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Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics, London: Cornell University Press, 2004.

isbn-13: 978-0801488238

Rules for the World

International Organizations in
Global Politics
Reviewed by Jelena Cupa

International relations scholars have rarely tackled the subject of international organizations outside of the paradigmatic question imposed
by the neo-neo debate about the nature and possibility of cooperation among states. In this regard, Michael Barnetts and Martha Finnemores book Rules for the World may be viewed as an attempt to break
away from these preset research questions of the disciplinary debate.
The book successfully manages to unpack the black box of international organisations by going beyond the input of states interests and
attempting to ofer a set of coherent theoretical accounts for analysis
of the behavioural autonomy of these organisations. The authors posit
that we can better understand what ios do if we better understand
what ios are (p. 9). This reasoning leads them to suggest that ios are
nothing more than bureaucracies, like all other organisations. The rest
of their theorising is directed by this supposition, but before paying
more attention to it, it is important to highlight that this type of analysis is hardly novel; there exists a well-developed body of scholarship
in sociology, organisational theory and political science that examines
the role of bureaucracies and Barnett and Finnemore are not shy to
borrow heavily from it. Nonetheless, it would be a great injustice to regard Rules for the World as lacking a valuable contribution. Accordingly,
this book represents one of the irst theoretically developed attempts
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to view ios as polities whose behaviour is steered by bureaucracies.

Barnett and Finnemore reject explanations that regard the behaviour of ios as a mere function of the member states interests and make
the case for their behavioural autonomy and authority in the international arena. As suggested, the concept of bureaucracy assumes
central stage in their argument. Bureaucracy is regarded as a unique
social form which develops a distinct organizational culture. Drawing
considerably on Max Webers explorations, the authors posit that the
autonomy, authority and power of bureaucracy is derived from claims
to rationality, or in other words, from their tendency to structure action in terms of means and ends (p.116). Furthermore, their autonomy
is exercised through the production and difusion of impersonal rules
and norms that, in turn, frame the problems in particular way and as
such play a signiicant part in constructing the reality of world politics.
More importantly, bureaucracies construct the social world in such a
manner as to make it amenable to their intervention.
From this short summary of Finnemore and Barnetts main arguments, it is clear that they largely subscribe to a constructivist theoretical paradigm. Even though, the labelling is hardly ever fruitful for
the development of the theories and science in general, some minor
weakness regarding this issue should be pointed out. Although the argument about the construction of social reality is par excellence a constructivist argument, Barnett and Finnemore conceive it in a highly
instrumental manner. This is because they see particular ways of constructing reality as a process aimed at maintaining the authority and
power of ios in the realm of world politics and can almost be conceived
of as the rational choice behaviour on the part of these organisations.
In this regard, their accounts are better conceived of as a theoretical
framework rather than a developed theory, which opens up possibilities for further theoretical speciications and development.
The third, fourth and ifth chapters of the book are dedicated to
case studies of the developments in the International Monetary Fund,
unhcr and the un Secretariat in the case of Rwandas genocide. In a
truly gripping manner Barnett and Finnemore depict the process of
development and change of these organisations. They show how their
organisational cultures and procedural routines afect the way they
frame the problems they deal with which, determines the character
of their actions. As an illustration, how the un Secretariats decision
to deine conlicts in Rwanda as a reciprocal civil war due to the cul132

ture of institutional ideology of impartiality (p. 123), rather than an

on-going genocide prevented them from prompting fast, or for that
matter, any substantial action. Similarly, they demonstrate how the
emergence and the insistence on repatriation culture (p. 74) led the
unhcr to put people in danger by returning them to their not yet safe
homes. In general, however, these case studies should not be viewed as
hypothesis testing. In the spirit of the interpretative method of those
theorists that adopt a constructivist theoretical paradigm, Barnett and
Finnemore prefer to provide a thick description of the historical developments of these organisations. That said, even though this method
is very useful in allowing the reader to track down the change, which
was one of the aims of the authors, at certain moments if falls short of
fully capturing the previously made arguments about autonomy, authority and power of the ios.
In the concluding chapter, Barnett and Finnemore take up a normative question on the subject of legitimacy of an expanding global
bureaucracy. They ask if we should regard an all-encompassing bureaucratic expansion as a generally good thing. Liberated from the
normative pressure that liberal institutionalists have when demonstrating the usefulness of international organisations in encouraging
cooperation among states, they ofer as set of balanced normative
propositions. Therefore, they acknowledge that these organisations
are important international players that undertake useful tasks and
goals that transform the character of global politics, but their cost and
problem of legitimacy should by no means be overlooked.
Rules for the World is a short but indispensable book for all those
studying international organisations and for those who wish to know
more about global governance without adopting a dominant state-centric approach. In it Barnett and Finnemore open up space for reshaping and enlarging the research agenda for the study of these signiicant
international relations entities by managing to break away from the
same old drama of the neo-neo debate. While the book tells us a few
new things about bureaucracies per se, the deployment of this concept
in the study of ios sheds light on certain aspects of their behaviours
which would otherwise be hard to spot. Also it is important to note
that the authors manage to demonstrate that ios are more than mere
tools of their member states, but also that they are not simply servants
for the global common good.

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Book Reviews

Notes
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134

See: Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore (2004), Rules for the World:
International Organizations in Global Politics, Cornell up and Michael N.
Barnett and Martha Finnemore (1999), The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations, International Organization, 53, pp.
699-732.