Theory of international institutions: in need of a conception of organizational agency

IOs are today widely recognized as actors that perform a wide variety of functions for their membership.Footnote ³⁶ They centralize collective activities, including the production of goods that cannot be produced by any state alone. IO scholars hold that IOs pursue their own organizational interests and have some degree of autonomy.Footnote ³⁷ Without a minimum of autonomy, they would merely be transmission belts for the activities and preferences of their members. IOs are distinct from other international institutions like regimes, rules, and conventions, which may influence the behaviour of other actors, but reflect sectoral orders or international norms. The distinction between organizations-as-actors and rules of the game is well established in both rational institutionalism and constructivism. However, current approaches cannot account for IO agency arising from interaction among member states and, consequently, treat member-dominated IOs as mere forums for coordination of member state activities.

Constructivist approaches emphasize bureaucracies and other non-state entities as sources of organizational agency. However, constructivists tend to marginalize the role of member states and member-driven decision processes. Barnett and Finnemore seek to provide ‘a theoretical basis for treating IOs as autonomous actors in world politics’ and thus challenge ‘the statist ontology prevailing in international relations theories’.Footnote ³⁸ Drawing on Weberian bureaucracy theory, they conceptualize ‘international organizations as bureaucracies’.Footnote ³⁹ Accordingly, they attribute IO autonomy to characteristics of bureaucracy, such as internal rules, legitimacy, and control of reliable knowledge as well as organizational cultures. Numerous authors follow this path.Footnote ⁴⁰ Other scholars examine the role of international courts.Footnote ⁴¹ While this branch of literature elucidates the autonomy of bureaucratic and judicial agents, it largely, if not completely, ignores the member states and understates the role of state-dominated decision processes, which are highly important in most IOs.

Rational institutionalists draw on the principal–agent approach to grasp IO agency. However, their seemingly more comprehensive analytical perspective also attributes IO agency largely to intra-organizational agents. In their seminal volume on IOs and the principal–agent approach, Hawkins et al. claim to ‘treat IOs as actors in their own right’.Footnote ⁴² The member states delegate, as principals, certain tasks to an agent that is empowered to act on their behalf. The agent's ability to defy control and to pursue its own interests despite oversight arrangements (‘agency slack’) is a source of autonomous organizational agency.Footnote ⁴³ Hence, from a principal–agent perspective, the member states are part of the analysis, but not drivers of IO agency.

The current debate on international political authority in global governance reinforces the demand for a new theoretical conception of IO agency. Scholars observe that states increasingly yield sovereignty to IOs and submit to their rulings.Footnote ⁴⁴ Political authority denotes rightful legitimate rule.Footnote ⁴⁵ International institutions have political authority ‘when states recognize, in principle or practice, their ability to make … binding decisions on matters relating to a state's domestic jurisdiction’.Footnote ⁴⁶ This does not preclude that addressees contest and politicize individual orders, as long as they generally accept the exercise of political authority as legitimate.Footnote ⁴⁷

The exercise of international political authority presupposes the existence of governors that actively execute authority functions. Political ‘authority is always wielded by someone for some purpose’Footnote ⁴⁸ and ‘governance is the exercise of authority by an actor over some limited community’.Footnote ⁴⁹ The exercise of international political authority through IOs is distinct from other forms of international governance. States can govern areas of IR by concluding international treaties that do not envisage the transfer of political authority to an IO. Such regimes may become causally powerful without gaining agency on their own.Footnote ⁵⁰ Likewise, fundamental international norms, such as state sovereignty, may gain authority, understood as being accepted by actors and guiding their behaviour,Footnote ⁵¹ without becoming actors.

The political authority perspective includes member-driven IOs and thus transcends the narrow focus on IOs-as-bureaucracies. Scholars distinguish between two ideal-typical forms of intra-institutional decision-making, namely delegation to agents and pooling of votes.Footnote ⁵² Member states can choose among these two forms of IO decision-making to exercise international political authority.Footnote ⁵³ Accordingly, state-dominated IOs may become governors of areas of IR, even if decisions are predominantly or entirely made through pooling. Bradley and Kelley identify member state bodies of IOs as entities that may receive and hold authority.Footnote ⁵⁴ If such bodies are vested with the authority to adopt binding decisions, they differ from multilateral treaty conferences to which states do not grant authority. Likewise, Green and Colgan examine patterns of authority transfers to treaty bodies of multilateral environmental agreements, which typically lack powerful bureaucracies.Footnote ⁵⁵ This raises the question, whether member-dominated IOs can become actors in their own right, or what else it might mean that they operate as ‘governors’ of areas of world politics.

