interesting case. The EU, throughout the closing decades of the twentieth century,
has become increasingly diYcult to categorize simply as an IO. A stronger tendency
has been to see it rather as a more complex system of multilevel governance (see
inter alia: Wallace and Wallace 1996 , 3 – 37 ; Rosamond 2000 ; Hooghe and Marks
2001 ). Notwithstanding the failure of some states to ratify the constitution in 2005 ,
the EU has undergone a greater process of sovereignty pooling than any other actor
that started life as an IO.
Straddling, or perhaps mediating, institutionalist and integrationist approaches is
what we might call the intergovernmentalist insight into enhanced and eYcient
interstate bargaining (Moravcsik 1994 , 1998 ). Again, notwithstanding setbacks, or
more speciWcally what we might describe as a two steps forward one step back
approach to closer integration, the EU conWrms (in part at least) the normative
aspirations of idealist integration theorists in ways that qualify narrower realist
certainties about the limited utility of enhanced institutional cooperation over time.
OneWnal take on the changing role of international organizations should be noted.
During the closing years of the twentieth century it became increasingly fashionable to
look at international organizations through theoretical perspectives on ‘‘global gov-
ernance,’’ seeing institutions as players in a growing regulatory network of actors in
global politics that also diminishes the traditional realist understanding of the more
or less exclusive role of states in the global decision-making process.
Thus IOs are seen as increasingly important actors in the provision of global
public goods (see Kaul, Grunberg, and Stern 1999 ). Through these lenses, the key
issue for international organizations is the degree to which they can combine the
eVective and eYcient provision of public goods through collective action problem
solving on the one hand at the same time as they satisfy the increasing global
demand for representation and accountability under conditions of globalization on
the other. The tension between these two understandings of governance remains
unresolved. It is addressed in the Conclusion.
3 Contemporary International
Organization: The UN, the EU, and the
Regional Regulatory Framework
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
The early twenty-Wrst century sees feverish discussion of the continued salience of
the UN after the Iraq war on the one hand and the future prospects of the EU in the
wake of the crisis in the ratiWcation of the constitution on the other. It is also a time
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