The idea for this volume was conceived by Frederick Praeger, founder of Westview Press, who asked Roland Vaubel if he would put together a collection of chapters on the public choice approach to the study of international organizations. Vaubel felt it would be useful to have a coeditor from the United States, and Thomas D. Willett enthusiastically agreed to take on these duties.

In this book, Miles Kahler examines both global and regional institutions and their importance in the world economy. Kahler explains the variation in these institutions and assesses the role they play in sustaining economic cooperation among nations.

The first of two anthologies on international political economy drawn from articles published in the journal International Organization.

This volume analyzes international agreements from a political economy perspective. In four essays, it raises the question of whether domestic institutions help explain if countries join international agreements, and in case they do, what type of international organization they join. The book examines how specific democratic design elements channel and mediate domestic demands directed at politicians, and how under certain circumstances entering international agreements helps politicians navigate these demands to their benefit. The volume also distinguishes between different types of international instruments with a varying expected constraining effect upon member states, and empirically tests if this matters for incentives to join. The volume addresses scholars, students, and practitioners interested in a better understanding of how the shape of domestic institutions affects politicians’ incentives to enter into binding international agreements.

This is the second of two anthologies on international political economy drawn from articles published in the journal International Organization. The book is organized into four sections: Trade, Multinational Firms and Globalization, Money and Finance, and Emerging Issues.

Building on the concept of depoliticization, this book provides a first systematic analysis of International Organizations (IO) apolitical claims. It shows that depoliticization sustains IO everyday activities while allowing them to remain engaged in politics, even when they pretend not to. Delving into the inner dynamics of global governance, this book develops an analytical framework on why IOs "hate" politics by bringing together practices and logics of depoliticization in a wide variety of historical, geographic and organizational contexts. With multiple case studies in the fields of labor rights and economic regulation, environmental protection, development and humanitarian aid, peacekeeping, among others this book shows that depoliticization is enacted in a series of overlapping, sometimes mundane, practices resulting from the complex interaction between professional habits, organizational cultures and individual tactics. By approaching the consequences of these practices in terms of logics, the book addresses the instrumental dimension of depoliticization without assuming that IO actors necessarily intend to depoliticize their action or global problems. For IO scholars and students, this book sheds new light on IO politics by clarifying one often taken-for-granted dimension of their everyday activities, precisely that of depoliticization. It will also be of interest to other researchers working in the fields of political science, international relations, international political sociology, international political economy, international public administration, history, law, sociology, anthropology and geography as well as IO practitioners.

Theoretical analysis of the role of international organisations, particularly in the North-South relationship. Looks at the structure of decision making within the international economic organisations and the relationship with their clients.