thesis on international organizations

Decision-making in international organizations: institutional design and performance

• Open access
• Published: 17 October 2021
• Volume 17 , pages 815–845, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Thomas Sommerer   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8954-9088 1 ,
• Theresa Squatrito 2 ,
• Jonas Tallberg 3 &
• Magnus Lundgren 4  

17k Accesses

13 Citations

19 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

International organizations (IOs) experience significant variation in their decision-making performance, or the extent to which they produce policy output. While some IOs are efficient decision-making machineries, others are plagued by deadlock. How can such variation be explained? Examining this question, the article makes three central contributions. First, we approach performance by looking at IO decision-making in terms of policy output and introduce an original measure of decision-making performance that captures annual growth rates in IO output. Second, we offer a novel theoretical explanation for decision-making performance. This account highlights the role of institutional design, pointing to how majoritarian decision rules, delegation of authority to supranational institutions, and access for transnational actors (TNAs) interact to affect decision-making. Third, we offer the first comparative assessment of the decision-making performance of IOs. While previous literature addresses single IOs, we explore decision-making across a broad spectrum of 30 IOs from 1980 to 2011. Our analysis indicates that IO decision-making performance varies across and within IOs. We find broad support for our theoretical account, showing the combined effect of institutional design features in shaping decision-making performance. Notably, TNA access has a positive effect on decision-making performance when pooling is greater, and delegation has a positive effect when TNA access is higher. We also find that pooling has an independent, positive effect on decision-making performance. All-in-all, these findings suggest that the institutional design of IOs matters for their decision-making performance, primarily in more complex ways than expected in earlier research.

Similar content being viewed by others

Stability and change in international policy-making: a punctuated equilibrium approach.

Magnus Lundgren, Theresa Squatrito & Jonas Tallberg

Introducing the Intergovernmental Policy Output Dataset (IPOD)

Magnus Lundgren, Theresa Squatrito, … Jonas Tallberg

Delegation and pooling in international organizations

Liesbet Hooghe & Gary Marks

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

International organizations (IOs) vary significantly in their decision-making performance, or the extent to which they produce policy output. Some IOs, such as the United Nations (UN), have principal decision-making bodies prone to deadlock and are best known for their failures to deliver. Other IOs, such as the European Union (EU), produce hundreds of decisions every year. At the same time, IOs experience variation over time in their decision-making output. Some IOs, like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), have witnessed a growth in their policy output over time, while others, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have had relatively stable levels of output from year to year.

How can we explain such variation in the decision-making performance of IOs? What factors make IOs efficient decision-making machineries or, alternatively, generate gridlock? Gaining a better understanding of this issue is important for both research and policy-making. Decision-making performance matters because it sheds light on IO performance more broadly. Existing research typically distinguishes between two main aspects of IO performance—process and outcome—where the first mainly entails a focus on organizational efficiency and the latter a focus on organizational goal achievement (e.g., Gutner & Thompson 2010 ; Lall, 2017 ; Squatrito et al., 2018 ). In privileging decision-making performance, we focus on an intermediate step between process and outcome, namely, IOs’ ability to adopt policy decisions (see also Pollack & Hafner-Burton, 2010 ). IO policy output in most instances temporally precedes outcomes while also being indicative of process; without efficient processes, outputs are unlikely and without outputs, outcomes are difficult for IOs to produce. Decision-making performance, however, is not equivalent to IO performance as a whole. Rather, it is one crucial piece of the broader picture that is IO performance.

Decision-making performance also matters because it relates to regime effectiveness. Regime effectiveness refers to the extent to which international cooperation succeeds in reducing or solving societal problems (Young, 1999 ). While enforcing peace, reducing poverty, liberalizing trade, and preventing the spread of infectious diseases will require more than IO decision-making, arriving at decisions is a first and necessary requirement if regimes are to be effective (Gutner & Thompson 2010 ; Tallberg et al., 2016a ). Stated differently, gaining insights into decision-making performance constitutes an important step toward understanding how IOs contribute to the problem-solving effectiveness of regimes, a question that is increasingly relevant as IOs have grown more numerous, (Shanks et al., 1996 ; Pevehouse et al., 2020 ), gained increasing political authority (Hooghe et al., 2017 ; Zürn, 2018 ), and regime complexes have evolved (Alter & Raustiala, 2018 ).

This article makes three central contributions. First, we advance a novel focus in the study of IO performance, examining decision-making performance as a component of the broader phenomenon of IO performance (Tallberg et al., 2016a ). Footnote 1 Our focus on decision-making to shed light on IO performance is inspired by the study of domestic legislative performance (e.g., Olson & Nonidez, 1972 ; Arter, 2006 ; Damgaard & Jensen, 2006 ), which conceives of performance in terms of decision-making capacity. Decision-making performance describes the extent to which an IO is capable of producing policy output through its main decision-making body, given pressures to address problems. To empirically capture decision-making performance, we introduce a new measure based on the annual growth rate in policy output. This measure recognizes that IOs display considerable heterogeneity in their policy output, and therefore normalizes policy output by focusing on growth curves rather than absolute numbers. This measure thereby enables a systematic analysis of variation in decision-making performance over time and across IOs with different output baselines, offering a key tool for future research on IO performance.

Second, we build on rational institutionalism to develop a theoretical account that focuses on institutional design to explain IO decision-making performance. While recent literature cast doubts on the centrality of institutional design for performance (Barnett & Finnemore, 2004 ; Gray, 2018 ), we argue that institutional design indeed matters, but in ways more complex than previously understood (see also Lall, 2017 ). Footnote 2 Specifically, features of institutional design affect IO decision-making performance by way of their interaction rather than independent effects. Some design features combine to enable collective decision-making by mutually reinforcing efficiency gains, such as reduced transaction costs. Other constellations of design features undermine one another to minimize their benefits to collective decision-making. We theorize interactions between three design features: (1) pooling —the surrender of states’ decision-making veto; (2) delegation —the granting of authority to an independent supranational body; and (3) access for transnational actors (TNAs)—the granting of privileges to TNAs, such as opportunities to be present, make statements, and even vote in interstate decision-making. Pooling, delegation, and TNA access represent the most profound changes to institutional design that have occurred in recent decades, and have received much scholarly attention. We consider how the shift away from purely member-driven IOs affects the strategic setting within which states, supranational, and transnational actors exercise entrepreneurship to influence decision-making. While previous literature focuses on how individual features of institutional design shape interstate bargaining dynamics (e.g., Boehmer et al., 2004 ; Hawkins et al., 2006 ; Hansen et al., 2008 ; Slapin, 2008 ; Finke & Bailer, 2019 ), we theorize how pooling, delegation, and TNA access combine to shape the effects of state, supranational, and transnational entrepreneurship on policy output by way of their net effect on cooperation problems. This perspective resonates with institutional practice, where IO reforms often involve changes to several design features simultaneously, rather than modifications of one at a time. We argue that reaping the resource benefits of TNA access depends on higher levels of pooling, and that lower levels of delegation to supranational bodies will make it easier to realize the positive effects of pooling. Moreover, we expect that delegation’s effects on decision-making should be reinforced by extensive TNA access.

Third, we offer the first comparative assessment of the decision-making performance of IOs. While existing research analyzes the decision-making of individual IOs, such as the UN (Holloway & Tomlinson, 1995 ; Allen & Yuen 2014 ; Vreeland & Dreher, 2014 ), EU (Schulz & König, 2000 ; Thomson et al.  2006 ; Naurin & Wallace 2008 ), and World Trade Organization (WTO) (Ehlermann & Ehring, 2005 ; Elsig, 2010 ), these studies tell us little about general patterns and explanations of IO decision-making performance. The broad comparative studies that do exist focus on aspects of IO performance other than decision-making (Gutner & Thompson 2010 ; Lall, 2017 ; Gray, 2018 ). Our data cover 30 IOs from 1980 to 2011, and captures tens of thousands of decisions of the main decision-making body of these IOs.

Our analysis produces several important findings. Decision-making performance varies both across and within IOs, and institutional design helps to account for this variation. Increased pooling has a positive independent effect on IO decision-making performance in the long run, making it less cumbersome to arrive at collective decisions. Increased delegation and TNA access do not have similar independent effects. Yet more important than the effect of any one institutional design feature is how pooling, delegation, and TNA access interact to shape decision-making performance. We find support for two particular constellations of institutional design: TNA access has a positive effect on decision-making performance when pooling is greater, and the effect of delegation varies with the extent of TNA access. All-in-all, these findings suggest that when design features are viewed in isolation of one another, we miss crucial explanations of performance.

This article proceeds in four parts. First, we theorize how institutional design affects IO decision-making, emphasizing the role of pooling, delegation, and TNA access. Second, we present the research design, describing our dataset and introducing our measures of decision-making performance. Third, we present the results of our multivariate analysis of the effects of institutional design on IO decision-making performance. We end with a brief conclusion.

1 Institutional design and IO decision-making

The institutional setting within which IO decision-making occurs has profoundly changed in recent decades, potentially affecting if and how decisions are made. Three changes have moved IOs from pure intergovernmental forms of cooperation toward more complex institutional designs. First, the national veto has in many instances been replaced by a pooling of authority through majority voting (Blake & Payton, 2015 ; Hooghe et al., 2017 ). Second, IOs nowadays often involve some delegation of independent authority to international bureaucrats (Hawkins et al., 2006 ; Hooghe et al., 2017 ). Third, IOs increasingly provide some access to policy-making for TNAs such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), business actors, scientific experts, and philanthropic foundations (Steffek et al., 2008 ; Tallberg et al., 2014 ). These expansions in pooling, delegation, and TNA access are significant developments in the institutional design of IOs. Each contributes to a reduction in member state control. Together, they define the new strategic landscapes in which IOs make decisions. Footnote 3

Figure  1 illustrates these changes by positioning 30 IOs in a three-dimensional space at three points in time. The figure shows how many of these IOs already in 1980 used designs that did not conform to the intergovernmental end of the spectrum (lower left-hand corner, represented by ASEAN), and how these IOs then successively expanded pooling, delegation, and TNA access up to 2010, approaching the opposite end (upper right-hand corner, represented by the EU). In addition, the figure illustrates how these developments have contributed to greater diversity in the design of IOs over time, as these organizations to varying extents have expanded pooling, delegation, and TNA access.

Constellations of IO design: pooling, delegation, and TNA access

Our account focuses on these developments to generate expectations about the effects of institutional design on decision-making within IOs. It moves beyond a conventional treatment of IOs as arenas for pure intergovernmental bargaining to theorize how these three design features—on their own and in combination—affect IOs’ capacity to come to agreement in the face of pressures to address societal problems. Our account is rooted analytically in rational choice institutionalism, which assumes that decision outcomes are the result of strategic interactions between goal-oriented actors operating within institutional constraints (Scharpf, 1997 ; Lake & Powell, 1999 ; Shepsle, 2008 ; Martin & Simmons, 2012 ). Moreover, we assume that institutional designers adopt certain institutional features in order to mitigate cooperation problems (Koremenos et al., 2001 ). Whether IOs perform well, in our account, is therefore a result of how design features are combined in ways that mitigate barriers to collective decision-making, such as high transaction costs, information asymmetries, or resource deficits. In the remainder of this section, we discuss how pooling, delegation, and TNA access affect barriers to cooperation to alter the strategic setting in which decisions are made, and derive testable hypotheses about their independent and interdependent effects on IO decision-making performance.

1.1 Pooling

Pooling occurs when “authority to make decisions is removed from individual states” (Keohane & Hoffman 1991 , p. 7) and it requires a coalition of states to block decisions. We can observe pooling through majority and weighted voting rules. Pooling is greatest when decisions are based on a simple majority, requiring a larger coalition of states to block a decision. Pooling is slightly lower when a qualified majority is required, as the blocking coalition necessary to stop a decision is smaller. Finally, when unanimity or consensus is required, pooling is at its lowest, as each state retains the formal ability to veto a decision.

Comparative analysis reveals that pooling varies across IOs and has increased over time (Hooghe et al., 2019 , p. 39), as reflected in Fig.  1 . Cross-sectional data suggest that pooling is a feature of the majority of IOs. Blake and Payton ( 2015 ) show that among 266 IOs in 2004, 44 percent featured majority voting and 18 percent weighted voting. By comparison, 35 percent of IOs featured no pooling, making decisions by unanimity or consensus.

We would expect increased pooling to lower transaction costs and thus have a positive effect on decision-making. The absence of pooling can invite gridlock because any state can block a decision process by wielding the veto. As Blake and Payton ( 2015 , p. 383) explain: “The need to find a universally acceptable outcome means that unanimity is often associated with gridlock, hindering the ability of IGOs to respond quickly and effectively to the shifting demands of their members.” In comparison, pooling, which lowers the institutional hurdles to agreement, is more permissive to decision-making. In the language of formal modelling, majority voting enlarges the win-set, increases the proportion of winning coalitions, and expedites decisions (Golub, 2008 , p. 169). Scharpf ( 1997 , p. 151) arrives at the same conclusion based on a consideration of transaction costs: “[T]he choices of very large numbers of actors may be coordinated at very moderate transaction costs if collectively binding decisions can be imposed by majority rule.” Therefore, we expect:

Hypothesis 1 : Increased pooling will have a positive effect on decision-making performance.

1.2 Delegation

Delegation is present when states grant authority to a supranational body to take actions and contribute to decision-making on their behalf. Supranational bodies can be tasked with a variety of functions, such as setting an agenda for decision-making, implementing policy through day-to-day managerial decisions, or monitoring compliance through rule interpretation and dispute settlement. In order to carry out these tasks, these bodies have some autonomy or independence from states in the areas of agenda-setting, policy implementation and dispute settlement.

Like with pooling, delegation varies across IOs and has increased over time, as shown in Fig.  1 (see also Hooghe et al., 2019 ). For example, the EU and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have high delegation, while the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have low delegation as the autonomy and tasks assigned to an international body are limited.

We would expect increased delegation to reduce barriers to cooperation and thus improve the decision-making performance of an IO. Rational institutionalist scholarship suggests that delegation provides several benefits to international cooperation by way of addressing collective-action problems. Supranational bodies can reduce transaction costs that hinder collective decision-making, reduce information asymmetries, improve the credibility of commitments by monitoring and enforcement, resolve problems arising from incomplete contracts, or enable blame shifting for unpopular or failed policy (Pollack, 1997 ; Tallberg, 2002 ; Hawkins et al., 2006 ; Bradley & Kelley, 2008 ). By addressing collective-action problems that might otherwise impede decision-making, supranational bodies improve IOs’ ability to conclude decisions. We therefore expect:

Hypothesis 2 : Increased delegation will have a positive effect on decision-making performance.

This expectation is based on the widely-held rationalist view that delegation improves decision-making. Nonetheless, two additional factors bear mention. First, the impact of delegation on decision-making may vary depending on whether supranational bodies have independence in agenda-setting, implementation, or dispute settlement. In some areas, it is conceivable that delegation could reduce intergovernmental decision-making as well. For example, delegation of implementation to a supranational bureaucracy could supplant intergovernmental decision-making, and delegation of dispute settlement could lead an intergovernmental body to defer difficult decisions to a supranational interpretive body. Second, some scholarship suggests that delegation can have perverse effects. Empowering an autonomous supranational body can lead it to pursue its own agenda (Pollack, 1997 ; Barnett & Finnemore, 2004 ). Preventing and countering such pathologies is politically costly and resource intensive (Hawkins et al., 2006 ). Delegation in this view might encumber decision-making because state monitoring of supranational organs increases transaction costs and demands resources.

1.3 TNA access

TNA access is defined by formal privileges for transnational actors to participate in decision-making and other governance functions. It enables TNA involvement through opportunities to observe, address, or even vote in interstate decision-making (Tallberg et al., 2014 ). TNA access provides such opportunities to a variety of actors, from scientific experts and professional organizations to business associations, NGOs, and advocacy groups.

TNA access has expanded greatly in recent decades, yet continues to vary across IOs, as shown in Fig.  1 (see also Steffek et al., 2008 ; Tallberg et al., 2014 ). While some IOs have become open to the involvement of TNAs, others remain more closed.

We would expect increased TNA access to have a positive effect on decision-making. Previous research suggests that an IO’s cooperation with TNAs can improve its performance (Lall, 2017 ). TNAs can provide resources that affect whether collective solutions are reached. When IOs address complex problems, finding collective solutions may require expert or local information and resources. IOs often lack such information and resources, and distributional problems can prevent states from individually providing them. TNAs can fill these gaps and thus enable decision-making (Raustiala, 1997 ; Betsill & Corell, 2008 ; Abbott et al., 2015 ). In addition, TNA access can improve decision-making performance by reducing IO legitimacy deficits. As the legitimacy standards for IOs have shifted toward norms of inclusiveness (Dingwerth et al., 2019 ), organizations that exclude TNAs from participation often face internal or external criticism and contestation, making it more difficult or costly for member states to enact decisions (O’Brien et al., 2000 ). Overall, TNA access provides several benefits to decision-making. Consequently, we expect:

Hypothesis 3 : Increased TNA access will have a positive effect on decision-making performance.

While most understandings of the role of TNA access would lead us to expect a positive effect, it is possible that TNA access could constrain efficient decision-making as well. Transaction costs may be greater because access implies more actors are involved in decision-making and typically will present additional preferences and positions. For example, Rasmussen and Toshkov ( 2013 ) find that TNA consultation processes slow down EU decision-making because of the heightened transaction costs.

1.4 Combinations of pooling, delegation, and TNA access

Pooling, delegation, and TNA access are distinct dimensions of institutional design, each with its own potential independent effects on the decision-making performance of IOs. Yet IOs combine these three design features in a variety of constellations (as illustrated in Fig.  1 ). This raises the question of how pooling, delegation, and TNA access interact to affect decision-making. Are some combinations of these three features particularly beneficial or unhelpful for decision-making in IOs? Surprisingly, the interplay between these three design features has received very limited attention in previous scholarship. This is puzzling, since these three dimensions can be expected to affect each other in theory and often are reformed together in practice. For instance, when the decision-making arrangements of the EU were revised in the 1990s and 2000s, the reforms involved carefully calibrated changes to all three features: pooling, through an expansion of qualified majority voting; delegation, through more delegation of authority to the European Commission and the European Parliament, and TNA access, through greater involvement of interest groups and civil society. In the following, we offer a first attempt to theorize the interplay between pooling, delegation, and TNA access. Building on our general theoretical framework, we develop expectations about three interaction effects that we find particularly plausible. Each expectation focuses specifically one of our key design features and how it interacts with another design feature to affect IO decision-making performance. Footnote 4

First, TNA access coincides with different levels of pooling. For example, TNA access and pooling are both relatively high in United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), while the International Labour Organization (ILO) features high TNA access combined with low levels of pooling. We expect that pooling will have a positive influence on the effects of TNA access on IO decision-making. TNA access can provide resources that enable IO decision-making, but these benefits are more easily realized when pooling is extensive. A higher level of pooling raises the threshold for states to block TNAs’ contributions. In contrast, an absence of pooling means that any single state can block a decision, and thereby undermine the contributions made by TNAs. Returning to our examples, UNESCO’s higher degree of pooling may thus increase the benefits of TNA access for decision-making compared to the ILO’s lower level of pooling, all else equal. Overall, reaping the resource benefits of TNA access may depend on having less onerous voting rules. Thus, we would expect:

Hypothesis 4 : Increased TNA access will have a stronger positive effect on decision-making performance at higher levels of pooling.

