Description
Book SynopsisProvides an innovative perspective on the behavior of international organizations and their effects on global politics.
Trade ReviewInternational organizations are a growing presence in the global system but remain a neglected subject of study. This book by two prominent political scientists provides a groundbreaking look at their impact, making clear that international organizations may be created by powerful states but, once established, are neither straightforward tools of states nor unalloyed servants of a global common good.... Barnett and Finnemore conclude that the impact of these organizations lies less in the expert knowledge they wield than in the ways they define problems, set agendas, and deploy 'intellectual technologies.' The most intriguing insights of the book, however, emerge as the authors grapple with what the growing 'global bureaucratization' means for democratic accountability.
-- G. John Ikenberry * Foreign Affairs *
The authors take a novel approach to studying international organizations and establish a framework wherein these actors have the potential to develop preferences and cultures that are counter to the wishes of their member states. The authors breathe new life into the study of IGOs by removing the rose-colored glasses of the extant literature, which cannot account for negative and independent behaviors of these organizations.
-- C. S. Leskiw * Choice *
Table of Contents1. Bureaucratizing World Politics2. International Organizations as Bureaucracies3. Expertise and Power at the International Monetary Fund4. Defining Refugees and Voluntary Repatriation at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees5. Genocide and the Peacekeeping Culture at the United Nations6. The Legitimacy of an Expanding Global BureaucracyList of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
