Inter-organizational relations research revisited

Committed to the idea of re-pluralizing the discussion and exploration of inter-organizational relations (IOR) within international relations (IR), this volume began from the assumption that a broader understanding was required of what exactly is to be examined and of how this research could take place. To achieve such a broadening, three levels offer room for innovation. These relate to subject matter or research object (organization type and policy field/societal sphere), theory and methodology.

First, at the level of the research object, innovation seems to be easiest to achieve. The narrow focus of the study of IOR on intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) can be countered by broadening the research agenda to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and multinational enterprises (MNEs). This is done in Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8, while Chapter 2 addresses the relations of a hybrid form of governance. Besides IOR in the dominant policy fields of security (Chapters 3, 4 and 6) and economy (Chapter 7), topics linked to the rule of law (Chapters 2 and 3) and sports (Chapter 8) are also covered. The same holds for a topic from security studies that is not directly associated with it (Chapter 5). However, more could have been achieved here with regard to pressing issues such as health or climate/environmental policy (but see, for instance, Eckl and Hanrieder, 2023; Holzscheiter, 2015; or Smith et al, 2021).

Second, on theoretical innovation, this volume contains only one contribution based on a rationalist approach. Rationalist accounts have come to dominate the discussion of IOR in IR so far. This discursive power is not only reflected in numbers of publications; it is also wielded through the capacity to create and disseminate key terms, such as ‘interorganizationalism’ (Koops, 2008; also Biermann, 2009), or to define the field (Koops and Biermann, 2017). Regardless of the reasons for their dominance, this volume enlarges the space for alternatives to rationalist accounts. In addition to sociological neo-institutionalism (Chapters 3 and 5) and classical pragmatism (Chapter 8), which have already been proposed in the introduction, options include post-structuralist discourse theory (Chapter 3) and relational sociology (Chapter 7), along with combinations of rationalist regime complexity with constructivist considerations from (critical) norms research (Chapter 4) and public administration with organization studies (Chapter 6).

Introduction

International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become an integral part of global governance and global world order(s). They have played an important role in the development of norms and are by now crucial players in setting agendas and standards as well as with respect to monitoring of policy issues ranging from climate change to trade and human rights (Peters et al, 2009). They have instigated and shaped international institutions such as the International Criminal Court (Pearson, 2006; Haddad, 2013), and the provision of humanitarian or development aid is meanwhile inconceivable without NGOs. In order for such activities to be successful, NGOs often engage in inter-organizational cooperation, defined as the interaction between two or more organizations with respect to information sharing, the coordination of policies, joint decision-making and other activities (Biermann and Koops, 2017). While NGO scholars have begun to inventory and characterize the types of relationship that NGOs enter into, and have studied inter-organizational cooperation regarding its form and function (Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Henry et al, 2004; Yanacopulos, 2005; Carpenter, 2007a, 2011; Ohanyan, 2012; Elbers and Schulpen, 2013; Stroup and Wong, 2013), the inner workings of such cooperation remain largely unexplored.

Therefore, we still have only scant knowledge, particularly of the processes involved and as to who instigates cooperation among NGOs and moves the involved organizations from non-cooperation to informal or formal cooperation as, for example, in the case of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC). Starting out as a ‘loosely organized coalition of NGOs, it […] transformed into a permanent institution at the court with two headquarters, regional offices, and a secretariat with a permanent staff’ (Haddad, 2013: 189; see also Pearson, 2006). While constitutive of the existing world order with respect to human rights, we know little about how the Court's transformation came about, who were the driving forces behind it, and what prompted NGOs to move from informal to formal cooperation. The same applies to the Climate Action Network (CAN), a large coalition of NGOs that has existed since 1989, and of which Duwe (2001: 182) argues that individual agents ‘act as entry points for the cooperation’ among the partaking NGOs.

