New Books in Law Negar Mansouri and Daniel R. Quiroga-Villamarín eds., "Ways of Seeing International Organisations: New Perspectives for International Institutional Law" (Cambridge UP, 2025
Dec 13, 2025
Negar Mansouri, a postdoctoral researcher at Copenhagen Business School, and Daniel R. Quiroga-Villamarín, a postdoctoral fellow affiliated with NYU, discuss their groundbreaking volume on international organisations. They delve into the limitations of traditional international institutional law, advocating for interdisciplinary approaches and critical perspectives. Key themes include the politicization of expertise, the impact of physical spaces on IO operations, and the interplay between capital and institutional change. Their insights challenge long-held views and aim to transform the field.
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Disciplinary Rut Limits Critical Questions
- International institutional law is stuck in a positivist rut that depoliticizes IOs and isolates technical knowledge from social context.
- Negar Mansouri argues this limits critical engagement with neoliberal structures and historical material conditions.
Four Themes Reframe IO Scholarship
- The volume reframes IO study around four themes: expertise, structure, performance, and capital to open new analytic angles.
- Daniel R. Quiroga-Villamarín says mixing lawyers with interdisciplinary scholars reveals overlooked dynamics in IOs.
Expertise Masks Political Choices
- Opening the 'black box' of technical expertise reveals political choices hidden as neutral science.
- Negar Mansouri shows how shifting knowledge categories (limits to growth → sustainability) depoliticized environmental governance.
