Defending the global moral order: discursive change in the annual reporting of three intergovernmental organizations

• In Event: 30421 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4. Transformative Global Logics and their Platforms

Abstract

In constructivist international relations research, the rise of norms on intergovernmental organizations’ (IGOs) agendas is often explained by individual norm entrepreneurs and their advocacy work. Once adopted, IGOs disseminate these norms further to nation-states and the agenda of international politics. This study examines the moral values and principles that IGOs engage in beyond their core purposes. We approach the question with a discursive approach by analyzing the rhetoric used by three prominent yet distinct IGOs – the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Labor Organization, and the International Monetary Fund – in their annual reporting. Our findings show that all three organizations' rhetoric changed drastically between 1990 and 2020. From the 1990s onwards, all three organizations linked their missions to goals that reached even further from their original missions: they integrated the descriptions of their activities into the morally desired goals of contemporary societies. In their rhetoric, organizations take a stance on a great variety of entities and principles deemed important to protect. The tools considered essential in reaching these goals diversify and become increasingly abstract. The increased need to explicitly defend the global moral order is central to this shift. IGOs have adapted themselves to this obligation by taking a position in their reporting on the moral goals shared in world society.

Authors

• Marjaana Anneli Rautalin, University of Helsinki

• Eetu Vento, University of Helsinki

• Jukka Syväterä, University of Helsinki