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Resilient International Organisations for the 21st Century

28 February 2019

Amelie Bahr (MSc Global Governance and Ethics) on a GGI keynote lecture with Dr Hylke Dijkstra.

Meeting with Members of the UN Security Council in New York City

As many headlines in recent years suggest, a number of international organisations are under pressure. In 2017, the International Criminal Court lost one of its members for the first time when Burundi announced its withdrawal. More recently, the dispute settlement process at the World Trade Organisation – once the poster child of remarkably effective global governance mechanisms – has been thrown into disarray as the US continues to block appointments to the appellate body.  

At a recent keynote lecture at the Global Governance Institute, Dr Hylke Dijkstra (Maastricht University) argued that such incidents should not be viewed as isolated exceptions, but as part of a broader decline in international organisations since the mid-1990s. While the post-war period saw an unprecedented proliferation of international organisations, their number has stagnated for the last 25 years: international organisations now die as quickly as they are created. 

This development remains largely unaddressed in the theoretical literature in the field, which still focuses heavily on the creation of international organisations. However, Dijkstra’s contended that we can draw on the existing theoretical toolkit to explain the apparent decline of international institutions. 

Death and decline of international organisations: using old theories to new effect 

In conventional institutional design theory, a three-tiered process is tied to the creation of an international organisation. First, the problem condition refers to the existence of a transnational public policy problem which requires international cooperation. Second, the cognitive condition refers to the perception of said problem, in particular the recognition on the part of states that this problem can best be solved through an international organisation. Third, the hegemonic condition implies that there is a hegemon in the international system who is ready to bear a disproportionate share of the cooperation costs. 

This theory, Dijkstra suggested, can be turned on its head. If the existence of these three conditions can explain why international organisations are created, their absence may, in turn, explain why international organisations now die in greater numbers than before: 

  • Problem condition: Identifying shared problems and possible solutions has become less straightforward. Nowadays, global governance is beset by what Thomas Hale and David Held call ‘harder problems’. Problems such as climate change are at once more extensive and more intensive than traditional global governance challenges; they affect a broader range of countries as well as individuals within countries, and they penetrate into the domestic policy space and everyday life.
  • Cognitive condition: The difficulty of reaching an agreement on the international level in the case of ‘harder problems’ has contributed to increasing scepticism about the effectiveness of international organisations vis-à-vis their costs. In an increasingly fragmented global governance landscape, formal multilateral organisations are no longer seen as the default mechanism for cooperation. In some cases, states now prefer to rely on informal international organisations, bilateral negotiations or private regulation. In other cases, states cooperate through networks and partnerships, not only with other states but also with civil society organisations and other private actors. 
  • Hegemonic condition: This fragmentation is further echoed in the absence of a hegemon in the international system. Far from the unipolar order under US hegemony, we now live in a ‘leaderless world’ in which various powers compete for influence, none of them willing to ‘sponsor’ cooperation through international organisations. 

Adaptation and resistance: improving the resilience of international organisation 

In light of the above, it is perhaps no wonder that institutional organisations have been in decline. At the same time, some international organisations have proved more resilient than others in the face of external pressures.

In a new research project on the decline and death of international organisations, Dijkstra hopes to explain these differing levels of resilience, not least because such an explanation may provide insights as to how to strengthen international organisations to withstand the pressures of events such as Brexit and the Trump presidency.  

To this end, Dijkstra distinguishes between forms of institutional adaptation on the one hand and institutional resistance on the other. The former refers to an institution’s ability to remain ‘fit for purpose’ despite changes in its environment. This capacity for adaptation is closely linked to the precision of an institution’s legal mandate as well as the corresponding revision procedures. 

But rather than changing in response to their external circumstances, institutions can also actively resist the latter. This mainly occurs when the cost of replacing a given institution is regarded as too high, or when this institution is an agent in its own right with the necessary authority and delegation structures to ensure its longevity by itself. 

Theory in contestation: questioning the conceptual toolkit 

Seeing as Dijkstra outlined but the beginnings of his theoretical framework in his lecture, some questions regarding his conceptual toolkit arise. 

For one, Dijkstra himself pointed out that speaking of a decline of international organisations is not always straightforward. A significant number of institutions have not simply disappeared but have instead been replaced by others, complicating their institutional life cycle in a way not (yet) captured by Dijkstra’s theory. 

In addition, we may require more granular explanations as to why the problem, cognitive and hegemonic conditions are no longer fulfilled. For instance, Dijkstra suggested that states may criticise the effectiveness of an international organisations not because their leaders genuinely take issue with its current set-up but because they expect domestic political dividends. This could help explain ‘irrational’ populist strategies such as Trump’s attack on NATO. 

In light of these considerations, it will be particularly interesting to revisit Dijkstra’s proposals in a few years’ time once his research has actually kicked off, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges that beset the global governance system today.