Barnett and Finnemore develop the view that international organizations (IOs) by their very nature have the potential to fall into dysfunction and implement their work in such ways as to yield negative effects, from a violation of mission to inappropriate mission creep, and in any case blazing a trail of failure. Such organizational behavior, which they label pathological, is guaranteed if an organization's bureaucratic structures dominate adherence to appropriate protocols on one hand, or adhere inappropriately to such protocols on the other. The good intentions or original mission conception of an organization are always at risk. That is first of all from the ordinary issues that confront institutional structures. Those issues are covered in the standard literature of organizational behavior. Motivation, morale, power ratios of personnel, and the like can figure just as much in an IO as in a corporate environment. The fact that international organizations have cross-national reach and international sponsorship may contribute to difficulties of resolving management and business-process issues shows that the stakes are higher where the potential for failure or ineffectiveness at any level is concerned.
The reasons for the hazards of pathology are containd in "the very nature of bureaucracies, the 'social stuff'" of which an organization is made (1999, p. 719). Barnett and Finnemore start with the sociologist M`x Weber's analyris of bureaucracies and the process of as "rationalizaton." They describe Weber's view of social constructions and institutions meant to make society make sense, then argue that Weber's warnings about ultrarationalism that obtains institutional force and authority.
In the case of IOs, such force and authority may take hold in ways the founding nation-state members or other entities did not predict. But the IO still may have international influence. The authors give examples from the International Monetary Fu...