BARNETT, Michael & FINNEMORE, Martha.

Rules for the world: international

organizations in global politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.

1
BUREAUCRATIZING WORLD POLITICS

IOs current role. They [International Organizations] make authoritative decisions that reach
every corner of the globe and affect areas as public as governmental spending and as private
as reproductive rights. They now work extensively in domestic governance issues,
overseeing matters that once used to be the prerogative of states. p. 1
IOs and the IRT. The IRTs (International Relations Theory) treat the IOs as hand or a means
for the states action in global politics. IOs do what states want. Theory focus on statism e
functionalism. Thats not real: IOs, in many situations, do what they want to do, even going
against their patron states; they are autonomous actors. Organizations routinely behave in
ways unanticipated by their creators and not formally sanctioned by their members. pp. 2-3
IOs as bureaucracies. [] We ground our analysis on the fact that IOs are bureaucracies.
p. 3
Bureaucracy. [] Bureaucracy is a distinctive social form of authority with its own internal
logic and behavioral proclivities. [] [Authority autonomy]. Bureaucracies exercise power
in the world through their ability to make impersonal rules. They then use these rules not only
to regulate but also to constitute and construct the social world. [] Bureaucracies can
become obsessed with their own rules at the expense of their primary missions in ways that
produce inefficient and self-defeating outcomes. [] Bureaucracies adapt to new
circumstances and challenges []. p. 3
Behavior aspects of IOs. As bureaucracies, IOs have four aspects of behavior: 1. autonomy:
as the states, IOs possess authority too; authority is the ability of one actor to use institutional
and discursive resources to induce deference from others; [] IOs can have authority both
because of the missions they pursue and because of the ways they pursue them; autonomy
comes from authority; for traditional IR theorists (neorealists and neoliberals), only states can
have authority, because only states have sovereignty; 2. power: accordingly to neoliberals
and neorealists, IOs uses two tools of power [which serves to shape state behavior]: material
coercion (or inducements) and information. IOs are powerful not so much because they
possess material and informational resources but, more fundamentally, because they use
their authority to orient action and create social reality. IOs do more than just manipulate
information; they analyze and interpret, investing information with meaning that orients and
prompts action, thereby transforming information into knowledge. As authorities, IOs can
use their knowledge to exercise power in two ways. First, they can regulate the social world,
altering the behavior of states and nonstate actors by changing incentives for their decisions.
Second, as bureaucracies, IOs exercise power as they use their knowledge and authority
not only to regulate what currently exists but also to constitute the world, creating new
interests, actors, and social activities; 3. dysfunction: propensity of IOs for undesirable and
self-defeating behavior; OIs fails because: (i) they have not enough money, designed to
satisfy political rather than performance criteria; (ii) they staff is chosen accordingly to
political, ideological and nationality criteria, not merit; (iii) they are too much specialized,
becoming obsessed with their own rules and captives of parochial outlooks and internal
culture; we call that dysfunction type of pathologies; 4. change: changes in IOs do not
derive from changing demands of strong states, as conventional IR approaches think; IOs
are not black boxes that respond to external stimuli [] in an obvious or unproblematic way.
Over time these organizations develop strong bureaucratic cultures that profoundly shape
the way external demands or shocks are interpreted and the kinds of responses the
organization will entertain and, eventually, implement. Second, because of these cultures,
change in IOs is almost always highly path dependent, Bureaucracies encode experience
into their governing rules and standard operating procedures, which strongly discourage
some types of change and make others more likely. [] Finally, our constitutive argument
provides insights into the [] phenomenon of mission creep in bureaucracies, including IOs.
IOs missions may expand simply because states give them more tasks, but [] there is an
 unintended internal logical at work here as well. As IOs go about their business of defining
tasks and implementing mandates, they tend to do so in ways that permit, or even require,
more intervention by more IOs. pp. 3-9
[In the sequence, the author anticipate the structure and content of the next chapters. That
is not important.]

2
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AS BUREAUCRACIES
I. BUREAUCRACIES

Four central features. 1. hierarchy: all sphere of competence has a superior to respond; 2.
continuity: an exclusive career, with payments and progress; 3. impersonality: work under
rules and operating procedures; 4. expertise: emphasis on knowledge and merit. pp. 17-18
Bureaucratic rules. Impersonal rules are the building blocks of a bureaucracy and figure
prominently in any explanation of bureaucratic behavior. It have four effects: 1. it prescribe
action for actors both inside and outside the organization; 2. rules produce a world view,
defining, categorizing, and classifying the world; 3. rules create the social world, making it
open to his intervention; 4. rules define identity, especially the identity of the organization. p.
18
Bureaucratic culture. [] the solutions that are produced by groups of people to meet
specific problems they face in common. These solutions become institutionalized,
remembered and passed on as the rules, rituals, and values of the group. Culture creates
identity. p. 19
Rules and action. Rules do not determine action; they are just a component of the decision.
Inside an organization, rules are interpreted in different ways accordingly to the different
sectors and officers. pp. 19-20

II. THE AUTHORITY AND AUTONOMY OF IOS

IOs and its sources of authority. There are many sources: rational-legal authority, moral
standing, expertise, and delegated tasks. The authority always requires some level of
consent, because authority is conferred. p. 20
[] Rational-legal authority gives IOs their basic form and behavioral vocabulary, but the
form requires some substantive content. Bureaucracy must serve some social purpose. It is
the values and the people they serve that make bureaucracies, including IOs, respected and
authoritative. p. 22

Delegated Authority

States delegate authority. [] IOs are authorities because states have put them in charge
of certain tasks. To have success on those tasks, IOs need to have autonomy: from authority
comes autonomy. Problematic issue: [] States often delegate to IOs tasks which they
cannot perform themselves and about which they have limited knowledge. Mandate to IOs
are often vague, broad, or conflicting. p. 22

