When Knowledge Is Power : Three Models of Change in International Organizations / Ernst B. Haas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Haas, Ernst B., author.

Series:

Studies in international political economy ; Volume 22.

Studies in International Political Economy Series ; Volume 22

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Organizational change.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (281 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2018]

Summary:

Do governments seeking to collaborate in such international organizations as the United Nations and the World Bank ever learn to improve the performance of those organizations? Can international organizations be improved by a deliberate institutional design that reflects lessons learned in peacekeeping, the protection of human rights, and environmentally sound economic development? In this incisive work, Ernst Haas examines these and other issues to delineate the conditions under which organizations change their methods for defining problems. Haas contends that international organizations change most effectively when they are able to redefine the causes underlying the problems to be addressed. He shows that such self-reflection is possible when the expert-generated knowledge about the problems can be made to mesh with the interests of hegemonic coalitions of member governments. But usually efforts to change organizations begin as adaptive practices that owe little to a systematic questioning of past behavior. Often organizations adapt and survive without fully satisfying most of their members, as has been the case with the United Nations since 1970. When Knowledge Is Power is a wide-ranging work that will elicit interest from political scientists, organization theorists, bureaucrats, and students of management and international administration. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1990.

Contents:

Cover

Series Editor

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

1. Multilateralism, Knowledge, and Power

The Argument Summarized

A Typology Is Not a Theory

Knowledge, Power, and Interest

Why International Organizations Are Important as Innovators

2. International Organizations: Adapters or Learners

International Organizations as Problem Solvers

Consensual Knowledge

Learning

International Organizations as Satisficers

Adaptation, Learning, and Institutional Constraints

Epistemic Communities as Enemies of Habit-Driven Institutions

Learning and Transideological Communication

3. Characteristics Shared by All International Organizations

Models, Organizational Units, and Learning

Behavioral Constants of All Public Organizations

Situational Constants of All International Organizations

4. Characteristics That Differentiate International Organizations

Identifying the Differences: A Descriptive Code

Adaptation and Learning: An Analytic Code

Predicting" Changed Behavior?

Three Models of Organizational Change

5. Adaptation Through Incremental Growth

The Incremental-Growth Model

How to Identify the Incremental-Growth Model

Conditions and Limitations of the Incremental-Growth Model

6. Adaptation Through Turbulent Nongrowth

Turbulence and Turbulent Fields

Turbulence and International Organizations

How to Identify the Turbulent Nongrowth Model

Conditions and Limitations of the Turbulent Nongrowth Model

7. Learning to Manage Interdependence

Managed Interdependence: General Characteristics

How to Identify the Managed-Interdependence Model

Successful Organizational Learning: Case Studies

Unsuccessful Organizational Learning: Case Studies

8. The Three Models of Change: A Comparison

Regional Organizations.

When Can Managed Interdependence Take Over

Is Learning to Manage Interdependence Morally Preferable to Adaptation

Between Adaptation and Learning

Institutions, Regimes, and Organization-Mediated Change

9. Can Better International Organizations Be Designed

The Crisis of Multilateralism as the Occasion for Redesign

The Normative Basis of Design

Cognitive Evolution

How to Manage Interdependence Better

Notes

Subject Index

Index of Authors Cited.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-520-37886-5

OCLC:

1443625756