The relationship between the US and some of the central multilateral organizations is an essential feature of contemporary international relations. This book brings together a range of leading scholars to examine this crucial phenomenon. Its aims are twofold: first, to describe and explain US behaviour in and towards a wide range of significant international institutions (including the UN, the World Bank and IMF, the WTO, NATO, and the Organization of American States); and second, to examine the impact of US behaviour on the capacity of each organization to meet its own objectives. The study e ... More

The relationship between the US and some of the central multilateral organizations is an essential feature of contemporary international relations. This book brings together a range of leading scholars to examine this crucial phenomenon. Its aims are twofold: first, to describe and explain US behaviour in and towards a wide range of significant international institutions (including the UN, the World Bank and IMF, the WTO, NATO, and the Organization of American States); and second, to examine the impact of US behaviour on the capacity of each organization to meet its own objectives. The study explores US behaviour and its consequences for organizations based at the regional as well as the international and global levels, for those located in different regions of the world, and for such issue areas as security, economics, and the environment. Although focusing on the period since the 1990s, each chapter places its findings in a broader historical context. The book is the outcome of a collaborative project between the Centre for International Studies at the University of Oxford and the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. The first stage of this enterprise comprised a workshop at Dartmouth where outline papers were discussed, and the next involved a conference at Oxford where full papers were presented and debated. After an introduction, the ten chapters are arranged in three parts: I. Perspectives on the US and Multilateral International Organizations (two chapters); II. The US and Global Organizations (four chapters); and III. The US and Regional Organizations (four chapters).