States exiting international organizations (IOs) have become a conspicuous feature of contemporary international politics. From high-profile withdrawals and suspensions to repeated threats of departure, states appear to increasingly signal dissatisfaction with international institutions not by voicing demands for reform from within, but by stepping away from them. Yet despite the growing visibility of exits, the study of international organizations has largely focused on institutional creation, design, delegation, and reform, devoting comparatively little attention to how and why states disengage. Exit from International Organizations steps boldly into this gap and fills it in spades! Examining the universe of exit cases over 100 years, Inken von Borzyskowski and Felicity Vabulas reveal that exit is not a terminal act or simple institutional failure. It is a strategic and political process shaped by domestic incentives, international constraints, and organizational rules. And while there are high-profile cases of exit in the present, von Borzyskowski and Vabulas show that exit has been a “relatively consistent” (p. 8) strategy for institutional change for more than a century.
At the core of the book is a conceptual reorientation. Rather than treating exit as a binary outcome (states are either members or not), the authors conceptualize exit as a process encompassing formal withdrawal and suspensions, which includes negotiations before and after such events, notably partial disengagement and threats of departure. This broader understanding allows von Borzyskowski and Vabulas to bridge literatures on compliance, voice, and institutional design, while foregrounding the strategic calculations that precede and surround exit decisions. Exit, then, is not simply the abandonment of cooperation but a tool that governments use to signal resolve, mobilize domestic audiences, and extract concessions.
The book highlights three central factors shaping exit behavior. First, domestic political incentives such as electoral pressures, executive–legislative dynamics, and nationalist appeals condition leaders’ willingness to pursue or threaten exit. Second, international reputational considerations and audience costs constrain exit choices, as withdrawal may carry diplomatic or economic consequences. Third, organizational rules and institutional design shape exit costs and timelines, making exit more or less attractive depending on how international organizations are structured. Together, these factors explain variations in both the likelihood and form of exit across states and organizations. Importantly, the authors shift the analytical question away from whether states exit international organizations toward when, how, and under what political conditions they do so.
Empirically, Exit from International Organizations is a stupendous achievement. It is a prime example of the new generation of deeply grounded IO research that moves beyond studying the present or portraying international institutions as either sticky or increasingly fragile, to documenting varied patterns of cooperation over longer periods of time. It employs an ambitious mixed-methods research design that examines all cases of exit over a full century of international cooperation, which includes coverage of 198 states and 534 IOs, and that culminates in a 25-page appendix that features a summary of all exit cases since the first known case in 1914. The authors combine original cross-national datasets on exit behavior with quantitative analysis and detailed qualitative case studies. This approach enables them to demonstrate broad patterns while also tracing the political logic of exit in specific institutional and domestic contexts. Among other things, they find that only 2% of all county-years between 1914 and 1922 entailed a withdrawal, and that about half of all 387 known cases of withdrawal ended in a return. Meanwhile, we learn that about 80% of all known 101 cases of suspensions do as well, and that about 70% of them were the result of political backsliding.
One of the book’s notable strengths is its systematic coverage across issue areas and organizational types, which helps dispel the notion that exit is confined to a small subset of contested or weak institutions. The empirical chapters show that exit behavior varies not only across states but also across organizations with different degrees of legalization, membership rules, and enforcement capacity. The qualitative case studies are particularly effective in illustrating how exit functions as a political strategy rather than a last resort. In these cases, exit threats often emerge as bargaining tools used to signal dissatisfaction, mobilize domestic constituencies, or pressure organizations to accommodate state preferences. In some instances, exit threats succeed in generating concessions or reforms; in others, they harden institutional resistance or trigger reputational costs that outweigh potential gains. These findings underscore the authors’ central claim that exit is an ongoing political process of negotiation among states rather than acts of abrupt termination. To paraphrase Albert Hirschman, from whom the authors draw great inspiration, if states really intended to exit every time they express dissatisfaction, they would simply do it and not expend resources making their case.
The book makes several important contributions to existing debates in IO studies. First, it advances a more nuanced understanding of institutional resilience by showing that exit behavior does not necessarily signal institutional breakdown. On the contrary, exit can coexist with and at times even reinforce organizational stability by clarifying boundaries and prompting adaptation. Second, the analysis deepens our understanding of the domestic politics of international cooperation by demonstrating how leaders use international institutions as arenas for domestic signaling. Third, the book sheds light on the role of institutional design in structuring conflict and contestation, highlighting how rules governing withdrawal, suspension, and membership shape political strategies.
The book also raises some analytical questions. By grouping together formal withdrawal, partial disengagement, and exit threats under one conceptual umbrella, the framework may at times blur distinctions between exit and other forms of contestation, such as noncompliance or voice, temporary boycotts, or reduced staffing and budget contributions. While the authors are careful to justify this broader approach, readers may still question whether certain behaviors labeled as exit are better understood as variations of participation rather than disengagement. Future researchers may productively clarify these boundaries to help distinguish exit more sharply from adjacent phenomena.
A second path that future researchers may pursue is to broaden the scope of organized cooperation under analysis. The empirical analysis is wide-ranging, but the argument appears most clearly applicable to highly legalized organizations and liberal democratic contexts, where exit rules are explicit and domestic political incentives are easier to observe. Exit dynamics in less formal institutional settings and authoritarian regimes may follow different logics, in particular where informal influence substitutes for formal membership or domestic audience costs are weaker.
Exit from International Organizations is a pathbreaking contribution to the study of international cooperation. By placing exit squarely at the center of IO studies, von Borzyskowski and Vabulas compel scholars to rethink how forms of cooperation endure, adapt, and sometimes unravel. Their biggest achievement lies in demonstrating that exit is not a symptom of institutional failure, but a recurring feature of global governance in which states aim to renegotiate the nature of cooperation. While the book is bound to quickly become required reading for IO specialists, it will also be of great interest to scholars of international relations theory and foreign policy, as well as to policy analysts concerned with institutional fragility and resilience.
