Week 4 Flashcards
(26 cards)
State
Political community with permanent population, defined territory,
government with monopoly of force and capacity to enter into relations with other
states
Intergovernmental Organization
members are states and made up of three
or more states. IGOs are established by intergovernmental agreement/treaty.
Transnational organization
Made up of private actors
Why are international organizations important?
- They shape how states respond to international problems
- They increasingly affect the lives of individuals everywhere by shaping the distribution of power and making policies that were previously left to states
- Can help states create global public goods by being forums for international cooperation and then helping to enact and enforce the provision of those goods
Why do states create/join international organizations
- To bridge the tension between individual and collective interests
- Pursue common interests
- Coordinate their actions
- Pool resources
- Facilitate regular communication
- Share and generate information
- Monitor one another
- To gain legitimacy for their actions
- Symbolic value
- TO adjudicate disputes
- To tie in and illustrate domestic commitments
- To lock in the international spoils of victory
Ways to categorize IO’s
- According to membership
- Size
- Issue area
- Powers
- Region
- Function
- Global/regional
- Governmental/non-governmental
- Intergovernmental/supranational
Structure of International governmental organizations
- Assembly, council, secretariat
- A founding treaty in which institutional structure, principles, functions and commitments are outlined
If IOs have autonomy and authority in the world, what do they do with it?
- Classify the world, creating categories of actors and actions
- Fix meanings in the social world
- Articulate and diffuse new norms
Three views on IO’s
- Actor
- Forum
- Resources
Actor
They are constituted by international law as independent entities, separate from the states that make them up as their founders and their members.
Forum
International organizations are also places in space and time, in the sense of being physical buildings, conferences, and schedules of meeting.
Resources
is a kind of resource, or a set of resources, that states and others can use to advance their own political agenda.
Liberalist theories
- Functionalism
- Neo functionalism
- Neoliberalism
Purpose of IO’s according to liberalist theories
as a means to ensure individual prosperity and freedom
Functionalism
Hoped that states would see the benefits of working together rather than being in conflict
Neofunctionalism
international cooperation among states could still lead to political integration if pushed along by international bureaucrats who were fully attuned to political dynamics.
Neoliberalism
all states could benefit from international cooperation through collective action.
Realism
Rejects much of the optimism of liberal theorizing about the prospects of IOs. From the beginning, realists argued that IOs were merely ‘new arrangements’ that states could use to achieve their material and security interests.
League of nations weakneses that led to its failure
(1) It was unable to check the aggressive behavior of Japan, Italy and Germany, and
therefore slow or halt the inevitable steps leading toward World War II;
(2) Ambiguity about the specific roles of the Council and Assembly and the requirement of unanimity on voting on important issues’;
Spillover
Integration in one place would spread to other places.
Sociological institutionalism
Argues that culturally specific practices influenced institutional forms and procedures, and that institutions also include symbol systems, cognitive
scripts, and moral templates.
Constructivism
Theorists interested in the ways that ideas, norms, culture, and other aspects of social life influence politics.
What is the central tension of the UN
The tension between intergovernmentalism (state-centric interests, e.g., Security Council) and transnationalism (common good promoted by NGOs, agencies, and the Secretariat, e.g., human rights).
How is intergovernmentalism defined in the UN context
- Serves member states’ interests.
- Initiated by state actors (e.g., Security Council, General Assembly).
- Reflects power dynamics among states (e.g., great power dominance).
- Examples: Collective security, state sovereignty.
