International Organizations (IOs) are formal institutional structures transcending national

boundaries which are created by multilateral agreement among nation-states. Their

purpose is to foster international cooperation in areas such as: security, law, economic,
social matters and diplomacy. IOs are subdivided between Intergovernmental Organizations
(IGOs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs); Intergovernmental Organizations are
entities created with sufficient organizational structure and autonomy to provide formal,
ongoing, multilateral processes of decision making between states, along with the capacity
to execute the collective of their member (states). NGOs are non-state voluntary
organizations formed by individuals to achieve a common purpose, often oriented beyond
themselves or to the public good. The development and expansion of these large
representative bodies date back to the end of the World War II, where there was a need for
world reconstruction through International Relations. Since then, there has been an
incremental rise of organizations that work on different socio-political and economic
aspects with various and specific aims in approaching states, societies, groups and
individuals. Based on these key definitions, this essay will thus attempt to explain how
important are IOs and the extent to which they have an impact on global politics and
cooperation in international relations through an analysis of two main IR scholar theories
namely Realism and Liberalism. Moreover, to understand the impact of IOs, these theories
will be explored and analysed through contexts of different and conflicting realist and
liberalists thinkers upon their view on these institutional structures. It will also distinguish
and compare the two theories and determine which is more relevant to the contemporary
world international relations. Finally, the ultimate the goal of this essay is to support the
view of liberalism, as the main concluding arguments rest upon the idea that global
governance requires a set of different actors across that shape together the process of
decision-making in international relations.
Realism is an IR theory based a pessimistic view of human nature. Its central feature lies
within the relative power of the state and as there is no world government to impose order
and stability, states engage in self-help to ensure their basic survival interests notably
(security , power capability and survival). Because of the absence of a world government,
the world structure is anarchic and anarchy heightens the stakes of interaction so that
competing interest have the potential to escalate into military interactions. The state is the
national arbiter who judges its foreign policies. As much emphasis is put on the power
capabilities of the state in the international system, realists pay little attention in regards to
IOs as they play little influence in global governance. States would never cede to
international institutions and IOs and similar institutions are of little interest; they merely
reflect national interests and power and do not constrain powerful states. One example is
the United States hegemony and the use of IOs as means for expansion of power, pursue
their self-interest and guarantee security. For example, realists would argue that most of
the IGOs that serve as a backbone for contemporary international cooperation can be
traced to American hegemony in the immediate aftermath of WW2. The United States
promoted the creation of the UN as an umbrella organization for treaty-based cooperation
in a variety of global concerns and issue areas. It also oversaw the creation of the
International Monetary (IMF), the World Bank, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT) with the express goal of encouraging cooperative economic exchange and also
as instruments designed for continuing utility of U.S policies. Even the Soviet Union used
Mutual Economic assistance to organize economic relations within the eastern bloc.
Powerful states structure organizations to further their own interests but must do so in a
way that it induces weaker states to participate.