Although the contributors to this debate have not yet addressed the intricate issues of corporate agency, the conception of political authority opens a promising road for the theoretical exploration of IO agency. Political authority is always based on a relational contract. Since IOs ought to overcome collective action problems, their authority results from ‘a social contract in which a governor provides a political order of value to a community in exchange for compliance by the governed with the rules necessary to produce that order’.Footnote ⁵⁶ The obligation to comply with IO decisions does not follow from the commands of the ruler, nor from the inherent properties of the IO, but from state interest in and satisfaction with the social order so produced. Zürn et al. emphasize that ‘international institutions exercise authority in that they successfully claim the right to perform regulatory functions like the formulation of rules and rule monitoring or enforcement’.Footnote ⁵⁷

By replacing the IO-as-bureaucracy perspective with the IO-as-governor perspective, the analytical focus shifts from institutional properties to governance functions. Instead of locating IO agency in substantial institutional characteristics, we should focus on relations between member states and the IO.Footnote ⁵⁸ IOs acquire agency because they are empowered to exercise political authority, not because they have bureaucracies or other institutional features. However, bureaucracies might reinforce the sincere and effective exercise of governance functions.

The puzzle of corporate agency

Despite a general recognition of IOs as actors, IR theory has almost totally sidestepped some fundamental issues of corporate agency raised by virtually all relevant international actors, including IOs, states, and NGOs. Historically, state agency has not been a subject of thorough enquiry, because states are constituent for the very discipline of IR, which traditionally conceives of international relations as relations among states.Footnote ⁵⁹ More recently, studies of global governance have enlarged the set of relevant actors, especially to private actors and IO secretariats,Footnote ⁶⁰ however largely without enquiring into the foundations of their agency.

All composite actors raise the major conundrum arising from corporate action, as pinpointed by Verba: ‘It is a truism that all action within the international system can be reduced to the action of individuals. It is also true, however, that international relations cannot be adequately understood in terms of individual attitudes and behaviours’.Footnote ⁶¹ The fundamental issue is whether we should consider corporate entities as actors in their own right; or whether treating them as actors is merely a shortcut for the actions and activities of their constituency.Footnote ⁶² At stake is whether our common expressions (e.g. ‘the Security Council acts under Chapter VII’) are more than useful (or even misleading) metaphors. There are two fundamentally different positions on this issue.

Individualists refer to corporate agency merely as a metaphorical shorthand for the actions of involved individuals. For example, Gilpin holds ‘that the state does not really exist; … neither do … interest groups, nor even transnational actors … Only individuals really exist’.Footnote ⁶³ Lomas emphasizes ‘that it is never right to speak of states acting’ and that the common tendency to do so is ‘a misleading habit’.Footnote ⁶⁴ This position is not only (often implicitly) held by virtually all methodological individualists, but also by constructivists. Both narrativistsFootnote ⁶⁵ and structuralistsFootnote ⁶⁶ reject the claim that states (and other corporate actors) are real, although they may be like persons in some important respects.Footnote ⁶⁷ In the IR debate on IOs, the individualist perspective is mirrored by the claim that IOs cannot become actors in their own right because they are created and dominated by their member states, as realists tend to assume, or because they are ‘meta-organizations’ composed of members, which are themselves corporate actors.Footnote ⁶⁸

In contrast, holists hold that at least some corporate actors are real and can act on their own. In IR, Alexander Wendt advocates this position most vigorously. He argues that states are ‘persons’ that act purposively and intentionally.Footnote ⁶⁹ He conceptualizes corporate actors as persistent social structures that are primarily defined by an ‘idea’ of corporate agency and a separate institutionalized decision structure.Footnote ⁷⁰ Likewise, organization studies generally assume that organizations are actors without discussing the foundations of organizational agency.Footnote ⁷¹ In the IR debate, the holist position is associated with the claim that IOs become actors in their own right because they comprise intra-organizational agents that are capable of acting autonomously.Footnote ⁷²

To investigate how the agency of member-dominated IOs emerges from interaction among member states, we adopt a bottom-up approach that sidesteps this metaphysical conundrum. An extended discussion of the pros and cons of the individualistic and the holistic positions of collective agency is beyond the scope of this article, and it is unlikely to settle the matter. A bottom-up approach promises to elucidate the micro–macro link between activities of the member states at the unit-level and effects of organizational agency at the collective level.Footnote ⁷³ It demonstrates how higher-level actors and their properties emerge from interaction among lower-level actors, although the properties of the former may not be easily reducible to the properties and actions of the latter. Think of the physical world, in which water emerges from interaction of oxygen and hydrogen, but has qualities that differ profoundly from those of these two chemicals. Generally, new qualities of higher-level actors are emergent, if they are not merely the result of aggregation, but of social organization.Footnote ⁷⁴

The philosophical concept of supervenience provides an abstract idea of how interaction among member states might produce the collective effect of IO agency. It reflects an individualistic concept of the emergence of organizational agency and comprises a ‘no mystery’ constraint on social facts.Footnote ⁷⁵ Supervenience implies that macro phenomena (of organizational agency) arise from (‘are supervenient on’) events at the micro level. Accordingly, any change at the macro level necessitates a change at the micro level. Yet, not all social phenomena are clearly related (i.e. fully reducible) to one particular configuration of individual actions.Footnote ⁷⁶ List and Spiekermann identify two conditions under which a social phenomenon does not clearly reflect a particular configuration of individual actions.Footnote ⁷⁷ First, a particular higher-level property may be caused in different ways (multiple realizability). For instance, a UNSC resolution which is duly adopted by a majority of UNSC members certainly arises from actions of lower-level actors. However, the exact configuration of members forming the necessary quorum is contingent and irrelevant for the validity of the resolution. Second, organizational decisions may be robust against changes at the micro level (microrealization–robust causal relations). For example, the entry of a new member state or representative does not affect the validity and implications of existing UNSC resolutions.

The general debate on corporate agency in philosophy and sociology tackles some general issues that are highly relevant for the theoretical analysis of IO agency. An important strand of scholarship addresses the question of whether states can act in their own right, or whether their actions are generally made by state officials and citizens on their behalf.Footnote ⁷⁸ From a bottom-up perspective, sociologist James Coleman provides an abstract idea of how interaction among member states may produce organizational action capability.Footnote ⁷⁹ It is compatible with the conception of IOs as governors exercising political authority and has been tentatively employed to examine the external action capability of the European Union.Footnote ⁸⁰ Another strand of scholarship, especially from philosophy, examines the autonomy of group actors. Groups may develop distinct ‘beliefs’ that depict how things are in the world, ‘desires’ that specify how things should be modified through group action, and the capacity to process group beliefs and desires to determine group action.Footnote ⁸¹ Important contributions provide bottom-up ideas on how group actors may develop ‘a mind of their own’Footnote ⁸² from interaction of their members and how IOs might even acquire normative responsibility for their actions and the capacity for adaptive learning.Footnote ⁸³

This debate yields a general conception of core properties of corporate actors. Actors must feature the three characteristics of corporeality, action capability, and autonomy.Footnote ⁸⁴ Corporeality identifies an entity as ‘anchored and located in time and space’.Footnote ⁸⁵ While individuals are identifiable through their physical bodies, corporate actors do not have a physical existence. Still, we need to distinguish them clearly from the rest of the world. Action capability refers to an entity's ability to act in ways that make a difference beyond its own confines. Without this ability, an IO would be irrelevant for world politics. Autonomy implies the existence of some capacity for autonomous decision-making, sometimes called intentionality, without which an actor could not meaningfully choose among available options. It captures the ‘commonsense notion of purposive action’.Footnote ⁸⁶ Similarly, Scharpf argues that actors are generally ‘characterized by their orientations (perceptions and preferences) and by their capabilities’.Footnote ⁸⁷ To theorize the agency of member-dominated IOs, we must demonstrate how corporeality, action capability, and autonomy arise from institutionalized interaction of member states.

The theoretical baseline: Coleman's combining resources model

Coleman's ‘combining resources model of corporate actors’Footnote ⁸⁸ provides a general idea of the emergence of corporate agency and the general purpose of organizations. Coleman seeks to explain the macro-effect of corporate agency from interaction of strategically acting members at the micro level.Footnote ⁸⁹ Although Coleman's model is highly compatible with modern institutional theory, it has not gained much attention in IR theory.

The foundation of organizations is closely associated with the institutionalization of mutually desired cooperation projects. Since IOs are costly and may constrain national policy-making, strategic actors will only establish them if they expect cooperation gains in return. Although organizations may partly eschew control and gradually develop ‘a life of their own’, they are initially established in line with the interests of their constituency to realize mutually beneficial cooperation projects.

Whenever a group of actors pools governance resources and submits them to organized collective management, these actors create an organization in the sociological sense.Footnote ⁹⁰ Pooling of a resource, like development aid funding, means that the member states assign to the organization the right (competence) to use this particular resource and thus sacrifice their previous right to deploy it unilaterally. While pooling is frequently defined as a specific form of (majoritarian) decision-making,Footnote ⁹¹ we conceive of pooling as a distinct feature of institutionalized cooperation.Footnote ⁹² In essence, the very purpose of organizations is to decide on the use of centralized governance resources to realize collectively agreed goals.Footnote ⁹³

Whenever states pool governance resources under corporate control, they must adopt rules and procedures according to which organizational decisions are made. These rules and procedures form the ‘constitution’ of an organizationFootnote ⁹⁴ and establish the organizational decision-making system. Henceforth, organizational decisions on the use of transferred resources are adopted according to this constitution. Organizational rules and procedures may provide that decisions are adopted by the constituent members, by intra-organizational agents, or by specialized decision-making bodies, and they may grant selective participation rights to other actors.

Coleman's combining resources model elucidates that corporate agency is based on a specific form of managing cooperation projects and not on a specific institutional design. The transfer of the right to control governance resources from the constituent actors to the organization is pivotal. Without such transfer, the new organization would be largely meaningless or merely symbolic. Essential is also the establishment of an organizational decision-making system, without which organizational decisions on the use of pooled governance resources could not be made. Everything else is variable, including the nature and extent of pooled resources and the specific procedures according to which organizational decisions are made. The corporate agency perspective is thus compatible with all forms of organizational decision-making. Accordingly, assigning the competence to use pooled resources is an indispensable first step, while delegation of decision-making authority to intra-organizational agents is an optional second step.Footnote ⁹⁵

Coleman's conception provides a first orientation for the enquiry of the three predispositions of organizational agency identified above, namely corporeality, action capability, and autonomy. In the following sub-sections, we examine them separately.

The precondition: IOs as decision-making institutions

To become actors in their own right, IOs must be identifiable as separate institutions of world politics. Only entities that are clearly anchored and located in time and space can exercise agency.Footnote ⁹⁶ This does not necessarily imply physical characteristics. What matters is the institutionalization of IOs and their clear separation from the outside world.

The separate existence of IOs arises from three distinct characteristics. First, the actors that establish an IO form a clearly identifiable group. This group defines membership and associated rights and obligations. IOs are clubs with clear boundaries between members and non-members. Second, the members define, more or less specifically, areas of joint activity. Issues falling within the realm of organizational activity can thus be distinguished from issues and problems located outside this realm. Third, the definition of decision-making procedures separates organizational decisions from all other decisions and activities. Accordingly, IOs may be defined as durable institutions established by states with a clearly delimited membership, a specification of the tasks of cooperation and procedures for making organizational decisions. In contrast to many definitions of IOs,Footnote ⁹⁷ which presuppose a formal treaty or existence of a secretariat, this definition includes both member-dominated and even informal IOs, such as the G-7/8,Footnote ⁹⁸ and highly bureaucratic ones, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, it distinguishes IOs from organizations established by non-state actors and from loose groups, such as ad hoc coalitions or social movements.

Just like any other organization, IOs are ‘goal-directed, boundary-maintaining, activity systems’.Footnote ⁹⁹ IO boundaries are contingent but relatively stable institutional structures. They are based on agreement among members and allow a limited number of actors to focus their attention on a subset of relevant issues pending among them.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Any meaningful cooperation project needs some limitation of the range of issues and participating actors. Accordingly, all actors interested in cooperation prefer maintaining some boundaries, although they may advocate different ones. Attempts to pursue issues located outside an IO mandate are likely to prompt resistance of some members. Consequently, once established, IO boundaries remain stable unless actors can agree on their change.

Interaction among relevant actors inside organizational boundaries is shaped by organizational decision proceduresFootnote ¹⁰¹ and directed at influencing organizational decisions.Footnote ¹⁰² Formal procedures may be complemented by informal rules and practices.Footnote ¹⁰³ Hence, IOs constrain the ways in which states can advocate their preferences. They provide additional spheres of interaction, clearly separated from the rest of world politics. Constituent actors can act both within and outside an IO.

