Decision-making in International Organizations: the Conversion Process

What goes in is one thing, what comes out is another. Between the inputs to international organizations and the outputs they produce lies a vital conversion process that may belie or fulfil actors’ expectations. In this chapter, we take a systematic look at how inputs are transformed into outputs in international organizations. For this purpose, we distinguish five models of decision-making in international organizations, none of which can account adequately for all types of decision-making. Different models of decision-making apply to different types of decisions: how these decisions are typically reached is shaped by the kinds of decisions that are taken. We first introduce the five models of decision-making and then show how they are systematically linked to different types of decisions.