Inter-organizational relations as an emerging subfield

As an academic discipline, international relations (IR) is state-centric by definition. It is about relations between nations organized in or as states. Consequently, it has always been good advice for those interested in studying IR to focus on states and their relations. In the early 1990s, however, a common understanding gained acceptance in IR that the political world is no longer just a world of states but of societies – a gesellschaftswelt (Rosenau, 1992). For more than 30 years, the study of non-state entities has become quite prominent in IR, be it of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), multinational enterprises (MNEs) or other organized forms of representation. The focus of this research is often on relations between states and non-state entities and their impact on each other. It has been only in the past 15 years that IR scholars have started to analyse relations among non-state entities. With a strong focus on IGOs, this subfield was labelled inter-organizational relations. While inter-organizational relations (IOR) may not have joined the discipline's mainstream yet, there is a visible and growing group of scholars researching this topic and translating its importance into multiple research questions.

As a consequence, the subfield of IOR has developed and matured since its creation. This came at a price, though. In the early days, scholars experimented with various theoretical and methodological approaches to study specific cases of IOR. In the recent past, this experimental period was replaced by a tendency to conformity and canonization. This tendency is not only expressed in a concentration on certain theories, methods, organization types and policy fields, but also in a binary understanding of the nature of relations. In theoretical terms, those interested in enquiring into IOR prefer rationalist approaches such as resource dependence and regime complexity (both to be discussed later). Methodological issues are hardly reflected upon explicitly, so most studies can be described, at best, as based on content analysis. There is also an inclination towards studying relations among IGOs or between IGOs and NGOs, mostly those dealing with security or economic policies. Moreover, inter-organizational relations are usually conceptualized in a binary way as being either cooperative or conflictive/competitive.

Introduction

Yassin Abdullah Kadi, a Saudi Arabian businessman, is the most prominent case of what happens when one has been declared a ‘specially designated global terrorist’ (SDGT). In 1999 and 2000, the United Nations (UN) suspected Kadi to be an associate of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda and placed sanctions against him under UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions 1267 and 1333 (discussed later). In October 2001, the US declared him an SDGT, which caused the blocking of all his property and interests subject to US jurisdiction. The European Union (EU) followed suit, as did Saudi Arabia, Kadi's home country. Kadi has repeatedly claimed that he has given no support to terrorism. Mired in limbo over the accusations, Kadi was forced to stay in Saudi Arabia without ever having been informed of the reasons for his listing and – before the EU endorsed the UN listing – without possibility of appeal.

While the human rights concerns are striking, the case of Yassin Abdullah Kadi draws attention to two points requiring closer scrutiny for scholars of inter-organizational relations (IOR) and world order. First, lists have been frequently used by intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and states alike as a means in counterterrorism (Goody, 1977). For IGOs, lists are a way of governing their own remit, the IOR and an organization's environment, as lists are increasingly operating globally and across multiple jurisdictions (De Goede and Sullivan, 2016; Barnett and Finnemore, 2004). Lists represent the ways in which the external environment of IGOs is observed and internally processed. While IGOs strive to navigate this environment, they aim to reduce uncertainty by using lists that help to make the environment more predictable by explicitly naming those that are considered a threat. The second point resides in how IGOs make sense of their environment, and thereby, govern and shape this very environment – for their own further decision-making as well as for other state and non-state actors.

Introduction

This chapter zooms in on the dynamics of competition that shape interorganizational relations (IOR) in world politics. More specifically, it probes into the competition over authority that pervades global governance: the quest by various actors to become epistemic authorities – the key knowledge producers – on the objects that are governed in world politics, such as international security, the global economy or the climate. Does this competition make the epistemic practices of these actors more similar or more distinct?

This question is key to understanding how IOR affect the ordering of world politics. If the competition fosters a diversity in the epistemic practices, this may make the objects more ambiguous, thus complicating efforts to develop frameworks and tools for their governance. One example for such an ambiguity is the world-wide level of armaments, for which military expenditures are a prominent indicator. Several organizations produce international statistics on military expenditures, vying for attention and influence in debates about security politics. Their statistics, though, diverge. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), for instance, estimates that the military spending of the US in 2019 (US$732 billion) far surpassed the combined spending of China (US$261 billion) and Russia (US$65 billion) (Tian et al, 2020). The US State Department, in turn, publishes a range of estimates on the patterns of military expenditures for the same year, with the upper end of the estimates suggesting that the combined spending of China (US$417 billion) and Russia (US$170 billion) was much closer to the US spending (US$730 billion) than the SIPRI figures indicate (US State Department, 2021a).

