Surrogate international organization and the case of world food security, 1949–1969

Much of the discussion and study in the field of international organization has long been beset by a sterile encounter between the “uncritical lovers” and the “unloving critics” of formal intergovernmental organizations, of which the UN family is the preeminent example. The former have seen in those institutions and their procedures precursors of a regime of international law, if not of a world government, characterized by greater rationality, order, and cooperation and by less conflict in interstate relations; they have often been mentally fixed on a dominant image of international order, an image whose flaws and other characteristics were well analyzed by John Ruggie several years ago. The latter have seen them largely as shadow plays, at best reflecting and at worst having nothing to do with the power relations among states, which are the real determinants of state behavior in an anarchic system. The split between the two corresponds roughly, if not identically, to another fundamental divide among theorists of international relations, namely, that between idealists and realists.