Internal Dynamics and Dysfunctions of International Organizations—An Introduction to the Special Issue

There can be no doubt that international organizations (IOs) have become increasingly important actors in international relations and, as such, are important research objects in international relations. Organizations such as the United Nations and related organizations perform critical functions not only in the area of international peace and security but also in areas such as development or international trade. Despite an emerging research agenda devoted to the analysis of international organizations as organizations and thereby highlighting both the agency as well as the administrative side of IOs, there are still two major interrelated shortcomings. First, there is little understanding about the intra-organizational dynamics and patterns. Second, the consequences of these dynamics for the agency and performance of IOs have not been analyzed yet. By and large, IO studies fall into the trap of starting with the premise that the bureaucratic agency is flawed, without investigating into the sources of dysfunctions and into the permanence of these dynamics and patterns. By contrast, the articles in this special issue start with the assumption that it is precisely an understanding of the micropolitics among administrative substructures that helps to explain important elements of the effectiveness and performance of IOs. Consequently, all contributions analyze different aspects of the internal dimension of international organizations and the consequences for the activities and agency of IOs. They highlight, for instance, the existence and the effects of bureaucratic spoiling and the various levels of agency within IOs. This special issue contributes to two main issue areas: first, to the study of international organizations as organizational actors and, second, to an understanding of the dynamics among administrative elements within those organizations. To varying degrees, these two issues have been a concern in the academic literature in recent years. First, despite the increasing importance of IOs and their respective administrative bodies, especially in the field of peace and security, a recurring theme over decades is the very assessment that still too little is known about the actual inside and inner workings of these organizations. Although some landmark publications highlighting the bureaucratic and organizational characteristics of IOs were published many years ago and have been “rediscovered” recently (e.g., Weiss 1975; Pitt and Weiss 1986), starting with—among others—the seminal studies by Barnett and Finnemore (1999; 2004), one may identify a serious new research agenda conceptualizing international organizations as organizations with their own authority and relevant inner patterns. In this agenda, there has been progress to acknowledge that substructures of intergovernmental organizations share common characteristics of bureaucratic organizations, such as a clear system of superand subordination, creating a hierarchical formal organizational structure, and a division of labor between experts based on rules and standard operating procedures. However, it remains an acknowledgement, and there is still a lack of conceptual and