International institutions are essential for tackling many of the most urgent challenges facing the world, from pandemics to humanitarian crises, yet we know little about when they succeed, when they fail, and why. This book proposes a new theory of institutional performance and tests it using a diverse array of sources, including the most comprehensive dataset on the topic. Challenging popular characterizations of international institutions as 'runaway bureaucracies,' Ranjit Lall argues that the most serious threat to performance comes from the pursuit of narrow political interests by states – paradoxically, the same actors who create and give purpose to institutions. The discreet operational processes through which international bureaucrats cultivate and sustain autonomy vis-à-vis governments, he contends, are critical to making institutions 'work.' The findings enhance our understanding of international cooperation, public goods, and organizational behavior while offering practical lessons to policymakers, NGOs, businesses, and citizens interested in improving institutional effectiveness.

This book seeks to think differently about what we recognize as "global institutions" and how they could work better for the people who need them most. By so doing, the contributions show that there is a group of institutions that influence enough people’s lives in significant enough ways through what they protect, provide or enable that they should be considered, together, as global institutions. The United Nations, the World Bank, the internet as well as private military and security companies leave a heavy footprint on the social, political and economic landscape of the planet. We are all aware in different ways of the existence of these global institutions but their importance in achieving change in the twenty-first century is often underestimated. In this book, contributors seek to explain what associations exist between change in global institutions and the reduction of poverty and inequality as well as the achievement of security and justice. The work makes sense of processes of change and identifies the most significant obstacles that exist, offering suggestions for future action that will be of interest to students and scholars of global institutions.

The book explores how international organizations (IOs) have expanded their powers over time without formally amending their founding treaties. IOs intervene in military, financial, economic, political, social, and cultural affairs, and increasingly take on roles not explicitly assigned to them by law. The proposed book will contend that this 'mission creep' has allowed IOs to intervene internationally, most often in the Global South, in a way that has allowed them to recast institutions within and interactions among states, societies, and peoples on a broadly Western, liberal model. Adopting a historical and interdisciplinary, socio-legal approach, it supports this claim through detailed investigations of historical episodes involving three very different organizations: the International Labour Organization in the interwar period; the United Nations in the two decades following the Second World War; and the World Bank from the 1950s through to the 1990s. The book draws on a wide range of original institutional and archival materials, bringing to light little-known aspects of each organization's activities, identifying continuities in the ideas and practices of international governance across the twentieth century, and speaking to a range of pressing theoretical questions in present-day international law and international relations --Front flap of the book.

Despite the sustained scholarly attention that the United Nations and international NGOs have received in the twenty-first century, they still remain under-researched from a management studies perspective. This volume brings together rich analyses of these organizations’ functioning, arguing that they are best understood as intermediaries between international decision-making and funding bodies in the developed world and initiatives that take place on the ground, primarily in the Global South. Based on current management research, this follow-up to Rethinking International Organizations (Berghahn, 2002) provides a wealth of both empirical and theoretical insights, along with practical recommendations how these organizations can function more effectively.

This edited volume examines power in its different dimensions in global governance. Scholars tend to underestimate the importance of power in international relations because of a failure to see its multiple forms. To expand the conceptual aperture, this book presents and employs a taxonomy that alerts scholars to the different kinds of power that are present in world politics. A team of international scholars demonstrate how these different forms connect and intersect in global governance in a range of different issue areas. Bringing together a variety of theoretical perspectives, this volume invites scholars to reconsider their conceptualization of power in world politics and how such a move can enliven and enrich their understanding of global governance.

This pioneering Research Handbook with contributions from renowned experts, provides an overview of the general doctrines making up the law of international organizations.The approach of this book is taken from a novel perspective: that of the tension between functionalism and constitutionalism. In doing so, this Handbook presents not only practically relevant information, but also provides a tool for understanding the ways in which internationalorganizations work. It has separate chapters on specific 'constitutional' topics and on two specific organizations: the EU and the UN. Research Handbook on the Law of international Organizations will be of particular interest to academics and graduate students in the fields ofinternational law, international politics and international relations.