International organization: a state of the art on an art of the state

International organization as a field of study has had its ups and downs throughout the post-World War II era and throughout this century for that matter. In the interwar period, the fate of the field reflected the fate of the world it studied: a creative burst of work on “international government” after 1919, followed by a period of more cautious reassessment approaching the 1930s, and a gradual decline into irrelevance if not obscurity thereafter. Although they sometimes intersected, the fate of theory and the fate of practice were never all that closely linked after World War II. Indeed, it is possible to argue, with only slight exaggeration, that in recent years they have become inversely related: the academic study of international organization is more interesting, vibrant, and even compelling than ever before, whereas the world of actual international organizations has deteriorated in efficacy and performance. Today, international organization as a field of study is an area where the action is; few would so characterize international organizations as a field of practice.