Felicity Vabulas is a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.

On Monday March 24, 2014, seven of the world’s wealthiest industrialized democracies suspended Russia from the Group of Eight (G-8) for its whirlwind annexation of Crimea. The G-8 arguably represented the world’s most exclusive club. Its summits and supporting ministerial meetings have among other things dealt with macroeconomic management, international trade, energy, terrorism and development since 1998. But what impact will the suspension of Russia by the G-7 countries—the United States, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy —actually have?

This question lies at the intersection of two trends in international politics. First, states increasingly use informal intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) such as the G-8—which are not based on a formal treaty and have no permanent secretariat—rather than formal IGOs such as the United Nations—which are based on a binding commitment under international law and have a stable headquarters—to achieve multilateral collaboration and cooperation. Second, states are increasingly using suspension as a tool to punish member states for violating their IGO commitments. My research examines both trends. Here are four general findings that provide context and that may shed some light on the possible impact of Russia’s suspensions.

(1) Suspension from IGOs is rare

Based on a comprehensive examination, I found only about 100 occurrences of suspensions from the approximately 300 IGOs in existence since 1945. About 55 percent of these suspensions occurred after political backsliding (adverse regime changes, coup d’états, undemocratic elections, human rights violations, government-sponsored violence, and government-invoked political states of emergency). A further 30 percent of suspensions have occurred because of financial arrears.

While the G-8 is not included in my set of formal IGOs, this suspension would be classified as “military intervention”, which is extremely rare. Other examples of formal IGOs suspending states because of military intervention include the Organization of Islamic Conference suspending Afghanistan from 1980 – 1989 after the Soviet military intervention on Dec. 24, 1979, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe suspending Yugoslavia in 1992 for aggression against its neighbors.

This means two things. First, we don’t have a lot of similar data points upon which to compare the G8’s suspension of Russia. Second, there are a lot of politics tied up in previous suspensions to make systematic comparisons even more difficult. My research does show, however, that regional or club rather than “global” IGOs are more likely to suspend states (for example, the African Union, the Commonwealth, and the Economic Community of West African States are some of the most frequent suspenders) probably because of the closer level of shared understanding and the stronger impact of peer pressure. Second, middle powers, rather than weak or strong powers, are most likely to get suspended probably because the IGO is reluctant to suspend the extremes: it relies on powerful states for funding and weaker states have less capacity to actually change their behavior after they have been punished.

This means that the suspension of Russia is an anomaly in multiple ways.

(2) Suspending a state from an informal IGO is much easier than a formal IGO