Second, pooling is combined with different degrees of delegation. For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have similar levels of pooling, but the latter has considerably higher levels of delegation. We expect that delegation will negatively influence the effects of pooling on IO decision-making. When delegation is higher, it will be more difficult to realize the benefits of pooling. Supranational bodies often develop preferences that diverge from those of states (Hawkins et al., 2006 ). When delegation expands the authority of supranational actors, it therefore increases the preference heterogeneity among decision-makers, reducing the benefits of pooling for the IO’s ability to come to agreement. For example, König ( 2007 ; see also Golub, 2008 ) finds that greater delegation of decision-making authority to the European Parliament reduced the decision-making benefits of the simultaneous shift toward qualified majority voting, or more pooling, in the Council of the EU. Conversely, the benefits of pooling are more likely to be realized when delegation is lower and decision-making largely or exclusively is a question of interstate bargaining. In this case, it matters greatly for an IO’s ability to come to agreement whether decisions require the support of a simple majority, a qualified majority or the entire membership. Thus, we expect:

Hypothesis 5 : Increased pooling will have a stronger positive effect on decision-making performance at lower levels of delegation .

Finally, delegation combines with varying degrees of TNA access. Some IOs, such as the EU, feature high delegation alongside high TNA access. Other IOs, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), combine high delegation with low access for TNAs. We expect that delegation will have a more positive effect on IO decision-making at higher levels of TNA access. Cooperation with TNAs can help supranational bodies to pursue their interests and maintain their autonomy (Lake & McCubbins, 2006 ), overall reducing transaction costs and resource deficits. To begin with, TNA access can assist supranational bodies in building a network of nonstate partners to support their proposals in the policy-process. For instance, when the European Commission develops new proposals for EU rules, it relies extensively on input from business, civil society, and scientists, provided through a system of expert committees (Gornitzka & Sverdrup, 2011 ). In addition, TNA access can help supranational bodies to enlist societal actors as watchdogs in the monitoring of state compliance, thus strengthening the credibility of commitments (Tallberg, 2015 ). For example, supranational bodies engaged in the monitoring of human rights are particularly reliant on information from NGOs (Landolt & Woo, 2017 ). Research also suggests that international courts benefit extensively in their work from cooperation with compliance constituencies (Alter, 2014 ). These examples suggest that delegation’s effects on decision-making should be reinforced by extensive TNA access. Thus, we expect:

Hypothesis 6 : Increased delegation will have a stronger positive effect on decision-making performance at higher levels of TNA access.

2 Decision-making performance: a new dataset

In the previous section, we developed theoretical expectations about the independent and combined effects of pooling, delegation, and TNA access. In this section, we introduce our data on IO decision output and then describe how we deal with the challenge of comparing decision-making across a heterogenous sample of IOs. We construct a novel measure based on growth rates within IOs, add a comprehensive set of control variables, and use a regression model with IO-fixed effects.

To study the decision-making performance of IOs, we use a new dataset covering the yearly policy output of the principal interstate decision-making bodies of 30 IOs from 1980 to 2011. Footnote 5 Our 30 IOs were selected via a stratified random sample from a list of IOs drawn from the Correlates of War IGO (COW-IGO) Dataset (Pevehouse et al., 2020 ), adjusted based on data availability in parallel datasets (Tallberg et al., 2014 ; Hooghe et al., 2017 ) (Table A.1  in the online appendix). Footnote 6 The sample is composed of 15 global and 15 regional IOs and it contains 15 task-specific IOs and 15 IOs dealing with a wide range of policy issues (see Table A.2  in the online appendix). Footnote 7

We focus on the policy output of the main interstate decision-making bodies, such as the Council of the EU or the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS). These bodies are the principal locus of authority in an IO, establish its core policy direction, and set the overall agenda for other IO bodies. They are the closest approximation to the domestic notion of a legislator and can make political commitments that represent the collective will of the IO. In comparison, policies developed in other parts of an IO’s machinery are not suitable indicators for an IO’s overall decision-making performance. IO bureaucracies or lower-level IO bodies may produce policy reports, but such documents do not necessarily reflect the collective will or commitment of the IO membership. Focusing on the main decision-making body makes IOs more comparable. It also eliminates the risk of double-counting decisions, which could occur if the main body and preparatory bodies publish drafts of the same policy. We assume that activities at lower levels of the IOs are channeled into decisions by the main decision-making body. We select the main decision-making body according to the specification of organizational tasks in IO founding treaties (Table A.1  in the online appendix). In cases where more than one body exists at the same level—typically multiple ministerial councils for different issue areas—we code all bodies as one. Footnote 8

We collected information on the number, type, and bindingness of all decisions of the selected bodies. Footnote 9 In many cases, main decision-making bodies adopt different types of decisions, such as resolutions, declarations, decisions, statements, and directives. We capture all types, following the nomenclature stipulated by each IO. Some of the decision-making bodies do not publicize individual decisions, but provide a summary of decisions (e.g., communiques) taken in a meeting of the main decision-making body. In order to make this output comparable to that of other decision-making bodies, we disaggregated these summaries into individual decisions. Footnote 10

Before we introduce our measure of decision-making performance, we present data on the raw count of IO decisions for a selection of four IOs (Fig.  2 ). Footnote 11 These data reveal two dominant patterns, general to our sample, which have implications for the measurement of IO performance.

Number of decisions, four IOs

First, there is no consistent trend (positive or negative) in IO decision-making. We see neither an ever-growing amount of decisions, nor a severe waning that might point to a systemic crisis for global governance. Instead, as selectively illustrated in Fig.  2 , our data contain a range of different temporal patterns. Some IOs, like the African Union (AU), show a positive trend, whereas other IOs, including the World Health Organization (WHO), display declining output over time. What most IOs have in common, though, are periods of growth as well as decline in decision-making volumes.

Second, the absolute level of decision-making in these IO bodies varies dramatically. Figure  2 shows that the output ranges from several hundred decisions a year, as in the case of the EU, to only a dozen decisions a year, as in the case of the IWC.

2.1 Measuring IO decision-making performance

Studies of decision-making performance in the context of individual IOs commonly use measures based on count data. Footnote 12 However, count data are inappropriate as a measure when analyzing a larger number of IOs, since the general levels of output vary substantially across organizations, as illustrated by Fig.  2 . In an analysis using simple count data, variation across units would therefore overshadow the much smaller but important variations over time. Such analyses would thus mainly capture structural differences across IOs that are of limited theoretical interest, such as differences in the scope of the mandate of the EU and the IWC.

To systematically compare IO decision-making performance, we instead introduce a measure based on growth rates of decision output. Inspired by Mitchell ( 2002 ), we suggest that growth rates help to deal with the problem of heterogeneity among IOs, next to other measures. Footnote 13 First, using growth rates as a measure to normalize data “makes otherwise disparate data relatively comparable by adjusting for the initial level of the underlying activities. Calculating those percentage changes on an annual basis provides the additional benefit of re-calibrating (and thus allowing comparison across) every year” (Mitchell, 2002 : 71). Thus, cross-sectionally, we are not comparing output to output but growth curves to growth curves. Footnote 14 Second, growth rates allow for comparison across IOs while also capturing over time variation within IOs. This serves our theoretical interests by enabling us to assess whether changes in the institutional design of a specific IO translate into changes in the growth rate of policy output. This measure of decision-making performance assumes that positive growth rates are indicative of more smoothly functioning IO machineries, while negative growth rates are indicative of IOs confronting discord and deadlock. One could object that IOs which adopt fewer decisions over time might be becoming more efficient, by conveying the same policy content in fewer decision acts, or that IOs which generate more decisions over time in fact may be becoming less efficient, by privileging an appearance of productivity. We recognize that such cases might exist. But we consider our assumption more reasonable as a starting point and note several anecdotal examples pointing in its favor. For instance, the growing productivity of the UN Security Council in the 1990s reflected smoother decision-making as the great powers vetoed fewer proposals in the new post-Cold War climate. Conversely, the drop in productivity for the WTO over the past two decades reflects the high level of discord in the organization, also illustrated through the lack of progress on the Doha Round.

Building on this strategy of growth rates, we introduce two different measures based on two alternative benchmarks. First, we measure short-term performance , comparing the output in the year of observation with the output in the three preceding years. This approach captures short-term changes while leveling out extreme events. If the output remains at the same level, the score of this measure is 1, and a score above 1 suggests an increase in decision-making productivity. Footnote 15 Since the short-term volatility in policy output is high, we use the log of decisions in a given year. Footnote 16 Second, we measure long-term performance, comparing the output in the year of observation against the mean output across all prior years. Footnote 17 By encompassing the entirety of an IO’s past history, this measure privileges the detection of structural shifts in decision-making.

Our measures are complementary and shed light on two slightly different aspects of the decision-making performance of IOs. In some cases, only one of the measures can adequately capture a change in the decision-making performance of an IO. For instance, when an IO recovers from a crisis only the short-term performance measure may capture this upward trend. Conversely, when the decision output of an IO reaches and remains at an average level that exceeds that of previous decades, even limited dips can lead to positive scores for long-term performance .

Figure  3 illustrates the two measures based on data for the AU and WHO. Footnote 18 In the case of the AU, both measures indicate growing decision-making performance in the mid-1980s, followed by a stable level of performance until the mid-1990s, and then a slight dip. The transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the AU in 2002 led to several years of growing decision output, initially reflected as positive scores for both performance measures. However, after a few years of growth, the scores diverge as the result of a plateau effect for short-term performance: once a higher level of output is obtained for a number of years in a row, this measure does not indicate high performance any longer, as intended in our construction of the measure. At the same time, the measure of long-term performance continues to increase, as a result of the longer historical baseline.

Measures of IO decision-making performance, two illustrations

The WHO represents a different pattern. During the first half of the observation period, the number of decisions was relatively stable, and the difference between short-term and long-term decision-making performance is therefore negligible. From 2000 onwards, the World Health Assembly underperformed for a number of years vis-à-vis both its historical and recent average, which is reflected in both measures. But whereas the measure for short-term performance then recovers quite quickly, as the number of decisions doubled between 2000 and 2003, the measure for long-term performance takes longer to catch up, reflecting the differences in construction of the two measures.

3 Explanatory analysis

We assess the influence of institutional design on IO decision-making performance on the basis of recent data on institutional features of IOs, reflecting our interest in the threefold shift away from the classic intergovernmental model of IO design: pooling, delegation, and TNA access. We measure the effect of majoritarian decision rules (H1) through aggregated pooling scores taken from the Measuring International Authority dataset (MIA; see Fig.  1 ). Footnote 19 It aggregates the voting rules for agenda-setting and final decisions across the “state-dominated bodies” of an IO, weighted by bindingness and ratification. Footnote 20 For all our main explanatory variables, we use two different versions. A first one captures the absolute level of pooling (and delegation and access) in any given year. While the time series structure of our data accounts for year-on-year changes, we add a version that indicates recent changes to design features, meaning that our ∆-variables, such as ∆Pooling, only capture the effect of changes between t-2 and t-1 on decision-making in t0. When we interact both versions, this combination allows us to better understand how institutional design affects decision-making; for example, do we only see a positive effect of pooling in IOs previously dominated by consensus, or does additional pooling lead to positive growth rates even for IOs that already resorted to majority decision-making?

We measure delegation as the allocation of authoritative competences to non-state bodies in an IO’s decision-making process (MIA). The measure aggregates political delegation in agenda setting, decision-making, and dispute settlement across six decision areas: accession, suspension, constitutional reform, budgetary allocation, financial compliance, and policy making (Fig.  1 ; Hooghe et al., 2017 ).

We measure TNA access based on the depth and range of formal access to an IO’s bodies (Fig.  1 ; Tallberg et al., 2014 ). These two dimensions are constitutive of all participatory arrangements by defining what rights are granted and to whom. The depth of access captures the level of involvement offered to TNAs through institutional rules, and the range of access captures the breadth of TNAs entitled to participate.

We add a number of control variables to account for systematic differences across IOs. Membership and policy scope are two additional features of institutional design (Koremenos et al., 2001 ). With regard to membership, IR scholars have theorized that international cooperation is more difficult to establish and sustain with greater numbers of players (Axelrod & Keohane, 1985 ). Controlling for membership also helps to account for changes in output that might be driven by fluctuations in any given IO’s membership. We operationalize membership as the number of member states in a given year, using data from the COW-IGO dataset (Pevehouse et al., 2020 ). In terms of the scope of the issues covered by an IO, we expect it to be positively correlated with IO decision-making performance, since issue-linkages facilitate agreement and cooperation in international politics (Axelrod & Keohane, 1985 : 239). By including a measure for policy scope, we are able to control for any changes to an IO’s mandate over time. We capture the policy scope based on the MIA data, which measure scope as the number policy areas, ranging from one to 25, within an IO’s mandate (Hooghe et al., 2019 ).

Decision-making performance may also depend on the resources and capabilities of IOs (Elsig, 2010 ; Lall, 2017 ; Gray, 2018 ). IOs with greater administrative capabilities can maintain a higher decision-making performance. We operationalize organizational capacity of IOs as the annual count of IO staff , using data sourced from IO annual reports, UN Yearbooks, and historical editions of the Yearbook of International Organizations (see Table A.3 in the online appendix).

Recent scholarship finds that competition from other IOs active in the same area affects IO performance. Gray ( 2018 , p. 5) shows that IOs seeking to promote economic cooperation have a hard time remaining active if they operate alongside other IOs with similar agendas. We capture IO competition with the number of IOs that operate in the same world region, based on the COW-IGO dataset (Pevehouse et al., 2020 ).

We control for the influence of powerful member states. Realist accounts of international cooperation typically reduce IO decision-making to strategic interaction among dominant states (Drezner, 2007 ; Stone, 2011 ). According to this logic, hegemons that dominate an IO have a positive influence on collective decision-making, whereas competing major powers can lead to deadlock of an institution, as witnessed in the UN Security Council during the Cold War. We construct a dummy for IOs with an unchallenged major power . We follow the COW operationalization of major powers and add regional powers for the period after 1989 (see Cline et al., 2011 ).

Previous research suggests that democracies participate more in cooperative solutions, whether it be international human rights promotion (e.g., Simmons, 2009 ), trade liberalization (e.g., Mansfield et al., 2002 ), or international cooperation more broadly (e.g., Mansfield & Pevehouse, 2008 ). We operationalize the domestic commitment to democratic ideas as the democratic density of IOs, operationalized as the share of member states with democratic regimes. We combine information on state membership in IOs from the COW-IGO dataset with information on the democratic character of domestic regimes (Cheibub et al., 2010 ; Tallberg et al., 2016b ).

We also control for preference heterogeneity . Previous research argues that greater heterogeneity of preferences can impede decision-making (Axelrod & Keohane, 1985 ). We use a measure of voting patterns in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) as predictor of preference heterogeneity. The more similar member states of an IO vote in the UNGA, the more homogenous their preferences are assumed to be. We use the updated data on the dyadic affinity scores from Voeten ( 2013 ).

We control for the politicization of an IO (Zürn et al., 2012 ), as decision output could be positively or negatively affected by an IO being in the public spotlight. We use an indicator that captures IO media coverage as references to the name in six leading global newswires (Bes et al., 2019 ), assuming that more references are equivalent to higher public attention.

We include the lagged number of decisions to control for differences in the level of productivity, and we expect that the absolute number of decisions is negatively correlated with the change rate of an IO decision-making body. The variable bindingness captures the share of binding decisions in the annual output of an IO. Footnote 21 And finally, we include a dummy variable for communiqué-style IOs that do not issue individual decisions, expecting that lower formality in decision-making output leads to higher volatility. Both of these variables control for the type of policy output.

To test our hypotheses regarding IO decision-making performance, we employ linear regression models. In addition to the control variables that cover a range of alternative explanations, we add IO dummies to account for IO-specific effects and year-fixed effects to capture events that affect all IOs in a similar way. Footnote 22 All independent variables are lagged by 1 year. We cluster standard errors at the IO level to account for potential dependence within units. To test our hypotheses on the independent effects of institutional design, we first estimate a series of regression models of short-term performance and long-term performance (Table 1 ). We vary the specifications to test the effects of the absolute levels of delegation, pooling, and TNA access (Models 1 and 4); the effect of changes in delegation, pooling, and TNA access (Models 2 and 5); and the effect of interactions between absolute levels and changes (Models 3 and 6).We then test our hypotheses on the interaction between the three dimensions of institutional design (Table 2 ; Model 7–14). Tables 1 and 2 show only those models with significant interaction terms.

What role do the institutional design features of pooling, delegation, and TNA access have in explaining the decision-making performance of IOs? Our findings suggest that some features of institutional design have an independent effect, but that the most substantive effects emerge when these features interact to produce constellations beneficial for decision-making. These findings are robust to alternatives to our main modelling strategy. In this section, we elaborate on these findings.

4.1 Independent effects of IO design

With regard to the independent effects of the three elements of institutional design privileged in our approach, we find that pooling has a positive effect on performance (H1). The coefficient for pooling is positive and significant for long-term performance (Model 4–6, Table 1 ). Leaving pure intergovernmentalism behind and moving towards majority voting makes IO decision-making more productive in the long run. On average, moving from the first quartile of pooling (0.12) to the third (0.37) is associated with a 0.14 increase in the long-term performance index (see Figure A.4  in the online appendix). By way of example, when the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 increased pooling in the EU from 0.22 to 0.27, our model predicts a 0.05 point increase in the long-term index. Empirically, we observe a 0.04 increase from 2010 to 2011, corresponding to an increase of about 120 decisions. The positive interaction term of pooling and Δ pooling in Model 3 (Table 1 ) indicates that changes to pooling can improve the short-term performance of IOs. When member states of IOs with an already high level of pooling further expand the use of majority voting—like the AU in 2004—we observe a positive and significant effect on decision-making in the short-term. By contrast, if such a reform occurred in an IO dominated by consensus—as in the case of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) in 1991, we see a negative net effect for Δ pooling .

While we expected that delegation of authority to supranational bodies would have a positive effect on decision-making performance (H2), we do not find support for this hypothesis. Instead, decision-making performance appears to be adversely affected by further delegation. This result holds for both short-term and long-term performance (Models 1 and 4, Table 1 ). The predicted means of our dependent variable in Figure A.5 (in the online appendix) show that moving from the first quartile of delegation (0.08) to the third (0.25) is associated with a decrease of the short-term index score from 1.14 to 1.02. As an example, holding all other characteristics of the IWC fixed at their 1991 levels, such a shift in delegation would translate into a decision output of four, instead of the six resolutions it did pass. A minor exception to this pattern of negative effects is the positive effect of increased delegation on long-term performance for IOs with no prior delegation (Model 6, Table 1 ). It suggests that an extension of delegation from very low levels can have positive effects, as illustrated by the examples of Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in the mid-1990s and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2005, both of which showed growing decision rates once they started to build up administrative capacities.