The chapter builds on and further develops theorizing on organizational fields to explain the effects of the competition over authority. Sociological neo-institutionalists have developed and used the concept of organizational fields to study how the interaction of organizations generates field dynamics that shape the form and practices of these organizations (for overviews, see Scott, 2008: 181– 209; Wooten and Hoffman, 2017). Isomorphism, for instance, denotes field dynamics that make the forms and practices of the organizations more similar over time (see Boxenbaum and Jonsson, 2017). Scholars in international relations (IR) have drawn on this theorizing to probe into different aspects of world politics, such as isomorphism among states (Farrell, 2005) or among governance institutions (Dingwerth and Pattberg, 2009), processes of policy change (Vetterlein and Moschella, 2014) and the evolution of ecologies of governance institutions (Lake, 2021).

Introduction

Military interventions involve a wide array of intervening actors, ranging from international and regional organizations to nation-state actors and violent as well as non-violent non-state actors. Mali is a prominent example of a contemporary intervention site where several military missions and mandates overlap and where a large number of intervening actors have been engaged since 2012. After several coups d’état in Mali, the further proliferation of jihadist groups in the Sahel region and the (partial) withdrawal of European troops in 2022, the country is increasingly seen as another potential case of failure of international interventionism, shortly after the disastrous withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan in 2021.

This chapter will not deal with the overall question of whether the international interventions in Mali can be assessed as success or failure. Instead, it seeks to highlight a more specific ‘dark side’ of inter-organizational interventions in Mali during the last decade. The cooperation among international organizations (IOs) such as the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), and new regional coalitions of states, such as G5 Sahel Joint Force, has yielded several negative effects on the protection of civilians (PoC). Given that PoC is a core norm of peacekeeping missions, the weakening of the implementation of this norm also impacted negatively on the local perception of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) in Mali.

In the fields of international peace and security governance, policy makers and analysts alike have often treated cooperation among IOs as a desirable policy objective in itself. The burgeoning rhetoric of security partnerships among organizations after the end of the Cold War is an indicator of this optimism. Franke (2017: 19) has noted in a review of theoretical approaches to IOR that ‘current research is restricted by the still dominant equation of (inter-organizational) relations with cooperation, coordination, or collaboration. Examinations of competition and conflict already take place but should be strongly encouraged and expanded.’

In the spirit of this suggestion, this chapter seeks to elucidate more problematic and conflictive dimensions of inter-organizational collaboration itself: the weakening of the implementation of a core norm of peacekeeping missions.

Introduction

Since its creation in 1999, the UN Global Compact (UNGC) has been discussed as a prime example of global governance involving multinational enterprises (MNEs) (Rasche and Gilbert, 2012; see also Ruggie, 2001). As a multi-stakeholder initiative (MSI), the UNGC is designed to bring different entities together to discuss and improve standards for human rights, labour conditions and the environment, as well as combat corruption. Fostering corporate social responsibility (CSR), transparency and dialogue, the UNGC, at least for advocates, promotes and expands fundamental responsibilities of business in a globalized economy. Such an economy, it has been argued, is ‘ungovernable’ through states alone (Held and McGrew, 2002). With this logic, the UNGC marks an important step towards a more inclusive and effective global governance (Brown et al, 2018). Contrary to this, critics of the UNGC have emphasized that the Compact remains limited in its current form since compliance with its principles remains voluntary and the network appears too loose (Andrews, 2019). Following this account, the UNGC, at best, has no impact. At worst, it provides an opportunity for MNEs to ‘bluewash’ themselves by capitalizing on the moral authority of the UN (Berliner and Prakash, 2015).

