Course Description:

What are International Organizations (IOs) and what role do they play in world politics? In this course we will take a political-economy approach to understanding various IOs, considering their historical origins, ostensible functions, the international and domestic political forces that impact their operations, and their effectiveness.

We will begin the course by addressing some overarching theoretical and methodological issues so that we have a core set of analytical tools we can apply to our study of specific IOs. From a theoretical perspective, we will consider various paradigms, such as realist, liberal, bureaucratic, and constructivist. From a methodological point of view, we will be concerned with questions of endogeneity and non-random selection. That is, separating the circumstances under which IOs take action from the inherent effects of their actions.

Delving into specific IOs, we begin with the International Financial Institutions (the IMF and the World Bank). We then turn to the United Nations (Security Council, Human Rights, Peacekeeping Operations). We subsequently analyze IOs dealing with Europe (NATO, EU). Next we consider international trade organizations (the GATT/WTO and regional trade organizations). We end the semester by considering some broad themes regarding IOs, specifically the effects that they may have on the promotion of democracy and on how democratically (or not) they are governed themselves. If the class expresses interest in specific IOs not currently on the syllabus, there may be some flexibility to introduce them.

As we examine each institution, we will keep several questions in mind:

In short, we are concerned with the political economy of international organizations. As in other courses in political economy, we will grapple with centralized versus decentralized mechanisms of allocation, where the two mechanisms often interact. In International Political Economy, we consider the ways in which the various centralized and decentralized mechanisms of allocation within specific countries have effects across borders. The market forces and government policies in one country affect those in other countries -- for example, there are economic, security, and environmental externalities.

From this point of view, IOs can be considered responses to failures of decentralized mechanisms of allocation at the international level, or, simply put, responses to international market failures. IOs are thus supranational centralized allocation mechanisms, which may or may not effectively achieve their ostensible goals. When evaluating whether these centralized mechanisms of allocation achieve their intended goals, it will be important to consider not just their inherent effects, but also an important counterfactual: what the world would be like in their absence? Note, the course makes no a priori judgments about the value of IOs, and students are encouraged to think critically about the constellation of IOs in the world. The course requires only that students consider both centralized and decentralized mechanisms of allocation as viable solutions to international problems - there is no assumed ideological preference for one approach over the other.

The challenges of trying to understand the interests, institutions, and information of actors in an international context are great, and much remains to be learned. The course is designed not just to familiarize students with IOs, but also to stimulate their curiosity about questions that really have yet to be answered satisfactorily. An important goal of the course is also the equip students with the analytical tools required to address such questions.

Requirements:

The course grade will be determined by three factors: