1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910827571603321

Autore

Barnett Michael N. <1960->

Titolo

Rules for the world : international organizations in global politics / / Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, NY, : Cornell University Press, 2004

ISBN

0-8014-6510-9

1-322-50292-7

0-8014-6516-8

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (241 p.)

Classificazione

ML 1000

Altri autori (Persone)

FinnemoreMartha

Disciplina

341.2

Soggetti

International agencies

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [207]-222) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Bureaucratizing world politics -- International organizations as bureaucracies -- Expertise and power at the International Monetary Fund -- Defining refugees and voluntary repatriation at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees -- Genocide and the peacekeeping culture at the United Nations -- The legitimacy of an expanding global bureaucracy.

Sommario/riassunto

Rules for the World provides an innovative perspective on the behavior of international organizations and their effects on global politics. Arguing against the conventional wisdom that these bodies are little more than instruments of states, Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore begin with the fundamental insight that international organizations are bureaucracies that have authority to make rules and so exercise power. At the same time, Barnett and Finnemore maintain, such bureaucracies can become obsessed with their own rules, producing unresponsive, inefficient, and self-defeating outcomes. Authority thus gives international organizations autonomy and allows them to evolve and expand in ways unintended by their creators.Barnett and Finnemore reinterpret three areas of activity that have prompted extensive policy debate: the use of expertise by the IMF to expand its intrusion into national economies; the redefinition of the category "refugees" and decision to repatriate by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; and the UN Secretariat's failure to recommend an



intervention during the first weeks of the Rwandan genocide. By providing theoretical foundations for treating these organizations as autonomous actors in their own right, Rules for the World contributes greatly to our understanding of global politics and global governance.