Nothing in this conception is mysterious. An IO emerges as a separate entity of IR entirely from interaction among actors at a lower level of social organization, primarily the member states. These actors establish the IO to realize joint cooperation interests; they define membership, the realm of organizational activity, and decision-making procedures. The IO is identifiable as a separate institution of world politics even if its decision procedures provide that a member state body adopts all decisions, and irrespective of whether this body decides by unanimity or majority. While this basic conception of IOs as decision-making institutions is unlikely to raise major disagreement, it differs profoundly from IO conceptions that emphasize the constitutive role of IO secretariats, on which existing approaches of IO agency are based.

Action capability: gaining efficacy in world politics

To become actors in their own right, IOs must acquire action capability, or what Hofferberth calls ‘efficacy’.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ IOs have action capability, if, and to the degree that, they can influence world politics through their own actions. An entity does not qualify as an actor if it is incapable of performing activities that ‘make a difference’ beyond its confines.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ All current IR actor conceptions presume, at least implicitly, that actors can influence their environment through their own actions. This does not imply that action is successful. What matters is the ability to influence world politics. Actors have agency, even if their action fails or if they choose not to act in a particular situation.

Following Coleman's combining resources model, IOs are equipped with action capability, whenever their members authorize them to make decisions that are intended to be bindingFootnote ¹⁰⁶ or to create effects beyond their confines. Accordingly, both member-dominated IOs and those with extensive intra-organizational agents can gain action capability. IO action capability follows from the right to decide on the use of pooled governance resources, not from the IO's actual possession or ownership of such resources.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Governance resources may include the right to create and amend legal rules, to regulate specific policy areas, to implement joint policies by deploying pooled financial and administrative assets, to adjudicate disputes, to monitor and enforce compliance with international commitments, or to issue recommendations, opinions and interpretations intended to create external effects.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ For example, the UNSC has the right to authorize the legitimate use of force to restore international peace and security, to impose binding international sanctions, and to deploy blue helmet troops in crisis situations.Footnote ¹⁰⁹

Authorizing an IO to adopt decisions on the employment of pooled resources inevitably involves a loss of member state sovereignty.Footnote ¹¹⁰ It changes the default condition, that is, the outcome that occurs if actors cannot reach an organizational decision.Footnote ¹¹¹ As long as states retain control of governance resources, they can employ these resources unilaterally if coordination fails. In contrast, pooled resources cannot be used at all if organizational decision-making is blocked.Footnote ¹¹² Although institutional theory and political authority scholarsFootnote ¹¹³ typically assume that in the absence of an agreed decision members remain free to pursue their own goals with their own means, this does not hold for organizations. For example, development aid funds under national control can be used unilaterally if coordination fails, while funds pooled in an IO can only be allocated by organizational decision and are blocked if no decision can be achieved. In both cases, funds originate from member states, but the default condition differs.

Accordingly, IO action capability arises from a permanent authority relationship between the constituent members and the organization,Footnote ¹¹⁴ known from the debate on international political authority.Footnote ¹¹⁵ The member states authorize the IO to act in certain ways to govern an area of IR and generally accept the legitimacy of organizational decisions. Hence, IO corporate agency requires that the member states continuously support the organization and accept its right to exercise political authority, even if they contest particular decisions or occasionally behave non-compliant.Footnote ¹¹⁶

This raises the question of whether the use of governance resources by an IO reflects genuine IO action, or whether talk about IO action is merely a shortcut for action of its members or relevant individuals like state representatives or international civil servants. Like any other organization, IOs are non-physical entities, which cannot execute physical action by themselves. They cannot negotiate or sign agreements because these activities require physical capabilities. Therefore, Gilpin argues from a methodologically individualist perspective: ‘Only individuals act, even though they may act on behalf of one of these collective social entities’.Footnote ¹¹⁷ Drawing on Hobbes' conception of the Leviathan as an ‘artificial person’, Fleming suggests conceiving of corporate actors as ‘the “owners” of actions – the entities that are responsible for them – rather than the agents that perform the actions’.Footnote ¹¹⁸

