Part II History, Ch.5 International Organizations, 1945–Present

Subject(s):

Since World War II — NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) — Collective security — Humanitarian intervention — Membership of international organizations — International organizations, practice and procedure

This chapter primarily focuses on histories of post 1945 international organizations (IOs) told from different theoretical perspectives by political scientists and legal scholars. It is organized as follows. Section I discusses the mainstream history of IOs as told by liberal and neo-liberal scholars in the form of a narrative of progress. Section II briefly narrates three alternative stories about the role of IOs in the post 1945 period: third world, Marxist, and feminist histories of IOs. These histories i.e. mainstream and critical histories need not be read as mutually exclusive histories. In many ways these capture different dimensions of the history of IOs. Section III reflects on salient issues and themes that are the subject of current debates including the emergence of a nascent world state.