2 - Reflections on the politics of institutional reform

Summary

Whenever there are goods to be allocated, human beings devise institutions to do the allocating. Whether it concerns the distribution of donor kidneys among kidney patients, the allocation of scholarships among PhD students, the organization of social security in the welfare state, or the maintenance of peace in an anarchic world, some institution will be devised to organize, implement, manage, or oversee the activity. Leaving it to a single individual, à titre personnel, to decide on scholarships is, after all, not terribly satisfactory; she might decide to sponsor nieces and nephews first, or people working in the same discipline, or people of the same ethnic descent. In short, we tend to think that leaving such decisions to an individual is usually not a good idea. When such issues, like the allocation of goods, cannot be settled judicially, an institution offers better guarantees for fairness in the decision-making process, than leaving things to the whims and preferences of individuals.

By the same token, giving a single state the responsibility (or privilege) to maintain or restore international peace is bound to provoke outcries of protest. What if the state ignores aggression by its allies? Or only acts upon aggression committed by some, but not by others? Or, worst of all perhaps, uses its elevated position to commit aggression itself? Again, creating an institution is deemed to be the most obvious way to prevent abuse.