Liberalism is a post-war framework for world politics based on the construction of a global,
legal and political system which go beyond the state and afford the protection to all human
subjects. The theory is mainly subdivided by two strands; firstly, interdependence liberalism
which studies modernization as ways of increasing the level of interdependence of states;
and secondly, institutional liberalism which studies international institutions as mechanisms
of promoting cooperation between states. The theory mainly bases its assumptions upon
positive human progress and modernization in which they together will eventually lead to
cooperation. Modernization is the process of involving progress in most areas in life as well
as the development of a modern state. This process enlarges the scope of cooperation
across international boundaries. Due to modernization, cooperation based on mutual
interests will prevail that is because modernization increases the level and scope of
transnational relations where transactions costs are lower and levels of higher
interdependence are high. Under complex interdependence, transnational actors are
increasingly important, military force is a less useful instrument and welfare, (not security) is
becoming a primary goal and concern of states. Therefore, when there is a high degree of
interdependence, states will often set up international institutions to deal with common
problems and maximize welfare. These institutions are designed to promote cooperation
across international boundaries by providing information and lowering costs. Institutions
can be formal organizations such WTO (World Trade Organization) and EU (European
Union), or they can be less formal sets of agreements such as the so-called regimes. For
liberals, international cooperation and progress are the central features that drive states,
IOs and non-state actors. These different institutions are responsible for managing
transnational problems in a peaceful, human and legal way.
It is also important to emphasize the structural change in international relations during
post-Cold War period that have empowered new types of actors and opened new
opportunities for them to act. Such changes also include: globalization and
privatization/deregulation. Globalization has undermined the correspondence between
social action and he territory enclosed by states border. Ideas about human rights have
become platforms for social connections between people across the globe. The Thatcher
and Reagan-led privatization and deregulation in the 1980s revolution has compounded this
change in relations between states and social power; States transferred public enterprises
and state functions to private actors and increasingly encouraged private actors to finance
policies such as education, municipal services and even security, which has been part on the
pivotal role of many corporation social responsibility (CSR) programs. Global change also
owes much to the end of the cold war, where a variety of political, economic and security
realms, activists and organizations began to push for change. With the triumph of the
United States and the liberal model, privatization and deregulation ideas emboldened many
organizations to drop the cold-war style of bipolarity of states and push for liberal capitalist
change that embodied presence of a variety of actors. Indeed, great proliferation of non-
state actors such as NGOs has happened since the 1980s with more than 4,000 International
Non-Government Organizations (INGOs) and has increased until current years to nearly
8,000 INGOs and several millions national and indigenous NGOs.
The role of these NGOs is explained by a varied number of functions and roles they exert.
NGOs can seek the best venues to present issues and to apply pressure. They can provide
new ideas and draft texts for multilateral treaties; they can monitor human rights and
environmental norms; participate in global conferences and raise issues, submit position
papers and lobby for viewpoint; and ultimately they can perform functions of governance in
absence of state authority. Large numbers of NGOs are involved in humanitarian relief, from
large international NGOs to small, locally based groups. The Red Cross, Doctors without
borders, the International Rescue Committee and Oxfam are among hundreds of
international humanitarian relief organizations involved in complex emergencies such as the
conflicts in Somalia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Congo and Liberia, the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur
and natural disasters such as Hurricane Mitch in Central America. Participation by NGOs has
also increasingly been involved within UN summit and global conferences. NGOs are
increasingly viewed by those in the UN system as partners or stakeholders in multitasker
coalitions. This is evident in the Global compact on corporate social responsibility, which
aims to bring multinationals and NGOs into partnership with the UN. Likewise, the
Millennium Development Goals propose partnerships for development, calling for all actors
including NGOs to cooperate in achieving those goals. In 2002, around 3,200 NGOs were
represented at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Also UN
specialized agencies work in conjunction with NGOs. Most UN agencies with field
programmes and offices, now contract with NGOs to provide services and decision-making
in areas of Humanitarian relief and economic development. For example, many services
including food, medicine are chased by the UNHCR and WFP and delivered to the local
population by CARE, Doctors without Borders or Oxfam. Whether an NGO is focused on
human rights, peace, disarmament, indigenous peoples’ rights, labour rights, climate
change, or tropical forests, it is clear that they have become an important actor in world
politics as they often to seek to change the policies and behavior of both governments and
IGOs.

Disagreement between realism and liberalism as well as other IR theories is not over the
existence of institutions or the fact that they are found where cooperation is high but rather
on the claim that whether they are more than statecraft instruments and have an
independent impact. As realists would conceive it, IOs offer little change to the perpetual
power struggle as they cannot change the human nature desire for power nor can they
change the nature of the anarchical system. On the other hand, liberalists cannot imagine a
contemporary world where governments act solo. Cooperation has made states very
interdependent and has also opened new paths for new actors that are willing to work more
efficiently together. IR is not only a study of relations between international governments.
Overlapping interdependent relations between people and voluntary organizations are
bound to be more cooperative than relations between states because states are exclusive
and their interests do not overlap and cross-cut. Liberals also emphasize that states interest
have changed throughout history. Whereas before it was a matter of security and power,
today more primacy has been given towards economic development and trade. Throughout
history states have sought power by means of military force and territorial expansion. But
for highly industrialized countries economic development and foreign trade are more
adequate and less costly means of achieving prominence and prosperity; that is because the
costs of using force have increased and the benefits have declined.

