International Organizations Andrew Heywood

Liberalism: The central theme of the liberal view of international politics is a belief in harmony or balance. The tendency towards peace, integration and cooperation is by factors such as economic interdependence, brought about by free trade, the spread of democracy and the construction of international organizations.

International OrGanizations and Regimes:

International organizations: Are formed by states, for states. They are invariably used by states as tools to achieve their own ends. It is a platform for states to work together. Together they have greater influence than they would have possessed working alone.

International ReGimes “Implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actors' expectations converge in a given area of international relations” (Krasner, 1982).

New non-state actors: Post-sovereign governance and the burgeoning importance of non-state actors: Trans-national Corperations(TNCs); Non-governmental organizations (NGOs); International organizations (IO); and Terrorist organizations.

What are the implications of the growth of international organizations for the state?

InternatIONal OrganIzaTIons: Develop citizen networks (stengthen civil society) to monitor and put pressure on states.

Global CIVIL SOCIETY: The concept of global civil society remains controversial. A neologism of the 1990s, the idea of global civil society quickly became fashionable, being used by world leaders and policy- makers as well as by political activists.

Participation in global civil society, for instance, is restricted to a relatively small number of people who are concerned about world problems.

None of its groups yet constitutes a genuine mass movement, comparable, say, to the trade union movement or the mass membership of political parties of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

There are doubts about the degree of interconnectedness within global civil society: is it one thing or a number of things? There are differences between the two main actors within global civil society: transnational social movements and NGOs.

Advocacy NGOs have had a variety of high- profile successes, often constraining the influence of TNCs and altering the policy direction of national governments and international organizations.

International organizations, being accepted as a source of specialist advice and information. NGOs and international organizations will often work together in formulating and carrying out a range of humanitarian projects.

The principal liberal solution is the construction of international organizations such as the League of Nations or the United Nations (UN), which are capable of turning the jungle of international politics into a peaceful place where states discuss their concerns in a platform such as UN.

After the Second World War: The growth in the number and importance of international organizations has been one of the most prominent features of world politics, particularly since 1945.

By providing a framework for cooperative problem-solving amongst states, international organizations have modified traditional power politics.

Some of these are high profile bodies such as: the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund.

Why are intenational organizations created?

The earliest international organizations were created after the Napoleonic Wars. These included the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which established the Concert of Europe which continued until WWI.

Number of InternatIonal OrganızatIons: Following the end of WWI, just as after the Napoleonic Wars, there was a surge in new international organizations. By 1929 and the onset of the world economic crisis, number of international organizations had reached an inter-war peak of 83. The end of WWII marked a new boom, with the number of international organizations soaring to 123 by 1949, with new organizations including the United Nations.

Categorizing international organizations are the following: Membership – whether they have a restricted or universal membership. Competence – whether their responsibilities are issue-specific or comprehensive. Function – whether they are programme organizations or operational organizations. Decision-making authority – whether they are examples of intergovernmentalism or supranationalism.

Approches to InternatIonal OrganIzatIons:

Realist: International politics continues to be characterized by struggle for power amongst all states, reflected in the pursuit of relative gains. Relative gain, is the actions of states only in respect to power balances and without regard to other factors, such as economics. Relative gains differ from absolute gain.

LiBeral PerspectIve: Absolute gains: is what international actors look at in determining their interests, weighing out the total effects of a decision on the state or organization and acting accordingly (focusing on long-term gains).

Liberals: have been amongst the most committed supporters of international organizations. This is reflected in the ideas of liberal institutionalism.

institutionalist perspective: States cooperate because it is in their own interest. This does not imply that state interests are always harmoniously in agreement, but only that there are important, and growing, areas of mutual interest where cooperation amongst states is rational and sensible.

International organizations are therefore a reflection of the extent of interdependence in the global system, an acknowledgement by states that they can often achieve more by working together than by working separately. In areas of mutual interest, states’ desire to make absolute gains usually wins out over concerns about relative gains.