Hylke Dijkstra

Maastricht University | UM · Department of Political Science

Many international organizations (IOs) are currently under pressure and the demise of the liberal international order is the talk of town. We theorize that institutional characteristics help to explain why some IOs survive external pressures where others fail. We test this argument through a survival analysis of 150 IOs (1815–2014). We find that th...

Many international organisations (IOs) are currently challenged, yet are they also in decline? Despite much debate on the crisis of liberal international order, contestation, loss of legitimacy, gridlock, pathologies and exiting member states, there is little research on IO decline. This article seeks to clarify this concept and argues that decline...

The Trump administration posed an unprecedented challenge to many international organisations (IOs). This article analyses the ability of IOs to respond and explains variation in the survival strategies pursued by their institutional actors. It argues that leadership, organisational structure, competences and external networks affect whether instit...

Multilateralism is in crisis. States increasingly contest, undermine and even withdraw from international organisations and other multilateral institutions. Challenges emanate not only from emerging powers but also from established Western states and civil society. No other actor but the EU is more intimately entangled with multilateralism. This ar...

International organisations (IOs) have become increasingly contested resulting in worries about their decline and termination. While IO termination is indeed a regular event in international relations, this article shows that other institutions carry the legacy of terminated IOs. We develop the novel concept of IO afterlife and suggest indicators t...

While international organizations (IOs) have played a central role in global governance in the post-Cold War period, during the last decade many have struggled. Due to the rise of populism, the Trump Presidency, and the renewed assertiveness of the emerging powers, various IOs have been challenged in ways that put their ability to perform core func...

The United Nations (UN) Summit of the Future was a once-in-a-decade summit to work on UN reform. This article studies the Summit from the perspective of the broader crisis of liberal international order as well as the lifecycle of international organizations. It identifies the leadership by Secretary-General Guterres as critical in terms of agenda-...

Member states’ challenges to international organizations (IOs) are at the heart of the supposed crisis of our multilateral order – from the “African bias” debate surrounding the International Criminal Court, to the United Kingdom’s “Brexit” from the European Union, to Trump’s attacks on the World Health Organization during the COVID-19 pandemic. IO...

Geopolitics is back, with major powers increasingly approaching urgent international problems – such as climate change, global health, or artificial intelligence – through a zero-sum lens. Multilateral institutions appear gridlocked as global rivals block proceedings and fail to comply with established norms and rules. Reflecting on childhood memor...

Many international institutions are facing challenges due to changes in domestic politics and global power shifts. In this literature review, we ask whether international institutions are sufficiently robust to cope with a contested world in transition. We note that while changes in domestic politics and global power shifts put the liberal vision o...

Disagreements between European Union (EU) member states constrain the Union’s capacity to manage conflicts such as Kosovo-Serbia. While Kosovo has long received EU support, five EU member states do not recognise its independence. How does the EU manage to work around member states’ vetoes and mitigate contestation? In contrast to previous scholarsh...

The European Union (EU) increasingly formulates and implements foreign and security policy under the constraints of internal contestation, regional fragmentation and multipolar competition. While such contextual challenges can inhibit the EU from adopting an ambitious foreign and security policy, this Special Issue shows that the EU and its member...

Various international organizations have recently faced legitimacy crises, but many have demonstrated resilience and relegitimated their rule. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is an exception. It is clearly an organization in decline and is on the brink of irrelevance. The closure of its Special Monitoring Mission to U...

Major international organizations (IOs) are heavily contested, but they are rarely dissolved. Scholars have focused on their longevity making institutional arguments about replacement costs and institutional assets as well as IO agency to adapt and resist challenges. This article analyzes the limits of institutional stickiness by focusing on outlie...

The liberal international order is being challenged and international organizations (IOs) are a main target of contestation. COVID-19 seems to exacerbate the situation with many states pursuing domestic strategies at the expense of multilateral cooperation. At the same time, IOs have traditionally benefited from cross-border crises. This article an...

The EU seeks extensive partnership with other international organizations when it comes to security challenges. This is puzzling as the EU relies for its resources mostly on its member states. The relations between the EU and other international organizations have thoroughly been studied, yet scholars rarely question the actual rationale for partne...

