Time and space in the study of international organizations: An introduction
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Author | Lucile Maertens,Leah R. Kimber,Fanny Badache,Emilie Dairon |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13022 |
Global Policy. 2021;12 5–13.
|
5
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gpol
1 | THE PUZZLE OF TIME AND
SPACE IN INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS
Picture a normal Tuesday morning, during the sec-
ond day of negotiations at the Palais des Nations in
Geneva. A diplomat who recently joined their coun-
try's permanent representation looks at the program
of the day displayed on the entrance screen. While
going through the long list of side events to identif y the
most useful ones to attend for their government, the
young diplomat tries to remember the location of the
different rooms inside the maze of the United Nations
building. Next to them, a researcher is getting ready
for a full day of observation, debating whether to at-
tend side events (and which ones!), stay in the hallway
in the hope of finally getting a few minutes to interview
key negotiators or hang out in the cafeteria to stay up-
to- date on the UN staff discussions. While both are
weighing their options, UN civil servants rapidly check
the room for their next meeting, and quickly leave the
entrance hall, heading without any doubt to the correct
building.
This brief immersion within the everyday of the
UN reflects the complex system of interactions which
characterizes international organizations (IOs).
Conceptualized as both sites of international relations
in the making and actors shaping global politics, IOs
are made up of a diversified network of individuals.
Indeed, IOs are not solely a group of member states:
they are inextricably tied to both their bureaucracies
and the (non- )state actors revolving around them
(Weiss & Thakur, 2010). They constitute actors, fora
and resources (Hurd, 2020) which participate and set
SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE
Time and Space in the Study of International Organizations:
An Introduction
LucileMaertens1 | Leah R.Kimber2 | FannyBadache3 | EmilieDairon4
Received: 7 Octo ber 2021
|
Accepted: 8 Oct ober 2021
DO I: 10 .1111/17 58- 589 9.13 022
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in
any medium, provi ded the original work is p roperly cited, the use i s non- commercial an d no modifications or a daptations are made.
© 2021 The Authors. Global Policy publi shed by Durham Universit y and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
1Faculty of Socia l and Political Scienc es,
University of L ausanne, Lausanne,
Switzerland
2School of Soc ial Sciences – Sociol ogy,
University of G eneva, Geneva,
Switzerland
3Graduate Institute of International
and Development S tudies, Geneva,
Switzerland
4Sciences Po Lyon, Lyon, France
Correspondence
Lucile Maer tens, Faculty of Social an d
Political Sci ence, University of Lau sanne,
Lausanne, VD, Switzerland.
Email: lucile.maerte ns@unil.ch
Abstract
In the study of international organizations (IOs), time and space have mostly
been approached as contextual, even implicit and unrelated, factors. Instead
this special issue considers them as co- constitutive of multilateralism and inves-
tigates three main questions: (i) How are IOs influenced by time and space? (ii)
How are time and space experienced within IOs? (iii) How do IOs influence time
and space around them? This introductory ar ticle compiles the contributions’
findings and points to a cyclical process: IOs are influenced by the spatiotempo-
ral conditions of their enactment, leading to a diversity of practices and experi-
ences within these organizations which in turn impact time and space, both in
the way they are conceptualized and in their concrete embodiment. The special
issue has proven the merit of taking time and space serio usly in the study of IOs.
This article concludes with a series of (non- exhaustive) research avenues to
continue this promising analytical and empirical endeavor, including discussions
on the relationship between IO per formance and time and space, and the impact
of the COVID- 19 pandemic.
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