If an international organization has a membership dominated by one powerful member, that organization is susceptible to being used as a hegemonic instrument, like the utilization of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact) by the USSR before Mikhail Gorbachev. Organizations whose members are of about the same weight, like the EFTA between 1973 and 1995, will be more egalitarian by nature and thereby act as a meeting place for equals (Archer, 2001: 92).