Moral Authority

IOs are often created to embody, serve, or protect some widely shared set of principles and
often use this status as a basis of authoritative action. They frequently claim to be the
representative of the communitys interests or the defender of the values of the international
community, and such a presentational stance helps to generate some autonomy.
Sometimes, IOs fight their patron states in name of moral principles of the international
community. p. 23

Expert Authority
 [] Specialized knowledge derived from training or experience persuades us to confer on
experts, and the bureaucracies that house them, the authority to make judgments and solve
problems. p. 24
Like delegated and moral authority, expert authority also enables IOs to be powerful by
creating the appearance of depoliticization, emphasizing the objective nature of their
knowledge. p. 24

Types of authority. An actor can be an authority or can be invested in authority. [] IO

authority is intensified to the extent that others perceive the IO as being both an authority and
in authority. p. 25
Authority comes from all sources of authority, in a together way. [] these different bases
[of authority] mingle to generate the authority of the IO. p. 26
Types of IOs autonomy in face of states. 1. IOs may exercise autonomy to further state
interests; 2. IOs may act where states are indifferent; 3. IOs may fail to act and therefore
fail to carry out state demands; 4. IOs may act in ways that run against state interests; 5.
IOs may change the broader normative environment and states perceptions of their own
preferences so that they are consistent with IO preferences. pp. 27-28

III. THE POWER OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Authority and power. Authority confers power. [] authority enables them [IOs] to use
discursive and institutional resources to induce other to defer to their judgment. Defer could
be understood whether as acceptance or submission. Authority, them power, is produced
through social relations. p. 29
Power. [] we define power as the production, in and through social relations, of effects
that shape the capacities of actors to determine their own circumstances and fate. p. 29
Power, information and knowledge. The heart of bureaucratic power [] is control based on
knowledge, specifically on information, that is, what information we should get, how we
interpret that information, and what information we will expose to the public or not.
Essentially, is about transforming information into knowledge, that is, to construct
information in ways that give it meaning. Knowledge can be used either as regulative or as
constitutive. [] By regulative effects, we mean the ability of an actor to manipulate
incentives to shape the behavior of another actor. By constitutive effects, we mean the
ability to create, define, and map social reality pp. 29-31
Using the power. By using their authority, knowledge, and rules, IOs (1) classify the world,
creating categories of problems, actors, and action; (2) fix meaning in the social world; and
(3) articulate and diffuse new norms and rules.

Classification of the World

IOs classify and categorize peoples and their needs, problems and their solutions,
international issues and their governance aspects etc. pp. 31-32

The Fixing of Meanings

IOs can fix meanings in ways that orient action and establish boundaries for acceptable
action. E.g.: definitions of development and security. To give meaning, IOs use frames.
Frames are specific metaphors, symbolic representations, and cognitive cues used to
render or cast behavior and events in an evaluative mode and to suggest alternative modes
of action. pp. 32-33

Diffusion of Norms

IOs do not just create norms and values, but they either do help to spread them. p. 33
IV. PATHOLOGIES OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

[] Dysfunction is always a matter of degree, perspective, and kind. p. 35

Dimensions of dysfunction. Dysfunction can be internal or external, cultural or material. (i)
material internal: competition within the IOs, among their members, in search for material
resources; it is about politics; (ii) material external: competition outside the IOs, which states
dispute influence and power over the IO; (iii) cultural external: first, there is the search for
legitimacy rather than efficiency; second, there are contradictory principles governing actors
action, like human rights, markets, and democracy; (iv) cultural internal: the pathological
behavior; two types: (a) norms and rules create routines which can obscure overall missions
and larger social goals; (b) specialization limit bureaucrats field of vision and create
subcultures that are distinct from those of the large environment and compartmentalization
creates sectorial frameworks sometimes distinct from those of the larger organization,
complicating the action of the IO. pp. 36-39
Types of pathologies. Five types, all of them present in some degree: (i) irrationality of
rationalization: rationalization in an extreme level; (ii) universalism: exaggeration at
generating universal rules and universal categories; (iii) normalization of deviance:
normalization of the exception rules; (iv) organizational insulation: the lack of feedback
from those that created IOs and from those the IOs serve creates parochial world views; (v)
cultural contestation: division of labor inside IOs creates different internal cultures, which
one disputing prevalence above others. pp. 39-41

V. ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Dimensions of change. Like pathologies, changes have the same dimensions of analysis: (i)
material internal: organizations search minimizing their dependence, both from resources
and others organizations; internal political disputes provokes or organizational change; (ii)
material external: demand for power and desire for cooperation drive change in
organizations and rules; (iii) cultural external: changes in IOs, which always search for
external legitimacy, derive from shifts in the regulatory and normative patterns in the
environment; (iv) cultural internal: changes come from interpretation and practical use of
norms and rules that actors on IOs give to them; organizations need to adapt and to expand.
pp. 42-43
Profusion of IOs. The appearance of so many IOs in the last century did not happen by
accident. It occurred because states and nonstate actors looked to international
organizations to fulfill certain functions and purposes. p. 44

6
THE LEGITIMACY OF AN EXPANDING GLOBAL BUREAUCRACY
I. ORGANIZATIONAL EVOLUTION AND EXPANSION

CONTINUAR. NO VI, A PRINCPIO, UTILIDADE PARA RESPONDER S QUESTES. .

p. 1

II. LEGITIMATE GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND UNDEMOCRATIC LIBERALISM

ESTE TPICO PARECE TER ALGO MAIS A VER COM AS QUESTES.