Explaining International Organizational Change: A Transactional Institutionalist Approach.

Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) are an important feature of international politics because of transnational issues that cannot be solved through individual state actions. International social policy is one issue are in that has become more salient as economic globalization strains social protections system and other social rights. The International Labor Organization (ILO) is at the center of the transnational attempts to the social dimension of globalization. During the Cold War, the ILO was nearly paralyzed with East-West tensions. Since the 1990s, however, the ILO has undergone significant institutional changes to become an increasingly important IGO. The ILO has undergone significant policy rebirth as its agenda has expanded significantly. The increasing importance of the ILO is puzzling because the international organization has not played a significant role in shaping the international policy agenda. Not much is known about how endogenous and exogenous factors interact to produce change. To models this interaction, I apply a transactional institutionalist approach incorporates the role of preferences, transaction costs, transgovernmental relations, agenda control, institutionalization, and path dependent mechanisms to explain institutional change. This framework avoids the reductionism of neoliberal institutionalism by developing a theory of preference formation and not only a theory of interest aggregation. While I agree with liberal theorists that socio-economic actors are a major source of state preferences, they are mediated through institutions with their own interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]