Although we have since moved to the Freie Universität Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, this collaboration began in 2021 at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Given our respective interests in Comparative International Organization Studies and Foreign Policy Analysis, we decided to ignite a project to bridge the gap between two vibrant fields of scholarship, which do however hardly engage with each other – despite the great potential such an exchange carries for all concerned. Thus, we decided to organize a workshop on the topic ‘Foreign Policy Roles of International Organizations amid Global Crises’ to be held at the University of Freiburg. Unfortunately, the repercussions of a particular global crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, prevented us from conducting the workshop in person, but we were delighted nevertheless to be able to convene this stellar group of scholars for the workshop in an online format in October 2022. Afterwards, some of the contributions were part of an International Studies Association panel at the 2023 annual meeting in Montréal, Canada. We thank Juliet Kaarbo for being a discussant on this panel and offering valuable comments that helped us to further improve the analytical framework and the book's overall coherency. We are also grateful to Sören Stapel for giving us feedback on the introduction chapter throughout the process. We further thank Jule Sommer, Moritz Pohlner, Chira Walke and Dagmar Kohlmeier for research assistance, and Barbara Gumbert for her continuing excellent administrative support. Last but not least, we thank Stephen Wenham and Zoe Forbes from Bristol University Press, without whom this book would not have been possible.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has put particular pressure on international organizations (IOs) with member states relying on domestic strategies to address the crisis, a populist Trump government threatening withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO), and countries denying adequate access and data on the extent of the pandemic within their borders. At the same time, IOs were crucial to coordinate responses and provide much-needed resources to troubled member states (Lipscy 2020). However, not all IOs performed equally well during the crisis: while some IOs essentially shut down their operations, others thrived during the crisis and managed to expand their policy instruments and tasks beyond their initial mandates (Debre and Dijkstra 2021).

Interestingly, many smaller regional IOs, defined as organizations with regional or other (that is, religious) community-based membership criteria, were among the top performers during the early days of COVID-19 despite lacking formal mandates in the areas of health. Several regional IOs without an official mandate or adequate resources changed their roles during the crisis to take on new tasks or exhibit leadership responsibilities. In this regard, many regional IOs went from emulative maintainers to innovative and even transformative leaders. Regional IOs such as the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Central American Integration System (SICA), the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) or the Council of Europe (CoE) started providing necessary funds to member states to increase their liquidity, negotiated with global IOs to ensure medical and food supply chains, and regulated necessary trans-border movements (Debre and Dijkstra 2021). This is surprising, given that many of these smaller regional IOs have rather been on the passive side with regard to their performance and activities in recent years and are not necessarily endowed with large budgets and resources. We therefore ask which roles regional IOs opt for and take on when facing global crises and how the observed changes can be explained.

We argue that the specific role change towards innovative and transformative leaders occurs because regional IOs are constituted by a normative self-understanding as community organizations. These normative priors can become activated during crises and allow regional IOs to become engaged in providing and helping the members of their community.

Introduction

Various crises of global reach have appeared over the last two decades, severely challenging the efficient production and distribution of common goods. Due to the increasing globalization and interconnectedness of international relations, the global crises of the 21st century are particularly complex (Carr and Lesniewska 2020) and thus require coordinated efforts to absorb negative repercussions or, eventually, solve them (Lopez-Claros et al 2020). Contemporary global crises are also characterized by overlapping policy areas through which international actors are oftentimes involuntarily bound together, such as security, global health, trade or finance. Examples include global climate change (Schenck 2008), migration and refugee crises (Weiner 2018), as well as the COVID-19 global pandemic (Lipscy 2020) or the Russian invasion into Ukraine (Mankoff 2014; Fazal 2022), which simultaneously affect international actors across different policy realms.

International organizations (IOs) have been at the forefront of these crises in the 21st century (Hardt 2014). IOs are not only forums (Tallberg and Zürn 2019) but can also be mandated by their member states to enact role(s) themselves vis-à-vis the international environment (Panke 2022b). In other words, IOs are important actors in the realm of global governance (Dingwerth et al 2019). This is particularly important during global crises, which individual states are not capable of tackling on their own. Not only have IOs oftentimes been first responders to crisis of global reach, for example, by pooling resources or reducing collective action costs, IOs also commonly function as mediators between conflicting parties responsible for the outbreak of crises or between actors that have turned into such over the course of the crisis (Chapman and Wolford 2010). While IOs differ in their activities amid global crises, there are numerous indications that they have been important actors in their management and turned into potent stabilizers of the international order (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Hofmann 2020).

Apart from being stabilizers, IOs can adopt a broad variety of different roles when being faced with global crises. This encompasses IOs as conflict managers (for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN], see Yates [2017]), crisis managers (for the International Monetary Fund [IMF] see Kahler [1985]), facilitators of stability and democracy (for the Organization of American States [OAS], see Slater [1969]) or crisis bargainers (Chapman and Wolford 2010).

