The regionalization of intergovernmental organization networks: A non-linear process

We use a computationally intensive approach to explore how the world polity is becoming more fractured along regional lines. We discover that regionalization is a non-linear process and show that the world polity oscillates between fracturing and re-contracting. We do so by applying the technique of Hierarchical Link Clustering (HLC) to yearly intergovernmental organization (IGO) networks from 1971 to 2005. The mechanism for explaining this seemingly contradictory result lies in the behavior of IGOs, which depends largely on the organizations' geographic focus: regionally focused IGOs create more communities, thereby fracturing the world polity, while globally focused IGOs create relationships across communities, thereby bringing communities together. Every year, different percentages of global and regional IGOs enter the network, thereby producing oscillations in the overall structure.