The action of international organization in the world politics

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The action of international organization in the world politics


The financial and economic current crisis has increased pressure for a re-evaluation of the current power system in the international economic organizations. Emerging countries fights for more control in them that they often blame for being unfair and responsible of theirs luggish development. On another hand developedcountries are benefiting widely from the organizational regime that has been agree more than sixty years ago and that hasn’t adapt to shifts in economical and political power. We assist of what could be called a battle for global economic governance, that is one for the “overaching system which regulate human affairs on a worldwide basis”(O’Brien and Williams 2007). But we can wonder why suchbattle is taking place on an organizational level? Do international organisation matter in world politics
and how? Answers have been provided by different school of thought : realists, liberals and constructivists. We will see how they view world politics and how IOs affect it, and to this regard we will look at a specific situation within the United Nations Security Council in 2003 before the startof the Irak war.

Realism, constructivism and liberalism or three ways of looking at international organisations.

In order to make sense and to take constructive actions, humans create theories and
frameworks for analysing facts and the relationships between them. In the field of social science, as opposed to mathematics and physics, it is very difficult to create a framework that wouldencompass and explain all aspects of a problem or a fact. Such framework would have to be overly simplistic and by trying to explain everything would probably explain nothing.
Therefore, there is no such things as axiom in the logical sense in social science. Instead, we have diverse theories that are usually advanced in a specific historical context and that often support the cause of a specificgroup and what they are concerned.
Consequently in the domain of IOs and in world politics we have general,
complementary and different frameworks . They have different focus and outcomes. None of them claim to explain everything but they give one part of understanding in the mechanisms at work.
There are three main ways of approaching IOs : realism, constructivism and
liberalism. We’ll brieflysummarize centuries of literature and research for each of them and focus on their key actors, dynamics and views on IOs.

• Realism

Realism framework is rooted in nationalist and mercantilist economic theories that
emerged with the nation-state in the 15th century in Europe. The state is the key actor in this framework.
In the realism framework, the world is rather anarchical and statesfight for wealth
since the world is view as a “zero-sum game”. Consequently, conflicts are frequent and their outcome is influenced by the balance of power. Power, the ability to influence or control other states (Evans. G. & Newnham 1998), is the key to shape outcomes in the global political sphere and to obtain wealth. In the realism view it is possible to avoid conflicts through cooperation inregimes that are arrangements put in place by states on issues. The regime’s theory claims that it is possible to have “cooperation under anarchy” (Oyle 1986), the distribution of wealth in the regime being determined by the balance of power between states.
IOs are therefore view as a structure that will help states to further their own goals.
IOs have no independance and existence of their ownsince they are just an instrument of states. Since states are the main source of decision and power in the world politics, after all organization would not be supported if they doesn’t help serve states’ interests. Institutions still exist though because by reducing uncertainty they promote cooperation and make it more feasible.
Furthermore, Koremenos, Lipson and Snidal argue that the design of...
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