A Selected Bibliography on Regionalism and Regional Arrangements

This review essay will focus on four central questions which the author believes to be closely related to the problem of progress in the study of international organizations. These questions, narrowed to fit the scope of this essay, are the following: 1) What has been the role of international organizations in the national security strategy of the United States; 2) what has been the impact of the United States in the international organizations of which it is a member; 3) what has been the impact of participation in international organizations on the range of United States choices and methods in the foreign policy area; 4) what impact have changes in the shape of the international political system had upon United States participation in international organizations and upon those organizations' impact on the United States. This analysis will concentrate only on studies relevant to these themes.

United States National Security Policy and International Organizations: A Critical View of the Literature

Kay¹

1969

The rise and fall of international organization as a field of study

Rochester

1986

166

Have scholars properly understood, anticipated, predicted, and in any way helped to shape international organization developments since 1945? Or have they merely reported on events as they unfolded, shifting their research foci from one momentary concern to another in response to the ebb and flow of conditions in the world around them? One pattern that characterizes the maturation of the field of international organization in the postwar era is the steady disengagement of international organization scholars from the study of organizations, so that today one must question whether such a field exists any longer except in name only. The discussion traces the rise and fall of international organization as a field of study, first describing the origins and the evolution of the field, then analyzing the failure of international organization scholars generally to anticipate or shape international organization developments, and finally offering some suggestions for reviving the field and the institutions themselves which are its raison d'être.

The Challenge of Regionalism

Haas¹

1958

The organization of the world's ninety-odd states into various systems of competing and overlapping regional associations has now been a fact of international relations for over ten years. It cannot be said that as a fact it has gone unnoticed. On the contrary, regionalism has given rise to a floodtide of literature bitterly critical of the development or determined to justify it as a necessity for world security and a support for a sagging UN structure.