given issue area, eventually (in some if not all instances) leading to the develop-
ment of enforcement/compliance mechanisms and dispute resolution procedures.
International organizations/institutions are transaction cost reducers (see Keohane
1984 , 1989 ).
But it is not suYcient simply to describe organizational processes. We must also
understand the degree to which these processes deliver outcomes; the prominence
of an international organization does not always correlate with a high rate of
success in problem solving in a given area of international relations. Ambitious
organizations might try to structure rules and behavior in some of the key policy
areas of contemporary global politics but often to little avail.
Unlike the role of IEIs in economic transactions, many of the world’s political
transactions are not conducted through international organizations. They remain
primarily the aVairs of states. In its search for generalization, the hallmark of
scientiWc theorizing, this distinction between the economic and the political was
often unaddressed in the theoretical literature, leading to the conXation of insti-
tutions, regimes, and international organizations with a generic deWnition as
‘‘principles, norms and decision-making processes around which the expectations
of actors converge’’ (Krasner 1983 ) and with the implication that informal actions,
underwritten by these principles, could be as, if not more, important than the role
of formal organizations. Indeed, Simmons and Martin ( 2002 ) argue that it was the
decreasing salience of IOs in the late 1970 s to the early 1980 s that led a focus on
regimes, rules, and norms.
There was an important insight here; but the regime approach on its own failed
to illuminate the internal dynamics and interstate political contests that take place
within IOs (see Strange 1983 ). Theoretical lenses, other than those of rationalist and
neoliberal institutionalist theories of cooperation, through which to observe IOs,
especially the EU and smaller regional bodies, emerged. Scholarly insight moved
beyond institutionalist regime literature to take more account of history, culture,
and identity. In addition, explanations of the intersubjective sociolegal context for
interstate behavior were extended to the study of international organization (see
Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986 ; Hurrell 1993 ).
These approaches,Wnding fullest expression in the constructivist theorizing of
the late twentieth century (see Wendt 1992 , 2000 ) focused less on the role of IOs as
actors and more on the role of institutions as norm brokers (see Finnemore
1996 ). States not only use international organizations to reduce uncertainty and
transaction costs. They also use them ‘‘to create information, ideas, norms
and expectations... [and]... to legitimate or delegitimate particular ideas and
practices’’ (Abbott and Snidal 2001 , 15 ; emphasis added). IOs are thus more than
arbiters, and trustees, they are also norm brokers and ‘‘enforcers.’’
Other approaches to international organization, drawing on the empirical
experience of the EU, focus instead on questions pertaining to the ‘‘degree’’ of
integration. In the theory and practice of international organization the EU is an
international political institutions 617