While the limited support for Hypothesis 2 goes against widely held expectations concerning the benefits of delegation for decision-making, this negative effect might be caused by the costs that delegation carries alongside its recognized benefits (Tallberg, 2002 ; Bradley & Kelley, 2008 ). For example, autonomous supranational bodies can pursue their own preferences (Pollack, 1997 ; Barnett & Finnemore, 2004 ), requiring states to invest scarce resources and time in monitoring supranational bodies (Hawkins et al., 2006 ). In addition, it may be that delegation in some areas of the policy process replaces intergovernmental decision-making—a possibility we test for below in the robustness checks.

Neither do we find support for an independent positive effect of TNA access (H3). This result holds for short- and long-term performance. Involving TNAs in policy-making does not appear to have a systematic independent influence on the ability of IOs to increase their decision-making output. These findings suggest that TNA access may have mixed effects on decision-making (Rasmussen & Toshkov, 2013 ), and may indicate that the benefits of TNA access relate to the quality and design of individual policies rather than the overall ability of IOs to arrive at decisions.

4.2 Interactions between pooling, delegation, and access

The mixed evidence for the expected independent positive effects of pooling , delegation , and access (H1-H3) may raise doubts as to whether the decline of the archetypical state-dominated IO translates into more efficient and productive global governance. Our analysis, however, shows that positive effects become visible when we look at the interplay between these elements of institutional design (H4-H6). More than two thirds of all organizational reforms captured in our data include more than one design element in a single reform, and more than 50 percent include all three elements. We find a number of significant interaction effects, the majority of which are positive. This suggests that institutional design matters for decision-making performance, but mainly in more complex ways than typically expected.

As predicted, we find that increased TNA access has a stronger positive effect on IO decision-making at higher levels of pooling (H4). When the adoption of decisions is not based on a consensus rule, expanding the inclusion of non-state actors increases decision-making performance. This result holds for both short-term performance (Model 7, Table 2 ) and long-term performance (Model 10, Table 2 ). We show the predicted means of our dependent variable for this interaction in Fig.  4 . We now observe that the prediction for moving from the first quartile of TNA access (0.17) to the third (0.74) varies with the level of pooling . While this shift at the lowest level of pooling is associated with 0.17 decrease in the long-term performance index, it contributes to a 0.24 increase at the highest level of pooling. The Andean Community (CAN) exemplifies how the impact of increased TNA access is conditioned by the degree of pooling. When the organization started to expand access arrangements for TNAs in 1997, this coincided with a downturn of performance scores. This trend turned around when pooling was later expanded in 2000. Similarly, the OAS expanded TNA access in 1997, but only after decision-making rules had been changed in 2002 to favor majoritarianism (pooling increased from 0.29 to 0.41) can we observe an increase in both performance indicators.

Predicted means of decision-making performance for interaction of pooling and TNA access

We do not find significant results for our second hypothesized interaction effect—that increased pooling would have a stronger positive effect on decision-making at lower levels of delegation (H5) (Models 8 and 11, Table 2 ). With strong independent effects in opposite directions, this does not come as a surprise. What is worth noting, however, is that the independent effect—positive for pooling (Model 8 and Model 11) and negative for delegation (Model 8)—disappears when we add the interaction term. This suggests that increases in pooling do not have a positive effect on long-term decision performance in the absence of delegation. A relevant example would be the OIC, whose decision-making output declined following a 2007 shift to an institutional setup with practically no delegation (0.05) and more pooling, compared to the situation at the turn of the millennium, when delegation was higher.

Finally, we find support for the expectation that increased delegation will have a stronger positive effect on decision-making performance at higher levels of TNA access (H6). Although the independent effect of delegation was negative, we note a significant coefficient for the interaction term of both variables, once again both for short-term performance and, at a lower significance level, for long-term performance (Table 2 , Models 9 and 12). And without TNA access, we find the negative effect of increased delegation reported above. The predicted means plot in the appendix (Figure A.6 in the online appendix) shows that a growth of delegation actually has a positive effect on decision-making performance at very high levels of TNA access, and the downturn in decision-making performance caused by increased delegation is mainly observed for IOs with low levels of TNA access. Footnote 23 For instance, the Commonwealth’s reforms in 2005 combined greater access for TNAs with more delegation, which had a positive impact on decision-making performance in the following years. As another example, when the Council of Europe experienced a growth in the level of delegation in the 1990s, the decision-making index stabilized after an initial drop; then, a decade later, when the already high level of TNA access was further expanded, we observe several years of positive growth rates for both short-term and long-term performance.

To summarize, the results thus far are consistent with considerable portions of our theoretical argument (H1, H4, H6), while some parts receive only weak (H5) or no support (H2, H3). Footnote 24 Three results stand out in particular. First, IOs that reform to pool decision-making powers can expect improvements in long-run decision-making performance (H1). Second, increases in TNA access yield larger performance benefits if implemented in IOs that pool decision-making to a greater extent (H4). Third, while greater delegation of authority to supranational institutions on its own is associated with drops in performance, it can have a positive effect in combination with very high levels of access for TNAs (H6). In all, these findings suggest that these institutional design features primarily matter by way of how they combine to shape decision-making performance.

4.3 Control variables

We evaluated a number of additional variables to control for systematic differences across IOs. We find a significant result for the number of relevant IOs in the system (Model 4–6, Table 1 ). In contrast with existing claims (Gray, 2018 ), this suggests that higher institutional density—and thus competition—within a world region makes IOs more likely to increase decision-making activities in the long-term. The absolute number of decisions in the previous year varies greatly across IOs. As the negative coefficients in Models 1–3 (Table 1 ) indicate, IOs producing many decisions on a yearly basis are more likely to go through short-term dips in decision-making, and IOs producing fewer decisions on an annual basis are more likely to improve their performance in the short-term. However, producing a larger number of annual decisions has a positive effect on long-term performance (Models 4–6). Our results hence suggest that IOs adopting many decisions are more sensitive to crisis, but also are more capable of improving their decision-making performance in the long run. Against common expectations, the coefficient for our variable on the bindingness of decisions is positive across all models in Table 1 (but only significant for the long-term measure). It seems that IOs with binding decisions are more prone to expand the number of decisions in the long run—maybe because they assume binding output will be more effective or because states that agree to binding decisions are more likely to agree in general. For IOs with communiqué-based decisions, we observe positive and significant effects across all models, suggesting that IOs with such output have higher performance relative to other IOs, all else equal.

4.4 Robustness

We conduct a set of robustness checks. Following Hooghe et al., ( 2017 : 107ff), we disaggregate delegation across phases of the decision-making process and apply separate indicators for delegation of agenda-setting , delegation of final decision-making and delegation of dispute settlement . The results (Table A.4 in the online appendix) suggest that the negative effect of delegation found above (Models 1 and 4) does not reflect a substitution effect, that is, when delegation of implementation to a supranational bureaucracy supplants intergovernmental decision-making: the coefficient for delegation on final decision-making is not significant (Model 14). Furthermore, a negative significant coefficient suggests that IOs with decreasing delegation of agenda-setting have greater chances for short-term improvements of their decision-making performance (Model 13), whereas the significant negative effect for long-term performance is only found for delegation on dispute settlement (Model 18, Table A.4 in the online appendix). We also re-estimate our models on interdependent effects with the disaggregated delegation measure and find strong support for a combined effect of pooling and delegation on agenda-setting (H5) for both short-term and long-term performance (Model 19 and 25, Table A.5 and Figure A.7 in the online appendix). Finally, we only find a weakly significant result for the interaction between delegation and access when we use the measure for delegation on dispute settlement (Model 24, Table A.5 in the online appendix). These results suggest that delegation of dispute settlement and agenda setting, in particular, encumber decision-making as intergovernmental decision-making bodies become concerned with monitoring supranational bodies.

In Table A.6 in the online appendix, we present alternative specifications of our main models. Overall, our main results are robust. Above, we explained why our two indices give a good representation of decision-making performance. In Model 31, we show that a simpler version of our dependent variable with a shorter reference period (previous year) leads to robust results for our main independent variables. Footnote 25 In Model 32, we then substitute our dependent variable with a non-logged version of our measure for long-term decision-making performance. This model mainly confirms the above results for institutional design, but together with Model 31, it also suggests that we may underestimate the effect of other covariates when we log the performance measure. We find significant coefficients for a positive effect of TNA access , membership , IO staff , and preference heterogeneity on decision-making. As even our logged indices show high volatility—as exemplified by the AU in the early 1980s (Fig.  3 ), Models 33 and 34 (Table A.6 in the online appendix) exclude extreme values of the dependent variable on both ends of the scale. We find robust results, and again, more significant covariates. In this case, there is support for a positive effect of politicization—in terms of IO media visibility —and democratic density (for long-term performance).

Table A.6 in the online appendix also shows two models based on an OLS estimator (Models 35 and 36) that leads to highly similar results. As we outlined above, we see strong reasons for the use of fixed effects. Models 37 and 38 (Table A.6 in the online appendix) illustrate what happens if we drop this assumption for year-fixed effects that account for unmodeled events like the global economic crisis in 2009 or 9/11. Footnote 26 We get a highly similar outcome, except for the independent effect of pooling on long-term performance that is still positive, but no longer significant. If we exclude unit dummies, delegation is still significant for long-term performance , whereas pooling is not (Model 39 and 40, Table A.6 in the online appendix). The short-term model performs overall poorly, but TNA access and several control variables become significant for long-term performance .

In Models 41, 42, and 43 in Table A.7 in the online appendix, we add a lagged version of the dependent variable. The main results are robust. For short-term performance , we find additional significant coefficients for membership (negative), policy scope , IO staff , and democratic density (all positive) For long-term performance , the absolute number of decisions is correlated with the lagged dependent variable. In the end, Models 41 and Model 43 (without N. of decisions ) add robustness to our main results.

Finally, we control for the composition of our sample. Models 44 and 45 present the results for Models 1 and 4 from Table 1 without communiqué-based IOs. Again, we find robust results. When we drop the years before the end of the Cold War, the main results remain robust (Model 46 and 47, Table A.7 in the online appendix). In this case, we even find support for a positive effect of media coverage on long-term performance , and a negative effect of preference heterogeneity and democratic density in the short term. The same holds when we exclude large IOs (i.e., the UN and EU) from our sample, since these IOs are often described as special cases (Models 48 and 49).

5 Conclusion

Arriving at decisions is a first and necessary requirement for IOs to make a difference in world politics. Yet, so far, our understanding of the factors contributing to decision-making performance in IOs has been limited. This article attempts to address this gap.

We arrive at several key findings. Importantly, we establish that variation in decision-making performance across and within IOs is systematically shaped by features of institutional design. Yet institutional design features tend to shape decision-making performance in more complex ways than typically anticipated. Independently, only pooling has a positive effect on IO decision-making. Delegation in fact appears to have a negative average effect. Instead, we find that the most substantial effects of these design features reside in how they interact with one another. TNA access has a more positive effect on decision-making performance when pooling is greater. Without pooling, the resources that TNAs offer to decision-making can be easily outweighed by the power of the national veto. Also, the effect of increased delegation is conditional on the extent of TNA access—its observed independent negative effect is reduced or even turned around for very high values of TNA access. These findings suggest that viewing design features in isolation of one another underestimates the importance of institutional design for IO decision-making performance.

In all, this article makes three broader contributions. First, inspired by the study of domestic legislative performance, we approach performance by looking at IO decision-making in terms of policy output. This approach is advanced by an original measure of decision-making performance based on the annual growth rate in output. It means that cross-sectionally, we compare IOs in terms of their output growth and not their absolute levels of output. Using this measure, we are able to make meaningful, systematic comparisons of the decision-making performance of IOs, both over time and across organizations. We argue that this approach sheds light on IO performance more broadly because IO decision-making is a crucial intermediate step between process and outcome (Gutner & Thompson 2010 ). Future research, however, is necessary to more adequately understand how decision-making performance relates to other aspects of IO performance and regime effectiveness, such as goal attainment and problem-solving. In this respect, the study of decision-making performance can also contribute to the growing scholarship on the termination and death of IOs (Debre & Dijkstra, 2021 ; Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, 2021 ), by linking dynamics of policy output to the risk of organizational failure.

Second, we provide an explanation for IO decision-making performance. While previous research calls into question the role of institutional design for performance (Barnett & Finnemore, 2004 ; Gray, 2018 ), we renew claims of the significance of institutional design by considering how pooling, delegation, and TNA access affect decision-making performance. In particular, we examine how the shift away from purely member-driven IOs affects the strategic setting within which decision-making occurs. While previous literature focuses on how individual features of institutional design have independent effects on IO performance, we have taken the additional step to theorize and examine how different design features interact to shape decision-making. Our findings suggest that future research should pay greater attention to how rules combine to have an impact on IOs. While we assume these interactions reflect rational combinations of design elements, it may also prove fruitful to explore potential unintended consequences. Moreover, as pooling, delegation, and TNA access are among the most profound developments in IO design in recent decades, this article contributes to understanding how these developments have transformed the impact of IOs.

Third, we offer the first comparative assessment of the decision-making performance of IOs. Going beyond analysis of an individual IO, we identify general patterns and explanations of IO decision-making performance across a broad spectrum of 30 IOs from 1980 to 2011. While comparative studies of IO performance do exist, none focuses on decision-making. Consequently, this article makes a significant empirical contribution to comparative research on IOs. One question our analysis raises is whether the general patterns we observe transcend issue areas, or if they further interact with problem structures as may be inferred from rational institutionalist assumptions. Possible next steps for future research could also include in-depth case studies on how the interactions between pooling, delegation, and TNA access unfold in specific IOs, and on how de facto governance practices interfere with the effect of formal rules.

We define international organizations as formal intergovernmental, multilateral and bureaucratic organizational structures established to further cooperation among states (Martin and Simmons 2012 ; Rittberger et al., 2012 ; Hooghe and Marks 2015 ).

Lall ( 2017 ) speaks about instiutional design in terms of de jure political autonomy and finds that only de facto autonomy will result in better IO performance. However, his understanding of IO performance differs from our concept of decision-making performance.

These three features of institutional design overlap with core components of the rational design of international institutions framework (Koremenos et al., 2001 ). In our empirical analysis, we control for the effects of two components that are not captured by our privileged features (membership and scope).

We do not theorize on 3-way interaction effects. In the following, we theorize the two-way interactions in ways that are most theoretically grounded. But as with all interactions, they can go the other way. Alternative interpretations will be discussed for significant interaction terms in the results section.

The data on decision-making is available for a longer time period, but data for the main independent

variables is limited to 2011 when we use a time lag of one year.

The online appendix is available on the Review of International Organizations' webpage.

Global IOs have members from more than two world regions. Multi-issue IOs operate in several policy fields and lack a single dominant issue area.

In the case of the UN, we select the Security Council over the General Assembly.

Where data were not electronically available, we contacted IO secretariats and repository libraries or used secondary sources to complete the information.

Excluding decision summaries from the sample would lead to a biased representation of decision-making in global governance. We control for type of decision (i.e., output) in the explanatory analysis.

For an illustration of the trend for all 30 IOs, see Figure A.2  in the online appendix).

Alesina et al. ( 2005 ) have mapped the expansion of EU legislation by the number of legal acts (see also Golub1999; Christensen 2010 ). Similarly, scholars have assessed the policy volume of the UN General Assembly (Marín-Bosch 1987; Holloway and Tomlinson 1995 ) and the UN Security Council (Allen and Yuen 2014 ). In studies of international courts, the volume of decisions often features as an indicator of their effectiveness, like in the case of the European Court of Human Rights (Alter 2014 ; Cichowski 2006 ).

In our modelling approach, we adjust for IO heterogeneity by including IO fixed effects and control variables for bindingness, style, and number of decisions.

This means that more output is equivalent to higher decision-making performance, but only for overtime comparisons within an IO. We do not argue that a higher volume of output in IO x indicates that its decision-making performance is greater than that of IO y .

In the few cases when an IO body did not meet in the preceding year, we extend the reference period by one year.

For the beginning of the observation period, we allow for a shorter reference period of two years to minimize the loss of information.

Similar to the first measure, we allow for a shorter reference period in the beginning of the observation period. Again, we use the logged version of the absolute count to calculate the change rate.

See Figure A.1 , A.2 , and A.3 in the online appendix for an overview of the index scores for the full sample.

Hooghe et al., 2017 .

For a full description of the coding of this variable, see Hooghe et al., 2017 , 213–217.

Bindingness is coded in a binary way for each type of decision instrument. In some cases, bindingness varies within instruments. For the analysis later on, we operate with the rate of binding decisions at the body-level.

A Hausmann test supports this theoretical argument.

In the robustness section, we disaggregate the delegation variable for this interaction.

We acknowledge the possibility that the weak support for some of our hypotheses might be linked to our focus on formal rules. Previous research on informal governance practices in IOs (Kleine 2013 ; Stone 2013 ) suggests that member states sometimes defy formal rules. However, assessing the effect of the discrepency between formal rules and their application goes beyond the scope of this study.

In Figure A.8, we illustrate how this version of our dependent variable – although logged -- has a high degree of volatility with extreme year-to-year changes.

Both events can be identified in the aggregate trend of decision-making in Fig.  2 .

Abbott, K. W., Genschel, P., Snidal, D., & Zangl, B. (2015). International Organizations as Orchestrators . Cambridge University Press.

Book   Google Scholar  

Alesina, A., Angeloni, I., & Schuknecht, L. (2005). What does the European Union do? Public Choice, 123 (3–4), 275–319.

Allen, S. H., & Yuen, A. T. (2014). The politics of peacekeeping: UN Security Council oversight across peacekeeping missions. International Studies Quarterly, 58 (3), 621–632.

Alter, K. (2014). The New Terrain of International Law: Courts . Princeton University Press.

Alter, K., & Raustiala, K. (2018). The rise of international regime complexity. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 14 (1), 329–349.

Article   Google Scholar  

Arter, D. (2006). Introduction: Comparing the legislative performance of legislatures. Journal of Legislative Studies, 12 (3–4), 245–257.

Axelrod, R., & Keohane, R. O. (1985). Achieving cooperation under anarchy: Strategies and institutions. World Politics, 38 (1), 226–254.

Barnett, M., & Finnemore. (2004). Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics . Cornell University Press.

Google Scholar  

Bes, B. J., Sommerer, T., & Agné, H. (2019). On legitimacy crises and the resources of global governance institutions: A surprisingly weak relationship? Global Policy, 10 (3), 313–326.

Betsill, M., & Corell, E. (2008). NGO Diplomacy: The influence of nongovernmental organizations in international environmental negotiations . MIT Press.

Blake, D. J., & Payton, A. L. (2015). Balancing design objectives: Analyzing new data on voting rules in intergovernmental organizations. Review of International Organizations, 10 (3), 377–402.

Boehmer, C., Gartzke, E., & Nordstrom, T. (2004). Do intergovernmental organizations promote peace? World Politics, 57 (1), 1–38.

Bradley, C., & Kelley, J. (2008). The concept of international delegation. Law and Contemporary Problems, 71 (1), 1–36.

Cheibub, J. A., Gandhi, J., & Vreeland, J. R. (2010). Democracy and dictatorship revisited. Public Choice, 143 (1), 67–101.