We argue that IOs can indeed act in their own right without the assistance of agents, if their action does not require physical activity. A closer look at the authority relationship between an IO and its constituency helps to clarify the nature and limits of IO action capability. Take Resolution 1973 (2011), by which the UNSC established a no-fly zone over Libya and authorized member states to take all necessary measures to enforce it. The resolution was based on UNSC authority under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and triggered particular consequences for states and non-state actors.Footnote ¹¹⁹ It emerged as a joint product of activities of member states and their representatives in the Council, negotiating the resolution text and casting votes. Yet, it is difficult to attribute Council action to the member states. The Council is authorized to adopt legally binding decisions – not a particular group of states or their representatives. Had the same 15 states or their representatives gathered outside the Council framework and reached the same decision, this agreement, although identical in substance, would have had a different effect. As a political statement of a group of countries, it would not have resulted in legitimizing the use of force and would thus not have changed international legal obligations for states and non-state actors around the world. Moreover, the Council member states did not act on behalf of the Council. Their votes represent national foreign policy preferences, possibly of larger groups of UN member states, but not Council interests. Likewise, we cannot attribute Council action to the diplomats, which physically negotiated the resolution text and cast the votes. Certainly, these individuals constitute an important underpinning of Council action.Footnote ¹²⁰ However, ambassadors represent their member states in the Council; they do not act on behalf of the Council.

A clear distinction between genuine IO action and action by some other actor on behalf of the IO is necessary. As non-physical entities, IOs cannot exercise physical activities on their own. For such action, they need the physical resources of individuals that act on their behalf. Here applies Fleming's distinction between IOs as the owners of action and agents executing such action on their behalf.Footnote ¹²¹ Hence, the UNSC president, that is, an individual, who happens to be the representative of the member state in charge of the presidency in a given month, occasionally issues statements ‘on behalf of the Council’.Footnote ¹²² Thus, s/he highlights to act not in a personal role, nor as a representative of his/her own country, but as a Council representative. Likewise, the Council may establish a UN military mission (‘blue helmets’), vest it with the authority to use military force (‘a robust mandate’) and request the UN Secretary General to organize the mission, as it did when establishing the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) by Resolution 1590 (2006). However, the Council cannot conduct military action on the ground. It delegates this task to soldiers assigned to the mission by their states. When exercising military power, these individuals act on behalf of the Security Council (or the UN), not in their own name, nor on behalf of their states, nor on behalf of 15 states and their representatives that were members of the Council at the time of decision-making. By delegating the execution of action to these individuals, the Council becomes a principal and establishes a new authority relationship. The delegation contract firmly embeds the soldiers in a tight hierarchical command structure. Therefore, we can distinguish between military action of these individuals as agents acting on behalf of the Council and their individual action, possibly disobeying orders.Footnote ¹²³ This is also true for IO staff. Had the UN member states authorized the Council to establish a standing army directly employed by the UN, it would not have to ask member states to assign troops for military missions. However, keeping peace on the ground in a crisis area would still require activity of individuals acting on behalf of the Council.

While many IOs, whether bureaucratic or member-dominated, are empowered to make binding decisions, their action capability varies greatly. To assess their action capability, we must investigate their authorization to make decisions intended to create external effects. For instance, the tremendous power of the World Bank and the IMF originates rather from their huge financial assets, which they can hand out to finance development projects or to provide financial assistance,Footnote ¹²⁴ than from their extensive secretariats. The WTO is inter alia authorized to decide on new members and on temporary waivers of obligations of countries in crisis,Footnote ¹²⁵ thus changing the implications of world trade rules. Some treaty management organizations established under multilateral environmental agreements can make far-reaching decisions, such as changing treaty obligations or establishing funding schemes.Footnote ¹²⁶ Even the World Summits (G-7/8 and G-20) may gain selective action capability, when member states use them to direct activities of other IOs.Footnote ¹²⁷

Accordingly, member-dominated IOs can gain the capability to act in their own right. This capability arises from their authority to adopt decisions that commit other international actors and create effects on world politics. Certainly, IO action capability is based (‘supervenes’) on the actions of lower level actors empowering an IO to make relevant decisions. Moreover, IO decisions arise from activities of lower-level actors, for example, voting of member states. However, they have an emergent quality. For instance, UNSC decisions effectively change the state of international law. This new quality cannot immediately be derived from the negotiating and voting activities of the member states, and it is certainly not an aggregate of these activities. While IO action capability can emerge without the presence or activity of a secretariat, IO secretariats may contribute to all stages of IO action. They may assist, and possibly influence, the preparation of IO decisions in their own name. Secretariats and their staff may implement IO decisions. They may also be authorized to adopt secondary decisions on behalf of the IO.

Instead of locating IO action capability in the activities of intra-organizational agents, we locate it in an IO's authority to adopt decisions. Our concept demonstrates how even member-dominated IOs can acquire action capability and act as governors in IR. Thus, our conception differs fundamentally from the IO-as-bureaucracy perspective and from the principal–agent model and fills part of the conceptual gap identified above.

