Regional Organizations’ Competencies (ROCO)

The Regional Organizations’ (ROCO) databases (I, II, III and IV) have been developed as part of the research project “Towards an Increasing Regionalization of International Politics? Comparing the Development of External and Internal Competencies of Regional Organizations over Time”, which was funded by the Fritz-Thyssen-Foundation under grant number “Az.10.16.1012IB”. The ROCO datasets provide information for 76 regional organizations (ROs) from 1945 to 2015. The ROCO I and II databases provide information on policy competencies (to which this document also refers to as policy mandates) for 76 regional organizations (ROs) from 1945 to 2015. The ROCO I and II datasets map the policy competencies of ROs on the basis of their primary law (details below). The nature and extent of primary law varies considerably between ROs, with some ROs producing a large amount of documents with primary law status concerning specific policy issues or institutional rules. Especially four organizations – ASEAN, AU, EAC and ECOWAS – have set up a large body of additional documents (e.g. labeled in these ROs as supplementary acts or agreements) which refer to very specific and detailed policy issues, but which can nevertheless be described as primary law according to our definition (see below). To acknowledge these differences and to maintain comparability among different organizations and treaties at the same time, we compiled two datasets (ROCO I and ROCO II), which can be used for different research questions. • ROCO I includes the main treaties and treaty changes of 76 ROs between 1945 and 2015, but not the additional primary law sources for ASEAN, AU, EAC and ECOWAS. The dataset provides the information on RO policy competencies in an RO-year-format. • ROCO II includes the main treaties and treaty changes of 76 ROs between 1945 and 2015 as well as additional primary law sources for ASEAN, AU, EAC and ECOWAS. The dataset provides the information on RO policy competencies in a RO-year-format. In addition to the two datasets with information on RO policy competencies, the ROCO III dataset provides information on which states are members of the 76 ROs (1945-2015) and the ROCO IV entails additional information on the 76 ROs between 1945 and 2015. • ROCO III provides information on which state was member of which RO for all 76 ROs between 1945 and 2015. The dataset is structured in a state-year-format. • ROCO IV includes additional information of institutional rules and RO characteristics such as age for the 76 ROs between 1945 and 2015. The dataset is structured in RO-year-format.