What is the main role of international institutions? Political, financial and humanitarian perspectives

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Politics – International Politics – General and Theories, grade: 1,0, Berlin School of Economics and Law, course: Regional Studies, language: English, abstract: International institutions can be defined as behavioural regularities associated with a set of rules, norms and routines (Allegret and Dulbecco, 2002, p. 174) which can either have a formal or informal character. On account of this broad definition international institutions appear in several different forms, such as international organisations as well as international treaties, with divergent conceptual designs, missions and tasks. For this reason, the main objective of this essay is to answer the question what the main role of international institutions is. In order to answer the central question the author will only focus on international institutions in terms of international organisations as an extensive analysis of all forms of international institutions would go beyond the scope of this essay. The main part of this work will be introduced with a brief overview of the basic concept of global governance. Subsequently, the central question will be discussed by using three examples of international organisations which correspond to three different perspectives on the problem. These perspectives consist of the political perspective with the United Nations as an example, the financial perspective with the example of the International Monetary Fund and the humanitarian perspective using the World Health Organisation as an example. Throughout the essay each example follows a certain structure. Firstly, each organisation will be briefly introduced by defining it, clarifying why and by whom it was founded and what its conceptual design and organisational structure are. Secondly, the author will analyse what the main activities, functions and roles of each organisation are and present a critical assessment regarding the roles, work or functioning of the respective organisation afterwards. Lastly, a short outlook concerning the possible future development and position of the international organisations in question will be given. The main findings of the analysis will then be summarised and presented in the conclusion of this essay.