Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics and Institutional Change and Globalization

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Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics. By Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. 240p. $17.95.

Institutional Change and Globalization. By John L. Campbell. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 264p. $55.00 cloth, $17.95 paper.

Joined by their pursuit of the causal mechanisms that drive institutional and organizational change, these authors provide a window on the promise and perils of life on a research frontier. John Campbell details the shortcomings of institutionalist theory in the face of institutional change, using the empirical case of globalization for largely illustrative purposes. Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore aim to put the “organization” back into the study of international organizations, using three case studies to locate the roots of mission creep not in the demands of states but in the bureaucratic cultures of organizations themselves. These books share the claim that current institutional and organizational theories fail to incorporate the ways in which ideas determine change and stability.