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Nuevo artículo del profesor Giovanni Agostinis se publica en el "European Journal of International Relations"



Nuestro profesor Giovanni Agostinis, junto a Carlos Closa (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), España), publican recientemente su artículo "Democracies’ support for illiberal regimes through sovereignty-protective regional institutions: the case of UNASUR’s electoral accompaniment missions", en el "European Journal of International Relations". El trabajo aborda el motivo de por que las democracias están de acuerdo con los regímenes iliberales en la creación de instituciones regionales para el monitoreo de elecciones, enfocando su análisis en la creación de las misiones de “acompañamiento” electoral de UNASUR.



Democracies’ support for illiberal regimes through sovereignty-protective regional institutions: the case of UNASUR’s electoral accompaniment missions
Giovanni Agostinis y Carlos Closa


ABSTRACT

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 article adds to the literature on regime-boosting regionalism, illuminating the conditions under which democratic regional organizations (ROs) create institutions that can boost illiberal regimes’ legitimacy. In particular, our findings show that secondary powers, like Venezuela, can strategically exploit transgovernmental networks’ mobilization to pursue their domestic and geopolitical interests (including illiberal ones) within ROs.

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Sobre los Autores:


- Giovanni Agostinis
is an assistant professor at the Instituto de Ciencia Política of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His research deals with the design and effects of regional institutions, with a focus on Latin America. It has been published in journals such as Governance, Journal of Common Market Studies, Review of International Studies, International Studies Review, Journal of International Relations and Development, and International Relations.


- Carlos Closa
is a professor at the IPP-CSIC (Madrid) and the School of Transnational Governance (STG) at the EUI (Florence). His main research interest refers to institutional design (how and why institutions are created and what are their effects) in regional organizations. He has published in journals such as World Politics, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Integration, South European Society and Politics, Comparative European Politics, or West European Politics.