Orders, purposes, and tasks: How do states act in international security organizations?

IR scholars have paid significant attention to the question of why states act through international organizations (IOs). However, they have been less interested in detailing how states do it. The reason, I argue, is the assumption that action is explained once an actor's motives to engage in it are specified. However,, as practice theory suggests, this assumption is mistaken. The manner in which an action is performed often has little to do with actors' motives. By scrutinizing international security organizations (ISOs), the article thus asks: How do states act insides ISOs? The article argues that they do it by using the language of the international security order, ISOs purposes vis-à-vis that order, and corresponding tasks. Importantly, it proposes that this manner of performance derives from the imperative of states to aggregate, using language, an ISO into an agent in world politics. The CSCE/OSCE's post-Cold War evolution is used as an illustrative case. The case shows that member states indeed perpetually envelope their demands in the language of the European order, the CSCE/OSCE purpose concerning that order and its tasks. The conclusion summarizes the articles' theoretical implications and invites scholars to explore how-questions of manner relating to IOs active in different issue areas.