Rules for the World

Michael Barnett, Martha Finnemore

Description

Rules for the World provides an innovative perspective on the behavior of international organizations and their effects on global politics. Arguing against the conventional wisdom that these bodies are little more than instruments of states, Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore begin with the fundamental insight that international organizations are bureaucracies that have authority to make rules and so exercise power. At the same time, Barnett and Finnemore maintain, such bureaucracies can become obsessed with their own rules, producing unresponsive, inefficient, and self-defeating outcomes. Authority thus gives international organizations autonomy and allows them to evolve and expand in ways unintended by their creators.Barnett and Finnemore reinterpret three areas of activity that have prompted extensive policy debate: the use of expertise by the IMF to expand its intrusion into national economies; the redefinition of the category "refugees" and decision to repatriate by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; and the UN Secretariat's failure to recommend an intervention during the first weeks of the Rwandan genocide. By providing theoretical foundations for treating these organizations as autonomous actors in their own right, Rules for the World contributes greatly to our understanding of global politics and global governance.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Sociology
• International law
• International relations

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 avril 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801465161
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

RULES FOR THE WORLD

RULES FOR THE WORLD

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN GLOBAL POLITICS

MICHAEL BARNETT AND MARTHA FINNEMORE

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright ©2004

by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form with- out permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House,512East State Street, Ithaca, New York14850.

First published2004by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks,2004

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barnett, Michael N.,1960– Rules for the world : international organizations in global politics / Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN0-8014-4090-4(cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN0-8014-8823-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. International agencies.2. United Nations.3. International Monetary Fund.4. Office of the United Nations High Commis- sioner for Refugees. I. Finnemore, Martha. II. Title. JZ4850.B37 2004 341.2—dc22 2004010509

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing Paperback printing

1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Preface

CONTENTS

1. Bureaucratizing World Politics

2. International Organizations as Bureaucracies

3. Expertise and Power at the International Monetary Fund

4. Defining Refugees and Voluntary Repatriation at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

5. Genocide and the Peacekeeping Culture at the United Nations

6. The Legitimacy of an Expanding Global Bureaucracy

List of Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index

vii

1 16 45

73 121 156

175 177 207 223

PREFACE

This book grew out of a series of conversations that began in1994when one of us (Barnett) was working at the UN and the other (Finnemore) was doing research on the World Bank. On occasion we would get together and exchange observations, almost always concluding our conversations with humorous musings about why our graduate school training had not pre- pared us for what international organizations werereallylike. These quips, in fact, expressed a real frustration on our part: we were seeing things on the ground in these organizations that were rarely discussed in the academic literature. Our situation reflected the state of American scholarship at that time. Both of us received our graduate training in the1980s, a time when the Cold War defined international politics and Kenneth Waltz’s neorealism domi- nated international relations theory. Our home departments offered no courses on international organizations, which made them representative of a discipline that had lost interest in these organizations. International rela- tions, in the1980s, had become the study of states and what states did. All our theories were theories of states. Other actors, such as international or- ganizations, were understood to be byproducts of state action, if, indeed, they were considered at all. Perhaps more surprising, though, was that scholars interested in inter- national governance also slighted the study of international organizations. By the late1970s, the study of international organizations had been eclipsed by the study of interdependence and the emergent literature on interna- tional regimes. These students of international governance showed that

viii

•

preface

there was more to international life than Great Power realpolitik and that en- during cooperation was possible with a little help from international insti- tutions. These were important and enduring insights, but scholars couched their arguments within a statist framework borrowed from neorealists that gave short shrift to international organizations as independent actors. These scholars were interested in the “principles, norms, rules, and decision-mak- ing procedures” that governedstateaction. Treated as parts of regimes, in- ternational organizations were only arenas through which others, mostly states, acted. They were not actors in their own right and had no indepen- dent ontological status. For these scholars, the interesting theoretical ques- tion was why states would cooperate to set up an international organization in the first place. What these organizations did after creation, and whether their behavior conformed to what states wanted, apparently provoked very little curiosity. This shared disinterest among both neorealists and regimes scholars conspired to make international organizations, as Susan Strange 1 wryly observed, a “great yawn.” To understand how international organizations work, we found our- selves turning to theories of organization rather than theories of interna- tional politics. We were not the first to do this. Many international relations scholars have used microeconomic theories of organization to understand international cooperation generally and, occasionally, international organi- zations. In this view, international organizations are welfare-improving so- lutions to problems of incomplete information and high transaction costs. However, these approaches have at least two serious shortcomings, one the- 2 oretical and the other normative. Theoretically, these approaches are better at explaining why organizations exist than what they do after creation. They provide no substantive preferences, capabilities, or character for interna- tional organizations. To explain the behavior of international organizations, we needed different tools, and we found them in sociology. Sociologists have developed a rich body of theory on organizations and bureaucracies. In their arguments, bureaucracy is a distinctive social form with its own in- ternal logic that generates certain behavioral tendencies; we apply these in- sights to the international realm. This approach helped us solve some important problems. It provided a basis for treating international organiza- tions as ontologically independent actors and for theorizing about their na- ture and behavioral proclivities. We found that the “logic of bureaucracy” offered distinctive claims regarding the sources of IO autonomy, the nature and effects of their power, the reasons international organizations fail, and the ways they evolve and expand. By thinking about international organi- zations as social creatures, we could better understand their authority, their power, their goals, and their behavior. This approach also helped us address some normative concerns. Most scholarly approaches treat international organizations as a good thing.

preface

•

ix

There is a normative bias in favor of international organizations. They help states cooperate. They help peoples overcome oppressive governments. They spread good norms. They articulate a spirit of progress and enlighten- ment. This emphasis on the good things international organizations do is not simply a selection bias but also reflects a theoretical disposition. Microeco- nomic and liberal-inspired theories of international organizations almost always cast these organizations in a positive role. Within these microeco- nomic theories, no international organization should exist that is not serv- ing valued goals since, by theoretical axiom, states will abandon any such organization that does not perform. Within liberal theories, international or- ganizations have been viewed not only as facilitators of cooperation but also as carriers of progress, the embodiments of triumphant democracy and pur- veyors of liberal values, including human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. If, however, we start from the premise that international organizations are bureaucracies and will behave as such, we generate different expectations. We see a world in which international organizations can act as good servants but can also produce undesirable and self-defeating outcomes. Indeed, the celebration of bureaucracy at the international level is unusual. Bureaucracy is generally derided in social life—it is notorious for red tape, stupidity, un- responsive behavior. Our approach allows us to identify a range of behav- iors, which might be good or bad. International bureaucracies are double-edged swords, and this feature has important historical analogues that we keep in mind. When Max Weber was formulating his seminal statements about bureaucracy and its potential as an “iron cage,” he was wrestling on the national level with the same phe- nomenon that intrigues us now at the international level. Bureaucracies were proliferating in the Prussian state of the late nineteenth century in much the same way that formal organizations are spreading at the interna- tional level today. His questions were similar to ours. He wanted to know both why this was happening and what its implications were for social and political life. Weber’s answers to these questions flow from his analysis of what, exactly, bureaucraciesareas a social form, how they are supported by Western culture, and what work they do in the modern world. So do ours. In this book we attempt to construct an approach to the study of interna- tional organizations. We are not the first to do so, but we are hardly in a crowded field. There has been an important revival of interest in interna- tional organizations, but remarkably little empirical research gets inside these organizations to see how they work. In many respects, we see our- selves involved in a process not unlike the advent of research on the state. Pluralist and class views of the state that dominated scholarship in the1960s and1970s treated it as a passive structure in which dominant classes ruled or societal interests competed, much the way realist and regimes scholars