International Organizations and Political Communication: The Use of UNCTAD by Less Developed Countries

Ten years ago Chadwick F. Alger identified a major problem in international organizations research. He decried the tendency to study international organizations primarily in terms of “their accomplishment of their explicit goals through the explicit mechanisms established for this purpose.” In most cases this meant concentration on the passage or defeat of resolutions in public meetings and on the extent to which the problems addressed in these resolutions have been dealt with efficaciously through United Nations bodies. Alger suggested that “this type of inquiry does not produce the only, nor necessarily the most important, impact that the organization has on relations among members.” Instead, we should devote more attention to an examination of how international organizations “affect the broader international system in which they operate even when problems are not resolved within their walls.”