International Institutions in Contemporary Global Politics

A new trend in the organizational structure of multilateral institutions is the emergence of new dimensions or components in their activities due to the attention they pay to such target audiences as the expert community, women, young people, small- and medium-sized enterprises and civil society. Lack of democratic legitimacy is a problem that must be grappled with – not only for the European Union as an elitist project, but also for other multilateral organizations that perform regulatory functions. This can be achieved through involving individual members or delegations of national parliaments of their member states in their activities.

The transformational trends in the modern world order include, on the one hand, a long-term polycentric trend and, on the other, a clear outline of a new U.S.–China bipolarity. These are leading towards a restructuring of the international system, affecting global governance dynamics and the activities of international institutions – some of which (the United Nations and the World Trade Organization) have set themselves the tasks of reform, while others are expanding their institutional format and their areas of activity.

What is more, global problems that international institutions have effectively been established to handle create new incentives for multilateral cooperation, as well as new contradictions between states, thus exacerbating competition and promoting differences in world development and global governance issues. We cannot deny the existence of the de-globalization trend that emerged during the global financial crisis and got a boost during the COVID-19 pandemic, nor can we ignore the bias towards national concerns and foreign policy imperatives. At the same time, the international community has also received a number of positive signals. For instance, at the Glasgow Climate Summit in November 2021, the United States and China, the world’s two principal greenhouse gas emissions “culprits,” signed a declaration to take action to counter climate change.

Amid economic and political globalization, a distinguishing feature of the contemporary international system has to do with the growing number and variety of non-state actors. A special place among these belongs to international (multilateral) institutions, which, in addition to informational and communicative, carry out regulatory functions. This concerns not only international intergovernmental organizations (such as the United Nations) and non-governmental entities (such as the International Committee of the Red Cross) but also organizational structures that are considered international organizations sui generis. These are informal forums of global governance (G7, G20) and other quasi-organizations (inter-parliamentary institutions, inter-country formats such as BRICS), intergovernmental and non-governmental international conferences, regional integration groups (the European Union, ASEAN, sub-regional integration initiatives) as well as such novel integration formats as mega-regional agreements (the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership).

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State-centric approaches to international relations, such as political realism and neorealism, treat international institutions as secondary to states, which are reaffirmed as the main actors of international affairs. Consequently, they do not pay proper attention to the issues of functioning, autonomy, legitimacy and effectiveness of these institutions. However, the indisputable academic achievements of organizational theory and constructivism—in particular, sociological institutionalism [1] and the spatial approach [2]—have allowed researchers a new perspective on various international institutions, viewing them as social organisms, organizational fields and transnational political spaces of communication and interaction. Scholars study issues of organizational management and their interaction both among themselves and with the international environment, institutional structure, image, culture, identity and transformation factors.

In the last 15 years, the so-called managerial concepts of international organizations have also gained traction. They define international organizations as institutions of cooperation between states contributing to the resolution of common tasks to improve the global system. Another popular idea is the “agora concept”, conceptualization of public space as a venue where problems of international importance are discussed and may be resolved [3].

The constructivist and spatial aspects of the analysis of international institutions are becoming even more appropriate due to the emerging global governance system [4], understood as resolving global problems (described as “major challenges” in Russia’s strategic postures); managing global risks related to threats to nature, human health and nutrition, sustainable development, balanced global financial system; and achieving common goals through the concerted efforts of states and organizational structures, including international institutions.

Traditionally, international institutions cannot be viewed as legitimate without member states consenting to their actions. New approaches imply that international non-governmental institutions are by nature relatively independent both administratively and functionally, and those established by states gain greater autonomy as they evolve and enhance the supranational component of their economic and political governance model (as, for instance, the European Union does) and thereby their growing agency in global politics. This confirms the conclusions of many researchers concerning the current trend towards the crisis of a state as a social institution and an international relations actor.

The most apt and succinct definition, proposed by Russian economist and European integration specialist Olga Butorina, describes regional integration as “a model of a conscious and active participation by a group of states in the processes of global stratification produced by globalization.” Its main goal is to create a successful stratum, that is, to strengthen the standing of an alliance in those areas that are particularly important at a given stage of globalization. The objective of each individual state is to ensure the most favourable strategic prospects for itself. Essentially, integration allows participants to maximize the benefits of globalization while limiting its negative impact. Integration is intended to resolve regional development problems.

