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Bridging the gap: international organizations as organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Gayl D. Ness  and
Steven R. Brechin
Gayl D. Ness
Affiliation:
Professor of Sociology and Population Planning at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Steven R. Brechin
Affiliation:
Candidate in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
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Abstract

This article attempts to build a bridge between the study of international organizations and the sociology of organizations. Comparisons between functionalism in the two fields are found to be especially important in understanding different treatments of international organizations. We suggest that a number of concepts from the sociology of organizations can be effectively used to illuminate issues in international organizations. We focus on organizational performance and its determinants in environment, technology, goals, and structure. The authors' current work in international population planning and social forestry shows how the sociological concepts can offer useful perspectives and hypotheses for the study of international organizations.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , Spring 1988 , pp. 245 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1988

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References

We wish to acknowledge useful comments on an earlier draft by James Burchfield, Barbara Crane, Jason L. Finkle, Harold K. Jacobson, J. David Singer, Mayer Zald, and readers and the editor of International Organization. Naturally, we absolve them of responsibility for the errors and follies that remain.

1. Ernest Haas has drawn on sociology for some of his work revising David Mitrany's basic functionalist perspective in Beyond the Nation State: Functionalism and International Organizations (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1964)Google Scholar. Cox, Robert has drawn on Philip Selznick's work in his “The Executive Head: An Essay on Leadership in the ILO,” International Organization 23 (Spring 1969), pp. 205–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ascher, Robert uses March, James and Simon, Herbert in his study of the World Bank: “New Development Approaches and the Adaptability of International Agencies: The Case of the World Bank,” International Organization 37 (Summer 1983), pp. 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Crane, Barbara and Finkle, Jason L. have used Thompson's, James insights on technology and Selznick's on organizational character in their study of the World Bank and population assistance: “Organizational Impediments to Development Assistance: The World Bank's Population Program,” World Politics 33 (07 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Most recently, Christer Johnson has drawn on work in inter organizational relations for a study of the management of international air transport fares in ”Inter organizational Theory and International Organizations,” International Studies Quarterly 30 (03 1986), pp. 39–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. In a parallel article under preparation, we focus on what sociologists can learn from the study of international organizations. For this article, our concern is with informing international organizations with the insights of organizational analysis.

3. Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

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5. The more common term in sociology is structural functionalism, since the logic is to explain social structures by their functions. Talcott Parsons is the foremost theoretician of the perspective in sociology, where it has often been criticized for its teleological and normative orientations. See Stinchcombe, Arthur L., Constructing Social Theories (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968)Google Scholar for a good logical definition, and Gouldner, Alvin, The Coming Crisis in Western Sociology (New York: Basic Books, 1970)Google Scholar for a biting political criticism.

6. This perspective owes much to the work of Philip Selznick. See especially his TVA and the Grass Roots (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949)Google Scholar, and Leadership in Administration (New York: Harper & Row, 1957)Google Scholar. See also the important review of the field by Perrow, Charles, one of the leading figures in organizational sociology: Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay, 3d ed. (New York: Random House, 1986)Google Scholar.

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9. This somewhat unusual selection of example arises simply because our work on these organizations led us to perceive the great gap between organizational and international organization studies.

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11. Lawrence, Paul and Lorsch, Jay, Organization and Environment (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967)Google Scholar provides a theoretical development as significant in organizational sociology as the advent of functionalism was in international organizations. In both cases, more mechanical, legalistic, and constitutional approaches to organizations shifted to more organic, behavioral, and empirical approaches.

12. The standard references are Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977)Google Scholar, and the extensive review in Krasner, Stephen D., ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

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26. Ibid., p. 212.

27. For summary information on technology and structural relationships, see Scott, Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems, especially chap. 9; Perrow, Charles, Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay (New York: Random House, 1986)Google Scholar;Woodward, Joan, Industrial Organization: Theory and Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Thompson, Organizations in Action; and Lawrence and Lorsch, Organization and Environment. See also Perrow, Charles, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1970)Google Scholar;Rackham, Jeffrey and Woodward, Joan, “The Measurement of Technical Variables,” in Woodward, , ed., Industrial Organization: Behaviour and Control (London: Oxford University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; and Pugh, D. S., Hickson, D. J., and Hinings, C. R., “An Empirical Taxonomy of Structures of Work Organizations,” Administrative Science Quarterly 14 (03 1969), pp. 115–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. See Scott, , Organizations, Rational, Natural and Open Systems, pp. 223–32Google Scholar; and Perrow, , Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay, pp. 143–46Google Scholar.

29. Ness, Gayl D., “The United Nations Fund for Population Activities: An Organizational Assessment,” University of Michigan, Center for Population Planning, 1985Google Scholar.

30. The rise of social forestry has generally resulted in the creation of a new profession based upon a totally new approach to forestry. Certain forestry-related technological developments, however, such as the development of fast-growing tree species, have played an important role in the growth and success of social forestry as a technology.

31. Ascher, William, “New Development Approaches and the Adaptability of International Agencies: The Case of the World Bank,” International Organization 32 (Summer 1983), pp. 415–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32. Crane and Finkle, “Organizational Impediments to Development Assistance.”

33. There is a more powerful contrast to be made between Christer Johnson's use of inter organizational analysis to examine the IATA involvement in the air fare issues (see his “Inter organizational Theory and International Organization,” pp. 39–57) and Charles Perrow's use of technology to contrast air and maritime safety and accident records (see his Normal Accidents: Living With High Risk Technologies [New York: Basic Books, 1984]Google Scholar, chaps. 5, 6), but that would take us further afield than we wish from our substantive focus on population and social forestry.