Role patterns

In this edited volume, we have explored the diverse roles that international organizations (IOs) adopt in response to global crises, what drives the observed roles, and which external and internal effects were triggered by the roles adopted. To this end, we have attempted to bridge the gap between two scholarships – role theory and comparative IO research – to develop a conceptual framework, which classifies roles based on the combination of functional and relational dimensions. In times of crises, IOs may focus their functions on either preserving the status quo of the international/ regional order in the relevant policy area or instigating its transformation. The relational dimension refers to whether an organization perceives its role as innovating means or instruments to address a crisis or merely emulating the strategies employed by other IOs. We argue that roles delineated by the interplay of the functional and relational dimensions are not static and can evolve over time.

In this concluding chapter, we synthesize the key insights derived from the diverse roles of IOs elucidated in the individual chapters of this edited volume. Our analysis, guided by Figure 11.1

and the conceptual framework outlined in the introduction, has shed light on the nuanced ways IOs navigate the functional and relational role demands in response to global crises. Figure 11.1 summarizes the roles IOs adapted in the individual case studies of this edited volume. We distinguish between four different types of roles that IOs can enact when being faced with a global crisis.

In the upper left corner of Figure 11.1 are cases where IOs take on roles characterized by a combination of maintenance and emulation. In these cases, the IOs refrain from introducing novel ordering principles or revising existing structures related to the crisis. Instead, they emulate the activities of other IOs, relying on them as points of reference in devising their crisis response. Other cases situated in the lower left quadrant combine a functional orientation towards maintenance with innovative instruments compared to their counterparts. While preserving existing organizing principles, in these cases, IOs introduce novel means to address specific crises, reflecting a commitment to both stability and adaptability. The cases in the top-right part of Figure 11.1 reveal transformative roles coupled with emulation. Here, IOs strive to establish new organizing principles while adopting strategies and means employed by other IOs in addressing the crisis at hand.

Introduction

When is a crisis perceived as a crisis – and where? The various attributes used to describe the significant increase of forced migration in 2015 include ‘2015 European migration crises’, ‘Syrian refugee crisis’, ‘crisis in the Mediterranean’ and ‘European migration policy crisis’ – respectively focusing on the countries and regions of origin and destination, a site of humanitarian disaster and the question of ‘who is to blame?’ (Ripoll Servent 2020: 186). One could argue that the refugee situation had already constituted a long-time crisis in several regions of the world but only became a major policy and media issue once European countries were directly affected. Even within Europe, this was initially not a unified perception; for example, Germany, which had benefited from the ‘safe third countries’ – concept in the Dublin regulation which relegated asylum processes to the European borderlands, only started perceiving the situation as a crisis once large numbers of refugees moved onwards from countries such as Greece and it became a major country of destination.

However, this perception has not only been inaccurate on a global but also on a national scale and is testimony to the short memory of the news and policy debate cycle. In her article ‘The permanent refugee crisis in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1949– ‘ Lauren Stokes points out that since its inception after the end of the Second World War, the country had never experienced a decade without a ‘refugee crisis’ (Stokes 2019: 44). This calls into question the usage of the term, because ‘when speakers declare a migratory situation to be a “crisis,” they suggest not just that the situation is a departure from what is normal, but also that it is untenable in the long term, and that it requires a decisive solution’ (Stokes 2019: 20). Dines et al, on the other hand, have argued that ‘crisis has not simply become the descriptor of a succession of events, but rather a paradigmatic frame for thinking about our times’; furthermore, the ‘migration crisis’ has been increasingly linked to other long-standing crises such as lack of affordable housing, and so on (Dines et al 2018: 440– 441).

Even if the term crisis thus may not appropriately capture the history and complexity of forced migration, its usage can nonetheless have significant outcomes for stakeholders in the policy-making process: it may speed up political decisions, increase available resources and provide legitimacy for one's policy role.

Introduction

This chapter examines the international roles played by the Organization of African Unity (OAU)/ African Union (AU) during two global health crises. The two health crises included for study are the HIV/ Aids crisis, beginning in 1981, and the COVID-19 crisis that erupted in February 2020. Over the course of the Aids crisis, the AU was formally launched to replace the OAU in July 2002, following three years of planning. African leaders judged that the OAU had failed to live up to its promises, and they created a somewhat more ambitious ‘Constitutive Act’ to guide the activities of the AU. The response to the Aids crisis was one among the many areas in which the OAU failed to promote the welfare of African peoples.

Following the theoretical framing of this volume, this chapter attempts to identify the OAU or AU roles across two dimensions. It seeks to assess what roles the OAU/ AU adopted in relation to other major international organizations (IOs) and the ‘global order’ that prevailed in each health crisis (‘functional role’); and the roles that it adopted in dealing with the respective health crises (‘relationship role’). The evidence gathered here shows that the roles of the OAU/ AU with respect to its relational role demands changed substantially across the two crises.

