Guest Speaker Dr Felicity Vabulos on Exiting International Organizations

Exit from International Organizations: Costly Negotiation for Institutional Change

Dr. Felicity Vabulas (Pepperdine University)

Thursday, January 29, 2026

12:00-1:30pm

Hall Building, Room H-1220

Why do states exit international organizations (IOs)? How often does exit

from IOs – including voluntary withdrawal and forced suspension – occur?

What are the effects of leaving IOs for the exiting state? Despite the

importance of membership in IOs, a broader understanding of exit across

states, organizations, and time has been limited. Exit from International

Organizations addresses these lacunae through a theoretically grounded

and empirically systematic study of IO exit. Von Borzyskowski and Vabulas

argue that there is a common logic to IO exit which helps explain both its

causes and consequences. By examining IO exit across 198 states, 534

IOs, and over a hundred years of history, they show that exit is driven by

states' dissatisfaction, preference divergence, and is a strategy to negotiate

institutional change. The book also demonstrates that exit is costly because

it has reputational consequences for leaving states and significantly affects

other forms of international cooperation.

Felicity Vabulas is the Blanche E. Seaver Associate Professor of

International Studies at Pepperdine University. Her research focuses on the

political economy of international cooperation, specifically when and why

states change how they cooperate internationally and the implications this

has for international relations. She has been awarded a Seaver College

Endowed Professorship and the Howard A. White Award for Excellence in

Teaching. Her earlier research received a best paper award from the

American Political Science Association and has been supported by the

World Bank, the National Science Foundation, and the International Studies

Association.