The article puts forward a historical institutionalist account of how international organizations are ‘designed.’ I argue that deliberate institutional design is circumscribed by path-dependent power dynamics within international organizations. Power-driven path dependence is used to explain...

This article analyses the emergency governance of international organizations by combining securitization theory with legal theory on the state of exception. Our main argument is that where issues are securitized as global threats, exceptionalism can emerge at the level of supranational bodies,...

This article explores how the role of religion is evaluated in global health institutions, focusing on policy debates in the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank. Drawing on Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot's pragmatist approach to justification, I suggest that religious values...

The article puts forward a historical institutionalist account of how international organizations are ‘designed.’ I argue that deliberate institutional design is circumscribed by path-dependent power dynamics within international organizations. Power-driven path dependence is used to explain...

This article analyses the emergency governance of international organizations by combining securitization theory with legal theory on the state of exception. Our main argument is that where issues are securitized as global threats, exceptionalism can emerge at the level of supranational bodies,...

Außerhalb von Krisenzeiten findet die WHO oft wenig Gehör. Ihre sozialpolitischen Initiativen werden regelmäßig abgeschmettert; ihr Handeln bleibt auf Krankheitspolitik reduziert. Das ist ein Fehler.

Outside times of crisis, the WHO's voice is seldomly heeded. Its socio-political initiatives are regularly shot down, its actions reduced to policing illness. That is a mistake.

This chapter examines how the WHO’s orchestrating role has been reshaped by the proliferation of actors in the international health field. Lacking the material capabilities to perform its technical functions on its own, WHO traditionally draws on its formal authority and convening power to...