Cichowski, R. A. (2006). Courts, rights and democratic participation. Comparative Political Studies, 39 (1), 50–75.

Christensen, J. G. (2010). EU legislation and national regulation: Uncertain steps towards a european public policy. Public Administration, 88 (1), 3–17.

Cline, K., Rhamey, P., Henshaw, A., Sedziaka, A., Tandon, A., & Volgy, T. J. (2011). Identifying Regional Powers and their Status. In T. Volgy, R. Corbetta, K. Grant, & R. Baird (Eds.), Major Powers and the Quest for Status in International Politics (pp. 133–157). Palgrave Macmillan.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Damgaard, E., & Jensen, H. (2006). Assessing strength and weakness in legislatures: The case of Denmark’. Journal of Legislative Studies, 12 (3–4), 426–442.

Debre, M. J., & Dijkstra, H. (2021). Institutional design for a post-liberal order: Why some international organizations live longer than others. European Journal of International Relations, 27 (1), 311–339.

Dingwerth, K., Witt, A., Lehmann, I., Reichel, E., & Weise, T. (Eds.). (2019). International organizations under pressure: legitimating global governance in challenging times . Oxford University Press.

Drezner, D. (2007). All politics is global. Explaining international regulatory regimes . Princeton University Press.

Ehlermann, C.-D., & Ehring, L. (2005). Decision-making in the world trade organization. is the consensus practice of the world trade organization adequate for making, revising and implementing rules on international trade? Journal of International Economic Law , 8 (1), 51–75.

Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, M. (2021). What kills international organisations? When and why international organisations terminate. European Journal of International Relations, 27 (1), 281–310.

Elsig, M. (2010). The World Trade Organization at work: performance in a member-driven milieu. Review of International Organizations, 5 (3), 345–363.

Finke, D., & Bailer, S. (2019). Crisis bargaining in the European Union: Formal rules or market pressure? European Union Politics, 20 (1), 109–133.

Golub, J. (2008). The study of decision-making speed in the European Union. European Union Politics, 9 (1), 167–179.

Gornitzka, Å., & Sverdrup, U. (2011). Access of experts: Information and EU decision-making. West European Politics, 34 (1), 48–70.

Gray, J. (2018). Life, death, or zombie? The vitality of international organizations. International Studies Quarterly, 62 (1), 1–13.

Gutner, T., & Thompson, A. (2010). The Politics of IO performance (Special Issue). Review of International Organizations , 5 (3), 227–385.

Hansen, H. E., McLaughlin Mitchell, S., & Nemeth, S. C. (2008). IO Mediation of interstate conflicts: Moving beyond the global versus regional dichotomy. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 52 (2), 295–325.

Hawkins, D., Lake, D., Nielson, D., & Tierney, M. (Eds.). (2006). Delegation and agency in international organizations . Cambridge University Press.

Holloway, S., & Tomlinson, R. (1995). The new world order and the general assembly: Bloc realignment at the UN in the Post-Cold War world. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 28 (2), 227–254.

Hooghe, L., Lenz, T., & Marks, G. (2019). A theory of international organization . Oxford University Press.

Hooghe, L., Marks, G., Lenz, T., Bezuijen, J., Ceka, B., & Derderyan, S. (2017). Measuring international authority: A postfunctionalist theory of governance (Vol. III). Oxford University Press.

Hooghe, L., & Marks, G. (2015). Delegation and pooling in international organizations. Review of International Organizations, 10 (3), 305–328.

Keohane, R., & Hoffmann, S. (Eds.). (1991). The new European community: Decisionmaking and institutional . Westview Press.

Kleine, M. (2013). Informal governance in the European Union: How governments make international organizations work . Cornell University Press.

Koremenos, B., Lipson, C., & Snidal, D. (2001). The rational design of international institutions. International Organization, 55 (4), 761–799.

König, T. (2007). Divergence or convergence? From ever-growing to ever-slowing european legislative decision making. European Journal of Political Research, 46 (3), 417–444.

Lake, D. A., & McCubbins, M. (2006). The logic of delegation to international organizations. In D. Hawkins, D. Lake, D. Nielson, & M. Tierney (Eds.), Delegation and Agency in International Organizations (pp. 341–368). Cambridge University Press.

Lake, D. A., & Powell, R. (1999). Strategic choice and international cooperation . Princeton University Press.

Lall, R. (2017). Beyond institutional design: explaining the performance of international organizations. International Organization, 71 (2), 245–280.

Landolt, L., & Woo, B. (2017). NGOs invite attention: From the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to the Human Rights Council. Journal of Human Rights, 16 (4), 407–427.

Mansfield, E., Milner, H., & Rosendorff, P. (2002). Why democracies cooperate more: Electoral control and international trade agreements. International Organization, 56 (3), 477–513.

Mansfield, E., & Pevehouse, J. C. (2008). Democratization and the varieties of international organizations. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 52 (2), 269–294.

Martin, L. A., & Simmons, B. A. (2012). International organizations and institutions. In W. Carlsnaes, T. Risse, & B. A. Simmons (Eds.), Handbook of international relations (2nd ed., pp. 326–351). SAGE.

Mitchell, R. (2002). A quantitative approach to evaluating international environmental regimes. Global Environmental Politics, 2 (4), 58–83.

Naurin, D., & Wallace, H. (Eds). (2008). Unveiling the Council of the European Union: Games Governments Play in Brussels . Basingstoke: Palgrave.

O’Brien, R., Goetz, A. M., Scholte, J. A., & Williams, M. (2000). Contesting global governance: Multilateral economic institutions and global social movements . Cambridge University Press.

Olson, D. M., & Nonidez, C. T. (1972). Measures of legislative performance in the US house of representatives. Midwest Journal of Political Science, 16 (2), 269–277.

Pevehouse, J. C., Nordstrom, T., McManus, R. W., & Jamison, A. S. (2020). Tracking organizations in the world: The Correlates of War IGO version 3.0 datasets. Journal of Peace Research, 57 (3), 492–503.

Pollack, M. (1997). Delegation, agency, and agenda setting in the European community. International Organization, 51 (1), 99–134.

Pollack, M., & Hafner-Burton, E. (2010). Mainstreaming international governance: The environment, gender, and IO performance in the European Union. Review of International Organizations, 5 (3), 285–313.

Rasmussen, A., & Toshkov, D. (2013). The effect of stakeholder involvement on legislative duration: consultation of external actors and legislative duration in the European Union. European Union Politics, 14 (3), 366–387.

Raustiala, K. (1997). States, NGOs, and international environmental institutions. International Studies Quarterly, 41 (4), 719–740.

Rittberger, V., Zangl, B., & Kruck, A. (2012). International organization (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.

Scharpf, F. W. (1997). Games real actors play . Westview Press.

Schulz, H., & König, T. (2000). Institutional reform and decision-making efficiency in the European Union. American Journal of Political Science, 44 (4), 653–666.

Shanks, C., Jacobson, H. K., & Kaplan, J. H. (1996). Inertia and change in the constellation of international governmental organizations, 1981–1992. International Organization, 50 (4), 593–627.

Shepsle, K. (2008). Rational Choice Institutionalism. In S. H. Binder, R. A. W. Rhodes, & B. A. Rockman (Eds.), Oxford handbook of political institutions (pp. 23–38). Oxford University Press.

Simmons, B. A. (2009). Mobilizing for human rights: International law in domestic politics . Cambridge University Press.

Slapin, J. B. (2008). Bargaining power at Europe's intergovernmental conferences: testing institutional and intergovernmental theories. International Organization, 62 (1), 131–162.

Squatrito, T., Young, O., Follesdal, A., & Ulfstein, G. (Eds.). (2018). The performance of international courts and tribunals . Cambridge University Press.

Steffek, J., Kissling, C., & Nanz, P. (Eds.). (2008). Civil society participation in european and global governance: A cure for the democratic deficit? Palgrave Macmillan.

Stone, R.W. (2011). Controlling Institutions: International Organizations and the Global Economy . Cambridge University Press.

Stone, R. W. (2013). Informal governance in international organizations: Introduction to the special issue. Review of International Organizations, 8 (2), 121–136.

Tallberg, J. (2015). Orchestrating Enforcement. In K. Abbott, P. Genschel, D. Snidal, & B. Zangl (Eds.), International organizations as orchestrators (pp. 166–188). Cambridge University Press.

Tallberg, J. (2002). Delegation to supranational institutions: Why, how, and with what consequences? West European Politics, 25 (1), 23–46.

Tallberg, J., Sommerer, T., Squatrito, T., & Lundgren, M. (2016a). The performance of international organizations: A policy output approach. Journal of European Public Policy, 23 (7), 1077–1096.

Tallberg, J., Sommerer, T., & Squatrito, T. (2016b). Democratic memberships in international organizations: Sources of institutional design. Review of International Organizations, 11 (1), 59–87.

Tallberg, J., Sommerer, T., Squatrito, T., & Jönsson, C. (2014). The transnational design of international organizations. International Organization, 68 (4), 741–774.

Thomson, R., Stokman, F. N., Achen, C. H., & König, T. (Eds.). (2006). The European Union decides . Cambridge University Press.

Voeten, E. (2013). Data and Analyses of Voting in the UN General Assembly. In B. Reinalda (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of International Organization . London: Routledge.

Vreeland, J., & Dreher, A. (2014). The political economy of the United Nations Security Council: Money and influence . Cambridge University Press.

Young, O. (1999). Governance in world affairs . Cornell University Press.

Zürn, M., Binder, M., & Ecker-Ehrhardt, M. (2012). International authority and its politicization. International Theory, 4 (1), 69–106.

Zürn, M. (2018). A Theory of Global Governance: Authority, Legitimacy, and Contestation . Oxford University Press.

Download references

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2021 virtual Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, the 2018 Annual Convention of the International Studies Association in San Francisco, the 2016 Annual Convention of the International Studies Association in Atlanta, and at the Global and Regional Governance Workshop at Stockholm University. For helpful comments and suggestions, we are particularly grateful to Yoram Haftel, Hylke Dijkstra, Alex Thompson, Lisa Martin, and to the editor and three anonymous reviewers of ROIO. The research for this article was funded by the Swedish Research Council (Grant 2013-01559).

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Universität Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

Thomas Sommerer

London School of Economics, London, England

Theresa Squatrito

Stockholms universitet, Stockholm, Sweden

Jonas Tallberg

Göteborgs universitet, Gothenburg, Sweden

Magnus Lundgren

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

Research design and conceptualization: T.So.: (30%), T.Sq. (30%), J.T. (20%), M.L. (20%). Statistical analysis: T.So. (70%) T.Sq. (10%), J.T. (10%), M.L. (10%). Writing: T.So. (30%), T.Sq. (40%), J.T. (15%), M.L. (15%). The order of authors reflects the significance of the authors’ contributions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas Sommerer .

Additional information

Responsible Editor: Axel Dreher

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 838 kb)

Supplementary file2 (dta 389 kb), supplementary file3 (do 57 kb), rights and permissions.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Sommerer, T., Squatrito, T., Tallberg, J. et al. Decision-making in international organizations: institutional design and performance. Rev Int Organ 17 , 815–845 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-021-09445-x

Download citation

Accepted : 19 July 2021

Published : 17 October 2021

Issue Date : October 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-021-09445-x

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• International organizations
• Institutional design
• Decision-making
• Global governance
• Performance
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Multilateralism and international governmental organizations: principles and instruments

Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy

ISSN : 1750-6166

Article publication date: 30 March 2020

Issue publication date: 28 August 2020

The purpose of this paper is to build a conceptual framework helping to understand the relationship between the principle of multilateralism in global policy relations and the role of international governmental organizations (IGOs). The paper develops conceptual building blocks to design adequate for international organizations for result-oriented effective multilateralism.

Design/methodology/approach

Literature review and in-depth theoretical analysis served to construct a framework that helps to see the variety of IGOs against global policy problems they serve to solve.

The analysis highlighted several lessons that can be learned, including the need for an efficient match between the nature of the global policy problem and the mandate and the size of IGO. The paper indicated the importance of efficient mechanisms to make international organizations accountable to member states while allowing for effective leadership.

Research limitations/implications

The heterogeneity of IGOs makes a generalization difficult, hence, the proposed framework necessarily remains relatively generic. Still, this paper provides a first analytical basis for the comparison of IGO with regard to global policy problems they have been set to solve.

Practical implications

The author pointed to the way how to improve the fit between global policy problems and IGOs to make multilateralism more effective. The framework can be used to learn what can be expected from a given IGO and to see IGOs in their proper roles.

Social implications

The paper might of interest to decision-makers and international public opinion eager to either criticize or praise international organizations based on a simplistic, if not ideological approaches. The paper develops arguments that help influence the evolution of international organizations.

Originality/value

IGO are increasing in number and forms leading to confusion to their role and impact. This framework can be used to realistically assess the role of IGOs in global public policies.

• Multilateralism
• Global collective action
• Global public goods
• Output accountability

Surdej, A. (2020), "Multilateralism and international governmental organizations: principles and instruments", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy , Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 337-350. https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-11-2019-0107

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Aleksander Surdej.

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

The world is more interconnected and interdependent than it has ever been before ( Montobbio, 2013 ). An international public opinion recognizes the growing interdependence of contemporary societies and states. The evidence of such an awareness can be found already in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s convention from 1960, which states: “recognising the increasing interdependence of their economies” [ 1 ].

Earlier awareness of the common fate of modern societies was limited chiefly to economic interdependence: it was referring to international trade and investment flows. Nowadays analysts recognize interdependence that stretches beyond issues of trade and investment and encompasses among others environmental, energy or demographic dimensions ( Wei et al. , 2019 ). An environmental interdependence results from the limited natural capacity of the planet gravely tested by the conjuncture of rising material consumption and the growing size of the world’s population ( Steffen et al. , 2015 ).

Interdependence results not only from natural sources but also it has been propelled by technological changes, including new telecommunication technologies and dynamic digitalization of economic and social life ( Owen, 2015 ; Sicilia and Visvizi, 2019 ), and it has been sustained by a post-Cold War political intent to build a relatively open, rule-based, hence, stable economic environment for contemporary states in hope to increase the aggregate welfare (to assure “better lives” for the many). Such interdependencies can be called horizontal , as they refer to the conditions that determine the life of contemporary people. In addition, we can identify vertical (intergenerational) interdependencies, which by their nature are asymmetrical , that is, the conditions of life of future generations to a large extent depend on our choices and obviously not vice versa ( OECD, 2011 ).

The paper explores the relationships between the principle of multilateralism and the functioning of international governmental organizations (IGOs)[ 2 ] asking whether multilateralism without IGOs ( Devin, 2016 ) is sustainable while treating IGOs as instruments supporting the effectiveness of multilateralism ( Ruggie, 1993 ; Zartman, 2012 ) whose ultimate aim is to produce positive outcomes to the world society. In particular, the paper examines the ways for an adequate definition of a nature of global policy problem showing how such conceptualization could be approached, then it discusses the problem of global collective action with multitude of actors and asks how to delineate the goals, to design tools and scope of activities of IGOs to help them to contribute to the effectiveness of multilateralism.

2. Public goods and contemporary transnational interdependencies

When trying to understand the characteristics (the roots, nature and challenges generated by them) of contemporary interdependencies it is useful to use the concept of public goods. In a classical formulation “global public goods must meet two criteria. The first is that their benefits have strong qualities of publicness—that is, they are marked by nonrivalry in consumption and nonexcludability./…/The second criterion is that their benefits are quasi universal in terms of countries (covering more than one group of countries), people (accruing to several, preferably all, population groups), and generations (extending to both current and future generations, or at least meeting the needs of current generations without foreclosing development options for future generations). This property makes humanity as a whole the publicum , or beneficiary of global public goods” (Kaul et al. , 1999).

Global public goods provide benefits to all, but as a rule, are undersupplied (the undersupply concerns also knowledge). There exist also global public bads – things/events/processes that generate costs or damages. Terrorism, communicable diseases or financial instability are examples of this category.

Global public goods are rarely provided unilaterally (by one country), global bads, in turn, can rarely be prevented unilaterally (by one state or by one actor) ( Kanbur, 2017 ). In addition, global public bads may be considered as “wicked problems” ( Churchman, 1967 ) – problems lacking any definitive solution, as having multiple dimensions that cannot be harmonized or requiring the implementation of contradictory measures. Global problems are complex issues of global scope with implications for domestic policies, but, as they lack definite solutions, they often require sustainable, long term cooperation among all concerned parties.

Economists generally acknowledge that international economic cooperation, if national economies are relatively open to international trade and international investments, can generate more aggregate wealth than the world of states relying on self-sufficiency. Yet, to maintain a relatively open trade and investment system there is a need to design, implement and sustain a set of international trade rules, otherwise, economic openness easily degenerates into damaging trade conflicts[ 3 ]. Economic openness can only be sustained, if it is supported by fair rules. Increasingly it can be seen that economic openness needs to be based on similar principles-related to the functioning of the domestic economy. Thus, contemporary trade agreements have become complex, “deep” as they cover many areas that beforehand had been considered as exclusively domestic ( Table I ).

The reason for such changes results from an attempt to prevent the countries with non-market based production systems from exploiting economic openness in a predatory manner by using heavy state subsidies, underpricing domestic inputs (due for instance to lax environmental regulations or politically manipulated exchange rates to distort competition to the detriment of market-based economies). Thus, for instance, the problem of global steel overcapacity results from the expansion of production in non-market economies that give their producers subsidies to expand their production, create unfair advantages for them and threaten employment in market economies[ 4 ]. The lack of adequate domestic economic policy rules might, then, undermine the economic efficiency rationale for international free trade and erode the significance of the rule-based trade framework[ 5 ].

3. Global cooperation and global collective action

Global problems can be solved in a unilaterally way if a single actor is able and ready to provide such an effective solution[ 6 ]. Such hypothetical situations happen rarely, if at all, in practice. Most of the time global problems require collective actions based on formal or informal (tacit or explicit) agreements. More than 50 years since the publication of Mancur Olson’s “The Logic of Collective Action” (Olson 1965). it is widely acknowledged that global collective actions cannot be assumed, but they need to be constructed, as usually rational actors (states, governments, etc.) calculate the costs and benefits of participating in them or staying aside, and may decide to “take free ride.” [ 7 ]

A global collective action involving states does not start as a spontaneous and simultaneous move of the many, it is triggered usually by an issue leader, for example, a state strongly interested in solving a given policy issue, which tries to involve other states or other relevant actors by designing a system of incentives to encourage participation in such a collective action and disincentives to potential free riders. Designing global collective actions requires the identification of common challenges and potential responses (approaches) that seem effective and efficient (to achieve these concerned parties need to build consensus about the origins of the challenge (problem) at the outset, to share data and agree on the results of evidence-based analysis)[ 8 ]. Then, there is a need for designing an approach, a mechanism or a process that incorporates the right balance between “hard” measures (enforceable treaties, standards or regulations) and “soft” measures that stimulate voluntary cooperation based on a shared understanding of the seriousness of an issue. Designing a proper model for a global collective action should start from the recognition of the possibility of a variety of approaches, models, and instruments that such an action requires and involves: from awareness raising activities to comprehensive formalized binding modes of cooperation ( Axelrod, 1998 ).