In addition to resolving international crisis situations, international organizations, international conferences and exclusive clubs set themselves the goal of formulating global challenges and searching for collective answers and solutions to world problems and global development issues. Such problems directly affect most countries and peoples and are augmented by globalization processes per se, such as growing economic and political interdependence and the systemic nature of their effect on regional and national processes. These problems, including pandemics, epidemics and dangerous diseases, natural and man-made disasters, environmental degradation and climate change, uncontrollable migration and population growth, food insecurity, WMD proliferation and the risk of their unsanctioned use, international terrorism and religious and ideological extremism, transnational crime and corruption, water scarcity, energy and other natural resources, require maximum possible international cooperation. It is also obvious that it is impossible to clearly differentiate global and regional problems.

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As international institutions evolve and develop, they become complex collective agents, gaining awareness of their status as integral structures, and simultaneously present themselves to the world as such – as bodies capable of developing and implementing long-term behavioural strategies. States play an ambiguous role in relation to such non-state actors: on the one hand, they have the will and resources needed to control their activities; on the other, for some states, involvement in such organizational structures can increase their international authority, influence, and even survivability, while for other states with a claim to regional and global leadership participation means being able to use various forms of leverage (whether soft or hard).

The first case can be exemplified by the supranational component in the European integration project. The French initiative to create the Economic and Monetary Union can be viewed in the context of the complicated domestic situation in the 1980s, combined with the French standing in global economy and world politics. In its turn, Spain’s commitment to developing the European community (in that regard, Spain is often dubbed not merely a Euro-optimist, but a Euro-enthusiast) is largely explained by the complicated relationship between the centre and regions in the highly decentralized Spanish “state of autonomies” with its strong traditions of particularism and separatism.

The second case is vividly exemplified by the policy of the United States in the context the changing world order after the end of the Cold War. The gradual, yet relative weakening of the superpower, that is frequently measured by the dynamics of the country’s share in the global GDP, does not cancel out the leading role that the United States plays in global finance, trade, science and technology. The fact that it will continue to play this role for the foreseeable future makes the United States a source of major shocks on the international arena (given that the U.S. foreign policy is geared towards unipolarity) and a potential agent of collaborative interaction with other participants in international affairs. [5] This can be observed, on the one hand, in the decision of the Democratic Joe Biden Administration to re-join the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization following the departure of the United States from both under Republican President Donald Trump. On the other hand, the same trends appear when we consider the causes that slow down the long-needed reform of the World Trade Organization as the global trade regulator.

Following Max Weber’s ideas of a new type of legitimate authority – the rational-legal one typical for today’s state and bureaucracy (as opposed to traditional authority and the charismatic authority) – and bureaucracy as an organizational phenomenon [6], bureaucracy can be described as playing a key role in international institutions, largely determining the form and content of their activities and their organizational behaviour, as well as creating and disseminating symbols, meanings, norms and rules, and even formulating new interests for states.

At the same time, bureaucracy is not the only agent for creating new ideas and new social knowledge of multilateral organizations. Depending on their type and area of activity, they actively interact with national governments, industry-specific ministries and agencies, transnational corporations and other businesses, political parties and movements, various interest groups, civil society organizations, and the expert community, thereby assisting in the formation of transnational elites and a global community.

It is important to mention that some well-known concepts, solidly entrenched in today’s political vocabulary, such as “development” (“sustainable” and “responsible”), “refugee,” “environmental migrant”, emerged and became established precisely among international institutions. In turn, the universal values protected by the international institutions are conducive to bringing national governments to understand the tasks of protecting human rights, countering climate change, ensuring national interests, and establishing state policy priorities. The role of international institutions in shaping the global agenda is great and, as a result, they can influence the contents of the governmental, socio-political and academic discourse in various countries and regions of the world.

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International rankings regularly published by some multilateral institutions deserve a separate mention. The most influential among them are the Human Development Index published annually by the United Nations Development Program, and the Global Competitiveness Report developed by the World Economic Forum. Although such rankings are criticized for being politicized, insufficiently objective, and West-centric, they are an important leverage tool for international institutions to influence public opinion, the expert community that frequently uses them, and political decision-makers at various levels of governance.

