5 - The public choice of international organizations

Summary

International organizations are of great and increasing importance today. There exist at least 350 intergovernmental international organizations with far more than 100,000 employees. A more extensive definition, based on the Yearbook of International Organizations lists more than 1,000 intergovernmental units. They constitute a rather new phenomenon: an overwhelming share of international organizations was created after 1939, and the rate of their establishment has accelerated. Some of the international organizations have established themselves as independent forces, existing next to the strongest world powers; most prominent among them is the United Nations. In Europe, the European Union has assumed an important economic and political role. Consequently, the inputs going into, and the activities undertaken by particular international organizations, have greatly expanded. In the European Union, for example, the number of full-time employees has grown from 5,200 (1970) to 12,900 (1990), the number of meetings held by the Council of Ministers has risen from 41 (1970) to 92 (1990), the budget has reached 47 billion ecus (an ecu is approximately equivalent to 2 deutschmarks and 1.20 U.S. dollars), and more than 6,200 legislative acts (regulations, decisions, directives, etc.) have been issued (1990). There are widely divergent views on international organizations: some consider them to be a necessity in an increasingly interdependent world, characterized by dramatic external effects and economies of scale, and thus a logical development of political and administrative units beyond the historical nation states.