IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/intorg/v50y1996i04p593-627_03.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inertia and change in the constellation of international governmental organizations, 1981–1992

Author

Listed:
  • Shanks, Cheryl
  • Jacobson, Harold K.
  • Kaplan, Jeffrey H.

Abstract

Hardly anyone expects public institutions to die. Yet a census reveals that fully one-third of the international governmental organizations (IGOs) in existence in 1981 had in fact become defunct by 1992. Most Eastern bloc and many regional developing country organizations vanished or became inactive. During this period a slightly larger number of new organizations was born. Not governments but other IGOs spawned most of the new offspring. Wealthy democratic countries increased their IGO memberships while poor unstable countries increasingly dropped out. This bifurcation was accompanied by greater reliance by all on a set of core universal-membership institutions dominated by Western values. Functionalism, organizational ecology, and realism each partly help us to understand these trends but leave important dynamics unexplained.

Suggested Citation

  • Shanks, Cheryl & Jacobson, Harold K. & Kaplan, Jeffrey H., 1996. "Inertia and change in the constellation of international governmental organizations, 1981–1992," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 593-627, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:intorg:v:50:y:1996:i:04:p:593-627_03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S002081830003352X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:intorg:v:50:y:1996:i:04:p:593-627_03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/ino .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.