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Why International Organizations Hate Politics: Depoliticizing the World

The puzzle behind IO apolitical claims The political nature of IOs in debates Revisiting functionalism Anti-politics and bureaucratic multilateralism Expertise, knowledge production and technicization Depoliticization and IOs: a burgeoning field of research Capturing the politics of IO depoliticization: practices and logics Why read this book overview Notes I Practices of depoliticization Asserting expertise and pledging technical solutions Claiming expertise Tailoring an expert profile Building on external expertise Isolating expertise from politics Providing technical interpretation Reducing the world to numbers Compartmentalizing problems and solutions Delivering technical assistance Conclusion Notes Formatting neutrality Producing neutrality Drawing general and simplified conclusions Building on past experiences Supporting neutrality Providing information Claiming universality Circulating neutrality Reversing ownership Creating proximity Advising through neutrality Political recommendations in disguise From “best practices” to the only possible practice Conclusion Notes Gaining time and losing momentum The delay Institutionalizing negotiations over time Accumulating reforms and reports The dilution Procedural and substantial complexification Duplication and discontinuity The routine Recurring emergencies Institutional fatigue The amnesia Selective memory Memory loss Conclusion Notes II Logics of depoliticization Following a functional-pragmatic path Functional necessity What people need What states want (or are willing to accept)From specific needs to specialized organizations Practical rationality Bypassing controversies Facilitating cooperation Stigmatizing politics Conclusion Notes Monopolizing legitimacy Recognition Avoiding competition Reinvesting old skills Expansion Claiming necessity Projecting expertise Monopolization Professing technical requirements Proclaiming the one best way Conclusion Notes Avoiding responsibility Challenging responsibility attribution Professionalizing representation Individualizing tasks Blame-shifting Finding a scapegoat Diffusing responsibility Maintaining the status quo Isolating multilateral responsibilities Accepting and reproducing power relationships Conclusion Notes Conclusion The politics of IO (de)politicization Depoliticizing the world: so what?When politics strikes back Resistance and contestation Counterproductive depoliticization Research agenda on IOs and depoliticization Notes

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Obligations of International Organizations
It is by now firmly accepted that (most) international organizations have (a degree of) international legal personality and therefore must be considered to be subjects of international law.1 As such, they can be assumed to be bound by rules of general international law. This assumption was thankfully...
(Judicial decisions on the law of international organizations)
International Relations and Political Science in France: Why Foucault Never Met Duverger
A post-war discipline, IR has been nurtured by schemes inherited from US political sciences in the fifties and sixties, and especially by security and strategic studies. Rational Choice Theory, understanding of the state as a unified actor represented by a government and acting on a specific “international”...
(Foucault and the Modern International: Silences and Legacies for the Study of World Politics)
Political or Apolitical World Literature?
In How to Read World Literature (2009) David Damrosch advocates reading the foundational and classic texts of World Literature across time, across cultures, and in a translation matrix that appreciates both commonalities and differences. This is essentially genre-based reading, for Damrosch writes...
(Gatekeepers : the emergence of world literature and the 1960s)
International Organizations
Added to the mix are the civilians representing international organizations (IOs), such as the United Nations, all of its agencies, and regional organizations (IFRC/ICRC 1994). It is not uncommon to see these organizations, not least the UN, playing an important coordination role between the various...
(Understanding Civil-Military Interaction: Lessons Learned from the Norwegian Model)
A Public Administration Perspective on International Organizations
Michael W Bauer, Steffen Eckhard, Jorn Ege, and Christoph Knill Introduction Resolving climate change, combating transnational terrorism, fostering democratic practices and human rights, fighting contagious diseases, providing stability on the financial market, establishing fair rules for international...
(International Bureaucracy: Challenges and Lessons for Public Administration Research)
Administrative Styles of International Organizations: Can We Find Them, Do They Matter?
Christoph Knill, Jan Enkler, Sylvia Schmidt, Steffen Eckhard, and Stephan Grohs Introduction It is widely acknowledged that International Organizations (IOs) are of growing relevance for the making of public policies beyond the nation-state. Similar to the national context, in which governments...
(International Bureaucracy: Challenges and Lessons for Public Administration Research)
Changing Budgeting Administration in International Organizations: Budgetary Pressures, Complex Principals and Administrative Leadership
Ronny Patz and Klaus H. Goetz Introduction International organizations (IOs) in general, and organizations in the United Nations (UN) system in particular, have faced significant budgetary stress over the past few decades. The continuous discrepancy between political demands to solve global problems,...
(International Bureaucracy: Challenges and Lessons for Public Administration Research)
International Organizations and Diffusion
Graduate education in British and American universities was not the only diffusion channel for economic ideas, however. With the support of Washington, Spain joined the IMF, the World Bank, and the OECD in the late 1950s. The IMF’s intervention in the post-1957 crisis weakened the leverage of ISI economists...
(Ruling ideas : how global neoliberalism goes local)
Rule of law and independent international organizations
The second principle of a just international system favoured by the Islamic Republic of Iran is the implementation and practice of an international rule of law in all countries with the result that all nations - whether powerful or weak - are equal within international law. The proper mechanism for the...
(Iran and the International System)
Russian studies of public diplomacy of various states and international organizations
Russian researchers publish numerous works that study the approaches, institutions, and mechanisms of the public diplomacy of various states. First, the public diplomacy of Russia is analyzed. Burlinova, Ivanchenko, and Gribkova [2018] point to the following areas of public diplomacy, although it is...
(Russian Public Diplomacy:From USSR to the Russian Federation)