Institutionalism in international relations

Institutionalism in international relations comprises a group of differing theories on international relations (IR). Functionalist and neofunctionalist approaches, regime theory, and state cartel theory have in common their focus on the role of formal and informal rules, norms, practices, and conventions for international politics.

The functional theory of David Mitrany is the oldest institutional theory of IR. Mitrany suggested that slim "functional agencies" should organize the needs of cooperation among even conflicting states. The neofunctionalism and the communitarian method of Jean Monnet advocated the principle of supranationality: international bodies superordinated to the nation states should administer the common interests. The functionalist approaches have been often criticized to be idealistic and normative in their positive view on international institutions.

Regime theory holds that the international system is not—in practice—anarchic, but that it has an implicit or explicit structure which determines how states will act within the system.

Regimes are institutions or rules that determine the decision-making process. In the international arena, institution has been used interchangeably with regime, which has been defined by Krasner as a set of explicit or implicit "principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors' expectations converge in a given issue-area".

Regime theorists hold a wide array of beliefs stemming from the central proposition that regimes as international institutions "matter" in answering the question, what explains a particular outcome? There are four reasons for this:

State cartel theory imported its terminology from the classical cartel theory of economic enterprises and thus is much more concrete than regime theory. On the field of international relations nation states are searching advantages by cooperation or by fighting out conflicts. But from a certain degree both of the compaction of international (economic) relations and of the development of military technology war discards more and more as a method of conflict. Now the states have to get along with each other, and hence they cartelize more and more issues of their politics in international institutions. Like in enterprise cartels the members' assembly is always the main institution of the combinations: the respective council of ministers or delegates, e.g., the Council of the European Union. All further institutions are the result of the will and the needs of the members and have serving functions (secretary, operative commissions, arbitration board), e.g., European Commission and European Court.

...
Wikipedia