Institutionalization in the United Nations General Assembly

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Abstract
Except for the subfield of comparative regional integration, international organization as an area of study is notorious for its lack of systematic and testable theory. This situation has been created less by a deficiency of techniques for quantitative analysis than by the absence of attention to theoretical conceptualization and its necessary accompaniment, the imaginative use of data to test hypotheses. There is little shortage of case studies, abstract theorizing, or sophisticated quantitative techniques, but systematic testing of important concepts is rare. Much of the literature in the field fails even to ask relevant and important theoretical questions. The “Mount Everest Syndrome”–studying international organizations “because they are there”–has afflicted the field for too long.

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