Member-dominated international organizations as actors: a bottom-up theory of corporate agency

IF 2.2 1区社会学 Q1 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

International Theory Pub Date : 2022-09-16 DOI:10.1017/S1752971922000069

Thom Gehring, Kevin Urbanski

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

Abstract This article introduces an innovative theoretical conception of the corporate agency of international organizations (IOs). Existing rationalist and constructivist accounts attribute IO agency to the influence of intra-organizational agents. Drawing on general conceptions of corporate agency in International Relations, sociology, and philosophy, we elucidate how IOs can develop corporate agency, even if the member states prepare and adopt all organizational decisions themselves. In line with recent studies on international political authority, we replace the IO-as-bureaucracy model with the more comprehensive concept of IOs-as-governors. To establish the micro-foundations of IO agency, we adopt a bottom-up perspective and outline how, and under which conditions, IO agency arises from the interaction of constituent actors. Irrespective of any specific institutional design, IOs become actors in their own right whenever they gain action capability and autonomy. They acquire action capability whenever their members pool governance resources like the right to regulate certain activities or to manage common funds and authorize IOs to deploy these resources. IOs gain autonomy whenever they affect organizational decisions. Both dimensions of IO agency are variable and open to empirical enquiry. To illustrate our argument, we refer to the United Nations Security Council and other IOs with member-driven decision processes.

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成员主导的国际组织作为行动者：自下而上的公司代理理论

摘要本文介绍了一个创新的国际组织法人代理理论概念。现有的理性主义和建构主义观点将IO代理归因于组织内部代理人的影响。借鉴国际关系、社会学和哲学中企业代理的一般概念，我们阐明了国际组织如何发展企业代理，即使成员国自己准备并通过所有组织决策。根据最近对国际政治权威的研究，我们用更全面的国际组织作为统治者的概念取代了作为官僚机构的国际组织模式。为了建立信息作战机构的微观基础，我们采用了自下而上的视角，并概述了信息作战机构是如何以及在何种条件下由组成行为者的互动产生的。无论任何具体的制度设计如何，只要IOs获得行动能力和自主权，它们就会凭借自己的权利成为行动者。每当其成员汇集治理资源（如监管某些活动或管理共同基金的权利）并授权IO部署这些资源时，他们就会获得行动能力。IO在影响组织决策时获得自主权。IO机构的两个维度都是可变的，并且可以进行实证调查。为了说明我们的论点，我们提到联合国安全理事会和其他具有成员驱动的决策过程的组织。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

International Theory Multiple-

CiteScore

6.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Editorial board International Theory (IT) is a peer reviewed journal which promotes theoretical scholarship about the positive, legal, and normative aspects of world politics respectively. IT is open to theory of absolutely all varieties and from all disciplines, provided it addresses problems of politics, broadly defined and pertains to the international. IT welcomes scholarship that uses evidence from the real world to advance theoretical arguments. However, IT is intended as a forum where scholars can develop theoretical arguments in depth without an expectation of extensive empirical analysis. IT’s over-arching goal is to promote communication and engagement across theoretical and disciplinary traditions. IT puts a premium on contributors’ ability to reach as broad an audience as possible, both in the questions they engage and in their accessibility to other approaches. This might be done by addressing problems that can only be understood by combining multiple disciplinary discourses, like institutional design, or practical ethics; or by addressing phenomena that have broad ramifications, like civilizing processes in world politics, or the evolution of environmental norms. IT is also open to work that remains within one scholarly tradition, although in that case authors must make clear the horizon of their arguments in relation to other theoretical approaches.