The political study of international institutions reveals a vibrant and diverse body of scholarship. In recent decades, research has turned from the study of formal international organizations to the study of regimes and institutions, informal as well as formal. For the most part, this turn has been salutary, as it has reflected a broad interest not only in formal organizations but in the deeper role that rules and norms play in a system of formally co-equal states. Initially, this turn was instigated by the observation that much of what is interesting about world politics — especially during the Cold War period — seemed to take place among intensely interdependent actors, but beyond the purview of formal interstate organizations. This turn was furthered by a rational-functionalist approach to the study of institutions, which took up the puzzle of how we could understand international cooperation at all, given the assumptions of neorealism prevalent in the US international relations literature at the time. Meanwhile, in European circles, theorists of international society worked from sociological assumptions on a parallel question: how can order be maintained in an anarchical international society?
These orientations have made for interesting theoretical fireworks, as we have seen in the broader debates between today’s constructivists and rationalists. This debate is clearly reflected in the institutional literature as a distinction between those who view international institutions (including institutional form) as rational responses to the strategic situations in which actors find themselves, versus those who insist on a subjective interpretation of social arrangements (which may or may not be “rational”) and are unlikely to be understood through the use of positive methodologies.
MARTIN, Lisa L.; SIMMONS, Beth A. International Organizations and Institutions. In: CARLSNAES, Walter; RISSE, Thomas; SIMMONS, Beth A. (ed.).
Handbook of International Relations. London: Sage, 2016. p. 343–344. [adapted]
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