The Architecture of Arguments in Global Social Governance: Examining Populations and Discourses of International Organizations in Social Policies

Abstract

AbstractAs this chapter is the introduction to the book, it lays out in broad strokes the knowledge about the purposes, functions and characteristics of International Organizations (IOs) in general, and their involvement in social policy issues in particular. It then sets out some basic conceptualizations for studying IOs in global social governance before specifying the framework applied for exploring populations and discourses of IOs in global social policies. Complementing liberal and constructivist IR theories, the volume uses organizational ecology and soft governance approaches as heuristic frames for the analyses of different architectures of IO global social governance. ‘Populations’ are identified as the dominant as well as regional IOs active in a specific social policy issue; the concept of ‘discourse’ is understood as the strategic way in which individuals or collective actors frame ideas, and not as a structural understanding of how certain meanings influence behavior.