Going into its third decade, the debate between these two sides has not been settled and the overall impact of the initiative remains more uncertain than ever (Podrecca et al, 2021). In this chapter, I want to relate to and weigh in on this debate by framing the UNGC through the lens of interorganizational relations (IOR). The rationale for this is simple: I argue that both advocates and critics rely on a similar and ultimately limited ontology of governance and the UNGC. Both assume the existence of independent global governors deliberately interacting within the Compact. The UNGC as such becomes a space to meet but otherwise does not have any transformational impact on the actors involved (Barrese et al, 2020). In other words, neither reading takes inter-organizational dynamics into consideration that potentially change how MSIs evolve over time and constitutively affect their participants. Furthermore, neither reflects how MNEs, NGOs, cities and other public-sector entities mutually recognize each other and thereby (re)produce their agency as constituents within the UNGC.

Introduction

Sports is a relevant subject for international relations (IR). Countless people around the world organize in sports clubs and associations or practice independently regardless of their specific circumstances. Cities bid for hosting sports events that many want to attend and watch. Companies place advertisements at these events and their broadcasts, politicians show up and pose with athletes. Supporters or athletes point out human rights violations or other grievances related to federations organizing or countries hosting an event, usually followed by officials of major sports federations claiming sports to be apolitical. These attempts, however, only increase the political character of sports and the necessity to study it.

Along these lines of the global relevance of sports and sports federations, the focus of this chapter is on how both the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), responded to Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Since 1896 and 1930 respectively, the IOC and FIFA have been holding tournaments that are now among the largest sports events in terms of participation and attention. Athletes representing countries from all continents take part in these events, while around 40 per cent of the world population are watching (Fett, 2020).

Interested in inter-organizational relations (IOR) and their contributions to world order, we study the IOC and FIFA through the lens of both an open system's perspective from organization studies (Scott, 1992 [1981]) and classical pragmatism (Peirce, 1998 [1903]; Dewey, 1991 [1927]). We ask how both organizations are embedded in their environments and what beliefs as rules for action they follow in the context of Russian aggression. We assume that the beliefs held by those who speak on behalf of the IOC and FIFA contribute to world order, understood as a specific constellation of beliefs on how human life is organized (Roos, 2015). These beliefs become manifest in practice, in what those who act in the name of states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the IOC, FIFA or other ‘structures of corporate practice’ do (Franke and Roos, 2010: 1065–9).

Introduction

When the Comision Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG) was expelled from the country in 2019, this heralded the end of a successful experiment in international cooperation. The commission was a unique governance arrangement in the rule of law sector that was embedded in a dense web of inter-organizational relations (IOR), interacting with organizations at different layers of governance, ranging from the global to the local. Anti-impunity commissions are part of a broader global trend towards hybrid governance solutions, which are located in the middle of a continuum, with purely international mechanisms (using international law, international staff and enjoying supranational powers) occupying one end of the spectrum, and domestic mechanisms (employing national law, local staff and ceding no sovereign privileges to external actors) occupying the other end.

This present contribution investigates the impact of this novel type of hybrid actor on the rule of law. More specifically, it inquires into how the new hybrids’ entanglement in a web of inter-organizational relations shapes their impact on the culture of lawfulness in their host state. The study of IOR is a relatively young subfield in the discipline of international relations (IR), and within this nascent subdiscipline, the inter-organizational relations of hybrid anti-impunity commissions have not been the subject of academic scrutiny. As noted in the introductory chapter, existing studies of IOR tend to be somewhat limited in terms of organizations and issue-areas studied – privileging relations between international organizations (IOs) in the fields of economic and security governance – and with regard to forms of interaction, in that existing studies tend to assume a binary distinction between cooperative and confrontational relations. The present contribution seeks to correct these biases: first, by introducing a new issue area – judicial cooperation; second, by focusing on a new type of organization – hybrid anti-impunity commissions and their manifold relations with IOs, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and state actors; and third, by demonstrating how hybrid anti-impunity commissions’ inter-organizational relations produce variegated and ambivalent forms of interaction that defy the cooperation vs conflict dichotomy.

Hybrid anti-impunity commissions are deeply embedded in their organizational environment, as they do not seek to supplant the justice system of the target state but fight impunity from within it.