Pathologies of a Different Kind: Dysfunctional Interactions between International Organizations

This article develops the concept of “interorganizational pathologies” as an extension of Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore's work on bureaucratic pathologies. Adopting an open system perspective, I argue that dysfunctional interactions may arise between international organizations (IOs) even when their cooperation is fairly institutionalized. To advance this line of reasoning, I examine interactions between the International Monetary Fund (IMF or Fund) and the World Bank (or Bank). Evidence from more than ninety stakeholder interviews indicates that the interactions have been marked by what Barnett and Finnemore call “insulation.” In particular, two opposing types of interorganizational insulation have been common in the context of Fund–Bank relations: (1) groupthink, or sustained intellectual decoupling by the two IOs from the outside world; and (2) silence, or (temporary) communicative disruption between them. This finding is partly puzzling because while we may expect IMF–World Bank interactions to produce groupthink given the organizations’ highly similar worldviews, we would expect them to prevent silence given established protocols for continuous cross-organizational information sharing. The analysis sheds fresh light on the promises and pitfalls of cogovernance by IOs as key players in regime complexes and transnational networks.