4. The problem of sustainability of commitments and policies

Policies oriented to provide global public goods need to be sustained over time – sometimes even for decades like in the case of global climate policies. To sustain a global collective action there is a need for binding (formal or informal) commitments as the actors involved in a collective action need to act (pay, work and collaborate) together during a prolonged period.

As countries that have signed or declared, that they would stay faithful to their initial commitments regardless of circumstances ( declared intentions ), might face unexpected domestic political changes, there is a serious risk that declared commitments might not be maintained in face of domestic political disincentives ( actual actions ).

Examples abound: there are countries that have declared they would reduce the number of its low emission energy production sites by a given date, but then deny such commitments, when such reductions harm jobs in politically sensitive, for them, regions. Governments in a single currency area might judge staying within the formally accepted limits of budget deficit as detrimental to their countries’ short term growth perspectives, although formally they acknowledge such rules as necessary for the long term monetary stability of the area if the fulfillment of international obligations seems harmful to the electoral results of parties that form such governments.

If ordinary and frequent opportunism of political actors is not to subvert the implementation and sustainability of global public policies, there is a need for instruments that would prevent or at least reduce, the likelihood of denying obligations and breaching commitments. The creation of an international commitment enhancing mechanism might be useful to this purpose. International bodies (secretariats or organizations) might fulfill such a function[ 9 ]. One of their fundamental roles is to help countries stay faithful to their commitments.

It seems that an IGO is better suited for this purpose than just a purely technical secretariat ( Hurd, 2017 ; Rittberger et al. , 2019 ). IGOs are usually created by conventions and, by such an act of international public law, receive a double relative autonomy vis-a-vis its individual members[ 10 ]. An institutional autonomy of an international organization ( Haftel and Thompson, 2006 ) means that, in an extreme case, all its initial members might exit and still the organization might continue its existence, if enough members remain in it or if other states enter and become members in the meantime[ 11 ]. A withdrawal of even a founding member does not usually discontinue the existence of a once created organization (such an event might, however, create a major or minor disruption) but not a direct threat to its existence. They also gain real (practical) autonomy because of their governance principles and management practices. IGOs, even if their decision-making rules allow for the majority (or other types) voting to try to avoid making rules in this way and they prefer lengthy, tiresome but not internally divisive, consensual decision-making. Usually, member states of an IGO set very broad guidelines that are then interpreted by the managers of an organization[ 12 ].

This gives broad powers to top executives of IGOs as they are best placed to engineer such a consensus by for instance redesigning agenda or playing against each other tensions or conflicts among their members. In addition, an IGO is usually monitored by officials from the governments of member states who do not have sufficient domestic political weight to enter a conflict with the managing staff of an IGO, even if they see a cause and purpose to do it.

For its members' international organizations are an instrument to solve common problems. They have been created to help to search for solutions to common problems, facilitate policy actions or even directly implement them. With time, however, an international organization might become inefficient, start serving exclusively their own staff and even lose its purpose. Thus, international organizations need to be made continuously accountable to their members. Such an accountability depends on the internal organizational rules of an organization (whether an organization has clear rules regarding decision-making, division of power and responsibility, whether it provides its members with accurate and timely information ( Axelsson et al. , 2010 ) and it should be judged by the quality of outcomes it generates to its members and, indirectly, to the rest of the world. The dimensions of accountable leadership in IGOs lists basic criteria for accountability of IGOs to member states. They help also to understand why member states send permanent representations to take part in the permanent monitoring of the way the organizations are managed.

Does the international organization (IO) publish the criteria/terms of reference for leadership online?

What percentage of the membership is involved in leadership selection and re-election practice?

Is there a time-bound, published and exhaustive process for leadership selection that weighs competence against the published criteria?

Do the leader’s set clear performance expectations for themselves, which are transparent and consistent?

Is there an expectation that the leader translates overarching goals of the organization into a manageable and clear strategy?

Is the leader obliged to disclose conflicts of interest?

Is the leader obliged to adhere to a published code of ethics?

Is the leadership subjected to annual performance appraisal?

Is remuneration or benefits tied to the outcomes of the performance management program?

Is the leader offered coaching and development opportunities to address weaknesses over time?

Are performance management criteria considered by the full membership in the re-election process?

Are other qualified candidates considered in the re-election process?

Does the leader have the authority to shift strategic priorities in light of external changes?

Does the IO have processes that facilitate the implementation of new strategic priorities?

What percentage of resources are set aside for special initiatives decided by and controlled by a subset of the full membership?

Does the organization take staff surveys to assess staff satisfaction and performance and do leaders use the results of these surveys?

Is the leader assessed on mentoring and coaching of subordinate staff?

Is the leader obliged to participate in formal training programs serving own professional development?

Does leadership have the authority and mechanisms to shift strategic priorities because of changing circumstances?

Does the organization have procedures to engage with a wide range of stakeholders?

Does the organization have structures and procedures to engage with internal and external evaluations?

Source: Elaborated based on effective leadership in international organizations and the World Economic Forum, 2014.

Note: International organizations usually do not have formal performance evaluations of their senior managers and leaders – Martinez-Diaz (2009) .

As earlier noted, even if founded by member states (and in a sense owned by them) an international organization gains the status of an external, to any of its members, body. It can, thus, play a multitude of functions that help member states to stay committed to their declared obligations and continue to participate in global collection actions[ 13 ]. These functions can be ranged according to the tools necessary for their implementation. On one end IGOs rely on the power of information and evidence (by collecting and sharing information and, hence, helping to create evidence) creating a transparent environment ( Nugroho et al. , 2015 ) helping to build trust in loyal cooperation among the sides to an agreement[ 14 ]. On the other end, IGOs might take advantage of delegated powers to carry out activities on behalf of member states, not unlike any executive agency in the domestic policy field ( Hawkins and Wade, 2006 ).

A dense informational environment created by the work of an international organization helps to bind together interacting parties, as it is helping to forge a common definition of international challenges (problems) and to reach a shared understanding of the likely effectiveness and efficiency of policy instruments that need to be applied to solve (or attenuate) a given global policy problem ( Littoz-Monnet, 2017 ).

Depending on the nature of an international policy problem an international organization can serve either as a coordination platform or a policy designing center or an implementation agent.

In its function of a coordination platform and international organization either supplies or verifies and certifies information and provides evidence, if this suffices to sustain collective actions or might design and, if agreed by member states, impose on members formally binding rules that support needed actions – in practice coordination might rely on soft or hard tools (or on a combination of them)[ 15 ]. This function best describes the work of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures.

As a policy design center , an international organization needs not only to collect and process information but also to develop ideas for policies (what needs to be done? Who needs to act? What instruments need to be used? How the expected outcomes need to be monitored?) that if properly implemented, will solve or attenuate an international problem and its negative consequences. This function seems central to the work of the OECD.

As an implementation agent , an international organization is called to carry on activities needed to implement a designed policy. For such a task an international organization needs to be equipped with adequate (financial, technical and human) resources. An organization as an implementation agent needs to assure continuity of its functioning, as especially human resources (staff) need to have a required quality. This function dominates the work of the World Food Programme.

International organizations are in different proportions financed both from assessed mandatory contributions of their member states and from voluntary contributions. The exclusive reliance on mandatory contributions assure financial stability, but introduces rigidity, whereas a high share of voluntary contributions gives leaders an opportunity to flexibly adjust to changing circumstances[ 16 ]. Voluntary contributions to international organizations and their typical justifications as listed in Table II may lead to tensions between various stakeholders. Thus, for instance, member states may not wish the administration of an IGO to accept payments from certain actors or for certain purposes trying to streamline the work of an organization whose staff may believe such activities and resources help to strengthen a given organization.

A given international organization might perform one, two or all of these functions simultaneously or consecutively. Thus, an organization might initially have potential/latent/implementation capacity, which once activated might later become its core function.

In the contemporary world, there are many IGOs. Yet, there is no single principle for a precise division of labor among international actors (including international organizations), with no precise criteria to delineate an optimal policy area for a given IGO[ 17 ]. Still, confusion as to their roles and responsibilities or detrimental competition in the same field, need to be avoided. Thus, for instance, in a recent decade several multilateral development banks have been created: in Asia – the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank and in the BRICS countries – New Development Bank. Such regional financing arrangements serve to provide emergency liquidity together with the IMF, but might also create confusion as to the division of responsibilities in the global financial system.

In sum, it is desirable that an international organization has a clear mandate, accountability rules and some conditions as to the possible discontinuation of its existence.

5. International governmental organizations: large or small; functional or territorially based?

All global public policies rely on a form of international cooperation. Depending on the geographic scope of the policy problem it seems perfectly rational to expect the emergence of a continuum of “lateralisms” ( Zartman, 2012 ). For a problem involving just two states, we would expect a cooperation between these two states. However, a bilateral cooperation is not equal to bilateralism as a policy principle and an approach ( Krotz and Schild, 2012 ), as the latter claims that the aggregation of bilateral cooperation is sufficient to solve all international problems. Yet, such bilateralism is in practice not efficient because of high transaction costs and, furthermore, it offers a false response to certain types of international problems that are caused by “systemic effects.” [ 18 ]

Completing bilateral agreements that would become an equivalent to a single multilateral agreement is time-consuming and costly. Assume that all 28 EU member states negotiate bilateral trade agreements among all of them. If all member states (N = 28) seek only bilateral agreements, the whole group would need ½ × N × (N − l), which is 378, bilateral trade agreements[ 19 ]. By creating a customs union and developing single market policies the EU has created a trade environment-based on just one “deep” multilateral trade agreement saving, thus, on transaction costs. Furthermore, bilateralism as a doctrine does not take account of what is called a systemic effect: problems that cannot be internalized exclusively by bilateral arrangements, as they generate externalities and have emergent properties – the properties that derive from underlying bilateral interactions but cannot be reduced to them: global financial instability or climate change might be seen as examples of such phenomena[ 20 ].

Thus, although in principle there is a wide set of choices regarding the scope of “lateral” cooperation: from bilateral, through trilateral to n -lateral (for the sake of brevity we can speak about “minilateral” and a maxi-lateral/encompassing all cooperation actors). This observation, however, does not suppress the opposition between “bilateralism” as a doctrine reducing all forms of international cooperation to the sum of bilateral cooperation and multilateralism, which assumes the need for multilateral cooperation that addresses at least the systemic issues and saves on transaction costs.

Bilateralism is a principle that might seem attractive to large players as they might try to impose one’s advantages in any single bilateral arrangement. On the contrary, small players tend to believe that engaging large states in multilateral arrangements protect them against being exploited[ 21 ].

Multilateralism, thus, can be understood as an approach encouraging actors (states but also non-state entities) to collaborate to identify common problems (including global public goods and bads), to design methods to provide public goods, finance the provision or prevention and monitor the outcomes of common actions. Multilateralism is a core principle behind the institutional architecture of global governance. Global governance can be conceived as a set of rules and institutions embodying the principle of multilateralism ( Lewis, 2017 ). Yet, multilateralism is not an end in itself, it needs to be seen as an instrument to solve common problems, to provide global public goods and internalize negative spillovers of human activities.

Multi ( n )-lateralism might be of territorial or functional nature. When states enter cooperation agreements with their neighbors they tend to develop the institutions that serve their cooperation in the areas of common problems (cleaning the river, preventing cross-border air pollution, facilitating trade in goods, etc.). Neighboring states usually do not change in time, but common problems might evolve, hence, the territorial cooperation is usually supported by open-ended, multi-task institutions. Neighboring states interact over time, create closer or looser economic and political ties, but unless, at war, they work together to solve common problems.

In an era of technological and environmental interdependencies states might become increasingly involved in functional cooperation ( Nye, 2020 ), that is, embodied by what can be called a functional n -lateralism. When money moves at the speed of internet to “tax heavens,” national tax authorities need a common action of all, not only of their territorial neighbors but also needs to appear with regard the regulation of internet to protect privacy and data safety, to the taxation of digital activities or to a competition among internet platforms.

It can be envisaged that providing one global public good requires one international organization (according to the principle one goal – one instrument). It is, however, not always possible to set one specific goal, instead, some international organizations receive either a very general one goal or multiple goals[ 22 ]. Large n and all issues literalism are often ineffective and inefficient as it assumes the cooperation and collective action of all actors across all policy areas at the same time ( Ostrom, 1996 ). It is more realistic to expect the emergence of a one-dimensional large n -lateralism, and many-dimensional small n -lateralism – the distinction between functional and territorial multilateralism exemplifies these types closely[ 23 ].

From a global governance point of view, there seems to exist the need for a multitude of n -lateralisms of various purposes, as there are many diverse global policy problems, a variety of instruments and forms of policy actions ( Dennis et al. , 2015 ).

6. Conclusion

This paper presents a conceptual framework helping to assess the need for multilateralism, to analyze the fit between the nature of global policy problems the scope and form of collective action and the way IGOs can be used to institutionalize effective global policy actions. It is stressed that multilateralism as a general principle gains its legitimacy (approval and adherence) if it generates solutions to global problems – to put it differently – if it creates a global public value ( Karunasena et al. , 2011 ), but even if global problems are not possible to be entirely solved, multilateralism still maintains its attractiveness because of its procedural qualities, including the creation of norms assuring a faithful adherence to its principles, transparency of actions and the care for a fair burden sharing[ 24 ].

Increasingly, attenuating or solving global public problems requires understanding the linkages between foreign and domestic policies ( Putnam, 1988 ). In an open economy, domestic policies generate consequences for external actors and, vice versa, the policies of foreign actors impact domestic conditions. International financial flows, for instance, because of their consequences for financial stability and tax revenues, call for minimal harmonization or at least transparency, of domestic accounting and taxation rules. To define how much a given company is because of pay in a given country there should be transparency in company financial reports and in domestic taxation rules and accounting principles. Similar problems emerge when one examines the growth of the digital economy (Fletcher, 2016) and its consequences for the regulation of competition (for instance regarding digital platforms), taxation of intangible assets (like brands) and intellectual property. The issue of taxation of the digital economy requires a global solution[ 25 ].

Despite a strong rationale for IGOs highlighted in Table III , IGOs are neither necessary nor sufficient components of all n -lateralisms. There might be collective (multilateral) actions taken without the involvement of any international organization, nor does their presence assure effective common actions. With the rise of non-governmental actors (global NGOs and multinational corporations[ 26 ]) intergovernmental multilateralism has gained new constraints and new partners. The international policy community has broadened to encompass new actors but to function efficiently it needs to rely on similar assumptions of rational and evidence-based analysis.

Still, multilateralism without IGOs will be fragile and unstable , as IGOs help to anticipate, understand and respond to global policy challenges. They are instrumental in constructing global collective actions both at the global and the regional levels ( Blanco-Jiménez et al. , 2019 ). They serve not only their own members but also engage with other, external actors and warn about complacency in the face of global problems.

There are, thus, strong reasons to claim that effective multilateralism[ 27 ] is needed to address global challenges, provide public goods, level the international playing field and contribute to the search for common solutions to contemporary problems. Global economic, social and environmental challenges require well-designed multi-lateral actions that are rarely sustainable without IGOs.

Areas covered in contemporary trade agreements

Source: Elaborated-based on Rogerson and Barder (2019)

The convention of the OECD from December 1960 – www.oecd.org/general/conventionontheorganizationforeconomicco-operationanddevelopment.htm

In this paper, we refer to IGOs. The Yearbook of International Organizations lists and describes at present approx. In total, 250 such organizations, while the institution that runs this register estimates that nowadays there are approx. In total, 75,500 international organizations ( https://uia.org/yearbook ). In the later part of the text I propose a more precise definition of multilateralism. The starting point is to assume that: “multilateralism is a process of cooperation between states-based on the principles set by institutions and international agreements” ( Laidi, 2018 ).

Founding trade on generally accepted rules assures an optimization of joint benefits – this does not mean that there is just one single set of such rules or that they are not modifiable – (Malmstrom, 2018 ).

See “OECD welcomes outcome of Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity Ministerial” – www.oecd.org/newsroom/oecd-welcomes-outcome-of-global-forum-on-steel-excess-capacity-ministerial.htm – accessed: October 10, 2018.

In this context it is worth noticing the pioneering activities of the OECD, which already in 1978 adopted a regulation on arrangement on guidelines for officially supported export credit , which attempted to prevent such practices.

For examples of such hypothetical and real situations – ( Barrett, 2007 ).

W. Nordhaus (2015 ) showed in a theoretical model that there is no possibility to create an optimal form for cooperation in the fight against climate deregulation, if free riders are not punished. He has indicated that such fines need not to be heavy to achieve positive results.

The principle of “evidence-based” ( Majone, 1989 ) means using collected of objective information to evaluate past and shape the direction of future actions.

One can speak about a continuum of institutional forms of multilateralism: from ongoing dialogue of leaders in fora like G20 and G7, World Economic Forum, Chinese Forum Boao for Asia and Munich Security Conference to military organizations (like NATO).

The basis for granting to international organizations the status of legal persons is a verdict of the International Court of Justice in the case “Reparation des dommages subis au service des Nations Unies” from April 11, 1949.

Thus, for instance, the Article 17 of the OECD Convention says that “any Contracting Party may terminate the application of this Convention to itself by giving twelve months’ notice to that effect to the depositary Government.” Such a decision would not result in the dissolution of an organization. Other organizations have similar clauses. Thus, the US filed its notice to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in October 2017 and the USA has officially quit in January 2019. The US withdrew from UNESCO also in 1984, but later rejoined in 2003.

Barnett and Finnemore (2004 ) stress that “the authority of an international organization, and an administration in general, depends on their capacities to present themselves as neutral and impersonal bodies, and on the use of powers only to serve others.” Recently the staff association of the World Bank has kept stressing the need choose its new president in an “open, merit-based and transparent process.” “Given that staff’s perceptions of the legitimacy of the process will underpin the credibility of our next leader, the board would be wise to take such opinions into account” – the staff association added (“World Bank staff warn directors over Kim successor, in Financial Times, January 29, 2019).

General competences granted to international organizations and the interpretation of international treaties favor the autonomization of the organization and increase the power of administration. One of employees of the secretariat of the UN convention on biodiversity noticed that “when he was a member of a national delegation his ambition was to modify at least one word in the text, as an employee of the secretariat he can influence the whole text” ( Biermann and Siebenhuner, 2009 , p. 322).

For the International Maritime Organization did not make available to journalist an information about the agenda and statements of states delegates. This and other international agencies are under increasing pressure to apply transparency rules that already oblige in the public administration of their member states – see Agency problems in the Economist, November 24, 2018.

The principle and requirement of transparency, which accompanies multi-lateral negotiations at the fora of international organizations helps to reduce uncertainty and facilitate the emergence of cooperative behavior of concerned parties.

For instance 98 per cent of the UNHCR budget comes from voluntary contributions, 76 per cent of WHO contributions are voluntary, while in the case of the OECD the share of voluntary contributions oscillates around 50 per cent (UNHCR, 2013).

IGOs compete among themselves offering sometimes products on quite similar topic – see for instance the World Development Report 2019 on “Changing Nature or Work” and ILO’s “The changing nature of jobs - World Employment and Social Outlook 2015.”