Realists though maintain that the state is the ultimate authority, they are the ones to sign
interstate treaties, create international law, and promulgate wide-ranging rules to initiate,
regulate, and govern activity desired. States are by no means alone in this endeavor. They
explanation on powerful states using IGOs as means to achieve their ends can be
implemented on UN permanent members of the security council which is formed by the
most powerful states, that have larger power than other UN member states. Also, there has
been many situations where IGOs have failed to constrain powerful states from acting in a
certain way, for example, during the cold war, the security council was much ineffective in
solving large differences between the U.S and the Soviet Union, more recently Russia’s
occupation of Crimea in which no IGO (including the UN) prevented such act from
happening. In regards to NGOs, realists explain that they hardly appear as viable
international actors. They pose no threat to state sovereignty. While state and non-sate
actors may have differentiated responsibilities, ultimately authority rests with the state and
that is the essence of sovereignty. The role of states remains central to global governance,
no matter how much political authority is decentralized and power diffused to the
burgeoning non-state actors.
Liberals on the other hand acknowledge that powerful states will not easily be completely
constrained. However, institutional liberals do not agree with the realist view that
international institutions are a mere scrape of paper, that they are completely mercy of
powerful states. International institutions are more than mere handmaidens of strong
states. Liberals argue that there is credibility and functionality within IOs in influencing
international relations and that they attempt to critic realists idea of IOs as mere
instruments led by powerful states but rather they are led universally by different member
states and other actors. For example, when the United States decided to reverse the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait, it did not act unilaterally as it turned to the United Nations Security
Council. Similarly, when the International Community sought to maintain the suspension of
combat in Bosnia, it did not rely on national efforts, it sent in peacekeeping units under the
aegis of the UN and NATO. In regards to non-state actors, such as NGOs, liberals argue that
in few cases NGOs can take the place of states, either performing services that an inept or
corrupt government is not doing, or stepping in for a failed state. For example, Bangladesh
hosts the largest NGO sector in the world (more than 20,000) responding to what
Bangladeshi describe as ‘the failure of government to provide public goods and look after
the poor, and the failure of the private sector to provide enough employment opportunities
NGOs have taken on roles in education, health, agriculture, and microcredit, all of which
originally were government functions. Liberals argue that realism fails to read contemporary
international order correctly. A priori privileges the states, misses the importance of non-
state actors, fails to recognize the social construction of IR because of its rationalist
assumptions and its fatalistic tendencies counsel conservative foreign policies that reinforce
power politics and hence its own explanations for world affairs.

To conclude, it is imperative that one acknowledges Global governance in assessing who

exercises power in decision-making. Based on the arguments on this essay, one would
mostly agree that no government/state can govern/act alone. The growing authority of a
wide variety of agents/actors can also add potential partners to states and distributing
different tasks to different actors. By working collectively, one can certainly argue that
multilateralism often requires a network of cooperation that leads to interdependence
between different actors whether they are states, IOs or non-state actors, thus after all It is
impossible to imagine a contemporary international life without formal organizations.
International organizations are a central component of global governance which has a
positive influence on global development. Their precise role in international politics is
however debated. The dominant theoretical approaches in international relations explain the
role of international organizations in different ways. The Realist school of thought
emphasized the importance of state sovereignty, military power, and national interests in
world politics and was less likely to expect states to delegate important powers to
international organizations (Carr, 1939; Herz, 1951; Morgenthau, 1948). Realists argue that
the system of alliances and the balance of power would maintain order. The international
organizations play a coordinating role in international relations and states can choose to
ignore international organizations whenever they conflict with the pursuit of national self-
advancement (Krasner, 1991; Mearsheimer, 1994). The idealist notion is that international
organizations are destined to solve common human problems. Liberalists argue that
international organizations provide an arena in which states can interact, develop shared
norms, and cooperate to solve common problems. International organizations also coordinate
action by providing information, monitoring behavior, punishing defectors, and facilitating
transparency at a reduced cost to states (Keohane and Martin, 1995). To other approaches,
international organizations can have a deep impact on domestic policy making.