The research design for this chapter entails establishing a baseline of role selection by the OAU before the advent of the Aids crises. This will enable us to perceive how roles changed in the face of two successive crises. When other, earlier issues were on its agenda, the OAU was performing strikingly different roles on the world stage and in the global community of IOs. Accordingly, the changing roles of the OAU/ AU in response to the two global health crises make an excellent case for close examination. This chapter relies upon the secondary literature for identifying and labeling the roles of the OAU in the pre-Aids era, and also after the onset of the Aids crisis. These roles are well-described, albeit without the use of role theory language, in the existing literature. Since the COVID-19 crisis is a more recent one, the chapter draws chiefly upon press releases of the AU and news reports about AU activity to assess the AU's role during this crisis.

Introduction

The World Health Organization (WHO) is at a crossroads. Since its founding in 1948, it has been the go-to organization for cross-border health concerns and health-related crises. Despite its long history and international stature, the function and future of the WHO has been mired in controversy and questions. These questions have only intensified in the 21st century, as the organization has simultaneously become more prominent due to the increased political attention paid to global health and more under scrutiny as it has faced repeated questions about its shortcomings in responding to international outbreaks like H5N1 influenza, Ebola and now COVID-19.

The problem with the WHO is not that it is inherently flawed; rather, I want to argue that the WHO's shortcomings are better understood as a serious case of role conflict and role strain which manifests itself through the principal-agent problem. The WHO sees itself as a leader and innovator, but its member-states end up forcing it into the role of bystander – and this limits the organization's ability to respond health crises like a global pandemic caused by a new virus. It is ultimately a problem of role conflict and an inability to enact the roles – as an unbiased source of information and relevant data, as a convenor of international forums to address problems, and as a leader in the implementation of strategies to alleviate global health crises – that the international community ostensibly wants the WHO to undertake. This is not to say that the WHO or other intergovernmental organizations are solely tools of the (powerful) states that create and populate them; rather, it is a recognition of the reality that many of the constraints impeding the WHO's ability to enact its preferred roles arise from the very member states who then criticize the WHO for its failure to respond appropriately.

The principal-agent problem that has bedeviled the WHO during recent global health crises is ultimately a form of role conflict (Thies 2010; Breuning 2017). The WHO finds itself caught between some of the more aspirational roles it holds, including those of leader, mediator, initiator and information-sharer, and the roles which its member states permit it to embody, such as bystander, maintainer and conformist. Thies describes the problem of inter-role conflict as emerging when an actor finds itself caught between multiple and contradictory role enactments.

The changing global climate has been of concern to some in the scientific community since the late 19th century. It did not become a political concern to governments around the world until almost a century later, starting in the late 1980s (Paterson 1996). Since then, people from the former President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed and indigenous climate activist Archana Sorengand to the former Vice President of the United States Al Gore and Nobel Prize-winning Mexican scientist Mario Molina have referred to the changing climate as a ‘crisis’. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of these individuals and countless others, the ‘crisis’ continues. This chapter considers the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's (UNFCCC) Secretariat (hereafter referred to as ‘the Secretariat’) as a key actor in the fight against climate change and considers its role in the struggle. It argues that the failures of the 2009 Copenhagen Summit served as a crisis point and, thus, a turning point in efforts to address climate change and that the Secretariat spearheaded many of these changes.

Specifically, this chapter considers the Secretariat's role since its origins through key climate conferences (namely COP3 in Kyoto, COP15 in Copenhagen and COP21 in Paris), how it evolved over time and why. The first section considers the Secretariat's limited role in the early years where it adopted the ascribed role of facilitator and honest broker. Abiding by its official restrictive mandate, it worked within the existing global order and under the purview of UN member states. It was, however, even within these constraints able to incorporate innovative strategies into its work and, ultimately, international climate agreements. It then considers the crises at and following the failures of the Copenhagen Summit and the Secretariat's new achieved role of reformer leader. It pushed the bounds of the state-centred international order to work with non-state actors to incentivize and entice states to take greater action. It sought out innovative means in the hopes of transforming the climate regime to more successfully address the crisis.

The next section highlights the intensifying pressures on the Secretariat to produce stronger and more effective treaties as a source of the role change. Increasing audience demands, intensifying alter expectations and internal (ego) role strain compelled the Secretariat to expand its role set to include reformer leader.

Introduction

The Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 marks nothing less than a defining moment in the modern history of Europe. While it is currently unknown how the war will end and what the future trajectory of Russia as well as Ukraine will be, it is clear that the aggression reflects a paradigmatic change in interstate relations in Europe – and indirectly also globally.