As was succinctly noticed by R. Neustadt already in 1970 “reality is not bilateral” (Neustadt, 1970, p. 5). See also: Centeno et al. (2015 ).

Moreover, it is possible that many of 378 bilateral trade agreements will differ one from another, creating additional barriers to intra-area trade. The aggregation of bilateralisms rarely generates a uniform multi-lateral solution, instead it might generate an environment prone to conflicts, volatility and instability.

Generalized instability (financial, political and demographic/migratory) can be considered a global public bad as it spreads across dimensions and levels and is a root cause of systemic risks.

Among 193 belonging to the UN 105 are small states with populations smaller than 10 m persons.

This opens possibility for their managers to constantly reinvent the organization taking on new initiatives, but on the other hand such organizations strive to get financing that does match the ambitions of their leaders and rarely they get it – but ambitious leaders are needed to develop what is called an organization’s “mission mystique” or institutional charisma – see: Goodsell (2011 ).

Historically first international organizations served specialized international cooperation among many states. These were: International Telegraph Union (1865), the Universal Postal Union (1874), the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (1875) and Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, from 1883.

Multilateralism is a principle that can be modified and contextualized. From time to time emerges a thesis about the crisis of multilateralism but it gets reborn in new forms as: “the reality has become multi-lateral” – Newman E. et al. (2006).

The works on global tax policy is conducted by the OECD upon the G20 Leaders’ Summit in June 2012 focus on the need to prevent base erosion and profit shifting. In 2013 the OECD drafted its BEPS action plan, in 2015 the OECD/G20 report on the taxation of the digital economy. The 2017 G20 meeting requested further works that would propose both an interim measure and a longer-term solution – Lobb and Stack (2019) – more www.oecd.org/tax/beps/ (access: October 20, 2019).

Multi-national companies act at an international scale, small businesses might look seemingly local, but their aggregate impact might go beyond the borders of a state.

In a similar vein French President Emmanuel Macron said before the US Congress “the only option is to strengthen our co-operation. We can build the 21 st century world order, based on more effective, accountable and results-oriented multilateralism” [Speech by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, at the Congress of the USA of America- https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2018/04/25/speech-by-the-president-of-the-republic-emmanuel-macron-at-the-congress-of-the-united-states-of-america.en (accessed on January 29, 2019).

Axelrod , R. ( 1998 ), The Complexity of Cooperation , Princeton University Press , Princeton .

Axelsson , K. , Melin , U. and Lindgren , I. ( 2010 ), “ Exploring the importance of citizen participation and involvement in e‐government projects: practice, incentives, and organization ”, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy , Vol. 4 No. 4 , pp. 299 - 321 .

Barnett , M. and Finnemore , M. ( 2004 ), “ Rules for the world ”, International Organizations in Global Politics , Cornell University Press , Ithaca .

Barrett , S. ( 2007 ), Why Cooperate? the Incentive to Supply Global Public Goods , Oxford University Press .

Biermann , F. and Siebenhuner , B. ( 2009 ), “ The influence of international bureaucracies in world politics, findings from the Manus research program ”, in Frank , B. and Bernd , S. (Eds), Managers of Global Change. The Influence of International Environmental Bureaucracies , The MIT Press , Cambridge .

Blanco-Jiménez , M. , Parra-Irineo , G. , González-González , N. and Tavizon-Salazar , A. ( 2019 ), “ Pacific alliance: Political, economic, and commercial implications ”, Blanco-Jimenez , M. and Álvarez , J. (Eds), Regional Integration in Latin America , Emerald Publishing Limited , pp. 1 - 12 .

Centeno , M.A. , Nag , M. , Patterson , T.S. , Shaver , A. and Windawi , A.J. ( 2015 ), “ The emergence of global systemic risk ”, Annual Review of Sociology , Vol. 41 No. 1 , pp. 65 - 85 .

Churchman , C. ( 1967 ), “ Wicked problems ”, Management Science , Vol. 14 No. 4 .

Dennis , R. , Morgan , P. and Cruz , S. ( 2015 ), “ Alternative futures of global governance: scenarios and perspectives from the global South ”, Foresight , Vol. 17 No. 2 , pp. 125 - 142 .

Devin , G. ( 2016 ), “ Les organisations internationales ”, Armand Colin , P. and Fletcher , T. (Eds), Naked Diplomacy. Power and Statecraft in the Digital Age , William Collins , London .

Goodsell , C.T. ( 2011 ), “ Mission mystique: strength at the institutional center ”, The American Review of Public Administration , Vol. 41 No. 5 , pp. 475 - 494 .

Haftel , Y. and Thompson , A. ( 2006 ), “ The independence of international organizations. Concept and applications ”, Journal of Conflict Resolution , Vol. 50 No. 2 , pp. 253 - 275 .

Hawkins , D. and Wade , J. ( 2006 ), “ How agents matter ”, in Hawkins , D. , Lake , D. , Nielson , D. , Tierney , M. (Eds), Delegation and Agency in International Organizations , Cambridge University Press , Cambridge .

Hurd , I. ( 2017 ), International Organizations. Politics, Law, Practice , 3rd ed. , Cambridge University Press .

Kanbur , R. ( 2017 ), “ What is the world bank good for? Global public goods and global institutions ”, CEPR Discussion Paper 12090 .

Karunasena , K. , Deng , H. and Singh , M. ( 2011 ), “ Measuring the public value of E‐government: a case study from Sri Lanka ”, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy , Vol. 5 No. 1 , pp. 81 - 99 .

Kaul , I. , Grunberg , I. and Stern , M.A. ( 1999 ), “ Defining public goods ”, in Kaul , I. Grunberg , I. and Stern , M.A. (Eds), Global Public Goods. International Cooperation in XXIth Century , Oxford University Press .

Krotz , U. and Schild , J. ( 2012 ), “ Shaping Europe ”, France, Germany and Embedded Bilateralism from the Elysee Treaty to Twenty-First Century Politics , Oxford University Press , Oxford .

Laidi , Z. ( 2018 ), “ Pourquoi le multilateralisme s’en va ”, L’Opinion .

Lewis , S. ( 2017 ), “ PISA for Schools: Respatializing the OECD’s global governance of education ”, The Impact of the OECD on Education Worldwide (International Perspectives on Education and Society , Vol. 31 , Emerald Publishing Limited , pp. 181 - 206 .

Littoz-Monnet , A. (Ed.) ( 2017 ), “ The politics of expertise in international organizations ”, How International Bureaucracies Produce and Mobilize Knowledge , Routledge , London .

Lobb , A. and Stack , R. ( 2019 ), “ G20/OECD work: maybe way beyond digital, international tax review ”, available at: www.internationaltaxreview.com (accessed 24 September 2019 ).

Majone , G. ( 1989 ), Evidence, Argument and Persuasion in the Policy Process , Yale University Press .

Malmstrom , C. ( 2018 ), Reform Rule-Based Trade before It is Too Late , in Financial Times .

Martinez-Diaz , L. ( 2009 ), “ Boards of directors in international organizations: a framework for understanding the dilemmas of institutional design ”, in The Review of International Organizations , Vol. 4 No. 4 , pp. 383 - 406 .

Montobbio , M. ( 2013 ), “ Reflections on effective multilateralism and global governance as guiding concepts of the European global strategy ”, available: www.realinstitutoelcano.org/ (accessed 3 February 2020 ).

Newman E. , Thakur R. , Timan J. (Eds), ( 2006 ), “ Multilateralism under challenge ? ”, Power, International Order and Structural Change , United Nations University Press , Tokyo .

Nordhaus , W. ( 2015 ), “ Climate clubs: overcoming free-riding in international climate policy ,”, American Economic Review , Vol. 105 No. 4 , pp. 1339 - 1370 .

Nugroho , R. , Zuiderwijk , A. , Janssen , M. and de Jong , M. ( 2015 ), “ A comparison of national open data policies: lessons learned ”, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy , Vol. 9 No. 3 , pp. 286 - 308 .

Nye , J. ( 2020 ), For the US and China, Interdependence is a Double-Edged Sword , Financial Times .

OECD ( 2011 ), Future Global Shocks. Improving Risk Governance , OECD Publishing Paris , Paris .

Olson , M. ( 1965 ), The Logic of Collective Action , Harvard University Press .

Ostrom , E. ( 1996 ), “ Crossing the great divide: co-production, synergy and development ”, World Development , Vol. 24 No. 6 , pp. 1073 - 1087 .

Owen , T. ( 2015 ), Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age , Oxford University Press , Oxford .

Putnam , R. ( 1988 ), “ Diplomacy and domestic politics. The logic of two-level games ”, International Organization , Vol. 42 No. 3 , pp. 427 - 460 .

Rittberger , V. , Zangl , B. , Kruck , A. and Dijkstra , H. ( 2019 ), International Organization , 3rd ed. , Red Globe Press .

Rogerson , A. and Barder , O. ( 2019 ), The Two Hundred Billion Dollar Question: How to Get the Biggest Impact from the 2019 Replenishments , Center for Global Development .

Ruggie , J.G. (Ed.) ( 1993 ), “ Multilateralism matters ”, The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form , Columbia University Press , New York, NY .

Sicilia , M. and Visvizi , A. ( 2019 ), “ Blockchain and OECD data repositories: opportunities and policymaking implications ”, Library Hi Tech , Vol. 37 No. 1 , pp. 30 - 42 .

Steffen , W. , Richardson , K. , Rockström , J. , Cornell , S.E. , Fetzer , I. , Bennett , E.M. and Folke , C. ( 2015 ), “ Planetary boundaries: guiding human development on a changing planet ”, Science , pp. 347 - 6223 .

UNCHR ( 2013 ), Report of the UNHCR. Part II, Strategic pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 58/153 , UNCHR Geneva .

Wei , Y. , Liang , Q. , Wu , G. , Liao , H. , Wei , Y. , Liang , Q. , Wu , G. and Liao , H. ( 2019 ), “ World energy geopolitics development and china’s energy diplomacy ”, Energy Economics , Emerald Publishing Limited , pp. 45 - 77 .

Zartman , W. ( 2012 ), “ La multilateralite internationale: Essai de modelisation ”, Négociations , Vol. 17 No. 1 , pp. 37 - 50 .

Corresponding author

Related articles, we’re listening — tell us what you think, something didn’t work….

Report bugs here

All feedback is valuable

Please share your general feedback

Join us on our journey

Platform update page.

Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates

Questions & More Information

Answers to the most commonly asked questions here

St Andrews Research Repository

•   St Andrews Research Repository
• International Relations (School of)
• International Relations

International Relations Theses

• Register / Login

By Issue Date Names Titles Subjects Classification Type Funder

Search within this collection:

Our research is focused around three broad themes: conflict, peace and security; the evolving character of global and supra-national institutions; and the interpenetration of civil societies and international relations. In addition we have major strengths in area studies which help to ground our research into these broad thematic areas. Some of this activity is carried out under the umbrella of our various research centres, some within other collaborative contexts both within and outside the university, and some by individual researchers.

For more information please visit the School of International Relations home page.

This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Recent Submissions

Mission 'mare nostrum', 2013–2014 : a framework of analysis for maritime search and rescue operations , title redacted , invisible transitional justice : a comparative case in the catatumbo and montes de maria regions (colombia) , analyzing cause in social movements : synthesizing, structuring and focusing social movement theory using aristotle’s four causes with a final cause heuristic , the "no-go" areas in northern ireland 1969-1972 .

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Importance of international organizations

Related Papers

The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development

Sajid Iqbal

Asia/AméricaLatina

Rafida Nawaz

Este artículo apunta a revisitar las presunciones a priori del paradigma estadocéntrico, alternativamente resignificadas como realpolitik, realismo o el sistema de equilibrio de poder. Aunque este abordaje provee las normas del comportamiento de los estados desde la creación del sistema estatal moderno, está sujeto a un criticismo severo por parte de sus teóricos clásicos, como E. H. Carr, Hans J. Morgenthau, entre otros, así como por parte de las relaciones internacionales críticas que se desarrollan en el norte global, que ven el dilema de seguridad como amenaza a la paz internacional. No obstante, las críticas de estos críticos del Norte son incapaces de proveer una alternativa a las políticas de poder. En la atmósfera del debate pospositivista, emergieron ambas teorías, a saber, el realismo subalterno, y el periférico, como voces de disenso radicado en experiencias del Sur global que proveen una revisión para basar las presunciones del abordaje realista. Los teóricos Mohammed Ay...

Hans Koechler

Zacarias Maputire

Ngang Perez

This course focuses on the nature and roles of International Organizations; Intergovernmental Organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations, Multinational corporations as well as Hybrid Organizations on the international scene characterized by uncertainty. It will provide students with an understanding to the evolution of the international system, its changing nature and the major actors. Cooperation and development amongst states and non-state actors has become one of the largest and most visible policy fields, and is increasing in importance day-after-day. Therefore the topics understudy will include focal areas such as; international organizations and global governance, the evolution of the international system, the growth of states and non-state actors in the international environment, the United Nations Organizations and Regional Organizations with focus on AU.

Joanna Siekiera

DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)

Marius Stupariu

Mohammed Humran

RELATED PAPERS

Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine

Joana woods

European Journal of Immunology

Gerd Wallukat

Freddy Alberto Torrealba Anzola

Cardiovascular journal of Africa

Frederick Raal

Primary Health Care Research & Development

Chamath Fernando

manajemen SDM, Kinerja Karyawan

kulinermurah

Kuliner Murah

Wim De Mulder

European Heart Journal

Kaatje Goetschalckx

Metin YILMAZ

Marine Micropaleontology

Antje Voelker

Christiana Hari Soetjiningsih

A.T. Marques

Svetlana Cebotari

Materials Science and Engineering: C

J. Reifenrath

Análise Psicológica

vera monteiro

Christer Hyggen

María Luisa Arcos Vieira

Maria de Fátima Silva

The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism

Linn Goldberg

Tierra nuestra

Physiology News

Yasutada Akiba

Jakeline Barbosa

Government Information Quarterly

Åke grönlund

See More Documents Like This

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

International Organizations and Regimes Research Paper

View sample international relations research paper on international organizations and regimes. Browse other research paper examples for more inspiration. If you need a thorough research paper written according to all the academic standards, you can always turn to our experienced writers for help. This is how your paper can get an A! Feel free to contact our writing service for professional assistance. We offer high-quality assignments for reasonable rates.

I. Introduction

Academic writing, editing, proofreading, and problem solving services, get 10% off with 24start discount code, ii. definitions, a. international institutions, b. international regimes, c. international organizations, iii. theories of international organizations and regimes, a. neoliberal institutionalism, c. constructivism, d. bringing theories together, iv. rational design and delegation, a. rational design literature, b. delegation and agency, v. conclusion.

The study of international organizations and regimes has become increasingly popular over the past three decades. This recent resurgence of the study of international organizations is very distinct from earlier studies of international organizations in several regards. First, departing from the study of legal principles and formal organizational structures of international organizations in the earlier era, the study of international organizations has become more social scientific, with strong theoretical developments and accompanying empirical examinations of the theoretical advances. Many recent studies attempt to provide general explanations for creations, roles, effects, effectiveness, and other institutionalized features of international organizations and try to demonstrate how these general explanations hold through rigorous empirical testing. Second, along with continuing the earlier practice of investigating a single international organization in a study, recent studies start to tackle universal issues and ask questions about features present in and applicable to a group of international organizations. Examples are numerous, including voting rules, membership size, and degree of independence and legalization of international organizations. Third, the scope of the study of international organizations has been greatly broadened. In its earlier years, the study of international organizations was limited to a few prominent formal international organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union (or its earlier version, the European Community). Yet there are numerous other formal and informal international arrangements that guide states’ behaviors, ranging from formal international arrangements to informal yet widely accepted international norms. Thus, while formal international organizations still remain important subjects and the studies investigating these international organizations ever increase as a number of new international organizations have been created in the past few decades, other international arrangements, referred to as either international regimes or international institutions, have also been brought into the field of international organizations and become subjects of inquiry in the study of international organizations.

This research paper reviews this recent development of the study of international organizations over the past three decades. The first section starts with the formal definitions of and distinctions among international organizations, international institutions, and international regimes. The next two sections focus on theoretical debates among the three major theoretical orientations in mainstream international relations. The second section introduces theories of international regimes and discusses important debates regarding the creation and functions of international organizations. It highlights the important agreements and disagreements among the three main theoretical paradigms in the discipline of international relations—realism, neoliberal institutionalism, and constructivism—and ends with a discussion about the ways in which one might bring the competing theories together for a more comprehensive understanding of the creation and functions of international organizations. The third section visits more recent scholarship, including rational institutional design and delegation literatures. The concluding section recaps the research paper and discusses a few potential future research agendas in the study of international relations.

Although the terms international organizations, international institutions, and international regimes are often used interchangeably, their precise definitions are slightly different from one another. Thus, before delving into the discussion of reviewing the extant studies of different aspects of international organizations and regimes, the formal definitions for each term are introduced, and differences among the three terms are briefly highlighted in this section.

Although scholars adopt slightly different definitions for international institutions, Keohane (1988) defines international institutions as persistent and connected sets of rules that prescribe behavioral roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations. These rules may be formal and explicit or informal and implicit.

Treaties between more than one sovereign state, including international agreements, covenants, conventions, and protocols, are all good examples of formal international institutions. They are signed and ratified by more than one state and generally guide and constrain participating states’ behaviors and shape their expectations about future behaviors of each other. For instance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights prescribes what to and what not to do in respecting citizens’ basic rights within states’ territories. Similarly, bilateral or multilateral defense treaties between allies prescribe obligatory actions in conflict scenarios and thus shape expectations of alliance behaviors in case of potential military conflicts. With growing international economic transactions, a growing number of multilateral and bilateral free trade agreements have been signed between states in recent decades so that states can regulate the trade practices of signed parties.

Along with formal international institutions signed and ratified by states, there are other informal international institutions. The most basic international institution is the principle of sovereignty. Sovereign states claim rights that other international entities cannot. Sovereign states have exclusive rights over their territories and people; thus, in principle, their domestic matters should not be interrupted by other states. In addition, sovereign states are treated equally, at least in a legal sense, regardless of their economic wealth, size of population, or military might. The principle of sovereignty also serves as the basis of other formal and informal institutions, and the evolution of the principle of sovereignty often leads to changes in other international institutions.

International regimes are defined as principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue area. Principles and norms provide the basic defining characteristics of a regime, and there may be many rules and decision-making procedures that are consistent with the same principles and norms (Krasner, 1983).

The term international regime has generally been used to refer to rules and norms within a particular issue area. For instance, an international nuclear nonproliferation regime has been formed to manage and limit both horizontal and vertical nuclear proliferation in the world. Within the nuclear nonproliferation regime, there are many agencies and international treaties that perform detailed functions and assign specific rules. Under the defining principle of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons beyond the five countries that had tested nuclear weapons by the beginning of 1960s, there are many specific rules and procedures that constitute the international nuclear nonproliferation regime, such as safeguarded nuclear facility inspection procedures by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty.