34. The Bank has made a significant movement towards another form of core technology in recent years with its greater use of sectoral lending. This move appears to be dictated by political considerations as well as economic ones, and it presents the Bank with some extremely difficult technical problems. The technology of investment return calculations for sectors is by no means as well developed as it is for projects, if indeed there exists such a technology at all.

35. For a general overview of international environmental problems, see, for example, Eckholm, Erik, Down to Earth (New York: Norton, 1982)Google Scholar or the annual publication by the World Resource Institute and International Institute for Environment and Development, entitled World Resources.

36. This area will be discussed in Steven Brechin's doctoral dissertation. These statements are the working hypotheses that he is testing.

37. See also Crane, and Finkle, , “Organizational Impediment to Development Assistance,” p. 518Google Scholar.

38. Ness, Gayl D. and Ando, Hirofumi, in The Land Is Shrinking: Population Planning in Asia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984)Google Scholar, have shown how national population censuses and socioeconomic surveys, especially emerging out of plans for national economic development, have largely determined policy decision-making in population planning.

39. See Finkle, Jason and Crane, Barbara, “The United States at the International Conference on Population,” Population and Development Review 11 (03 1984), pp. 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a good discussion of the Mexico City Second International Conference on Population. Our analysis does not propose that the UNFPA is the only organization to have led towards greater world consensus on this issue. Indeed, many private and public organizations have played important roles over the past three decades, and some can trace their activity back almost a century. See also Simmons, Ruth, Ness, Gayl D., and Simmons, George B., “On the Institutional Analysis of Population Programs,” Population and Development Review 9 (09 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar for the argument that the social demography's dominance has led scholars to neglect the impact of population policies and programs on modern fertility transitions.

40. See Caldwell, Lynton K., International Environmental Policy: Emergence and Dimensions (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

41. Jacobson, Networks, chaps. 8, 11, and 14.

42. It is most interesting to observe how the capacity to monitor the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl has forced the Soviet Union to become more open and cooperative in international atomic activities.

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46. Cyert and March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm.

47. Hickson, David J., Pugh, D. S., and Pheysey, Diana C., “Operations Technology and Organizational Structure: An Empirical Reappraisal,” Administrative Science Quarterly 14 (06 1971), pp. 378–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48. Perrow, Charles, “The Analysis of Goals in Complex Organizations,” American Sociological Review 26 (12 1961), pp. 854–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar;Etzioni, Amitai, A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961Google Scholar; revised 1975).

49. Jacobson, Networks of Independence.

50. It is interesting to note that both the UNFPA and the USAID's Population Office were described as having something of an internal religious character, showing a high degree of internal morale and commitment, especially during their formative years. During these years, the organizations had to fight to bring population into the arena of public policy and planning. The same, almost religious zeal may be said to have characterized many of the UN's Specialized Agencies, and even the UN Secretariat itself, during the early years. See Gayl D. Ness, “The United Nations Fund for Population Activities.”

51. We can observe this variance even in the military, an often-used example of the hierarchic organization. “Rationality” may sometimes require small, flat organizations that are only loosely controlled by the center. Carlson's Raiders in World War II, or the Green Berets in the Vietnam war represent such “rational” adjustments. We can also see something of this same rational adjustment throughout history–for example, when the Dutch military greatly decentralized itself to deal with the guerilla warfare it faced in the conquest of Java in the early 19th century. See Hyma, Albert, A History of the Dutch in the Far East (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Wahr, 1953)Google Scholar; and Ness, Gayl D. and Stahl, William, “Western Imperialist Armies in Asia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 19 (01 1977), pp. 2–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52. Lawrence and Lorsch, Organization and Environment.

53. Jonsson, “Interorganizational Theory and International Organization.”

54. This raises an interesting question about the independent role of host governments in determining the effectiveness of international development assistance organizations. As noted earlier, some of the cooperation of international organizations is generated by the host government, as we found in Indonesia. It is equally possible that specific conditions in the host society can generate more conflict and competition than cooperation among the international organizations that operate within their territories.

55. See, for example, Evans, William M., “The Organizational Set: Toward a Theory of Interorganizational Relations,” in Thompson, James, ed., Approaches to Organizational Design (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966), pp. 173–88Google Scholar.

56. Kay, David A. and Jacobson, Harold K., Environmental Protection: The International Dimension (Totowa, N.J.: Allanheld, Osmun, 1983)Google Scholar.

57. Ness and Ando, The Land Is Shrinking, chap. 2.

58. Kay, and Jacobson, , Environmental Protection, p. 326Google Scholar, point out this structural weakness in the UN system, which they see as facing an insolvable dilemma. Broad geographic representation in staffing is necessary to retain worldwide legitimacy and influence, but this makes it difficult to reward performance and technical competence.

59. It is interesting to note that Jonsson's successful case of the linking pin organization is IATA, an INGO, rather than the UN's own International Civil Aviation Organization. Of course, the ICAO is concerned primarily with safety and standardization, and IATA is concerned with fare structures—the issue on which Jonsson found I ATA to perform so effectively. But this raises an interesting question: why it is that an INGO has come to be concerned with fares, while an IGO attends to issues of safety and standardization? Tracing the processes by which this specific division of labor emerged might tell us a great deal about the character of the inter organizational network that is emerging in the present nation-state world system.