From an institutional point of view it can be argued that the so-called European security order has been shattered – the principles and foundations for interstate relations in Europe crafted at the end of the Cold War have been brutally ignored. To be clear, the security situation in Europe has been deteriorating ever since Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 (and arguably well before that, although in less manifest ways) – but waging a full-scale war represents something qualitatively different.

Reactions to the invasion have been massive, first and foremost in the equally sad and inspiring resistance by the Ukrainian armed forces and Ukrainian society at large. But also beyond Ukraine can principal developments be found, in how European states have chosen to redirect security policy in a conventional, territorial direction and substantially increasing spending on defence; even fundamentally changing security-political course, as in Finland's and Sweden's applications for membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Also the European Union (EU) has reacted intensely to the war, through a combination of sanctions against Russia and economic and political support for Ukraine. EU member states have committed economically as well as through military equipment, and in a novel approach also the EU has, for the first time, used its own budget to finance military equipment.

EU action in relation to the war is a principally interesting issue for a number of reasons. First, the EU was not as an actor one of the architects of the European security order; in that sense, it has had no formal role in the institutional setting of the European security order. Establishing that is not in any way ignoring its contribution to European security as one of the key mechanisms for peace in the post-Second World War period.

Introduction

The role of international organizations (IOs) populated by liberal democratic states has started to receive the attention it deserves (Flockhart 2011; Klose 2018; Bengtsson 2022; Campbell 2022; Friedrichs 2022; Mayer 2022). In his symbolic interactionist account of the EU's actorness, Klose (2018) holds that the European Union (EU)'s international emergence should be interpreted as a role-making process, reflecting the EU's capacity to imagine and realize roles for its ‘self’ in the world (Klose 2018: 3). In his case study on the emergence of the EU's role in East Asia, Klose found that the EU's aspiration to position itself as a non-traditional security provider and experienced crisis manager were partially successful but that China's altercasting, particularly vis-à-vis smaller member states, had a limiting if disintegrating effect on the EU's role making.

Yet the roles of IOs populated by autocratic and illiberal states have not received similar attention. Libman and Gawrich (2021) consider actorness as a fruitful concept to analyse Eurasian regional IOs to overcome the dichotomy in the literature which describes and explains the emergence and functioning of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and others as either tied to Russian hegemony and/ or by reference to its mediocre track record. They note that autocratic sovereignty concerns seriously hamper delegation of competences in the security realm and limit functional cooperation to the preservation of state and regime security (Libman and Gawrich 2021: 4). These examples by Libman and Gawrich as well as Klose show how we might examine the SCO's role making through the symbolic interactionist interpretation of actorness.

In this chapter, we investigate why the SCO has displayed variegated response and inconstant record on assuming roles during global crises. Is it simply for the autocratic nature of its member states’ regime type or because its member states have only partially converging expectations about its functions, focusing primarily on individual member states’ domestic as well as bi-and plurilateral concerns?

To examine which roles the SCO selects in global crises, what drives or inhibits these roles, and whether these roles have primarily contributed to the management of the crisis or led to internal changes of the SCO, we account for how pre-existing expectations over the purpose and operational appropriateness held by the member states structure the perception of the crisis at hand and how the creation and delegation of roles develops among member states.

Introduction

This chapter focuses on the migration crisis of South America triggered by different waves of people leaving Venezuela since 2015 onwards. It analyses the role-based actions and inactions of both regional organizations (ROs) and international organizations (IOs) by answering three inter-related questions posed in the introduction of this edited volume: what type of roles do both regional and multilateral institutions conceive and play in the face of a global crisis such as the migration one in South America? What are the key elements that drive the role conception and enactment (or lack of) by both ROs and IOs? Do the roles that ROs and IOs opt for and take on in response to a crisis primarily contribute to the external management of the crisis, or do they primarily lead to internal changes within the IO?

I argue that because of the crisis of regional institutions in South America due to ideological and political tensions among states and lack of institutional capacity to do so, ROs adopted mainly declaratory concerns and sporadic calls for the need to coordinate responses to the Venezuelan migratory crisis affecting most countries in South America. However, in practice South American ROs did not adopt a crisis manager role. As ROs were unable to enact a role of crisis managers due to their own crisis of regionalism in South America (South American Union [UNASUR], Common Market of the South [MERCOSUR] and Forum for the Progress and Integration of South America [PROSUR]), states adopted their own measures to tackle the migratory challenge. Unlike ROs, IOs such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) have had a direct involvement in the migratory crisis and in fact it is through them that some level of regional coordination among states is achieved. In line with the introductory chapter of this volume, ROs, due to institutional fatigue and paralysis, and the free-riding of member states, adopted a bystander role (this also includes the Organization of American States [OAS] as an hemispheric institution), while IOs such as UNHCR and IOM adopted a stabilizer role.

A focus on South America is pertinent as most studies on the migration crisis concentrate on Central and North America.