among South American states within the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). The article shows how the establishment of a regional sector-based institution like the Health Council of UNASUR triggered the diffusion of similar policies by reducing transaction costs and increasing information exchanges among member states' health bureaucracies. I argue that RIOs such as UNASUR catalyse transna-tional diffusion not by enforcing binding regional norms (as in the case of the EU), but by bridging member states' shared functional needs and asymmetric capacities in specific policy areas. Using the case of UNASUR Health, the article contributes to the study of the logics of transnational diffusion within RIOs in the absence of authority delegated to supranational institutions.

This article contributes to the study of South American regionalism focusing on the emergence of ... more This article contributes to the study of South American regionalism focusing on the emergence of sectoral cooperation starting in 2000. To do so, the article analyses two policy areas — transport infrastructure and energy integration — addressing two questions: Why has regional cooperation emerged despite the absence of economic interdependence and market-driven demand for economic integration? And why are policy outcomes evident in some areas (i.e. transport infrastructure) while limited in others (i.e. energy)? It is argued that the emergence of regional cooperation as well as the variation in policy outcomes between areas can be explained largely by the articulation of a regional leadership and its effect on the convergence of state preferences. The article shows how the Brazilian leadership, incenti-vised by the effects of the US-led Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations and the financial crises that hit the region in the late 1990s, made state preferences converge towards a regionalist project encompassing all South American countries by making visible the mutual benefits of cooperation on transport infrastructure and energy. In the case of energy, however, the emergence of a second regional leadership project — pursued by Chávez's Venezuela — and deep preference divergence led sectoral cooperation into a gridlock.