International Organizations - Department of Political Science and ...

POLS 346.01 - INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Fall 2012 – Boğaziçi University
Friday: 10:00-13:00, IB 301
Instructor: Beken Saatçioğlu
bs5t@virginia.edu
Office Hours: Immediately after class
Course Content and Objectives
International organizations (IOs) are prominent features of international politics. Their number and
mandates have proliferated in an increasingly globalizing world. Today, IOs exercise authority even
over issue areas traditionally presumed to be ―guarded‖ by sovereign nation-states. Contemporary
international law regulates state behavior in almost every possible policy domain. To name a few,
modern states have a responsibility to respect international rules of nonaggression; take action
against gross human rights violations wherever they arise; face accountability for war crimes in
international courts, if necessary; protect the environment and provide debt relief to the world‘s
poorest nations.
Paradoxically, however, the norms built in IOs have often been violated by states which created
them in the first place. This is a principal theme of this course. Why then do states invest in building
and expanding IOs? In cases when they do, why do states comply with IO rules? What types of rules
are most complied with? How should IOs be designed to ensure more effective solutions to the
world‘s pressing problems? What can be done to improve IO legitimacy and accountability?
The course begins by reviewing the main theoretical perspectives which have long dealt with these
questions. It focuses mostly on the UN system, with respect to the issues of collective security,
peacekeeping, humanitarian intervention, war crimes and economic development although regional
IOs are studied as well.
Requirements
Attendance: Attendance is mandatory. You are allowed to miss three classes without penalty.
After that, each absence will lower your overall course grade by 1/3 of a letter grade.
• Participation: 10%
Informed participation is an integral part of your participation grade. You are expected to come to
class having done the assigned readings and critically reflected upon them to be able to participate to
our discussions.
***A course pack which includes all the class readings is available at Günel photocopy shop.
• Two reading quizzes: 30% (15% each)
• November 16: In-class midterm exam: 30%
1

• In-class final exam: 30%
***These requirements are final and will ultimately determine your overall grade in the class.
There will be no additional assignments for those of you looking to increase their grades by
the end of the semester.***
***It goes without saying that students must show respect for the professor and classmates. This
means arriving to class a few minutes prior, avoiding distracting behaviors in class and turning off
cell phones. Excessive and repeated tardiness will not be tolerated. If you’re consistently late to
class, you will not be allowed to attend.***
***Recommendation letter policy: If you need a letter of recommendation from me, you should
write a research paper (6-8 pages) so that I can assess your research and writing potential for
graduate study. The paper should be submitted sufficiently in advance to give me enough time to
write you a letter.***
ACADEMIC HONESTY
The Department of Political Science and International Relations has the following rules and
regulations regarding academic honesty.
1. Copying work from others or giving and receiving answers/information during exams either
in written or oral form constitutes cheating.
2. Submitting take-home exams and papers of others as your own, using sentences or
paragraphs from another author without the proper acknowledgement of the original author,
insufficient acknowledgement of the consulted works in the bibliography, all constitute
plagiarism.
3. Plagiarism and cheating are serious offenses and will result in:
a) an automatic ―F‖ in the assignment or the exam
b) an oral explanation before the Departmental Ethics Committee
c) losing the opportunity to request and receive any references from the entire faculty
d) losing the opportunity to apply in exchange programs
e) losing the prospects of becoming a student assistant or a graduate assistant in the
department
The students may further be sent to the University Ethics committee or be subject to
disciplinary action.
Please refer to the box below for a detailed explanation of what constitutes plagiarism.
What is Plagiarism?
Using someone else's ideas or phrasing and representing those ideas or phrasing as our own, either on purpose or
through carelessness, is a serious offense known as plagiarism. ―Ideas or phrasing‖ includes written or spoken material,
of course—from whole papers and paragraphs to sentences, and, indeed, phrases—but it also includes statistics, lab
2

