The Sorcerer's Apprentice? Institutional Change in International Institutions

Abstract

States create international institutions to reach certain goals that they struggle to achieve themselves. However, such institutions often develop a life of their own. Like the sorcerer’s apprentice states may have called on forces that they then struggle to control. This panel discusses what institutional change in international institutions is normatively permissible or possibly even even demanded. One core issue is that states create international institutions by state consent and institutional change may lead to new aims or competencies not sanctioned by that consent. Yet in what way are international institutions bound by the founders’ consent? State consent has often been criticised as a normatively questionable standard that reinforces the power asymmetries in the international system and relies on regimes that are not accountable to their own citizens. So a certain level of autonomy of international institutions and change within them may even be desirable. This, however, raises questions of feasibility and normative desirability. How independent should international institutions be? How should we think about institutional reforms if the best option is not possible due to the lack of state consent? Who should bring about institutional change in international institutions? And how does such change influence the legitimacy of international institutions? The panel addresses these and related questions by drawing on different traditions of political theory and philosophy.

Title	Details
Envisaging ‘Solidarity’ in Political Argumentation: Debating the Future in the European Parliament After the Brexit Referendum	View Paper Details
Legitimacy of International Courts: Three Fundamental Dimensions of Legitimacy	View Paper Details
Dealing with Conflicting Institutional Arrangements in Mongolia and South Africa: When International Blueprints Hit Local Realities	View Paper Details