International Organizations Compare and Contrast

International Organizations

Compare and contrast the realist, liberal institutionalist, Marxist and feminist perspectives on international organizations, strengths, weaknesses. which perspective is more persuasive and why?

Institutionalism, suggests that IR is based on "utilitarian morality" and that self-interests are "aggregated" in the form of institutions, specifically in the form of the nation-state. The world is like a rational market exchange where different entities wrangle for dominance to promote the aggregate interests of domestic groups ("Theories of IR," 2007). Interdependence amongst nation-states facilitates these interests and cooperation can help promote security to advance state interests holistically, like advancing free trade. When certain interests between states conflict -- for example, Japan may benefit from its protectionist policies, while this hurts the U.S. -- institutionalism is silent, and thus the theory is problematic.

Like institutionalism, Marxist theories promote cooperation, but not between nation-states themselves, or between presently existing international organizations but through class unities that promote the interests of the oppressed classes of the world -- states and international organizations often have the interests not just of all nation-states but of the bourgeois leaders of such states alone. Only international organizations that promote class interests and subvert the economic interests of the bourgeois are healthy, according to Marxism. The WTO and IMF, which often pressure states to privatize state industry and engage in free market reforms that hurt the lower classes, at least in the short run, are anathema to Marxists. Feminism would concur with Marxists that cross-national solidarity is needed that transcends the boundaries of nation, but view international organizations such as the UN to be helpful when policing human rights (like the rape of women Bosnia as a tool of war). Women and international organizations must strive to engage in liberations of gender, not simply of class -- even when this must impinge upon national sovereignty, such as African nations that do not do enough to suppress female circumcision.

One rather obvious weakness of both Marxism and feminism is the possibility of identities that transcend class or gender -- for example, a protectionist lower-class worker in Germany who opposes the introduction of non-unionized Wal-Mart into his country and resents that nation's poor environmental record might not feel allied with the interests of a worker in China whose nation lacks such a stable economic social support system and welcomes Wal-Mart to his shores and thus hopes that the international organizations will not attempt to circumscribe the influence of the retailer. The same worker may also oppose limits on industrialization, in the hope of improving his or her lot in life.

Likewise, women may possess identification based in class, nation, and race that transcends gender, and the economic interests of a middle-class American woman might not be the same of a lower-class woman in Mexico who does not regard her labor as liberation, and who places economic advancement over environmental protection. However, although the institutionalist perspective may marginally be the more persuasive, it too has a flaw in the sense that it does not allow for sufficient diversity of interests that may transcend borders and impede international cooperation -- a Jewish supporter of Israel in the U.S. may not support his or her nation's attempt to facilitate economic and political cooperation with Saudi Arabia, and an unemployed American factory worker may support protectionism, even though many Americans may want to buy cheaper cars from Japan, and Japanese manufactures may be eager to meet this demand.

Are you convinced by the argument that states have lost a significant measure of their sovereignty to supranational institutions like the WTO, the UN or the IMF?

The answer to this question is likely dependant upon what state you are a member of -- a nation opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq might state that the United Nations has little power to enforce anything other than American interests, and the failure of the UN to prevent genocide in Rwanda also seems to speak poorly of its ability to act effectively in defiance of state sovereignty. However, economically vulnerable nations that have been pressured to change their state support systems to gain needed loans from the IMF, or pressured to give up state-protected industries by the WTO would respond that these organizations, for less powerful and weaker states, do have the ability to impinge upon sovereignty.