Are international organisations in decline? An absolute and relative perspective on institutional change

Abstract

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Reimagining justice to build a better future for Latin American food policy

“…One of its reports gives an extensive explanation of the millionaires in the region but does not explain how this information helps food policies or what use it is to the indigenous peoples of the region if historically it is the actions of these millionaires that subsume rural and indigenous societies. This point projects future obsolescence of international organizations that will need to justify their existence in a changing world (Debre & Dijkstra, 2023).…”

The show must go on: The EU's quest to sustain multilateral institutions since 2016

“…This includes expanding the mandate and scope of existing multilateral institutions (Hall 2016; Hooghe et al 2019; Koremenos et al 2001) and establishing new institutions. Stagnation in light of new challenges effectively implies a decline of multilateral institutions (Debre and Dijkstra 2022). The EU has an intrinsic interest in showcasing the benefits of multilateral institutions to counteract trends towards competitive multipolarity at the expense of principled cooperation.…”

Institutional leadership during tough times

“…As discussed in the previous section, IO decline is empirically identifiable in the loss of crucial functions of the IO. As such, the inoperability of the WTO Appellate Body, once dubbed the 'crown jewel' of the organization and representing the most important global court for the settlement of trade disputes under the WTO framework (Bown and Keynes, 2020), clearly reflects a case of an institutional decline following a challenge (Debre and Dijkstra, 2022). The WTO Appellate Body is therefore a case in point for examining the effects of institutional factors in the process that goes from challenge to institutional decline, and the role played by institutional leaders in (failing at) tackling the underlying challenge.…”

“…The expectation here is that the absence of those conditions (institutional authority, bureaucratic capacity, and leadership competence) will result in the inability of institutional leaders to direct the formulation and implementation of their IO's a response strategy against a challenge, thus risking institutional decline or death. Decline is understood here as a state in which IOs become unable to perform their delegated functions, experience decreased policy output, lose focality in relation to alternative institutions through which members prefer addressing issues, and membership withdrawal (Debre and Dijkstra, 2022;Hooghe et al, 2017;Pevehouse et al, 2020;Volgy et al, 2020;Zürn, 2018). Institutional death simply reflects the IO's dissolution.…”