This thesis examines whether intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) can socialize member states by testing the effect of shared IGO memberships on dyadic arms transfers. IGO socialization is one of many proposed causal mechanisms by which IGO memberships might reduce interstate conflict. This thesis argues that the institutional socialization hypothesis (ISH), which asserts that shared IGO memberships will lead to interest convergence between member states, uses an invalid conceptualization and measurement of socialization. Instead, socialization is re-conceptualized as increased trust between member states, and re-operationalized using dyadic arms transfers as a proxy for trust. The study uses linear regression with cross-sectional panel data from the years 1960 to 1965 to test if the number of shared IGO memberships a dyad has five years prior leads to an increase in the number of arms transfers in a given dyad-year. The results are suggestive of a positive relationship between the number of shared IGO memberships and dyadic arms transfers, but are not conclusive at a 0.05 level of significance.

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The United Nations (UN) has invested increasing levels of effort in recent decades to cultivate a more effective, diverse and democratic institutional culture via the inclusion of and interaction among international civil society organizations (CSOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to supplement the traditional role of states as the primary transnational actors. The principle vehicle for the UN-civil society dynamic is the consultative status (CS) program within the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), wherein a diverse range of nearly 5,000 transnational organizations ostensibly participate. This research examined patterns of participation and the nature/level of CSO/NGO involvement within the UN, with particular focus upon ECOSOC. In examining participation patterns, the research identified patterns related to geographical/proportional representation among developed and developing regions and world regions in general and also as related to policy/issue areas represented. In terms of involvement, the research sought to assess the types and degree of contributions being made by CSOs/NGOs in association with the UN. To address both areas, the research employed a two-prong methodology including (1) a detailed analysis of the UN’s online integrated Civil Society Organizations (iCSO) database and (2) a comprehensive survey questionnaire mailed to a randomly-selected sample of 10% of all organizations holding consultative status with UN-ECOSOC. The findings challenge the assumption that UN association with international civil society has realized pluralist ideals in that substantial variations were found to exist in the representation of policy/issue areas, with some areas far better represented than others. Perhaps more importantly, the research revealed that only a minority of organizations in the ECOSOC-CS program appear to be actively/regularly engaged with the UN, with a large minority of CS-accredited organizations engaged only periodically or to a more limited extent, and a substantial minority not participating/interacting in any way. Rather than exemplifying pluralism within the constructivist tradition, findings imply support for liberal institutionalist theories in that decades-long expansion of IGO influence has facilitated a corollary expectation of expanding international civil society and an associated expectation of linkages between transnational governance and democratic institutions on the one hand and transnational civil society on the other as a standardized norm.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This paper seeks to answer the theoretical question: Do international organizations (IOs) bring peace and stability to international relations? The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) serves as a case study which can help answer this query. Initially, it is important to explore what realist and liberal scholars broadly argue on the matter of IOs, peace and stability. NATO as an organization is then examined, followed by the case study of the role it played in the Ukraine crisis. Many international organizations exist today which deal with a wide variety of issues. The League of Nations, though it failed to fulfill its mandate of maintaining worldwide peace, can be considered the first modern international organization and served as the model for its successor, the United Nations. Realists—who argue that states are the principal actor in international relations (IR) and that they are self-interested and mainly concerned with security and power—look upon IOs skeptically. Liberals, though, believe in cooperation among states and promote the proliferation of international organizations, extolling their virtues. The heated debate between these two ideologies is evident in the case of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) eastward expansion. NATO was originally designed to curb the Soviet threat and protect Western Europe from communist expansion. When the Cold War ended and NATO’s original mandate had therefore expired, liberals championed the continued existence and expansion of the organization. Realists, on the other hand, warned of negative repercussions, as they foresaw that eastward expansion of the alliance would be perceived as a threat by Russia. The 2014 Ukraine crisis provides a good case study which can help determine whether liberals or realists were right. Liberals have claimed that Russian aggression in the region justifies NATO expansion. Realists, however, have argued that it is the very fact of actual and prospective NATO expansion which has caused this aggression in the first place.