esults, art work, etc. ―Someone else‖ can mean a professional source, such as a published writer or critic in a book,
magazine, encyclopedia, or journal; an electronic resource such as material we discover on the World Wide Web; another
student at our school or anywhere else; a paper-writing ―service‖ (online or otherwise) which offers to sell written papers
for a fee.
Let us suppose, for example, that we‘re doing a paper for Music Appreciation on the child prodigy years of the
composer and pianist Franz Liszt and that we've read about the development of the young artist in several sources. In
Alan Walker's book Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years (Ithaca: 1983), we read that Liszt's father encouraged him, at age
six, to play the piano from memory, to sight-read music and, above all, to improvise. We can report in our paper (and in
our own words) that Liszt was probably the most gifted of the child prodigies making their mark in Europe in the midnineteenth
century—because that is the kind of information we could have gotten from a number of sources; it has
become what we call common knowledge.
However, if we report on the boy's father's role in the prodigy's development, we should give proper credit to Alan
Walker. We could write, for instance, the following: Franz Liszt's father encouraged him, as early as age six, to practice
skills which later served him as an internationally recognized prodigy (Walker, p. 59). Or, we could write something like
this: Alan Walker notes that, under the tutelage of his father, Franz Liszt began work in earnest on his piano playing at
the age of six (p. 59). Not to give Walker credit for this important information is plagiarism.
Some More Examples:
(The examples below were originally written by the writing center staff at an esteemed
college; that institution has asked us to remove its name from this Web page.)
The original text from Elaine Tyler May's ―Myths and Realities of the American Family‖:
Because women's wages often continue to reflect the fiction that men earn the family wage, single mothers rarely earn
enough to support themselves and their children adequately. And because work is still organized around the assumption
that mothers stay home with children, even though few mothers can afford to do so, child-care facilities in the United
States remain woefully inadequate.
Here are some possible uses of this text. As you read through each version, try to decide if it is a legitimate use of May's
text or a plagiarism.
Version A:
Since women's wages often continue to reflect the mistaken notion that men are the main wage earners in the family,
single mothers rarely make enough to support themselves and their children very well. Also, because work is still based
on the assumption that mothers stay home with children, facilities for child care remain woefully inadequate in the
United States.
Plagiarism.
In Version A there is too much direct borrowing in sentence structure and wording. The writer changes some words,
drops one phrase, and adds some new language, but the overall text closely resembles May‘ s. Even with a citation, the
writer is still plagiarizing because the lack of quotation marks indicates that Version A is a paraphrase, and should thus
be in the writer's own language.
Version B:
As Elaine Tyler May points out, ―women's wages often continue to reflect the fiction that men earn the family wage‖
(588). Thus many single mothers cannot support themselves and their children adequately. Furthermore, since work is
based on the assumption that mothers stay home with children, facilities for day care in this country are still ―woefully
inadequate.‖ (May 589).
Plagiarism.
The writer now cites May, so we're closer to telling the truth about our text's relationship to the source, but this text
continues to borrow too much language.
Version C:
3

By and large, our economy still operates on the mistaken notion that men are the main breadwinners in the family. Thus,
women continue to earn lower wages than men. This means, in effect, that many single mothers cannot earn a decent
living. Furthermore, adequate day care is not available in the United States because of the mistaken assumption that
mothers remain at home with their children.
Plagiarism.
Version C shows good paraphrasing of wording and sentence structure, but May's original ideas are not acknowledged.
Some of May's points are common knowledge (women earn less than men, many single mothers live in poverty), but
May uses this common knowledge to make a specific and original point and her original conception of this idea is not
acknowledged.
Version D:
Women today still earn less than men—so much less that many single mothers and their children live near or below the
poverty line. Elaine Tyler May argues that this situation stems in part from ―the fiction that men earn the family wage‖
(588). May further suggests that the American workplace still operates on the assumption that mothers with children stay
home to care for them (589). This assumption, in my opinion, does not have the force it once did. More and more
businesses offer in-house day-care facilities.
No Plagiarism.
The writer makes use of the common knowledge in May's work, but acknowledges May's original conclusion and does
not try to pass it off as his or her own. The quotation is properly cited, as is a later paraphrase of another of May's ideas.
September 28: Course overview and introduction
October 5: What are international organizations? Why do they exist? What logics of action
guide them?
Karns and Mingst, ―The Challenges of Global Governance‖, p. 3-34 (in Margaret P. Karns and
Karen A. Mingst, International Organizations. The Politics and Processes of Global Governance, Boulder:
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004).
March, James G. and Johan P. Olsen, ―The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders‖,
International Organization 52 (4) (Autumn 1998), p. 943-954.
Hoffman, Stanley ―World Governance: Beyond Utopia‖ Daedalus 132 (1) (Winter 2003), p. 27-35.
October 12: Rationalist Approaches to International Organizations: Realism and Neoliberal
Institutionalism
Pease, Kelly-Kate, Chapter 3, ―Mainstream Approaches‖, p. 43-73 (in Kelly-Kate Pease, International
Organizations, Perspectives on Governance in the Twenty-First Century, Third Edition, New Jersey: Pearson
Prentice Hall, 2008).
Mearsheimer, John ―The False Promise of International Institutions‖, International Security 19 (3),
(Winter 1994/95), p. 5-49 (read only p. 5-37).
4