International organizations do not live forever. Recent empirical studies show that around 39% of international organizations created since 1815 have formally died. Yet we know, in fact, little about their decline and death. This is surprising as it is well-known that different forms of governance-city-states, great powers, public agencies, allianc...

International organizations continuously deploy civilian capabilities as part of their peacekeeping and crisis management operations. This presents them with significant challenges. Not only are civilian deployments rapidly increasing in quantity, but civilian missions are also very diverse in nature. This article analyses how international organiz...

The third edition of this popular core textbook provides wide-ranging coverage of the structure, internal working, policies and performance of international organizations such as the UN, EU, IMF and World Bank. Such organizations have never been so important in addressing the challenges that face our increasingly globalised world. This book introdu...

The European Union is represented on the international stage by different actors and in different constellations. This chapter tries to understand how the EU representation in the field of CFSP is organised and applied in practice. It starts by discussing representation from a conceptual perspective by outlining various legal and political dynamics...

A stated aim in the EU Global Strategy is for the EU to work with partners in addressing crises across the world. This article analyses such potential in the area of crisis response and peacebuilding, with an emphasis on the EU's interaction with the UN and OSCE. It starts off comparatively by examining where the EU, UN and OSCE add value in crisis...

Risks are omnipresent in contemporary international security. Despite a long tradition in security studies going at least back to Von Clausewitz, we consider that the topic of risk remains under-examined. This forum seeks to advance the research agenda on risk in security studies by showcasing work of scholars using advanced concepts of risk, based...

The European Union is increasingly moving toward an integrated policy approach, which also acknowledges linkages between public health and (external) security policy. This introduction to the Special Issue sets out a research agenda on the emerging health-security nexus. It analyses recent policy developments with respect to the public health and s...

The principal-agent model assumes a functional division of labour. Principals delegate functions to agents, as they anticipate that the agents will implement those functions in a more credible and/or efficient manner. This chapter shows that there are also instances of non-exclusive delegation in the EU. That is, member states have delegated foreig...

In the theoretical literature on the authority of international secretariats, academics often dichotomise between states and secretariats. Even when they account for the fact that states are often divided, they normally adopt a two-step approach: states first resolve their own differences before they entertain relations with secretariats. This arti...

This report analyses how the EU, UN and OSCE exchange civilian capabilities during crisis missions in Kosovo, Mali and Armenia.

International organizations play an important role in policy implementation. As member states do not necessarily resolve political disagreements before delegating tasks, this article focuses on how individual member states seek to influence policy implementation by international organizations. It argues that the institutional context in which deleg...

In an important article on the state of EU foreign policy research, Keuleers, Fonck and Keukeleire show that academics prefer the study of the EU foreign policy system and EU implementation over the consequences of EU foreign policy for recipient countries. While the article is empirical, based on a dataset of 451 published articles on EU foreign p...

African security, particularly conflict-related political violence, is a key concern in international relations. This forum seeks to advance existing research agendas by addressing four key themes: domestic politics and peacekeeping; security sector reform programs; peace enforcement; and the protection of civilians. Each of the articles in this fo...

The rational design of international institutions has been a prominent research agenda in the field of international relations. The chapter builds on this tradition by exploring how intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) design relationships with other IGOs. Using insights from organization theory on inter-organizational relations (IORs), it propos...

The member states of the European Union (EU) coordinate, define, and implement foreign policy in the context of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This policy area, often referred to as EU foreign policy, has a broad scope. It covers all areas of foreign policy and questions relating to security and defense. The CFSP is supported by a u...

This report analyses how the EU, UN and OSCE make resources available for civilian missions. It starts with an overview of civilian missions around the world before comparing civilian planning and conduct procedures in these international organisations. The report zooms in on EU civilian capabilities and provides policy recommendations.

EU High Representative Federica Mogherini presented her EU Global Strategy (EUGS) in June 2016. Encircled by security crisis, it is difficult to think of something more important for Europe than collective action with the aim of weathering the storm. The EUGS, in this respect, seeks to define common ends and identify means. So what do we make of th...

From the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations to the NATO International Staff and the European External Action Service, international bureaucrats make decisions that affect life and death. In carrying out their functions, these officials not only facilitate the work of the member states, but also pursue their own distinct agendas. This book ana...

