The authors of this book have been observers, students, and teachers of international organizations for more than fifty years. During that period of time the United Nations, as the primary general-purpose intergovernmental organization, has fluctuated between success and failure and has met with both public support and skepticism. The authors are normatively committed to the indispensability of global and regional international and transnational organizations in an age when people and nation-states must adapt to a shrinking and increasingly interdependent globe and the growing demand for global governance.
In this study the authors follow no single model and are eclectic in their interests. The focus is on the philosophy and principles of international organizations and on a broad range of issues with which these organizations try to deal. A balance is struck between comprehensive coverage of the problems, inquiries, and decisions that face these organizations daily and the limitations that must be observed in tailoring a textbook for a one-semester course. The use of several tables, charts, and case studies provides devices for summarizing and illustrating detailed activities. Yet comprehensiveness has not been sacrificed by omitting discussion on any major activity of international organizations. Neither has it been assumed that the student possesses prior detailed knowledge of the subject.
The years since the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed have proved just as complex and challenging as the Cold War was with regard to global, regional, and private international and transnational organizations. Demands on these institutions have actually broadened as regional, civil, and ethnic conflicts have persisted even as globalization has become more extensive and intensive. United Nations peacekeeping has increasingly become peacemaking and peace-enforcing operations. The new emphasis in North-South relations has become linked to environmental issues within a framework of "sustainable development." Simultaneously, nongovernmental organizations have become more and more salient as agents of global civil society, especially with respect to human rights, humanitarian affairs, environmental issues, and even arms control and disarmament. European countries moved during the 1990s to deepen and broaden their political, social, and economic integration. Every chapter has, therefore, been updated and those concerned with arms control and disarmament (Chapter 9) and regional organizations (Chapter 10) have been substantially rewritten. Much of the Introduction and all of the analyses of transnational forces, actors, and other manifestations of globalization in Chapter 11 have been recast to reflect the transformations of global affairs since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The authors would like to thank Meaghan Predergast of the University of Delaware for research assistance with respect to Chapters 9, 10, and 11. Finally, we would like to thank the reviewers: Richard C. Robyn, Kent State University; Steven W. Hook, Kent State University; and James R. Sofka, University of Virginia for their valuable and constructive suggestions. They also acknowledge the excellent support of the Prentice Hall staff in every phase of publication.
A. LeRoy Bennett
James K. Oliver