Autonomy: towards a specific organizational rationale

To gain agency, IOs require autonomy. Purposive action presumes the ability to adopt decisions according to one's own logic.Footnote ¹²⁸ We argue that even member-dominated IOs can gain a considerable amount of autonomy and develop specific rationales that are typical for organizations.Footnote ¹²⁹

IOs are autonomous if, and to the degree that, their policies cannot be explained simply as a compromise of their member states.Footnote ¹³⁰ This definition reflects the widely shared understanding of organizational autonomy in political science. Autonomy traditionally denotes the distance of an actor from immediate control by other actors. IO scholars conceive of the autonomy of international bureaucracies and other intra-organizational agents in terms of their ability to act independently from member state governmentsFootnote ¹³¹ or to create undesired agency slack.Footnote ¹³² Administrative science scholars argue that organizational autonomy involves a shift of decision-making capacity from external actors to a corporate body, which reduces the extent of ex ante instructions and regulations.Footnote ¹³³ Hence, organizational autonomy reflects the ability of IOs to develop distinct organizational rationales that shape and affect organizational decisions.

Although organizational autonomy may arise from IO secretariats or other intra-organizational agents, it can also originate from institutional rules and procedures that govern organizational decision processes. These opportunity structures shape and constrain action within intra-organizational decision processes and may give rise to distinct organizational rationales, which affect IO decision-making and resulting IO decisions.

Simple formal decision procedures affect the aggregation of member state preferences. Member-dominated IOs adopt decisions either by majority voting or by consensus/unanimity. Even the most basic decision rules create some organizational influence on collective decisions because no decision rule can fully represent the constellation of power and interests prevailing outside the IO. When determining decision rules, members face the ‘problem of organization’,Footnote ¹³⁴ that is, an awkward trade-off between control and flexibility.Footnote ¹³⁵ Unanimity protects them from undesired organizational decisions, but risks that pooled resources remain unused. Majority voting or delegating decisions to intra-organizational agents flexibilize organizational activities, but involve the risk that pooled resources are used in undesired ways.

Substantive rules and complex procedures introduce systematic bias into organizational decision-making and create distinct organizational rationales. At least three sources are relevant for member-dominated IOs. First, IOs are goal-oriented organizations.Footnote ¹³⁶ Member states are unlikely to vest them with action capability without some specification of purpose.Footnote ¹³⁷ Accordingly, IOs embody a clear idea of how world affairs should be changed, which is a prerequisite for purposive action.Footnote ¹³⁸ Purpose is reflected in deeply engrained fundamental organizational norms that introduce a selection bias into organizational decision processes.Footnote ¹³⁹ For instance, the WTO has the purpose of promoting a liberal world trade system; and the climate change regime aims at stabilizing the global climate. IOs privilege organizational action promoting these goals and discourage adverse action. Second, IOs are heavily path-dependent.Footnote ¹⁴⁰ Organizational path dependence occurs if preceding organizational decisions shape subsequent ones. Past decisions lock in previous agreement and stabilize collective choice in indeterminate decision situations with multiple equilibria.Footnote ¹⁴¹ Specified criteria guide subsequent organizational decision processes and mitigate the risk of arbitrary decisions. Hence, IOs ‘generate a history of judgements that is on record’Footnote ¹⁴², which shapes future decisions. Third, IO decisions frequently arise from multi-stage decision processes, in which two or more IO bodies collaborate.Footnote ¹⁴³ Most IOs comprise specialized committees that produce scientific, technical, or legal advice and prepare decision proposals.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ These committees introduce expertise into the decision process and confront final decision-making bodies with expert-based recommendations. The more organizational decisions are systematically influenced by these factors, the more they deviate from aggregated member state preferences.

A stylized example demonstrates that decision criteria might dissociate organizational decisions from member state preferences, thus reflecting a distinct organizational rationale. It plays an important role in philosophical thinking about group agency.Footnote ¹⁴⁵ Suppose that an IO body with three members deciding on a new policy measure on climate change shall adopt the measure if it finds, first, that the measure is technically feasible and, second, that it is likely to be effective. Now imagine that the three members conceive of these issues as follows:

Two of the three members reject either technical feasibility or effectiveness and therefore prefer not to adopt the proposed measure. Accordingly, the group would not adopt the measure if the organizational decision were based on preference aggregation (right column). However, two of the three members appraise the measure as technically feasible and two of them consider it effective. Consequently, the group would adopt the measure if the decision were based on the two premises (bottom row). Accordingly, criteria-based decisions may be fully dissociated from members' individual preferences, although they originate entirely from their input. So, ‘knowing what the group members individually think about some proposition does not generally tell us how the group as a whole adjudicates that proposition’.Footnote ¹⁴⁶

Why should rational actors accept such potentially far-reaching IO autonomy? After all, member states are likely to establish member-dominated IOs and member-dominated decision processes to retain control of IO activities and avoid sovereignty losses arising from delegation to intra-organizational agents. Partly, IO autonomy emerges as an inevitable side effect of the collective choice to establish an IO to manage a desired cooperation project. Whether organizational decisions are made by unanimity, majority, or delegation, actors always create some organizational autonomy. Likewise, the lasting nature of IOs inevitably creates some path-dependence, so that previous organizational decisions shape subsequent ones. Yet, IO autonomy may also be deliberately established. It may strengthen IO capacity to overcome stalemate among member states, reinforce mutual commitment to agreement, avoid arbitrary decisions, and introduce expertise to the decision process. Generally, rational actors can accept IO autonomy, as long as they consider IO membership as more beneficial than non-membership. This does not mean that IO members appreciate all IO decisions alike, nor that they comply with all IO decisions.

While most IOs, whether bureaucratic or member-dominated, gain some autonomy, the nature, extend, and effects of their autonomy varies greatly. To assess IO autonomy, we must investigate the organizational influence on collective decisions. For example, the UNSC has developed practices of humanitarian intervention because ‘every Council resolution that invokes a “threat to international peace and security” helps to define that phrase’ and ‘acts as a kind of informal precedent’Footnote ¹⁴⁷ for future cases. UNSC sanctions committees tend to develop consistent decisions based on precedents and on the general rules of UNSC sanctions resolutions.Footnote ¹⁴⁸ Likewise, many multilateral environmental institutions, such as those managing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and FaunaFootnote ¹⁴⁹ and the Montreal ProtocolFootnote ¹⁵⁰ comprise criteria-based decision processes that avoid straightforward aggregation of member state preferences and create distinct organizational rationales. Even the G-20 Economic Summit has established indicative guidelines to direct the ‘mutual assessment process’ identifying economic imbalances that constrain member states in subsequent decision situations.Footnote ¹⁵¹

As a result, member-dominated IOs can gain autonomy that influences organizational decisions and creates a specific organizational rationale. Organizational autonomy arises from rules and procedures and thus ‘supervenes’ on member states' (past) decisions. While simple formal decision rules, whether unanimity or majority voting, affect the aggregation of member state preferences, substantive rules and complex procedures introduce a systematic bias into organizational decision processes. Fundamental organizational norms reflect organizational purpose and privilege compatible claims and proposals, while discouraging incompatible ones. Every decision must coherently fit into an ever growing set of previous decisions. Complex decision procedures involving several IO bodies confront decision-makers with organizationally produced expert perspectives and create some reflective capacity of IOs. All these procedural constraints introduce a systematic selection bias into organizational decision processes and create distinct organizational rationales. They dissociate organizational decisions gradually from member state preferences and produce an emergent ‘collective rationality’.Footnote ¹⁵² While organizational culture is widely recognized for IO secretariats, it is also highly relevant for member-dominated IOs. For instance, the ‘shareholder norms’ of the Global Environment Facility contrast with the more egalitarian norms of the UN system,Footnote ¹⁵³ while the World Bank and the UN have distinct perspectives on development policy,Footnote ¹⁵⁴ although the memberships of these IOs are largely identical. Moreover, member-dominated IOs may ‘learn’ by collectively evaluating past action and adjusting institutional structures accordingly.Footnote ¹⁵⁵ While IO secretariats are not a prerequisite for these effects, they can reinforce them. They tend to invoke organizational purpose, valid procedures, decision criteria, or precedents, and further dissociate IO decision-making from simple aggregation of member state preferences

Our conception locates the sources of IO autonomy in the institutional structures that shape and constrain member state activities and organizational decisions. Once again, it differs fundamentally from the IO-as-bureaucracy perspective and from the principal–agent model, which locate IO autonomy exclusively in the activities of intra-organizational agents. Moreover, our conception complements the narrow perspective of political authority scholars on formal decision proceduresFootnote ¹⁵⁶ with a set of even more important sources of organizational autonomy arising from substantive rules and complex procedures.