While formal decision power in most international organizations rests with the member states, the member states often delegate the preparation of decisions to international secretariats. To prepare decisions, secretariats gather and analyze information and subsequently provide the member states with an assessment on the alternative courses of actio...

The literature on international organizations tells us that diverging member states’ preferences and concerns about the loss of control are major obstacles to institutional reform. But what if changes in the international environment necessitate institutional reform? This article examines such dilemma in the case of the North Atlantic Treaty Organi...

The European Union (EU) has launched more than two dozen crisis management operations, spread over three continents, since 2003.1 It has sent uniformed personnel and monitors to conflict regions in the Western Balkans, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. It implements peace agreements, supports security-sector reform, builds up local capabiliti...

The European Union member states split over the military intervention in Libya with France, Germany and the UK voting differently in the United Nations Security Council. This article compares news media in France and Germany to better understand the foreign policy decisions of these key actors. Using a newspaper analysis of 334 articles, it shows t...

EU foreign policy has long been considered the exclusive domain of member states. This book challenges such conventional state-centered wisdom by analyzing the influence of the Brussels-based EU officials in the sensitive area of security and defense. It asks why the member states have delegated important functions to the EU and continues to examin...

The European Union (EU) has launched an impressive number of crisis management missions since its Common Security and Defence Policy became operational in 2003. This article analyses the agenda-setting phase of these civilian and military operations in order to explain why the EU has sent troops, policemen, judges, prosecutors and monitors across t...

This article analyses why the UN's members delegate resources to the UN Secretariat in the sensitive field of peacekeeping. It argues that the Secretariat can carry out planning and implementation functions more efficiently, but that the states remain wary of potential sovereignty loss. Through a mixed methods approach, this article provides eviden...

European Union (EU) foreign policy has long been considered the domaine réservé of the member states. This article challenges such conventional state-centered wisdom by analyzing the influence of the Brussels-based EU officials in the Common Security and Defence Policy. Using four case studies and data from 105 semi-structured interviews, it shows...

This article studies the development of European foreign policy from an informational perspective. It shows that, over time, the European Union has changed from a platform to share foreign policy information into a system that contains bureaucracies, which gather and process information autonomously. These findings are significant, because it is wi...

This article evaluates the planning process and initial implementation of the Rule of Law Mission of the European Union in Kosovo (EULEX). It shows that the original intention was to have a smaller presence than the predecessor United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Yet as a result of a lack of settlement on the international status of Kosovo, t...

Who speaks for Europe is a major question in European integration, yet few systematic attempts have been made to study when the Presidency or the High Representative represents the European Union. This article uses two most-similar cases of conflict resolution with significant EU involvement to argue that the size of the Presidency matters. Large m...

This article analyses the actorness of the European Union (EU) in Arctic governance. As a result of melting ice caps, this region is of increasing geopolitical and commercial importance. All Arctic coastal states have therefore recently developed policies. The EU is doing so as well as it has a direct interest in many issue areas. Maritime policy i...

This article explains variation in the role of the Council Secretariat in first and second pillar policy-making. While the Council Secretariat started in both pillars as a facilitator of decision-making, it has been delegated additional tasks in foreign policy: from providing content expertise to representation. Such functions would normally have g...

This article evaluates the military operation of the European Union in Chad and the Central African Republic in 2008–09. Despite a promising conceptual approach and close cooperation with the United Nations (UN), the operation created significant political problems between member states. It led to a split – France arguing that it carried too much o...

The establishment of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) in 1999 has led to the creation of a whole range of bureaucratic bodies in Brussels and the national capitals. These bodies support the crisis management operations of the European Union. This review article presents the state of the art of academic research on the role of bureauc...

The European Commission and the EU Council Secretariat support the Member States in the conduct of European foreign policy, yet they have not always been able to get along. This article gives an overview of their inter-institutional relations across history, foreign policy instruments (declarations, crisis management joint actions and representatio...

The Council Secretariat, under the leadership of Javier Solana, has become an indispensable actor in the context of the CFSP. This article gives a comprehensive overview of this institution's development path since the beginning of European Political Cooperation (1970). It argues that with the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and the parall...