How do hard economic times affect countries’ foreign policy and, specifically, their international commitments? Although a large body of literature assumes that economic crises lead to the prioritization of domestic politics at the expense of international cooperation, these claims are rarely subjected to systematic empirical tests. This study examines one important aspect of these relationships: the consequences of economic crises for the survival of international organizations (IOs), a question that attracted only scant scholarly attention to date. Theoretically, we argue that even though economic crises can weaken member states’ commitment to IOs, they also underscore their ability to tackle the root causes of such crises and mitigate their most pernicious effects. As such, economic crises are actually conducive to IO longevity. We expect this effect to be especially pronounced for currency crises, IOs with an economic mandate, and regional IOs, given their particular relevance for international cooperation during hard economic times. These conjectures are tested with a comprehensive sample of IOs and data on currency, banking and sovereign debt crises from 1970 to 2014. Using event history models and controlling for several alternative explanations of IO survival, we find ample empirical support for the theoretical expectations.

经济困难时期如何影响各国的外交政策，特别是其国际承诺？尽管大量文献假设经济危机导致国内政治优先而牺牲国际合作，但这些主张很少受到系统的实证检验。这项研究探讨了这些关系的一个重要方面：经济危机对国际组织（IO）生存的影响，这一问题迄今为止只引起了很少的学术关注。从理论上讲，我们认为，尽管经济危机可能削弱成员国对国际组织的承诺，但它们也强调了它们解决此类危机的根本原因并减轻其最有害影响的能力。因此，经济危机实际上有利于IO的长寿。我们预计，这种影响对于货币危机、具有经济使命的国际组织和区域国际组织来说尤其明显，因为它们在经济困难时期与国际合作具有特殊的相关性。这些猜想通过 IO 的全面样本以及 1970 年至 2014 年货币、银行和主权债务危机的数据进行了检验。使用事件历史模型并控制 IO 生存的几种替代解释，我们发现理论预期有充足的实证支持。