Why do states delegate certain tasks and responsibilities to international organizations rather than acting unilaterally or cooperating directly? Furthermore, to what extent do states continue to control IOs once authority has been delegated? Examining a variety of different institutions including the World Trade Organization, the United Nations and the European Commission, this book explores the different methods that states employ to ensure their interests are being served, and identifies the problems involved with monitoring and managing IOs. The contributors suggest that it is not inherently more difficult to design effective delegation mechanisms at international level than at domestic level and, drawing on principal-agent theory, help explain the variations that exist in the extent to which states are willing to delegate to IOs. They argue that IOs are neither all evil nor all virtuous, but are better understood as bureaucracies that can be controlled to varying degrees by their political masters.
The member states of international organisations increasingly delegate the planning and conduct of multinational military operations to international secretariats. In carrying out their functions, these officials not only facilitate the work of the member states, but can also pursue their own distinct agendas. This book analyses how states seek to control secretariats when it comes to military missions by international organisations, and introduces an innovative theoretical framework that identifies different types of control mechanisms. It presents six empirical chapters on the UN, NATO and EU secretariats and provides new data from a unique dataset and 45 in-depth interviews.
This is the third of five ambitious volumes theorizing the structure of governance above and below the central state. This book is written for those interested in the character, causes, and consequences of governance within the state. This book sets out a measure of authority for seventy-six international organizations (IOs) from 1950, or the time of their establishment, to 2010 which can allow researchers to test expectations about the character, sources, and consequences of international governance. The international organizations considered are regional (e.g. the EU, Andean Community, NAFTA), cross-regional (e.g. Commonwealth of Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation), and global (e.g. the UN, World Bank, WTO). Firstly, the book introduces carefully constructed estimates for the scope and depth of authority exercised by international governments. The estimates are unique in their comparative scope, their specificity, and time span. Secondly, it describes describe broad trends in IO authority by comparing delegation and pooling, over time, across IOs, and across decision areas. Thirdly, it presents the evidence gathered by the authors to estimate international authority by carefully discussing forty-seven international organizations, and showing how their bodies are composed, what decisions each body makes, and how they make decisions. Transformations in Governance is a major new academic book series from Oxford University Press. It is designed to accommodate the impressive growth of research in comparative politics, international relations, public policy, federalism, environmental and urban studies concerned with the dispersion of authority from central states up to supranational institutions, down to subnational governments, and side-ways to public-private networks. It brings together work that significantly advances our understanding of the organization, causes, and consequences of multilevel and complex governance. The series is selective, containing annually a small number of books of exceptionally high quality by leading and emerging scholars. The series targets mainly single-authored or co-authored work, but it is pluralistic in terms of disciplinary specialization, research design, method, and geographical scope. Case studies as well as comparative studies, historical as well as contemporary studies, and studies with a national, regional, or international focus are all central to its aims. Authors use qualitative, quantitative, formal modeling, or mixed methods. A trade mark of the books is that they combine scholarly rigour with readable prose and an attractive production style. The series is edited by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Walter Mattli of the University of Oxford.
This title is an examination of the role and relevance of international bureaucracies in global environmental governance. After a discussion of theoretical context, reaserch design, and empiral methodology, the book presents nine in-depth case studies of bureaucracies.
International organizations have come to play a central role in world politics. The authors present a major new attempt to explain the difference - and the similarities - between them, as well as their crucial role
The first book to introduce the concept of emergency powers to the study of International Organizations, to investigate the emergency politics of IOs in comparative perspective, and to examine why IOS are often reluctant to rescind such powers when the motivating threat as passed.
?Zweifel?s persuasive and highly relevant book is a significant contribution to the literature on IO governance.? ?Edward McMahon, University of VermontDo international organizations represent the interests of the global citizenry? Or are they merely vehicles for the agendas of powerful nations and special interests? Thomas Zweifel explores this increasingly contentious issue, deftly blending history, theory, and case studies.Zweifel?s analysis covers both regional organizations (e.g., the EU, NAFTA, NATO, the AU) and such global institutions as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. With international organizations becoming perhaps the most appropriate?if not the only?forum for tackling myriad transnational challenges, his systematic study of how these organizations function is central to the study of both international relations and democracy in the 21st century.Thomas D. Zweifel, CEO of the Swiss Consulting Group, is also adjunct professor at Columbia University?s School of International and Public Affairs. Previously, he served as director of global operations for the Hunger Project.Contents: The Democratic Deficit of International Organizations. An Approach to Transnational Democracy. A Brief History of International Organization. The United Nations. The World Bank. The International Monetary Fund. The World Trade Organization. The European Union. From OAU to African Union. Other Regional Organizations: NAFTA, NATO, and ASEAN. Global Citizenship?
In this path-breaking book, David Epstein and Sharyn O'Halloran produce the first unified theory of policy making between the legislative and executive branches. Examining major US policy initiatives from 1947 to 1992, the authors describe the conditions under which the legislature narrowly constrains executive discretion, and when it delegates authority to the bureaucracy. In doing so, the authors synthesize diverse and competitive literatures, from transaction cost and principal-agent theory in economics, to information models developed in both economics and political science, to substantive and theoretical work on legislative organization and on bureaucratic discretion.
This exciting new text illustrates and advances the argument that International Organizations (IOs) need to be taken seriously as actors in world affairs. Bringing together an international line-up of distinguished contributors, the text examines recent theories that suggest how IOs are able to set their own policies and implement them in meaningful ways. The chapters review these theoretical positions and then present a series of case studies which focus on how these theories play out when IOs are charged with solving global problems: including development, peacekeeping and environmental policy coordination. Examining and analysing both positive and negative examples of this independence, this text is a valuable resource on the topic of the internal workings of IOs, providing the richest and most focused textbook so far dealing with the capacity of IOs for independent action in international politics. It is essential reading for all students of international organizations.
