Taking a rationalist approach to institutions as equilibria, I develop a critical perspective on whether and when intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) promote peaceful change. I challenge the standard view that cooperation through IGOs is necessarily “peaceful” by tightening the definition of peaceful change to include not only being nonviolent and voluntary but also being noncoercive. Whether voluntary cooperation is peaceful now depends not only on the means used and end point of change but also on its starting point. Whenever prevailing institutions overly favor (previously) powerful states, seemingly cooperative change within IGOs entails implicit elements of coercion. This is especially true of formal IGOs (FIGOs) whose rules and agency are tightly tied to the interests of the powerful. By contrast, the greater flexibility of informal IGOs (IIGOs) enables them to promote change that is more inclusive of the interests of all concerned. Their greater operational capacity may give FIGOs a comparative advantage for adapting international order – and thus for peaceful change when the international order is just. But IIGOs are more effective for promoting peaceful change when larger transformational change of the international order is needed.

Scholars often conflate the concepts of pooling (how states make collective decisions) and delegation (authorizing an international body to act) in examining the authority of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). We clarify the difference by showing how states “soft pool” decision-making through informal intergovernmental organizations (IIGOs) without creating legal obligations or delegating authority. IIGOs such as the G-groups are growing in prevalence and importance because soft pooling allows states to make collective decisions that are politically binding in nonlegal ways. We examine organizational characteristics of IIGOs that allow states to minimize sovereignty costs while cooperating through soft pooling – including the use of consensus to express shared expectations through declarations and memoranda of understanding and administrative structures such as rotating chairs to avoid delegating to an independent secretariat. We review these understudied organizational alternatives, explaining how soft pooling makes IIGOs authoritative even as states retain sovereignty.

Informal modes of cooperation such as transgovernmental networks (TGNs) and informal international governmental organizations (IIGOs) have been proliferating rapidly at the international level. Most efforts to explain the rise of these arrangements as complements to or substitutes for formal international governmental organizations (FIGOs) have focused on the demand side of when states prefer to create and use informal over formal institutions. Here attention shifts to the supply side and how changing transportation and communication technologies have made new forms of cooperative arrangements possible. While these changes have facilitated the rise of both TGNs and IIGOs, the chapter focuses in particular on how they enable the combination of TGNs and IIGOs to work together. The “Hierarchy plus Networks” (HpN) model shows how quicker transportation possibilities for diplomats coupled with the instantaneous exchange of email messages and of attached documents make it much more feasible for state leaders to cooperate directly. Internationally, this allows states to (sometimes) bypass traditional FIGOs; domestically, it enables concentration of power close to executive leadership while (sometimes) bypassing foreign policy ministries in favor of direct international engagement among line departments. The chapter examines the emergence of the Proliferation Security Initiative to illustrate the argument.

Abstract

This chapter develops a conceptual framework for analyzing orchestration, a mode of governance widely used by international organizations (IGOs) and other governance actors, but rarely identified or analyzed. IGOs engage in orchestration when they enlist intermediary actors on a voluntary basis, by providing them with ideational and material support, to address target actors in pursuit of IGO governance goals. Orchestration is thus both indirect (because the IGO acts through intermediaries) and soft (because the IGO lacks control over intermediaries). These features distinguish orchestration from traditional hierarchical governance, which addresses targets directly through hard instruments; from governance through collaboration with targets, which is direct but soft; and from delegation, which is indirect (because the IGO works through an agent) but hard (because the IGO can control the agent). The chapter elaborates the concept of orchestration, identifies common patterns and techniques, and advances hypotheses regarding the conditions under which governance actors in general and IGOs in particular can be expected to rely on orchestration.

Introduction: orchestration and international organizations

IGOs have ambitious governance goals but moderate governance capacity. IGOs are charged with, among many other tasks, containing the use of violence, facilitating free trade, advancing economic development, fighting organized crime, promoting human rights, improving labor standards, defending biodiversity and providing relief after natural disasters and armed conflicts. Yet IGOs’ ability to govern state and non-state behavior in pursuit of these goals is constrained by restrictive treaty mandates, close member state oversight and limited financial and administrative resources. In brief, IGOs often lack the capabilities to perform the roles they have been nominally allocated.

We started this project with a puzzle and a hunch. The puzzle was whether and how IGOs can have an impact on international governance even though they lack the authority and resources normally seen as necessary for successful governance. The hunch was that this could be understood by investigating IGOs’ use of “soft” governance techniques to mobilize third parties to assist in achieving IGO goals.

In the introductory chapter of this volume, “Orchestration: global governance through intermediaries,” we theorize our initial hunch, both in general terms and for the special circumstances of IOs. We introduce the concept of orchestration, a mode of governance that is soft and indirect; orchestration thus stands in contrast to modes of governance that are direct and/or hard, including hierarchy, collaboration and delegation. In orchestration, one actor, the orchestrator, enlists the voluntary assistance of a second actor, the intermediary, to govern a third actor, the target, in line with the orchestrator’s goals. We refer to this as the O-I-T model of orchestration. We focus in this volume on the special case in which the orchestrator is an IGO. The introductory chapter introduces six hypotheses regarding the conditions under which governance actors, and IGOs specifically, are likely to engage in orchestration.