A new trend in the organizational structure of multilateral institutions is the emergence of new dimensions or components in their activities due to the attention they pay to such target audiences as the expert community, women, young people, small- and medium-sized enterprises and civil society. Lack of democratic legitimacy is a problem that must be grappled with – not only for the European Union as an elitist project, but also for other multilateral organizations that perform regulatory functions. This can be achieved through involving individual members or delegations of national parliaments of their member states in their activities [7].

Such international global regulation institutions as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the G7 and G20 have created parliamentary networks [8] , national parliament speaker summits [9] and other forms of inter-parliamentary cooperation. In particular, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the European Parliament spearheaded the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO in 2002, which is now convened annually but functions outside the WTO formal structure and has not yet gained the status and powers of a parliamentary assembly.

Such interaction includes various informal discussions that accompany the adoption of binding international decisions outside the state framework. They serve to set up venues for more formal communication that prepare global, non-binding decisions on issues of common global importance [10].

The transformational trends in the modern world order include, on the one hand, a long-term polycentric trend and, on the other, a clear outline of a new U.S.–China bipolarity. These are leading towards a restructuring of the international system, affecting global governance dynamics and the activities of international institutions – some of which (the United Nations and the World Trade Organization) have set themselves the tasks of reform, while others are expanding their institutional format and their areas of activity [11] .

What is more, global problems that international institutions have effectively been established to handle create new incentives for multilateral cooperation, as well as new contradictions between states, thus exacerbating competition and promoting differences in world development and global governance issues. We cannot deny the existence of the de-globalization trend that emerged during the global financial crisis and got a boost during the COVID-19 pandemic, nor can we ignore the bias towards national concerns and foreign policy imperatives. At the same time, the international community has also received a number of positive signals. For instance, at the Glasgow Climate Summit in November 2021, the United States and China, the world’s two principal greenhouse gas emissions “culprits,” signed a declaration to take action to counter climate change.

1. Prokhorenko I.L., Organizatsionnaya teoriya v analize global'nogo upravleniya [Organizational Theory in Global Governance Analysis] // Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Series 25. Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya i mirovaya politika. 2014. No. 3. pp. 150–173. (In Russian)

2. Strezhneva M. S. (ed.) Transnatsional'nye politicheskie prostranstva: yavlenie i praktika [Transnational Political Spaces: Phenomenon and Practice]. Moscow: Ves’ mir, 2011. (In Russian); Prokhorenko I.L. Prostranstvennyi podkhod v issledovanii mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii [Spatial Approach in Studying International Relations]. Moscow. IMEMO RAN. 2015. (In Russian)

3. Klabbers J. Two Concepts of International Organization. International Organizations Law Review. 2005. Vol. 2. No. 2. pp. 277–293; Kuteinikov A.E. Novoe v issledovanii mezhdunarodnykh organizatsii [New Trends in Studying International Organizations]. Mezhdunarodnye protessy. 2008. No.6. pp. 60–69. (In Russian)

4. For more on the phenomenon and practices of global governance see: Baranovsky V.G., Ivanova N.I. (eds.). Global'noe upravlenie: vozmozhnosti i riski [Global Governance: Opportunities and Risks]. Moscow: IMEMO RAN. 2015. (In Russian)

5. Baranovsky V. A. New International Order: Overcoming or Transforming the Existing One. Social Sciences. A Quarterly Journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 2019. Vol. 50. No. 2. pp. 38–53.

6. Weber M. Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. 1946; Weber M. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. 1947.

7. Nye J. Globalization’s Democratic Deficit: How to Make International Institutions More Accountable // Foreign Affairs. 2001. Vol. 80. No. 4. pp. 2–6.; Prokhorenko I.L. (main ed.), and Varnavsky V.G., Strezhneva M.V., Kharitonova E.M. (eds.) Mezhparlamentskie instituty v mirovoi politike [Inter-Parliamentary Institutions in Global Politics]. Moscow: Ves’ mir, 2020. (In Russian)

8. The Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and IMF, established in 2000, is open for individual participation by members of national parliaments

9. G7 has held them since 2002, and G20 – since 2010

10. Strezhneva M.V. Parlamentskie seti v transnatsional'nom ehkonomicheskom upravlenii [Parliamentary Networks in Transnational Economic Management]. Vestnik Permskogo Universiteta. Seriya: Politologiya. 2018. No. 2. pp. 5–20. (In Russian)

11. For instance, G20, which has ceased to be solely an exclusive club of heads of government or state, financial ministers and heads of central banks discussing financial policy issues.