International Organization

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. The State and International Organizations

Abstract

This is a book about international organization (IO) theory and its use to understand international relations. It is organized around four distinctions to be found in the theoretical literature on IOs: between sovereignty and globalization, between power and interdependence, between efficiency and ideas, and between regimes and institutions. These distinctions are then applied to specific IOs, including the United Nations and other organizations that deal with issues including peace and security, human rights and humanitarian aid, the environment and sustainability, global health, and the international political economy. This chapter introduces the four distinctions and lays out the structure of the book.

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 2. Sovereignty and Globalization

Abstract

The first of the distinctions around which this book is organized is between sovereignty and globalization. Sovereignty is the starting point in traditional international relations theory. In the past two decades, globalization has become a buzzword both for those applauding and for those opposing trends toward policy convergence among states. Is globalization undermining the sovereign state system? If so, what role do international organizations (IOs) play in the process? International organizations can be seen as the agents through which states are promoting the forces of globalization, or as the agents that states are using to protect themselves from the broader forces of globalization. If the former, they are helping to undermine the traditional state system. If the latter, they are helping to support it.

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 3. Power and Interdependence

Abstract

The second of the distinctions around which this book is organized is that between power and interdependence. Because of changes in technology, communications, and economics that make states more interdependent, the policy options of states are becoming increasingly constrained by the policy choices made by other states. Many analysts of international organizations (IOs) argue that these organizations are the most effective ways for states to deal with interdependence, that they are vehicles through which states cooperate to promote the best outcomes for everyone in an interdependent world. Others argue, however, that IOs are not neutral agents of cooperation, but represent the interests of particular states and are mechanisms through which powerful states control less-powerful ones. This chapter examines both arguments.

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 4. Regimes and Institutions

Abstract

The third of the distinctions around which this book is organized is the distinction between institutions and what the international organization (IO) literature calls international regimes. The regimes literature studies the effects of IOs on other actors in international relations, particularly states. It looks at IOs as if they were black boxes and examines the inputs into and outputs from these boxes. The institutional literature looks within the organizations themselves and asks how the structure of the organization as an institution, and the people within it, affects what the IO does. In other words, the regime approach looks at the effects of IOs on other actors, whereas the institutional approach looks at the organization itself as an actor.

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 5. Efficiency and Ideas

Abstract

The fourth of the distinctions around which this book is organized relates to what it is that international organizations (IOs) actually accomplish. This distinction can best be represented as one between efficiency and ideas. Some analysts of IOs focus on their role in making relations among states as efficient as possible. They do this by submitting IOs to what is essentially an economic style of analysis. Other analysts focus on how IOs affect the way that states, national decision-makers, and global populations more broadly think. In other words, they examine the effects of IOs on norms of behavior in international politics. This calls for a more sociological mode of analysis. This chapter discusses the methodologies of both approaches.

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 6. The United Nations and Its System

Abstract

This chapter provides some background information on the UN system as a whole. To speak simply of the United Nations (UN) can be misleading, because the term can refer to a number of different things. It can refer to a set of countries, to a specific set of institutional structures located in New York City and Geneva, or to the entire set of institutional structures that come under the administrative purview of the UN headquarters. More broadly, it can refer to what is known as the “UN system,” which encompasses a large group of IOs, many of which are not in any way within the administrative hierarchy of the UN headquarters. This chapter explains how these various institutions relate to one another.

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 7. Collective Security

Abstract

This chapter focuses specifically on the international institutions of collective security. It begins with a general discussion of the concept of collective security and its development over time in the context of the United Nations (UN) generally and the Security Council specifically. It then discusses the institutional features of some key organizations, particularly the Security Council, the UN Secretariat, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The chapter analyzes these international organizations (IOs) in the context of the four theoretical distinctions discussed in the earlier chapters of this book and concludes with a brief discussion of the concept of the responsibility to protect (R2P) as a cautionary tale of the evolution of post-Cold War collective security thinking.

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 8. Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid

Abstract

This chapter focuses on issues of human rights and humanitarian aid, and discusses two kinds of institutions. The first are what might be described as monitoring institutions, such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and the various human rights committees. The second are formal courts such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights. In the issue-area of humanitarian aid, the two IOs discussed are the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 9. Trade and Financial Stabilization

Abstract

This chapter deals primarily with issues of international trade and financial stabilization. It focuses primarily on the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The WTO has dominated the international trading system to an extent that few IOs can claim in their issue-areas. The IMF is one of the world’s two predominant multilateral lenders and is the key international organization (IO) in the area of macroeconomic lending and management. A quarter of a century ago these institutions were seen as so important that annual or biennial meetings of these IOs attracted tens of thousands of protesters. Now they struggle to remain relevant.

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 10. Development and Sustainability

Abstract

This chapter focuses on four different roles of international organizations (IOs) in development: development lending, development assistance, development discourse, and the creation of development targets. The chapter looks at the leading institutions in the first three of these categories: the World Bank for development lending, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for development assistance, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for development discourse. For the fourth category, it focuses on a set of targets, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), created under the auspices of the General Assembly but intended as a guide for development activities across the United Nations (UN) system.

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 11. The Global Commons

Abstract

The system of international organizations (IOs) that has developed to deal with commons issues, mostly environmental in nature and mostly over the past four decades, is marked by a few central IOs that address the range of commons issues, but at a fairly general level, and a much larger number of small IOs and regimes that address the governance of specific commons issues. This chapter addresses these features of the system, beginning with a discussion of the most central of the IOs, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and continuing with a survey of smaller and more specific environmental IOs and regimes, with a focus on cooperation on addressing climate change. It then looks at the role of science in the system.

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 12. The Technical Details

Abstract

This chapter is organized around a discussion of international organizations (IOs) that deal with some of the more ostensibly technical aspects of international life, on which life in the modern world has come to depend. These are often referred to as functional organizations, and the examples discussed in this chapter include the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the Universal Postal Union (UPU), and the World Health Organization (WHO).

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 13. The Fuzzy Borders of Intergovernmentalism

Abstract

This chapter looks at some organizations that lie at the border of our definition of intergovernmental institutions. These organizations are either hybrids of international organizations (IOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), or are NGOs that play some official role in the international system. The examples discussed in the chapter include the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO, or Interpol), the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (ITSO, formerly INTELSAT), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

J. Samuel Barkin

Chapter 14. Conclusions

Abstract

This chapter revisits the basic questions underlying this book: Do international institutions matter, and how do we study them? Some of these international organizations (IOs) are successful at solving the problems in international governance that they were designed to address, others less so. Collectively, though, these institutions illustrate both the range of functions that IOs have been created to fulfill and the utility and limitations of IO theory.

J. Samuel Barkin

Backmatter