Since international regimes are issue specific, it is important to point out that general-purpose international organizations such as the United Nations or the European Union are not considered as regimes (Martin & Simmons, 2001). Instead, organizations like the United Nations and the European Union participate in a number of issue-specific regimes. For instance, the United Nations encompasses multiple regimes, with agencies involved in one or more regimes, such as nuclear nonproliferation, peacekeeping, economic development, global health management, human rights, and environment protections.

Simply put, international organizations are the formal embodiment of the international institutions and regimes discussed previously (Martin & Simmons, 2001). They are housed in buildings, employ international civil servants and bureaucrats, and have nontrivial budgets for their operations. They are usually created by the international treaties that serve as the basis for their continuing operations.

According to the Yearbook of International Organizations, published by the Union of International Associations (2007), there were 242 international organizations as of 2007. The number of international organizations peaked in late 1980s, when the Soviet bloc and the Western bloc maintained their own international organizations. The number has decreased and stabilized since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The international organizations listed in the yearbook include not only well-known international organizations like the United Nations, the European Union, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) but also lesser-known organizations such as the International Coffee Organization and the International Whaling Commission.

Only sovereign states can be members of international organizations, and this differentiates international organizations from other international entities whose members include individuals and groups of individuals from more than one country. These international entities are usually referred to as international nongovernmental organizations. These organizations have memberships and activities in more than one country, and most of them are not for profit.

There are a very large number of nongovernmental international organizations across diverse issue areas. The Yearbook of International Organizations also keeps track of these nongovernmental international organizations. As of 2007, there are more than 7,500 nongovernmental international organizations, and the number is still growing. A few well-known nongovernmental international organizations include Greenpeace, Oxfam, International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Doctors Without Borders. These organizations often play critical, often complementary, roles to the activities of formal international organizations in a number of important international issues such as humanitarian assistance, environmental protection and pollution monitoring, human rights monitoring, developmental assistance, and conflict resolution. Nongovernmental international organizations can often work more expediently when needed, because they are relatively freer from internal conflicts and disagreements among their members compared with international organizations where disagreements among their member states often hinder effective and expedite action taking. One reason for this is because states’ interests often vary widely, while participants in nongovernmental international organizations share a common goal. Thus, nongovernmental international organizations have become increasingly active in international relations. However, little scholarly attention has been paid to study them thus far; hence, the following sections focus only on international organizations and international regimes established by sovereign states.

For the past few decades, the debates between two prominent international relations theoretical orientations—neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism—have centered on the prospect of cooperation and the roles of international organizations in facilitating and promoting cooperation. In particular, a series of research studies in the tradition of neoliberal institutionalism have made major advances in our understanding of why states create international organizations and what roles international organizations play in facilitating international cooperation. On the other hand, realism, the research tradition emphasizing states’ power in explaining international political phenomena, provides reasons why international organizations are biased toward more powerful countries’ interests and play only limited roles in facilitating cooperation among states, if at all.

Since the early 1990s, the new approach in international relations emphasizing norms, knowledge, culture, and ideas, generally referred to as constructivism, emerged and rapidly established itself as a main theoretical orientation in international relations. Constructivism encompasses a very broad spectrum of scholarship that commonly focuses on the role of ideas. The spectrum ranges from studies in the scientific positivist tradition emphasizing nonmaterial factors to studies in postmodernist tradition. Studies of international organizations in the constructivist tradition have provided powerful critiques to and pointed out limitations of studies in realist and neoliberal institutionalist traditions since then.

Studies in the neoliberal institutionalist tradition start with the premise that states act rationally and pursue the best possible strategy given a situation. Neoliberal institutionalists also assume that the anarchic nature of international system constrains the ways in which states interact and makes it difficult for states to cooperate. But neoliberal institutionalists argue that states can often overcome the constraints of anarchy, achieve cooperation, and reach mutually beneficial outcomes by creating international organizations.

The international system lacks an authority that sets, monitors, and enforces rules. This is a very distinct characteristic of international politics as compared with its domestic counterpart where laws are established, implemented, and enforced by legislative, executive, and judicial branches of a government. This anarchic nature of the international system and the reason it is difficult to achieve cooperation under anarchy is often illustrated with the prisoner’s dilemma.

A generic version of the prisoner’s dilemma features two actors who need to decide, without communicating with each other, whether they want to cooperate or not cooperate. The four preferences over the possible outcomes are the same for both actors and are given in order, from most preferred to least preferred: (1) not cooperating when the other actor cooperates, (2) cooperating when the other actor cooperates, (3) not cooperating when the other actor does not cooperate, and (4) cooperating when the other actor does not cooperate.

If both actors act rationally, in this unique equilibrium, both actors decide not to cooperate, regardless of one’s expectation of the other actor’s behavior; thus, they end up with the third-preferred outcome: Both do not cooperate. This is because when an actor expects the other to cooperate, it is in the actor’s best interest not to cooperate since the actor prefers Outcome 1 to Outcome 2. Similarly, when an actor expects the other not to cooperate, it is in the actor’s best interest not to cooperate since the actor prefers Outcome 3 to Outcome 4. Thus, if both actors play rationally, then they end up with the respective third-best alternative. This is less than what both could have achieved if they had both managed to cooperate. This dilemma of reaching the collectively suboptimal outcome when individually acting rationally poses the central puzzle in achieving international cooperation for neoliberal institutionalists.

Consider the dilemma in a provision of international public goods context. There are a few international public goods such as fish stock in a blue ocean, clean air, and the ozone layer. Suppose that states in the world need to decide whether to cooperate or not to cooperate to contribute to the supply of the international public good, say clean air, by reducing their current levels of carbon dioxide emissions without knowing if other states will reciprocate. If all states cooperate and reduce emission levels, all can enjoy the international public goods, with each bearing due costs; thus, they can reach the mutually beneficial outcome. Yet if one defects while the others cooperate, one can enjoy what the others contribute, without paying the due cost and perhaps fuel more rapid economic growth. In contrast, when one cooperates while the others defect, one pays its own cost while the others free ride or worse, the international public good is not provided. Finally, when all states defect, no public good is provided and everyone is worse off than when all states cooperate and enjoy the public good. Following the same reasoning, what is the best strategy for an individual state? When a state believes that the others would provide public goods, it is in the state’s best interest to defect, since the state can free ride and enjoy the public good as compared to paying the cost and enjoy the public good. Similarly, if the state believes that the others will defect, the best strategy for the state is to defect as well, since the state would not want to be the only one to contribute to the public good provision while others do not reciprocate. Thus, regardless of one’s belief regarding the others’ behavior, it is in the state’s best interest not to contribute to the public good provision. And if every state in the international system reasons this way, then no international public good is provided and every state is worse off and suffers consequences of global warming, as opposed to the hypothetical situation where all states contribute and enjoy clean air.

The problem of the noncooperation is not that states are malevolent. Rather, the suboptimal outcome of noncooperation stems from states acting individually rationally, and states choose not to cooperate because they fear that they may end up being cheated by the other states. Specifically, there are three reasons that states decide to not to cooperate. First, states decide not to cooperate because there is no behavioral standard in the first place. Second, even if there exist certain rules that states agree to abide by, there is no monitoring mechanism to monitor each other’s compliance. Third, there is no international police or judiciary body to punish those who do not comply with the rules.

Then what is the solution? For neoliberal institutionalists, international organizations exist to solve these kinds of problems inherent in the logic of anarchy. The early neoliberal institutionalist argument is articulated in Robert Keohane’s (1984) seminal book, After Hegemony, and a series of scholarly articles published in the leading scholarly journal, International Organization, since then have elaborated on how international institutions can facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation. Neoliberal institutionalists argue that institutions can facilitate mutual cooperation by reducing uncertainty for engaged parties and reducing transaction costs. Specifically, international institutions provide the basic rules in a given area on which states can judge legitimacy of each other’s behavior. Moreover, some international institutions have built-in monitoring mechanisms. Reduced uncertainty about the behavioral standards and each other’s potential violations lets states be more willing to cooperate. This institution-as-uncertainty-reducer argument is further supported by the studies that suggest that even without a central, enforcing authority regulating transactions, mere provision of information can significantly enhance the prospect of cooperation (e.g., Milgrom, North, & Weingast, 1990).

Institutions also create a more amenable environment for cooperation among participating parties by allowing them continued interaction (Axelrod, 1984). International organizations let states interact more regularly and repeatedly in multiple issue areas, and the enhanced prospect for iterated interactions accommodates cooperation among countries. When states expect to frequently interact with each other in the future, states can reciprocate each other’s behavior in the future interactions. This expectation of future interactions reduces the temptation to cheat in the current interaction and reduces the fear of being cheated since one can retaliate in the future. Thus, international organizations, by prolonging what is termed the shadow of future, also can promote cooperation (Axelrod, 1984; Oye, 1986).

Stein (1982) categorizes problems in international cooperation into those of coordination and those of collaboration. Coordination problems are the problems that do not require active monitoring and enforcement operations of international organizations because they are self-enforcing— there is no incentive for parties to defect once they make an agreement. In this case, international organizations need only to provide a focal point that each party’s expectation can converge around. For instance, international aviation requires a common medium to communicate. Without the common communication medium, one cannot guarantee smooth communication between American pilots flying over China and Chinese air traffic controllers or vice versa. And if there are communication problems, then the safety of interstate aviation cannot be ensured. Neoliberal institutionalists would argue that states established the International Civil Aviation Organization and set the official language for international aviation as English, in order to solve the coordination problem of international aviation. Once the international organization sets the rules and presents the rules to the states, then the rules are self-enforcing. That is, there is little incentive for participating states to cheat and instead speak French or Chinese for international aviation communication since the set rules are mutually desirable. Most of the functional international organizations, such as the Universal Postal Union, whose main purpose is to set a series of rules for smoother international operations, would fit this category.

For collaboration problems, institutions need to perform other roles to promote mutually beneficial cooperation in addition to provide rules. A typical collaboration situation resembles the prisoner’s dilemma. In international relations, trade agreements among states and public goods regimes such as the environmental regime fit into this category. These situations are characterized by lingering incentives to cheat even after reaching mutually desired outcomes, since cheating would allow free riding and provide short-term benefits. Thus, international organizations created for solving collaboration problems need to provide additional monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. The International Atomic Energy Agency and the WTO have indeed monitoring and enforcement procedures that states can rely on. In the WTO case, when states suspect that there are certain countries that do not comply with the trade rules, states can ask to establish a dispute settlement panel and initiate a legal case against those countries.

Building on the earlier work of Keohane (1984) and responding to the realists’ claim that institutions exert little independent influence in world politics, Keohane and Martin (2003) further elaborate on the neoliberal institutionalist position. In doing so, they provide three additional reasons that why international institutions do matter. First, when there are many possible agreeable cooperation points, existing institutions often play as a focal point by providing guidance around which states’ behaviors can converge. Second, Keohane and Martin argue that institutions, once created, often have their own lives and become “sticky.” The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a good example of a sticky organization. When the IMF was initially created, the IMF’s main purpose was to manage the international monetary system referred to as the Bretton Woods system after World War II. Yet the Bretton Woods system lasted for only 25 years and collapsed in 1971 when the IMF lost its initial purpose to exist. However, instead of ceasing its operation, the IMF managed to successfully transform itself into a loan agency with growing emphasis on developmental assistance and new kinds of lending facilities. Third, applying the principal–agent theory, Keohane and Martin argue that there is room to maneuver for international institutions, independent from the sovereign states that once created them. The argument is fully expanded in the delegation and agency literature introduced in the third section.

Studies in the realist tradition start with the same premises that states act rationally and the international system is anarchic and characterized by the prisoner’s dilemma, but realist studies arrive at a very different conclusion. At its extreme, neorealism does not acknowledge the roles that international institutions play in international relations as realism emphasizes the quintessential role of state power in world politics. Thus, for some neorealists, international institutions exert little independent influence; they just represent the most powerful state’s interest and are only effective when the most powerful state allows them to be so. For others, institutions have some effects over international affairs, but the primary determinant of the outcome is still the power of states.

Realists, often associated with hegemonic stability theory, argue that international organizations are created by the most powerful states in international system to function as instruments for furthering powerful states’ own interests. For instance, they would claim that the United Nations and the Bretton Woods system, including the IMF and the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade, were created by the United States to provide stability in security, trade, and financial affairs. With these organizations, the United States could reap disproportional benefits and consolidate its superpower status. Moreover, these international organizations may have been used as the American foreign policy instruments.

Gilpin (1981) argues that a hegemon creates international institutions to maintain the global order by providing public goods, most prominently free trade and stability. But providing public goods is not costless, and this cost is generally associated with the slow decline of the hegemon. As the hegemon starts to decline, simultaneously, another secondary power or powers start to rise and threaten the status of the hegemon. According to him, this is the temporal dynamic of the rise and fall of the hegemon.

Gruber (2000, 2001) also emphasizes how power is the driving force in creating an international organization. He argues that more powerful states can create an international institution without consents from other states and then can force other states to join the international institution by making them worse off when they resist participating. This can be done because powerful states have go-it-alone power, moving the status quo point to a new point where other states, maintaining the status quo ante, obtain a worse payoff. Gruber (2001) explains the initiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in this way. In between relatively weaker countries—Canada and Mexico—the United States managed to manipulate and limit choices within the choice sets for Canada and Mexico. That is, while Canada and Mexico wanted to maintain the status quo ante (that is, no free trade agreement), the United States managed to make it so that there were only two available options for each state: being left out by the bilateral free trade agreement between the United States and the other state or participating in the three-way free trade agreement. For instance, when the United States made the bilateral free trade agreement with Canada, Mexico was left with the option of joining the three-way free trade agreement or being left out of its trade share in the U.S. market. Between these two choices, each state decided to choose the less harmful option, which is participating in the three-way free trade agreement and creating NAFTA.

Other realists argue that although international organizations may influence international affairs to a certain extent, the form of an international organization is heavily determined by state power. Targeting the efficiency argument proclaimed by Keohane and other neoliberal institutionalists, Krasner (1991) points out that capturing the international bargaining process with the prisoner’s dilemma is misleading and that the inherent problem in international cooperation is seldom to reach an international agreement but more often to decide what kind of an agreement is reached. Then he argues that powerful states often dictate the rules of interactions, such as who relevant players are and who proposes an agenda first when bargaining an international agreement. In this way, powerful states dominate and reap the most gains when cooperation occurs. He illustrates the point with the case of the distribution of global communication resources. He demonstrates how powerful states often monopolized the use of radio waves, space for satellites, and magnetic waves when weaker states had no technology to demand more equal distributions of those limited resources. Only after weaker states developed technologies to intervene the monopolistic use of these limited international goods by powerful states did the powerful states concede.

With regard to the effectiveness of international organizations, Mearsheimer (1994–1995) argues that international institutions are epiphenomenal at best. Mearsheimer (1990) proclaims that international institutions are just reflections of the most powerful state’s interest, and once its interest is evaporated, there is no use for the international institutions anymore. For instance, he predicts the instability of Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, on the grounds that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would not function properly any longer because the most powerful state, the United States, had lost its interest to maintain stability in Europe when the Soviet Union had collapsed.

Constructivists take a very different approach to provide powerful critiques of both neoliberal institutionalism and realism. First of all, constructivists contend that the preferences of states are not fixed, as neoliberal institutionalists and realists often assume, but are socially constructed through repeated interactions among states. Similarly, the rules of the interactions among states are shaped and transformed through states’ interactions. For instance, Wendt (1999) argues that the logic of anarchy is not fixed but varies and is constituted by interactions among actors within the international system, and the preferences of states and the prospect of cooperation vary accordingly. Specifically, under the Hobbesian culture of anarchy, states perceive each other as an enemy; thus, international cooperation among states would not be likely. In comparison, states perceive each other as rivals under the Lockean culture of anarchy; thus, cooperation can be achieved with additional institutional settings such as international organizations. Finally, under the Kantian culture of anarchy, states see each other as friends, and states’ interests are in harmony with each other, making it unnecessary to collaborate. In general, studies of international organizations in constructivist tradition emphasize the roles that nonmaterial factors, such as identity, norms, cultures, and ideas, shape and transform states’ interests, how the transformed states’ interests affect international organizations, and how international organizations transform the states’ interests in turn.

Haas (1989) illustrates how the spread of scientific knowledge by the epistemic community has altered states’ interests over time and how it allowed states to create the Mediterranean Action Plan, the international arrangement among southern European and North African countries to regulate international marine pollution in the Mediterranean Sea. He shows that power- and interest-based theories cannot fully account for the adaptation and implementation of the Med Plan. Then, he proposes the alternative argument that the United Nations Environmental Programme assisted creation and empowerment of the ecological epistemic community and shows how the empowered epistemic community was able to spread scientific knowledge across the Mediterranean countries and persuade these governments. This allowed the change of preferences of those countries that initially had opposed the Med Plan, such as Algeria and Egypt, and led them to ultimately participate in and comply with the Med Plan. A similar argument is made by Finnemore (1993). She argues that international organizations often have their own goals and set and spread norms accordingly. In the empirical study, she shows that the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was able to spread the norm that modern states needed to take science seriously. As more and more states accepted the norm, UNESCO was able to persuade many developing countries to establish an independent scientific bureaucracy.

Johnston (2001) highlights a role of an international organization play that is not emphasized by neoliberal institutionalists or realists. He asks how involvement in international institutions changes states’ behavior in the absence of material rewards and punishment in his study and answers the question with what he calls socialization process. Johnston applies Siegal’s definition of socialization, “the process by which people learn to adopt the norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors accepted and practiced by the ongoing system” (as cited on p. 495), to international relations and argues that through socialization, states can change their preferences, which may lead to more cooperative behaviors. Through providing the forum for socialization and facilitating persuasion and social influence, such as social opprobrium and back patting, international institutions play the important role in helping to promote cooperation in a way that is often neglected by neoliberal institutionalists.

This section lists theories of international organizations that propose interest-, power-, and knowledge-based explanations—neoliberal institutionalism, realism, and constructivism, respectively—of creation and functions of international organizations. On one hand, power-politics arguments discount the roles that international institutions may play in world politics. In comparison, interest-based arguments emphasize how international institutions provide information so that participating states can achieve mutually beneficial cooperation. More recently, constructivists provide alternative arguments that are often complementary to the existing rationalist arguments.

Although these diverse arguments have advanced our understanding of many aspects of international organizations, they are often presented as competing theories of international organizations. Is it, then, impossible to bring these diverse arguments together in order to achieve more comprehensive understanding of international institutions? Hasenclever, Mayer, and Rittberger (2000) propose one possible way to bring the theories together that they term as contextualized rationalist theory. They see the core difference between realist and neoliberal institutionalist arguments in terms of how much states care about how much they gain from cooperation in absolute terms as opposed to how much states gain relative to other states. Since states are likely to behave as neoliberal institutionalists argue when they are motivated by gains in absolute terms and, conversely, states are less likely to cooperate when they are motivated by relative gains, adding a theory of states’ motivations prior to considering the two rationalist explanations may allow scholars to apply an appropriate theory to understand a given research question. Furthermore, studies in the constructivist tradition may be able to provide useful theories of states’ motivation that realists and neoliberal institutionalists make assumptions about and treat as given. This may be one way to bring constructivism and the rationalist theories together in a constructive manner.