Keohane, Robert and Lisa Martin ―The Promise of Institutionalist Theory‖ International Security 20
(1), (Summer 1995), p. 39-51.
October 19: Sociological Approaches to International Organizations: Constructivism and
Organizational Theory
Mearsheimer, John ―The False Promise of International Institutions‖, International Security 19 (3)
(Winter 1994/95), p. 37-47.
Wendt, Alexander ―Anarchy is What States Make of it‖, (in Art and Jervis, eds., International Politics:
Enduring Concepts and Contemporary Issues, 7 th edition, New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005), p. 61-68.
Gheciu, Alexandra ―Security Institutions as Agents of Socialization? NATO and the ‗New Europe‘‖,
International Organization 59 (Fall 2005), p. 973-1012 (read only p. 973-1003).
Barnett, Michael and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics,
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), p. 1-10 and Chapter 2, p. 16-44.
October 26: Religious holiday - No class
November 2: History of International Organizations: Early IOs and the League of Nations
Bennett, LeRoy and James K. Oliver, ―A Great Experiment: The League of Nations‖, p. 27-45 (in
Bennett and Oliver, International Organizations: Principles and Issues, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002).
The Covenant of the League of Nations: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp.
Wilson, Woodrow ―The Fourteen Points‖ (excerpts from Wilson‘s address to the U.S. Congress on
8 January 1918).
Carr, E.H. The Twenty Years‘ Crisis, 1919-1939 (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 22-88.
Make-up class: Date and time to be arranged: Post-World War II System: The United
Nations and Collective Security
****************Quiz at the beginning of class*************************************
Pease, p. 22-29 and p. 103-109.
UN Charter, Chapter VII, available at: http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/index.html and UN
Resolution 1441.
Franck, Thomas M. ―What Happens Now? The UN after Iraq‖ and Harold Hongju Koh ―On
American Exceptionalism‖, p. 376-393 (in Hathaway and Koh, Foundations of International Law and
Politics, New York: Foundation Press, 2005).
Glennon, Michael ―Why the Security Council Failed‖, Foreign Affairs 82 (3) (May-June 2003).
5

November 9: Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Intervention
Karns and Mingst, ―Peacekeeping‖, p. 306-327.
Barnett and Finnemore, ―Genocide and the Peacekeeping Culture at the United Nations‖, p. 121-
155.
―Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide‖, available at:
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm
Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, ―The Responsibility
to Protect‖, p. XI-XIII, 11-13, and 29-37.
November 16: MIDTERM
November 23: NATO
Pease, chapter 6, ―Regional Security‖, p. 139-156.
Pattison, James ―Introduction‖, p. 1-4; Welsh, Jennifer ―Civilian Protection in Libya: Putting
Coercion and Controversy Back into RtoP‖, p. 1-8; Bellamy, Alex ―Libya and the Responsibility to
Protect‖, p. 1-7; Pattison, James ―The Ethics of Humanitarian Intervention in Libya‖, p.1-7;
Chesterman, Simon ―Leading from behind‖, p. 1-7; Weiss, Thomas ―RtoP Alive and Well after
Libya‖, p. 1-6, in Ethics and International Affairs 25 (3), Fall 2011.
November 30: Human Rights Enforcement and Accountability for Crimes against
Humanity
Robertson, Geoffrey ―The International Criminal Court‖, p. 419-467 (in Robertson, Crimes Against
Humanity. The Struggle for Global Justice, New York: The New Press, 2006).
Kaye, David, ―Who‘s Afraid of the International Criminal Court?‖, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2011,
Vol. 90 (3), p. 118-129.
December 7: The UN System and Development
Pease, chapter 8, ―Development‖, p. 192-224, and ―Marxism‖, p. 74-89.
Stiglitz, Joseph, ―The Way Ahead‖, p. 214-252 (in Stiglitz Globalization and Its Discontents, New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, June 2002).
Rogoff, Kenneth ―The IMF Strikes Back‖, Foreign Policy 134 (January 2003), p. 38-46.
Rogoff‘s open letter to Stiglitz, available at: http://www.imf.org/external/np/vc/2002/070202.htm
December 14: European Union
******************************Quiz at the beginning of class***********************
6

Karns and Mingst, ―The European Union (EU)‖, p. 159-174.
Grabbe, Heather ―Accession Conditionality and Its Implications‖, p. 7-38 (in Grabbe, The EU’s
Transformative Power: Europeanization through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe, New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
European Commission, ―Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2006 – 2007, including
annexed special report on the EU's capacity to integrate new members‖ (Brussels, 2006), skim p. 2-
10, read carefully p. 15-24, available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2006/Nov/com_649_strategy_paper_en.pd
f
December 21: European Union and Turkey
Muftuler-Bac, ―Turkey‘s Accession to the European Union: The Impact of the EU‘s Internal
Dynamics‖, International Studies Perspectives, 2008 (9), p. 201-219.
European Commission, ―Issues Arising from Turkey‘s Membership Perspective‖, pp. 3-20, 21-27
(skim), 37-41, 46-53, available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/pdf/key_documents/2004/issues_paper_en.pdf
European Commission, Negotiating Framework, Luxembourg, 3 October 2005, available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/turkey/st20002_05_tr_framedoc_en.pdf
7