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Conceptualizing International Organizations...

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Resetting the Political Culture Agenda: From Polis to International Organization

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Abstract

International organizations are conceived as an integral part of a wide palette of international institutions. Still, the notion of international institutions per se constitutes a vague term, used as an umbrella concept accommodating different approaches within the framework of the international relations or international law disciplines, and is thus often partly defined or even not defined at all.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Keohane 2006, p. 58.

  2. 2.

    The term ‘institution’, originating from the verb instituo in Latin, encompasses the concept of a legal and/or social construction of permanent character.

  3. 3.

    March and Olsen 1984, p. 741, also quoted in Keohane 2006, p. 60.

  4. 4.

    March and Olsen 2005, p. 4.

  5. 5.

    Keohane 2006, p. 59.

  6. 6.

    Realism argues that the concepts of self-interest pursue and the primacy of national sovereignty prevail in states’ decision to abide by rules and codes of conduct promulgated by international institutions, diminishing the latters’ effectiveness to have a significant impact on international relations. See Waltz 1979 and 2000; Morgenthau 1978 and 1953; and Mearsheimer 1994/1995.

  7. 7.

    Mearsheimer 1994/1995, p. 8.

  8. 8.

    Mitrany 1948.

  9. 9.

    Haas defined political integration as “the process whereby political actors in several distinct national settings are persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations and political activities toward a new center, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the pre-existing national state”. See Haas 1958, p. 16.

  10. 10.

    Duffield 2007; and Keohane 2006.

  11. 11.

    See Allott 1999.

  12. 12.

    Based on the definition provided by Tsatsos for the concept of “institution”. See Tsatsos 1985, p. 107.

  13. 13.

    Zervaki 2005, pp. 27–28. This theoretical classification of international institutions follows the Aristotelian distinction between purposive action (praxis) and productive activity (poiesis). For a concise presentation of the Aristotelian tradition in contemporary analysis of political activity see Parsons 2013.

  14. 14.

    Reference to social construction through the definition of the concept of ‘fundamental’ or ‘constitutive’ institutions aims at counterbalancing the legalistic, purely technical in character, analyses of institutionalization processes that may overlook the social dimension of international organization and law enshrined in the principle “ubi societas, ubi jus”. See Finnemore and Toope 2001.

  15. 15.

    Abbot et al. 2000, p. 401.

  16. 16.

    ibid. p. 404.

  17. 17.

    For extensive reading on regime theory see Krasner 1983 and 1994; and Rittberger and Mayer 1995.

  18. 18.

    Krasner 1983, p. 2.

  19. 19.

    Kratochwil and Ruggie 2006, p. 41.

  20. 20.

    According to Chayes and Chayes “what is less clear from the work on regimes is that at the centre there is almost always a formal treaty -sometimes more than one- that gives the regime its basic architecture” and that the latter “are operated by substantial, well-staffed, and well-functioning international organizations”. See Chayes and Chayes 1995, pp. 1, 271.

  21. 21.

    Virally 1972.

  22. 22.

    White 2005, p. 1. According to Klabbers “[w]e may, in most cases, be able to recognize an international organization when we see one, but it has so far appeared impossible to actually define such organization in a comprehensive way. What is only rarely realized is that it is indeed structurally impossible to define, in a comprehensive manner, something which is a social creation to begin with”. See Klabbers 2009, p. 6.

  23. 23.

    Based on the enumeration of the core legal features of international organizations provided by Virally 1981, p. 50. See also Higgins 2004, pp. 46–48, and Schermers and Blokker 2011, pp. 30–47.

  24. 24.

    Amerashinghe 2005.

  25. 25.

    Combacau and Sur 1993, p. 704.

  26. 26.

    Thomson and Snidal 2000. The synthesis and the character of the social constituencies differ among various international organizations. See Symons 2011.

  27. 27.

    Buzan refers to “second order” societies made up of institutions, collectives and other artificial bodies versus ‘first order’ or ‘interhuman’ ones constituted by individuals. Buzan 2004, pp. 117–118.

  28. 28.

    See Article 2 §1 of the UN Charter.

  29. 29.

    See Title VII, Article 222 TEU.

  30. 30.

    Klabbers 2005.

  31. 31.

    Ibid. p. 282.

  32. 32.

    Bohman and Regh 2011.

  33. 33.

    Ibid.

  34. 34.

    Clark 1999, p. 30.

  35. 35.

    Dunne 1998; Buzan 2001; and Robertson 2002.

  36. 36.

    Hsiung 1997; and Bull 1977.

  37. 37.

    Ruggie 1998, pp. 11, 18–19.

  38. 38.

    Buzan 2001; and Williams 2010, p. 1235.

  39. 39.

    For an overview see Jepperson 2001 and Schofer et al. 2010

  40. 40.

    Elman 1995, p. 186.

  41. 41.

    Meyer 1999, p. 126.

  42. 42.

    Meyer 1980, p. 120.

  43. 43.

    March and Olsen 1989, pp. 19–20; and 1998.

  44. 44.

    Chayes and Chayes 1995, p. 274. In the domain of international treaties implementation, the authors refer to the existence of formal, legal norms introduced by treaties, and unwritten, informal norms such as the pacta sunt servanda principle, that reveal the existence of a concrete social order. Ibid. p. 116.

  45. 45.

    Finnemore 1996, pp. 325, 338.

  46. 46.

    Risse 2000. For an empirical test of international institutional socialization, see Bearce and Bondanella 2007, p. 703.

  47. 47.

    Checkel 2001.

  48. 48.

    Grafstein 1992, p. 100.

  49. 49.

    Scelle 1984; Roukounas 2010, p. 10.

  50. 50.

    See Barnett 2006, p. 251; Finnemore and Sikkink 2001; and Wendt 1999.

  51. 51.

    Ruggie 1998, p. 13.

  52. 52.

    Wendt 1992, p. 397.

  53. 53.

    Wendt 1996, p. 48.

  54. 54.

    Wendt 1992, p. 417. Reminding of the Hegelian approach on identity formation, see Von Hegel 1977, p. 112.

  55. 55.

    Barnett and Finnemore 1999, pp. 699–700.

  56. 56.

    Finnemore and Sikkink 2001, p. 393.

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    Antonia Zervaki

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Zervaki, A. (2014). Conceptualizing International Organizations.... In: Resetting the Political Culture Agenda: From Polis to International Organization. SpringerBriefs in Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04256-5_2

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