International organizations such as the United Nations system have emerged as crucial actors
in the system of global governance. International Organization and Global Governance cover
a broad range of crucially important aspects of international affairs and contemporary issues,
including international economic relations, international security, the global environment,
international law etc. The paper addresses the organization of international politics, how
international affairs are governed, and how variations in international forms influence
international relations. After discussing the meaning of global governance, the paper features
some of the contemporary issues of international organizations and their impact on policy
development with special reference to the United Nations and European Union as an
important player in the global governance. The study focuses on the roots of International
Organization success or failure as well as dilemma and challenges of global governance.
Finally, the paper concludes with how international organizations are useful to powerful and
weak states alike, analyzing the effectiveness of international organizations and the good
governance at the global level.

International organizations are expected to serve as a mechanism to mitigate conflicts among

different countries. However, these organizations have so far achieved very limited success in
such a role. The more they succeed, the more they become agents of their own failure.
International institutions lose effectiveness and legitimacy. The roots of International
Organization‘s success or failure remains in the factors that are internal to the strategies that
they employ. Some cases where these organizations have either succeeded or failed in
dealing with different issues must be reviewed. These organizations achieved success in:
creating a global economy and a global market, these led to the growth of European
Community into the European Union, helped in the emergence of free trade area in different
regions, led to the establishment of collective security and dispute resolution mechanisms.
There has been development in the capacity of the UN Security Council and the General
Assembly as well as in other security mechanisms. The United Nations peace keeping forces
received the Nobel Peace Prize on 15 May 1988. The World Trade Organization became the
successor to the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade on 01 January 1995. China joined
WTO on 11 December 2001 after 15 years of negotiations, the longest negotiation in the
history of WTO. As of 2010, there are 153 member-states in the WTO. WTO/World Bank
success was reflected on 22 February 2006 as United Sates donated US$ 100,000 to help
developing countries analyze and implement international standards on food safety and
animal and plant health. This donation was set up jointly by World Trade Organization, the
World Health Organization, the World Bank, the World Organization for Animal Health, and
the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Nevertheless, a series of events underscored the limitations of international organizations in

the contemporary era. Even though international organizations have made many efforts to
destroy barriers among people all around the world, the progress they have so far is not
enough, because cleavages have appeared in nations today more than ever. The limitations
and failings of international organizations are attributable to the states that compose them.
United Nations faced failure in Rwanda Genocide on 06 April 1994 as it intervened to
prevent civil war, sending 4,000 US troops to help fix the political system in Somalia. The
UN lost credibility, and the US as well as other countries refused to provide help in fear of
lost of the nation's reputation.

Greece‘s ongoing financial crisis illustrates the challenges that Europe faces in creating a
strong and cohesive union. Moreover, the debates about IMF and World Bank governance
reform are a reminder of Europe‘s continual inability to create a coherent geopolitical
presence, which is now becoming a major obstacle to effective global governance. The
Europeans are unwilling to give up on excessive individual country representation and voting
shares in the governing boards of the international organizations. They keep out other key
players and prevent a recalibration of voting structures that reflect today‘s changing global
realities. With only limited EU constitutional reforms agreed under the Lisbon Treaty,
stalemate prevails in EU reform of its foreign policy process. This perpetuates the EU‘s
inability to speak with one voice, to cast a singular vote, and to occupy one in international
organizations. The European Union stumbled badly in its peace efforts toward Bosnia.
Europe over time is increasingly marginalized in global decision making. This outcome
serves neither global nor European interests. The consequence is that global governance
reform faces gridlock. Until the Europeans are ready to address their own governance
challenge, there is little hope for effective reform of global governance structures.

The tools used by international organizations to promote quality of government interaction

with transnational actors and the mechanisms themselves have a number of shortcomings that
reduce their effectiveness. The UN has often demonstrated a failure to tackle urgent
collective action problems due to institutionalized inability, incapacity or unwillingness. This
has become a major stumbling block for global governance reform. Yet the world body
remains the embodiment of the international community and the focus of international
expectations.

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