Building on the earlier work on the roles of international institutions in facilitating cooperation among states and moving forward from the once-heated debates regarding whether international institutions matter, the more recent scholarship in the study of international organizations shifts its focus to variations in features of diverse international organizations.

In the 2001 International Organization special issue, Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal (2001a) laid out the platform of rational design of international institutions. For these scholars, not only the very existence of international institutions is intended by sovereign states, but also their specific characteristics, whether membership, issue scope, (de)centralization, decision-making procedures, or flexibility, are also rationally designed by participating states. This argument is based on the observation that institutions are outcomes of many rounds of deliberate negotiations among engaged states.

There are indeed enormous variations in characteristics of international organizations. For instance, some international organizations such as the European Union or NAFTA are regional, while other international organizations such as the WTO or the United Nations are global. Some international organizations grant each state an equal vote, while others have some form of a weighted voting system: Some require simple majority, some require supermajority, and the others require unanimity. Some institutions have relatively strong centralized authority and some enforcement mechanisms, while other institutions provide only nonbinding consultations.

For example, Rosendorff and Milner (2001) argue that the escape clause of the WTO procedure is deliberately chosen by member states to cope with domestic uncertainty on preference changes. Without the escape clause, a potential domestic preference shift among different social groups may force their governments to withdraw from the WTO even if the overall cost–benefit calculation of continuing participation in the regime is still bigger than that of quitting the WTO. Individual states are uncertain about future domestic preference dynamics when they sign the agreement. With the risk of abrupt quitting of trading partners from the trade regime, states would be hesitant to sign the agreement in the first place. Facing this dilemma, those who negotiated and designed the WTO created the escape clause to facilitate temporary needs of member states to violate the agreed-on rules. But this escaping from the established rules should not be costless, since if it were, then states could resort to the escape clause more often than necessary, and consequently, this will reduce overall benefits for all participating states. Thus, the existence of the costly escape clause in the trade agreement is the optimal solution for the uncertain future of the domestic preference dynamics. The escape clause is created in such a way to accommodate states’ needs to accommodate temporary domestic pressure while maintaining the overall agreement structure.

In a similar vein, the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) expansion study by Kydd (2001) highlights how the restrictive NATO membership criteria of democratization work as the filter that enable potential members to signal their strong commitment to security cooperation and keep out problematic members who would be less cooperative in NATO’s operations. The membership criteria of NATO serve as the screening mechanism that allows only those countries genuinely committed to join the membership. One can argue that a similar mechanism exists for the European Union. To join the European Union, candidate states need to demonstrate that they are committed to noninflationary economic policies, respect for human rights, and democracy, among others.

Another line of emerging literature in the studies of international organizations looks at the tension between states that create and finance international organizations and the international organizations within the principal agent framework. States are the principals, and they decide to delegate some of their authority to the agents (international organizations) because it is often more efficient to have agents with better expertise in a particular issue area handle everyday operations.

The issue of delegation holds significant practical implications. On one hand, pundits and academics blame international organizations for not being very effective or for being too biased. And the major reason of the ineffectiveness and bias is states’ tight control over organizations. Often, international organizations are under tight control of sovereign states, and unless states agree to allow international organizations to act, there is little difference that international organizations can make. For instance, peacekeeping missions of the United Nations are often proven ineffective, with too-small and often too-late engagements in humanitarian crisis situations. And this ineffectiveness comes from the fact that peacekeeping missions are possible only when states agree to make them and are willing to send their own civil and military personnel to conflict-ridden regions. In a different context, the IMF is often accused of being biased toward its major shareholders, such as the United States and other G-7 countries since the IMF’s decision making is largely controlled by these states.

On the other hand, others accuse international organizations of being too independent and too irresponsible once they are created. International organizations are depicted as pursuing their own interests, whether the interests are ideological or bureaucratic. International organizations are funded by citizens’ taxes through member states’ contributions, yet international organizations are too autonomous and pursue their own goals rather than serving those who finance them. Furthermore, international bureaucrats are not electorally responsible yet often make public policy decisions that exert enormous influence over the welfare of ordinary citizens. For instance, the IMF often consults borrowing countries’ governments to formulate IMF programs that include policy reform measures such as privatization, civil service and public sector reforms, trade liberalization, pension reforms, and labor market reforms. Thus, the IMF staff often exerts enormous influence over policy decisions yet is not accountable to those who are affected. In sum, international organizations are criticized on two contradictory grounds—one, international organizations are under too-tight control of strong states and thus are not very effective, and two, international organizations are too autonomous from the states and have little accountability.

To better understand the relationship between states and international organizations as principals and agents, scholars ask questions like the following: Why do states delegate certain tasks and responsibilities to international organizations rather than acting unilaterally or cooperating directly without international organizations, and how do states control international organizations once authority has been delegated to the organizations? Studies in the edited volume Delegation and Agency in International Organizations (Hawkins, Lake, Nielson, & Tierney, 2006) are a culmination of such recent scholarly efforts. Through careful examinations of diverse international organizations such as the IMF, the European Union, the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the WTO, the collective efforts in the volume conclude that successful delegation to international organizations is possible, given that states have and maintain sufficient information and that little conflicting interests between international organizations and states exists.

This research paper introduces the definitions of essential terms in studies of international organizations and then briefly discusses existing theories of international organizations. There is an increasing number of studies that have informed us about why states create international organizations, what influences the features of international organizations, what functions international organizations perform once they are created, and how states oversee or how independent international organizations are from states’ control.

Although we know a lot more about international organizations, there are also limitations of the current scholarship and hence many fruitful areas that future scholarship can address. First of all, a more comprehensive understanding of politics of international organizations may be possible when we study the interaction between the formation of state preferences and the creation and functions of international organizations. Proper attention to domestic politics can prove useful to understanding formation of state preferences. Alternatively, international norm dynamics and evolution of identity of interacting states can be fruitful to explain state preference formation and transformation. Second, the current scholarship of international organizations is state-centric and pays little attention to nonstate actors. There are a very limited number of studies that investigate nongovernmental international organizations, even with the growing importance of nongovernmental international organizations in world politics. Thus, more attention to the partnerships between formal international organizations and nongovernmental organizations is needed. And studies that investigate the conditions under which those partnerships may be proven fruitful will have huge policy implications for the future cooperation between nongovernmental international organizations and formal international organizations.

Studies of international organizations have made major advances for the past three decades, but there are still many exciting yet unresolved questions to be explored. Moreover, as the roles that international organizations play in international relations keep growing and issue areas that the international organizations participate in increase, there will be even more need for proper understanding of these organizations. Thus, the subfield of international organization will be a very exciting place to develop research programs for current and future political scientists.

Bibliography:

• Abbott, K.W., & Snidal, D. (1998).Why states act through formal international organizations. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 42, 3-32.
• Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books.
• Barnett, M. N., & Finnemore, M. (2004). Rules for the world: International organizations in global politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Finnemore, M. (1993). International organizations as teachers of norms: The United Nations educational, scientific, and cultural organization and science policy. International Organization, 47, 565-597.
• Gilpin, R. (1981). War and change in world politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Gruber, L. (2000). Ruling the world: Power politics and the rise of supranational institutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Gruber, L. (2001). Power politics and the free trade bandwagon. Comparative Political Studies, 34, 703-741.
• Haas, P. M. (1989). Do regimes matter? Epistemic communities and Mediterranean pollution control. International Organization, 43, 377-403.
• Hasenclever, A., Mayer, M., & Rittberger, V. (1997). Theories of international regimes. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Hasenclever, A., Mayer, M., & Rittberger, V. (2000). Integrating theories of international regimes. Review of International Studies, 26, 3-33.
• Hawkins, D. G., Lake, D. A., Nielson, D. L., & Tierney, M. J. (Eds.). (2006). Delegation and agency in international organizations: Political economy of institutions and decisions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Johnston, A. I. (2001). Treating international institutions as social environments. International Studies Quarterly, 45, 487-515.
• Karns, M. P., & Mingst, K. A. (2004). International organizations: The politics and processes of global governance. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
• Karns, M. P., & Mingst, K. A. (2006). The United Nations in the 21st century. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Keohane, R. O. (1984). After hegemony. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Keohane, R. O. (1988). International institutions: Two approaches. International Studies Quarterly, 32, 379-396.
• Keohane, R. O., & Martin, L. L. (2003). Institutional theory as a research program. In C. Elman & M. F. Elman (Eds.), Progress in international relations theory: Appraising the field (pp. 71 108). Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Koremenos, B., Lipson, C., & Snidal, D. (2001a). The rational design of international institutions. International Organization, 55, 829-857.
• Koremenos, B., Lipson, C., & Snidal, D. (Eds.). (2001b). The rational design of international institutions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Krasner, S. D. (Ed.). (1983). International regimes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Krasner, S. D. (1991). Global communications and national power: Life on the Pareto frontier. World Politics, 43, 336-356.
• Kydd, A. H. (2001). Trust building, trust breaking: The dilemma of NATO enlargement. International Organization, 55, 801-828.
• Martin, L. L., & Simmons, B. A. (2001). International institutions: An international organization reader. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Mearsheimer, J. J. (1990). Back to the future: Instability in Europe after the cold war. International Security, 15, 5-56.
• Mearsheimer, J. J. (1994 1995). The false promise of international institutions. International Security, 19, 5-49.
• Milgrom, P. R., North, D. C., & Weingast, B. R. (1990). The role of institutions in the revival of trade: The law merchant, private judges, and the champagne fairs. Economics and Politics, 2, 1-23.
• Oye, K. (1986). Explaining cooperation under anarchy: Hypotheses and strategies. In K. Oye (Ed.), Cooperation under anarchy (pp. 1-24). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Rosendorff, B. P., & Milner, H. V. (2001). The optimal design of international trade institutions: Uncertainty and escape. International Organization, 55, 1019-1049.
• Ruggie, J. G. (1998). What makes the world hang together? Neo utilitarianism and the social constructivist challenge. International Organization, 52, 855-885.
• Stein, A. (1982). Coordination and collaboration: Regimes in an anarchic world. International Organization, 36, 299-324.
• Thompson, A. (2009). Channels of power: The UN Security Council and U.S. statecraft in Iraq. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Union of International Associations. (2013). Yearbook of international organizations. Available at https://uia.org/yearbook
• Wendt, A. (1999). Social theory of international politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

ORDER HIGH QUALITY CUSTOM PAPER

• Bibliography
• More Referencing guides Blog Automated transliteration Relevant bibliographies by topics
• Automated transliteration
• Relevant bibliographies by topics
• Referencing guides

Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'International non-governmental organizations'

Create a spot-on reference in apa, mla, chicago, harvard, and other styles.

Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'International non-governmental organizations.'

Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.

You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.

Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.

Lau, Chung-hang Kevin, and 劉仲恆. "Strategic review of an international non-governmental organization : Make-A-Wishr International." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/206967.

Cheng, Nga-sze Venus. "The role of International non-governmental organizations in the institutional capacity building of community-based organizations in China the case of an international AIDS concern organization in Yunnan /." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2007. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B38612859.

Owalla, King Odhiambo. "Government Grants, Crowding Out Theory and American Based International Non-Governmental Organizations." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2008. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/econ_diss/51.

Quill, Michelle E. "Making it matter: international non-governmental organizations and humanitarian intervention in Bangladesh." Diss., University of Iowa, 2015. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/5983.

Lauvik, Kjell Erik. "Hostage incident management : preparedness and response of international non-governmental organisations." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020088.

Mpofu, Sibusisiwe. "An investigation into the challenges impeding non governmental organizations in carrying out supplementary feeding programmes : the case of care international and plan international in Zimbabwe." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1334.

Erik, Lauvik Kjell. "Hostage incident management : preparedness and response of international non-governmental organisations." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020800.

Cheng, Nga-sze Venus, and 鄭雅詩. "The role of International non-governmental organizations in the institutional capacity building of community-based organizations inChina: the case of an international AIDSconcern organization in Yunnan." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2007. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B38612859.

Cunningham-Dunlop, Catherine. "The negotiation of meaning, an ethnography of planning in a non-governmental organization." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq25037.pdf.

Graham, Jezreel Jason. "The cyberface of global governance WTO discourse and the management of globalization /." Pullman, Wash. : Washington State University, 2008. http://www.dissertations.wsu.edu/Dissertations/Fall2008/j_graham_091808.pdf.

Campbell, Katharine M. "New Territories of Equality: Conceptualizations of Climate Justice in International Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1366731277.

Morris, Christopher. "Investigating evaluation as an accountability mechanism by international non-governmental organizations working in humanitarian relief." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/51490.

Dang, Linh H. "Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Development: An Illustration of Foreign NGOs in Vietnam." Ohio : Ohio University, 2009. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1243905289.

Aunio, Anna-Liisa. "Changing the climate: international environmental institutions, non-governmental organizations and mobilization in a post-Kyoto world." Thesis, McGill University, 2009. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=40695.

Kleinman, Sarah Beth. "Dysfunction as a function of authority : understanding the power and performance of international non-governmental organizations." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:fd73b45d-8ba2-43c3-a758-241eecba20e3.

Bann, Amy Jeanne. "The Non-Governmental Organization Coalition for an International Criminal Court: A Case Study on NGO Networking." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/34074.

Bann, Amy Jeanne. "The Non- Governmental Organization Coalition for an International Criminal Court: A Case Study on NGO Networking." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/34074.

Kelly, Robert Edwin. "'A lot more than the NGOs seem to think' the impact of non-governmental organizations on the Bretton Woods institutions /." Connect to this title online, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1110364714.

Dawkins, Kristin. "Sharing rights and responsibilities for the environment : assessing potential roles for non-governmental organizations in international decisionmaking." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/65450.

Breton-Le, Goff Gaëlle. "L'influence des organisations non gouvernementales sur la négociation de quelques instruments internationaux." Thesis, McGill University, 1999. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=30313.

Harrafa, Hassan. "Globalisation and alternatives an interdisciplinary reading into the discourse of NGOs /." Master's thesis, Australia : Macquarie University, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/82441.

Dyke, Elizabeth. "Influences on International Non-Governmental Organizations' Implementation of Equity Principles in HIV/AIDS Work in Kenya: A Case Study." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/24932.

Wardwell, Sarah Elizabeth. "A Strategic Model for INGO Accountability Systems." PDXScholar, 2012. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/758.

De, Silva Nicole. "How international courts promote compliance : strategies beyond adjudication." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7e4291c4-7df5-4df3-ab30-5df2d90dd8f3.

Schaefer, Agnes Gereben Lambright W. Henry. "The role of transnational non-governmental organizations in the disposition of chemical and nuclear weapons in the United States: a comparative analysis." Related Electronic Resource: Current Research at SU : database of SU dissertations, recent titles available full text, 2003. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/syr/main.

Kim, Young Ho. "When do NGOs make differences in world politics? : an analysis of the U.S. NGO policy advocacy for international environmental treaties /." The Ohio State University, 2001. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/50265574.html.

Tufvesson, Ebba. "Non-governmental organizations : From being a bystander to becoming a resourceful force with regards to World Bank projects." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsstudier (SS), 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-71803.

Lane, Krista Noel. "African Regime Types and International Humanitarian Non-Governmental Organizations: A Comparative Study of the Relationships of Friends and Enemies." PDXScholar, 2011. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/723.

Hartl, Jennifer Ann. "Human trafficking in the Russian Federation: an examination of the anti-trafficking efforts of the federal government, non-governmental organizations and the International Organization for Migration." Thesis, University of Iowa, 2010. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/682.

Pejan, Ramin. "A reflection on international human rights non-governmental organizations' approach to promoting socio-economic rights : lessons from a South African experience." Thesis, McGill University, 2005. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=82667.

Levchak, Philip John. "Variations in homicide: assessing the effects of inward foreign direct investment and international non-governmental organizations on cross-national homicide rates." Diss., University of Iowa, 2013. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1871.

Van, Leuven Nancy. "Hard news, soft news, and tough issues : the symbiotic relationships between NGOs, news agencies, and international development /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/6154.

Hooper, Janice (Janice Otilia) Carleton University Dissertation International Affairs. "Post-Marxist development praxis: NGDOs and new social movement theory." Ottawa, 1993.

Saaiman, Hurchele. "Evaluating the role of non governmental organisations in global governance : case studies of two campaigns." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/52832.

Gilbert, Paul Carson. "NGOs and Human Rights Promotion: Socialisation, Framing, and the Case of West Papua." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Political Science, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/1694.

Kambites, Mukebezi Sarah. "Non-governmental organizations as partnering agencies : a case study of the relationship between Canadian NGOs with CIDA and Kenyan local groups." Thesis, McGill University, 1995. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=28928.

Niyonizigiye, Pascal. "Les O.N.G Humanitaires entre contraintes étatiques et transnationales : Les cas de Care International, C.R.S et M.S.F/F au Burundi." Thesis, Pau, 2012. http://www.theses.fr/2012PAUU2001.

Halabrínová, Michaela. "International Organizations and Their National Branches: The Case of UNICEF and the Slovak National Committee for UNICEF." Master's thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2017. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-359805.

Binette, Aja Jacqueline. "Positions of Authority And Influence In Environmental Nongovernmental Organizations' Networks: An Examination of Network Structure and Participation at UN Climate Change Summits." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2018. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/513885.

Hodgin, Gregory. "United Nations Peacekeeping and Non-State Actors: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of the Conditions Required for Cooperation." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2009. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/political_science_theses/27.

Bridges, Douglas M. Jr, and Adonis R. Mason. "Exploring of wireless technology to provide information sharing among military, United Nations and civilian organizations during complex humanitarian emergencies and peacekeeping operations." Thesis, Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10945/1141.

Tsang, Kwok-ping Agnes, and 曾幗屏. "International environmental NGOs' rising role in education for sustainability through ecological citizenship : the Hong Kong case." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/198866.

Thomasdotter, Karin, and von Melen Mir Grebäck. "Creating Sense : A case study conducted in Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’s two sections in India and Sweden about the meaning of consensus in International Non-Governmental Organizations." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsvetenskaper, SV, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-20201.

Barnhart, Erin Leslie. "Engaging Global Service: Organizational Motivations for and Perceived Benefits of Hosting International Volunteers." PDXScholar, 2012. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/372.

Cusiter, Mark. "Expatriate development workers : an evaluation of the process and outcome of sociocultural adjustment." Thesis, University of Northampton, 2009. http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/2208/.

Wang, Yi Ying. "Human rights accountability of non-state actors and special concerns on women." Thesis, University of Macau, 2012. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b2590472.

Baltodano, Egner Charlotte. "The process of transforming human rights practices in Latin America : NGOs and their quest to develop international human rights norms." Thesis, McGill University, 2002. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=78200.

Ní, Mhórdha Máire. "Knowing best? : an ethnographic exploration of the politics and practices of an international NGO in Senegal." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6930.

Knight, Kayla Christine. "Development NGOs : understanding participatory methods, accountability and effectiveness of World Vision in Zimbabwe with specific reference to Umzingwane District." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013135.

VerHage, Alicia. "Transnational civil society's ability to successfully influence state actors on human rights issues through international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) : a case study of the coalition to stop the use of child soldiers." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2009. http://eprints.ru.ac.za/1682/.