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

TLDR

Public institutions are rarely expected to disappear, yet theories such as functionalism, organizational ecology, and realism only partially explain the observed trends. Between 1981 and 1992, about one‑third of IGOs became defunct—especially in the Eastern bloc and developing regions—while new IGOs, largely created by existing IGOs, emerged; wealthier democracies expanded membership, poorer unstable states withdrew, and all increasingly depended on a core set of Western‑dominated universal‑membership institutions.

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.