Abstract

ZAMUDIO GONZALEZ, Laura  and  ARELLANO GAULT, David. Beyond the bureaucracy pathologies: introducing organizational theory into the study of IO's. Rev. mex. cienc. polít. soc [online]. 2011, vol.56, n.213, pp.27-50. ISSN 0185-1918.

In recent years, the paradigm that attempts to understand international organizations as exactly that -with a life and internal dynamic of their own- has gained ground. This, in turn, has made it possible to re-create research agendas and propose new ones for studying these organizations. However, a tendency exists to view international organizations as bureaucracies that suffer from ongoing pathologies and dysfunctions. It is worth considering whether this viewpoint would allow us to study international organizations in depth, especially given that the field of organizational studies abandoned the functionalist perspective of bureaucratic pathologies more than 40 years ago. This article proposes that we move beyond this viewpoint that focuses on dysfunction and pathology in order to reclaim the advances in analyzing complex organizations that have been made in the field of organizational studies. Taking a more dynamic view of the organizational milieu, of power, and of the management of uncertainty -as critical variables in organizational dynamics- would appear to be an indispensable first step for studying international organizations.

Keywords : International Organizations (IO's); Organizational Theory; bureaucracy; functionalism; Weber's ideal type; Crozier; uncertainty; power.

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